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# Photoemission study of the spin-density wave state in thin films of Cr

## Abstract

Angle-resolved photoemission (PE) was used to characterize the spin-density wave (SDW) state in thin films of Cr grown on W(110). The PE data were analysed using results of local spin density approximation layer-Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker calculations. It is shown that the incommensurate SDW can be monitored and important parameters of SDW-related interactions, such as coupling strength and energy of collective magnetic excitations, can be determined from the dispersion of the renormalized electronic bands close to the Fermi energy. The developed approach can readily be applied to other SDW systems including magnetic multilayer structures.

Bulk Cr is an almost unique material revealing itinerant antiferromagnetism with a spin-density wave (SDW) ground state at room temperature Fawc . At the Néel temperature TN = 311 K chromium exhibits a transition from a paramagnetic ($`bcc`$ lattice) to an antiferromagnetic (AF) order ($`sc`$ of CsCl type) that is modulated by the incommensurate SDW along the $`<`$100$`>`$ directions Fawc ; Trans ; Falic . Thereby the periods of the AF arrangement and the SDW oscillations amount to 2 and $``$ 21 monolayers (ML) of Cr, respectively. It is widely accepted that the AF order (often referred to as the commensurate SDW) is caused by a nesting of the Fermi surface (FS) sheets around the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the H points of the Brillouin zone (BZ) of $`bcc`$ Cr, while the nature of the incommensurate SDW is still the subject of extensive debates Schilf . The SDW in Cr is accompanied by a strain wave and a charge-density wave with half the period of the SDW Rieder  as well as by a series of collective excitations including spin waves (magnons) and phonons Fawc . Electron interactions particularly with the magnetic excitations lead to renormalization of the electronic structure of the ground state. Although a number of attempts was made to study the renormalization of the electronic bands in some Cr systems Fawc ; Dod  the subject requires further investigations.

A detailed understanding of the SDW and the SDW-related phenomena in Cr is of high importance, since the above AF short- and SDW long-range magnetic modulations give strong reason to use Cr as spacers in magnetic multilayer structures providing giant magnetoresistance, spin-valve effect and applications in magnetic sensor technology Ba . One of the mostly investigated up to now system Fe/Cr/Fe(100) shows that the ferromagnetic or AF type of coupling between Fe layers varies with thickness of Cr spacer following the short period, whereas the strength of the coupling changes with the long period of oscillations Par ; Pur ; Walk ; Urg . The description of the SDW in thin films is complicated by the fact that the boundary conditions at the interfaces have to be properly considered. In the density-functional theory (DFT) study of Fe/Cr/Fe(100) by Niklasson et al. Nikl  mainly AF order was found for Cr spacers with thicknesses $`<`$ 10 ML. For thicker layers, various branches of sometimes coexisting SDWs, which differ from each other by the number of nodes $`m`$, were calculated. Upon increase of the Cr thickness, each $`m`$ branch is abruptly substituted by a $`(m+2)`$ branch giving rise to phase slips of the short-range oscillations Urg , which, however, may also be correlated with the incommensurability of the bulk nesting condition. A similar study within the DFT approach was performed both for Mo/Cr/Mo(100) structure and for Cr films on a Mo(100) surface Nikl2 . The SDW order in Fe/Cr/Fe was also treated by means of the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker Green’s function method within the framework of the local spin-density functional formalism Hir .

While the SDW in Cr films seems to be relatively well investigated theoretically, experimental studies are mainly restricted to rather indirect information obtained from measurements of induced magnetic properties of marginal layers, which were performed, e.g., by means of the magneto-optic Kerr effect Pur , spin-polarized electron-energy loss spectroscopy Walk  and scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis Urg . So far, no systematic photoemission (PE) study of the SDW in Cr films of different thicknesses, except the work of Schäfer et al. Schaf  performed on Cr100ML/W(110), was reported. On the other hand, particularly PE provides mostly direct insight into the structure of the occupied electron states allowing better understanding of the SDW in solids. The incommensurability of the SDW in Cr can cause (i) corrections of the ground-state electronic structure mainly in the region of the Fermi-energy (EF) gap(s) related to the magnetic order, and (ii) renormalization of the electronic bands due to the electron interaction with the accompanying SDW state excitations similar to the case of quasiparticle interactions in, e.g., high-temperature superconductors Shen . Both phenomena can be studied with angle-resolved PE. The effect of SDW-derived folding of the antiferromagnetic PE bands is expected to be negligible Mol  by the reason of only weak perturbation of the crystal potential introduced by the large unit cell of the incommensurate-SDW chromium.

In the present paper we approach understanding of the SDW phenomena in multilayer Cr systems by an angle-resolved PE study of epitaxial Cr films (10 to 100 ML) grown on W(110). The data are compared with the results of local spin density approximation (LSDA) layer-Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker (LKKR) calculations. It is shown that the way of characterization of the SDW state by looking for the Fermi-energy gap Schaf , is not straightforward, since the gap is mostly located above EF and masked by surface states. Instead, the incommensurate SDW can be monitored and important parameters of the SDW-related interactions, such as coupling strength and energy of magnetic excitations, can be determined from the dispersion of the electronic bands close to EF.

Films of Cr were grown in situ on a W(110) crystal by deposition from a molybdenum crucible heated by electron beam. Various thicknesses of Cr were used in order to follow the transition from the thick films characterized by the SDW state (47 and 100 ML) to the thin film (10 ML), where the incommensurate SDW is suppressed Nikl . ”As deposited” samples were annealed to $`900^{}`$C in order to ensure well-ordered films under consideration. In all cases the grown epitaxial films revealed sharp low-energy electron diffraction patterns. The PE measurements were performed with a SCIENTA 200 electron-energy analyzer using monochromatized light from a He lamp (h$`\nu `$ = 40.8 eV). The overall-system energy resolution was set to 130 meV full width at half maximum, the angular resolution to $`0.4^{}`$. All experiments were carried out at room temperature well below TN at the surface of Cr(110) Schaf , the base pressure was $`6\times 10^9`$ Pa.

The electronic structure of the Cr(110) semi-infinite crystal was calculated within a LSDA-LKKR multiple scattering approach. This method uses the Green’s function technique and allows the calculation of systems with a broken translational symmetry along one direction halil . The calculated layer resolved spectral density of states are related to the layer Green’s function simply as $`D(𝐤_{},E)=\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{Im}G(𝐤_{},E)/\pi `$.

A calculated cut of the bulk FS of $`bcc`$ Cr within the (110) plane is demonstrated in Fig. 1(a). The rhomb-like contours of the FS around the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the H points of the bulk BZ look almost identical: They are connected by the spanning vector $`𝐤_s`$ and are expected to be strongly affected by the magnetic ordering. Also the three-dimensional FS jacks at the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the H points \[the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point jack is shown in Fig. 1(b)\] have similar shapes. In a first approximation they can be obtained from each other by a parallel transfer defined by $`𝐤_s`$. Therefore, everywhere in the region of these jacks one would expect the discussed above effects of the energy gap and the band renormalization related to the SDW state. We have performed experiments along the $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}\overline{S}`$ direction in the surface BZ of Cr by varying the polar electron-emission angle. In this way the part of the FS around the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point, where the bumps at the corners \[see Fig. 1(b)\] do not distort the measurements, was sampled. Assuming free-electron like final states, the measurements were carried out along the path in the bulk BZ as shown in Fig. 1(c), where for simplicity the FS calculated for $`bcc`$ Cr is presented. The BZ for AF phase can be obtained from the $`bcc`$ BZ by folding. The path crosses the FS sheet in the region of interest marked by a shaded circle in the figure.

The results of the LKKR spectral density of states (DOS) calculations for the bulk and the surface layer of AF $`sc`$ Cr without the incommensurate SDW modulation are presented in Fig. 2. Similar to other theoretical data Schaf ; Saki ; Falic  the AF energy gap is obtained in the $`𝐤_{}`$ region marked in Fig. 1(c). Band B that crosses EF in the paramagnetic phase is now folded back toward low binding energies (BEs) not reaching the Fermi energy (Fig. 2). As a result an indirect AF gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of about 390 meV is formed. Note that the calculated gap is predominantly located in the region of the unoccupied electron states.

The corresponding ”as measured” data close to the energy-gap region taken for the 100-ML thick Cr layer are shown in a gray-scale plot in Fig. 3(a). The measured band follows the behavior of the calculated band B. As $`𝐤_{}`$ increases it approaches first the Fermi energy. At $`𝐤_{}`$ $`>`$ 0.55 Å-1 it turns back toward higher BEs. The PE intensity of the band in this $`𝐤_{}`$ region is almost negligible, a cross-section effect, which is well known for folded bands in solids Mol . From Fig. 3(a) and further careful analysis of the individual PE spectra, it is, however, by far not clear as to whether the gap is seen in the EF region. On the other hand, according to our calculations only small part of the AF gap ($`\delta `$ 20 meV, Fig. 2) is found below EF and can directly be observed with PE. To extract information about unoccupied electron states we followed the method used in Refs. Schaf ; Rein . The raw data were divided by the Fermi distribution to allow observation of the thermally excited states. The width of

the Fermi distribution, which is about 100 meV at room temperature, gives a scale for the accessible energies. The corrected data are presented in Fig. 3(b). It seems that indeed an energy gap in the region of the unoccupied states of $``$ 170 meV is monitored here. Note, however, that the corrected results depend strongly on the used value of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ that was estimated from the measurements of EF for a metallic sample. Qualitatively different results are obtained shifting $`\mu `$ by only 20 meV toward higher or lower BEs, variations, which are much smaller than the energy resolution of the experiments. An increase of the chemical potential leads to a considerably larger value of the derived energy gap \[Fig. 3(c)\]. Even more drastic changes are observed upon decrease of $`\mu `$ \[Fig. 3(d)\]. The AF gap is not monitored anymore. Instead, the region between the Fermi energy and 0.2 eV above EF is filled with electron states. The surface origin of these states is seen from a comparison with the theoretical results shown in the right panel in Fig. 2.

