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# Field Effect Transistor Based on KTaO3 Perovskite

Electronic mail: \]kazunori-ueno@aist.go.jp Also at: \]Department of Advanced Materials Science, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8581, Japan

Also at: \]Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Also at: \]Department of Advanced Materials Science, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8581, Japan, and CREST, JST

## Abstract

An n-channel accumulation-type field effect transistor (FET) has been fabricated utilizing a $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystal as an active element and a sputtered amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ film as a gate insulator. The device demonstrated an ON/OFF ratio of $`10^4`$ and a field effect mobility of 0.4 $`\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ at room temperature, both of which are much better than those of the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FETs reported previously. The field effect mobility was almost temperature independent down to 200 K. Our results indicate that the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ interface is worthy of further investigations as an alternative system of future oxide electronics.

Solid state devices based on transition metal oxides (TMO), especially with perovskite related structure, are very promising candidates for the next generation electronics due to their rich variety of functions such as superconductivity, ferroelectricity, and colossal magnetoresistance. Among those devices, the field effect transistor (FET) is the most fundamental one, and thus the fabrication of FETs using perovskite-related oxides for conducting channels is a first step in a large movement towards oxide electronics. Nevertheless, only a small number of perovskite FETs with relatively low mobilities have been reported so far. ybco\_fet ; mott\_fet ; italy\_sto ; sto\_thesis  In this letter, we explore a new perovskite-FET with higher mobility characteristics.

The key component of our new device is $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$, an n-type semiconductor with a band gap of 3.8 eV, which, in single crystalline form, exhibits a relatively higher mobility of 30 $`\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ at room temperature than other perovskites. This originates in the broad conduction band consisting of Ta 5d.ktao3\_mobility  Moreover, $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ is commonly used as a substrate for oxide thin film growth, ktao3\_surface\_trough ; ktao3\_film2 ; ktao3\_surface\_flat  and as such, surface treatments of the $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single-crystal substrate has been extensively studied in the past. Therefore, once we fabricate an FET on $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$, we can expect to apply the method to a number of other functional oxides integrated on top of $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$.

Recently, we have succeeded in fabricating FET devices on the (001) surface of $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ single crystals, and have demonstrated a clear n-channel action.sto\_thesis  The gentle sputter-deposition of an amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ gate insulator enabled us to avoid deterioration of the interface substantially. We tried to extend this technique to the ”pretreated” surface of $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystals, and successfully fabricated FET devices with distinguished characteristics. By following a simple pretreatment procedure of the surface,the FET characteristics became quite reproducible. These $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ FETs show an n-type behavior with an ON/OFF ratio of $`10^4`$ (at a drain voltage $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}=1V`$) and a field effect mobility $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ of $`0.4\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ at room temperature. These values are much better than those of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET reported previously.sto\_thesis

Single crystal substrates of $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ with dimensions of $`10\times 10\times 0.5\mathrm{mm}`$ were used. The surface was polished by the vendor. earth\_seiyaku  Before the fabrication of devices, the substrate was annealed at high temperatures, as described later. The structure and fabrication of the device were essentially the same as those in our $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET(Ref.). Al metal with a thickness of 20 nm, which forms the source and drain electrodes, was thermally evaporated onto the (001) surface of $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ through a Ni stencil mask. Then, an insulating layer of amorphous $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ with a thickness of 50 nm was deposited by a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering at a deposition rate of $`2.5\mathrm{\AA }/\mathrm{min}`$. Finally, a gold wire was attached on the top of the insulating layer by conducting gold paint. In overhead view, the gold paint covers the entire channel region to act as a gate electrode. The channel length $`L`$ of the device was 100 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and the width $`W=`$ 400 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. All the measurements were carried out using an Agilent Technologies 4155C semiconductor parametric analyzer.

Figure 1 (a) shows the drain-source voltage ($`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$)-current ($`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$) curves for various gate voltages $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ of the device fabricated on the $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystal ( see the discussion of the surface treatment below). The data were taken at room temperature. The device performed as an n-type and accumulation-type FET. By applying positive $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$, $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ is greatly enhanced, whilst for negative $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$, no enhancement of $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ was observed until the gate breakdown. A clear saturation of $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ (pinch-off) was observed at high $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$. It is worth mentioning that the ON/OFF ratio, defined as the ratio between $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ for $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ = 0 V and 5 V, exceeds $`10^4`$ for $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ = 1 V. This is two orders of magnitude larger than the best value achieved to date with $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET. Using the general definition,

$$\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}\frac{I_{\mathrm{DS}}}{V_{\mathrm{GS}}}\left(\frac{L}{C_iWV_{\mathrm{DS}}}\right),$$

we obtain $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}=`$ $`0.4\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ at $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ = 5 V from the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ curve for $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ = 1 V shown in Fig. 3. Here, $`C_i=0.16\mu \mathrm{F}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$ is the capacitance per unit area of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3`$ gate insulator. The deduced value of $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ is much higher than the best value of our $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET.

It should be noted that not only the performance of the device but also the reproducibility was much better in $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ FET than in $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET. This is because a high-quality surface can be easily obtained on $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystals by a simple heat treatment. We speculate that the lower sublimation energy of the $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ surface than is reported with the $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ surface plays an important role in preparing high-quality surfaces in the annealing process. Figure 2 demonstrates the surface morphology of the $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystal with various heat treatments as observed by atomic force microscopy (AFM). In a sample with no heat treatment (“virgin sample”), no structure is observed as seen in Fig. 2(a). Annealing at low temperature below 650 $`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ for one hour in flowing pure oxygen of 50 sccm at a total pressure of 1atm resulted in the formation of small islands and shallow holes (Fig. 2(b)). When annealed at 700 $`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$, we observed flat terraces and steps of single unit-cell height as shown in Fig. 2 (c). This so-called step-and-terrace structure is viewed as an evidence for high quality of surface. High temperature annealing above 750 $`{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ resulted in the disappearance of step-and-terrace structure, as well as in the formation of plate-like grains. A clear FET performance comparable to those in Fig. 1 was reproducibly observed only in devices fabricated on the step-and-terrace surface.

The relatively high mobility of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ n-channel FET motivated us to study the field effect at low temperatures. To see the temperature dependence of $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$, the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ characteristics for $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ = 1 V were measured with decreasing temperature from 270 K to 200 K. For the data in Fig.3 (a), we use the same device as used for the data in Fig.1. The maximum limit of the applied gate voltage at each temperature was such that the gate leakage current could not exceed 10 pico-amperes. In Fig. 3(a), it is clear that the slope of the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ curve for a given $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ is almost independent of temperature. Shifting each $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ curves by $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}V_{\mathrm{GS}}(I_{\mathrm{DS}}=100\mathrm{nA})`$, as seen in the inset of Fig. 3(a), all the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ curves coincide well with each other, indicating that the apparent temperature dependence of the observed $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ curves has been essentially caused by the temperature dependence of $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$. This temperature dependence of $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$ has been plotted in the upper panel of Fig. 3(b). The origin of this strong temperature dependence is as yet unclear.organic\_vth

The lower panel of Fig. 3(b) shows $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ as a function of temperature. Since the mobile carrier density at the interface is in general proportional to an “effective” gate voltage $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{\mathrm{eff}}V_{\mathrm{GS}}V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$, $`\mu _{FE}`$ at several values of $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ are plotted. All the $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ are almost independent of temperature at least down to 200 K. Indeed, we found that the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ curves at 300K and 250K for the same $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$ are almost identical, confirming the temperature independence of $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$. We also note that $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ shows an increase with increasing $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{\mathrm{eff}}`$, which might be caused by a rapid increase in the mobile carrier density at the interface.

