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# EXPLORE/OC: A Search for Planetary Transits in the Field of the Southern Open Cluster NGC 6208

## 1 Introduction

The EXPLORE collaboration has previously monitored Galactic plane fields for evidence of transiting close-in extrasolar giant planets Mallen-Ornélas (2003). Using the experience built up in the deep Galactic plane searches, we are now conducting a complementary study of open clusters.

While the potential number of monitorable stars in the Galactic plane fields is generally higher than in open clusters, an open cluster offers a large sample of stars sharing a common age, metallicity, distance, and reddening. By trading off the number of stars that can be monitored, we thus gain control over the properties of our stellar sample (although, since open clusters are concentrated in the Galactic plane, many of the stars will be from the field and not part of the cluster sample; also, we may see differential reddening across the field). In surveying a specific cluster, we accumulate statistics for stars sharing a common set of relatively easily measured properties, and we can target a specific range of spectral types by adjusting the exposure time. Our campaign will be useful in order to constrain the occurrence of planets as a function of age and metallicity, and will also allow us to compare the frequency of planets in a cluster environment to that in the Galactic field.

NGC 6208 (distance=1.10kpc, E(B-V)=0.35, \[Fe/H\]=0.00 Twarog (1997); age=1.00 Gyr Piatti (1995)) was chosen out of a list of potential targets because of its observability, its high star count, and a distance and reddening such that with five-minute exposures, cluster G and K dwarfs would typically be monitored with better than 1% photometry in $`I`$. We conduct our survey in the $`I`$-band (rather than $`V`$ or $`R`$) to minimize the effects of limb-darkening on the slope of a transit’s ingress and egress, allowing for better discrimination of good transit candidates from other low-amplitude variations (such as blends and grazing binaries) Seager (2003).

Here, we present some of our observations, data reduction techniques, and preliminary results from our survey of NGC 6208. Preliminary results of the study of the first target in the EXPLORE/OC campaign, NGC 2660, are presented in a companion paper von Braun (2004) in this volume.

## 2 Observations

From May 16 to June 19, 2003, we observed NGC 6208 ($`l=333.7^{}`$, $`b=5.8^{}`$) using the Swope 1-m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. We obtained 1730 $`I`$-band monitoring frames over $`22`$ clear nights out of a run one-third interrupted by poor winter weather (the effect of this loss on transit detection is illustrated in Figure 1). When monitoring NGC 6208, we took successive 300 sec. $`I`$-band exposures of a 15’$`\times `$23’ field centred on the cluster, imaged onto 2048$`\times `$3350 CCD pixels, with 130 seconds readout. On a photometric night, we also obtained a handful of $`BVR`$ frames for photometric calibration and construction of colour-magnitude diagrams, and $`BVRI`$ frames of a nearby off-cluster comparison field centred at ($`l=334.7^{}`$, $`b=5.8^{}`$). We have collected low-resolution ($`R`$ $``$ 2000) spectra of selected variable and selected typical stars from our field ($`50`$ in all) for MK classification; these data were taken on July 27 and 28, 2003, using the B&C spectrograph on the Magellan Baade 6.5-m telescope at Las Campanas, using the 1200 lines/mm grating blazed at 4000Å, providing a spectral coverage of 3607Å-5239Å and a dispersion of 0.8Å/pixel.

## 3 Analysis and Results

The $`BVRI`$ data were used to construct colour magnitude diagrams of the NGC 6208 field and the nearby Galactic field (see Figure 2). The cluster main sequence is clearly distinguishable from the Galactic field population for $`I<13.5`$. There, the star count for the cluster field is $`21`$% above the count for the comparison field. The percentage of Galactic field stars per magnitude bin grows towards fainter magnitudes.

The monitoring data were analyzed using the existing EXPLORE photometric pipeline Mallen-Ornélas (2003). This fast pipeline allowed us to make light curves of a given night’s data with one day’s turnover, and hence to begin looking for transit-like features while still at the telescope. Figure 3 shows the root mean square variation in the $`I`$ magnitude over one night’s monitoring, and demonstrates that we achieve 1% precision from $`I17`$ up to saturation of the detector near $`I14.2`$.

We examined, by eye, all of the best light curves (unphased photometric precision better than $``$ 1.5%, $``$ 15000 light curves). To flag a light curve as a candidate transit, we required the detection of at least two low-amplitude eclipse-like features. Our window function for detecting two transits is shown in Figure 1.

In our data, we found one light curve featuring a transit-like signal (see Figure 3). Preliminary spectroscopic data indicate this star’s spectral type is late G; however, because the ingresses and egresses of the eclipses are relatively shallow, it is unlikely to be a planet Seager (2003). While this star may not harbour a transiting planet, it is one example of our ability to rapidly detect variability at the 1% level in our open cluster surveys.


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# Untitled Document

Analytic proof of the Sutherland conjecture
J. Dittrich111Also a member of the Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics, Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, Czech Technical University, Prague.

Nuclear Physics Institute ASCR, CZ-250 68 Řež, Czech Republic
and

V.I. Inozemtsev

BLTP JINR, 141980 Dubna, Moscow Region, Russia

Abstract

Using the integral representation of the inverse of the logarithmic derivative of the elliptic theta function, the spectrum of the Lax matrix for the 1D system of particles interacting via inverse sinh-squared potential is shown to be given by the asymptotic Bethe ansatz in the thermodynamic limit.

The problem of the verification of the asymptotic Bethe ansatz method  still remains unsolved more than 30 years after its first presentation. The method consists in using only scattering data for the description of the integrable many-body systems in the thermodynamic limit. It is well known that if the system is integrable in the Yang-Baxter sense, the many-body scattering matrix is expressed via only two-particle phase shift but real structure of the wave functions might be rather complicated if the interaction is nonlocal. In particular, when the two-body potential is of the form $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi x/L)`$, where $`L`$ is the size of the system, or $`1/\mathrm{sinh}^2(x)`$, the wave functions differ drastically from the linear combinations of the plane waves inherent for the Bethe ansatz. Despite the exact results in the thermodynamic limit available for $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\pi x/L)`$ case are in complete coincidence with the asymptotic Bethe ansatz, the reason for this coincidence is still quite mysterious and it cannot be used as an argument to validate the method for the case of $`1/\mathrm{sinh}^2x`$ pair potential which is more complicated from the mathematical viewpoint .

Due to the lack of a general approach to the problem, any particular exact results confirming the asymptotic Bethe ansatz are of interest. Some years ago, Sutherland  proposed one example of very good numerical coincidence of the asymptotic results with exact ones. It concerns the densities of the distribution of the eigenvalues of the $`L`$ matrix from the Lax pair  for the systems of particles interacting via $`1/\mathrm{sinh}^2x`$ potential,

$$L_{jk}=p_j\delta _{jk}+(1\delta _{jk})i\lambda \mathrm{coth}(x_jx_k),$$

where $`p_j=i/x_j`$ obey the canonical commutation relations $`[x_j,p_k]=i\delta _{jk}.`$ The corresponding Hamilton operator reads

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}p_j^2+\lambda ^2\underset{j<k}{}\frac{1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2(x_jx_k)}.$$

Asymptotically, if $`x_1\mathrm{}x_N`$, the particles have the momenta $`k_1<\mathrm{}<k_N`$ and the elements of the Lax matrix become $`c`$-numbers,

$$(L_{as})_{jk}=k_j\delta _{jk}+i\lambda \mathrm{sgn}(jk).$$
$`(1)`$
The asymptotic Bethe ansatz gives the asymptotic momenta as solutions to the equations

$$Lk_j=2\pi I_j+\underset{lj}{\overset{N}{}}\tau (k_jk_l),$$
$`(2)`$
where $`\tau (k)`$ is the two-body phase shift, $`L`$ is the total size of a system and $`\{I_j\}`$ are quantum numbers. In the classical limit $`\lambda \mathrm{}`$, for the ground state, (2) becomes an integral equation for large $`N`$ and $`L`$ ,

$$2a=_A^A𝑑x^{}\gamma (xx^{})\rho (x^{}),$$
$`(3)`$
where

$$\gamma (x)=\mathrm{ln}(1+x^2),$$

$`\rho (x)`$ is the density of the momentum distribution in the ground state, and $`a=L/N`$ is average nearest-neighbor spacing (or the lattice constant). The kernel of this integral equation is symmetric and positive definite. Thus it has unique solution at given $`A`$ . The normalization condition

$$_A^A\rho (x^{})𝑑x^{}=1$$
$`(4)`$
defines $`A`$ as a function of $`a`$. The distribution of the eigenvalues of the Lax matrix can be connected with the distribution of the momenta . Indeed, it follows from (1) that the equation for the eigenvalues

$$\mathrm{det}(L_{as}Iz)=\frac{1}{2}\left[\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}(k_jz+i\lambda )+\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}(k_jzi\lambda )\right]$$

$$=\underset{s=1}{\overset{N}{}}(\omega _sz)=0$$

can be written as

$$(s+1/2)\pi =\frac{1}{2i}\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{ln}\left[\frac{k_j\omega _s+i\lambda }{k_j\omega _si\lambda }\right]=\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{arctan}\left[\frac{\lambda }{k_j\omega _s}\right].$$

A discontinuous branch of arctan with values in $`[0,\pi ]`$ is used here. In the thermodynamic limit, the eigenvalues $`\{\omega \}`$ are distributed with the density $`\sigma (\omega )`$: $`N\sigma (\omega )d\omega `$ gives the number of $`\{\omega \}`$ in the interval $`(\omega ,\omega +d\omega )`$. Hence

$$\frac{ds}{d\omega }=N\sigma (\omega ).$$

Differentiating the above relation with respect to $`\omega `$ and taking classical limit gives

$$\sigma (\omega )=\frac{1}{2\pi }_A^A\frac{dx\rho (x)}{(x\omega )^2+1/4}$$
$`(5)`$
after rescaling of variables . One can see that in the classical limit the density $`\sigma (\omega )`$ can be calculated via the solution of the integral equation of the asymptotic Bethe ansatz method (3).

