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# The ATCA Intraday Variability Survey of Extragalactic Radio Sources

## 1 Introduction

The first systematic investigation of short time scale variability in a large sample of extragalactic radio sources was carried out by Heeschen (1984). He observed a sample of 226 strong sources ($`S_{6cm}1.0`$Jy) at 9 cm. Most of the compact, flat spectrum sources in his sample showed significant flux density fluctuations, with an average amplitude of 1.5% on time scales of 2-20 days. The steep spectrum radio sources did not appear to vary. This, so called flickering was interpreted in terms of refractive scintillations caused by the inhomogeneous structure of the interstellar medium in our Galaxy.

A search for more rapid and possibly stronger flickering through better sampled observations of compact, flat spectrum radio sources was undertaken by Witzel et al. (1986) and Heeschen et al. (1987) at the 100m radio telescope of the Max Plank Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) . They reported 10% flux density variations at 11 cm in the BL Lac object S5 0716+71 on a time scale of a day, and they also confirmed the statistical difference in the variability of steep and flat-spectrum radio sources.

Multi-frequency observations of intraday variable sources at MPIfR and the VLA suggested that the variability tends to be strongest at 2.7 GHz and well correlated between 8 and 2.7 GHz (Wagner & Witzel 1995). Monitoring of the polarized flux density for the two strongest IDV sources, S5 0716+714 and S5 0917+624, revealed polarization variability correlated with the total flux density fluctuations for S5 0716+714 and anti-correlated for S5 0917+624 (Wegner 1994). Rapid variability in the position angle of the polarized flux density was also reported in these sources (Quirrenbach et al. 1989).

The interest in IDV at cm wavelengths is motivated by the high brightness temperatures inferred from the variability timescales, well above the $`T_C10^{12}`$ K inverse Compton limit (Kellermann & Pauliny-Toth 1969). Possible mechanisms which can lead to IDV fall into two categories, those intrinsic to the source (e.g. shocks in jets, coherent emission) and propagation effects, such as microlensing and ISS (see e.g. the review by Wagner & Witzel 1995). None of the models proposed has been successful in providing a complete description of the observed properties of this phenomenon. It is likely that both extrinsic and intrinsic mechanisms are responsible for the observed rapid flux density fluctuations at cm wavelengths. The present ATCA IDV Survey and monitoring program provides a large, uniform, high precision, multi-wavelength set of observations, which aims to describe the common properties of IDV sources and shed the light at the origin of short term variations.

## 2 The sample selection

The sample selected for the ATCA survey is drawn from the Parkes-Tidbinbilla Interferometer (PTI) flat spectrum ($`\alpha _{5.0GHz}^{2.7GHz}>0.5`$)222Hereafter, the spectral index is defined as $`S\nu ^\alpha `$ where $`\nu `$ is the frequency of radiation and $`S`$ is the flux density. survey (Duncan et al. 1993). Sources were chosen which had a ratio of the PTI flux density to total flux density larger than 0.9. Flat-spectrum, compact components of radio sources are usually self-absorbed and coincide with the optical quasar or AGN (e.g. Jauncey et al. 1982). We chose such sources since (a) monitoring of flux density with an interferometer such as the ATCA can be done faster and more accurately for unresolved sources, and (b) it is known from previous studies (e.g. Heeschen et al. 1987) that flat-spectrum sources are more likely to show IDV than steep-spectrum sources.

The final sample contains 118 sources, randomly distributed over the southern sky for $`b<10^{}`$ (Figure 8). They are listed in Table 1 along with identifications, galactic coordinates, redshift and measured source structure information. The sample contains 90 (76%) quasars, 13 (11%) BL Lacs, 7 (6%) galaxies and 8 (7%) unidentified sources.

## 3 Observations

The main objective of the Survey was to obtain well sampled, multi-frequency total and polarized flux density measurements for all sources in the sample within the 96 hours scheduled for each observing run. Our observations were carried out at the ATCA, an east-west earth-rotation synthesis interferometer, with six 22 metre antennas on a 6 km baseline (Sinclair & Gough 1991). The ATCA has a number of desirable features for a study of short timescale variability:

* short integration time which enables frequent sampling,
* broadband instantaneous frequency coverage,
* the high accuracy and sensitivity essential to monitor polarization and to explore the low amplitude, ‘flicker’ of extragalactic sources.

During the two observing sessions in May and August 1994, the flux densities of sources in the sample were measured every 2 hours at the four ATCA frequencies, 1.4, 2.4, 4.8 and 8.6 GHz. We used PKS 1934-638 as the primary flux density calibrator. Additionally the known steep spectrum sources PKS 0518+165, PKS 0134+329, PKS 1328+307 and PKS 0823$``$500 were observed throughout each session to check the overall gain stability and calibration.

The observations were performed in continuum mode with 128 MHz bandwidth divided into 32 channels. This configuration enables measurements of four polarization products for each frequency. The sampling time was chosen to be 1 minute, which is equivalent to six 10 s integrations on source. To avoid long slew times, the sources were observed in two main groups, either north or south of zenith. Each group was observed over 24 hours with each source being observed every 2 hours while it was above 20 degrees elevation. The flux density of each source, including calibrators, was measured typically 6 times over 12 hours, and the measurements repeated in the same way 36 hours later.

The gain-stability was monitored by regular observations of PKS 1934-638 and the other non-variable sources, and so the scatter in their measured flux densities is an estimate of the uncertainties in the individual flux density measurements. This includes the effects of antenna pointing errors and gain changes with elevation and time.

The telescope pointing, typically 7 arcseconds rms, was determined before each observing session. The positions of all sample sources are known to an accuracy of 0.5 arcseconds or better, so that flux density errors due to miss-pointing do not exceed 0.1% at the highest frequencies. The observed rms errors for the primary flux density calibrator, PKS 1934-638 for an individual 1 minute observing scan are listed in Table 2 for each frequency. Thus, at the flux density limit, $`S0.5`$ Jy, the gain stability and pointing errors dominate, while the thermal noise is typically less than a mJy.