These results indicate the formation of metallic channel layers at high enough gate voltages and thus the possibility of superconductivity at cryogenic temperature as seen in bulk $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ is worth exploring further. Unfortunately, $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ becomes diminishingly small below a characteristic temperature $`T^{}`$ ($`200\mathrm{K}`$), and we could not estimate $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ below $`T^{}`$. This is because with decreasing temperature below $`T^{}`$, $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$ becomes so large that we cannot apply $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ near $`V_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$ without a risk of destructive breakdown of the gate insulator. Even in this temperature range, however, when a critically large $`\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ is applied, we observe a nonlinear increase of $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ upon increasing $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ and thus enabling $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ to be detected, as seen in the $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$-$`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ curves in Fig. 1(c). This non-linear increase of $`I_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ as a function of $`V_{\mathrm{DS}}`$ indicates that the current injection to the channel is becoming blocked at lower temperature, presumably due to the formation of a Schottky barrier at the interface between $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ and the Al electrodes.

In summary, we have demonstrated that $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ is one of the most promising materials for perovskite FET technology. The FET fabricated on the heat-treated surface of a $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ single crystal showed accumulation-type behavior and reproducible n-channel transistor characteristics with $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}>`$ 0.4 $`\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{Vs}`$ and an ON/OFF ratio greater than $`10^4`$ at room temperature. These specifications are substantially better than those of the best $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ FET reported so far. We believe this success of the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ FET strongly inspires future research into oxide electronics. At the very least, this technique can be easily extended to a group of perovskite-related oxides with which a variety of doping induced phenomena possibly give rise to novel functional devices. Moreover,the temperature-independent $`\mu _{\mathrm{FE}}`$ suggests that by suppressing the increase of $`\mathrm{V}_{\mathrm{GS}}^{}`$ at low temperature unexplored metallic state at the $`\mathrm{Al}_2\mathrm{O}_3/\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$ interface will be investigated possibly in the light of low energy phenomena of carrier-injected $`\mathrm{KTaO}_3`$.

We would like to thank Y. Ishii, T. Ito, M. Kawasaki, H. Sato and A. Sawa for helpful discussion, and N. E. Hussey for critical reading of the manuscript.


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# Critical Current Peaks at 3𝐵_Φ in Superconductors with Columnar Defects: Recrystalizing the Interstitial Glass

## Abstract

The role of commensurability and the interplay of correlated disorder and interactions on vortex dynamics in the presence of columnar pins is studied via molecular dynamics simulations. Simulations of dynamics reveal substantial caging effects and a non-monotonic dependence of the critical current with enhancements near integer values of the matching field $`B_\varphi `$ and $`3B_\varphi `$ in agreement with experiments on the cuprates. We find qualitative differences in the phase diagram for small and large values of the matching field.

The rich phases of vortex matter in high temperature superconductors result from a complex interplay between disorder, interactions and fluctuationsreview . Understanding the physics of these competing effects has been a challenge which underlies the nature of various static and dynamic phases and transitions between them. Of particular interest is the role of columnar defects created by heavy ion radiation in forming more effectively pinned phases of interacting vortices. Extended or correlated disorder is much more effective at pinning vortices than uncorrelated (point-like) disorder and produces upward shifts of several tesla in the irreversibility lines and concomitantly larger critical currents.

The physics of 3D vortex pinning via correlated disorder can be approximately mapped onto the problem of interacting quantum bosons in the presence of uncorrelated disorder in 2DNelson1 . This has formed the basis for many computational studies via quantum Monte Carlo simulations of local repulsive bosonsBatrouni  and exact diagonalization studiesTrivedi . Several pinned phases of vortex matter emerge as a function of $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, where $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the equivalent matching field where the number of vortices equals the number of defects. For the case where the pins outnumber the vortices $`(B<B_\mathrm{\Phi })`$, a Bose-glass phase is formed where vortices are localized onto columnar defects and possess an infinite tilt modulus for tilts away from columnar alignment. For equal numbers of vortices and defects $`(B=B_\mathrm{\Phi })`$, an analog to a Mott insulating phase exists which possesses an infinite compression modulusNelson1 . The existence of the Bose-glass phase is well documentedreview ; Batrouni , and evidence for the Mott phase has been found in recent magnetization relaxation measurements at low temperaturesBeauchamp ; Nowak . For the case when the vortices outnumber the pins, $`(B>B_\mathrm{\Phi })`$, the situation is much less clear. Recent work has suggested that vortices not accommodated to the columnar defects are caged by pinned vortices to form a weakly pinned “interstitial Bose” glass. It has been conjectured that the melting temperature $`T_m`$ decreases rapidly as the density of interstitial vortices increases for large fields, and either extends smoothly into the Bose glass phaseNelson1  or shows a change in slope (kink) at $`B=B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$rad ; LV . Some experimentsworth ; Krusin ; Nakielski ; Samoilov  do not show substantial changes of the irreversibility line at $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, while others show only a mild kink at $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ Beauchamp ; Maz ; Nowak ; Smith99 ; Smith01 . The change is even less significant for larger defect concentrations (larger $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$).

Moreover, interesting effects are seen as $`B`$ further increases past $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$. In analogy with the presence of Mott lobes in the dual superconducting-insulator transition in 3D, one would expect different phases at commensurate values of vortex filling. Nowak et al found that the critical current in Tl2Ba2CuO6+δ decreases for $`B>B_\varphi `$ but then increases and goes through a maximum near $`3B_\varphi `$Nowak , which is currently unaddressed by theory.

One of the weakness of previous numerical studiesBatrouni ; Trivedi  is the use of a short-range screened interaction which misses the softening of the shear modulus in the absence of pins in the weak field limit as noted by Fetter, Hohenberg and PincusFetter ; Nelson1 ; NS . The purpose of this paper is to address the importance of this omission by investigating the properties of the pinned and moving phases via 3D molecular dynamics simulations of vortices interacting via a long-range potential in the presence of columnar defects. Our key result is that the softening of the shear modulus in the low field limit has important implications for the phase diagram. We confirm the existence of a weakly pinned interstitial glass which becomes more weakly pinned as the field increases in agreement with previous studies of short-range interactionsTrivedi . However we find a qualitatively new phase diagram for low fields where the interstitial glass melts near $`B=B_\varphi `$ and recrystalizes at higher fields when the matching field is below a critical value. In this regime we find strong numerical evidence for enhanced values of the critical current near three times the matching field. This questions the quantitative appropriateness of the mapping of vortex physics onto the physics of the superconductor-insulator transition without a properly detailed consideration of long-range interactions.

We model the motion of vortices as coupled pancakes on neighboring, continuous planes separated by a distance $`z`$, with the applied magnetic field aligned perpendicularly to the planes. The off-lattice simulation models the motion of vortices referenced by a 2D coordinate $`𝐫`$ under the influence of pinning and repulsive vortex interactions, and driving, line bending, and thermal forces:

$$m_l\ddot{𝐫_𝐢}=\eta _l\dot{𝐫_𝐢}+𝐟_𝐃+𝐟_𝐓\frac{H(\{𝐫_\mathrm{𝟏},𝐫_\mathrm{𝟐}\mathrm{}\})}{𝐫_𝐢}.$$
(1)
Here $`f_D=\mathrm{\Phi }_0J/c`$ is the Lorentz force per unit length due to an applied current density $`J`$ perpendicular to the magnetic field. $`\eta _l=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2}{2\pi \xi ^2\rho _nc^2}`$ is the Bardeen-Stephen viscous drag coefficient, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0=(hc/2e)`$ the flux quantum and $`\rho _n`$ the normal state resistivity. The Langevin thermal force per unit length $`f_T`$ is normalized to set the rms vortex velocity via the equipartition theorem. The Hamiltonian $`H`$ is the sum of the line tension for bending, and vortex-vortex and vortex-disorder potentials per unit length constructed via London theory. The line tension is given by $`ϵ_l=ϵ\mathrm{ln}(\kappa )ϵ_0`$ with $`ϵ=(m_c/m_{ab})^2,\kappa =\lambda /\xi ,ϵ_0=(\mathrm{\Phi }_0/4\pi \lambda )^2`$, and $`\lambda `$ magnetic penetration depth. The vortex interaction is given by a sum of pairwise interactions $`V_{vv}(𝐫)=ϵ_0K(𝐫/\lambda )`$ with $`K`$ a Hankel functionreview . We model the correlated extended defects as smooth parabolic traps of width $`R_p`$ and uniform depth $`V_p=ϵ_l/4`$. Defects are randomly placed and aligned along the c-axis.