On the other hand, in this limit the particles take their equilibrium positions at $`x_j=ja`$ in the ground state with $`k_j=0`$. The form of the Lax matrix becomes simpler,

$$L_{jk}=(1\delta _{jk})i\lambda \mathrm{coth}[a(jk)],$$
$`(6)`$
and the distribution of its eigenvalues can be calculated directly since (6) is of the Toeplitz form. Its eigenvectors are the plane waves, and after imposing periodic boundary condition (i.e. regularization of the determinant) and taking thermodynamic limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ one could introduce the variable $`\varphi =2\pi s/N`$ defining the continuous distribution

$$\omega (\varphi )=\omega _s=\omega _{N\varphi /2\pi }.$$

The result can be written upon rescaling $`\omega 2\lambda \omega `$ in the form

$$\omega (\varphi )=\frac{\theta _1^{}(\varphi /2)}{2\theta _1(\varphi /2)},$$
$`(7)`$
where $`\theta _1(x)`$ is the standard theta function

$$\theta _1(x)=2\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}(1)^nq^{(n+1/2)^2}\mathrm{sin}(2n+1)x$$

with the nome $`q=e^a`$. The density of the eigenvalues is given now by the formula

$$\sigma (\omega )=\frac{1}{2\pi }\frac{d\varphi }{d\omega },$$
$`(8)`$
where the derivative is calculated through the relation

$$\frac{d\omega }{d\varphi }=\frac{1}{4}\left[\frac{\theta _1^{}(\varphi /2)}{\theta _1(\varphi /2)}\right]^{}$$

$$=\frac{K^2}{\pi ^2}\left[\frac{KE}{K}\frac{1}{\mathrm{sn}^2(K\varphi /\pi )}\right].$$
$`(9)`$
Thus one gets two representations for the density of the eigenvalues of the classical Lax matrix, one exact ( formulae (7-9)) and one obtained by using the asymptotic Bethe ansatz method (formulae (3-5)). If it is true, they should coincide. The main difficulty in verifying this fact is that there is no chance to find analytic solution to the integral equation (3). In , Sutherland found good coincidence of both expressions by solving this equation numerically with high accuracy. However, analytic solution of the problem has not been found.

In what follows, we propose a construction which uses analytic properties of the elliptic functions and provides the desired proof. Let us introduce the notation $`\chi _r=\mathrm{}e\chi `$, $`\chi _i=\mathrm{}m\chi `$ for any complex $`\chi `$. Consider at first the problem of explicit construction of the inverse function $`\varphi (\omega )`$ such that

$$\varphi (\omega (\lambda ))\lambda .$$

It is clear that it is no longer holomorphic in the $`\omega `$-plane. Indeed, on the lines $`\varphi =\varphi _r\pm ia`$ one finds $`\omega (\varphi )=\omega _r\pm i/2`$ due to the quasiperiodicity property

$$\omega (\varphi +2ia)=\omega (\varphi )+i,\omega (\varphi +2\pi )=\omega (\varphi ).$$

One has also

$$\omega _r(\pm ia)=\omega _r(2\pi \pm ia)=0.$$

The derivative $`\frac{d\omega }{d\varphi }`$ is double periodic with periods $`(2\pi ,2ia)`$ and has double pole in the fundamental domain

$$0\mathrm{}e\varphi <2\pi ,a\mathrm{}m\varphi <a.$$

Therefore it must have just two zeros giving two extremal points of $`\omega (\varphi )`$: one minimum of $`\omega _r`$ located at $`\varphi _{min}+ia`$ and one maximum located at $`2\pi \varphi _{min}+ia`$. Both these extrema are considered with respect to line $`\mathrm{}m\varphi =a`$, and $`\varphi _{min}(0,2\pi )`$. Let us denote $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=\omega _r(2\pi \varphi _{min}+ia)`$. Then it is evident that the function $`\varphi (\omega )`$ should have two cuts in the $`\omega `$-plane represented by the segments $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0\omega _r\mathrm{\Omega }_0,`$ $`\omega _i=1/2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0\omega _r\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, $`\omega _i=1/2`$. Following Haldane , let us express $`\varphi `$ as a Cauchy integral over the contour along the image of the boundary of the fundamental domain and use the symmetry properties of $`\omega (\varphi )`$. We skip these rather long but in fact simple considerations. Only integral over the finite interval remains and after integrating by parts we obtain

$$\varphi (\omega )=_{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}𝑑x\rho _0(x)\frac{1}{i}\mathrm{ln}\frac{\omega xi/2}{\omega x+i/2}.$$
$`(10)`$
The still unknown function $`\rho _0(x)`$ is normalized due to the properties of the function $`\varphi `$: $`\omega (\varphi +2\pi )=\omega (\varphi )`$ and the integral representation (10),

$$_{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}\rho _0(x)𝑑x=1.$$
$`(11)`$
On the other hand, we know that $`\varphi _i(\omega \pm i/2)=\pm ia`$ for all real $`\omega `$ in the interval $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0\omega \mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. This gives an integral equation for the function $`\rho _0(x)`$ entering (10) of the form quite similar to (3),

$$\mathrm{}m\varphi (\omega +i/2)=a=\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}𝑑x\rho _0(x)\mathrm{ln}(1+(\omega x)^2).$$
$`(12)`$
Note also that the same equation can be obtained with the use of quasiperiodicity property $`\omega (\varphi +2ia)=\omega (\varphi )+i`$ and the representation (10).

The equations (3) and (12) become completely identical if one puts $`A=\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, i.e. the meaning of the parameter $`A`$ is that it defines the maximal value of $`\omega _r(\varphi )`$ on the segment $`0\varphi _r2\pi ,`$ $`\varphi _i=ia`$ due to the uniqueness of the solution of (3) mentioned above.

It is straightforward now to verify by differentiating (10) with respect to $`\omega `$ that the derivative $`\frac{d\omega }{d\varphi }`$ has the integral representation

$$\left(\frac{d\omega }{d\varphi }\right)^1=_{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}^{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}\frac{dx\rho _0(x)}{(\omega x)^2+1/4}.$$
$`(13)`$
Comparing both sets of formulas (3-5) and (11-13), one can easily see that the expressions for the spectral density of the Lax matrix in the classical limit coincide after identification $`\rho (x)=\rho _0(x)`$. This completes the proof.
Acknowledgements. On of us (V.I.) is grateful to Prof. F.D.M. Haldane for giving him a copy of the paper . The work was supported in part by the Votruba-Blokhintsev program and ASCR grant no. IAA1048101.

References

1. B. Sutherland. J.Math.Phys. 12, 251 (1971)
2. B. Sutherland. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1248 (1995)
3. F. Calogero, C. Marchioro and O. Ragnisco. Lett. Nuovo Cim. 13, 383 (1975)
4. B. Sutherland, R.A. Römer and B.S. Shastry. Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2154 (1994)
5. F.D.M. Haldane (unpublished)
6. E.T. Whittaker and G.N. Watson. A Course of Modern Analysis, Cambridge at the University Press, 1927


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

I would like to review some surprising results concerning classical solutions of gravitational theories. Since many of these theories arise as the low energy limit of string theory, these results have direct implications for string theory and suggest a new approach for studying cosmological singularities in a quantum theory of gravity. I will only have time to describe the main ideas and summarize the results. This work was all done in collaboration with T. Hertog and K. Maeda, and the reader is referred to the original papers for more details .

Between 1965 and 1970, Hawking and Penrose proved a series of powerful theorems showing that large classes of solutions to Einstein’s equation are singular . These singularity theorems marked a major advance in our understanding of strong gravitational fields. However, they say nothing about event horizons. In particular, they do not prove that black holes must form in gravitational collapse. It is possible that, in some cases, one forms singularities that are visible to distant observers. These are known as naked singularities. In 1969, Penrose suggested that there might be a “cosmic censor” that forbid naked singularities from forming . This has become known as cosmic censorship. I should emphasize that cosmic censorship is not concerned with static timelike singularities like the one in the negative mass Schwarzschild solution. Those singularities are indeed naked, but they are present for all time. They are part of the initial conditions. Cosmic censorship deals with singularities arising from nonsingular initial data.

Cosmic censorship is clearly important for our understanding of black holes. In fact, our entire theory of black holes is based on the assumption that there are no naked singularities outside the event horizon. But despite extensive work over the past three decades, we are still very far from a complete proof . When something is hard to prove, it is often fruitful to look for counter-examples, and many people have done so. It was shown early on that if you model matter by pressureless dust, then it is easy to produce naked singularities . One can take a spherical ball of dust and start the outer shells collapsing inward faster than the inner shells. When the shells cross, the density diverges and one gets a curvature singularity which can lie outside the event horizon. But this is clearly an artifact of the unphysical model of matter. Real matter has pressure. A clear signal of the unphysical nature of this example is that if one turns off gravity and just studies dust in flat space, one has the same type of singularities. Since we are interested in singularities arising from gravitational collapse, we should only consider matter which is nonsingular when evolved in Minkowski space, such as a scalar field.

About ten years ago, Choptuik showed that spherically symmetric scalar fields coupled to gravity can produce a naked singularity . This attracted a lot of attention (and caused Stephen Hawking to lose a bet with Kip Thorne) but it did not really disprove cosmic censorship. The reason is that Choptuik had to fine tune his initial data. Nearby initial data either forms small black holes or results in the scalar field scattering and never forming a singularity. Cosmic censorship deals with generic initial data. To violate it, one needs to have an open set of initial data which evolve to form naked singularities.

The above examples assume the usual boundary conditions for an isolated system: the spacetime is asymptotically flat at infinity. However there has recently been a great deal of interest in spacetimes with nonzero cosmological constant. When the cosmological constant is positive (as suggested by the astrophysical data) and the matter Lagrangian includes dilatons (as suggested by string theory) there is an interesting class of counterexamples to cosmic censorship which has received less attention . The action can be taken to be

$$S=[R2(\varphi )^2e^{2\varphi }F^22\mathrm{\Lambda }+_m]\sqrt{g}d^4x$$
(1.1)
where $`F`$ is a Maxwell field, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }>0`$, and $`_m`$ describes some charged matter. Cosmic censorship can be violated since there are no static charged black hole solutions in this theory . Roughly speaking the reason for this is that a static black hole in de Sitter space is expected to have at least two horizons; a cosmological horizon as well as a black hole horizon. On a static surface, the scalar field $`\varphi `$ should reach both a local maximum and a local minimum. But its field equation $`^2\varphi =\frac{1}{2}e^{2\varphi }F^2`$ only allows $`\varphi `$ to have maximum or minimum values (but not both) whenever $`F^20`$. One can construct data in which the charged matter collapses and forms singularities, but since there are no static black holes, the singularities must be naked.

I will focus on the case of negative cosmological constant. I realize that this is the wrong sign as far as cosmologists are concerned, but in terms of understanding string theory, we are in much better shape for several reasons. Most importantly, we have a complete nonperturbative formulation of the theory provided by the AdS/CFT correspondence . AdS refers to anti de Sitter space, the maximally symmetric solution with negative cosmological constant, and CFT corresponds to a conformally invariant quantum field theory. The remarkable claim (which is supported by a large body of evidence ) is that string theory with asymptotically AdS boundary conditions is completely equivalent to a CFT.