The source structure information presented in columns 6-9 of Table 1 is derived from the closure phase estimates (Jennison 1958) of the possible extended component in the measured flux density given by:

$$S_{ext}=C\overline{S}(\sigma _{obs}^2\sigma _{theo}^2)^{1/2},$$
(1)
where $`\overline{S}`$ is the flux density averaged over 12 hours, $`\sigma _{obs}`$ is the observed rms of closure phases measured for all independent baselines and $`\sigma _{theo}`$ is a theoretically predicted rms of closure phases for a point source calculated by use of calibration from antenna noise diodes (Sault 1994). $`C`$ is a constant of the order of unity.

We find that most of the target sources of the ATCA IDV Survey are unresolved at 8.6 and 4.8 GHz. In particular, 72% of the sample sources show less than 1% extended flux density at 4.8 GHz. However only 22% and 5% of the sources at 2.4 and 1.4 GHz respectively satisfy this condition (Table 1).

Almost half of the sample (62 sources) shows more than 5% flux density in an extended component at 1.4 GHz. The effects of weak extended structure and confusing sources in the primary beam result in much larger object-dependent flux density errors at this frequency. Therefore the results of the 1.4 GHz measurements are excluded from the statistical discussion of the survey.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 Flux densities

The results of the Survey are presented in Table 3 and Table 4, which show the averaged total ($`\overline{S}`$) and polarized ($`\overline{P}`$) flux densities, averaged polarization position angles ($`\psi `$) and the corresponding modulation indices ($`\mu _{\overline{S}}`$, $`\mu _{\overline{P}}`$).

The total flux densities in Table 3 are the averages of all 1-minute measurements within a given observing session over typically 96 hours. In each session the number of data points, $`N`$ used in the averages, ranges between 5 and 36 with a median of 11. Each data-point used to obtain the flux density in Table 3 is an average over all ATCA baselines of typically six 10-sec integrations.

Seven sources (PKS 0023$``$263, PKS 0122$``$003, PKS 0138$``$097, PKS 208$``$512, PKS 0454$``$463, PKS 1253$``$055 and PKS 2052$``$474) were excluded from the sample because of the presence of either extended structure at all frequencies or strong confusing sources in the primary beam. A further 36 sources were found to be confused, or in a few cases, extended at 2.4 and 1.4 GHz. These have blank entries in Tables 3 and 4 at the corresponding frequencies. In this way the consistently high-quality data at high frequencies was maintained by reducing the size of the sample slightly. The final numbers of sources at each frequency in the Table 3 are 111 for 8.6 GHz, 105 for 4.8 GHz, 74 for 2.4 GHz and 55 for 1.4 GHz.

The 1.4 GHz data was not used in the IDV investigation, although the average flux densities have been retained in both Tables for the sources with $`S_{ext}3.5\%`$.

The errors in the observed flux densities in Tables 3 and 4 have been determined from the observed scatter in the strong sources. Table 2 shows the observed scatter for the primary flux density calibrator PKS 1934$``$638, the non-variable point source most frequently observed throughout each Survey session. The measured rms noise integrated over 1 minute never exceeds 4 mJy. With normalized flux density errors of no more than $`0.5\%`$ at each of the four frequencies, the present accuracy compares favourably with the precision of single dish measurements.

The ATCA antennas each have two, on-axis, orthogonal, linearly polarized feeds at all frequencies, which enable easy acquisition of all Stokes parameters. The polarized flux densities $`P`$, and the position angles, $`\psi `$, along with the modulation indices, $`\mu _P`$, are presented for the 74 sources with $`P>15`$ mJy in Table 4. The degree of linear polarization observed for compact, flat-spectrum, synchrotron sources is typically a small fraction of the total flux density ($`5\%`$) (Aller at al. 1985), and this is the case for the majority of sources observed in the present Survey (Figure 1).

Monitoring sessions in May and August 1994 provided two datasets of the same sample. To determine if the data obtained in May and August 1994 is comparable in the statistical sense, we applied the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for the source number distributions of normalized standard deviations or modulation indices, $`\mu `$ ($`=\sigma _S/\overline{S}`$) of the flux density measurements. This found no statistically significant difference between the May and August 1994 results at the confidence level 0.05%.

### 4.2 Spectral index properties

The average spectral indices: $`\alpha _{4.8}^{8.6}`$, $`\alpha _{2.4}^{4.8}`$, $`\alpha _{1.4}^{2.4}`$ and $`\alpha _{1.4}^{8.6}`$ are listed in Table 5. The uncertainty of the spectral index measurement depends on the modulation indices at the relevant frequencies and on the ratio of these frequencies. The estimated $`\sigma _\alpha 2\%`$ for non-variable sources is slightly dependent on the frequency pair used.

The distribution of the spectral indices $`\alpha _{2.4}^{4.8}`$ is shown in Figure 2. There are only three sources with $`\alpha _{2.4}^{4.8}0.5`$. If spectral indices $`\alpha _{2.4}^{4.8}`$ are compared with indices $`\alpha _{2.7}^{5.0}`$ measured with the Parkes telescope, it is evident that, while the sources may vary considerably, very few, if any of the original flat-spectrum sources change to steep-spectrum sources (Figure 2(b)). The differences in the distribution of spectral indices between May and August 1994 (Figure 2(a)) reflect the level of monthly variability of the flat-spectrum sources.

The flat-spectrum sources ($`\alpha _{2.7}^{5.0}0.5`$) remain flat-spectrum over much longer timescales, which is illustrated in the scatter plots of average flux densities shown for the increasing time difference between measurements (Figure 3).

The shapes of our four-frequency spectra can be described as: decreasing with frequency, straight, peaked, concave, inverted and complex. The largest population represented in the Survey sample (42 sources corresponding to 36%) are peaked spectrum sources. The second largest groups are 22 (19%) decreasing and 21 (18%) inverted spectrum sources. There are 3 (2.5%) sources with a straight spectrum (with $`<50`$ mJy deviations from an $`\alpha =0`$ line), 11 (9.3%) concave spectrum and 1 (0.8%) complex spectrum source.

The shape of the spectrum changed for the 15% of sources between two observing sessions. Interestingly, no transition from peaked to concave spectrum was observed. This may suggest that, at the typical timescale of months, the flux density changes are due to the slower ‘van der Laan - type’ evolution corresponding to the physical expansion of the region of the original outburst (van der Laan 1966).