One has to admit that the proposed method to use the Fermi-distribution correction of the PE data Schaf ; Rein  is not straightforward even to extract the energy-gap information related with the antiferromagnetism, which is the main contribution into the magnetic order in Cr metal below TN. In this respect, it seems there is no way to follow fine gap changes that might be caused by the rather weak incommensurate SDW contribution. In difference to the energy gap the SDW-derived renormalization of the shallow electronic bands in Cr systems can easily be monitored. As seen in Fig. 2, the calculated band B reveals smooth monotonic dispersion when going from the $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ point toward the gap at EF. In contrast to that our experimental band shows a pronounced ”kink” at $`𝐤_{}`$ $``$ 0.45 Å-1. The observed kink can be simulated by a superposition of two contributions: the calculated single-particle LSDA band for small $`𝐤_{}`$ and a renormalized one for $`𝐤_{}`$ $`>`$ 0.45 Å-1. The PE spectra of band B in the region of the kink \[inset in Fig. 3(a)\] have an asymmetric lineshape with two structures: a main peak and a shoulder, which exchange their spectral weight crossing the kink. The main peak, which is quit broad at high BE, becomes much sharper close to EF. All above evidences that the signals measured in the dispersion region before and after the kink have different nature.

This kind of behavior of bands close to EF is a well known phenomenon for correlated systems Shen . There is a pole in the self-energy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ of the material at the energy of a quasiparticle interaction. The strength of interaction is described via a coupling constant $`\lambda `$ that is defined as $`\lambda =\delta Re\mathrm{\Sigma }/\delta E|_{E_F}`$. The energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ can be inverted into a k dependence. Thereby (i) the self-energy pole is transformed into the kink in the band dispersion and (ii) the coupling constant is rewritten as $`\lambda =[(\delta E^{LSDA}/\delta 𝐤)/(\delta E^{ren}/\delta 𝐤)|_{E_F}1]`$ depending on the ratio of the group velocities determined by the LSDA \[$`E^{LSDA}(𝐤)`$\] and the renormalized \[$`E^{ren}(𝐤)`$\] bands. As a result both $`\lambda `$ and the energy of quasiparticle excitation can be derived from the analysis of the band dispersion in the vicinity of the kink. Energy gaps that can appear to stabilize the excited state may complicate the situation. In this case the quasiparticle energy is related not to EF, but to the bottom of the corresponding gap.

For the 100-ML film the kink energy relative to the bottom of the calculated Fermi-energy gap is estimated to be (81$`\pm `$7) meV \[Fig. 3(a)\] that is of the order of the expected energy for the magnon excitations accompanying the incommensurate SDW in $`sc`$ Cr metal Fawc ; Lui . Interaction with phonons can be ruled out by the reason of lower energy of the phonon excitations Fawc . To obtain $`\lambda `$ the ratio of the group velocities for the LSDA and the renormalized bands was substituted by the ratio of the tangents of two angles $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ between the directions of the corresponding band dispersion and the $`𝐤_{}`$ axis \[see Fig. 3(a)\]. The directions of band dispersion were approximated by straight lines through the energy positions of the main peak of each individual spectrum that are shown by white circles in the figure. By this procedure a value $`\lambda =1.41\pm 0.09`$ was obtained pointing to a moderate strong quasiparticle interaction.

The behavior of band B in the region of the kink was studied for Cr films of different thicknesses (Fig. 4). In all cases the films were selected to be thick enough to reveal both the bulk and the surface features of the electronic structure of the AF $`sc`$ Cr (Fig. 2). It is of high importance to underline that no kink is observed for the 10-ML film, where the incommensurate SDW is suppressed Nikl . This fact is considered as a strong evidence for the SDW in thicker Cr films and the possibility to monitor this state in the dispersion of the renormalized bands. A decrease of the film thickness from 100 to 47 ML does not result in the removal of the kink, although it causes a slight drop of its energy to (73$`\pm `$7) meV. Assuming a linear energy dispersion of the spin-wave excitation Fawc  this may be assigned to the increase of the bulk period of the related SDW due to growing influence of the boundary conditions. Also $`\lambda `$ decreases slightly with the thickness reaching the value $`1.30\pm 0.09`$ for the 47-ML thick film. As reported in Ref. Urg  there are two phase slips in the coupling between the marginal layers in the range from 47- to 100-ML thick Cr spacers in Fe/Cr/Fe(100) systems. According to Niklasson et al. Nikl  each slip originates in a jump from one branch of the SDW to another. Therefore, the observed change of $`\lambda `$ may be understood by slightly different electron interaction with magnons associated with individual SDW branches, which are expected to be also present in Cr/W(110).

In summary we have shown that angle-resolved PE can successfully be used to monitor the SDW in thin films of Cr. A valuable information about quasiparticle magnetic interactions was obtained by the analysis of the dispersion of the renormalized electronic bands in the vicinity of EF. The used approach can be applied to a large variety of other SDW systems including magnetic multilayer structures highly relevant for technological applications.

This work was supported by the DFG, SFB 463 TP B16. The authors are grateful to M. Richter, S. Halilov, C. Laubschat, S.-L. Drechsler, S. Shulga, S. Borisenko, A. Kordyuk, and T. Kim for valuable scientific discussions.


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# Observation of transverse instabilities in optically-induced lattices

## Abstract

We study experimentally the Bloch-wave instabilities in optically-induced lattices. We reveal two different instability scenarios associated with either the transverse modulational instability of a single Bloch wave, or the nonlinear inter-band coupling between different Bloch waves. These effects are compared with the transverse instability in homogeneous media, and it is shown that the periodic modulation of the refractive index greatly enhances the transverse instability.

Nonlinearity-induced instabilities are observed in many different branches of physics, and they provide probably the most dramatic manifestation of strongly nonlinear effects that can occur in Nature. Transverse or symmetry-breaking instabilities of solitary waves were predicted theoretically almost 30 years ago (see details in a review paper Kivshar:2000-117:PRP ), but only recently both transverse and spatiotemporal instabilities were observed experimentally for different types of (bright and dark) spatial optical solitons Kivshar:2003:OpticalSolitons .

The effects of modulational and transverse instabilities have been observed mostly for continuous media, whereas theoretical results on nonlinear wave dynamics in Bragg gratings and waveguide arrays indicate that periodicity can strongly influence such instabilities Kivshar:2003:OpticalSolitons ; Aceves:1994-1186:OL . It was recently demonstrated that lattice solitons can form in an array of optically-induced waveguides inside a photorefractive crystal Fleischer:2003-23902:PRL ; Neshev:2003-710:OL . When the lattice is created in one spatial direction, and the beams are elongated along the orthogonal transverse direction, lattice solitons closely resemble discrete solitons existing in a one-dimensional waveguide array Silberberg . However, this analogy is limited since elongated beams may exhibit transverse instabilities. In this Letter, we study experimentally nonlinear beam self-action in optically-induced lattices, and reveal novel instability mechanisms which are initiated due to the medium periodicity.

We create a periodic lattice by interfering two ordinary polarized laser beams in a photorefractive Strontium Barium Niobate (SBN:60) crystal, which is externally biased with a DC field along the $`x`$-axis (crystalline $`c`$-axis) Fleischer:2003-23902:PRL ; Neshev:2003-710:OL . The grating is constant along the propagation direction $`z`$, due to a low material nonlinearity for ordinary polarized light Fleischer:2003-23902:PRL . The polarity of the biasing field is such that an extraordinary polarized probe beam experiences strong focusing nonlinearity. The beam also feels the periodic potential created by the interference pattern, which lead to the beam scattering similar to the light propagation in waveguide arrays Silberberg .

The extraordinary polarized beam is focused by a cylindrical lens, thus forming a homogeneous bright stripe at the input face of the crystal oriented along the fringes of the interference pattern \[Fig. 1(a)\]. The initial full-width-half-maximum of the stripe is 25.0(7)$`\mu `$m. The stripe diffracts and scatters in $`x`$-direction as it propagates inside the periodically modulated crystal \[Fig. 1(b)\]. Its propagation is governed by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with a periodic potential, which in the case of optically induced gratings can be approximately written as $`i_z\psi +\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}_{}\psi \gamma [I_d+I_0\mathrm{cos}^2(\pi x/d)+|\psi |^2]^1\psi =0,`$ where $`\mathrm{}_{}`$ is the transverse Laplacian, $`I_d`$ is the dark irradiance, $`I_0`$ is the maximum intensity of the grating, $`\gamma `$ is a nonlinear coefficient linearly dependent on the applied electric field, and $`d`$ is the lattice period. The propagation of the probe beam strongly depends on the incident angle $`\alpha `$, due to the band-gap structure of wave spectrum of the induced periodic structure. At the input, the beam excites a superposition of Bloch waves, which are found as the linear eigenmodes of the periodic structure satisfying the symmetry relation $`\psi (x,y,z)=\psi (x+d,y,z)\mathrm{exp}(iK_bx/d+i\beta z),`$ where $`K_b`$ is the Bloch wavenumber, and $`\beta `$ is the propagation constant of the Bloch wave. By changing the intensity of the grating, the voltage on the crystal and/or the period of the interference pattern, we can change the induced periodic potential and subsequently modify the internal profile $`\psi (x)`$ of the excited Bloch waves. Dependence of the Bloch-wave spectrum of the beam inclination angle is characterized by analyzing the diffracted beam profile at the output face of the crystal andrey\_cleo  and experimentally we detect the output probe beam intensity distribution on a CCD camera.

We demonstrate below that the instability development in the vertical ($`y`$) direction strongly depends on the Bloch-wave spectrum. For this purpose we monitor the stripe profile with increasing of the laser power. To compare our results with the homogeneous case, we can remove the induced grating by making the two interfering beams mutually incoherent. This allows us to preserve the same amount of illumination inside the crystal and correspondingly the same strength of the nonlinearity. Details of the experimental arrangements are similar to those presented in Ref. Neshev:2003-710:OL .

