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# Spectro-photometric and weak lensing survey of a supercluster and typical field region – I. Spectroscopic redshift measurements

## 1. Introduction

Over the past few years our understanding of the large scale distribution of galaxies has advanced greatly. With current spectroscopic surveys of the local galaxy population ($`z0.1`$), such as the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS; Colless et al. 2001) approaching 250,000 galaxies, and the ongoing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; Strauss et al. 2002) set to capture the spectra of a million galaxies, statistical errors on key quantities of interest are fast becoming diminutive. A major goal of these surveys is to make accurate measurements of the large-scale distribution of *matter* density fluctuations in the Universe and so measure the cosmological parameters.

However, since one is not probing the matter directly, but instead some population of objects that merely trace the mass, e.g., galaxies of a particular luminosity class, spectral type etc…, it is necessary to make some assumptions about the way in which these two distributions are related – or more commonly biased. In recent work (Tegmark et al. 2004; Percival et al. 2004), it is assumed that there is a certain large scale, $`20h^1`$Mpc or so, above which the galaxy tracers and mass are related by a simple scale independent constant bias. Whilst this may indeed turn out to be correct, it is important to establish the veracity of this assumption through direct observation, if redshift surveys are to be trusted as precision cosmological probes.

Weak gravitational lensing provides the most exciting progress towards solving this problem. The weak distortions in the shapes of faint background galaxies due to the gravitational deflection of light bundles as they travel through distorted spacetime provides a direct probe of the projected mass distribution (e.g., Kaiser 1992; Kaiser & Squires 1993). More recently Bacon & Taylor (2003) and Taylor et al. (2004) have shown that if one has redshift information for all galaxies, then one may also reconstruct the 3D mass distribution.

Also, Schneider (1998) has developed a method for exploring the bias. This has been applied by Hoekstra et al. (2001, 2002), who found on scales $`<5h^1`$Mpc, that the bias was scale-dependent, with positive bias on scales $`<0.25h^1`$Mpc, anti-bias on scales $`1h^1`$Mpc and almost no biasing at the limits of their survey. If all of the systematics in this work are under control, then this is strong support for the ‘Concordance cosmology’ (Wang et al. 2000), which requires bias of this kind to match the galaxy clustering statistics (Benson et al. 2000; Peacock & Smith 2000).

A complicating factor in the analysis is that the lensing effect depends on the geometry of the system and one therefore requires knowledge of the spatial distribution of the lens and source galaxy populations to obtain accurate measurements. However, as Hoekstra et al. (2001, 2002) have shown, if one has redshift information for the lens galaxies only, then one may make good progress through assuming an appropriate redshift distribution for the background lens galaxies.

In a series of papers, we perform a combined weak lensing and spectro-photometric study of a supercluster and also a control field region with the specific aim of uncovering detailed information about bias over a wide range of scales and environments. We intend to bridge the gap between having no and full spatial information along the light cone, by measuring spectra for the foreground galaxies. In this, the first paper of the series, we present the spectroscopic part of the survey. In a subsequent paper we will describe our deep photometric and weak lensing analysis of the regions, and in a further paper we will combine all of the data to directly answer the above questions.

Using the 2dF instrument on the AAT we have measured the spectra for a significant fraction of all galaxies in the survey regions, down to $`R<19.5`$. From these data we determine redshifts through cross-correlating each spectrum with a set of standard galaxy and stellar templates. We then determine the redshift space distributions for the two survey regions, finding marked differences between them. As a by-product of this work, we have used the full redshift space sample to compile new lists of cluster candidates for the regions, and this is the subject of the latter part of the paper. For these cluster candidates we estimate redshifts and velocity dispersions.

The paper is broken down as follows: In § 2, we describe the survey and the spectroscopic target catalogs. In § 3, we describe the observations and data reduction. In § 4, we describe the redshift estimation procedure and then present some interesting properties of the spectroscopic sample. In § 5 we use the sample to establish clusters within the survey. Here, we also provide an updated cluster catalog for the Aquarius region. In § 6 we give estimates of the centroid redshift, velocity dispersion and asymmetry index of each cluster candidate. Finally, in § 8, we discuss our findings and summarize the results. Throughout this paper we have assumed concordance cosmology (Wang et al. 2000) with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ represent the matter and vacuum energy density parameters at the present epoch. All celestial coordinates are given for epoch J2000.0.

## 2. Survey Description

The survey comprises deep photometric imaging and spectroscopy in two regions: the supercluster in the direction of Aquarius \[$`\alpha =23^h15^m`$, $`\delta =22^{}`$\], which is of general interest; and a typical field region in Cetus \[$`\alpha =02^h19^m,\delta =8^{}50^{}`$\]; hereafter referred to as the Aquarius and Cetus regions. The Cetus region was chosen to coincide with one of the SDSS southern strips. In the future this will provide us with additional multi-colour photometry and spectra. The deep photometric observations are being carried out on the ESO 2.2m telescope at La Silla, using the Wide Field Imaging Camera (WFI) and the spectroscopy is being carried out using the 2dF multi-fiber-object spectrograph on AAT.

The Aquarius supercluster was firmly established by Batuski et al. (1999), previously being noted as one of the highest concentrations of rich clusters on the sky (Abell 1961; Murray et al. 1978; Ciardullo et al. 1985; Abell, Corwin & Olowin 1989, hereafter ACO). From spectroscopy, Batuski et al. deduced that the core of the supercluster contained five richness class $`R1`$ ACO clusters: A2546 (catalog ), A2554 (catalog ), A2555 (catalog ), A2579 (catalog ) and A3996 (catalog ); making the Aquarius supercluster even denser than the most massive superclusters at lower redshifts, such as the Shapley supercluster (Raychaudhury 1989) and the Corona Borealis supercluster (Postman, Geller & Huchra 1986). More recently a study of the region was undertaken by Caretta et al. (2002, hereafter Caretta02), who used projected galaxy distributions and follow-up spectroscopy to compile a list of 102 cluster candidates over $``$80 deg2. There also exists archival Chandra and/or ASCA data for 10 of the Aquarius clusters.

Fig 1 presents the survey regions. The Aquarius field comprises 20 overlapping WFI pointings, covering an angular area of $``$6.2 deg2, which at the median redshift of the spectroscopic survey, ($`\overline{z}0.176`$), corresponds to scales of the order 30 $`h^1`$ Mpc $`\times `$ 15 $`h^1`$ Mpc. Out to the effective limit of the survey $`(z0.45)`$, the comoving volume surveyed in the Aquarius region is $`1.0\times 10^6h^3`$Mpc3. The Cetus field comprises 12 overlapping WFI pointings, covering an angular area of $``$3.7 deg2, which again at the median redshift of the spectroscopic survey corresponds to transverse scales 20 $`h^1`$Mpc $`\times `$ 20 $`h^1`$ Mpc; and out to the effective survey limit, a comoving volume of 5.6 $`\times 10^5h^3`$Mpc3.

Within the Aquarius fields we have identified 23 known clusters (Caretta02), 5 of which have no redshift estimate. This corresponds to an average surface density of 3.7 clusters deg-2. In contrast, the Cetus region was chosen to contain only one Abell cluster, which had a richness class $`R=0`$ and distance class $`D=6`$. This gave an average 0.27 clusters deg-2. Since the mean surface density of Abell clusters over the whole sky is $``$0.2 clusters deg-2, we are justified in our assertion that the Cetus region is indeed a ‘typical’ patch of sky. We note that there is an additional known cluster, RX J0223.4-0852 (catalog ), within the field, and an Abell cluster, A348 (catalog ) ($`z=0.27`$), that glances the Eastern edge of our 2dF survey region.

### 2.1. The Spectroscopic Input Catalog

The spectroscopic targets were taken from the SuperCOSMOS111The on-line SuperCOSMOS archives can be found at: http://www-wfau.roe.ac.uk/sss/ on-line catalog (Hambly et al. 2001a). We selected all objects down to a magnitude limit of $`R19.5`$. For $`R19`$, the image classification is $`>90\%`$ reliable and for $`R19.5`$ this drops to $`>80\%`$ (Hambly et al. 2001b). On inspecting the data we found that faint satellite trails still remained in the catalog. These were removed by matching objects from the $`R`$ and $`b_J`$ plates, which were observed at separate epochs. The astrometry of the SuperCOSMOS R-band data has a measured positional accuracy to better than $`\pm 0.2\mathrm{}`$ at $`R18`$, deteriorating to $`\pm 0.3\mathrm{}`$ at $`R21`$ (Hambly et al. 2001b), and this was of sufficient accuracy for the requirements (2$`\mathrm{}`$ fiber diameters) of the 2dF instrument. We then corrected the $`R`$ magnitudes for absorption using the dust maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998). For the Aquarius region we used an extinction correction $`A_R0.074`$, and for Cetus we used $`A_R0.07`$.

Taking $`M_r5\mathrm{log}_{10}h=20.83`$ (Blanton et al. 2003), then for galaxies at the flux limit of our survey ($`R=19.5`$) we are capable of probing $`M_{}`$ galaxies out to $`z0.4`$, or equaivalently angular diameter distances of $`1`$Gpc, where we have assumed a $`K`$-correction $`0.5`$ (Coleman, Wu & Weedman 1980).

To acquire spectra of sufficient quality for precise redshift estimation, we followed the 2dFGRS strategy and aimed to obtain spectra with a minimum signal-to-noise ($`S/N`$) $``$10. For galaxies with a $`S/N`$ of this order, Colless et al. (2001) found a redshift completeness $`>90\%`$. For objects at the survey flux limit and and in poor seeing conditions, we estimated that these $`S/N`$ levels could be reached for 6500 s integrations. However, for galaxies one magnitude brighter, a similar $`S/N`$ was achieved in roughly half the time. To optimize the use of telescope time, the spectroscopic observations were split into two sets: short exposures for bright ($`R<18.5`$) galaxies; and longer exposures for faint ($`19.5<R18.5`$) galaxies. Fig.2, top panel, presents the input catalog for the bright Aquarius galaxies and the bottom panel shows the faint. For the Aquarius catalogs we identified $`3441`$ bright galaxies and $`5246`$ faint. Similarly, for the Cetus region catalog we identified $`1414`$ bright galaxies and $`1881`$ faint.