### 4.3 Short-term variability

The normalized amplitude of variability is expressed in terms of a modulation index, $`\mu `$, calculated over 96 hours, the duration of each observing session. Figure 3 illustrates the different timescales of flux density variations in our sample by comparing measurements obtained one day apart, 3 months apart and a few decades apart. While large flux density fluctuations over the short (day-to-day) timescales are rare in an ensemble of flat-spectrum, compact sources it is clear that all these sources vary significantly on a timescale of decades.

The number distribution of modulation indices is shown in Figure 4. The peaks in these distributions give an independent estimate of the normalized rms error in our measurements of flux densities. If one approximates each distribution by a Gaussian plus a tail of high modulation indices, the typical measurement rms values for the frequencies 8.6, 4.8, 2.4 and 1.4 GHz are 0.65, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.2% respectively. The increased rms distribution of modulation indices at 1.4 GHz is due to confusion and weak extended components present in the sources (as noted in section 3).

Those sources found in the tails of modulation indices distributions at different frequencies (Figure 4) are the sources, which exhibit significant IDV. There are 22 sources (19% of the total sample) which show modulation indices larger than $`3\sigma `$ at any frequency (8.6, 4.8 and 2.4 GHz) during either the May or August observing sessions. They are listed in Table 6.

In Table 6 there are 43 entries with $`\mu >3\sigma `$ typed in bold. If these were purely random events, rather than any real effect, one would expect to see 4 sources showing two entries with $`\mu >3\sigma `$, and no sources with three or more entries. Yet there are 6 sources with two entries, and 6 sources with three entries, and one source, PKS 1519-273, with four entries. Such a high incidence of multiple entries suggests that the results presented in Table 6 represent a real effect.

Out of these 22 IDVs, 10 (45%) have a peaked spectrum, and 8 (36%) have an inverted spectrum. The highest incidence of IDV occurs for inverted spectrum sources (39% of all inverted spectrum sources in the sample), followed by peaked spectrum sources (24%) and decreasing spectrum sources (9%).

### 4.4 Long-term variability ($`3`$ months)

The distribution of the fractional difference, $`F_\nu `$, in the average flux density between May and August 1994 observations:

$$F_\nu =2\frac{\overline{S}_\nu ^{May}\overline{S}_\nu ^{Aug}}{\overline{S}_\nu ^{May}+\overline{S}_\nu ^{Aug}}$$
(2)
is shown in Figure 5. The measurement errors of the fractional difference are estimated from the rms of the flux density measurement distributions. The $`3\sigma `$ level is less than 4% for each frequency. We find $`40\%`$ sources which vary by more than 4% at 4.8 and 2.4 GHz. The number of sources variable on monthly timescales becomes larger with increasing frequency.

A substantial fraction of IDV sources are also long term variable (80% at 8.6 GHz, 75% at 4.8 GHz and 73% at 2.4 GHz). This characteristic may prove useful in future searches for IDV sources.

Out of the 22 IDV sources only six were found to show significant IDV in both observing sessions. The reminder of the sources (two thirds) has either a shorter duty cycle than $`3`$ months, or their variability decreases below our $`3\sigma `$ inclusion limit. PKS 0405$``$385 is the most spectacular example of the short lived rapid variability (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1997). Yet the other strong IDV sources (PKS 1034$``$293, PKS 1144$``$379 and PKS 1519$``$273) vary each time they were observed during the follow-ups of the Survey (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1998, 2000).

We also found that sources which show a difference in the shape of their total flux density spectrum between May and August sessions are twice as likely to show IDV as the sources without a significant spectral change. As seen from Figure 5 these monthly spectral changes are not necessarily associated with the overall strong flux density change at all frequencies.

### 4.5 Polarization variability

The polarization modulation index, $`\mu _P`$, is defined as the rms of the polarized flux density normalized by the average polarized flux density. For the ATCA the instrumental polarization can be easily calibrated, therefore the main contribution to observed measurement errors comes from the antenna gain stability. The distribution of measured rms for three frequencies 8.6, 4.8 and 2.4 GHz is presented in Figure 6. An estimate of the measurement error, $`\sigma =4`$ mJy, was derived by finding the range of rms within which two thirds of the sources are distributed around the peak of the distribution. Only 6 (8%) sources vary above $`4\sigma `$ at any frequency. These are PKS 0215+015, PKS 0537$``$441, PKS 0607$``$157, PKS 1144$``$379, PKS 1334$``$127 and PKS 1519$``$273. The most significant variability of polarized flux is seen for sources which already were identified as IDVs in the total flux density. The polarized flux density IDV of PKS 1334$``$127 is also independently found in VLBI data (Kochanev & Gabuzda 1998).

We also analysed the day-to-day polarization variability by self-calibrating each 24 hours of data, which is equivalent to averaging the total flux density over this time (Table 7). Main advantage of such an approach is that the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved not only by averaging but also by removing the residual of the extended structure and confusion. The contribution of the extended flux density repeats over each 24 hours provided the measurements are taken at similar hour angles each day and the confusing sources do not vary.

The distribution of the differences in polarized flux density between two days in each observing session is used to estimate the actual measurement error, $`\sigma 2.5`$ mJy, which is only weakly dependent on frequency for the sources with polarization stronger than 15 mJy.

We find a number of sources with a total flux density IDV below 3$`\sigma `$ but with a clearly variable polarization during a given observing session (Table 7), which indicates that the variable polarized component is only a small fraction of a quiescent total flux density of such sources.

The changes in polarization over three months are illustrated in scatter plot (Figure 7) of the averaged, polarized flux density data between May and August 1994. The linear polarization appears to be more variable at high frequencies (4.8 and 8.6 GHz) similar to the monthly variations of the total flux density. Note that two sources (PKS 0646-306 and PKS 1610-771) show monthly changes in the polarized flux density without a significant change in their total flux density. We find that only three sources, PKS 0364-279, PKS 0537-441 and PKS 0607-157, show variable polarization on both the monthly and daily timescales.