Firstly, we investigate the nonlinear evolution for collinear beam propagation with respect to the induced lattice, when only Bloch waves from the first band are excited and Bragg scattering from the periodic structure is absent. In Fig. 2 we show representative examples of our experimental results. The period of the grating for these experiments was $`d=15.3\mu `$m. The crystal was biased with electric field 4400 V/cm and the ratio between the grating intensity and the dark irradiance of the crystal was estimated to $`I_0/I_d3`$. When the grating is off, the extraordinary polarized probe beam focuses, and the stripe forms a quasi-one-dimensional soliton with homogeneous intensity along the $`y`$ direction \[Fig. 2(a)\]. When the grating is switched on, the beam forms a quasi-one-dimensional lattice (or discrete) soliton with a profile dependent on the initial horizontal position of the beam with respect to the lattice, as discussed in Ref. Neshev:2003-710:OL . However, the beam becomes spatially unstable along the transverse direction and starts to break \[Fig. 2(b,c)\]. The actual instability depends on the initial position of the beam with respect to the induced grating as can be seen from the comparison of Figs. 2(b) and (c).

We have detected several contributions toward the observed scenarios of the transverse instability. First, the perturbation in $`x`$ direction induced by the grating changes the conditions for instability in the vertical direction Chen:2002-66601:PRE , increasing the instability growth rate and causing the beam to break-up. The reason for this is simple. The beam is localized in the induced waveguides and it consists of several vertical stripes with narrower widths than the non-modulated beam width at the same laser power. Therefore, these thin stripes will tend to brake-up much faster than the wider non-modulated beam. Increasing the degree of power localization in an individual waveguide leads to growing instability of the Bloch wave Kartashov:2003-1273:JOSAB . Second contribution comes from the inhomogeneities of the lattice-induced waveguides, which are not ideal in vertical direction. Such imperfections cause differences in the coupling between the neighboring waveguides along $`y`$ direction and therefore accelerate the development of the transverse instability.

To compare the instability growth rate in the periodic lattice with that for the continuous system under the same input conditions, we switched off the grating and increased the laser-beam power until break-up of the stripe is observed Fig. 2(d). The striking result of this experiment is that more than two orders of magnitude higher beam power is needed in order to achieve qualitatively similar break-up of the stripe. For such high beam powers, the presence of the induced lattice leads to a full break-up of the signal beam as seen in Fig. 2(e).

We now investigate the development of the transverse instability which arises due to the nonlinear interaction between two (or more) Bloch waves as the fundamental modes of the lattice. To achieve interaction between two Bloch waves, we incline the grating with respect to the probe beam at an angle $`\alpha =25`$mrad, measured in air experiment , which is slightly less than twice the Bragg angle ($`\alpha _{Br}=`$13.5mrad). We induce a strong grating with a period $`d=19.8\mu `$m and ratio $`I_0/I_d10`$. In this case, the induced waveguides can support higher-order modes and the excited Bloch waves display a double-peak structure as seen from the plot in Fig. 3(a). The applied electric field on the crystal is 3600 V/cm.

A typical profile for the linear scattering is shown in Fig. 3(a). The dashed line shows the position of the beam when the grating is off. We select this particular regime in order to excite two Bloch waves BA and BB \[denoted in Fig. 3(a)\] next to each other and belonging to the first and the second excited spectral band. When the beam intensity is increased, the two bands start to move toward each other as seen in Fig. 3(a-c). This is due to the fact that the two Bloch waves have different dispersion relations and move into opposite directions at higher beam power andrey\_cleo . The bands BA and BB start to mix together and strongly interact at about 5.5$`\mu `$W, as seen in Fig. 3(c). Due to the inter-band interaction the two Bloch waves exchange energy, which is a process strongly dependent on the intensity. Any small variation in the intensity distribution along the vertical $`y`$-axis is enhanced due to the inter-band energy exchange and causes the transverse break-up of the beam.

To check that this effect is indeed due to the energy exchange between the two Bloch waves and not due to inhomogeneities in the induced waveguide, we have tested the instability dynamics (at 5.5$`\mu `$W probe beam power) as a function of the excitation position of the beam with respect to the grating. For this purpose we changed the phase of one of the interference beams, thus shifting the position of the maxima of the grating along $`x`$-axis for a full grating period. No significant difference in the breaking scenario was observed in this measurement. The break-up was found to be position insensitive in contrast to the collinear excitation.

At even higher intensities the inter-band mixing tends to disappear since one of the bands starts to dominate and at high enough laser powers only single band exists andrey\_cleo . At these intensities the type of instability discussed earlier for the collinear excitation is present \[Fig. 3(d,e)\]. It is comparable to the instability shown in Fig. 2(b,c). At much higher (about ten times) laser powers the beam starts to break in well defined circular spots and then transverse instability typical for a homogeneous medium is present. This is so because the probe beam-induced refractive index is dominant over the grating-induced index change.

We note here that the transverse instability due to the inter-band mixing is sensitive to the initial excitation. At different (lower) angles such scenario is not observed since there were no conditions under which two bands would strongly overlap and mix with each other. However, instability of a single band can always be observed at higher powers, similar to the examples shown in Fig. 2(b,c) and Fig. 3(d,e). The amazing feature which occurs in the experimental realization presented in Fig. 3 is that the different instability mechanisms can be clearly distinguished as they appear at different power levels. It allows us to identify them in our experiments.

At last, we investigated experimentally the influence of additional, systematic factors which facilitate the instability-induced breaking of the stripe. Such a factor could be a slight vertical tilt of the stripe with respect to the fringes of the grating. This is possible if the beam is not perfectly vertical along $`y`$-axis. We tested this possibility experimentally by intentionally tilting the stripe (correspondingly tilting of the cylindrical focusing lens). In this case, we consequently excite different lattice modes Neshev:2003-710:OL  along $`y`$-axis, which leads to a correspondingly regular break-up of the stripe in contrast to the instability patterns presented above.

In conclusion, we have observed, for the first time to our knowledge, the development of transverse modulational instability of lattice soliton stripes and Bloch waves in optically-induced lattices. We have revealed two distinctive scenarios of the Bloch-wave instability associated with either the transverse instability of a single Bloch wave enhanced by the periodic potential, or the strong inter-band mixing of different Bloch waves.

The authors thank Elena Ostrovskaya and Zhigang Chen for valuable discussions. This work was partially supported by the Australian Research Council.


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# Phase measurements using Two-Channel Fano Interference in a Semiconductor Quantum Dot

## Abstract

We investigate a lateral semiconductor quantum dot with a large number of electrons in the semi-open Fano regime. In transport measurements we observe three stable series of Fano resonances with similar lineshapes. We present a simple model explaining the temperature and $`V_{SD}`$ dependence of the resonances. The Fano regime allows to investigate phase and coherence of the electronic wave function and astonishingly, we find no signs of decoherence in our system.

Transport through semiconductor quantum dots Kouwenhoven et al. (1997) has been studied in a number of different regimes. Each regime is characterized by specific lineshapes of the resonances in linear conductance measurements. In the Coulomb regime at weak tunnel coupling between dot and leads basically Breit-Wigner type resonances are observed Beenakker (1991). At stronger coupling an increased valley conductance indicates the Kondo regime Kondo-Alle . Experiments with transparent barriers in the open regime are interpreted in terms of ballistic transport with electrons geometrically reflected within the dot Bird et al. (2003). Here, we explore an intermediate regime, the semi-open Fano regime where a ballistic transport channel coexists with a resonant transport channel from Coulomb blockade.

Fano resonances are a very general characteristic of systems where two transmission channels interfere, a resonant and a non-resonant one (Fig. 1(a)). Depending on the relative phase and amplitude of the two channels they exhibit a wide range of lineshapes parameterized by the asymmetry parameter $`q`$ (Fig. 1(b)). The analytical expression for Fano resonances is Fano (1961):

$$f_{Fano}(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })=\frac{(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }+q)^2}{\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }^2+1}$$
(1)
with $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }=(\epsilon \epsilon _0)/(\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)`$ the detuning from the resonance at energy $`\epsilon _0`$ and normalized to the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the resonance. As shown in Fig. 1(b), we get Breit-Wigner type peaks for $`q\mathrm{}`$, dips for $`q=0`$, and asymmetric lineshapes in between as shown for $`q=1`$. Negative parameters $`q`$ lead to lineshapes mirrored at the ordinate, i. e. $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }`$.

Fano theory was initially developed in the context of electron-atom scattering Fano (1961) but later applied to a large number of other experiments, ranging from electron-neutron scattering Neutron-Alle  to atomic photoionization Fano and Cooper (1965). More recent observations of Fano resonances in electronic transport experiments include crossed multiwall carbon nanotubes Kim et al. (2003), scanning tunneling microscopy of single adatoms on a metallic surface STM-Alle  and transport studies of man-made semiconductor nanostructures Nöckel and Stone (1994). Kobayashi and coworkers observed Fano resonances in an Aharonov-Bohm ring with a quantum dot embedded in one arm Kobayashi et al. (2002). The resonant channel in their system stems from Coulomb blockade in the quantum dot, and the non-resonant channel originates from the continuous spectrum of the other arm.

In contrast, in pure quantum dot experiments in the semi-open regime the dot itself can be the interferometer. There is no spatial separation between the two transport channels. The resonant transmission mechanism is the same as known from Coulomb blockade. An additional non-resonant transmission channel comes into existence when the time needed to traverse the dot via a direct trajectory, $`\mathrm{\Delta }tl/v_F`$, is small enough ($`l`$ is the length of the path and $`v_F`$ the Fermi velocity). Then by the time-energy uncertainty principle with the Coulomb charging energy $`U`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }tUh`$, the transmission via the direct path is no longer forbidden by Coulomb blockade. So far, there have been only few experimental studies on quantum dots in the semi-open regime Göres et al. (2000); Zacharia et al. (2001). However, these experiments have generated great theoretical interest Racec and Wulf (2001); Xiong-02 (2002); Bułka and Stefański (2001); Hofstetter et al. (2001). They are sensitive tools to gain information on the phase of transmitted electrons inaccessible in other regimes Clerk et al. (2001a, b). It was even suggested to use Fano resonances as a probe of phase coherence in quantum dots.

In this paper, we study a quantum dot in the semi-open Fano regime in low-temperature transport measurements. We extract quantitative information of the two interfering channels including phase. Decoherence is studied by application of finite temperature and source-drain voltage.