## 3. Spectroscopic Observations and Analysis

### 3.1. Fiber Configurations

For the Aquarius field, six overlapping 2dF pointings were chosen to cover the target area, and for the Cetus field, the whole target area was contained within a single 2dF centre. Owing to the high surface density of sources, $``$1400 deg-2 in the Aquarius region and $``$1048 deg-2 in the Cetus region, multiple 2dF pointings of each of the chosen centres were required to target all of the galaxies in each field. In full operational mode the 2dF is capable of acquiring the spectra of 400 objects simultaneously. The fiber arrangements for individual fields were pre-configured using the observatory supplied software package CONFIGURE. For a full description of the 2dF instrument and configuring for dense fields see Bailey, Glazebrook & Bridges (2002, hereafter BGB02).

For the bright galaxy fields we typically allocated 360 fibers to target objects and 40 to sky (20 per spectrograph). For the faint galaxy fields we increased the allocation of sky fibers to 30 per spectrograph. This increase was to ensure accurate sky subtraction for the faint spectra. We discuss this further in § 3.3. Also as part of our allocation strategy, there was a small chance that a few objects would be re-observed. As we describe later in § 3.4, this small number of repeat observations enabled a useful test of the redshift estimation procedure.

### 3.2. Observing

Observations were carried out between October 29 and November 2, 2002 at the AAT. The 2dF spectrographs were configured with the 316R and 270R gratings. This pair gave FWHM resolutions of 8.5 and 9.0 Å per pixel, respectively, and an efficiency $`>70\%`$ for the wavelength range 5000-8500 Å. For the bright catalog galaxies, individual pointings comprised: calibration frames, consisting of a tungsten lamp flat field exposure, followed by a CuHe+CuAr arc lamp exposure; $`3\times 1000`$ s exposures of the target field. The target spectra were acquired as a series of snapshots to facilitate the removal of cosmic rays. For the faint catalog galaxies, the procedure was identical except that 5$`\times `$1300 s exposures were taken and also a further arc lamp calibration was taken at the end of the observation. In total, we acquired 6800 target spectra.

### 3.3. 2dF Data Reduction

All data reduction was performed using the latest version of the AAO-supplied software package 2dFDR-V2.3 (for details, see BGB02). In brief, the reduction recipe that we adopted was as follows: The data were de-biased. Bias strips were trimmed from the data frame and the mean of these was subtracted from the data. The fiber-flat field frame was then used to generate tram-line maps for the data. Since the accurate determination of these was crucial to achieving reliable reduction, they were carefully inspected at each stage in their generation.

The spectra were then extracted using the FIT routine, which performs an optimal extraction based on fitting overlapping Gaussian profiles to a fiber flat-field frame. The extracted data were then flat fielded using the fiber flat field data and re-binned onto a uniform linear wavelength scale, with the wavelength calibration for each fiber being determined from the closest in time CuHe+CuAr arc lamp exposure. The relative throughput of each fiber was then determined and the median sky generated and subtracted from each spectrum. Since good determination of the relative fiber throughput and sky subtraction was crucial for the faint galaxy spectra, we considered this carefully. We found that through using the Skyflux(cor) routine in the 2dF reduction package, we were able to produce good throughput calibration, and perform sky subtractions to an accuracy $`1.53.0\%`$. These accuracies are comparable to those obtained by Willis, Hewett & Warren (2001). In Fig. 3, we show the median sky and residual sky for all of the faint galaxy exposures. The residual sky was constructed by subtracting the median sky spectrum from each of the individual sky fibres and then calculating the median spectrum of these sky-subtracted sky fibres. This clearly demonstrates that the sky subtraction method that we have adopted is accurate. For the bright data the overall sky subtraction was of similar quality. Finally, the reduced runs were optimally combined and cosmic ray events were removed using a $`5\sigma `$-clipping rejection criterion.

### 3.4. Redshift Estimation

Redshifts were measured using a modified version of the CRCOR code developed for the 2dFGRS (Colless et al. 2001). This uses both cross-correlation against template spectra (Tonry & Davis 1979) and identification of emission lines to estimate the redshift for each galaxy. The set of templates used for this analysis was the same as presented by Colless et al. (2001). Each redshift estimate was visually checked against the galaxy spectrum, and a quality flag, $`Q`$, was assigned according to the reliability of the estimate. This reliability assessment was arrived at through considering the cross-correlation $`R`$ value and the number of identified emission lines. The value of $`Q`$ assigned to each estimate was between 1-5, with 1 being no confidence and 5 being extremely confident. In all our later analysis we use only galaxies with $`Q3`$. Of the 5875 target objects observed, 3841 had $`Q3`$. Of these 1245 were $`Q=3`$, 2251 were $`Q=4`$ and 345 were $`Q=5`$. Note that poor weather observations, for which only a handful of spectra were measurable, have also been included in this accounting.

During the observing run, 15 galaxies in the Aquarius field and 121 galaxies in the Cetus field were targeted twice. These repeats provided a useful test of the redshift estimation process. In Fig. 4, we plot the difference in recession velocity, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(cz)=c(z_1z_2)`$, between the two estimated redshifts as a function of the mean redshift $`z`$ of the pair. For the Aquarius field (Fig. 4, top panel), of the 15 repeats, 10 of the redshift estimates agreed very well with an *rms* error of 67 km s-1. For four of the cases one of the observations was of poor quality $`Q<3`$, so that the comparison was unreliable and we do not show these. However, for one of the repeats, the estimates disagreed by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(cz)15,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and the quality flags were 3 and 4. We then inspected this erroneous pair to ascertain whether or not it was a genuine ‘blunder’.

Inspecting the images from the SuperCOSMOS archive we found two sources separated by less than 2$`\mathrm{}`$. Owing to the strong likelihood that the spectrum is composite, we were unable to trust the spectral features. For the Cetus field region (Fig. 4 middle panel), of the 121 repeats, 70 of the pairs had at least 1 galaxy with $`Q<3`$. These we did not consider further. Of the remaining 51, we found 11 pairs with a velocity difference greater than 300 km s-1. Inspecting these closer, we found evidence for 3 having close companions. Excluding these from the sample we then found an rms  error of 153 km s-1.

A further test of the redshift estimation procedure was performed by comparing our sample with overlap galaxy redshifts extracted from the NED 222NED: NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, can be found at: http://www.ipac.caltech.edu. From this archive we found 42 literature redshifts that overlapped with our Aquarius survey region. No redshifts were available for the Cetus region. Fig. 4 (bottom panel) shows the velocity differences from this comparison. For these data we initially found an rms  error of $`4000`$ km s-1. However, on identifying and removing a single observation for which $`\mathrm{\Delta }(cz)=26,400`$ km s-1, we found that the rms  dropped to $`160`$ km s-1. For this NED galaxy, we traced the redshift measurement to the work of Colless & Hewett (1987), who reported that the estimate for this object was not safe and was rejected from their analysis. This leads us to conclude that our overall blunder rate for measuring redshifts is low.

## 4. Characterizing the Sample

### 4.1. The Rest-frame Spectra

Fig. 5 presents a selection of ‘early-type’ rest frame galaxy spectra with redshifts around the median for the survey, $`(0.15<z<0.25)`$. These were generated by linearly interpolating over important sky absorption bands, de-redshifting each spectrum and then linearly interpolating it on to a uniform wavelength scale with range 3500Å$`<\lambda <`$7000Å and pixel scale 5.83Å per pixel.

We now calculate the mean and median signal-to-noise rest-frame spectrum as functions of quality class, magnitude and redshift as diagnostics for the sample. Fig. 6, top panel, shows the mean and median $`S/N`$ spectrum for galaxies with $`Q3`$. For both mean and median, the general shape of the spectrum is close to that of an early-type galaxy, but with emission lines superposed. Furthermore, the average galaxy spectrum in the sample has a $`S/N`$ better than 10.

Fig. 6, middle panel, shows the median spectrum by quality class. It is apparent that nearly all of the features in the high quality spectra are discernible in the lower quality spectra, but with lower strength absorption and emission features. Quantitatively, the $`Q=3`$ and $`Q=4`$ spectra possess a $`S/N`$ level a factor of $`4`$ and $`2`$ lower than the $`Q=5`$ spectra.

Fig. 6, bottom panel, shows the result of splitting the sample into three bins in magnitude: $`R19.0`$; $`19.0>R18.0`$; and $`R<18.0`$. For the brightest two bins, the median spectral energy distributions are better than $`S/N=10`$, but for the fainter bin galaxies the $`S/N`$ is lower, being $`6`$. This indicates that these objects are only just being detected. However, there is clear evidence of characteristic emission and absorption features, which indicates that for most cases, the correct redshift has been assigned to these galaxies. The absence of Hα emission can be attributed to two effects: The first is that the faint objects are predominantly at higher redshifts and so have had the red part of their spectrum redshifted out of the frequency bandwidth for our observations; the second is that since our sample contains a large number of low-redshift clusters we are preferentially biased to observing low-luminosity cluster ellipticals.

Finally, in Fig. 7, we consider the median by redshift. We have split the sample into three bins in redshift: $`z0.1`$; $`0.1<z0.2`$; $`z>0.2`$. Considering the first redshift bin, $`z0.1`$, the median spectrum is of high $`S/N`$, is flatter than a typical early-type spectrum, and has weak absorption features and fairly strong emission lines. The median spectrum for the next redshift bin, $`0.1<z0.2`$, again is of good $`S/N`$, is similar to an early type spectrum but with emission lines superposed. For the highest redshift bin, $`z>0.2`$, we find that the median spectrum shows strong characteristics of being an early-type galaxy, but with strong O II and O III emission features. Again, the absence of Hα emission can be understood from the arguments discussed above. It is possible that some of this evolution of the median spectrum with redshift may be due to true evolution in the galaxy populations. However, it is more likely due to selection effects. Since the Aquarius fields are cluster rich, we should expect a large number of cluster ellipticals in the intermediate redshift bins, whereas for the low redshift bins, we expect a more even mix of early- and late-type galaxies. Owing to the flux limit, the higher redshift bin will be dominated by bright ellipticals and also bright spirals, which accounts for the strong emission line and absorption features.

### 4.2. Spatial Distribution

Figs 8 and 9 show the cone plots for all galaxies with $`Q3`$ in the Aquarius and Cetus field regions, respectively. In order to show the large-scale structure more clearly, the right ascension direction of the plots has been stretched out by a factor of 10 and thus the apparent transverse filamentary features should be viewed circumspectly. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is strong clustering in the distribution of galaxies. In particular, the Aquarius region shows strong features at $`z`$0.08, 0.11, 0.125, 0.14, 0.19 and 0.3, and the Cetus region shows features at $`z0.11`$, with also evidence for a void between $`0.18<z<0.20`$.