For DC transport, in most cases the vortex mass per unit length $`m_l`$ is overall quite small in comparison with the other parameters in Eq. (1)mass  and has thus usually been neglected in previous numerical studies in 3D of vortex dynamicsReichardt96 . However, in the case of superconductors near a Mott instability, such as the underdoped cuprates, the vortex mass can be immensely enhanced as the system approaches a superconductor-insulator transitionDoniach . We thus keep this term and simply relate the vortex mass to the mass of the highly renormalized electrons confined to the vortex core region, $`m_l=m_{eff}n\pi \xi ^2`$, with $`n`$ the electron density and $`m_{eff}`$ the in-plane effective mass of the electron renormalized by strong interactions. While we have found that the vortex mass has an impact on the magnitude of the critical current, the relative $`J_c`$ for different vortex densities do not drastically depend on the choices made.

Periodic boundary conditions are imposed in the planes to maintain constant global flux density, and open boundary conditions are employed along the c-axis. Temperature is chosen which is high enough to allow individual vortices to be quickly accommodated to defects in the absence of a driving current but well below the glass temperatureTrivedi .

We measure all energies in units of the bare line bending energy $`ϵ_0`$ and measure all lengths in units of $`d=4\xi `$. A natural time unit $`t_0`$ is chosen to be $`\pi \kappa \eta _ld^2/ϵ_l`$ and the time step is further discretized in units of $`0.01t_0`$ for the simulations. The current is measured in units of the BCS depairing current $`J_0=\mathrm{\Phi }_0c\kappa /12\sqrt{3}\pi ^2\lambda ^3`$, and resistivities in terms of the Bardeen-Stephen flux-flow resistivity $`\rho _{BS}=B\mathrm{\Phi }_0/(c^2\eta _l)`$. The other parameters used in the simulations are dictated by values appropriate for YBa2Cu3O7: $`m_{eff}=5m_e,R_p=2\xi ,\xi =17\AA ,z=12\AA ,\kappa =100,`$ and $`ϵ=1/25`$, giving $`H_{c2}=120`$T.

Our simulations were performed using up to 40,000 vortex segments in a $`128d\times 128d`$ square periodic cell containing 80 planes, where finite size effects were investigated and found to be minimal. Measurements are taken over an interval of $`10^6t_0`$ after the system has reached a steady state after a typical time $`3\times 10^5t_0`$. We typically average the results over several hundred realizations of disorder particularly at smaller driving forces. We measure the average vortex velocity in the direction of the Lorentz force corresponding to the voltage drop across the sample, and determine the resistivity $`\rho =/J`$.

Our results for the resistivity $`\rho `$ versus the applied current density $`J`$ are shown for a series of vortex densities below and above the matching field $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ for two different values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in Fig. (1A and B). All error bars are equal to the symbol size. For the pinned Bose-glass regime $`B<B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and for appreciable $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (Fig. 1A), vortices are localized on separate columnar defects for small $`J`$ until an abrupt transition to a moving regime ensues near $`J0.1J_0`$where the vortices simultaneously become unpinned. For larger driving currents, vortices are in the flux flow regime and the resistivity approaches $`\rho _{BS}`$. The de-pinning transition occurs within a narrow range of currents corresponding to single vortex pinning. Consequently, as $`B`$ increases, the depinning transition occurs for smaller $`J`$ and significantly broadens as the effective role of disorder diminishes relative to the vortex lattice interaction, in agreement with previous simulationsTrivedi . The resistivity increases monotonically with increasing $`B`$ as shown in the inset of Fig. (1A). For values of $`B`$ near and above the matching field, a low-current tail develops for small $`J`$ and continues to increase as more and more interstitial vortices are not able to reside on columnar defects due to the repulsion from the pinned vortices. These interstitial vortices are caged by the pinned vortices forming an weakly pinned interstitial glass with a much reduced critical current $`J_c`$, as suggested in Refs. rad ; LV . As $`B`$ is further increased, the interstitial glass melts into a interstitial liquid where channels of vortices flow around pinned vortices for arbitrarily small $`J`$ and give a resistivity proportional to the fraction of interstitial to pinned vortices. We note that for our parameter choices we do not observe a Mott insulating phase as we always have interstitial vortices for $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }=1`$ due to the long-range vortex repulsion and high temperatures.

Important differences however are observed for smaller values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ (Fig. 1B). For $`B<B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in this case, the transition to depinning occurs at lower $`J`$ and is substantially broadened compared to Fig. (1A). A non-monotonic dependence of the resistivity appears as shown in the inset of Fig. (1B). For low driving forces the resistivity rises with increasing $`B`$ for $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }<1.5`$ and becomes greater than $`0.1\rho _{BS}`$ for $`B>B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ as the interstitial glass melts into an interstitial liquid as the density of vortices is increased. However at larger fields the resistivity decreases and becomes less than $`0.1\rho _{BS}`$ for fields near three times the matching field.This indicates that for low $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the Bose glass melts into an interstitial liquid near the matching field and recrystalizes into an interstitial glass at larger values of $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, in contradiction to the phase diagram proposed previouslyrad .

We can make this more quantitative by defining a critical current density $`J_c`$ as the value of the current density corresponding to a resistivity of 10% of $`\rho _{BS}`$. For a number of different molecular dynamics runs of different $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, the values we obtain for $`J_c`$ are shown in Fig. (2) as a function of $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ normalized to the values of $`J_c`$ determined in the small $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ limit. For large $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, the critical current decreases monotonically with $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with a gradual fall-off near the matching field. For smaller values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the fall-off near $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ becomes much more abrupt, suggesting that a magnitude of the kink in the melting curve would be dependent on the value of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, reconciling previous experimentsBeauchamp ; Nowak ; worth ; Krusin ; Nakielski ; Samoilov ; Maz ; Smith99 ; Smith01 . For even smaller $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, the fall-off is dramatic and the interstitial glass weakens appreciably and melts ($`J_c=0`$) near a critical value of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }^c/H_{c2}1.9\times 10^3`$. Remarkably, the critical current resurrects for larger values of the magnetic field and has a broad peak near $`B=3B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ for $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }/H_{c2}\times 10^3=1.906`$ before falling off again at still larger fields. This reproduces the peak near three times the matching field seen in experiments on Tl2Ba2CuO6+δ Nowak . However we see that still smaller values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ yields a critical current peak at larger values of $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ suggesting that this peak would be dependent on the number of defects. While we expect that the actual value of the critical field $`B^c`$ might depend on our choice of defining $`J_c`$, we do not expect the rentrant behavior into the interstitial glass to be qualitativelty changed. A proposed phase diagram which encompasses our results for different $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is given in Figure (3).