It turns out that cosmic censorship is much easier to violate in asymptotically AdS spacetimes than asymptotically flat spacetimes. This is a result of two facts:

1) Black holes are harder to form.

2) Singularities are easier to form.

The first just follows from the form of the solution for a black hole in AdS

$$ds^2=\left(1\frac{2M}{r}+\frac{r^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)dt^2+\left(1\frac{2M}{r}+\frac{r^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^1dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }$$
(1.2)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ is the radius of curvature of AdS and $`M`$ is the mass of the black hole. (If $`M=0`$, the metric is just AdS.) This shows that the mass needed to form a black hole of size $`R_s\mathrm{}`$ is $`MR_s^3`$. This is much larger than the mass needed to form the same size black hole in asymptotically flat space which is $`M=R_s/2`$.

The second fact is a result of a qualitatively new way to form singularities with a scalar field in AdS. In asymptotically flat spacetimes, the main way to form a singularity is to arrange the scalar field so that there is a large energy density inside a small volume. This will produce a singularity, but it also will usually produce a black hole. Now consider a potential $`V(\varphi )`$ for a scalar field with a negative minimum. Suppose we take initial data in which the scalar field is simply a constant $`\varphi _0`$ (with $`V(\varphi _0)<0`$) and $`\dot{\varphi }=0`$. By homogeneity, when this data is evolved, the metric can be written in Robertson-Walker form

$$ds^2=dt^2+a^2(t)d\sigma _1$$
(1.3)
where $`d\sigma _1`$ denotes the metric on a unit hyperboloid. If $`\varphi _0`$ is at the minimum of the potential, it will stay there for all time and the solution for the scale factor is $`a(t)=\mathrm{}\mathrm{cos}(t/\mathrm{})`$ with $`\mathrm{}^2=3/V(\varphi _0)`$. This is just AdS in different coordinates than (1.2). In particular, $`a(t)=0`$ is just a coordinate singularity. But if $`\varphi _0`$ is even slightly away from the minimum, the solution is dramatically changed. Under evolution, the scalar field will start to oscillate. Einstein’s equation still forces the scale factor to vanish, but now when it vanishes, the energy in the scalar field becomes infinitely blue-shifted and one has a curvature singularity.

## 2 Cosmic censorship violation in AdS

We will use the above two facts to show that there are theories of gravity coupled to a scalar field $`\varphi `$ which violate cosmic censorship . Our strategy will be to find a potential $`V(\varphi )`$ such that there is an open set of initial data which forms a singularity in a large central region, but such that there is not enough mass to produce a black hole big enough to enclose the singularity. For now we will not insist that $`V`$ comes from string theory, but ask if there is any potential which will violate cosmic censorship. One physical condition that we will impose is that $`V`$ satisfies a positive energy theorem. Recall that the total energy is well defined for every asymptotically AdS spacetime . The positive energy theorem states that the total energy of all nonsingular initial data is positive and vanishes if and only if the metric is AdS everywhere . If this fails, the asymptotic AdS space is likely to be unstable, and the theory may not have a ground state.

We now show that there indeed exist $`V(\varphi )`$ such that the positive energy theorem holds but cosmic censorship is violated. The idea is to consider a potential like that shown in Fig. 1. $`V(\varphi )`$ has a global minimum at $`\varphi =0`$ and a local minimum at $`\varphi =\varphi _1`$, both of which are negative. We will require that $`\varphi \varphi _1`$ asymptotically. One might worry that the positive energy theorem would be violated since if one keeps $`\varphi `$ very small inside a large ball and then sends it over the barrier to $`\varphi _1`$ in a thin shell, it would appear that the total energy is less than if $`\varphi =\varphi _1`$ everywhere. However this intuition fails because the negative energy density causes the space to be negatively curved, and a negatively curved hyperboloid has the property that there is as much volume inside a shell at large radius as there is inside the entire ball of the same radius. When one computes the total energy, it turns out that the positive energy theorem typically is satisfied if the barrier is large enough, but is violated if the barrier is too small. Since we want to keep the total mass small, we will adjust the height of the barrier to be close to the transition point, but still satisfy the positive energy theorem.

Now consider spherically symmetric initial data with $`\varphi (r)=ϵ`$ for $`r<R_0`$, $`\varphi =\varphi _1`$ for $`r>R_1`$ and continuously interpolating in between. Here $`R_1>R_0`$ are two large radii. We also assume that $`\dot{\varphi }=0`$ so the initial data is time symmetric. By spherical symmetry, we can assume the metric takes the form

$$ds^2=\left(1\frac{2m(r)}{r}+\frac{r^2}{\mathrm{}^2}\right)^1dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }.$$
(2.1)
where now $`\mathrm{}^2=3/V(\varphi _1)`$. The mass function $`m(r)`$ is uniquely determined by the Einstein scalar constraint for any $`\varphi (r)`$. The total mass is just the limit of $`m(r)`$ as $`r\mathrm{}`$. Under evolution we know that the region $`r<R_0`$ will become singular in a time of order $`V(0)^{1/2}`$. The question is whether this can be hidden inside a black hole. If a black hole eventually forms we can trace the null geodesic generators back to our initial surface where they will form a sphere of radius $`R_s`$ (see Fig. 2). The black hole area theorem still holds even with $`V<0`$, since it only requires the null convergence condition $`T_{\mu \nu }k^\mu k^\nu 0`$ for all null $`k^\mu `$. So $`R_{bh}R_s`$. We can now ask if there is enough mass to form a black hole of size $`R_s`$.

This is just a question about our initial data and is easy to answer. It turns out that for some $`\varphi (r)`$ the answer is no! In fact, it is not even close. Recall that a large Schwarzschild-AdS black hole has a mass $`MR_s^3`$. This theory also has black holes with scalar hair, but the positive energy theorem ensures that a nontrivial scalar field outside the horizon only increases the mass. In the extreme case where we adjust the barrier to be right on the verge of violating the positive energy theorem (but still satisfying it) and choose $`\varphi (r)`$ to minimize the mass, one finds that the mass available is $`MR_1`$, but the mass needed to form a black hole is $`M_{bh}R_1^3`$ (since in this case, $`R_sR_1`$). Because of this large discrepancy, small changes in the initial data will not effect this conclusion. One can take nearby initial data which is not spherical or time symmetric and still not have enough mass to form a black hole large enough to enclose the singularity. The net result is that one has an open set of initial data which produce naked singularities and cosmic censorship is violated in this theory.

Since we have gravitational collapse to a singularity which cannot be enclosed inside a static black hole, we clearly have a violation of the standard black hole paradigm. But is there really a naked singularity? Inside the homogeneous region, the singularity is spacelike and cannot be called naked. However, we expect the singularity to extend outside the region of homogeneous evolution. We don’t know the exact solution here but there are only a few possibilities. The most likely outcome is that the singularity simply ends, in which case the endpoint is naked. This includes the possibility that the singularity becomes timelike, because at that point the classical evolution stops. (There is no unique evolution when the singularity is timelike since we don’t know what boundary conditions to impose there.) Another possibility is that the singularity remains spacelike and extends to infinity. This is a disaster much worse than a naked singularity, since then localized initial data with finite energy has created a big crunch singularity which cuts off spacetime everywhere. We have not ruled this out, but find it very unlikely. A final possibility is that the singularity could become null. This is similar to a naked singularity in that regions of arbitrarily large curvature are visible to distant observers. Which of these possibilities actually occurs can be settled using numerical relativity. This is currently being investigated .

## 3 Negative energy and naked singularities in supergravity

We now try a similar construction with a potential coming from string theory. The low energy limit of string theory with $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ boundary conditions is $`D=5`$, $`𝒩=8`$ supergravity. This theory has scalars with $`m^2<0`$. More than twenty years ago, Breitenlohner and Freedman  showed that these tachyons will not cause an instability in $`AdS_d`$ provided $`m^2(d1)^2/4`$ (where we have set the AdS radius to one). This is known as the Breitenlohner-Freedman (BF) bound. Supergravity has fields which saturate this bound. Since our goal is to construct solutions with low total energy, it is natural to use these fields. The relevant potential $`V(\varphi )`$ now has a negative maximum at $`\varphi =0`$ and falls off exponentially for large $`|\varphi |`$. There are no local minima and no potential barrier.

We want to consider initial data with $`\varphi =\varphi _0`$ for $`r<R_0`$ and then $`\varphi 0`$ asymptotically. The question is at what rate should $`\varphi `$ go to zero. We clearly want $`\varphi `$ to go to zero as slowly as possible. This will minimize the positive contribution to the energy from the spatial gradients and maximize the negative contribution to the energy coming from the fact that the potential is less than its asymptotic value over a larger region. It turns out that the slowest $`\varphi `$ can fall off and keep the total mass finite is $`1/r^2`$. So we take

$$\varphi (r)=\frac{A}{R_0^2}\mathrm{for}r<R_0,\varphi (r)=\frac{A}{r^2}\mathrm{for}r>R_0.$$
(3.1)
Assuming zero time derivatives, one can now solve the constraint for the spatial metric and compute the total mass. Surprisingly, it turns out that it is negative , $`MA^2`$! Furthermore, by increasing $`A`$, we can make the total mass arbitrarily negative. There is no lower bound.

How can this be? The theory is supersymmetric, and AdS is a supersymmetric solution. There is supposed to be a positive energy theorem  which ensures that this cannot happen. Furthermore, the AdS/CFT correspondence says that this theory is supposed to be equivalent to the CFT which has a Hamiltonian bounded from below.

To resolve this contradiction, let us review the positive energy theorems. The original Breitenlohner-Freedman argument applied to test fields satisfying the Klein-Gordon equation in AdS. If $`\xi ^\mu `$ denotes the global timelike Killing field, the energy is just the integral of $`T_{\mu \nu }\xi ^\mu `$ over a spacelike surface. This integral is not positive definite since $`m^2=4`$. But if one sets $`\varphi =\psi /(1+r^2)`$ one can integrate by parts and rewrite this energy as

$$E=\frac{1}{2}\left[(\dot{\psi })^2+(1+r^2)(D\psi )^2+4\psi ^2\right]\frac{r^3}{(1+r^2)^3}𝑑r𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_3_{\mathrm{}}\psi ^2𝑑\mathrm{\Omega }_3$$
(3.2)
The surface term vanishes if $`\varphi `$ falls off faster than $`1/r^2`$, and in this case the energy is manifestly positive. For all fields with $`m^2`$ above the BF bound, finiteness of the energy requires the field to fall off faster than $`1/r^2`$. However, for fields which saturate the bound, we have seen that $`1/r^2`$ fall off is allowed by finite energy. The surface term is now nonzero and negative causing $`E<0`$. Breitenlohner and Freedman suggested that one should use an “improved” $`T_{\mu \nu }`$ which corresponds to adding a $`\beta R\varphi ^2`$ term to the Lagrangian. For a test field, this does not change the equation of motion for $`\varphi `$ since $`R`$ is a constant in AdS and acts like a mass term. But in the full theory, this changes the gravitational dynamics. One can check that $`𝒩=8`$ supergravity does not include these terms. So one cannot use $`\beta 0`$ to make the energy positive.