Fig. 10 shows the redshift distributions of the galaxies. Considering the Aquarius field, the $`z=0.11`$ supercluster established by Batuski et al. (1999) is seen as a spike superposed on a broad hump between $`0.1<z<0.15`$. However, there is also another strong spike at $`z0.08`$, and as we show in §7 this represents a further super cluster. Considering the Cetus region, there is evidence for three major structures at $`z0.11`$, 0.16 and 0.23. Furthermore, the lack of galaxies between $`0.18<z<0.20`$ supports the case for the void indicated in the cone plots.

We have also fitted the commonly used analytic approximation of Efstathiou & Moody (2001) to these distributions, which has the form

$$dN(z)z^2\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(Bz/\overline{z}\right)^C\right]dz,$$
(1)
where $`B`$, $`C`$ are to be determined from the fitting, and $`\overline{z}`$ is the median redshift for the distribution. However, from Fig. 10, it is clear that this model fails to describe the complicated features in our distributions. We remark that any lensing analysis of small field surveys that assumes smooth redshift distributions as is exemplified by equation (1), must be viewed cautiously. For any future analysis where this distribution is required we will adopt a polynomial fit to the data.

### 4.3. Survey Completeness

As a final diagnostic, we map out the completeness distributions as a function of position on the sky. Furthermore, owing to the splitting of the source catalog into two broad magnitude bins, we generate completeness masks for the bright and the faint samples separately. These masks were created as follows: For each magnitude range, the number of target galaxies and the the number of successful redshifts were counted in square cells of roughly $`11\mathrm{}`$ on a side, the completeness for that cell was then estimated as the ratio of these numbers. The uncertainty on each estimate was determined by combining the Poisson errors on the two counts in quadrature. Finally, a local completeness value was associated to each galaxy through a bi-linear interpolation of the completeness map corresponding to the galaxy magnitude. Figs 11 and 12 show the completeness distribution for the Aquarius fields, and Figs 13 and 14 show the completeness distribution for the Cetus region.

## 5. Cluster Detection

We now identify clusters and large groups in the Aquarius and Cetus regions from the redshift data. In addition to our 2723 ($`Q3`$) 2dF redshifts for Aquarius, we also used 31 redshifts taken from the NED archives for this analysis. Possible duplicates were rejected by requiring that any galaxy with a NED redshift should be separated by $`>5\mathrm{}`$ from any galaxy in our 2dF redshift catalog. These literature redshifts were included in the survey completeness estimates described above.

The cluster candidates were identified as follows: First, we generated smoothed images of the galaxy distribution. This was done for a series of redshift planes running from $`z_\mathrm{p}=0`$ to $`z_\mathrm{p}=0.42`$, separated by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(cz)=1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. In generating these maps each galaxy was weighted by the inverse of the local survey completeness and Gaussian weighted (with $`\sigma =1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) according to its difference in radial velocity from the redshift plane. These frames were all of size $`832\times 832`$ pixels with pixel scale $`14.875\mathrm{}/\mathrm{pixel}`$. These were then smoothed in the angular direction with a 2D Gaussian of scale $`33\mathrm{}/z_\mathrm{p}`$. For the nearest cluster in our catalogue, $`z0.06`$, this corresponded to a physical smoothing scale of $`450`$ kpc $`h^1`$ and for the most distant cluster at $`z0.3`$, a scale of $`350`$ kpc $`h^1`$.

Next, we located the peaks in the smoothed frames. This was done using the peak finder algorithm in the IMCAT software package (Kaiser, Squires & Broadhurst 1995). In accord with the image generation, we detected peaks using a Gaussian smoothing filter with a radius of $`33\mathrm{}/z_\mathrm{p}`$. The peak detection threshold was set to be a low significance threshold $`\nu =2`$. A “galaxy flux” was then associated to each of the identified peaks, by summing over all pixels within $`33\mathrm{}/z_\mathrm{p}`$ from the central pixel. All peaks below a flux threshold of 375 galaxies were rejected. This cutoff level was arrived at by determining the highest peak height that would allow us to recover all of the previously known clusters in the fields. In practice, our detection scheme would typically recover the same structure in several adjacent redshift planes. We rejected such duplicates, by identifying those peaks that had a corresponding peak with higher flux in a neighbouring plane and that were separated by less than one Abell radius $`R_A=1\mathrm{}7/z`$.

As a first approximation, the redshift of each candidate cluster was assumed to be that of the plane $`z_\mathrm{p}`$. We then defined as cluster members all galaxies within a radial velocity interval of width $`\mathrm{\Delta }(cz)=6000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, centered on the estimated cluster redshift. Finally, we generated a cluster catalog containing clusters that had $`N9`$ members with spectroscopically measured redshifts. This selection criterion was motivated by the desire to have enough redshifts to make at least a rough estimate of the cluster velocity dispersion (see the following section). The final cluster catalogs contain a total of 48 identified objects in Aquarius (see Table 1) and 14 clusters in Cetus (see Table 2).

In these Tables, column (1) is the identifier in our catalog, where we have adopted the naming conventions “AQ HHMM.M(+/-)DDMM” for the Aquarius clusters and “CET HHMM.M(+/-)DDMM” for the Cetus clusters. The last nine digits are the celestial coordinates of the objects, which we take to be the position of the peaks in the smoothed galaxy distributions. Here, the right ascension is given in units of hours and minutes, with one decimal, and the declination is given in units of degrees and arc-minutes. The precision of these coordinates may vary significantly for different clusters because of variations in survey completeness as a function of sky position (see Figs 1114). Furthermore, we note that the minimum distance between the 2dF fibres limits our spectroscopic sampling in the densest parts of the clusters, and this limits the precision of positional estimates based on our spectroscopic data only. Such sampling restrictions will also limit the detection efficiency for the more distant clusters, which cover a smaller sky area. An updated catalog with more accurate coordinates for the center of each cluster will be reported in a future paper, based on our $`B`$\- and $`R`$-band imaging data from the ESO WFI.

### 5.1. Aquarius Region

In column (2) of Table 1 we give the ACO cluster catalog name or if the cluster does not have an ACO identifier, then we give the AqrCC catalog name (Caretta02). Of the 23 previously known clusters in our Aquarius survey region, we are able to robustly identify 20, of which five had previously unknown redshifts and two appear to be multiple systems. In addition to these, two previously known clusters (A2541 (catalog ) and A2550 (catalog )) are recovered by our detection method when we include 58 literature redshifts for galaxies that are just outside our survey region and that are fainter than $`R=19.5`$ (see next section for details). The only previously known system that we fail to detect is the cluster candidate AqrCC 43 (catalog ), which is a peak in the 2D galaxy distribution on the sky (Caretta02), located close to the Northern edge of our survey region.

Table 1 also contains data for 26 additional clusters that are previously unknown systems. Figure 15 shows radial velocity histograms for the 48 clusters identified with the methods described here. Figure 16 shows the cluster distribution in Aquarius projected on the sky. Each cluster is represented by a circle, where the scale of the circle is proportional to the Abell radius for the cluster.

### 5.2. Cetus Region

In the typical field region in Cetus, our cluster detection method recovers 12 new galaxy clusters in addition to the 2 previously known clusters identified in column (2) of Table 2. Figure 17 shows radial velocity histograms for all 14 clusters. Figure 18 shows the cluster distribution projected on the sky. Each cluster is represented by a circle, where the scale of the circle is proportional to the Abell radius for the cluster.

## 6. Cluster Redshifts and Velocity Dispersions

We now present estimates of the centroid redshifts and the velocity dispersions for the cluster candidates. Owing to the modest number of observed galaxies per cluster, typically between 9 and 71, it was important to use robust statistical estimators to avoid problems caused by e.g., deviations from a Gaussian velocity distribution and contamination from fore- and background galaxies. We therefore use the biweight estimators of location and scale described by Beers et al. (1990), to measure velocity dispersions and centroid redshifts. Confidence intervals for the estimates were calculated using the bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap method (Efron 1987) with 10,000 bootstrap replications. These robust estimators and methods for determining confidence intervals have been well tested on redshift samples like ours (see e.g., Beers et al. 1990; Girardi et al. 1993; Borgani et al. 1999; Irgens et al. 2002). Our statistical analysis was performed using the ROSTAT program kindly provided by Dr. T. C. Beers.

The cluster redshifts and one-dimensional velocity dispersion estimates, together with 68% confidence limits, are presented for the Aquarius region in Table 1 as columns (4) and (7) and for the Cetus region in Table 2 as columns (4) and (6). Figures 8 and 9 show the cluster candidates overlayed on the measured galaxy distribution.

Column (3) in both tables shows the number of galaxy redshifts used in these estimates for each cluster. We note that from the sample, there are 15 clusters for which estimates were derived from only 9 redshifts, and as expected these have respectively large confidence limits for the velocity dispersion estimates. Previous redshift estimates have been made by Caretta02 for a total of 15 clusters in our Aquarius survey region (one of which we identify as a double system). These values are listed in column (6) of Table 1, and the number of cluster members used for their redshift estimate is given in column (5). We find very good agreement with the literature redshifts for 12 clusters, while 3 clusters have discrepant redshift values. These cases are discussed in detail below. However, we point out that our estimates are based upon more (in most cases many more) galaxies than Caretta02. In the Cetus region, Romer et al. (2000) have published a redshift for a single cluster, listed in column (5) of Table 2, which is consistent with our value.

Columns (8) and (9) of Table 1 and columns (7) and (8) of Table 2 show the asymmetry index and normalized tail index defined by Bird & Beers (1993). For a Gaussian distribution, the asymmetry index is zero and the normalized tail index is unity. Large deviations from these numbers are a strong indication that the cluster is not in dynamic equilibrium, or that it is strongly contaminated by non-cluster galaxies, i.e., that the found velocity dispersion is not to be taken as a good measurement of its dynamical mass. For our sample sizes, an asymmetry index with absolute value larger than 0.9 and/or a reduced tail index larger than 1.5 (somewhat higher values for the clusters with $`N<25`$) should signify that the cluster velocity dispersion is suspect. We see that the bootstrap method gives large confidence limits on the velocity dispersions for these clusters.