Using renormalization group arguments it was shown by Nelson and Seung that for clean systems the interactions between vortex lines are renormalized to zero near $`H_{c1}`$ and leads to the melting of the Abrikosov lattice as $`HH_{c1}`$NS . Thus we might expect that the melting of the interstitial glass for $`BB_\mathrm{\Phi }0^+`$ is similar to the melting of the vortex lattice near $`H_{c1}`$Nelson1 ; NS . However for $`B<B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ vortex localization onto unoccupied columnar defects helps to reduce vortex fluctuations and one might expect the Bose glass to be stable near $`H_{c1}`$ as vortices occupy the strongest defects. Yet once $`B>B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ the interstitial vortices feel a much reduced and screened defect interaction and suffer the downward renormalization of the shear modulus as in clean systems. This is borne out in our simulations for small defect concentrations. As the field increases our simulations indicate that the interstitial glass recrystalizes. This can be viewed as a hardening of the shear modulus for increasing fields as the role of interactions increases.

What leads to the recrystalization of the melted interstitials at larger values of $`B`$ for small defect concentrations? At large vortex concentrations the Coulomb potential is effectively short-range due to screening and the effects of disorder are also screened by flux line collisions, and indeed our results are consistent with prior simulations for contact repulsive potentialsTrivedi . The system favors forming dislocations at larger fields and the domains are vortices are easily depinned. For smaller vortex concentrations, new physics arises as screening is no longer effective and the bare long-range repulsive forces encourage longer-range ordering concommitant with decreased prevalence of dislocation and subsequent enhanced vortex pinning.

To check these ideas, we plot in Figure (4) time-averaged structure plots for $`B=3B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ at two values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$. While long-range order is not seen even on the length scale of our simulations, it is clear that orientational short-range order is more prevalent for the small $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ results than the large ones, with subsidiary structure peaks at the reciprocal lattice vectors up to 1/2 the height of the central ($`Q=0`$) peak. When averaged over many disorder configurations, the orientational order is lost for both values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$, yet it is clear that the effective range of the vortex repulsion is longer for smaller $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$. We would expect that for still smaller values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ positional order would grow for systems of fixed finite size $`L`$ with the possible formation of Bragg-like peaks. Most likely the positional order would not be quantitatively relevant for $`L\mathrm{}`$.

In summary, we have presented numerical simulations of interacting vortex dynamics in the presence of columnar disorder as a function of $`B/B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }/H_{c2}`$. We find a monotonic decrease in the critical current for large values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$,a with a sharp drop-off near the matching field, consistent with prior notions of the weakly pinned intersitial glass emerging at higher fields. For smaller values of $`B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ however, we see abrupt melting at $`B=B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and recrystalization near $`B=3B_\mathrm{\Phi }`$ of the interstitial glass, suggesting modifications to the phase diagram due to the role of long-range interactions even for columnar disorder.

###### Acknowledgements.

T.P.D. would like to thank T. Giamarchi, M. J. P. Gingras, and T. F. Rosenbaum for many useful discussions. T.P.D. would like to acknowledge support from NSERC, PREA, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust, and the Alexander von Humboldt foundation.


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# Characterizing Low-Ionization Structures in PNe

## 1. Introduction

Low-ionization ‘microstructures’ of planetary nebulae (PNe) are those structures that are much more prominent in \[N ii\], \[S ii\], and \[O ii\] than in the \[O iii\] or H$`\alpha `$ emission lines. The low-ionization structures (LIS, Gonçalves et al. 2001) appear with different morphological and kinematical properties in the form of pairs of knots, filaments, jets, or isolated features moving with supersonic velocities through the large-scale components in which they are located, or instead as structures with the above morphologies but with low velocities that do not differ substantially from that of the main nebula111The fast, low-ionization emission regions, FLIERs (Balick et al. 1993) and bipolar, rotating, episodic jets, BRETs (López et al. 1995) are particular types of LIS, i.e., high-velocity knots and jets.. For the sake of conciseness, the complete table listing all known LIS will not be reproduced here; however, readers are referred to the web page at www.iac.es/galeria/denise/PNe\_LIS.html where the morphology and kinematics of LIS, as compared to those of the main PN bodies, are shown. This table, adapted from Gonçalves et al. (2001), also includes those ‘new’ objects whose LIS were identified after 2001.

It is important to keep in mind the number of PNe that are known to possess LIS. These amount to 55 objects. If we consider the number of Galactic PNe imaged with at least one filter of higher and another of lower ionization (Balick 1987; Schwarz et al. 1992; Manchado et al. 1996), we end up with 527 PNe. Therefore, about 10% of the Galactic PNe are actually confirmed to have LIS.

## 2. Types of LIS from their Morphology and Kinematics

Many authors, as can be noted from the above-cited table, have been working on the characterization of LIS. So the reader is referred to the list in the table in order to obtain information on the morphology/kinematics for each of the objects listed. On the other hand, Gonçalves et al. (2001) offers a detailed study concerning the morphological and kinematic classification of LIS as compared to theoretical model predictions, where the authors gather together 50 PNe containing LIS, with all their different types (see Figure 1. Also check Tables 2 to 5 of Gonçalves et al. (2001) for the kinematical ages, positions and orientations of LIS with respect to the rim and the major axes of the PN main bodies). The most relevant conclusions, reached from the morphology and kinematics of LIS, are shown below.

### 2.1. Pairs of Jets

Most of the properties of jets in NGC 7009, NGC 6891, and NGC 3918 can be explained by HD and MHD interacting stellar wind (ISW) models. The observed linear vexp $`\times `$ d (distance from the center) would favor the MHD (García-Segura et al. 1999) and the stagnation jet (Steffen et al. 2001) models. K 4-47, M 1-16 and Fg 1 would better be explained by accretion disk jet models (Blackman et al. 2001); while Hb 4, NGC 6210, and NGC 6543, showing jets which are kinematicaly younger than the main PNe shells, do not fit within the predictions of any model. Some jets have large (say 90) jet–nebula angles (Hb 4, NGC 6210, and NGC 6884). It is still not clear if the magnetic/rotation axis and polar axis misalignments (García-Segura & López 2000; Blackman et al. 2001) can account for large tilt angles like these.

### 2.2. Jetlike Pairs

IC 4593, He 2-429, NGC 6881, K 1-2, Wray 17-1, and probably NGC 6751 show features that are very much like jets, but that are moving with velocities which do not differ substantially from those of the PN main bodies (see Corradi et al. 1997, 1999; Guerrero et al. 1999). Models only predict high-velocity jets instead of jetlike features, with the exception of the transient low-velocity collimated micro-structures of the Soker (1992), Ró$`\dot{\mathrm{z}}`$yczka & Franco (1996), and Steffen et al. (2001) models.

### 2.3. Pairs of Knots

Symmetrical high-velocity pairs of knots can, in principle, be accounted for by HD or MHD interacting stellar winds, accretion disk winds, or stagnation zone models, since models for the jet formation can also easily explain the origin of pairs of knots. The non-detection of the outward-facing bow shocks that should be associated with these features might be caused by instabilities (HD/radiative; Soker & Reveg 1998). On the other hand, pairs of low-velocity knots are less studied theoretically. We suggest that fossil AGB knots, implying a very peculiar AGB mass-loss geometry, could be responsible for at least some of the low-velocity pairs of knots.

### 2.4. Isolated LIS

Isolated LIS may be formed by in situ instabilities and/or by fossil AGB mass-loss inhomogeneities. However, from their positions with respect to the rim (the shell formed by the interaction between the AGB and the post-AGB winds), they are not related to dynamical instabilities because of the action of the fast post-AGB wind (see Table 5 of Gonçalves et al. 2001). The rocket effect (Mellema et al. 1998) could, in some cases, explain the peculiar velocities of the high-velocity isolated LIS.