## 5 Statistical Properties of IDV

Various models of IDV phenomenon predict that the amplitudes and timescales of variability can be related to the structure of the radio source, its properties or its position in relation to the plane of our Galaxy.

### 5.1 Dependence of modulation index on spectral index

Heeschen et al. (1987) showed that flat-spectrum sources are more likely to show intraday variability. We narrow that conclusion by finding that in our selection of flat-spectrum sources, those with inverted spectra over the observed range of frequencies, are more likely to show IDV than sources with other shapes of spectra. The flux densities of such sources are dominated by the most compact objects. This is an additional indicator that the rapid variability originates in the smallest source components.

The modulation index as a function of the four spectral indices (Table 5) was used to search for a correlation between high modulation index and inverted spectra. We calculated the mean spectral index for all non-variable sources ($`\mu <3\sigma `$) at a given frequency, and compared it with the mean spectral index of IDVs ($`\mu 3\sigma `$) for $`\alpha _{4.8}^{8.6}`$, $`\alpha _{2.4}^{4.8}`$ and $`\alpha _{1.4}^{8.6}`$. The mean spectral index differences for these two groups of sources are -0.12, -0.06 and -0.05 respectively. The only significant difference occurred for high frequency spectral index, $`\alpha _{4.8}^{8.6}`$.

The lack of strong correlation between the spectral index and modulation indices suggests that the IDV strength is not a simple function of the source size.

### 5.2 Intraday variability as a function of Galactic coordinates

The interstellar scintillation (ISS) model predicts different amplitudes and timescales of IDV depending on the source position with respect to the plane of our Galaxy. The detailed properties of variability depend on the strength of the scattering in the Galactic medium as well as a size of the scintillating source (see eg. Narayan 1992, Walker 1998). The scattering strength is related to the amount of turbulence in the Galactic medium and it is derived mostly from observations of the scattering measure in pulsars. A model of the Galactic interstellar medium was developed by Taylor and Cordes (1993) from pulsar observations. Applying this model to the theory of ISS (Walker 1998), the following predictions can be made:

* Variability of a point source is strongest and most rapid at the transition frequency, which corresponds to a scattering strength equal to unity. The transition frequency increases towards the Galactic plane and ranges from a few GHz near the Galactic poles to a few tens of GHz at the Galactic plane.
* The timescale of variability at the transition frequency is of the order of a few hours and does not depend strongly on the Galactic position.
* The angular size of a variable source has to be comparable to the size of the first Fresnel zone, $`\theta _F`$ at the transition frequency. The predicted source sizes are of the order of $`\mu `$arcsecs. Sources larger than $`\theta _F`$ scintillate with decreased amplitude and longer timescale.

The sample of IDV sources found during the ATCA IDV Survey provides an opportunity to test the above model predictions. The Galactic positions of IDV sources from table 6 at one of the three frequencies 8.6, 4.8 and 2.4 GHz (Figure 8(a)) are compared with the Galactic distribution of all sources in the Survey (Figure 8(b)).

The ISS model predicts that the maximum variability for a source with $`\theta \theta _F`$ should occur at the transition frequency, which in turn is a strong function of the Galactic latitude. From the Figure 8(a) it is quite clear that the distribution of variability maxima, which are marked with different symbols for different frequencies, does not follow this prediction. The maxima of variability at different frequencies appear randomly distributed in otherwise non-random region where IDV prevails. day-night effect (Kedziora-Chudczer 1998).

The reasons which may contribute to the lack of clear dependence of the frequency of strongest IDV on the Galactic latitude are the deficiencies of the ISM model, the source size effects and the uncertainties in measurement of modulation indices. The Taylor & Cordes model is most accurate at latitudes close to Galactic plane, where the number of pulsars is largest. An excess of IDV sources in the swathe between $`210^{}`$ and $`250^{}`$ of Galactic longitude reaching towards high Galactic latitudes may correspond to real features of the ISM which are not described well by the pulsar-based model.

The modulation index and timescale of variability depends on the size of the source. In figure 8 the maximum modulation index is assumed to occur at the transition frequency. However if the intrinsic size of the radio source increases with decreasing frequency as $`\theta _S\nu ^1`$ (Kellermann & Owen 1988), the peak of variability may occur at lower frequency than expected for the point source at a given latitude. This may explain the presence of low frequency ’$`\mu `$-peakers’ at low Galactic latitudes. The sources, which show the highest $`\mu `$ at latitudes higher than expected from the Taylor & Cordes ISM model, may be explained, if their compact, variable components become self-absorbed at low frequencies.

In addition, the timescale of 96 hours may not be sufficient to sample over many scintles, especially at lower frequencies. Therefore our measured modulation indices are in many cases only lower limits of the typical modulation indices of the scintillating sources.

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 Properties of IDV sources

The properties of IDV observed in any Survey may depend on the choice of the parent sample. Although the flat-spectrum flux density-limited sample of sources used in our Survey was selected on the basis their radio compactness, without distinction based on the type of the object, the majority of the selected sources are blazars (ie. flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) and radio selected BL Lac objects), which tend to be both, compact and luminous (Urry & Padovani 1995). In order to show IDV the sources have to be compact regardless which interpretation of IDV is preferred. The size of the source is dictated by causality arguments in case of intrinsic variability. Similarly the ISS effects are strongest for the very compact sources.

The IDV sources found in the ATCA Survey consist of 6 BL Lacs and 16 quasars. This is almost 50% of the BL Lacs from the original sample, as compared with only $`20\%`$ of quasars. Notably the Survey sample contains 7 radio sources identified as galaxies, none of which showed intraday variability.

Modulation indices derived for the IDV sources are typically less than 10%. We found that only a small fraction of the sources (2.5%) show occasional stronger variations. Variability appears to be quasiperiodic, which is evident from well sampled lightcurves, such as for PKS 0405$``$385 (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1997). The largest modulation indices are typically found at 4.8 and 2.4 GHz.

The present Survey was designed to explore timescales between 2 hours and $`3`$ days. Characteristic timescales were found to depend on the observed frequency. For best sampled lightcures of a few IDV sources in our sample it is evident that the timescale of variability decreases with frequency.