There is a complete nonlinear proof of the positive energy theorem in AdS which is a generalization of the spinorial proof of positive energy in asymptotically flat spacetimes originally found by Witten . One solves a Dirac like equation for a spinor on a spacelike surface $`\gamma ^i\widehat{}_iϵ=0`$ where $`\widehat{}_i`$ is a supercovariant derivative (the derivative which appears in the supersymmetry transformation laws). One can then derive an identity in which a surface term is equal to a manifestly positive volume integral. If $`\varphi `$ falls off faster than $`1/r^2`$, the surface term is the usual total energy in AdS and one has a positive energy theorem. However, if $`\varphi 1/r^2`$ asymptotically, there is another contribution to the surface term at infinity coming from the asymptotic scalar field. (In a test field limit, this extra contribution cancels the negative surface term in (3.2).) The sum of the two surface terms must be positive, but the usual energy need not be.

The net result is that the positive energy theorem requires boundary conditions which are stronger than finite mass, and $`M<0`$ solutions exist. However there is a modified energy (corresponding to the entire surface term in the nonlinear proof described above) which is always positive. This implies that AdS is stable: It cannot decay to another zero energy solution. It also suggests that the CFT Hamiltonian should be identified with this modified energy. This can probably be verified by computing the supercharge, or more generally, all the charges associated with the asymptotic superalgebra along the lines of . Why not call this modified energy the “real energy” and forget the original definition? The answer is that the usual energy still governs the asymptotic behavior of the metric. Test particles in the bulk solution at large radius will feel a negative gravitational mass.

Having clarified the negative energy, we return to the question of evolution of our initial data (3.1). The central region collapses to a singularity. If the total energy was conserved, then this singularity could not be hidden inside a black hole since the total energy is negative and black holes must have positive mass. However it turns out that for fields that saturate the BF bound and fall off like $`A/r^2`$ (and only in this case), the energy is not automatically conserved. There can be a nonzero flux of energy through infinity if the coefficient $`A`$ becomes time dependent. If the energy grows sufficiently, a black hole could form.

To control this, we can impose a large radius cut-off $`R_1`$ and require that $`\varphi (R_1)=A/R_1^2`$ is fixed. This is automatically implemented in most numerical evolution schemes, and is a standard regulator in discussions of AdS/CFT. However a subtlety now arises which can be seen as follows. In the asymptotic AdS region, the modes of a scalar field with $`m^2=4`$ either fall off like $`1/r^2`$ or $`\mathrm{ln}r/r^2`$. In the absence of a cut-off, only the $`1/r^2`$ modes have finite energy and the $`\mathrm{ln}r/r^2`$ modes play no role. However with a cut-off, modes that behave like $`\mathrm{ln}r/r^2`$ also have finite energy and cannot be ignored. It turns out that these modes have energy which is even more negative than the $`1/r^2`$ modes. The easiest way to show that naked singularities can be produced is to modify our initial data. We consider the following class of configurations,

$$\varphi (r)=\varphi _0=\frac{A}{\mathrm{ln}R_1}\frac{\mathrm{ln}R_0}{R_0^2}(rR_0)$$

$$\varphi (r)=\frac{A}{\mathrm{ln}R_1}\frac{\mathrm{ln}r}{r^2}(R_0<r<R_1)$$
(3.3)
Since $`\varphi (R_1)0`$, if a black hole forms, it must have some scalar hair. If one compares the mass of a static black hole with hair to our initial data, one finds that the black hole has larger mass. Since the energy is conserved in this regulated theory, the singularity must be naked. Since we can perturb the initial data without changing the conclusion, this yields generic violation of cosmic censorship in supergravity.

This suggests a new approach to studying cosmological singularities in string theory. We have argued that our initial data will form a singularity which is spacelike for a while in AdS. But our initial data is time symmetric, so there is a singularity in the past as well as the future. The solution thus looks like a homogeneous cosmology with a big bang and big crunch singularity embedded inside an asymptotically AdS spacetime (see Fig. 3). What is the dual CFT description? In this case, the CFT is $`𝒩=4`$ super Yang-Mills. The operators dual to the fields which saturate the BF bound in AdS correspond to the operators $`Tr[X^iX^j(1/6)\delta ^{ij}X^2]`$ where $`X^i`$ are the six scalars in the super Yang-Mills theory. (For a detailed discussion of the relation between the bulk fields and the boundary operators see .) The large radius cut-off in AdS corresponds to a short distance cut-off in the gauge theory. It should be possible to map our initial data into the gauge theory and study its evolution. There appears to be no reason for this evolution to stop. This implies a string theory resolution of naked singularities. In principle, one should be able to use this to determine if universes can bounce through a cosmological singularity. The idea is to reconstruct the bulk description of the evolved state in the gauge theory. If the state corresponds to a semiclassical metric which is well defined everywhere shortly after the spacelike singularity, it would show that universes can bounce in string theory (as often assumed ). However, if it is only well defined outside a finite region, then there is no bounce. The naked singularity continues in the bulk and the cosmological singularity in the central region is truly an end of space and time.

## 4 Violation of cosmic censorship in asymptotically flat spacetimes?

Suppose we add a constant to the potential in Fig. 1 so that the local minimum at $`\varphi =\varphi _1`$ is at $`V=0`$. Then there are asymptotically flat solutions and it is natural to ask if this theory also violates cosmic censorship. We still have the result that singularities are easier to form since nearly homogeneous regions of $`\varphi `$ rolling down the negative part of the potential will still produce curvature singularities. But now black holes are not harder to form since $`M_{bh}R_s`$. So the outcome depends on more details of the evolution. It should be straightforward to test whether cosmic censorship is violated in this theory using numerical relativity, since one can start with spherically symmetric configurations.

It is natural to ask why we should consider potentials with $`V<0`$. After all, they violate the dominate energy condition. The answer is that they arise in many supersymmetric compactifications in string theory .

String theorists often consider spacetimes that approach $`M_4\times K`$ asymptotically where $`M_4`$ is four dimensional Minkowski spacetime and $`K`$ is a compact Ricci flat space admitting a covariantly constant spinor. Examples of $`K`$ include $`T^n`$, four dimensional K3, six dimensional Calabi-Yau spaces, and seven dimensional manifolds with $`G_2`$ holonomy. Let us ignore the other fields in string theory and just consider vacuum solutions to general relativity in higher dimensions compactified down to four dimensions. In other words, we are just studying Kaluza-Klein theory. Physically one is often interested in the four dimensional effective description of these solutions. In four dimensions one has various matter fields coming from the metric with various interactions. We claim that some compactifications have configurations with negative four dimensional energy density, and in fact, this energy density can be arbitrarily negative.

To justify this claim, lets begin with the following mathematical question: Which compact manifolds $`K`$ admit Riemannian metrics of positive scalar curvature? You might think that the answer is all of them since $`>0`$ is one scalar inequality on the entire metric. Indeed, if you change the sign, this would be correct: All $`K`$ with dimension greater than two admit metrics with $`<0`$. But there is a topological obstruction to finding metrics with $`>0`$ . If you look at the standard examples above, $`T^n`$ and $`K3`$ do not admit any such metrics, while all simply connected Calabi-Yau and $`G_2`$ manifolds do. There is a theorem proved in 1990  which shows that in dimensions greater than four, all simply connected manifolds of dimension $`3,5,6,7\mathrm{mod}8`$ admit metrics with $`>0`$. Note that this includes the cases of most interest to string theory: six and seven.

What does this have to do with negative energy density? Consider vacuum solutions in higher dimension that approach $`M_4\times K`$ asymptotically. We can characterize this solution in terms of its initial data on a spacelike surface $`𝐑^\mathrm{𝟑}\times K`$. For time symmetric initial data, the constraint equations reduce to $`=0`$. If we take a product metric on $`𝐑^\mathrm{𝟑}\times K`$ with $`_K>0`$, then the only way to satisfy the constraint is to take $`_3<0`$. But the usual $`3+1`$ constraint is $`_3=16\pi \rho `$, so negative scalar curvature is just like negative energy density. Since we can make $`_K`$ arbitrarily large by scaling $`K`$, we can make the energy density arbitrarily negative.

Of course we cannot keep the metric a product everywhere since we need the metric on $`K`$ to approach the standard Ricci flat metric at infinity. But we can start with a large ball in $`𝐑^\mathrm{𝟑}`$ and put on a product metric with $`_K>0`$. Then we can have a transition region where the metric on $`K`$ approaches the Ricci flat one, and the metric on $`𝐑^\mathrm{𝟑}`$ is adjusted to still satisfy the constraint. This shows that Calabi-Yau and $`G_2`$ compactifications have solutions with negative energy density. In other words, an effective four dimensional description would look qualitatively like Fig. 1 with a constant added so $`V(\varphi _1)=0`$. (This is only qualitative since a complete description would require an infinite number of fields in four dimensions.)

Despite having arbitrarily large regions of arbitrarily negative energy density, in this case the total ADM energy always remains positive. This has been shown recently using a Witten style positive energy theorem .

## 5 Conclusion

One can summarize the above discussion with two slogans: Supersymmetry does not always imply positive energy, and positive energy does not imply cosmic censorship.

There are many open questions remaining. As we have just discussed, one is whether cosmic censorship can be violated in asymptotically flat spacetimes using potentials which are not positive definite. Another is how common is cosmic censorship violation in supergravity. Are there examples which do not involve negative energies? Our examples of naked singularities have all begun with (nearly) time symmetry initial data, so there is a singularity in the past as well as the future. While this may be desirable for modeling the big bang, it would be of interest to show that naked singularities could be produced in an evolution with no singularities in the past. This seems likely, but has not been established.

I would like to conclude by pointing out that if cosmic censorship is violated in nature, it would not be a disaster. To the contrary, it would open up the possibility of directly observing the effects of Planck scale or string scale curvature. This would be exciting development for both observational astrophysicists and quantum gravity theorists.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my collaborators T. Hertog and K. Maeda for their assistance on all aspects of the work described here. I also wish to thank the organizers of the Nobel Symposium for a very stimulating conference. This work was supported in part by NSF grant PHY-0244764.