We have made some notes on specific clusters:

#### A2539

Caretta02 report that this cluster appears to be a superposition of groups at $`z0.175`$ and $`z0.186`$. Our redshift estimate falls between these two values, but is more consistent with the lower value. The rather high estimated velocity dispersion could be caused by such a superposition of two groups along the line of sight, although the asymmetry index and the normalized tail index do not indicate a significant departure from a Gaussian distribution.

#### A2540

Our redshift value of $`z=0.134`$ is significantly higher than the value of $`z=0.129`$ measured by Caretta02. However, our estimate is based on a significantly larger number of redshifts.

#### A2546

This appears to form a double system with nearby A2541 (catalog ), which is located near the Southeastern end of our survey region. By including additional literature redshifts of galaxies located slightly outside our survey region, we measure a redshift $`z=0.1124_{0.0011}^{+0.0014}`$ and velocity dispersion of $`995_{423}^{+854}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, based on 11 member galaxies. This redshift value is consistent with the redshift reported by Caretta02 ($`z=0.1135`$, based on 16 galaxies).

#### AQ2311.4-2126

The coordinates of the cluster candidate AqrCC 32 (catalog ) identified by Caretta02 places it between our clusters AQ2311.4-2126 (catalog ) and AQ2311.4-2134 (catalog ), and it is most likely a superposition of these two clusters.

#### A2550

While this cluster was not recovered using our standard detection scheme outlined in § 5, a significant peak was detected at this location when using all available literature redshifts in the region. We note that the apparent center of this cluster is located in a region where the completeness of our spectroscopic survey is particularly low (see Figs. 11 and 12). Our measured redshift value $`z=0.1151_{0.0013}^{+0.0022}`$, based on 14 galaxies, is discrepant from previously reported estimates: Caretta02 give a value $`z=0.1226`$ from 6 galaxies, while Kowalski, Ulmer & Cruddace (1983) reported $`z=0.1543`$ based on a single redshift measurement. The latter value is close to the redshifts of the clusters AQ2311.4-2136 (catalog ) and AQ2311.4-2134 (catalog ) which are both located within $`0.5\mathrm{°}`$ from the ACO position of A2550 (catalog ). On inspection of a deep $`R`$-band image of this field, from our ESO WFI data (Dahle et al. 2004; in preparation), we find that the bright elliptical galaxy 2MASX J23113576-2144462 (catalog ) is dominating the center of A2550 (catalog ). Its redshift was measured as $`z=0.1216`$ by Batuski et al. (1999), similar to the cluster redshift value reported by Caretta02. Furthermore, we note that line-of-sight contamination from the very rich nearby cluster A2554 (catalog ) may have influenced our results, and the high velocity dispersion ($`1427_{210}^{+410}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and asymmetry index (1.4) of our galaxy sample indicates that we may be probing a filamentary structure linked to A2554 (catalog ) rather than A2550 (catalog ).

#### A2554

Based on 23 cluster members, Colless & Hewett (1987) measured a velocity dispersion of $`797_{114}^{+165}`$ km s-1, consistent with our estimate at the $`1\sigma `$ level.

#### A2565

Our redshift value is slightly discrepant from that reported by Caretta02, but our cluster position is also significantly mis-aligned with their position. We note that this cluster is located in a region where the spectroscopic completeness value is particularly low, and our position is shifted in a direction towards a region where the completeness is higher. Thus, we are probably sampling a slightly different region than Caretta02, and the high asymmetry index indicates that our redshift estimate may be significantly affected by filaments or other structures outside the virial radius of the cluster.

#### AQ2317.4-2223

The coordinates of the cluster candidate AqrCC 48 (catalog ), described by Caretta02 as “a superposition of small groups”, places it between our clusters AQ2317.4-2223 (catalog ) and AQ2318.9-2232 (catalog ), and it is most likely a superposition of these two objects.

#### A2576

Batuski et al. (1995) reported a velocity dispersion measurement of $`630`$ km s-1 for this cluster, which is somewhat lower than the value we measure. However, their measurement is based on only 10 member galaxies, so the uncertainty should be significantly higher than for our measurement.

#### AQ2321.3-2224

This cluster probably corresponds to the cluster candidate AqrCC 62 (catalog ) reported by Caretta02. While these authors did not detect a concentration in redshift space at this location, we find from our data a corresponding galaxy group (or poor cluster) at $`z0.193`$.

#### A3996

While the redshift measurement of Caretta02 ($`z=0.0854`$) is significantly lower than our value, these authors report A3996 (catalog ) to be a superposition of small groups. Our redshift value is quite similar to that reported by Batuski et al. (1999) ($`z=0.1155`$), based on 8 redshifts. The high tail index and highly uncertain velocity dispersion indicate that this cluster may be significantly affected by foreground/background contamination.

## 7. The Aquarius Superclusters

Based on a percolation analysis of Abell and ACO clusters in Aquarius, Batuski et al. (1999) interpreted the region at $`0.08<z<0.12`$ as a single supercluster structure. In contrast, Caretta02 found that the Aquarius region contains two separate superclusters, seen in projection, at $`z0.08`$ and $`z0.11`$. While Batuski et al. (1999) argued that these two superclusters are physically linked and form a single system, most of the evidence for this link came from an erroneous redshift for A2541 (catalog ). In fact, this cluster is situated within the densest portion of the most distant of the two superclusters rather than in a region between the superclusters. The cone plot of Fig. 8, clearly shows strong clustering at $`z0.08`$ and $`z0.11`$, separated by a region of comparatively low density.

The overdensities and total masses of these structures can be estimated from the measured galaxy velocity dispersions of their member clusters. A lower limit on the supercluster mass can be found by summing the estimated masses of all the clusters within their respective virial radii, and an upper limit can be found by assuming a given cluster density profile and integrating this for all clusters over the volume covered by the supercluster.

We assume that the clusters generally follow the density profile of cold dark matter halos proposed by Navarro, Frenk, & White (1997, hereafter NFW). While this model has been shown to provide a good fit to the radial cluster density profile in the virialized region of clusters (Arabadjis, Bautz, & Garmire 2002; Biviano & Girardi 2003; Dahle, Hannestad, & Sommer-Larsen 2003b), there are currently only limited constraints on the density profile in the infall region beyond the virial radius (Rines et al. 2003; Kneib et al. 2003). Also, clusters embedded in the rare, high-density environment of a supercluster may have density profiles that deviate significantly from those of average clusters. With our weak lensing data set from WFI imaging, we will be able to directly constrain the density profiles of clusters within the superclusters and provide more accurate estimates of the supercluster masses. Our density estimates given below do not take into account any redshift space distortions due to departures from the Hubble flow. In reality, the cluster distribution could be either flattened or elongated in the $`z`$ direction by cluster peculiar velocities.

For each cluster, we assume an NFW model with an effective velocity dispersion $`\sigma _v=\sqrt{50}H(z)r_{200}`$, where $`H(z)`$ is the Hubble parameter, and $`r_{200}`$ is the radius within which the average mass density is 200 times the critical density at the relevant redshift. The average mass within $`r_{200}`$ of the members of the superclusters discussed below is $`M_{200}4\times 10^{14}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$. For this cluster mass, an NFW cluster in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe has a predicted concentration parameter $`C=6`$, which we will adopt as a general value. In a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe, the virial radius is actually slightly larger than $`r_{200}`$, while the two are the same in an Einstein-de Sitter universe.

### 7.1. The $`z0.11`$ Supercluster

As noted in § 2, Batuski et al. (1999) identified a particularly dense knot of five $`R1`$ ACO clusters contained within a sphere of radius 10 $`h^1`$ Mpc at $`z=0.11`$, representing a spatial number density 150 times the mean density of $`R1`$ ACO clusters. By this measure, the Aquarius knot represents the strongest overdensity of any known supercluster. The knot is very obvious in Figure 8, and corresponds to the densest part of the supercluster.

All of the 5 ACO clusters forming the knot noted by Batuski et al. (1999) are located within our survey field. In § 6 (see the note regarding A2546 (catalog )) we provide a new redshift estimate for another $`R1`$ ACO cluster, A2541 (catalog ), which makes it a sixth member of the knot. In addition, we find that AqrCC 24 (catalog ) plus two previously unknown systems are also members of the knot at $`z=0.11`$.

The lower limit on the supercluster mass obtained from the sum of the $`M_{200}`$ values of the nine clusters within our survey region is $`4.5\times 10^{15}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$. Integrating NFW density profiles for the nine galaxy clusters over the volume bounded by $`23^\mathrm{h}09^\mathrm{m}00^\mathrm{s}<\alpha <23^\mathrm{h}22^\mathrm{m}30^\mathrm{s}`$, $`23\mathrm{°}10\mathrm{}<\delta <21\mathrm{°}15\mathrm{}`$ and $`0.109<z<0.114`$, corresponding to a volume of $`17\times 8.5\times 15h^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$, gives an estimate of the total mass of $`8.3\times 10^{16}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$. The lower and upper limits for the mass correspond to overdensities of $`\rho =17\overline{\rho }`$ and $`\rho =330\overline{\rho }`$ within this volume.

### 7.2. The $`z0.08`$ supercluster

We identify 11 clusters and groups in the most nearby Aquarius supercluster at $`0.084<z<0.091`$, of which three are ACO clusters, three more were detected by Caretta02 (AqrCC 48 (catalog ), which we interpret to be a binary system, and AqrCC 56 (catalog )), and the remaining five are new detections. The sum of their $`M_{200}`$ masses is $`3.2\times 10^{15}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$, and their integrated masses over a volume of $`15\times 7.9\times 20h^3\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ (bounded by $`23^\mathrm{h}08^\mathrm{m}00^\mathrm{s}<\alpha <23^\mathrm{h}22^\mathrm{m}30^\mathrm{s}`$, $`22\mathrm{°}55\mathrm{}<\delta <21\mathrm{°}15\mathrm{}`$ and $`0.084<z<0.091`$) is $`8.3\times 10^{16}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$. The lower and upper limits for the mass correspond to overdensities of $`\rho =13\overline{\rho }`$ and $`\rho =330\overline{\rho }`$ within this volume. We note that our Aquarius survey field is too small to encompass the entire supercluster, and Caretta02 identify several supercluster members outside our field.

The integrated masses of the $`z=0.11`$ and $`z=0.08`$ structures are similar to the upper limit on the mass of the Corona Borealis supercluster ($`M<8\times 10^{16}h^1M_{\mathrm{}}`$) estimated by Small et al. (1998).