In present survey we find that most of the IDV sources are at relatively low redshifts. If we interpret IDV as a propagation effect, it should be more frequent for the more distant sources of the same size. For instance, ISS depends on the distance of the source only through its angular size. However the compact, scintillating components of a distant source have to be sufficiently bright in order to measure any flux density changes. The very compact components of the nearby sources can satisfy such a signal-to-noise requirement more easily.

The following properties of IDV sources were identified at different wavelengths. A substantial number (40%) of our IDV sources are known to be optically variable objects, which show high and variable optical polarization. Four of them (PKS 0422$`+`$004, PKS 0808$`+`$019, PKS 1144$``$379 and PKS 2155$``$304) are BL Lacs, the others (PKS 0440$``$003, PKS 0528$``$250, PKS 0607$``$157, PKS 0646$``$306 and PKS 1622$``$297) are quasars. Most of the IDVs in our sample are only weak sources of X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray emission, which is a selection bias rather than a real effect. One of the more unusual sources in this respect is PKS 1622$``$297, which showed a strong $`\gamma `$-ray outburst when its energy increased $`200`$ times within a few days (Mattox et al. 1997).

PKS 2155$``$304 is an IDV source, which shows unusually strong X-ray emission. It is known to show rapid X-ray, optical and UV variability (Allen et al. 1993). This is the only source which was included in our Survey only for its interesting properties (it violates the flux density limit in our selection criteria). Our IDV observations of PKS 2155$``$304 were used as a part of its multiwavelength monitoring campaign (Pesce et al. 1997). An important result of this monitoring is the lack of correlation between radio and higher energy flux density changes for this source.

However the presence of correlation between optical and radio variability is claimed for another IDV source, S5 0716+714 (Quirrenbach et al. 1991). To resolve the question of correlated or otherwise variability of IDV sources at high and low energies, intensive multiwavelength monitoring of known IDV sources was undertaken recently.

### 6.2 Intrinsic versus extrinsic IDV

The suggested interpretations of IDV fall into two categories: processes intrinsic and extrinsic to the sources. The first possibility is difficult to accept for the extremely strong and rapid variability in sources such as PKS 0405$``$385, which imply the brightness temperature as high as $`T_{var}10^{21}`$K (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1997).

The variability brightness temperature, $`T_{var}`$, can be reduced by postulating relativistic beaming $`\delta `$. In the most extreme cases one has to invoke $`\delta >100`$, which is difficult to justify on the theoretical (Begelman et al. 1994) and statistical grounds. The alternative idea of the intrinsic brightness temperature $`T_b`$ actually exceeding the Compton scattering limit for the duration of an IDV event is yet to be fully explored.

Interpretation of IDV in terms of propagation-based flux density changes can often avoid a problem of the high brightness temperature, as it puts less stringent limits on the size of the source. Two most often considered propagation effects are microlensing (Quirrenbach et al. 1991) and interstellar scintillations (Rickett 1990).

The typical timescales ($`>1`$ day) observed for IDV sources are consistent with microlensing in the presence of superluminal transverse velocities between the lens and the source, which could arise due to superluminal motion in the source (Gopal-Krishna and Subramanian 1991). However, to explain the observed hourly IDV over a few months due to microlensing events, one would also expect an optical depth for lensing high enough to cause gravitational multiple imaging of IDV sources with a few arcsecond separation, which has not been observed in any of these sources.

Models based on interstellar scintillation generally require less extreme brightness temperatures in IDV source because the source size is determined from the Fresnel scale requirements rather than from the variability timescale. IDV in terms of ISS was discussed extensively by Rickett et al. (1995). Their model agreed well with the observed features of the data for the BL Lac S5 0917+624 under the assumption that the source diameter decreases with increasing frequency. The main complication of the ISS model was an interpretation of the polarized flux density variability, which required the two component source model with nearly orthogonal polarization angles of both components (Rickett et al. 1995).

Taking account of the complex source structure and the little known structure of the scattering medium it is not surprising that it is difficult to make a very detailed models of ISS induced IDV. Improved VLBI imaging may reveal more about the very inner structure of the radio sources, and the galactic multiwavelength surveys will provide more detailed information about the ISM. The additional complexity is introduced by the presence of both extrinsic and intrinsic IDV occurring at the same time.

We have applied ISS model to the variability of our most extreme IDV sources: PKS 0405$``$385 (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1997) and PKS 1519-273 (Macquart et al. 2000). The spectrum of modulation indices and the timescales of variability are consistent with the model. However ISS interpretation fails to bring the $`T_B`$ down below the $`10^{12}`$K for these sources. Coherent emission processes are often thought of as an alternative interpretation of IDV because they can produce almost arbitrary high brightness temperature (Benford 1992, Lesch & Pohl 1992). Yet the large number density of Langmuir photons required in any such process in the small volumes inferred for the IDV sources induces higher order scattering effects, which reduce the efficiency of escaping radiation (Melrose 1998).

Nevertheless one should remain open to the possibility of non-synchrotron emission in inner regions of AGN, in view of the problems not only with explanation of inferred brightness temperatures, $`T_{var}10^{21}`$K for the IDV sources but also in view of the growing number sources with $`T_B>10^{12}`$K of directly observed with the VLBI and VSOP (Linfield et al. 1989).

## 7 Conclusion

The ATCA IDV Survey provided a new sample of IDV sources. We examined the variability dependence on the morphology, spectral features and position of these sources with respect to the Galactic plane.

The IDV sources found in the ATCA Survey seem to be marginally less common than suggested in previous studies (see e.g. Quirrenbach et al. 1992, who claim that about 25% sources from their sample shows variations larger than 2%.) We find that IDV is also present in the polarized flux density.

IDV appears to be transient in a large fraction of sources. However we find also continuously variable sources with the best examples being PKS 1519–273, PKS 1034–293 and PKS 1144–379 (Kedziora-Chudczer et al. 1998).

The long term behaviour of IDV sources was studied by comparing the flux densities measured in two different observing sessions separated by 3 months. It appears that IDV sources do vary strongly on the timescale of months. This property can be potentially used in search for the IDV sources.

The IDV variability observed in the ATCA Survey is not correlated with the strength of radio emission and only weakly correlated with spectral characteristics. The distribution of the IDV sources with respect to the Galactic plane is not random but understandably does not follow the simple predictions of ISS theory.