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# Fabrication-tolerant high quality factor photonic crystal microcavities

## Abstract

A two-dimensional photonic crystal microcavity design supporting a wavelength-scale volume resonant mode with a calculated quality factor ($`Q`$) insensitive to deviations in the cavity geometry at the level of $`Q2\times 10^4`$ is presented. The robustness of the cavity design is confirmed by optical fiber-based measurements of passive cavities fabricated in silicon. For microcavities operating in the $`\lambda =1500`$ nm wavelength band, quality factors between $`1.3`$-$`4.0\times 10^4`$ are measured for significant variations in cavity geometry and for resonant mode normalized frequencies shifted by as much as $`10\%`$ of the nominal value.

Two-dimensional photonic crystal (PC) slab waveguide microcavitiesPainter et al. (1999); Yoshie et al. (2001) offer the promise of simultaneously exhibiting a high quality factor ($`Q`$) and an ultra-small, wavelength-scale modal volume ($`V_{\text{eff}}`$). These two parameters, which physically represent long photon lifetimes and large per photon electric field strengths, respectively, are key to microcavity-enhanced processes in nonlinear optics, quantum optics, and laser physicsChang and Campillo (1996); Kimble (1998); Michler et al. (2000); Santori et al. (2001). Recent progress on PC microcavities has included theoretical work on the design of PC microcavities with predicted $`Q`$ factors from $`10^4`$ to $`10^6`$Vučković et al. (2002); Srinivasan and Painter (2002); Ryu et al. (2003), and experimental work demonstrating $`Q`$ factors in excess of $`10^4`$ in InP-based lasersSrinivasan et al. (2003a) and silicon membranesAkahane et al. (2003); Srinivasan et al. (2003b). A range of microcavity designs have been employed in these studies, and in many cases, the experimental achievement of high-$`Q`$ is predicated on the ability to fabricate the design with a small margin for error. For example, in Ref. Yoshie et al. (2001), the discrepancy between the fabricated device and the intended design led to a theoretical degradation of $`Q`$ from $`3.0\times 10^4`$ to $`4.4\times 10^3`$, consistent with the measured $`Q`$ of $`2.8\times 10^3`$. Extraordinary control over fabricated geometries has been demonstrated in recent workAkahane et al. (2003), where a shift of $`60`$ nm in the positions of holes surrounding the cavity defect region reduced $`Q`$s as high as $`4.5\times 10^4`$ by over an order of magnitude. Here, we discuss work on a PC microcavitySrinivasan et al. (2003a, b) that exhibits a degree of robustness, both theoretically and experimentally, to deviations from the nominal design sufficient for $`Q`$s above $`10^4`$ to be maintained. This robustness in $`Q`$ to changes in the PC cavity geometry is of practical importance for future experiments in the aforementioned disciplines, to provide insensitivity to fabrication imperfections, as well as to maintain the flexibility in cavity design required to form resonant modes with a prescribed field pattern and polarization.

Radiative losses in planar waveguide two-dimensional PC defect microcavities can be separated into in-plane and out-of-plane components, quantified by the quality factors $`Q_{}`$ and $`Q_{}`$, respectively, with the total radiative $`Q`$ given by $`Q^1=Q_{}^1+Q_{}^1`$. $`Q_{}`$ is determined by the size and angular extent (in-plane) of the photonic bandgap, while $`Q_{}`$ is determined by the presence of in-plane momentum components ($`𝐤`$) within the waveguide cladding light cone, which are not confined by total internal reflection at the core-cladding interface. In Ref. Srinivasan and Painter (2002), PC microcavities were designed using two mechanisms to avoid radiative loss: (i) use of a mode that is odd about mirror planes normal to its dominant Fourier components, in order to eliminate the DC ($`𝐤=\mathrm{𝟎}`$) part of the in-plane spatial frequency spectrum and hence reduce vertical radiation loss, and (ii) use of a grade in the hole radius to further confine the mode and reduce in-plane radiative losses. The resulting PC microcavity design within the square lattice creates a TE-like (magnetic field predominatly along $`\widehat{z}`$) donor-type defect mode (labeled $`A_2^0`$111This label refers to the mode’s symmetry classification and to it being the lowest frequency mode in the bandgap.) as shown in Fig. 1(a). FDTD simulations of this resonant mode predict a $`Q`$-factor of $`10^5`$ and an effective modal volume of $`V_{\text{eff}}1.2(\lambda /n)^3`$. We now show how use of mechanisms (i) and (ii) above create a level of robustness in the cavity design.

Use of an odd symmetry mode to suppress vertical radiation loss is, at a basic level, independent of changes in the size of the holes defining the defect cavity. This feature has been confirmed in simulations of simple defect cavity designs in square lattice photonic crystalsSrinivasan and Painter (2002), where $`Q_{}`$ did not degrade below $`10^4`$, despite significant changes (as much as 40$`\%`$) in the size of the (two) central defect holes. Perturbations that cause the cavity to be asymmetric create a mode which, though not strictly odd, will be a perturbation to an odd mode, and hence will still largely suppress DC Fourier components and exhibit high $`Q`$. However, for the square lattice photonic crystal structures considered here, perturbations to the central defect hole geometry can result in a degradation in $`Q_{}`$, due in part to the lack of a complete in-plane bandgap within the square lattice. This lack of a complete bandgap requires the defect geometry to be tailored so as to eliminate the presence of Fourier components in directions where the lattice is no longer reflective.

This tailoring was achieved in Ref. Srinivasan and Painter (2002) by a grade in the hole radius moving from the center of the cavity outwards. The grade, shown in Fig. 1, serves to help eliminate couplings to in-plane radiation modes along the diagonal axes of the square lattice (the $`M`$-point of the reciprocal lattice) where the PC is no longer highly reflective, while simultaneously providing a means to keep the in-plane reflectivity high along the $`\widehat{y}`$ axis (the direction of the mode’s dominant Fourier components). The use of a large number of holes to define the defect region ensures that no single hole is responsible for creating the potential well that confines the resonant mode, making the design less susceptible to fluctuations in the size of individual holes. Instead, the continuous change in the position of the conduction band-edge resulting from the grade in hole radius creates an approximately harmonic potential wellPainter et al. (2003). This smooth change in the position of the band-edge creates a robust way to mode-match between the central portion of the cavity (where the mode sits) and its exterior. In other workAkahane et al. (2003), softening of this transition is achieved by adjusting the position of two holes surrounding the central cavity region (which consists of three removed air holes in a hexagonal lattice). This method can achieve high-$`Q`$, but as mode-matching is achieved by tailoring only two holes it is more sensitive to perturbations than the adiabatic transition created by a grade in the hole radius. Finally, we note that even though a relatively large number of holes are modified to create the graded lattice, $`V_{\text{eff}}`$ is still wavelength-scale, and remains between $`0.8`$-$`1.4(\lambda /n)^3`$ in all of the devices considered in this work. In addition, the methods used here to achieve robustness in $`Q`$ are general and can be applied to cavities in other PC latticesSrinivasan and Painter (2003).

To highlight these ideas, 3D FDTD simulations of cavities with varying grades and average normalized hole radius ($`\overline{r}/a`$) were performed. Figure 2(a)-(b) shows the grade in $`r/a`$ along the central $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{y}`$ axes for several designs (PC-A through PC-E), and Table 1 lists the calculated resonant frequency, vertical, in-plane, and total $`Q`$ factors. In all of these simulations, $`Q_{}`$ remains close to $`10^5`$, with PC-E showing more significant degradation largely as a result of the increased modal frequency (creating a larger-sized cladding light cone). In addition, an inappropriate choice of grade along the $`\widehat{x}`$-axis can lead to increased in-plane losses via coupling to $`M`$-point modes. Nevertheless, the loss in any of the simulated devices did not cause $`Q`$ to be reduced below $`2\times 10^4`$.

To test the sensitivity of the design to perturbations experimentally, cavities were fabricated in a $`d`$=340 nm thick silicon membrane through a combination of electron beam lithography, inductively-coupled plasma reactive ion etching, and wet etching. Figure 2(c)-(d) shows the values of $`r/a`$ along the central $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{y}`$ axes for a number of fabricated devices (PC-1 through PC-7), as measured with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Cavities are passively testedSrinivasan et al. (2003b) using an optical fiber taperKnight et al. (1997), which consists of a standard single mode optical fiber that has been heated and stretched to a minimum diameter of 1-2 $`\mu `$m. At such sizes, the evanescent field of the fiber mode extends into the surrounding air, providing a means by which the cavity modes can be sourced and out-coupled. The fiber taper is spliced to the output of a fiber-pigtailed scanning tunable laser (1565-1625 nm) with 1 pm resolution, and is mounted (Fig. 3(a)) above and parallel to an array of PC cavities (Fig. 3(b)). When it is brought into close proximity ($`500`$ nm) to the sample surface, evanescent coupling between the taper and cavity modes occurs.

Fig. 3(c)-(d) shows measurements for devices PC-5 and PC-6, which have significantly different $`r/a`$ profiles (Figure 2(c)-(d)). The inset of Fig. 3(c) shows the normalized taper transmission as a function of wavelength when the taper is $`350`$ nm above cavity PC-5. By measuring the dependence of cavity mode linewidth ($`\gamma `$) on the vertical taper-PC gap ($`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$) (Fig. 3(c)), an estimate of the true cold-cavity linewidth ($`\gamma _0`$) is given by the asymptotic value of $`\gamma `$ reached when the taper is far from the cavity. For PC-5, $`\gamma _00.065`$ nm, corresponding to $`Q2.5\times 10^4`$. Fig. 3(d) shows the linewidth measurement for PC-6. For this device, $`\gamma _00.041`$ nm, corresponding to a $`Q4.0\times 10^4`$. As described in Ref. Srinivasan et al. (2003b), the strength of the taper-PC coupling as a function of taper position can be used to estimate the spatial localization of the cavity field; these measurements closely correspond with calculations and for PC-6 are consistent with an FDTD-predicted $`V_{\text{eff}}0.9(\lambda /n)^3`$. These PC microcavities thus simultaneously exhibit a high-$`Q`$ factor that is insensitive to perturbations, and an ultra-small $`V_{\text{eff}}`$.

Linewidth measurements for each of the cavities PC-1 through PC-7 are compiled in Table 1. The robustness of the $`Q`$ to non-idealities in fabrication is clearly evident. Though all of the devices exhibit a general grade in $`r/a`$, the steepness of the grade and the average hole radius ($`\overline{r}/a`$) vary considerably without reducing $`Q`$ below $`1.3\times 10^4`$. These high-$`Q`$ values are exhibited despite the fact that many cavities are not symmetric (the odd boundary condition is thus only approximately maintained), and the frequency of the cavity resonance varies over a $`10\%`$ range, between $`a/\lambda _o=0.243`$-$`0.270`$.