## 8. Summary

In this paper we have presented a spectroscopic analysis of $`4000`$ galaxies down to $`R<19.5`$ in the direction of Aquarius and Cetus. These observations form part of our wider efforts to conduct a spectro-photometric and weak lensing survey of these two regions. The spectroscopic data are sensitive to structures out to $``$1 Gpc or equivalently $`z0.4`$. These data will greatly aid our ongoing efforts to measure the dark matter distribution in these regions and quantify the bias over a large range of scales and environments.

We described the survey that we are conducting, focusing on the spectroscopic input catalogue. We then presented our 2dF observations and the reduction of the spectra. We characterized the spectroscopic sample by considering the median spectra, finding evolution of the median galaxy spectrum with redshift. This evolution was attributed to selection effects, rather than any true evolution in the galaxy population. We presented spatial diagrams for the two target regions and also quantified the number redshift distributions. These displayed a large amount of structure and were poorly fit by a 2dFGRS-like number redshift distribution. For our future lensing analysis, where these quantities are required, we will use direct fits to the data. Using the full redshift space sample we then identified clusters in both the Aquarius and Cetus regions. In Aquarius we found a total of 48 clusters and galaxy groups, 26 of which had not before been noted, and for 5 of those that had, we provided the first spectroscopic redshift estimates. For Cetus we found 14 clusters and galaxy groups, of which 12 were previously unknown systems. For each candidate system we then provided estimates of the centroid redshift and velocity dispersion. We showed that there are two superclusters in Aquarius, one at redshift $`z=0.08`$ and the other at $`z=0.11`$. For these we estimated the overdensities and total masses, finding that they were similar to the Corona Borealis supercluster.

In the future, we intend to characterize the galaxies through their spectral energy distributions using a principal components analysis (Madgwick et al. 2002). This will allow us to explore the putative result that early-type galaxy light is an unbiased tracer of the dark matter (Kaiser et al. 1998; Gray et al. 2002; Dahle et al. 2002). In addition to the primary goals, we anticipate that when fully complete this survey will provide other valuable scientific information. For example, comparison of the weak lensing data with the optically identified clusters and with the archival X-ray data, will allow us to assess the objectivity of optical and X-ray luminosity selection methods for cluster surveys (Dahle et al. 2003a). This will be important to quantify if cluster abundance surveys that aim to constrain cosmological parameters are to be taken seriously in this new age of precision.

## Acknowledgments

RES acknowledges a PPARC postdoctoral research assistantship. HD and PBL acknowledge support from The Research Council of Norway. We thank: Bryn Jones for providing useful image extraction software; Will Sutherland and the 2dFGRS team for providing the redshift estimation code CRCOR; Timothy C. Beers for providing his ROSTAT code and advice on its use; the support staff at the AAT. This research has made use of: the SuperCOSMOS archives at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh; the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


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# A Constructive Critique of the Three Standard Systems11footnote 1Concluding talk “LHC in Context” at the Praha-ASI Conference on LHC Physics, Prague, July 2003.

## 1 The Gauge Sector

The unambiguously good system is one describing couplings of the $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ gauge bosons. Deep principles of symmetry and locality greatly constrain the form of these couplings. When we combine these principles with the demand of renormalizability, we come down to a theory containing just one continuous parameter for each gauge group, namely its overall coupling strength. (Strictly speaking this is only true for the nonabelian factors, and only if we put aside the $`\theta `$ terms for those factors. I’ll return to the first of these points below; for more on the other, see .) This system gives us an extraordinarily economical account of the central features of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions, which is in excellent agreement with a host of accurate experiments.

This is not the place for yet another retelling of that story, wonderful though it is. Let me just invoke it with a two familiar icons, which I’ll want to refer to later. We should not let familiarity blind us to their beauty and power.

Figure 1 shows the running of the coupling in QCD. It summarizes the results of many hundreds of independent measurements in different situations at different energy-scales, all of which conform to the predictions of an extremely tight theory. Two features are especially noteworthy. First, there is a special point labeled “lattice gauge theory”. Whereas the other points are grounded in perturbative QCD (including, to be sure, use of the renormalization group, non-perturbative factorization theorems, and multiloop calculations), this one employs the basic algorithmic definition, with no compromises, of the only relativistic quantum field theory that can withstand such use. Second, the theoretical band of allowed couplings focuses to the right, as we approach large energy scales. This means that by the time we reach the LEP experiments, our predictions are essentially parameter-free! Indeed, any reasonable value for the QCD $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ parameter produces the same value of $`\alpha _s(M_\mathrm{W})`$, within a few percent (and the relevant quark masses have become, at these high energies, negligible).

Figure 2 shows the over-constrained fit of electroweak parameters to precision measurements. Such measurements were used to predict the mass of the W and Z bosons and the top quark before their discovery. Looking ahead, they suggest that the Higgs particle will be reasonably light. We expect 150 GeV $`m_\mathrm{H}`$ \- eminently accessible at the LHC - unless of course the particles and interactions we know are somehow part of a larger conspiracy, which mimics the standard model accurately in all other respects.

### 1.1 Self-Transcendence

The empirical success of our gauge theories, and the tight, elegant mathematical structure they share, is so clear and impressive that we can build upon it with confidence. We must take very seriously, and should strive to remove, the remaining esthetic flaws of these theories.

Looking critically at the structure of a single standard model family, as displayed in Figure 3, one has no trouble picking out flaws.

The gauge symmetry contains three separate pieces, and the fermion representation contains five separate pieces. While this is an amazingly tight structure, considering the wealth of phenomena described, it clearly fails to achieve the ultimate in simplicity and irreducibility. Let me remind you, in this context, that electroweak “unification” is something of a misnomer. There are still two separate symmetries, and two separate coupling constants, in the electroweak sector of the standard model. It is much more accurate to speak of electroweak “mixing”.

Worst of all, the abelian $`U(1)`$ symmetry is powerless to quantize its corresponding charges. The hypercharge assignments – indicated in Figure 3 by the numerical subscripts – must be chosen on purely phenomenological grounds. On the face of it, they appear in a rather peculiar pattern. If we are counting continuous parameters, the freedom to choose their values takes us from three to seven (and more, if we restore the families). The electrical neutrality of atoms is a striking and fundamental fact, which has been checked to extraordinary precision, and which is central to our understanding of Nature. In the standard model this fact appears, at a classical level, to require finely tuned hand-adjustment.

By demanding full quantum-mechanical consistency, specifically the cancellation of gauge symmetry anomalies, we can derive constraints among the hypercharges that very much improve the situation. Even at this level, however, there is no theoretical barrier to prevent a small admixture proportional to B-L into the electric charge operator, for example. In the minimal standard model there is a cubic anomaly in B-L itself, but that can be cancelled by including a standard model singlet, which we can identify as a right-handed neutrino. (It is interesting to note that even a tiny electric charge for the neutrino would forbid neutrino-antineutrino oscillations, or in other words Majorana mass terms, and conversely. This circumstance adds fundamental interest to an unmet experimental challenge, to determine whether the neutrino masses are of Majorana type.)

### 1.2 Unification

These two shortcomings of the gauge system in standard model, that is the occurrence scattered of multiplets and peculiar hypercharges, are both overcome quite beautifully if we are willing to postulate larger gauge symmetry (spontaneously broken, of course). With the natural embedding of $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ into $`SU(5)`$ we find the fermions of a single family fall into just two multiplets, a conjugate vector $`\overline{\mathrm{𝟓}}`$ plus an antisymmetric tensor $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟎}`$. Moreover their hypercharges are uniquely determined, and in agreement with experiment. The ugly ducklings of the standard model, upon unification, mature into graceful swans. The ultimate in unification, while not addressing family replication, is obtained with the slightly larger gauge symmetry $`SO(10)`$, as shown in Figure 4. Now the fermions are all in a single multiplet, the spinor $`\mathrm{𝟏𝟔}`$. The additional particle needed to fill out this mutiplet is a right-handed neutrino. It plays an important constructive role in the theory of neutrino masses, by allowing the seesaw mechanism. A zealot might make a case that it has thereby already been observed, albeit indirectly. Be that as it may, the forced incorporation of a right-handed neutrino should probably be viewed as an asset rather than an embarrassment.

At first sight there appears to be a grave difficulty with these unification schemes, in that they appear to predict too much, specifically equality of the strong, weak, and properly normalized hypercharge couplings, which is definitely not what we observe. By now it is becoming a familiar story, depicted in Figure 5, that after calculating the dynamics of these theories properly and quantitatively, taking into account the effects of vacuum polarization, we find that this apparent difficulty might be resolved triumphantly. Indeed, extending the logic of QCD running, already displayed in Figure 1, to include the other interactions, we realize that the relative values of the couplings are scale-dependent. We should have equality of the couplings only at very short distances, or high energies, before the asymmetric screening and anti-screening clouds distort it.

Following out this idea, we find that by accounting for the renormalization effects of virtual particles in the minimal standard model (as usually understood) we get qualitative but not quantitative agreement. But if we include expand the calculation to implement the effects supersymmetry, in a minimal realization, beginning at a mass scale of order 1 Tev, we find quite remarkable agreement, as shown in Figure 5. Low-energy supersymmetry is an attractive hypothesis for several other reasons, as I’ll review shortly, but this result, because it is quantitative, seems to me by far the most compelling.

The unification of gauge couplings occurs at a very large mass scale, of order $`M_\mathrm{U}10^{16}`$ GeV, indicating that this is the scale of unified symmetry breaking. It is extraordinary that measurements at accessible energies, $`10^2`$ GeV or less, can point us so specifically to this enormously larger scale. It happens because the running of the (inverse) couplings is logarithmic, so that it takes a lot of leverage to overcome a modest difference. The logarithmic running of formally dimensionless couplings is a profound consequence of relativistic quantum field theory in four space-time dimensions. The apparent success of this unification calculation therefore, on the face of it, suggests that the principles of quantum field theory continue to be valid up to energies, or down to distances, many orders of magnitude beyond where they were discovered or have been tested directly.

The occurrence of a large mass scale $`M_\mathrm{U}`$ has important conceptual advantages. Unification of gauge interactions inevitably involves putting quarks and leptons on the same footing, and upon doing this it becomes difficult to avoid the occurrence of significant transitions between them. From that arises baryon number violation, and thus proton decay, unless some conspiracy intervenes. Baryon number violation certainly occurs through gauge boson exchange in $`SU(5)`$ or $`SO(10)`$, or any large gauge symmetry group. For bringing the predicted rates down to an acceptable level, the heavy propagator suppression $`M_U^4`$ is most welcome. On the positive side, the see-saw mechanism for neutrino masses gives the estimate $`m_\nu m_t^2/M_\mathrm{U}`$ for the heaviest observed neutrino mass, where $`m_t`$ is the top quark mass, and that’s close to what is observed.