We fabricated our sample from a high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron system (2DES) with an electron density $`n=3.710^{15}`$ m-2 and a mobility $`\mu =130`$ m2/Vs. Cr/Au split-gates were patterned by electron beam lithography (Fig. 1(c), inset). We apply negative gate voltages to form a quantum dot tunnel coupled to 2DES leads. The plunger gate voltage $`V_g`$ controls the dot energy levels and – due to spatial proximity to the tunnel barriers – to some extent also influences the coupling of the dot to the leads. We use a standard lock-in technique for differential conductance measurements in a 3He-4He dilution refrigerator with an electronic base temperature less than 70 mK.

We can tune our quantum dot from the closed Coulomb regime to the semi-open Fano regime. Linear conductance measurements in the Fano regime are shown in Fig. 1(c). We clearly observe Fano anti-resonances and asymmetric resonances instead of Breit-Wigner type peaks known from Coulomb blockade. We find three groups of resonances with similar lineshapes corresponding to asymmetry parameters $`q<0`$, $`q=0`$, and $`q>0`$ in the gate voltage range from $`V_g=0.68`$ V to $`V_g=0.52`$ V. This is different from the continuous evolution of lineshapes in multi-level interference experiments Lindemann et al. (2002). For $`V_g>0.52`$ V the Breit-Wigner lineshape is restored. In the Fano regions, the background conductance is high ($`12`$ $`e^2/h`$) similar to the open regime.

To fit the measured Fano resonances (red curves in Fig. 1(c)), we use eq. 1 with an additional prefactor and offset,

$$f_{exp}(V_g)=A_{exp}[f_{Fano}(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }(V_g))1]+B_{exp}.$$
(2)
$`A_{exp}`$ and $`B_{exp}`$ account for a reduced transmission amplitude of the two interfering channels, e. g. due to backscattering in one channel, and for an incoherent contribution to the total conductance. The fit parameters $`A_{exp}`$, $`B_{exp}`$ and $`q`$ are plotted in Fig. 2(a)–(c). The evolution of the parameters exhibits clear steps at the positions marked by the vertical grey lines. The parameters are nearly constant within one group of resonances but change in between.

This switching is further investigated in Fig. 2(d) where we have analyzed the spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_g`$ of the resonances in gate voltage. The spacing is nearly constant within any group of resonances but shows increased values at the switching points of the fit parameters. In the two-channel model (Fig. 1(a)), the positions of the Fano resonances are determined by the $`V_g`$ positions of the Coulomb resonances in the resonant channel. In a large dot like ours, the spacing of Coulomb peaks is dominated by the charging energy $`U`$ which is large compared to the single-particle energy level spacing $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_i`$, $`U>\mathrm{\Delta }E_i`$. Clear deviations from a constant peak spacing are thus attributed to greater redistributions of the charge on the dot. These redistributions influence the non-resonant transmission channel which also traverses the dot. Consequently, the interference of both channels and hence the Fano lineshape is altered. Within the groups of constantly spaced and similarly shaped Fano resonances, the transmission of the non-resonant channel is constant.

For a quantitative understanding of the Fano resonances, we investigate the model of two interfering channels in more detail: In the non-resonant conductance channel, the electronic wave function evolves like a plane wave. After traversing the channel its amplitude is $`a_{nr}`$ and its phase is $`\phi _{nr}`$. Compared to the width of a resonance, the energy dependence of $`a_{nr}`$ and $`\phi _{nr}`$ is negligible. Thus the complex transmission of the channel is:

$$t_{nr}=a_{nr}\mathrm{exp}(i\phi _{nr}).$$
(3)
$`t_{nr}`$ is modified in charge reconfigurations on the dot but otherwise constant as discussed above.

To model the complex transmission of the resonant channel, we consider a Coulomb resonance at zero temperature ($`T=0`$). According to experiments by Schuster et al. Schuster et al. (1997) we use the Breit-Wigner formula with a normalized detuning $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }`$ from resonance and with an amplitude $`a_r`$:

$$t_r(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })=a_r\frac{i}{\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }+i}$$
(4)
The transmission probability $`T_r(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })=|t_r(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })|^2=a_r^2/(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }^2+1)`$ (i. e. the conductance) of this channel yields the well-known Breit-Wigner peaks. The total transmission amplitude

$$T_{tot}(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })=|t_{nr}+t_r(\stackrel{~}{\epsilon })|^2.$$
(5)
describes the conductance of the complete Fano system from Fig. 1(a) including interference. The comparison of equations 2 and 5 allows to map the phenomenological constants $`(A_{exp},B_{exp},q)`$ determined from the fit to the more physical parameters $`(a_{nr},a_r,\phi _nr)`$. It is easily shown that $`a_{nr}^2=B_{exp}`$. The other expressions are more complex due to trigonometric functions.

The transformation of the experimental and phenomenological data from Fig. 2 is shown in the same figure in blue. The non-resonant transmission amplitude $`a_{nr}`$ and phase $`\phi _{nr}`$ as functions of gate voltage reflect the switching in the non-resonant channel. Phase differences of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _{nr}=\pi /2`$ correspond to a length difference of at least $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _{nr}/k_F=10`$ nm ($`k_F`$ is the Fermi wavevector) between non-resonant channels for different charge configurations. The transmission amplitude $`a_{nr}`$ varies between $`1.0`$ and $`1.7`$ $`e^2/h`$. It thus can be explained by a one-dimensional spin-degenerate channel with its conductance of 2 $`e^2/h`$ slightly reduced due to backscattering. The backscattering is modified at the steps. In contrast the resonant channel’s amplitude $`a_r^2`$ exhibits an unsystematic modulation which is well known from Coulomb blockade and is caused by the varying overlaps of wave functions for different numbers of electrons.

We have studied how temperature affects Fano resonances. In Fig. 3(a) the resonances are shown for temperatures from $`T=70`$ mK to $`T=1`$ K. Although the resonance amplitude decreases with increasing temperature, the lineshape described by $`q`$ clearly remains unaffected. One of the resonances from Fig. 3(a) is analyzed more closely in Fig. 3(b)–(e) in much the same way as in Fig. 2. We have fit the resonance with eq. 2 and found $`q`$ to be independent of temperature up to 0.4 K (Fig. 3(c)). This is understood in the two-channel model where the non-resonant channel is temperature independent. The resonant channel has all properties of Coulomb blockade including temperature dependence which is due to the Fermi-Dirac broadening of the electrons in the emitter Beenakker (1991). However, the relative transmission amplitudes and, most important, the phase evolution of both transmission channels remain unaffected. This is why the shape of the resonances and $`q`$ are constant. Only width and amplitude are influenced by the temperature as determined by the emitter.

To further verify the two-channel model we analyze the width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the Fano resonances which is contained in $`\stackrel{~}{\epsilon }=(\epsilon \epsilon _0)/(\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)`$ in eq. 2. Fig. 3(d) shows that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ increases linear with temperature. As the non-resonant channel is $`T`$-independent, the broadening of the Fano interference directly reflects a broadening of the Coulomb channel. In Coulomb blockade, the slope of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T)`$ is $`3.5k_BT`$ due to Fermi broadening of the emitter Beenakker (1991). Thus from the slope in Fig. 3(d) we can extract a conversion factor $`\alpha =0.015`$ between plunger gate voltage and chemical potential, $`\mu =\alpha eV_g`$. This has to be compared to $`\alpha =0.045`$ from the Coulomb regime at $`V_g=1.15`$ V. The difference is attributed to the increased source and drain capacitances at the larger tunnel coupling in the Fano regime.

In Fig. 3(e), the amplitude of the resonant channel $`a_r^2`$ is analyzed as a function of temperature. On a reciprocal scale, the amplitude of the resonant channel decreases linearly with increasing temperature as known from Coulomb blockade Beenakker (1991). Deviations are from thermal decoupling of the electron system from the bath for low temperatures. Please note that as we examine Fano dips originating from destructive interference, a decrease in amplitude in the resonant channel results in an increased total conductance as observed in Fig. 3(b). This mechanism is quite different from the logarithmic temperature dependence of Kondo valleys Kondo-Alle  which might look similar.

At temperatures higher than 0.4 K the overlap of the Fano resonances becomes so strong that our analysis becomes unreliable. It is then impossible to determine the width or amplitude of individual peaks.

The temperature dependence of Fano resonances thus is completely understood in terms of the two-channel model. It results from the Fermi-Dirac broadening of the emitter and its influence on the transmission amplitude and width of the resonant channel. Apparently Fermi-Dirac broadening of the emitter does not influence the non-resonant channel. Our results show that decoherence between both channels can be neglected in our Fano system in the investigated temperature range. Decoherence between both channels would result in a breakdown of the interference. The resonances would then consist of the well-known resonant Coulomb peaks plus an offset from the non-resonant background. Kobayashi and coworkers observed an evolution of Fano resonances to Coulomb peaks plus background at $`T200`$ mK in their Aharonov-Bohm ring with an embedded quantum dot Kobayashi et al. (2002). We attribute the strong influence of decoherence in their Fano system to the large size of their system (circumference $`4`$ $`\mu `$m).

Coherence can also be destroyed by finite source-drain voltages. For finite bias voltages quantum dots show so-called Coulomb diamonds in non-linear differential conductance measurements versus source-drain voltage $`V_{SD}`$ and gate voltage $`V_g`$. These are diamond-shaped areas of low conductance. In our Fano quantum dot, however, we observe clear anti-diamonds of high conductance for the $`q=0`$ regime (Fig. 4). These are again understood in the two-channel model. The resonant channel based on Coulomb blockade determines the resonance positions. The total conductance, however, is determined by the interference of both conductance channels, which leads to anti-diamonds in the $`q=0`$ anti-resonance regime. Thus the appearance of anti-diamonds confirms our interpretation of the Fano regime. Non-linear differential conductance measurements also address decoherence. From Fig. 4 it is clear that at least for $`V_{SD}=0.3`$ – 0.3 mV the interference is preseved. The decoherence introduced by the finite source-drain voltage $`V_{SD}`$ is not sufficient to destroy the interference. Finally, Fig. 4 demonstrates the low charging energy in the Fano regime of $`U0.3`$ eV. Insertion into the Heisenberg uncertainty relation yields roughly $`\mathrm{\Delta }tU0.1h`$. This is consistent with the existence of a direct, virtual, and non-resonant transmission path not respecting Coulomb blockade.