The ATCA IDV Survey was a systematic step towards an understanding of the IDV phenomenon. Although at present it is not possible to choose between competing interpretations of IDV on the purely statistical basis, the on-going study of individual IDV sources discovered in the Survey will help to achieve this purpose.

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# Testing the Landau Fermi liquid description of the fractional quantum Hall effect

## Abstract

We study theoretically the dispersion of a single quasiparticle or quasihole of the fractional quantum Hall effect, obtained by injecting or removing a composite fermion. By comparing to a free fermion system, we estimate the regime of validity of the Landau-Fermi-liquid-type description and deduce the Landau mass.

During the last decade, a Landau-Fermi-liquid type description of the fractional quantum Hall effect has been investigated in terms of composite fermions, namely electrons binding an even number of quantum mechanical vortices . Numerous studies, both theoretical and experimental, indicate that this is a valid starting point. However, the extent as well as the regime of applicability of the Landau-Fermi liquid ideas is not entirely clear from a theoretical view point. While for interacting electrons at zero magnetic field the Landau-Fermi liquid theory is best justified asymptotically close to the Fermi energy, for the compressible Fermi sea at the half-filled Landau level, a logarithmic divergence of the mass has been predicted at very low energies, suggesting a breakdown of the Landau-type description in the limit of vanishing temperature. At the same time, it is also obvious that the description of the state in terms of composite fermions, and therefore also as a Landau Fermi liquid of composite fermions, must become invalid at sufficiently high energies. Therefore, one may ask what is the range of energies, if any, in which the Landau-Fermi liquid type description may be valid for composite fermions.

The basic assumption of the Landau Fermi liquid theory is that the low energy excitation spectrum of an interacting system resembles that of a system of free fermions. We consider here the fundamental building block, namely a single quasiparticle or quasihole of the FQHE state, the former obtained by injecting a composite fermion into one of many unoccupied CF-LLs, and the latter by removing a composite fermion from one of many occupied CF-LLs (see Fig. 1). We ask if the energy levels of the particle or hole can be consistently interpreted as the energy levels of a single particle or hole in a free fermion system. In Landau’s Fermi liquid theory, the mass of the quasiparticle is defined by comparing its dispersion to that of a quasiparticle in a free fermion system. By analogy, we interpret the energy level spacing of the composite fermion quasiparticle as an effective cyclotron energy to extract a mass for the composite fermion, which we call the Landau mass, $`m_L^{}`$.

Our study shows that the analogy to a free fermion system breaks down beyond a certain energy, which we crudely estimate to be $`0.1e^2/ϵl`$, where $`ϵ`$ is the dielectric constant of the host material and $`l=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/eB}`$ is the magnetic length. We also find that the Landau masses of the particle and the hole are in general different, but have substantial filling factor dependence and appear to approach the same value as the half filled Landau level is approached. (We note that because of the existence of a gap at the filling factors considered here, our work will not shed any light on the proposed logarithmic divergence at $`\nu =1/2`$.)

Another mass for composite fermion has been defined in the past by interpreting the energy gap to creating a particle hole pair of composite fermions as an effective cyclotron energy for the composite fermion . In order to distinguish it from the Landau mass, it will be referred to it as the activation mass, $`m_a^{}`$. The two masses are obviously distinct. The Landau mass may not even be well defined, in general, but when it is, its value is deduced from the energy levels of a pre-existing particle or hole. The activation mass, on the other hand, is defined relative to a state containing no particle or hole, and thus also includes the self energies of the particle and the hole. In Landau’s theory, the constant self energy contribution is lumped together with the chemical potential and does not contribute to the mass. The Landau and activation masses are relevant for different physical quantities. The former, for example, will be the mass that will appear in the specific heat. The two masses are expected to be of similar magnitude, however.

Our calculations will be based on wave functions for the composite fermions, which have been well tested in the past, and we expect the results to be quantitatively reliable for the FQHE states with strong gaps. The wave function for the ground state at $`\nu =n/(2n+1)`$ is given by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1)}=P_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_n\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ is the Slater determinant wave function for the state with $`n`$ filled Landau levels, also denoted by $`|n>`$, and $`P_{LLL}`$ is the lowest LL projection operator. To construct a CF particle, we inject an additional composite fermion in the $`\lambda `$th CF-LL, which corresponds to putting an additional electron in the $`\lambda `$th LL at $`\nu ^{}=n`$. The wave function of the CF particle is $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^p=P_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m}^p\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2`$, with $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m}^p=c_{\lambda ,m}^{}|n>`$, where $`c_{\lambda ,m}^{}`$ creates an electron in the $`\lambda `$th LL in the state labeled by quantum number $`m`$. (The Landau level index takes on values $`\lambda =0,1,2,\mathrm{}`$, and the state $`|n>`$ has all states occupied with $`\lambda n1`$. Therefore, for a CF particle, we must have $`\lambda n`$.) Similarly, the wave function for a CF-hole is given by $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^h=P_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m}^h\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m}^p=c_{\lambda ,m}|n>`$, with $`\lambda <n`$. We will work in the spherical geometry, in which $`N`$ electrons move on the surface of a sphere under the influence of a radial magnetic field produced by a monopole of strength $`q`$, an integer or a half integer, at the center. The $`\lambda `$th Landau level is the shell with single particle orbital angular momentum $`l=|q|+\lambda `$, with single particle degeneracy $`2l+1`$. For $`N`$ particles, the state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ occurs at $`q_n=\frac{Nn^2}{2n}`$, which corresponds to a total $`q`$ of $`q=q_n+2q_1`$, with $`q_1=(N1)/2`$, for the ground state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1)}`$. This is a filled shell state, with total orbital angular momentum $`L=0`$. The state $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^p`$ ($`\mathrm{\Phi }_n^h`$) corresponds to $`q_n^p=\frac{N1n^2}{2n}`$ ($`q_n^h=\frac{N+1n^2}{2n}`$), because now $`N1`$ ($`N+1`$) particles completely fill $`n`$ Landau levels, giving the total monopole strength of $`q^p=q_n^p+2q_1`$ ($`q^h=q_n^h+2q_1`$) for the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^p`$ ($`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^h`$). It is important to note that the monopole strength is independent of the CF-LL index, $`\lambda `$, of the CF particle or hole. The state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^p`$ ($`\mathrm{\Psi }_{n/(2n+1),\lambda ,m}^h`$) has total angular momentum $`L=q^p+\lambda `$ ($`L=q^h+\lambda `$), $`m`$ denoting the z component of $`L`$. Since the energy is independent of $`m`$, we work with the state $`m=L`$. An advantage of the spherical geometry is that the states with CF-particle or CF-hole in different CF-LLs (i.e., with different $`\lambda `$) are automatically orthogonal on account of their different orbital symmetry. The various Slater determinants $`\mathrm{\Phi }_n`$ can be readily constructed with the knowledge of the single particle eigenstates. Their explicit forms of the lowest LL projected wave functions has been given previously .