It’s also most intriguing that $`M_\mathrm{U}`$ is close to, although significantly smaller than, the Planck mass $`G_N^{\frac{1}{2}}10^{18}`$ GeV. Gravity responds directly to energy-momentum, so its effective strength evolves with the mass scale (for virtual exchanges) at which it is defined, even classically. Another aspect of this is the Newton constant is, in our usual $`h=c=1`$ units, a dimensional coupling. It is as we approach the Planck scale that amplitudes involving graviton exchange, straightforwardly extrapolated, from being much feebler than the other interactions, approach quantitative equality. Independent of any detailed theoretical implementation, this numerical circumstance strongly supports the idea that a further stage of unification, in which both gauge interactions and gravity take part, is a physical reality.

### 1.3 Low Energy Supersymmetry

Low-energy supersymmetry has several other important advantages, besides its helpful role in the quantitative aspect of unification.

Low-energy supersymmetry protects the Higgs (mass)2 term, which governs the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking, from quadratically divergent radiative corrections. As long as the scale of mass splittings between standard model particles and their superpartners is less than a Tev or so, the radiative corrections to this (mass)2 are both finite and reasonably small. (In detail, things are not quite so clean and straightforward; there is the “$`\mu `$ problem”, which is a very interesting and important subject, but too intricate to discuss here.)

This general qualitative relationship between mass splittings of supersymmetry multiplets and the observed weak scale penetrates also has a more specific and quantitative aspect. Supersymmetry relates the physical mass of the lightest, “standard model-like” Higgs particle, which in the absence of supersymmetry is a free parameter, to the masses of W and Z bosons. There is some model dependence in this relationship. But within minimal or reasonably economical supersymmetric extensions of the standard electroweak model the Higgs mass is generally predicted to be near – or below! – existing experimental limits, as shown in Figure 6. This renders the models subject to quick falsification at LHC or, more optimistically, to fruitful vindication. With vindication would come the emergence of a rich Higgs-sector phenomenology starting somewhere below 150 GeV.

The optimistic scenario gains credibility from another advantage of supersymmetry. This is the important though negative virtue, that for precision electroweak measurements supersymmetric extensions of the standard model generally yield only small deviations from the predictions of the standard model itself. That’s a good thing, because the standard model agrees remarkably well with these measurements. The situation is depicted in Figure 7. Several large classes of rival models to low-energy supersymmetry associate electroweak symmetry breaking with new strong interactions. In these models, which include Technicolor and both in its original form and in its extra-dimensional disguises, radiative corrections to the Higgs (mass)2 are rendered finite by form-factors, rather than cancellations; and though the additional radiative contributions in these models are finite, there is no general reason to expect that they are especially small. Indeed, to the extent that they support specific calculations, one finds that such models generically have severe difficulty in accommodating existing precision measurements.

Finally, low-energy supersymmetry can provide an excellent candidate to provide the dark matter of cosmology. It’s plausible that the lightest particle with odd $`R`$-parity, where $`R()^{B+L+J}`$ is stable on cosmological time scales, because the quantum numbers that go into the definition of $`R`$ are well respected. The lightest $`R`$-odd particle, usually called the LSP (Lightest Supersymmetric Particle) could be some linear combination of the photino, zino, and Higgsino. Indeed, the production of these particles in big bang cosmology is about right to account for the observed density of dark matter.

## 2 Gravity

General relativity manifestly provides a beautiful, conceptually driven theory of gravity. It has scored many triumphs, both qualitative (big bang cosmology, black hole physics) and quantitative (precession of Mercury, binary pulsar). The low-energy effective theory of gravity together with the other interactions is defined algorithmically by the minimal coupling prescription, or equivalently by restricting to low-dimension operators. Since, in this context, “low” means compared to the Planck energy scale, this effective theory is very effective indeed. We can and do obtain unambiguous, apparently accurate answers in the applications above and many others by using this theory. And it is perfectly quantum-mechanical, supporting for example the existence of gravitons as the particulate form of gravity waves.

What makes this very tight, predictive, and elegant theory of quantum gravity “bad” is not that there is any experiment that contradicts it. There isn’t. Nor, I think, is the main problem that this theory cannot supply predictions for totally academic thought experiments about ultrahigh energy behavior. It can’t, but there are more pressing issues, that might have more promise of leading to contact between theory and empirical reality.

A great lesson of the standard model is that what we have been evolved to perceive as empty space is in fact a richly structured medium. It contains symmetry-breaking condensates associated with electroweak superconductivity and spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, an effervescence of virtual particles, and probably much more. Since gravity is sensitive to all forms of energy it really ought to see this stuff, even if we don’t. A straightforward estimation suggests that empty space should weigh several orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude (no misprint here!) more than it does. It “should” be much denser than a neutron star, for example. The expected energy of empty space acts like dark energy, with negative pressure, but there’s much too much of it.

To me this discrepancy is the most mysterious fact in all of physical science, the fact with the greatest potential to rock the foundations. We’re obviously missing some major insight here. Given this situation, it’s hard to know what to make of the ridiculously small amount of dark energy that presently dominates the Universe!

Another disappointing aspect of our effective theory of gravity is that it walls off the description of gravity from the theory of the other interactions. The minimal coupling procedure for incorporating gravity can accommodate any quantum field theory of the rest of Nature; it neither constrains nor significantly modifies the physical content of such theories. Thus it fails to live up to the promise of the unification of couplings calculation, with its pointer to the Planck scale, as I discussed above.

From these perspectives, a profoundly exciting aspect of supersymmetry is that the extension of non-gravitational (flat-space, rigid) supersymmetry to supergravity is considerably more complicated and delicate than straight minimal coupling. One must include very specific additional terms, some of which do not include gravitons or gravitinos. Indeed, these terms play important roles in attempts to construct phenomenologically viable models realizing low-energy supersymmetry. More specifically, the non-minimal terms are used, in conjunction with a gravitational “hidden sector” to generate soft supersymmetry-breaking mass terms, or a small $`\mu `$ term. People have discussed hidden sectors that derive from structures living elsewhere in extra spatial dimensions, or from additional gauge structures as suggested by the heterotic string. It’s remarakable that there are genuine prospects for accessing the deep structure of gravity, and maybe even discerning evidence for these other exotic structures, by experiments at accelerators!

## 3 The Flavor/Higgs Sector

The third sector consists, one might say, of the potential energy terms. They are the terms that don’t arise from gauge or space-time covariant derivatives. (Note that field strengths and curvatures are commutators of covariant derivatives.) All these terms involve the Higgs field, in one way or another. They include the Higgs field mass and its self-coupling, and the Yukawa couplings. We know of no deep principle, comparable to gauge symmetry or general covariance, which constrains the values of these couplings tightly.

For that reason, it is in this sector where continuous parameters proliferate, into the dozens. Basically, we introduce each observed mass and weak mixing angle as an independent input, which must be determined empirically. The phenomenology is not entirely out of control: the general framework (local relativistic quantum field theory, gauge symmetry, and renormalizability) has significant consequences, and even this part of the standard model makes many non-trivial predictions and is highly over-constrained. In particular, the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) parameterization of weak currents and CP violation has, so far, survived close new scrutiny at the B-factories intact.

Neutrino masses and mixings can be accommodated along similar lines, if we expand the framework slightly. The simplest possibility is to allow for minimally non-renormalizable (mass dimension 5) “ultra-Yukawa” terms. These terms involve two powers of the scalar Higgs field. To accommodate the observed neutrino masses and mixings, they must occur with very small coefficients.

The flavor/Higgs sector of fundamental physics is its least satisfactory part. Whether measured by the large number of independent parameters or by the small number of powerful ideas it contains, our theoretical description of this sector does not attain the same level as we’ve reached in the other sectors. This part really does deserve to be called a “model” rather than a “theory”.

There are many opportunities for experiments to supply additional information. These include determining masses, weak mixing angles and phases for quarks more accurately; the same for neutrinos; searches for $`\mu e\gamma `$ and allied processes; looking for electric dipole moments; and others. The big question for theorists is: What are we going to do with this data?

### 3.1 Breakout Possibilities

It is very important to gather all that information, and in the process of doing so we might very well find direct evidence for new physics “beyond the standard model”, which would be great fun. But I don’t find it plausible that pinning down quark masses and the CKM matrix, or their leptonic analogues, or even discovering evidence for new sources of flavor change and CP violation, will give us the sort of impetus we’ll need to break through to a theory that’s better than, as opposed to just larger than, the third (Ugly) system as we know it.

If low-energy supersymmetry is indeed discovered, there will be many additional masses, mixings, and phases to sort out. There are profound questions to be answered here. The dark side of low-energy supersymmetry is that it offers many new potential sources of flavor and CP violation, including baryon number violation, which Nature has made surprisingly sparing use of. Some of these are associated with low-dimension operators, so that a priori they are sensitive to physics at high mass scales, where exotic effects of quantum gravity and exchange of the new particles associated with unification are unsuppressed.

So various special mechanisms and symmetries have been postulated, to keep the basic ideas of low-energy supersymmetry and unification phenomenologically viable. None is uniquely convincing, and we will surely need experimental guidance to figure out which, if any, is on the right track.

Here’s a specific example of an exciting and bizarre, but not altogether gratuitous or crazy possibility. There’s a parameter $`m_0`$, the universal soft mass term, that appears in models of low-energy supersymmetry. It’s a kind of fudge factor, and several theoretical ideas suggest that putting $`m_0=0`$ might be desirable. But concrete implementations of this idea appear to run into severe phenomenological problems. Specifically, they predict that the LSP is a charged particle, the stau; but cosmology puts severe constraints on the mass density in any new stable charged particles.

Now there’s a very interesting possibility to evade this problem. It could be that what appears to be the LSP, if we take into account only the supersymmetric partners of standard model particles, is not truly the lightest $`R`$-parity odd particle in Nature. Gravitinos, axinos, or some other weakly coupled “inos” might be lighter. The staus would decay into them. In that case, the stau lifetime could be very long by particle physics standards, but short on cosmological scales. These charged particles could leave long tracks, and one might even have difficulty observing that they decay at all!