In conclusion, we explored the semi-open Fano regime of quantum dots. We found stable series of resonances with similar lineshapes. We have interpreted our measurements in terms of two interfering transmission channel and extracted phase information for the non-resonant channel. The sudden changes in lineshape were interpreted as charge reconfigurations on the dot influencing the direct non-resonant trajectory. We found our Fano interferometer robust with respect to decoherence in temperature and source-drain voltage dependent measurements.

We thank F. Hohls and U. Zeitler for help with the measurement setup and acknowledge financial support by BMBF.


text:
# Globular Clusters in the Sgr Stream and other structures

## 1. Introduction

It is now clear that the disruption of the Sgr dwarf spheroidal galaxy (Sgr dSph) provided a non-negligible contribution to the assembly of the Galactic Halo (see Majewski et al. 2003, hereafter M03, Newberg et al. 2002 and references therein). Since the Sgr galaxy has its own globular cluster system it is natural to check if the Sgr dSph has also contributed to the building up of the Galactic globular cluster system. As a first attempt (Bellazzini et al. 2003a, hereafter Pap-I) we searched for correlations between the (X,Y,Z,$`V_r`$) phase-space distribution of the Galactic globulars having 10 kpc $`R_{GC}`$ 40 kpc (Outer Halo globulars, OH) with the orbit and the N-body numerical simulation of the Sgr dSph computed by Ibata et al. (2001). The comparison was limited to the orbital path since present time to $`1`$ gyr in the past. A significant correlation was indeed found: the considered model orbit is a preferential subset of the phase space for OH clusters. The result strongly suggest that some of the OH clusters is associated with the Sgr Stream but its statistical nature prevents any firm conclusion about the individual clusters. Nevertheless, we could rank the clusters that are candidate members of the Sgr Stream according to their phase-space distance from the orbit.

Using the catalogue of the 2nd Incremental Data Release of the 2MASS survey we have tested two of our top-rank candidates, e.g. Pal 12 and NGC 4147 (Bellazzini et al. 2003b, Pap-II). We searched an excess of M giants similar to those found in the main body of the Sgr galaxy in the NIR color-magnitude diagram (CMD) of wide fields around the target clusters and we found a significant signal in both cases, showing that Pal 12 and NGC 4147 are immersed into the Sgr Stream (see Pap-II for details and references).

## 2. The All Sky view

Having at disposal the All Sky data release of 2MASS, M03 have traced the Sgr Stream over the whole sky using the M giants in a similar way to that adopted in Pap-II. In Fig. 1 we plot the distribution of the 2MASS M giants (selected in the same way as M03 and using their relations for the photometric parallax) in different projections of the Galactocentric cartesian coordinates. The OH clusters that matches the YZ distribution of Stream stars (the Stream is seen nearly edge-on in this projection) have been reported as large filled circles also in the other projections. It is quite clear that the majority of the selected clusters fits into the Stream distribution in any projection. Six of these clusters were also included in the list of best candidates of Pap-I. In the lower-left panel of Fig. 1 the distribution of radial velocities as a function of orbital longitude of the candidate clusters are compared with the predictions of the model by Ibata et al.(2001). As evident from the other plots the model has to be refined to correctly match the distribution of Stream stars, however the comparison is strongly suggestive. It is quite clear that some of the 10 clusters lying into the Stream has to be physically associated with the Stream. The comparison with the distribution of observed radial velocities along the Stream will soon discriminate between true physical associations and interlopers (see Majewski and Law, these proceedings). Therefore it seems quite firmly established that the disruption of the Sgr galaxy had a significant role in the assembly of the Galactic globular cluster system (see Pap-I). As far as individual clusters will pass the “radial velocity test” the properties of the original globular cluster system of the Sgr galaxy will become clearer and the early evolution of the galaxy could be more deeply investigated.

## 3. Other GC groups in the Outer Halo?

The four globular clusters associated with the main body of the Sgr galaxy constitute a remarkable overdensity in the phase-space distribution of OH clusters. The maximum mutual distance between any two of them is $`<6`$ kpc and the maximum difference in $`V_r`$ is $`50`$ km/s. From a historical point of view it is quite interesting to recall that such a structure hasn’t been noted until the Sgr galaxy was discovered.

Is it possible that we are still overlooking similar substructures in the globular cluster system? If candidate Sgr Stream members are excluded (f.e. NGC 4147, NGC 5053 and NGC 5466 are quite close one to another in the X,Y,Z,$`V_r`$ phase-space) there is only one group that shows remarkable clustering properties. The possible members of the group are NGC 1851, NGC 1904, NGC 2298, and NGC 2808. The distances of the latter clusters from NGC 1851 are 3.5, 4.0, and 8.0 kpc respectively. The radial velocities of these clusters correlates quite well with their galactic latitude and their galactocentric distance correlates with galactic longitude (see Fig. 2, left panels). The metallicity is also quite similar (\[Fe/H\]=-1.03, -1.37, -1.71, -1.11) and all of them have an extended blue Horizontal Branch (HB). In particular, NGC 1851 and NGC 2808 are the only halo globulars with a bimodal HB. NGC 1261 is also nearby to the “group”, it has similar metallicity and blue HB morphology but it doesn’t fit so well into the correlations shown in Fig. 2. According to the method introduced by Lynden-Bell & Lynden-Bell (1995) NGC 1851, NGC 1904, NGC 2298, and NGC 2808 do not appear to have the same energy and angular momentum but they are relatively close to the Galactic Center and the approximation of the galactocentric velocity with the heliocentric velocity (that is quite relevant in this kind of analysis) may not be appropriate.

## References

Bellazzini M., Ferraro F.R. & Ibata R., 2002, AJ, 124, 915

Bellazzini M., Ferraro F.R. & Ibata R., 2003a, AJ, 125, 188 (Pap-I)

Bellazzini M., Ibata R., Ferraro F.R., Testa V., 2003b, A&A, in press (astro-ph/0304502, Pap-II)

Ibata, R., et al., 2001, ApJ, 551, 294

Lynden-Bell D., & Lynden-Bell R.M., 1995,MNRAS, 275, 429

Majewski S.R., Skrutskie M.F., Weinberg M.D., Ostheimer J.C., 2003, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0304198, M03)

Newberg H., et al. (the SDSS team), 2002, ApJ, 569, 245


text:
# Observation of GRB 030131 with the INTEGRAL satelliteBased on observations with INTEGRAL, an ESA project with instruments and science data centre funded by ESA member states (especially the PI countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain), Czech Republic and Poland, and with the participation of Russia and the USA, and on observations collected by the Gamma-Ray Burst Collaboration at ESO (GRACE) at the European Sourthern Observatory, Paranal, Chile (Programme 70.D-0523).

## 1 Introduction

Ever since their discovery (Klebesadel et al. (1973)), Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) have been a puzzling mystery, mostly because of their short durations and the apparent lack of counterparts at other wavelengths. A breakthrough in this field came thanks to the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX, which had the capability to localize the bursts’ prompt emission with a precision of a few arcminutes within a few hours. This led to the discovery of the afterglow emission at lower energies, initially in X-rays (Costa et al. (1997)) and subsequently at optical (van Paradijs et al. (1997)) and radio (Frail et al. (1997)) wavelengths, which allowed the redshift of these objects to be measured, and firmly established the cosmological nature of GRBs.

Due to the limited duration and the fading character of the afterglow emission, the prompt distribution of GRB coordinates to the scientific community is a high priority. After the end of the BeppoSAX mission this task has been accomplished mainly by HETE-2 (Ricker et al. (2002)). INTEGRAL (Winkler et al. (1999)), although not specifically designed as a GRB-oriented mission, can contribute to the rapid localization of the prompt emission of GRBs thanks to the INTEGRAL Burst Alert System (IBAS; Mereghetti et al. (2001)). This software, running at the INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC; Courvoisier et al. (1999)), is able to detect and localize GRBs with a precision of a few arcminutes in a few seconds, and to distribute their coordinates in near real time over the Internet.

The high sensitivity of the INTEGRAL instruments also allows us to study in detail the prompt $`\gamma `$-ray emission of GRBs. This is particularly interesting for the faintest bursts, for which deep spectral studies were not possible up to now. For example, with the CGRO/BATSE instrument, time resolved spectroscopy was possible only for bursts with a fluence larger than $``$4$`\times `$10-5 ergs cm-2 (Preece et al. (1998)).

On January 31 2003 at 07:38:49 UTC a GRB was detected in the field of view of the main instruments on board INTEGRAL: IBIS (Ubertini et al. (1999)) and SPI (Vedrenne et al. (1999)). Here we concentrate on the results obtained with IBIS, a coded mask imaging telescope based on two detectors, ISGRI and PICsIT, operating in the 15 keV - 1 MeV and 170 keV - 10 MeV energy ranges, respectively.

## 2 Detection and Localization

GRB 030131 was discovered by IBAS (using IBIS/ISGRI data) on January 31 2003 at 07:39:10 UTC ($``$ 21 seconds after the beginning of the GRB, see below). The on-line automatic imaging analysis localized it to off-axis angles Z=10.1, Y=–3.6, in the partially coded field of view (only $``$23% of the detector was illuminated by the GRB). The GRB coordinates were not distributed automatically by IBAS because most of the burst occurred during a satellite slew (IBAS is disabled during satellite slews). In fact only the first $``$20 seconds of this $``$150 s long burst, during which the satellite attitude was stable and well known, were analyzed by IBAS, resulting in a low significance of the trigger. An off-line interactive analysis confirmed the reality of the event (Borkowski et al. (2003)), but the reported error region radius was underestimated. A correct localization with an error radius of 5 (Mereghetti et al. 2003a ) was distributed only three days later.