The measured $`Q`$ values in Table 1 are still lower than predicted from simulations. This discrepancy is likely due in part to slightly angled etched sidewalls that have been shown in calculations to lead to radiative coupling to TM-like modesTanaka et al. (2003). This non-ideality helps explain why PC-1, which is closest in $`r/a`$ value to the desired design (PC-A), does not exhibit the highest $`Q`$ experimentally. In particular, we have observed that the sidewall angle is poorer for smaller sized holes. On the other end of the spectrum, cavities with the largest hole sizes such as PC-7, which may have more vertical sidewalls, also begin to exhibit higher vertical radiation loss as a result of a larger modal frequency and cladding light cone. In addition, surface roughness is a potential source of loss; for PC-6, which exhibited the highest $`Q`$ value, a chemical resist stripping process was used (rather than a plasma de-scum) and may have produced a cleaner, smoother surface.

In summary, the robustness in $`Q`$ to errors in the in-plane design of a PC microcavity consisting of a graded square lattice of air holes is discussed. This property is confirmed both by FDTD simulations of devices where the steepness of the grade and the average hole radius are varied without degrading $`Q`$ below $`2\times 10^4`$, and in measurements of microfabricated Si cavities that exhibit $`Q`$ factors between $`1.3`$-$`4.0\times 10^4`$ over a wide range of device parameters. For these high-$`Q`$ cavities, current limitations on the $`Q`$ factor appear to stem principally from slightly angled sidewalls and etched surface roughness, as opposed to errors in the in-plane shape or size of holes.

This work was partly supported by the Charles Lee Powell Foundation. The authors thank M. Borselli for his contributions in building the taper test setup. K.S. thanks the Hertz Foundation for its financial support.


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# Interband impact ionization and nonlinear absorption of terahertz radiations in semiconductor heterostructures1footnote 11footnote 1Published in: J. C. Cao, Physical Review Letters 91, 237401 ( 2003).

## Abstract

We have theoretically investigated nonlinear free-carrier absorption of terahertz radiation in InAs/AlSb heterojunctions. By considering multiple photon process and conduction-valence interband impact ionization (II), we have determined the field and frequency dependent absorption rate. It is shown that (i) electron-disorder scatterings are important at low to intermediate field, and (ii) most importantly, the high field absorption is dominated by II processes. Our theory can satisfactorily explain a long standing experimental result on the nonlinear absorption in THz regime.

Many terahertz (THz) related physical phenomena Asmar ; BJ1 ; APL96 ; SCIENCE ; NATURE ; CaoPRL , such as THz-radiation-induced dc current suppression Asmar , multiphoton-assisted resonant tunneling BJ1 , and multiphoton-assisted free-carrier absorption APL96 , have recently been reported. A few years ago, THz transmissions, reflections, and dc photoconductivity measurements were made to study multiphoton process and impact ionization (II) caused by THz radiations in InAs/AlSb heterojunctions (HJ). These experimental advances motivated new theoretical studies CZhang ; WXU ; LeiTHzJAP ; CaoJAP ; CaoPRB4  of THz physics. However, many interesting phenomena observed experimentally remained unexplained due to lack of well controlled theoretical models in the nonlinear regime. For example, the ac field dependent absorption coefficient APL96  increases with the field slowly at low field intensity, then increases rapidly at intermediate field intensities and levels off at high intensities. To date, this behavior is still not fully understood even within the picture of multiphoton absorption mechanism.

In this letter, we propose to explain this interesting absorption process for the first time by studying the multiphoton-assisted free-carrier absorption and electron-hole (e-h) generation in THz-driven InAs/AlSb HJ’s. Most existing theoretical work emphasize the importance of the electron-impurity (e-i) CZhang  or the electron-phonon (e-p) interaction WXU ; LeiTHzJAP  in nonlinear absorption. However, both these two scattering mechanisms lead to a decreasing absorption in the high field limit and thus unable to explain the observed phenomena. The parameter that controls the absorption is the electro-optic coupling factor, $`𝐫_\omega =e𝐄_{\mathrm{ac}}/(m\omega ^2)`$, here $`e`$ is the carrier charge, $`m`$ is the effective electron mass, $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is the amplitude, and $`\omega =2\pi f_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is the angular frequency with $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ the radiation frequency. In what follows we shall show that the dominant contribution to the nonlinear absorption in the intermediate to high field region is from the interband II processes. The calculated free-carrier absorption percentages of THz radiations in InAs/AlSb HJ are in excellent agreement with the experimental data APL96 .

Consider a semiconductor HJ with a two-dimensional (2D) energy-wavevector relation $`\epsilon _s(𝐤_{})`$, where $`s`$ is the subband index. According to the balance-equation theory, when a uniform dc (or slowly varying) electric field $`𝐄_0`$ and a uniform sinusoidal radiation field, $`𝐄(t)=𝐄_0+𝐄_{\mathrm{ac}}\mathrm{sin}(2\pi f_{\mathrm{ac}}t),`$ are applied in the direction parallel to HJ interface, the transport state can be described by the following equations for the force, the energy, and the carrier number balance LeiTHzJAP ; CaoJAP ; LeiPRL ,

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝐯}{\mathrm{d}t}=e𝐄_0𝒦+𝐀_{\mathrm{ei}}+𝐀_{\mathrm{ep}}+𝐀_{\mathrm{II}}g𝐯,$$
(1)
$$\frac{\mathrm{d}h_e}{\mathrm{d}t}=e𝐄_0𝐯W_{\mathrm{ep}}W_{\mathrm{II}}gh_e+S_\mathrm{i}+S_\mathrm{p}+S_{\mathrm{II}},$$
(2)
$$\frac{\mathrm{d}N}{\mathrm{d}t}=gN,$$
(3)
where $`𝐯`$ is the average electron velocity, and $`𝒦`$ is the inverse effective mass tensor. The electron sheet density is $`N=2_{s,𝐤_{}}f\left[\left(\epsilon _s(𝐤_{})\mu \right)/T_e\right]`$ with $`T_e`$ the electron temperature and $`\mu `$ the electron chemical potential. $`f(x)=1/\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(x\right)+1\right]`$ is the Fermi distribution function. $`g`$ is the net electron-hole generation rate by balancing II generation and Auger recombination. $`𝐀_{\mathrm{ei}},`$ $`𝐀_{\mathrm{ep}},`$ and $`𝐀_{\mathrm{II}}`$ are the frictional accelerations respectively due to e-i scattering, e-p scattering, and interband II process. $`W_{\mathrm{ep}}`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{II}}`$ are the energy-loss rates respectively due to e-p scattering and interband II process. $`S_\mathrm{i}`$, $`S_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`S_{\mathrm{II}}`$ are the energy-gain rates of the electron system from the radiation field through the multiphoton process ($`n=\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{}`$) in association with e-i interaction, e-p interaction, and II process, respectively. The expression of $`S_{\mathrm{II}}`$ is as follow,

$`S_{\mathrm{II}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{s^{},s,𝐤_{},𝐪_{}}{}}\left|\stackrel{~}{M}_{s^{},s}^{\mathrm{II}}\left(𝐪_{}\right)\right|^2{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}J_n^2(𝐪_{}𝐫_\omega )n\omega `$ (4)
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2(s^{},s,𝐪_{},\omega _3)\left[f\left({\displaystyle \frac{\xi _{𝐤_{}𝐪_{}}}{T_e}}\right)+n\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _3}{T_e}}\right)\right]`$
$`\times `$ $`\left[f\left({\displaystyle \frac{\xi _𝐤_{}}{T}}\right)f\left({\displaystyle \frac{\omega _1+mv^2/2+\epsilon _k^h+\mu }{T_e}}\right)\right],`$
where $`T`$ is the lattice temperature, $`𝐪_{}=(q_x,q_y)`$ is the 2D phonon wave vector, $`\omega _1=k_xv,`$ $`\omega _2=\omega _1+mv^2/2+\epsilon _𝐤_{}^h+\epsilon _{s,𝐤_{}𝐪_{}},`$ $`\omega _3=\omega _2n\omega ,`$ $`\xi _𝐤_{}=\epsilon _{s,𝐤_{}}\mu ,`$ $`\xi _𝐤_{}^h=\epsilon _𝐤_{}^h\mu ^h,`$ $`\epsilon _𝐤_{}^h=E_g+𝐤_{}^2/(2m_h)`$ is the hole dispersion with $`m_h`$ the effective hole mass. $`n(x)=1/[\mathrm{exp}(x)1]`$ is the Bose function, and $`E_g`$ is the band gap. $`\mathrm{\Pi }_2(s^{},s,𝐪_{},\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the imaginary part of electron-electron correlation function LeiTHzJAP . $`J_n(x)`$ is the $`n`$th-order Bessel function. $`\stackrel{~}{M}_{s^{},s}^{\mathrm{II}}(𝐪_{})`$ is the Fourier representation of the band-band Coulomb interaction matrix element Ando  for the II and Auger processes in the 2D semiconductor system. The total energy-gain rate is defined by

$$S=S_\mathrm{i}+S_\mathrm{p}+S_{\mathrm{II}}.$$
(5)
It is useful to write $`S`$ as a sum of all orders of $`n`$-photon contributions, $`S=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}S_n,`$ where $`S_n`$ is the total contribution from terms having index $`n`$ and $`n`$. We introduce the quantity $`\alpha `$ which is the ratio of the electromagnetic (EM) energy loss through the 2D sheet to the energy of the incident EM wave. $`\alpha `$ is a measure of the absorption of the radiation which can be written as,

$$\alpha =\frac{2NS}{\sqrt{\kappa }\epsilon _0cE_{\mathrm{ac}}^2},$$
(6)
where $`c`$ is the light speed in vacuum and $`\kappa `$ is the dielectric constant of the semiconductor. To see the role of individual multiphoton processes, we define $`\alpha _n=2NS_n/(\sqrt{\kappa }\epsilon _0cE_{\mathrm{ac}}^2)`$ and write $`\alpha =_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\alpha _n`$.

In the steady-state calculations for THz-driven InAs/AlSb HJ’s, we consider the electron-acoustic-phonon scattering (via the deformation potential and the piezoelectric couplings), electron-polar-optical-phonon scattering (via the Fröhlich coupling), and elastic scattering both from the remote charged impurities and from the background impurities. For InAs, the Kane-type nonparabolic factor is $`2.73`$ eV-1 and $`E_g=0.22`$ eV. The three lowest electron subbands ($`\epsilon _0=0,`$ $`\epsilon _1=35`$ meV, and $`\epsilon _2=200`$ meV) are included. Up to 10 hole subbands are taken into account. We set the sheet density of InAs well $`N_0=5\times 10^{12}`$ cm-2, depletion layer charge density $`N_{\mathrm{dep}}=5\times 10^{10}`$ cm-2, background impurity $`n_I=6.86\times 10^{15}`$cm-3, and remote impurities in AlSb barrier $`N_I=1.53\times 10^{11}`$cm-2 located at a distance of $`l=10`$ nm from the HJ interface. In the whole paper, we set $`T=300`$ K, and the dc field is assumed to be $`E_0=1.5`$ V/m, same as that used in the experiments APL96 . The orders of the Bessel functions, $`n`$, in Eq. (4) is set to be large enough so that the integral is convergent within the accuracy of $`10^4`$.