The energies of the CF particle and the CF hole can be expressed as multidimensional integrals that are evaluated by Monte Carlo requiring up to $`10^7`$ steps. Particle and hole occupying CF Landau levels up to $`\lambda 6`$ are considered. In each case, the thermodynamic limit has been extracted by studying systems with up to 46 particles. The results for up to $`\nu =5/11`$ are shown in Fig. (2). The analogous plot of the energy levels of a free fermion system will have straight lines (with slope equal to the cyclotron energy), so a deviation from a straight line indicates a breakdown of the free fermion desctiption. At $`\nu =1/3`$, the cyclotron gap changes even for the lowest energy levels, which implies that the Landau Fermi liquid description is not valid here and no mass can be defined. It would be troublesome if the energy levels continued to behave similarly at other fractions. However, for other fractions, especially for $`n3`$, the cyclotron energy becomes reasonably constant close to the Fermi energy. Taken all together, the results suggest that the free fermion description of the system is valid up to an energy $`E0.1e^2/ϵl`$, but breaks down beyond that. This conclusion obviously extends to states with a sufficiently dilute concentration of particles and holes, when the interaction between them is negligible.

We determine the particle and hole masses from the slope of the points below $`E0.1e^2/ϵl`$ for several fractions. The results are given in Table I. The masses are different for the particle and the hole. They are in general also filling factor dependent, but seem to be approaching the same value in the limit of $`\nu =1/2`$, as expected. A simple extrapolation produces a CF mass of $`m_{nor}^{}0.110.13`$ at the half-filled Landau level. Such an extrapolation must obviously be treated with the understanding that it does not capture a logarithmic divergence of the mass at $`\nu =1/2`$ predicted in other approaches  or a much stronger divergence indicated by experiment. The extrepolation in the present work may give the mass at an intermediate range of temperaturs, though. The theoretical value for the activation mass (for Coulomb interaction) for various FQH states is smaller but of similar magnitude ($`m_{a,nor}^{}0.08`$).

The existence of a well defined Landau mass is non-trivial for composite fermions. The mass of the quasiparticle in ordinary Fermi liquids is subject to perturbative corrections due to interparticle interactions. In contrast, even though it is natural to attribute a mass to composite fermions, given that we speak of their Fermi seas and Landau levels, the situation is subtle here because the mass is a non-perturbative effect: the original problem, namely interacting electrons in the lowest Landau level, has no mass parameter, and the mass of the composite fermion is generated entirely from the inter-electron interactions. There is no simple, solvable limit in which the mass of the composite fermion is known.

Does the above insight into the energy levels of a single particle or hole relate in any way to the structure of the energy spectrum of more complicated excitations, for example a particle hole excitation (PHE) of the incompressible state at $`\nu =n/(2n+1)`$? Motivated by this question, we proceed to study the PHE spectrum, also known as the “single particle excitation spectrum,” of composite fermions, which is the allowed range of energy for the excitation of a single composite fermion out of the ground state, leaving behind a hole. The wave function for such a state is given by $`P_{LLL}\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m,\lambda ^{},m^{}}^{ph}\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m,\lambda ^{},m^{}}^{ph}=c_{\lambda ,m}^{}c_{\lambda ^{},m^{}}|n>`$. The situation is now significantly more complicated for two reasons. First, these states do not automatically have the correct symmetry, because they are not the eigenstates of $`L`$ and $`L_z`$. This can be taken care of straightforwardly by working instead with appropriate linear combinations, $`_{m,m^{}}<LM|q_n+\lambda ,m;q_n+\lambda ^{},m^{}>\mathrm{\Phi }_{n,\lambda ,m,\lambda ^{},m^{}}^{ph}`$. Now, we must diagonalize the Coulomb Hamiltonian in the Hilbert space defined by these states. The number of states at a given $`L`$ is finite because the minimum $`L`$ of a particle hole pair is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =|\lambda \lambda ^{}|`$. However, these states are in general not orthogonal. We therefore first obtain an orthogonal basis according to the Gram-Schmid procedure. For this purpose, we need to evaluate the off-diagonal projections $`<u_r|u_s>`$, where $`\{|u_r>\}`$ denotes the set of non-orthogonal basis states. Since the Monte Carlo method is most efficient when the integrand is positive definite, we determine $`<u_r|u_s>`$ ($`rs`$) by using the relation :

$$<u_r|u_s>=\frac{<u_r+u_s|u_r+u_s><u_r|u_r><u_s|u_s>}{2}.$$

The off-diagonal matrix elements of the Hamiltonian are evalulated analogously, a diagonalization of which produces the energy eigenvalues in the restricted basis of states containing a single CF particle-hole pair. The results are in principle exact in the subspace of states containing only a single particle hole pair; the statistical uncertainty is estimated to be smaller than the symbols used in Fig. (3).