## 3. The Physical Parameters and the Excitation Properties of LIS

From the above, it seems clear that at least part of the LIS characteristics can be reasonably explained by the different models intended to account for their formation, at least in terms of morphology and kinematics. Now, which are the observables for further comparison with models? How we can go further in distinguishing between the various physical processes for the origin of LIS?

Densities or density contrasts of LIS are reported in the literature for many PNe individually. Balick et al. (1994) and Hajian et al. (1997) dealt with physical properties in a group of PNe with high-velocity pairs of knots (FLIERs). We are now trying to answer issues such as: i) whether the density contrast plays a role on the low-velocity LIS; ii) whether the low-density pairs could be features slowed down by the medium (since they are more easily stopped); and iii) whether the high-density knots might originate in mass-loss episodes prior to PN formation. We are dealing with these questions by analyzing not only FLIERs but also the other types of LIS, i.e., the low-velocity ones.

What about the excitation mechanisms of the low-ionization structures? Should we observe shocked–excited emission from the high-velocity LIS (Dwarkadas & Balick 1998; Soker & Reveg 1998)?

Let us analyze the case of NGC 7009 (which shows one of the best known jets in PNe) and then compare its characteristics with those of other PNe with low- and high-velocity pair of knots, as well as jets.

### 3.1. $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, $`N_\mathrm{e}`$ and the Excitation of NGC 7009

The physical, chemical, and excitation properties of NGC 7009, including its pair of jets (J1, J2), inner (K2, K3) and outer (K1, K4) pairs of knots, and the rim (R1, R2), were recently studied by Gonçalves et al. (2003); see Figure 2. This is one of the PNe in our sample observed with the 2.5 m INT (ORM, La Palma, Spain), in August 2001. Our spectra were taken at P.A. = 79 (slit width = 1′′.5, slit length = 4) and cover the optical range from 3700 Å to 6750 Å, with 3.3 Å pix-1 and 0′′.70 pix-1 resolutions (see also Gonçalves et al., this volume).

As is clear from Fig. 2, the $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ throughout the nebula is remarkably constant, $`T_e`$\[O iii$``$ 10 200 K; the bright inner rim and inner pair of knots have similar densities of $`N_e`$\[S ii$`6000`$ cm-3, whereas a much lower density of $``$ 1500 cm-3 is derived for the outer knots, as well as for the jets. This implies that the outer pair of knots, being as dense as the jets, cannot originate from the matter swept up by jets, as expected from some model predictions (see discussion below).

We use two relevant diagnostic diagrams (Phillips & Cuesta 1999) to investigate the excitation of the selected features in NGC 7009 (Figure 3). These diagrams separate the zones of radiatively excited emission lines (the PN zone) from the zone mainly excited by shocks. It is clear that all eight structures in NGC 7009 are mainly radiatively excited by the central star of the PN.

### 3.2. $`T_\mathrm{e}`$, $`N_\mathrm{e}`$ and the Excitation of Other PNe with LIS

In Table 1 we collect the $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ and $`N_\mathrm{e}`$ of some PNe with jets/knots. In the second and third columns, these properties for the main shell (rim) are shown, followed by those for the jets/knots in the same PNe. Note, from the table, that most jets/knots are between 2 and 10 times less dense than the nebular main bodies or their surroundings (the exceptions being K 4-47 and NGC 6210). What does this mean? Have the density contrasts been erased by the knots’ expansion because of the ionization process, as suggested by Soker & Reveg (1998)?

In the diagnostic diagrams, presented in the previous section, we actually put together many PNe. Please take into account that the microstructures in Figure 3 are real jets, jetlike systems, and both high- and low-velocity pairs of knots. The first important result we can extract from these plots is that low-velocity LIS (in He 2-429 and He 1-1) cannot be separated from the high-velocity ones (all the others), most of them being distributed in the PN zone (an emission characteristic of photoionization instead of shock excitation) or above it. Second, only a few LIS (those of Kj Pn 8, K 4-47, and M 2-48) are mainly excited by shocks. These three PNe appear to be the youngest in the sample. Are the jets/knots in the other, more evolved, PNe ‘relaxed’ in the sense that the once shock excited LIS were reached by the central star ionization front, which came to be the most relevant excitation process?

## 4. Discussion and Conclusions

In summary, what do we really know about LIS in PNe? From the observations:

1. LIS appear as pairs of jets, knots, filaments, and jetlike features, or as isolated systems;
2. Sometimes LIS expand with the rim, shells or haloes in which they are embedded, but sometimes they are much faster than the main PNe components;
3. They are spread indistinctly within all the morphological classes of PNe;
4. In general, they do not have an important density contrast with respect to the main bodies; and
5. Most LIS systems studied up to now are mainly photoionized.

Concerning the comparison of LIS properties with the theoretical predictions, some of their characteristics appear hard to explain (see Balick & Dwarkadas 1998; Gonçalves et al. 2001, 2003; Balick & Frank 2002). However, the origin of part of these systems (from their morphology and kinematics) can be reasonably understood via ISW models, in single stars or binaries, with or without magnetic fields, precession, and wobbling.

The fact that the expected shock excitation of jets and other high-velocity LIS is not usually observed could mean that jets/knots are relaxed systems in the sense that shock excitation and high density contrasts are no longer present because LIS were already reached by the energetic photons of the post-AGB central star, and/or affected by local instabilities (Dopita 1997; Miranda et al. 2000; Soker & Reveg 1998). Finally, it is remarkable that both shock excited LIS and LIS with high density contrasts are found in young PNe. This may imply that jetlike systems and low-velocity pairs of knots are the remnant of real jets and high-velocity pairs of knots, which suffered the effects of drastic slowing down and photoionization, being therefore, found in more evolved PNe.

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# Equivalence between focussed paraxial beams and the quantum harmonic oscillator

## I Introduction

It is well known that in the limit of short wavelengths, wave optics can be reduced to ray-optics: Maxwell’s equations can be reduced to the eikonal equations of geometric optics.shortwavelength ; Born.Wolf.book  Ray optics therefore is an emergent theory with limited applicability. The ray optical description of optical image formation is simple and satisfactory for many purposes. Indeed, if thin lens formulae apply and complications such as chromatic aberration can be neglected, the description is so simple that it is standard material in undergraduate physics education.textbook.thin.lens  But optics requires a wave description when the characteristic length scales of a beam of light become comparable to its wavelength. Even when the thin lens formula appears to be applicable, a wave optical description becomes necessary where a focused light beam’s transverse extension shrinks to a point, for example, in all focal areas of a conventional imaging apparatus. Wave optics limits the resolution of point-images through aperture dependent point-spread functions.Born.Wolf.book ; textbook.thin.lens ; Saleh.Teich.book ; Siegman.book ; Haus.buch

We investigate the fundamental building blocks of general images: focused, monochromatic beams. Specifically, we consider focused beams in the paraxial approximation and assume that we can treat the polarization degrees of freedom separately so that we can apply the paraxial approximation to the scalar Helmholtz equation. Since a general image is described by a suitable mixture of coherent beams (of different frequencies, polarization, etc.) our considerations are of some generality. Beams that are not too strongly focused can typically be decomposed into a complete orthonormal set of modes that have a simple analytical description. The most widely used are the Hermite-Gaussian transverse electromagnetic modes (TEM-modes), which we will introduce in Sec. II. These modes are essentially suitably rescaled wave functions of a harmonic oscillator multiplied by phase factors arising from the specific geometry of the beam, see Eq. (4).Saleh.Teich.book ; Siegman.book ; Haus.buch  This connection between coherent optical beams and harmonic oscillators is known, but it seems to be little appreciated that the two systems are isomorphic (but see Ref. Nienhuis, ). The amplitude of a focused paraxial beam corresponds to the amplitude of a quantum harmonic oscillator, the former’s intensity to the probability distribution of the latter, and the Gouy-phase of opticsFengOL01  assumes the meaning of time for the quantum harmonic oscillator.