In Fig. 1(a) we show the e-h pair generation (solid lines) vs $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ with the II process at $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$, 1, and 1.7 THz, respectively. The dash line in Fig. 1(a) shows no changes of the carrier number when the II process is excluded. The generation rate is essentially zero at low fields and high frequencies. If we define that the onset of the II process occurs at the threshold field $`E_\mathrm{c}(f_{\mathrm{ac}})`$. The calculations indicate that $`E_\mathrm{c}(f_{\mathrm{ac}})/f_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is nearly constant for all frequencies (see the inset of Fig. 1(a), $`E_\mathrm{c}(f_{\mathrm{ac}})/f_{\mathrm{ac}}3.59`$). The physical meaning of this linear dependence is such that for II process to take place, $`r_\omega `$ times the photon energy $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ must exceed a minimum value, $`r_\omega \mathrm{}\omega =`$ constant. At the high field $`N`$ depends on $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ exponentially. We shall show below that the exponentially growing generation rate plays a crucial role in the total absorption percentage. The Fig. 1(b) shows the effect of II processes on the electron temperature. While the mechanisms of the temperature increase with the coupling parameter $`r_\omega `$ is generally understood WXU2 , our results show a surprisingly large contribution to $`T_e`$ from the interband II processes. The interband II processes account for about 50 percent of $`T_e`$. It is interesting to note that II processes lead to a net increase of $`T_e`$. In many cases, II processes act as a cooling mechanism. For example, for a 3D system under a dc field, $`T_e`$ with II process is lower than that without II process. In this case the electron heating is only due to electron accelerating and scattering under the dc field. For the present system under an ac field, the II processes still act as a cooling mechanism. However, large number of electrons created in II processes immediately causes a rapid increase in photon absorption due to e-i, e-p, and more importantly, e-h scattering. This absorption is further enhanced by nonlinear multiphoton absorption under an ac field. This subsequent electron scattering and absorption of photon energy lead to an increase of $`T_e`$ which exceeds the initial reduction of $`T_e`$ due to II processes. As a result, $`T_e`$ is higher with II processes.

In Fig. 2(a) we show the calculated total absorption percentage $`\alpha `$ vs $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ at $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$, 1, and 1.7 THz, respectively. The solid circles are the experimental results for $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$ THz from Ref. APL96, , where $`\alpha =1T_rR`$ with $`T_r`$ the transmission and $`R`$ the reflection. Excellent agreement is obtained between the calculated results and the experimental data. It’s seen from Fig. 2(a) that, lower frequency and/or higher radiation intensity lead to more absorption. For $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$ THz, the absorption rate increases slowly from low electric field to about $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=3`$ kV/cm, then goes fast before reaching its saturation value. The significance of II process can be clearly seen in the measurements and in the current theory. Without the II process, the multiphoton absorption is due to e-i scattering and e-p scattering. The absorption rate due to these mechanism only increases very slowly at low $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$. In Fig. 2(b) we show the phonon-induced ($`S_\mathrm{p}`$), II-induced ($`S_{\mathrm{II}}`$), and the total energy gains ($`S_\mathrm{p}+S_{\mathrm{II}}`$) of the electron system from the radiation fields. At intermediate to high $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$, both e-i and e-p scatterings are actually suppressed by the strong electro-optic coupling. As a result one observes a rapidly decreasing absorption in the high field limit. As we have seen in Fig. 1, the effect of strong field on the II process is quite opposite to that of electron disorder scattering because the e-h pair generation is a fundamentally different process than the scattering process. Scattering depends on the ability of electrons to simultaneously exchange momentum and energy with the scatters and photon. Strong coupling with photons reduce the probability of momentum exchange with the impurities or phonons. This momentum exchange is not required in an e-h pair generation process. Annihilation of multiple photon in a generation process leads to a strong total absorption percentage. The very rapid increase of II process at high field \[see Fig. 1(a)\] is largely offset by the fast decreasing of impurity and phonon scattering. The resulting total absorption percentage increase modestly in the high field limit. The curve at $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$ THz can be directly compared to experimental result. At this frequency, II mechanism begins to make contribution to the total absorption after about $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=3`$ kV/cm. The carrier number increases with increasing $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$. For $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$ THz, when $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=6.5`$ kV/cm, the total electron number $`N`$ increases up to about six times the initial number $`N_0`$ due to the II process. The agreement between the present theory and the experiment is excellent. In the inset of Fig. 2(b) we show the $`n`$-photon absorption percentage $`\alpha _n`$ vs the order $`n`$ of the Bessel function at $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=1.7`$ THz. $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ is changed from 2 to 6 kV/cm with a step of 0.5 kV/cm. For each $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ there is a maximal of $`\alpha _n`$, and the position of the peaks shifts to higher order $`n`$ with increasing $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$. It means that higher order multiphoton processes play more important role on the total absorption with increasing $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$. Generally, it can be seen that the role of THz radiations with larger $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ and lower $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ on carrier transport increases with increasing the electric-optic coupling factor $`r_\omega `$.

In Fig. 3 we show the total absorption percentage $`\alpha `$ vs the wavelength $`\lambda `$ at $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=2`$ kV/cm (triangles), 5.8 kV/cm (circles), and 9 kV/cm (squares), respectively. The absorption percentage $`\alpha `$ increases with increasing $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ and/or increasing $`\lambda `$. The relation between $`\alpha `$ and $`\lambda `$ can be fitted by the function (see the lines in Fig. 3): $`\alpha (\lambda )=\alpha _0\lambda ^b`$. When $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=2`$ kV/cm the fitted function is $`\alpha (\lambda )=1.70\times 10^6\lambda ^2`$, which is the classical absorption-wavelength relation. When $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}`$ increases, however, the present nonlinear theory predicts that the square relation will be broken. For $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=`$ 5.8 kV/cm we have $`(\alpha _0,b)=(7.19\times 10^8,2.6)`$, and for $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=9`$ kV/cm we have $`(\alpha _0,b)=(3.31\times 10^8,2.8)`$. The physical reason is the exponential growth of the e-h pair and the more importance of the multiphoton process with increasing $`r_\omega `$. In the inset of Fig. 3, we show the first five order multiphoton contribution $`\alpha _n`$ ($`n=1,2,\mathrm{},5`$) vs $`\lambda `$ at $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=2`$ kV/cm. It can be seen that, for each order of multiphoton channels there is a critical wavelength $`\lambda _p`$ at which the multiphoton process makes maximal contribution to the total absorption. With increasing $`n`$, the position of $`\lambda _p`$ shifts to longer wavelength. The physical origin of the critical wavelength at a given photon number is that, for a given $`n`$, the strength of the scattering matrix of the $`n`$-photon assisted process decreases almost like $`\omega ^{4n}`$ for large $`\omega `$, while the energy absorpted from the radiation field during each $`n`$-photon process is proportional to $`n\omega `$ \[see Eq. (4)\]. There must be a critical wavelength $`\lambda _p`$ at which the energy absorption reaches a maximum.

Several physical mechanisms employed in our theoretical model and numerical calculation need to be further discussed. (1) We have neglected the absorption of bulk electrons in the substrate because the total absorption is dominated by the 2D channel. The Coulomb interaction matrix for the 2D channel is much stronger than the corresponding interaction matrix of 3D system except in the small wavevector regime. On the other hand the electron-laser coupling $`𝐪_{}𝐫_\omega `$ \[see Eq. (4)\] is only important at large $`q_{}`$ regime. As a result, the THz-induced II in the bulk plays a negligible role in the present system. (2) Although a large number of holes are being created in II processes, the hole contribution to the total absorption is ignored in our model. The hole effective mass ($`m_h=0.94m_0`$) in our system is about 25 times heavier than that of the electron ($`m=0.038m_0`$), here $`m_0`$ is the mass of the free electron. From Eq. (4), one can see that $`S_{\mathrm{II}}`$ is mainly determined by $`J_n^2(𝐪_{}𝐫_\omega )`$. For a small $`r_\omega ,`$ i.e., larger mass $`m`$ or higher frequency $`\omega `$, we have $`J_n^2(𝐪_{}𝐫_\omega )m^{2|n|}`$ for $`|n|>0`$. For $`n=0`$, we can directly see from Eq. (4) and the inset of Fig. 2(b) that the term does not contribute to the total absorption. When the electron mass is replaced by the hole mass in $`J_n^2(𝐪_{}𝐫_\omega )`$ (for $`|n|>0`$), this quantity will be reduced by a factor of around $`25^2=0.0016`$. This makes the hole contribution at least two to three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the electrons. (3) We have used a strict 2D model for charged carriers and neglected the effect of real space transfer (RST) to bulk electrons. For InAs/AlSb HJ system, the confining potential is $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_c=1350`$ meV NakaAPL89 . This is about 15666 K. The maximum $`T_e`$ in our calculation is around 20 times the lattice temperature (about 6000 K). Since the case $`f_{\mathrm{ac}}=0.64`$ THz represents our central result, we estimate the RST effect. At $`E_{\mathrm{ac}}=6`$ kV/cm, $`T_e`$ is about $`12T`$ or 3600 K, which is less than a quarter of the confining potential. If the RST is due to over-the-barrier activation, the probability of this transfer is $`\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }E_c/T_e)0.0129`$, which is less than 1.5 percent. On the other hand, in terms of photon energy of 1 THz (about 4 meV), the barrier height is about 330 times of photon energy. This makes the RST by gaining enough energy from the THz field also negligible. Actually, it is clear from the inset of Fig. 2(b) that the probability of absorbing more than 30 photons is practically zero. Therefore we neglect the RST effect.

In conclusion, we have shown that II process plays an important role in the free-carrier absorption of THz radiations in InAs/AlSb HJs. Our results can explain a long standing experimental result on the free carrier absorption in the THz regime.