By accumulating data over short time intervals and analyzing the corresponding images, we confirmed that the satellite slew started at 07:39:09 UTC, as indicated by the attitude data. We therefore used the first 20 s of the event, corresponding to the stable pointing period, to derive the GRB position $`\alpha _{J2000}`$ = 13h 28m 21s, $`\delta _{J2000}`$ = +30 40 33′′, with an error radius of 2.5. Although the statistical error in these coordinates is only 1.6, we conservatively added a systematic uncertainty of 2, based on the results obtained in IBIS observations of sources with known positions. Our final position for GRB 030131 is consistent with the one reported earlier (Mereghetti et al. 2003a ) and with the annulus derived with the IPN using Ulysses and IBIS/ISGRI data (see Fig. 1).

A provisional identification of an optical transient (OT) for GRB 030131 was reported by Fox et al. (2003a). The candidate OT, detected with the Palomar 48-inch Oschin telescope + NEAT Camera, had magnitude R$``$21.2 at 3.62 hours after the burst, but it was much fainter and barely detectable (R$`>`$23.5) $``$26.8 hours after the burst at the 200-inch Hale telescope. Its coordinates, $`\alpha _{J2000}`$ = 13h 28m 22.29s, $`\delta _{J2000}`$ = +30 40 23.7′′, are 20′′ from the center of the error circle derived here.

As a follow-up, we obtained a 3$`\times `$300 s exposure in the V band using the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope (VLT) with the FORS1 instrument at a mean date of 13 February 09:11:54 UTC. The seeing was about 1′′. There was no detectable object at the location of the candidate optical counterpart, with a 5 $`\sigma `$ upper limit of V$`>`$26.4.

The marginal detection $``$29 hours after the burst, with B = 25.4$`\pm `$0.3 (Gorosabel et al. (2003), but see also Henden (2003)), and our VLT upper limit, confirm that this object is the OT of GRB 030131. Thus GRB 030131 is the first GRB detected with INTEGRAL with an associated optical counterpart.

## 3 Temporal and Spectral Analysis

We have analyzed IBIS/ISGRI single events, for which arrival time, energy deposit and interaction pixel of the detector are known for each event.

Fig. 2 shows the light curves of GRB 030131 binned at 1 s resolution in different energy bands. The burst started at 07:38:49 UTC and lasted for about 150 s. The time profile shows several peaks (note that the small gaps are artifacts caused by satellite telemetry saturation). The T90 duration of the GRB in the 15-500 keV band is 124 s.

Since the GRB peaks during the satellite slew, we could not use the instrumental coordinates to extract the peak spectrum. Therefore we made an image selecting a time interval of 1 s around the GRB main peak (t = 54 s in Fig. 2). The high count rate at the peak allowed us to firmly establish the detector coordinates of the GRB even with this short integration time and thus to extract its peak spectrum. Since IBIS/ISGRI is a coded mask imaging instrument, the background can be estimated simultaneously with the source flux, using the Pixel Illumination Function (PIF; Skinner (1995)). The spectra have been extracted computing one PIF for each energy bin (128 linearly spaced bins have been used between 19 keV and 1 MeV). Since a fully calibrated spectral response matrix for sources at large off-axis angles is not yet available, we divided the count spectrum by the closest (in detector coordinates) count spectrum of the Crab Nebula. The resulting photon spectrum can be well fitted by a power law model ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 8.66/8) with photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 1.73$`{}_{}{}^{+0.16}{}_{0.17}{}^{}`$ (90% confidence level). The flux is $``$1.9 photons ($``$ 1.7$`\times `$10-7 erg) cm-2 s-1 ($``$6.5 crab) in the 20-200 keV energy range.

To properly extract the total GRB flux and spectrum, we derived the GRB detector coordinates at various time intervals for the entire duration of the event. The first interval, corresponding to the stable pointing, lasts 20 s. The following 30 intervals last 3 s each and, finally, for the faint tail of the burst, four intervals with durations of 5, 5, 10 and 20 s were used.

The coordinates as a function of time are shown in Fig. 3, where one can see the apparent drift of $``$2 of the GRB in the IBIS field of view during the slew. To obtain the total (time averaged) spectrum, the 35 spectra extracted for the time intervals, corresponding to a net integration time of 147.2 s, were co-added. We derived the photon spectrum (shown in Fig. 4) in the same way that we did for the peak spectrum. The GRB is clearly detected up to 200 keV. In this case a single power law model does not provide a satisfactory fit ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 39.84/18), indicating that a model which includes a spectral break would give a better representation of the data. A fit using the Band model (Band et al. (1993)) yields a break energy $`E_0`$=70$`\pm `$20 keV, a low-energy power law index $`\alpha `$ = 1.4$`\pm `$0.2 and a high-energy photon index $`\beta `$=3.0$`\pm `$1.0 ($`\chi ^2`$/dof = 22.54/16). The fluence in the 20-200 keV band is $``$73.8 photons cm-2 (7 $`\times `$ 10-6 erg cm-2). To derive this value we have assumed that during the 4 central telemetry gaps the GRB had its average spectrum and intensity. Extrapolating the spectrum to the BATSE energy range (50-300 keV) we obtain a fluence of $``$23 photons cm-2 (3.2 $`\times `$ 10-6 erg cm-2).

The values of peak flux and fluence derived above are consistent to within a factor of 2 with the ones measured with Ulysses. This indicates that our method does not suffer from large systematic errors and that the short telemetry gaps do not influence these values significantly.

We have also investigated the spectral evolution. As in the case of the peak spectrum, the data for the individual time intervals can be fitted with a single power law, without evidence for a spectral break. The photon index as a function of time is plotted in Fig. 2. A clear hard-to-soft evolution is seen. A hardening trend can also be seen corresponding to the rise of the second and third (main) peak with a softer spectrum for the latter peak. This correlation between light curve peaks and spectral hardening has already been reported in other bursts (e.g. Ford et al. (1995)).

## 4 Discussion

The IBIS/ISGRI time-resolved spectroscopy of GRB 030131 is consistent with the overall hard-to-soft evolution observed with BATSE in many brighter GRBs, for which this kind of analysis was possible (e.g. Preece et al. (1998), Ford et al. (1995)). The fluence of GRB 030131 is an order of magnitude smaller than those of the bursts studied by those authors, indicating that such spectral behaviour applies also to fainter GRBs. Clear evidence of this was also reported in the GRBs studied with BeppoSAX in the 2-700 keV energy range (e.g. Frontera et al. (2000), Frontera et al. (2003)). While BATSE could better constrain the break energy and the high-energy slope of the Band function, thanks to its higher relative sensitivity above 200 keV, IBIS/ISGRI allows more detailed studies of the low-energy part of the spectrum for relatively low fluence GRBs.

In the framework of the internal fireball shock model (Rees & Mészáros (1994)), and in particular of the Synchrotron Shock Model (Tavani (1996)), the hard-to-soft evolution can be interpreted in two ways. The first possibility is a decrease of the magnetic field in the postshock region as a consequence of the postshock flow expansion; the second is a postshock decrease of the index of the particle distribution function as a consequence of strong cooling processes affecting the particle energy distribution for dynamical flow times larger than the radiating timescale. The two effects are not distinguishable in our case, since the time-resolved spectra do not have enough statistics to constrain a spectral break and hence a low-energy and a high-energy spectral index. The soft-to-hard evolution observed during the rise of the individual peaks, on the other hand, can be caused by an increase of the local magnetic field at the shock. Several authors reported that the duration of single pulses in GRB time histories is energy dependent (e.g. Link, Epstein & Priedhorski (1993)), with longer durations at lower energies, resulting in a hardening of the spectra before the peaks and a softening afterwards.

The optical transient associated with GRB 030131 indicates that we can classify it as an “optically dim” GRB. In fact it is as faint as (or even fainter than) the transient associated with GRB 030227, which is the only other INTEGRAL GRB with a firmly established optical conterpart, and was detected at R$``$23.3 12 hours after the burst (Mereghetti et al. 2003b ). It is also comparable to GRB 021211. This event is also considered an optically dim burst since it was detected at R$``$18.2 1.3 hours after the prompt emission (Fox et al. 2003b ) and was fainter than R$``$22.5 after 12 hours (Klose et al. (2002)). In addition GRB 030131 is located at much higher Galactic latitude (b $``$ 81) which implies smaller foreground optical extinction. This indicates that, despite the efforts of observers, in some cases, optical follow-up with small telescopes is not an easy task, even less than 1 day after the burst (e.g Fynbo et al. (2001)). The prompt localization of GRBs is hence a high priority in order to achieve a successful follow-up. The results on GRB 030501 (Beckmann et al. (2003)) (an alert 30 s after the start of the GRB with an uncertainty of 4.4; IBAS Alert 596) show that IBAS is now able to provide this service.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research has been supported by the Italian Space Agency. KH is grateful for Ulysses support under JPL contract 958056, and for support of the IPN under NASA grant NAG5-12614. DHH acknowledges support by NASA. RH acknowledges the support by Prodex Project 14527.


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# What Can We Learn from Cosmic Rays?

## 1 Introduction

Cosmic rays were discovered about ninety years ago by Hess and Kohlhörster . Through all these years they have provided a rich source of vital information on our galaxy and the universe beyond to astrophysics. Until the early nineteen fifties experimental particle physics could use only cosmic rays as the “incoming beam” for creating members of the particle zoo never seen before, like muons, pions, kaons, the lambda etc. However, the emerging accelerator physics with its well-controlled experimental environment put the interest in cosmic ray observations to the back burner as far as particle physics was concerned. During the last decade or so a dramatic turn-about took place. Atmospheric and solar neutrino detectors gave the first hint to the somewhat clueless particle physics community on the physics beyond the hugely successful, nevertheless incomplete Standard Model. Reactor and accelerator neutrino experiments gave confirmation of those cosmic ray results just last year. The limit on cosmic diffuse gamma radiation background by EGRET  combined with measurements of the cosmic ray spectrum at the highest energies provides restrictions on possible grand unified theories. The number of deeply penetrating horizontal showers measured by the grand array, AGASA  and the nitrogen fluorescence detector Fly’s Eye  supplies bounds on larger than four dimensional models with low scale gravity . These are just some examples for the renewed interest in using observations concerning astrophysical processes and properties of the hot big bang cosmology as possible tests for predictions of theories going beyond the Standard Model .