We derive this equivalence by a transformation of the paraxial wave equation of optics into the Schrödinger equation for the quantum harmonic oscillator in Sec. III. We then give a few illustrative examples for this equivalence in Sec. IV, which will allow us to discuss some counterintuitive aspects of optical beam behavior.

## II Hermite-Gaussian Beams: TEM-modes

General monochromatic TEM-beam modes in the paraxial approximation are solutions of the associated scalar Helmholtz equation for the electro-magnetic vector potential $`𝐀`$ propagating in vacuum at speed $`c`$ (with the dispersion relation, $`\omega =ck`$)Haus.buch

$$^2𝐀(𝐫,t)\frac{1}{c^2}\frac{^2𝐀(𝐫,t)}{t^2}=0,$$
(1)
where $`𝐫=(x,y,z)`$ and $`t`$ describe position and time coordinates. A monochromatic beam with wave number $`k`$ travelling in the positive $`z`$-direction and linearly $`x`$-polarized is described by the vector potential $`𝐀=(A_x,A_y,A_z)`$ whose only non-zero component is $`A_x`$ withHaus.buch

$$A_x(𝐫,t;k)=\psi (𝐫)e^{i(kz\omega t)}.$$
(2)
If we insert this ansatz into the Helmholtz equation (1) and factor out the common plane wave phase factor $`e^{i(kz\omega t)}`$, we obtain a differential equation for the field envelope $`\psi (𝐫)`$ alone:

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2\psi (𝐫)}{x^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2\psi (𝐫)}{y^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2\psi (𝐫)}{z^2}}+2ik{\displaystyle \frac{\psi (𝐫)}{z}}`$ (3a)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2\psi (𝐫)}{x^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{^2\psi (𝐫)}{y^2}}+2ik{\displaystyle \frac{\psi (𝐫)}{z}}.`$ (3b)
Equation (3b) represents the paraxial approximation; it is based on the observation that, for beams that are not too strongly focused (several wavelengths across), the $`z`$-dependence of the field derivative is primarily due to the plane wave factor $`2ik`$, which allows us to discard the dependence on $`\psi /z`$. When we perform the second derivative, the term $`^2\psi /z^2`$ is consequently assumed to be negligible.Haus.buch

The paraxial approximation significantly simplifies our task because it has the familiar transverse electromagnetic TEMmn-modes $`\psi _{mn}`$ as solutions.Saleh.Teich.book ; Siegman.book ; Haus.buch  They contain products of Gaussians and Hermite polynomials in the transverse beam coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$, that is, the familiar harmonic oscillator wave functions $`\phi _m(\xi )=H_m(\xi )\mathrm{exp}(\xi ^2/2)/\sqrt{2^mm!\sqrt{\pi }}`$, $`(m=0,1,2,\mathrm{}),`$ and various phase factors,Saleh.Teich.book ; Siegman.book ; Haus.buch  namely

$`\psi _{mn}(𝐫)={\displaystyle \frac{w_0}{w(z)}}\phi _m({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}x}{w(z)}})\phi _n({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}y}{w(z)}})`$
$`\times e^{\frac{ik}{2R(z)}(x^2+y^2)}e^{i(m+n+1)\varphi (z)}.`$ (4)
The relation that links the minimal beam radius $`w_0`$ with the Rayleigh range $`b`$ via the light’s wavelength $`\lambda `$ and wave number $`k`$ is given by $`w_0=\sqrt{2b/k}=\sqrt{\lambda b/\pi }`$. The beam radius (where the intensity has dropped to $`1/e^2`$ of the central intensity) at the distance $`z`$ from the beam waist obeys $`w(z)=\sqrt{w_0^2(1+z^2/b^2)}`$, and for large $`z`$ implies the expected amplitude decay of a free wave $`1/|z|`$ with a far-field opening angle $`\mathrm{arctan}(\lambda /(\pi w_0))`$.

The corresponding wave front curvature is described by the radius $`R(z)=(z^2+b^2)/z`$, and the longitudinal Gouy-phase shiftSiegman.book ; Haus.buch  follows

$`\varphi (z)=\mathrm{arctan}(z/b),`$ (5)
which varies most strongly at the beam’s focus. Note that the associated Gouy-phase factor $`e^{i(m+n+1)\varphi (z)}`$ depends on the order $`n`$ and $`m`$ of the mode functions. Different modes therefore show relative dephasing or mode-dispersion, particularly near the focus.

The vector potential $`A_x`$ of Eq. (2) describes a beam travelling in the positive $`z`$-direction ($`𝐤=k\widehat{𝐳}`$) and yields an electric field that is polarized in the $`x`$-direction with a small contribution in the $`z`$-direction due to the tilt of wave fronts off the beam axis.Haus.buch  According to Maxwell’s equations in the paraxial approximation, that is, neglecting transverse derivatives, we find for the electric field vector,Haus.buch  ($`\widehat{𝐱},\widehat{𝐲},\widehat{𝐳}`$ are the unit-vectors and Re stands for the real part)

$$𝐄(𝐫,t;𝐤)=\text{Re}\left\{[\widehat{𝐱}\omega \psi (𝐫)+\widehat{𝐳}ic\frac{\psi (𝐫)}{x}]e^{i(kz\omega t)}\right\}.$$
(6)
The associated instantaneous electrical intensity distribution isHaus.buch

$$I(𝐫,t)=\frac{ϵ_0}{2}𝐄(𝐫,t)^2\frac{ϵ_0}{2}\omega ^2\text{Re}\{A_x(𝐫,t)\}^2.$$
(7)
## III Transformation to Harmonic Oscillator Schrödinger Equation

We have derived the paraxial approximation of the wave equation in Eq. (3) and found that the solutions, except for some phase factors and a coordinate rescaling in the arguments of the solutions, look like those of the quantum harmonic oscillators. We shall therefore now “undo” these various factors and transform the paraxial wave equation into Schrödinger’s equation to establish the isomorphism between both systems.

Based on the shape of the solutions (4), we apply the following coordinate transformations $`[x,y,z][\xi ,\eta ,\tau ]`$, which establishes new coordinate lines $`\xi `$ and $`\eta `$ that follow the focused beams’ hyperbolic flow lines (see Fig. 1)

$$x=\xi \frac{w(z)}{\sqrt{2}},y=\eta \frac{w(z)}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(8)
Because of Eq. (5), we let

$$z=b\mathrm{tan}(\tau ),$$
(9)
where $`\tau `$ plays the role of time. If we use these new coordinates and the ansatz $`\psi (x,y,z)=\mathrm{\Psi }(\xi ,\eta ;\tau )e^{\frac{ik}{2R(z)}(x^2+y^2)}/w(z)`$ in the paraxial wave equation (3), we find after a lengthy but straightforward calculation

$$\left[\frac{^2}{\eta ^2}\frac{^2}{\xi ^2}+\eta ^2+\xi ^22i\frac{}{\tau }\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(\xi ,\eta ;\tau )=0,$$
(10)
which is the Schrödinger equation for the harmonic oscillator. The units are $`\mathrm{}=m=\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$, where $`m`$ is the mass and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2\pi /T`$ is the resonance frequency of the harmonic oscillator. We have established the equivalence between focused beams and harmonic quantum oscillators.