Finally let me mention one redeeming virtue of the Higgs sector. (“Virtue” might be too strong; actually, what I’m about to do is more in the nature of advertising a bug as a feature.) The Lagrangian of the standard model, due to constraints of gauge symmetry, is constructed almost entirely from hard (mass dimension 4), strictly renormalizable terms. The lone exception is the term responsible for the Higgs field (mass)2 term, which is proportional to the operator $`\varphi ^{}\varphi `$.

Now let’s entertain the notion that there might be reasonably light, standard-model singlet particles deriving from physics at high energy scales. How could they couple to the particles we know? Since the constraints of gauge symmetry still operate, the couplings of these new particles have to be built on top of the couplings that appear in the standard model. Therefore – with one exception – they will have mass dimension greater than four, and they will be suppressed by coefficients in which inverse powers of the high scale appears. The exception, of course, is when they couple to Higgs particles. So the Higgs field is uniquely susceptible to this sort of exotic coupling.

Light particles of the sort just mentioned could arise as the Nambu-Goldstone bosons of spontaneous symmetry breaking, but in that case they’d be derivatively coupled, and the derivatives boost the mass dimension of possible couplings back up past four. More interesting from this perspective are moduli fields associated with flat directions in supersymmetry models. In the limit of exact supersymmetry they are massless but not derivatively coupled; if the scale of supersymmetry breaking is low, they could remain light enough to be accessible – but only through the Higgs sector!

## 4 Outlook/Apology

In keeping with my assignment here, I’ve focused on fundamental issues that have some fairly direct connection with the LHC program. Although this brief discussion has necessarily been quite selective, even given that assignment, I trust that it has served to emphasize that this program has extraordinary promise to advance our understanding of Nature in truly fundamental ways. Of course, there are other, complementary ways we can hope to gain fundamental insights. I’ve discussed some of them recently in a similar style elsewhere . But the LHC program is uniquely powerful and sure-fire.

The ideas about unstable LSPs and moduli fields allude to ongoing work with J. Feng and with B. Patt and D. Smith, respectively, which will appear shortly. I thank them for discussions and inspiration.


text:
# Readout scheme of the fullerene-based quantum computer by a single electron transistor

## Abstract

We propose a potential scheme, based on the achieved technique of single electron transistor (SET), to implement the readout of electronic spin state inside a doped $`C_{60}`$ fullerene by means of the magnetic dipole-dipole coupling and spin filters. In the presence of an external magnetic field, we show how to perform the spin state detection by transforming the information contained in the spin state into the tunneling current. The robustness of our scheme against sources of error is discussed.

Spin based solid - state quantum computing has drawn much attention recently due to the possibility of building large-scale quantum processors see . Besides the challenge of elaborately manipulating individual qubits - encoded into single spin states - within small regions, a serious obstacle is to read out the information contained in each of these qubits. This readout is both necessary to measure the state of the completed computation and required to perform quantum error correction.

To our knowledge, there have been some proposals for single spin detection. The conversion of single spin states into charge states is the main idea in this respect kane ; loss . Our scheme is also based on this idea. Experimentally Scanning- Tunneling- Microscope electron spin resonance (ESR), has demonstrated single molecule ESR spectroscopy of iron impurities in Silicon rao . However theoretical work remains to clarify for the best description of the effects balatsky  although experimental work in this respect is still in rapid progress durkan . Micro-Squids is a technique capable of distinguishing large spin difference ($`\mathrm{\Delta }m_S30`$) pakes . Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy, which utilizes a cantilever oscillation driven by spins oscillating in resonance spin, is hopeful to be an efficient single spin detector berman , although it has not yet reached single spin sensitivity. Recently, a single $`C_{60}`$ molecule has been used as a single electron transistor (SET) through electro-mechanical coupling park . It may be possible to use this quantum electromechanical system as a single spin detector in the presence of an external magnetic field.

Our work is focused on the detection of the electronic spin states of the dopant atom inside a fullerene $`C_{60}`$, an essential ingredient in the performance of quantum computing based on the endohedral fullerenes $`N\mathrm{@}C_{60}`$ or $`P\mathrm{@}C_{60}`$ harneit ; suter ; jason . In many of these fullerene-based designs, the qubits are encoded in nuclear spins. The quantum gating, based on coupling the nuclear spins via the Hyperfine interaction to the electrons and then coupling the electrons via a magnetic dipole interaction, is done by using NMR (i.e., nuclear magnetic resonance) and ESR pulse sequences. It has been checked in detail in jason , that this fullerene - based quantum computing meets the requirement for a quantum computer, except the lack of an effective readout technique. Since the nuclear spin is less sensitive to the external environment, our detection of single spin state would be carried out on the electronic spin state. As the swap between the nuclear spin and the electronic spin is available, the detection of an electronic spin state is an efficient way to execute the readout of a fullerene- based quantum computer.

As shown in jason , quantum information can be encoded in electronic spin states of $`|\pm 1/2`$ (called ’inner qubits’) or $`|\pm 3/2`$ (called ’outer qubits’), and quantum gating can be carried out independently with inner qubits or outer qubits. Therefore what we want to detect is whether the inner qubit is in $`|1/2`$ or $`|1/2`$, or whether the outer qubit is in $`|3/2`$ or $`|3/2`$.

The endohedral fullerene systems are significantly different from the systems in kane ; loss , in that the electrons of the dopant atoms of $`C_{60}`$ cannot escape the cage while preserving their spin state. Thus many of the readout techniques under development elsewhere kane ; loss , will not suit endohedral fullerenes. So the first thing we have to do is to convert the electronic spin state information contained within the endohedral fullerene to an outside mobile electronic spin. We can then detect the outside spin state by transforming the spin-based information into current-based information via spin-filters.

As shown in Fig. 1, our readout device is very similar to a SET, which includes source, island and drain, and the voltages between two of them drive the electrons to jump on or off the island. However, different from park , in our scheme, we have two built-in spin filters located in the source and drain respectively, which block the spin-up electrons, but only let the spin-down electrons pass explain . So we have a source which could provide down-polarized current, and the click of the detector implies the arrival of a down-polarized electron. Moreover, we do not consider the vibrational motion of the fullerene. We suppose that the variation of the vibration of the fullerene is only related to the arrival and departure, instead of the spin degrees of freedom, of the mobile electron. The validity of this assumption will be discussed later. Furthermore, the Coulomb Blockade regime is employed boese , which means the $`C_{60}`$ on the island cannot be charged by more than one extra electron, while an electron can jump on to the island only when the island is electron empty, i.e. after any electron residing on the $`C_{60}`$ has jumped off.

The key idea of our scheme is to carry out a conditional gating between the motive electronic spin (shortly called ’outside spin’) and the stationary endohedral electronic spin (shortly called ’inside spin’). An essential ingredient in our scheme is the microwave controlled entangling of the inside spin and the outside spin. The principle is quite similar to the situation presented in eto , where the the electron transport through a quantum dot entangles Hyperfine-coupled nuclear spins via a spin flip interaction. Since the spin information will be transferred from the inside spin to the outside one, we are able to get the knowledge of the inside spin from the current constituted by the mobile electrons. We will show that the outside spin interacts with the inside spin via a magnetic dipole-dipole coupling, and using this we can carry out conditional gating between the stationary and mobile spins.

Let us consider the singly charged island. As each of the carbon atoms of the $`C_{60}`$ molecule are identical, we have no idea which atom absorbs that electron. As a result, the charge can be considered to distribute uniformly on the surface of the fullerene. When an external magnetic field is applied, the net spin effect of the jumping - on electron is equivalent to that of an electron with the same spin state positioned at the core of the fullerene. Therefore, when this charged fullerene is moved close to a fullerene with dopant atoms, the outside spin (on the empty $`C_{60}`$), will interact with the inside spin (in the doped $`C_{60}`$), by magnetic dipole-dipole coupling between the geometric centers of the two fullerenes. The strength of this coupling is proportional to (r/nm)<sup>-3</sup>, and is 50 MHz in the case of 1 nm of inter-spin distance harneit .

Consider the system with these two coupled fullerenes, the Hamiltonian, in units of $`\mathrm{}=1`$, is

$$H_0=g\mu _BB_1\sigma _1^zI_2+g\mu _BB_2I_1\sigma _2^z+J\sigma _1^z\sigma _2^z.$$
(1)
where the subscripts 1 and 2 correspond to inside and outside spins, respectively. $`J`$ is the dipole-dipole coupling strength between the two spins. We suppose that $`\nu _1=g\mu _BB_1/2`$, and $`\nu _2=g\mu _BB_2/2`$. As in suter ; jason , we suppose $`J<|\nu _2\nu _1|`$ (weak coupling limit) and thereby we can neglect the terms non-commuting with the Zeeman terms. We have the eigenenergies $`ϵ_\pm ^1=\pm 3\nu _1+(\nu _2\pm 3J/4)`$, $`ϵ_\pm ^2=\pm \nu _1+(\nu _2\pm J/4)`$, $`ϵ_\pm ^3=\pm \nu _1(\nu _2\pm J/4)`$, and $`ϵ_\pm ^4=\pm 3\nu _1(\nu _2\pm 3J/4)`$, within the Hilbert space spanned by $`|\pm 3/2,\pm 1/2`$, and $`|\pm 1/2,\pm 1/2`$.

To read out the state of the inside spin by means of the current made of mobile electrons we have to carry out two-qubit gating by ESR between the inside and outside spins. Since the outside spin is very sensitive to decoherence, our gating time should be shorter than the decoherence time of the outside spin. As the outside spins are well polarized and their interaction with the inside spin is controlled the outside spins do not constitute a source of decoherence. Potential sources of decoherence would be magnetic dipole interactions with unknown spin centers, both electronic and nuclear etc. As in jason , we consider the ideal case when $`T_2T_1`$ for the electrons (in the case of zero spin density). Due to the cage effect of the fullerene, $`T_1^{in}`$ of the inside spin is longer than 1 sec knorr , whereas $`T_1^{out}`$ of the outside spin may be much shorter. Anyway $`T_1^{out}`$ is much longer than $`T_2^{out}`$, which is generally $`T_1^{out}`$ 100 $`T_2^{out}`$. We suppose that $`T_2^{out}`$ is long enough to avoid the related homogeous broadening affecting our scheme. On the other hand, to implement ESR with microwave pulses, we have to avoid degenerate transitions. To this end, we introduce a magnetic field gradient with $`B/z4\times 10^6`$ T/m, which separates the resonance frequencies of $`|\pm 1/2`$ by $`\delta =2(\nu _2\nu _1)127`$ MHz. In Table I, we list the ESR transition frequencies. We can classify those transition frequencies which have (have no) $`\delta `$ dependence as those which leave the inside spin unaltered (altered). This observation will play a crucial role in the following.