## 2 The significance of the high energy end of the spectrum

A simplistic characterization of the measured cosmic ray spectrum affirms its isotropy, a composition, which is overwhelmingly hadronic (protons and nuclei) and a power law ($`E^\alpha `$) energy dependence through about ten orders of magnitude from $`10^{10}`$ eV to $`10^{20}`$ eV. There are two energy regions, $`4\times 10^{15}`$ eV and $`10^{18.5}`$ eV (named the “knee” and the “ankle”, respectively) where $`\alpha `$ changes quite abruptly: $`\alpha 2.7`$ for $`E10^{15.5}`$ eV, $`\alpha 3.1`$ for $`10^{15.5}`$eV$`E10^{18.5}`$eV and $`\alpha 2.8.`$ for $`E10^{18.5}`$eV. For more details see . Although a considerable number of substantially improved old detectors as well as new ones will provide crucial experimental observations for the “knee area” in cosmic rays , for GeV and TeV gamma-rays and – hopefully – for neutrinos in the near future, the present paper brings into focus only the ultra high energy region of the cosmic ray spectrum.

The CM energy per particle at the Tevatron and at the LHC (1 TeV and 7 TeV, respectively) fall between the knee and the ankle on the cosmic ray spectrum, corresponding to fixed target energies $`10^{15}`$ eV and $`10^{17}`$ eV. The highest energy event ever recorded has energy $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV (by the Fly’s Eye detector ), which is equivalent to about 500 TeV in the CM system; otherwise, its extensive air shower (EAS) fits the properties of a proton or maybe a nucleus induced shower . Clearly, at the high energy end of the spectrum the primary and some of the secondary interactions at the top of the atmosphere involve processes never tested in accelerator experiments; moreover, the highest energy events certainly scrutinize physics beyond the electroweak scale.

In addition, the region above the ankle presented the GZK puzzle. Up to about $`10^{19}`$ eV energy the universe is transparent for protons, although the interaction with the everywhere present regular and chaotic magnetic fields takes away the directional information pointing back to their source. However, above that energy protons produce $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs and more importantly pions111Around this energy and above it the effect of the deflection by the galactic and intergalactic magnetic fields is small enough that with reasonable certainty a “source box”of a few degrees can be defined even for charged incoming cosmic particles.on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation . At the energy $`10^{19.5}`$ eV the mean free path for protons is down to about 7-8 Mpc and at each collision they lose about 20 – 25 % of their energy. Consequently, the expectation  was that there should be a cutoff and just under the cutoff a pileup (a bump on the spectrum) as a consequence of the pion photoproduction for the above threshold protons or nuclei . (Nuclei photodisintegrate on the CMB and photons are absorbed (through $`e^+e^{}`$ production) on the CMB and on the universal radio background.)

There are somewhat less than a hundred extensive air showers observed with energies above $`10^{19.5}`$ eV and about ten events above $`10^{20}`$ eV. The arrival directions are compatible with an isotropic distribution of sources. Wherever determination was possible, the properties of the primary particles starting the EAS were consistent with being hadrons.

There is considerable disagreement on the errors of EAS energy estimates, on the finer features of the spectrum, and on the statistical significance of the data among the collaborations , which provided the observations. The recent analysis of the data already on file, the improvement of statistics by the continued operation of AGASA and HiRes, and by the future observations of new detectors (under construction like the Pierre Auger Observatory , and the planned Owl/Airwatch ) the reliability of the observational data will substantially improve in the next couple of years.

The propagation of nucleons, nuclei and gamma rays was studied in detail  with the conclusion that their sources cannot be very distant (at most $`5070`$ Mpc away)222If the effect of the random extragalactic magnetic fields are taken into account, in addition to the energy loss processes, the average GZK distance of a proton further decreases  .. There are only a few astrophysical sources, which can possibly accelerate particles to these extreme energies (e.g. AGN-s, radio galaxies). Since few of these objects are in the ”GZK sphere” and the requirement of isotropy of the incoming extreme energy cosmic rays (EECR) also presents a severe restriction on their origin, the community started looking for new explanations for the higher than expected number of particles at the very end of the spectrum.

## 3 GZK evading messengers

There are two large classes of models which can provide interpretation for the data, top down and bottom up models333For completeness, we must add the possibility of Lorentz symmetry violation, which could eliminate the GZK cutoff completely ..

Top down models  all use physics beyond the Standard Model. Topological defects and long lived relic particles could be produced everywhere during phase transitions experienced by the Universe after the Big Bang. Through their collapse/decay they produce the small number of EECR (protons) and dominantly photons and neutrinos.Their major advantage is that they avoid the problems of long range propagation in the background photon ”gas”, as well as the difficulties of accelerating particles to extreme energies. The art in the construction of these models is to make the required flux of EECR without creating too large a contribution to the diffuse gamma ray background bounded by the results of the EGRET detector . Horizontal EAS (zenith angle larger than $`60^{}`$) give limits for the neutrino flux.

Bottom up scenarios all face the acceleration problem. However, if – as a first step – one can assume that the sources can be outside of the GZK sphere ($`R_{GZK}`$ couple of tens Mpc), then the number of sites able to produce EECR increases considerably. Among Standard Model particles only the neutrino can handle cosmic distances without dramatic absorption444In principle, some supersymmetric particles can have their GZK cutoff at higher energies than the nucleons. However, LEP2 already excluded light superpartners. . Both the Z-burst model and models inspired by string theory of $`d>4`$ use EECR neutrinos to increase the pool of sources.

The “Z-burst” models  need no particle physics beyond the Standard Model (apart from non-zero neutrino masses) and assume standard hot Big Bang cosmology. They assert that extreme energy neutrinos (E$`=M_Z^2/2m_\nu `$) forming Z bosons resonantly with antineutrinos of the neutrino halo around our galaxy (or supergalaxy) could produce enough protons well inside the GZK radius to account for the EECR. The difficulties with this model were pointed out in ref. . Basically, the necessary requirements on the high energy neutrino flux and/or on the density of halo neutrinos make the scenario (nearly) incompatible with other astrophysical observations.

## 4 String inspired models

In all string inspired models the neutrino nucleon cross section is above the Standard Model value at very high energies. Internal consistency of string theories requires that strings live in a multidimensional space (typically, d=10 for superstrings). It has been realized a few years ago that the connection between the string scale and the Planck scale is less rigid than hitherto believed .

In some models with large compactified extra dimensions, (or with a four-dimensional brane world) together with TeV scale quantum gravity  EECR neutrinos interact gravitationally with the nucleons in the atmosphere; as a matter of fact, that becomes the dominant interaction . Unfortunately, the gravitational interaction does not give rise to a sufficiently rapidly growing cross section . As a consequence, observational bounds on deep (nearly horizontal) showers are violated and it is not possible to reach cross sections comparable to hadronic ones around the GZK cutoff. The production of “mini black holes” has been also studied . Presently, it is unclear whether the upper bounds on deep showers are compatible with these theories.

At present, there is no internally consistent, phenomenologically viable string model known, in which even the basic features of the dynamics – including a mechanism of compactification – would be satisfactorily understood. Nevertheless, various string models have so many attractive properties that one is tempted to abstract their robust features and see whether some reasonable conjectures can be made once CMS energies of the colliding particles reach the string scale . For the sake of argument, let us have a string scale of the order of 50 - 100 TeV in mind. This can be reached in ultra high energy cosmic ray interactions: for instance, the “gold plated” Fly’s Eye event mentioned before has about 500 TeV in the CMS. It was shown by means of an explicit calculation  that weakly coupled string models cannot explain the trans-GZK cosmic ray interactions. Since we cannot calculate within the framework of a strongly coupled theory, we use features of current models, which are likely to be present in future, phenomenologically successful theories. The following basic ingredients are used:

* Unitarity of the $`S`$-matrix.
* A rapidly rising level density of resonances in dual models.
* Unification of interactions at around the string scale, hereafter denoted by $`M`$.
* Duality between resonances in a given channel and Regge exchanges in crossed channels.

Since duality between resonances and Regge poles is exact only in the tree approximation to a string amplitude, it is unclear what the precise form of a generalization to world sheets of higher genus is: probably, resonances of finite width are dual to Regge cuts. Thus, our formulæ are likely to be valid to logarithmic accuracy. Using the optical theorem, the total cross section for the neutrino-parton interaction is555All energies are assumed to be large compared to the rest energies of the incoming particles.:

$$\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s})=\frac{8\pi }{\widehat{s}}\underset{j}{\overset{N\left(\widehat{s}\right)}{}}(2j+1)\left(1\eta _j\mathrm{cos}\left(2\delta _j\right)\right),$$
(1)
where, as usual, $`\eta `$ and $`\delta `$ stand for the elasticity coefficient and phase shift of a given partial wave, respectively. The quantity $`N\left(\widehat{s}\right)`$ is the level of the resonance, equal to the maximal angular momentum. For elastic resonances, $`\eta =1`$ and $`\delta \pi /2`$ within the width of the resonance. Close to the threshold of the string regime, on resonance the total cross section is just proportional to the number of states at a given level. In any realistic model the resonances have finite widths, thus we average the cross section over an energy interval comparable to the widths of the resonances. In such an approximation, the density of states, $`d\left(\widehat{s}\right)`$ can be introduced and $`N`$ is regarded as a continuous variable, such that $`N\widehat{s}/M`$666In the last formula, the Regge intercept has been neglected. However, we shall see shortly that the excitations begin to contribute significantly to the cross section for $`N10`$ or so; hence this approximation is justified.. Using this, one gets from eq. (1):

$$\widehat{\sigma }\frac{16\pi }{\widehat{s}}d\left(\widehat{s}\right).$$
(2)
As inelastic channels open up, the elasticity coefficients in eq. (1) become less than unity and eq. (2) is no longer valid. Without any detailed knowledge of the inelastic channels (world sheets of a higher genus in present day string models), we can estimate the behavior of the cross section as $`\widehat{s}\mathrm{}`$ only. Duality tells us that the leptoquark excitations should be dual to the exchange of the $`Z`$-trajectory in the $`t`$-channel. Hence, apart from logarithmic corrections,

$$\widehat{\sigma }\widehat{s}^{(\alpha (0)1)},$$
(3)
where $`\alpha (0)`$ is the intercept (branch point, respectively) of the $`Z`$ trajectory. Apart from corrections of the order of $`(M_Z/M)^2`$, one has $`\alpha (0)=1`$, so that the neutrino-parton cross section tends to a constant. (We verify a posteriori that $`M_Z/M1`$, so that the power corrections to the cross section are insignificant at all energies of interest.)