Note that the $`z`$-coordinate $`z=(\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$ in the optical case was transformed to time $`\tau =(\pi /2,\pi /2)`$ in the harmonic oscillator case, whereas the role of time in the optical case has no analog in the harmonic oscillator case because we had to factor out the plane wave phase factor $`e^{i(kx\omega t)}`$. In other words, the isomorphism we established links the beam’s envelope amplitude $`\psi (x,y,z)`$ with a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\xi ,\eta ;\tau )`$.

## IV Examples: Single-mode and Two-mode Profiles

For simplicity, we will now consider one-dimensional beam patterns. We choose the $`y`$-mode to be the zero-mode, and thus concentrate on the behavior in the transverse $`x`$-direction only, that is, we investigate the beams in the $`xz`$-plane. For easy comparison, we depict focused beams with a beam parameter of $`b=20\lambda `$. Our first example is that of a single TEM40-beam, plotted in Fig. 2; we next consider a more interesting case, a two-mode superposition of TEM-modes 30 and 40 (see Fig. 3).

For the two-mode superposition in Fig. 3 we can clearly see the interference between modes $`\phi _3`$ and $`\phi _4`$ at work and how it leads to the redistribution of the intensity from one beam edge to the other, thus inverting the transverse beam profile about the beam axis. This intensity redistribution is ultimately due to the mode-dispersive effect of the Gouy-phase factor $`e^{i(m+n+1)\varphi }`$ in the optical case and the time phase factor $`e^{i(m+1/2+n+1/2)\mathrm{\Omega }t}`$ for the two-dimensional harmonic oscillator. Note that a beam that is focused only in one transversal direction (using a cylindrical lens rather than a spherical one) corresponds to a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator,FengOL01  because in this case the Gouy-phase factor is $`e^{i(m+1/2)\varphi }`$ and corresponds to a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator phase factor $`e^{i(m+1/2)\mathrm{\Omega }t}`$. Clearly, both systems evolve through half an oscillation period ($`t=T/4,\mathrm{},T/4`$. (Remember, the Gouy-phase (5) varies from $`\pi /2`$ to $`\pi /2`$.)

We know from ray optics that images become inverted at the focus. Here we see how this image inversion arises through the action of the Gouy-phase. In the language of the harmonic oscillator, it corresponds to half an oscillation $`[\pi /2,\pi /2]`$ or swinging to the “other” side.

To gain further insight, we plot the beam’s instantaneous intensity distribution $`I(x,0,z;0)`$ in Fig. 4. It can clearly be seen that the relative phase of $`90^{}`$ between modes 4 and 3 tilts the wave fronts, and the action of the Gouy-phase “transports” the beam’s envelope across the focus.

Similarly to the case discussed in Fig. 3, but at first seemingly less intuitively, we can also have a scenario where the harmonic oscillator starts out with an average position at the beam center, then swings up to one side and falls back to the center. In wave optical terms this scenario corresponds to a field with a symmetric far-field distribution that is asymmetric at the focus and becomes symmetric in the far-field on the other side, this is illustrated in Fig. 5.

It also is possible to create a beam that, in oscillator language, starts out in the center and swings to either side to fall back to the center forming an annulus with a dark center at the beam’s focus (see Fig. 6). It also can be viewed as a beam that is overly focused in the far field. Then, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle $`\mathrm{\Delta }(x)\mathrm{\Delta }(p_x)\mathrm{}/2`$, such a spatially strongly localized harmonic oscillator carries a large momentum uncertainty. The bottom of Fig. 6 displays the harmonic oscillator ground state together with the superposition of modes 0 and 2. Clearly the superposition is spatially more confined than the ground state, and its Fourier transform reveals a large spread, namely, a central peak and two momentum peaks that are displaced from zero. In other words, this superposition describes a harmonic oscillator that “explodes” sideways and then swings back to the center. The seemingly counterintuitive formation of a dark center at the focus becomes easy to understand. Its two-dimensional analog is the optical bottle beam observed very recently.optical-bottles  The latter is formed from a superposition of Laguerre-Gaussian modes 0 and 2, and thus carries basically the same structure in a cylindrical geometry as our example of Fig. 6 in the $`xz`$-plane.

A possible technical implementation of the patterns discussed here is sketched in Fig. 7 and has recently been demonstrated experimentally.ole.glasgow  For further details on experimental implementations using computer-generated holograms, consult Refs. optical-bottles, ; ole.glasgow, ; computer.hologram, . The field profiles sketched here should be useful for optical manipulation techniques as well.ole\_jopa05

## V Conclusion

Focused beams cannot be described by ray optics in their focal region. Therefore an intuitive understanding of the wave optical behavior of a coherent, focused beam with transverse intensity modulation is desirable. It is shown that the paraxial wave equation is equivalent to the Schrödinger equation of a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator. This equivalence is used to show how the passage of a beam through its focus can be understood in terms of the behavior of a harmonic oscillator evolving through half a period.

In particular, the inversion of a focused beam’s far-field intensity pattern about the beam axis, upon passage through the focus, is described in terms of a harmonic oscillator swinging to the “other” side, and the formation of a bottle beam is explained by the behavior of a constricted beam pattern that corresponds to a harmonic oscillator fanning outward and recollapsing.

###### Acknowledgements.

I wish to thank Mark Dennis for pointing out that the formal equivalence between paraxial focused beams and quantum harmonic oscillators is not well known. I also thank Paul Kaye, Joseph Ulanowski, Jon Marangos, Ed Hinds, Miles Padgett, Johannes Courtial, and Eric Yao for stimulating discussions, and a referee for some clarifications.


text:
# Recent Results from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

## 1 Introduction

For over three decades, solar neutrino experiments bib:homestake -bib:superk  have been observing fewer neutrinos than what are predicted by the detailed models (e.g. bib:bpb ) of the Sun. These experiments probe different parts of the solar neutrino energy spectrum, and show an energy dependence in the measured solar neutrino flux. These observations can be explained if the solar models are incomplete or neutrinos undergo flavour transformation while in transit to the Earth. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, using 1000 tonnes of 99.92% isotopically pure D2O as the neutrino target, was constructed to resolve this puzzle. Detailed physical description of the SNO detector can be found in Ref. bib:sno .

The SNO detector detects solar neutrinos through the following channels:

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\nu _e+d\hfill & & p+p+e^{}\hfill & \text{(CC)}\hfill \\ \nu _x+d\hfill & & p+n+\nu _x\hfill & \text{(NC)}\hfill \\ \nu _x+e^{}\hfill & & \nu _x+e^{}\hfill & \text{(ES)}\hfill \end{array}$$

The charged-current (CC) reaction on the deuteron is sensitive exclusively to $`\nu _e`$, and the neutral-current (NC) reaction has equal sensitivity to all active neutrino flavours ($`\nu _x`$; $`x=e,\mu ,\tau `$). Elastic scattering (ES) on electron is also sensitive to all active flavours, but with reduced sensitivity to $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _\tau `$. SNO is currently the only experiment that can simultaneously observe the disappearance of $`\nu _e`$’s and their appearance as another active species. By counting the free neutron in the final state of the NC reaction, the total active 8B neutrino flux can be inferred for neutrinos with energy above the 2.2-MeV kinematic threshold.

In the first phase of the SNO experiment, the free neutron from the NC interaction was detected by observing the 6.25-MeV $`\gamma `$ ray following its capture on a deuteron. To enhance the neutron detection efficiency, 2 tonnes of salt was added in the second phase of the experiment. In this case, the free neutron is captured by 35Cl and a $`\gamma `$-ray cascade with a total energy of 8.6 MeV is emitted. In the final phase of the experiment, 3He proportional counters, the “Neutral-Current Detectors” (NCD) bib:browne , are deployed on a 1-m grid in the D2O volume. Free neutrons are captured by 3He in this phase. Results bib:snocc ; bib:snonc ; bib:snodn  from the first phase of SNO experiment and its prospects in the salt and NCD phases of the experimental program are presented in this talk.