Suppose that $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _2`$ are of the order of GHz, and the system under consideration is in the Coulomb Blockade regime. We define the dwell times $`t`$ of the mobile electron to be the duration of each electron residing on to the island, and suppose we can tune $`t150`$ ns. As part of any previous quantum computation, we will know whether the qubit has been encoded into the inner or outer endohedral electron qubit levels, i.e. $`|\pm 1/2`$ or $`|\pm 3/2`$. Based on this knowledge, our detection scheme can be described as follows: For the case of outer qubits, we send one ESR pulse every 150 $`ns`$ with the frequency of $`2\nu _1+2\delta +3J/2`$ for a certain period, say, $`10^2`$ sec. If no current is found behind the spin filter in the drain, the inside spin is in the $`|3/2`$ state, otherwise, it is in the $`|3/2`$ state. Similarly, for the inner qubits case, we send one ESR pulse every 150 ns with the frequency of $`2\nu _1+2\delta +J/2`$. If after irradiation for a short period there is no current found behind the spin filter in the drain, the inside spin must be in the $`|1/2`$ state, otherwise, it is in the $`|1/2`$ state.

The operation of our scheme relies on four quantities. First of all, we need to know the strength of the magnetic dipole-dipole coupling $`J`$, which determines the frequency of the ESR pulse. This can be determined through interrogative ESR pulse operations. Secondly, the dwell time of the mobile electrons on the island should be controlled so that we can have good quality two-spin gating by ESR pulses under the Coulomb Blockade regime. Thirdly, the linewidth of ESR pulses should be narrower than $`J`$. Fourthly, the spin filters located in the source and drain must work well to ensure that only down-polarized electrons are transmitted.

However, the tunneling of the mobile electrons is intrinsically stochastic, which can be described by normal distribution. Experimentally by adjusting the voltages and the electron density of the source, we can have a mean dwell time $`t_0`$. For simplicity we define $`\alpha =\sigma /t_0`$ where $`\sigma `$ is the deviation of the normal distribution. Considering this deviation, when we perform a spin flip of a down-polarized mobile electron, the time evolution would instead yield $`i\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \pi /2)|\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \pi /2)|`$ corresponding to dwell time $`t_0(1\pm \alpha )`$ respectively.

Let us estimate the implementation of our scheme under the influence of noise sources. Based on the fact that the inside spin is much more stable than the outside spins, we consider following Hamiltonian $`H=\stackrel{~}{H}_0+H_1+H_2`$, with

$$\stackrel{~}{H}_0=H_0+H_b^s+H_d^s,$$
(2)
where $`H_1=\mathrm{\Omega }_e(e^{i\omega _et}\sigma _2^++e^{i\omega _et}\sigma _2^{})`$ and $`H_2=(\mathrm{\Gamma }_s\sigma _2^++\mathrm{\Gamma }_s^+\sigma _2^{})+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ps}\sigma _2^z`$, with $`\sigma _2^k`$ $`(k=z,+,)`$ being Pauli operators for the outside spin. $`s=l,r`$ correspond to source and drain respectively. $`H_b^s`$ and $`H_d^s`$ are baths associated with spin flip and dephasing of the outside spins respectively. $`\omega _e`$ is the frequency of ESR. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ps}`$ are the couplings to the outside spins which yield spin flip and dephasing respectively. If the pulse is resonant with one of the transition frequencies of the outside spins (in Table 1), we suppose $`\mathrm{\Omega }_e=\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. For non-resonant case, we consider $`\mathrm{\Omega }_e=0`$ (i.e. no interaction) due to the large detuning. In this case, given a perfectly polarized current produced in the source, since the nonresonant ESR does not flip the outside spin, the outside spin should still remain well polarized after the mobile electron jumps off the island. As a result, we consider $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ps}`$ to be zero. This kind of problems have been well studied wise , from which we know that the high quality measurement in the detector can be achieved within the time period $`1/|\mathrm{\Gamma }_r|^2`$.

Our interest is more focused on the case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_e=\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$. In the readout stage with inside and outside spins being initially well polarized, except the short period of interaction under the ESR pulse, there is no entanglement between the inside and outside spins. Assuming a perfectly down-polarized source, since we cannot exactly control the dwell time of the mobile electrons on the island, the resulting imperfect ESR generated spin flip due to the time deviations $`\sigma `$, generates a superposition state which is more sensitive to decoherence. This is the main source of error. To gain more physical insight in this case, we will only consider the state of the mobile electron after the irradiation by the ESR pulses, with the initial state being $`|\psi _\pm =i\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \pi /2)|\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \pi /2)|`$. In the Coulomb Blockade regime we examine the subsequent decoherence of the mobile electron following the master equation mil ,

$$\frac{d\rho _2}{dt}=\frac{\gamma _0}{2}(2\sigma _2^{}\rho _2\sigma _2^+\sigma _2^+\sigma _2^{}\rho _2\rho _2\sigma _2^+\sigma _2^{})\gamma _p[\sigma _2^z,[\sigma _2^z,\rho _2]],$$
(3)
where $`\rho _2`$ is the density operator of the outside spin. $`\gamma _0`$, and $`\gamma _p`$, are decoherence rates regarding $`T_1^{out}`$, and $`T_2^{out}`$ respectively. To avoid indistinguishability in the spectrum due to homogeous broadening regarding $`T_2^{out}`$, we suppose $`1/\gamma _p=25`$ $`ns`$ ki . Straightforward calculation shows in Fig. 2 that the cross terms $`\rho _2`$ (or $`\rho _2`$), related to $`\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \pi /2)\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \pi /2)`$, will decohere to zero quickly. As long as $`\alpha `$ is small enough, the initial spin flip signature will remain as the population in $`|`$ will still be much larger than that of $`|`$ even after a time evolution for 1000 ns. This signature is translated to a current signature - a macroscopic quantity, and the small error occurring in individual electron flips will not significantly affect our scheme as long as $`\alpha `$ is not too large. In above mentioned case (i.e., Eq. (3)), the detected current will be somewhat weaker than the perfect case ($`\alpha =0`$). By considering the contrast of the current, however, we can still recognize the correct spin signature from the brightness of the current expll . Therefore, our scheme is robust due to this projective strong measurement.

Although we considered a perfect polarized current in above treatment, there most likely will be some small leakage of undesired electrons out of the spin filters pola . In this case, any up-polarized component mixing in the down-polarized current would evolve under resonant irradiation of ESR pulses with the frequency $`2\nu _1+J/2`$, (see Table I). Employing a magnetic field gradient to break the degenerate transitions (i.e. a non-zero $`\delta `$), makes such evolution non-resonant under the above scheme. In other words, with this magnetic field gradient, our scheme is robust to the non-ideal spin-polarized current. However, strictly speaking, even for the case of very small undesired spin-polarized current, the full numerical study of Eq. (2) is necessary. We will investigate this point in detail elsewhere.

On the other hand, our scheme also works for the imperfectly spherical fullerene case, in which additional anisotropy terms, such as $`(\sigma _i^z)^2`$ and $`(\sigma _i^z)^4`$ $`(i=1,2)`$, should be considered in Eq. (1). This can be easily checked by straightforward calculation that those additional terms only change the bottom six frequencies in Table 1, instead of the top four ones.

So far, our discussion has been based on the assumption that the spin degrees of freedom of the mobile electron is independent of the vibration of the fullerene. This is true in the case of a spatially constant magnetic field. In the case of a magnetic field with spatial gradients, however, we should consider the effects of this magnetic gradient due to its interaction with the inside and outside spins assuming the fullerene is bound harmonically in space. It yields a shift of position $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=(2g\mu _B/k)B/z`$, with $`k=70`$ N/m, being the force constant of the binding harmonic oscillator force park . We get $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=2.1\times 10^7`$ pm, which is negligible compared to the distance variation $`\delta =4`$ pm caused by the Coulomb interaction upon the arrival of the extra electron on the fullerene. Therefore our assumption of non spin-vibration coupling is reasonable and valid.

If we suppose $`t_0=150`$ ns, then we have to emit ESR pulses sequently with each pulse length of 140 ns. To have a flip operation on the outside spin, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ should be 36 MHz. This kind of ESR pulses, with linewith much narrower than J, have been achieved experimentally carola .

Technically, the spin filters can be built from ferromagnetic materials ferro , or semiconductor quantum dots loss , which can block up-polarized electrons with high fidelity. Experimental demonstrations of the generation of spin polarized current with high quality has been achieved by pola . Moreover, the required magnetic field gradients is readily available with current technique new1 , and the gate performance by ESR rectangular pulses can be improved by the sophisticated composed rotation method new2 . Therefore, to reliably carry out our scheme, on the one hand, we need a long dwell time with the deviation as small as possible. On the other hand, the longer decoherence time (e.g. $`T_2^{out}>25ns`$) of the outside spin is highly expected.

In conclusion, we have proposed a potential scheme for the readout of single spin state inside a fullerene. By strictly controlling the tunneling of the electron and implementing ESR pulses, based on a SET device, we can reliably convert a spin state signature into a current signature, which is readable and can be detected robustly. Since SET technology is developing rapidly, our scheme offers a promising way for the readout of fullerene based quantum computation.

The authors thank Marko Burghard, Jim Greer, Wolfgang Harneit, Derek Mc Hugh and Carola Meyer for helpful discussion. The work is supported by EU Research Project QIPDDF-ROSES under contract number IST-2001-37150.

Table I. The resonant transition frequencies in various cases, where the first four rows are the transition frequencies of the outside spin with respect to a certain inside spin, while the final six rows list the transition frequencies of the inside spin with respect to a certain outside spin.

| Inside Spin | Outside Spin | Transition Frequency |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`|3/2`$ | $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+2\delta +3J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2`$ | $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+2\delta +J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2`$ | $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+2\delta J/2`$ |
| $`|3/2`$ | $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+2\delta 3J/2`$ |
| $`|3/2|1/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2|3/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1+J/2`$ |
| $`|3/2|1/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2|1/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1J/2`$ |
| $`|1/2|3/2`$ | $`|1/2`$ | $`2\nu _1J/2`$ |