This work was supported by the key National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Funds with Nos. 2001CCA02800G, 20000683, and 011661075. The author thanks Prof. X. L. Lei for many helpful discussions.


text:
# Dynamical Determination of the Innermost Stable Circular Orbit of Binary Neutron Stars

## Abstract

We determine the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of binary neutron stars (BNSs) by performing dynamical simulations in full general relativity. Evolving quasiequilibrium (QE) binaries that begin at different separations, we bracket the location of the ISCO by distinguishing stable circular orbits from unstable plunges. We study $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ polytropes of varying compactions in both corotational and irrotational equal-mass binaries. For corotational binaries we find an ISCO orbital angular frequency somewhat smaller than that determined by applying turning-point methods to QE initial data. For the irrotational binaries the initial data sequences terminate before reaching a turning point, but we find that the ISCO frequency is reached prior to the termination point. Our findings suggest that the ISCO frequency varies with compaction but does not depend strongly on the stellar spin. Since the observed gravitational wave signal undergoes a transition from a nearly periodic “chirp” to a burst at roughly twice the ISCO frequency, the measurement of its value by laser interferometers (e.g LIGO) will be important for determining some of the physical properties of the underlying stars.

The emission of gravitational radiation drives the slow inspiral of neutron star and black hole binaries towards their coalescence and merger. Fully general-relativistic numerical simulations are required for the accurate description of the late inspiral and plunge epochs of the binary evolution (see, e.g., Baumgarte:2002jm  for a recent review). While complete orbits of binary black holes have not been numerically simulated yet, simulations of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers are now becoming sufficiently mature to provide results of astrophysical interest (e.g. Shibata\_Uryu ).

One piece of information of great astrophysical interest is the location of the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). The evolution of a binary system occurs in three distinct phases gradual : (1) A slow, adiabatic inspiral phase that is driven by gravitational radiation reaction forces and can be approximated as a sequence of quasi-circular orbits; (2) a brief transition phase, where the inward radial motion increases and the orbital motion changes from slow inspiral to rapid plunge; (3) a plunge phase, terminating in the merger of the objects. The ISCO resides within the transition region; its identification is complicated by the fact that it is not arbitrarily sharp and cannot be localized precisely. The gravitational wave quasi-periodic “chirp” signal of the slow binary inspiral ends at about the twice the orbital angular frequency of the ISCO, where it changes its form to a wave signal characteristic of a burst (compare DBSSU01 ).

Within the framework of Newtonian and post-Newtonian gravity, the ISCO has been determined by different methods (see, e.g., the reviews Rasio:1999ku ; Baumgarte:2001ab  and references therein). Much less is known for fully relativistic binaries. For corotational binaries, a turning point on a curve of the binding energy vs. separation for quasiequilibrium (QE) models along a sequence of constant rest mass marks the onset of secular instability Friedman:1988 ; BCSST98 . In the following we will refer to this point as the QE-ISCO. No such theorem exists for irrotational binaries or for the onset of dynamical instability footnote0 . Locating the ISCO dynamical instability therefore requires dynamical evolution simulations of the full set of Einstein’s equations for the gravitational field, coupled to relativistic hydrodynamics in the case of BNSs.

In this paper we present the first attempt to dynamically locate this ISCO. We identify BNS configurations that correspond to stable and unstable circular orbits by evolving binary initial data sets for different separations. The objective is to bracket the location of the ISCO by distinguishing configurations that can maintain quasi-circular motion for more than one orbital period and systems that plunge and coalesce in a fraction of that time.

We adopt the QE initial data presented by Marronetti and Shapiro Marronetti:2003gk , describing two identical neutron stars in quasi-circular orbit. These data have been constructed using the conformal thin-sandwich (CTS) decomposition of the constraint equations, together with maximal slicing and spatial conformal flatness. The formalism introduced in Marronetti:2003gk  allows for a free specification of the spin of the stars in an approximate fashion. In this paper we consider corotational binaries as well as “irrotational” binaries footnote1  with zero (equatorial) fluid circulation, which are believed to be more realistic astrophysically Kochanek:1992 . Sequences of corotating binaries feature a minimum in the binding energy at the QE-ISCO. Irrotational binaries, however, typically terminate before reaching this minimum (see Figs. 7 and 8 in Marronetti:2003gk ; also USE00 ; GGTMB01  as well as Baumgarte:2002jm  for more references).

We adopt a $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ polytropic equation of state (EOS) for which the maximum rest mass (gravitational mass) of a star in isolation in nondimensional units footnote2  is $`m_0=0.180`$ ($`m=0.164`$) with a compaction ratio of $`(m/R)_{\mathrm{}}=0.216`$ . We study models that have two different compaction ratios in isolation: a moderate value $`(m/R)_{\mathrm{}}=0.142`$ (both corotational and irrotational binaries; cases A and B) and a high value $`(m/R)_{\mathrm{}}=0.195`$ (only irrotational binaries; case C). These compaction ratios correspond to individual stars with rest masses $`m_0=0.1469`$ and $`m_0=0.1767`$, respectively. The fully general relativistic hydrodynamical code employed for this study has been introduced in Duez et al. Duez:2002bn . We evolve the gravitational fields using the BSSN formalism BSSN  with a Courant factor of 0.46. We approximate maximal slicing with a “K-driver” and use a “Gamma-driver” shift condition that keeps $`\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^i\overline{\gamma }^{lm}\overline{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{lm}^i`$ approximately constant. The simulations were performed on uniform Cartesian grids in a reference frame that rotates with the binary, which improves conservation of angular momentum Swesty:1999ke ; Duez:2002bn  and reduces the spurious eccentricities of the stable orbits. In all cases presented here the spatial volume covered by the grids is completely enclosed by the light cylinder (defined by coordinate radius $`R_L=1/\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{orb}}`$). A more detailed description of the evolution of the gravitational and hydrodynamical fields, the boundary conditions and their numerical implementation can be found in Duez et al. Duez:2002bn .

Results Figures 1, 2, and 3 show the evolution of the coordinate separation $`d`$ between maximum baryonic density points in each star for cases A, B and C footnote3 . The filled circles mark the points of surface contact for those runs that result in a merger. In each plot we present results for different grid resolutions and bounding box sizes, which are listed in Table 1. We use the highest quality results to bracket the ISCO; these are labeled as Stable and Merger in the plots. Results obtained on smaller computational grids agree with these brackets fairly well. Note that all three merger cases experience surface contact (and the related mass interchange) well after the start of the inspiral plunge.

The ISCO parameters for each of the three cases are estimated as the average of the parameters corresponding to the bracketing orbits labeled Stable and Merger on each figure, while the “errors” span the difference. We note that these “errors” are partly due to numerical errors (see below), and partly by the conceptional difficulty of defining a sharp “ISCO”. The results are included in Table 2. For the corotating sequence A we also compare with the QE-ISCO at the QE turning-point. The irrotational sequences considered in this paper terminate before reaching a turning point (compare USE00 ; GGTMB01 ). The termination of a sequence indicates that equilibrium models do not exist at smaller separations, but since the numerical determination of this point relies on the breakdown of a numerical (equilibrium) code, its accuracy is somewhat uncertain. For both sequences we find that the ISCO is reached before the sequence terminates. For the irrotational sequence C one can also compare with the first-order post-Newtonian ellipsoidal results of Lombardi et al. Lombardi:1997aw , who find an angular velocity of $`\mathrm{\Omega }m_0=0.0226`$ for $`(m/R)_{\mathrm{}}=0.2`$ binaries.

We consistently find that orbits become unstable before the onset of instability as determined by QE methods, meaning at a smaller orbital frequency. This is not surprising, since the orbital decay becomes fairly rapid just outside the QE-ISCO (compare, e.g., Fig. 2 in DBSSU01 ), so that our criterion for merger orbits applies to those binaries. This result is also consistent with earlier suggestions that the transition through the ISCO may be fairly gradual gradual . The similarity between the corotating and irrotational values for the $`(m/R)_{\mathrm{}}=0.142`$ orbits suggests that the dependence of the ISCO parameters on the stellar spins is not strong.

During all simulations we monitored the Hamiltonian and Momentum constraints as well as the conservation of the total ADM mass $`M`$ and angular momentum $`J`$ footnote5  (the rest mass $`M_0`$ is conserved identically in our evolution scheme). An example of these for case B is shown in Fig. 4. In all our simulations all quantities are conserved very well up to merger, after which hydrodynamical effects including shocks and shear are handled only crudely by our artificial viscosity scheme. Stable runs ultimately break down due to accumulation of numerical error. We find that the latter is sometimes dominated by hydrodynamical effects, leading to deviations in the angular momentum, and sometimes by gravitational effects, leading to violations of the constraint equations. These effects are improved by increasing the grid resolution and the separation to the outer boundaries, as well as using a coordinate system that rotates with the binary as closely as possible.

Summary  We present prototype simulations to determine dynamically the ISCO of BNSs. Evolving QE initial data at different separations, we bracket the ISCO by distinguishing stable orbits, that remain in approximately circular orbit for well over a period, from unstable ones, which decay within a period. The uncertainty in our results is caused both by numerical error and the conceptual difficulty in defining a sharp ISCO. Consistent with earlier results gradual ; DBSSU01  we find that binary orbits start to plunge somewhat outside of the “QE-ISCO” as determined by turning-point methods applied to QE initial data, resulting in a cut-off in gravitational “chirp” signals at somewhat smaller frequency. Our preliminary results also seem to indicate that the dependence of the ISCO parameters on the stellar spins is not very strong.

One source of error is our assumption of zero radial velocity in our binary initial data. More realistic initial data at finite binary separation would incorporate a radial velocity that corresponds to the non-zero rate of inspiral at that separation. Miller Miller:2003pd  indicates that this approximation may lead to non-negligible error, especially for black hole binaries. However, for the neutron star binaries and separations we consider here, the radial velocities would be at most $`13\%`$ of the tangential velocity Miller:2003pd ; DBSSU01 . Consequently, the error introduced by neglecting this component is likely to be smaller than the error bars already provided in Table 2.

It was recently pointed out that in dynamical evolutions of CTS initial data describing corotating BNSs, the four-velocity $`u^\alpha `$ quickly deviates from being proportional to an exact helicoidal Killing vector, as assumed in constructing the initial models Miller:2003vw . We confirm this result but find that this deviation arises from a small readjustment of the gravitational fields footnote6 , and not from appreciable changes in the density and velocity profiles. We find no evidence of a significant breakdown of quasiequilibrium for stable orbits and any spurious orbital eccentricities sharply decrease with increasing grid size.

###### Acknowledgements.

It is a pleasure to thank Hwei-Jang Yo for useful discussions. Most of the calculations were performed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This paper was supported in part by NSF Grants PHY-0090310 and PHY-0205155 and NASA Grant NAG 5-10781 at UIUC and NSF Grant PHY-0139907 at Bowdoin College. PM gratefully acknowledges financial support through the Fortner Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).