The level density is a rapidly rising function of $`\widehat{s}`$. It is known that asymptotically it rises as $`\mathrm{exp}(a\sqrt{\widehat{s}/M})`$, with $`a`$ being some constant; see, for instance . However, the rise is more rapid at the beginning of the spectrum. The first few levels of the open superstring can be well interpolated by the function

$$d(N)\mathrm{exp}1.24N,N\widehat{s}/M,$$
(4)
(This approximate formula was calculated from the generating function of the level density,  eq. (4.3.64).) General considerations on a strongly coupled string model take us this far. To connect the low excitation regime, eq (2) and the asymptotic one, eq. (3) we chose an interpolating function guided by merely the requirement of simplicity. We found that after averaging over the parton distribution within the nucleon, the results are insensitive to the detailed form of the $`\nu `$-quark cross section. For that reason, we chose a simple form satisfying the limits at low and high excitations:

$$\widehat{\sigma }=\mathrm{\Theta }\left(\widehat{s}M^2\right)\frac{16\pi }{M^2}\frac{40\mathrm{exp}1.24N_0}{1+\frac{\widehat{s}}{M^2}\mathrm{exp}1.24\left(N_0\widehat{s}/M^2\right)}$$
(5)
In eq. (5), $`M`$ is the string scale and $`N_0`$ is a parameter measuring the onset of the “new physics”. In fact, one can convert that dimensionless parameter into an energy scale. Using our previous relations, one can write $`N_0\widehat{s_0}/M`$, or in terms of a laboratory energy of the incoming neutrino, $`N_02m\widehat{E_0}/M`$, $`m`$ being the mass of the nucleon. In all these equations, the “hat” over the energies involved serves as a reminder that the quantities have to be integrated over the parton distribution. As usual, the conversion is carried out by means of substitutions such as $`\widehat{s}=xs`$, $`x`$ being the momentum fraction of a parton within the nucleon. The step function is inserted because the cross section of the “new physics” vanishes at CM energies below the mass of the first resonance. The parton distributions have been taken from CTEQ6 . The dominant contribution comes from valence quarks; gluons do not contribute, since no presently known unification scheme contains “leptogluons”. Finally, the contribution of the sea is negligibly small, since the latter is concentrated around $`x=0`$.

It is impossible to precisely determine the two parameters, $`M`$ and $`N_0`$ entering eq. (5). Nevertheless, the parameters can be bounded by the trans-GZK data. As it was mentioned before

* no deep showers have been observed by AGASA and Fly’s Eye,
* the trans-GZK showers appear to be “hadron-like”, i.e. they originate high in the atmosphere and appear to exhibit a development resembling proton induced showers.

These constraints were analysed . The absence of deep showers excludes a region of the neutrino cross section, approximately, 0.02 mb $`\sigma `$ 1 mb. The cross section has to grow fast to roughly hadronic size around the “ankle” in the cosmic ray spectrum, approximately at $`5\times 10^{19}`$ eV and stay of this size or grow slightly. Unless these conditions are satisfied, the neutrino model of trans-GZK cosmic rays fails. A search of the parameter space yields $`E_05\times 10^{10}`$ GeV and $`M80`$ TeV. With these values of $`M`$ and $`N_0`$ the cross section is rising sufficiently rapidly to satisfy the deep shower bound and at the same time, it is sufficiently large in the trans-GZK energy region. These values of $`E_0`$ and $`M`$ give $`N_015.6`$ confirming the intuitive expectation. The neutrino-nucleon cross section is shown in Fig. (1).

Due to the exponential dependence of eq. (5) on the parameters, one cannot vary their values over a broad range without getting a contradiction either with the bound on deep showers and/or with the required value of the cross section for trans-GZK showers. Neutrino induced showers were simulated using the ALPS (Adaptive Longitudinal Profile Simulation) Monte Carlo package authored by Paul T. Mikulski. Similarly to earlier studies, see, e.g.  it was assumed that quarks and leptons are created in comparable numbers in an interaction as long as the CM energy of an interaction remains above $`M`$. Once the energy drops below $`M`$, the usual Standard Model cross sections govern the further development of the shower. A qualitative consequence of this feature is that, statistically, neutrino induced showers exhibit larger fluctuations than proton induced ones, see 777This is a consequence of the fact that, once in the standard model regime, leptonic interactions have a lower average multiplicity than hadronic ones.. In addition, once the cross section becomes larger than about 15-20 mb, the shower starts high in the atmosphere. Hence, on an event by event basis, such showers are virtually indistinguishable from hadron induced showers

## 5 Conclusions

The trans-GZK energy region presents a unique opportunity to get hints on the qualitative features of theories going beyond the Standard Model. In astrophysics, these extensive air showers may bring information either about cosmologically early times or about the most violent regions in the Universe. To be able to distinguish among these numerous imaginative scenarios, the collection of high statistics data is necessary. In the near future this will become possible with the continued operation and improvements of AGASA and HiRes and with the start of the hybrid (grand array and air fluorescence) megadetactor, the Pierre Auger Observatory.

## 6 Acknowledgement

We thank Professors K. Meier and O. Nachtmann for the organization and running of a very stimulating and inspiring Workshop.


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# Dynamics of ferromagnetic nanomagnets with vortex or single-domain configuration

## Abstract

We study the dynamics of flat circular permalloy nanomagnets for 1.) magnetic vortex and 2.) single-domain configurations using micromagnetic simulation. Dynamical studies for isolated vortex structures show that both the vorticity and the polarity of the out-of-plane component can be switched fast (50-100 ps). Micromagnetic simulations of the switching process in thin cylindrical Permalloy(Py) nanoparticles with an initial stable single-domain state show nearly homogeneous single-domain behavior followed by excitation of spin waves.

PACS numbers: 75.30.Ds; 75.40.Gb; 75.40.Mg; Keywords: Micromagnetics; Spin waves; Dynamical simulations

The magnetism of small ferromagnetic structures has become increasingly important e.g. for nonvolatile random access memories (MRAMs) . Nanostructured Permalloy is a possible candidate for such devices. As it is an essential feature in the technology of magnetic recording to read and write magnetic states as fast as possible we study the dynamics of flat circular permalloy nanomagnets with magnetic vortex or single-domain configuration using micromagnetic simulations.

There are four equivalent vortex states since the vorticity (clockwise/counterclockwise) and the central polarization (up or down) are independent. The possibility of storing and switching two bits of information instead of only one makes these vortex structures quite interesting.

It is known from  that the vorticity of a magnetic dot can be switched in $``$ 40 ps with strong enough and short enough perpendicular out-of-plane field pulses.

In the present work, we consider 1.) the question, whether also the polarization can be switched reproducibly and as fast as the vorticity.

Therefore the results of a micromagnetic simulation performed with OOMMF, , on a cylindrical Py dot with diameter 300 nm and 10 nm thickness are shown. We have used Py parameters ($`M_s=800000\frac{\mathrm{A}}{\mathrm{m}}`$ for the saturation magnetisation, $`A=1.310^{11}\frac{\mathrm{J}}{\mathrm{m}}`$ for the exchange stiffness and $`\alpha =0.008`$ for the Gilbert damping). The initial magnetisation configuration is a (relaxed) vortex state. We apply a typical out-of-plane field pulse (100 ps duration) of $`B_z=0.2\mathrm{T}`$, plus $`B_x=0.002\mathrm{T}`$ to induce torque at $`x=y0`$.

Fig. 1 shows the magnetic configurations of this dot at different times. After 100 ps the central polarization flips from ”up” to ”down”.

Thus it is possible to switch the central polarization of a Py dot with vortex configuration in 100 ps by applying strong out-of-plane perpendicular field pulses. So these Py dots are candidates for independent switching of both the chirality, and the central polarisation of vortex configurations.– 2.) In the following the switching dynamics of single-domain-states in a flat circular Py cylinder are considered (diameter 150 nm, thickness 2 nm, same material as above, with an additional small in-plane uniaxial anisotropy $`K_u=500\mathrm{J}/\mathrm{m}^3`$ with easy axis along the magnetisation at $`t=0`$; the initial state is a stable single-domain-state). In the simulation now an in-plane field-pulse of $`0.05\mathrm{T}`$ (strong enough for precessional switching) perpendicular to the magnetisation was applied instantaneously for $`t0`$ and switched off at $`t0.1\mathrm{ns}`$, just after the reversal of the magnetisation.

Fig. 2 shows the time-dependence of the x-component of the magnetisation, compared to a numerical calculation of the same process with fictitiously $`homogenous`$ magnetisation (no exchange interactions).

The main results are:

* During the switching process ($`t0.1\mathrm{ns}`$) single-domain-behaviour predominates.
* After the reversal dipole-exchange-spinwaves are excited.
* The energy of the spin-system decreases exponentially $`\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau )`$ with a time constant $`\tau 0.65\mathrm{ns}`$.

A Fourier transformation of $`M_z(t)`$ leads to a ’discrete’ frequency-spectrum (fig. 3) because of the edge-conditions (free spins at the edge). The lowest frequencies $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ can be explained by uniform precession of the spins in the anisotropy fields of the above-mentioned uniaxial anisotropy $`K_u`$ and a (fictitious) fourfold anisotropy, generated by the discretization of the simulation volume; the frequencies $`f_3`$ and $`f_4`$ are eigenmodes of the spin-wave-spectrum, the corresponding eigenfunctions are shown as inset in figure 3 (the greyscale corresponds to the z-component of the magnetisation). A theory for these quantized modes is given in .