## 2 Results from the Pure D2O Phase

The data presented in this talk were recorded between November 2, 1999 and May 28, 2001. The target was pure D2O and over 450 million triggers were recorded. The corresponding livetime was 306.4 days.

Detector diagnostic triggers and instrumental background events were first removed in the offline data processing. The latter reduction was accomplished by a set of algorithms that remove events that do not have the characteristics of Cherenkov light emission. For the events that passed the first offline reduction, the calibrated times and positions of the hit photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) were used to reconstruct the vertex position and the direction of the particle. The energy estimator then assigned an effective kinetic energy $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ to each event based on these reconstructed parameters and the number of hit PMTs. The energy estimator used calibration results such as light attenuation as inputs, and was normalized to the detector response to a 16N source bib:nsix . The linearity and spatial dependence of the energy estimator were checked by a 252Cf fission source and a 19.8-MeV $`\gamma `$-ray source bib:poon . The neutron detection efficiency was calibrated with a 252Cf fission source.

Radioactive decays of the daughters in the natural 232Th and 238U chains were the dominant backgrounds in the neutrino signal window. The levels of 232Th and 238U daughters in the detector were determined by radiochemical assays of the detector target bib:ander  and by analyzing the Cherenkov signals from their decays in the neutrino data set. The radioactive backgrounds were found to be better than those specified in the design criteria of the detector.

To test the null hypothesis of no neutrino flavour transformation in solar neutrinos, the extended maximum likelihood method was used to extract the CC, ES and neutron (i.e. NC+background) contributions in the candidate data set. Background contributions were constrained to the measured values. Data distributions in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, the volume-weighted radial variable $`(R/R_{AV})^3`$ and $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{}`$ were simultaneously fitted to the probability density functions (PDFs) generated from simulations. $`R_{AV}=600`$ cm is the radius of the acrylic vessel, and $`\theta _{}`$ is the angle between the reconstructed direction of the event and the instantaneous direction from the Sun to the Earth. Assuming an undistorted 8B energy spectrum bib:ortiz , the fluxes of the $`\nu _e`$ ($`\varphi _e`$) and non-$`\nu _e`$ ($`\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$) components were found to be (in units of 106 cm-2 s-1):

$`\varphi _e`$ $`=`$ $`1.76_{0.05}^{+0.05}\text{(stat.)}_{0.09}^{+0.09}\text{(syst.)}`$
$`\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$ $`=`$ $`3.41_{0.45}^{+0.45}\text{(stat.)}_{0.45}^{+0.48}\text{(syst.)}`$
Figure 1 shows $`\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$ vs. $`\varphi _e`$ deduced from the SNO data. Combining the statistical and systematic uncertainties in quadrature, $`\varphi _{\mu \tau }`$ is 5.3$`\sigma `$ above zero, and provides strong evidence for flavour transformation. Removing the energy constraint, the signal decomposition was repeated using only the $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{}`$ and $`(R/R_{\mathrm{AV}})^3`$ distributions. The total flux of active 8B neutrinos in the unconstrained fit was found to be (in units of 106 cm-2 s-1)

$$\varphi _{\text{NC}}=6.42_{1.57}^{+1.57}\text{(stat.)}_{0.58}^{+0.55}\text{(syst.)}$$

The correlation coefficients from the energy constrained and the unconstrained fits are shown in Table 1.

## 3 Current Status of the Salt Phase

Neutrino flavour transformation can be an energy dependent process (e.g. the MSW mechanism bib:msw ). The energy constrained analysis in pure D2O made the explicit assumption of an undistorted 8B neutrino spectrum. The unconstrained results suffered from the strong anti-correlation between the CC and NC channels. The addition of 2 tonnes of NaCl to the D2O target was aimed at improving the separation between CC and NC without invoking the energy constraint. Unlike the radiative capture of a neutron on deuteron, neutron capture on 35Cl typically produces multiple $`\gamma `$ rays while the CC and ES reactions produce single electrons. The greater isotropy of the Cherenkov light from neutron capture events relative to CC and ES events allows good statistical separation of the event types. Simulations show that the statistical uncertainties in the NC channel reduce significantly in the unconstrained fit when Cherenkov light isotropy is included. This is shown in Table 2.

There are a number of challenges to the analysis of the data in the salt phase. A few of these challenges are described in the following. To minimize the possibility of introducing biases, a blind analysis procedure is being used. The data set used during the development of the analysis procedures and the definition of parameters excluded an unknown fraction ($`<`$30%) of the final data set, included an unknown admixture of muon-following neutron events, and included an unknown NC cross-section scaling factor. At the time of this talk, the blindness constraints have not been removed.

After the addition of NaCl into the D2O target, the amount of detected Cherenkov light has dropped significantly over a short period of time. Following this sharp drop, there has been a gradual decline in the detector gain (Figure 2). There are a number of contributors to the drop in detector gain. These include the degradation of the light concentrator surrounding each PMT, and the increase in the concentration of polymer colloids and Manganese due to the necessary modifications to the water purification procedures in the presence of NaCl. Preliminary studies show that the absolutely energy scale uncertainty in the salt phase to be $``$1.1%. This is to be compared to 1.1% in the pure D2O phase.

The SNO simulation package, which uses EGS4 bib:egs  to simulate electromagnetic showers, predicted a more isotropic light distribution than what is observed from the energy and background calibration sources. It was subsequently discovered that the electron scattering cross section in EGS4 neglects the Mott scattering terms, which reduce the amount of large angle scattering. A correction derived from a Monte Carlo treatment of multiple scattering of electrons has been added to the SNO simulation package. The agreement between the Monte Carlo prediction and the observed Cherenkov light isotropy improved significantly after this correction is made.

24Na is a non-negligible low energy background in the neutrino signal window. This radioisotope is produced in the water circulation system by neutrons emitted from the rock wall in the underground laboratory. It can also be produced in-situ by calibration sources (e.g. the 252Cf source). In order to understand the production and the distribution of this background, a controlled neutron activation has been carried out. The amplitude of this background in the neutrino signal window is found to be small.

At the time of this talk, the SNO collaboration is finalizing the analysis procedures that are necessary for removing the data blindness constraints. The results of the energy unconstrained NC measurement, along with its interpretation, will be reported in the near future.

## 4 Future Prospects and Summary

The SNO collaboration is now preparing for the NCD phase of its physics program. In this phase, the NC neutrons are detected by the NCD array and the Cherenkov light from the CC signals are detected by the PMTs. This separation of the detection mechanism will significantly reduce the statistical anti-correlation of the signals. In addition, a measurement of the neutrino energy spectrum via the CC reaction can be made with higher precision with the reduction of NC signal in the Cherenkov light spectrum.

Once the data blindness constraint is removed in the salt phase, the D2O target will be desalinated. All the 3He counters have been constructed and are being characterized in the underground laboratory. There are intense activities in the final calibration of the detector in the salt phase, preparing for the desalination process, preparing for the NCD deployment, and integration of the NCD electronics and data acquisition system.

The SNO experiment has demonstrated conclusively that solar $`\nu _e`$’s transform their flavour while in transit to the Earth. A high precision measurement of the total active solar neutrino flux without any assumption of the energy dependence of the neutrino flavour transformation probability is near completion. In the next few months, the SNO physics program will enter its NCD phase. It is anticipated that the data from this NCD phase, along with data from the previous phases, will significantly enhance our understanding of the properties of neutrinos.