Fig. (3) shows the PHE spectrum of composite fermions at $`\nu =1/3`$ and $`\nu =2/5`$ for $`N=10`$ particles, along with the PHE spectrum at $`\nu ^{}=1`$ and $`\nu ^{}=2`$, which is what one would expect in a model of non-interacting composite fermions with a well defined mass. Fig. (4) shows the PHE spectrum at $`\nu =1/3`$ for a much bigger system . Again, the basic message is that the analogy to free fermions breaks down above $`0.1e^2/ϵl_0`$. Certain qualitative features of the PHE spectrum, which might appear puzzling at first sight, can be understood in light of our earlier results. For example, at $`\nu =1/3`$, the first PHE branch is well defined, but the higher branches merge into one another (Figs. 3 and 4), which can be understood as a consequence of the fact that at $`\nu =1/3`$, the effective cyclotron energy of composite fermions decreases rapidly as the CF-LL index increases. At $`\nu =2/5`$, the effective cyclotron energy is better defined (Fig. 3), consistent with a more spread out PHE spectrum.

As expected from previous work , there are fewer states in the actual PHE spectrum of composite fermions than what one would expect from the naive model. The reason is that many states at $`\nu ^{}=n`$ are annihilated upon multiplication by $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1^2`$ followed by lowest Landau level projection. The naive independent CF model thus contains spurious states that have no counterpart in the exact spectrum. The number of spurious states in the independent CF model increases with energy, again indicating that the model may be valid only for low energy states. The effective independent fermion description appears to be valid only for the low energy solutions, namely the lowest band, and also the first excited band (providing one neglects the thermodynamically insignificant spurious state at $`L=1`$).

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-9986806. We thank the Numerically Intensive Computing Group led by V. Agarwala, J. Holmes, and J. Nucciarone, at the Penn State University CAC for assistance and computing time with the LION-X cluster, and G. Murthy and R. Shankar for useful discussions.


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# High-Resolution Photoemission Study of MgB2

## Abstract

We have performed high-resolution photoemission spectroscopy on MgB2 and observed opening of a superconducting gap with a narrow coherent peak. We found that the superconducting gap is s-like with the gap value ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) of 4.5$`\pm `$0.3 meV at 15 K. The temperature dependence (15 - 40 K) of gap value follows well the BCS form, suggesting that 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$/kBTc at T=0 is about 3. No pseudogap behavior is observed in the normal state. The present results strongly suggest that MgB2 is categorized into a phonon-mediated BCS superconductor in the weak-coupling regime.

The discovery of non-cuprate “high-temperature” superconductor MgB2  has evoked much attention in how this simple binary superconductor is similar to or different from the “conventional” high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs). The superconducting transition temperature (Tc) exceeds those of known metal superconductors and alkali-doped C60, being comparable to that of one of HTSCs (La2-xSrxCuO4), and is located just on or a little above the theoretical upper limit predicted for the phonon-mediated superconductivity. It is thus quite important to elucidate the mechanism and origin of this newly discovered “high-Tc” superconductor in relation to the cuprate HTSCs. The superconducting gap and its symmetry has been investigated by tunneling  and NMR spectroscopy , but the results are not necessarily consistent with each other. Photoemission spectroscopy (PES) has revealed many key physical features of cuprate HTSCs such as the pseudo gap  and quasiparticles . A recent remarkable progress in the energy resolution enables direct observation of a superconducting gap in metal superconductors .

In this Letter, we report high-resolution PES results on MgB2 to study the superconducting gap and its symmetry. By using a merit of high energy resolution ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$E $`<`$ 5 meV), we have succeeded in directly observing opening/closure of the superconducting gap as a function of temperature, together with a narrow superconducting coherent peak located slightly below the Fermi level (EF). We have performed numerical fittings to the PES spectra to investigate the size and symmetry of superconducting gap.

The procedure to prepare polycrystalline MgB2 samples has been described elsewhere . The x-ray diffraction measurement shows that the samples are single-phased and the electrical resistivity and DC magnetization measurements confirm a sharp superconducting transition onset at 39.5 K. High-resolution PES measurements were performed using a SCIENTA SES-200 spectrometer with a high-flux discharge lamp and a toroidal grating monochromator. We set the total energy resolution at 4-7 meV to obtain a reasonable count rate near EF. The base pressure of spectrometer was 1.5x10-11 Torr. Samples were scraped in-situ with a diamond file to obtain a clean surface for PES measurements. A measured PES spectrum represents the density of states (DOS) since the sample is a polycrystal. The temperature of sample was monitored with a calibrated silicon diode sensor to an accuracy of $`\pm `$0.5 K. We have confirmed the results shown here being reproducible for repeated scraping and on a cycle of increasing/decreasing temperature. The Fermi level of sample was referenced to that of a gold film evaporated onto the sample substrate and its accuracy is estimated to be better than 0.2 meV.

Figure 1 shows PES spectra near EF of MgB2 measured with He I$`\alpha `$ resonance line (21.218 eV) at temperatures (15 and 50 K) below/above the Tc (39.5 K). The spectral intensity is normalized to the area under the curve. According to the band structure calculations, the electronic states near EF originate in the B 2p states . As seen in Fig. 1, the PES spectrum shows a remarkable temperature dependence which is not accounted for by a simple temperature effect due to the Fermi-Dirac function. The midpoint of leading edge in the PES spectrum at 15 K is not at EF, but is shifted by a few meV toward the high binding energy relative to EF (see the inset to Fig. 1). In contrast, the PES spectrum at 50 K appears to have a leading-edge midpoint at EF, though the position is not well defined due to the broad feature of PES spectrum. It is remarked here that the 15-K spectrum has a “peak” structure around 10 meV, which totally disappears at 50 K. A similar peak structure has been observed in cuprate HTSCs such as Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8, where the peak is located at much higher binding energy (about 40 meV) and is ascribed to the superconducting coherent peak . Thus the present temperature-dependent PES results unambiguously show that a superconducting gap of a few meV opens at EF in MgB2 at low temperatures. The observed temperature-induced change of PES spectrum is understood in terms of “pile-up” of the electronic states transferred from the near-EF region at the superconducting state.

The next problem to be solved is the size and symmetry of superconducting gap. Figure 2 shows comparison of the PES spectra of MgB2 with those of gold measured under the same experimental condition. The leading edge of MgB2 spectrum at 15 K is shifted toward the high binding energy with respect to the gold reference, indicative of the gap opening at low temperature. On the other hand, the spectrum at 50 K looks to coincide with the gold reference within the present experimental accuracy, indicating that the gap is closed at 50 K with no pseudogap in contrast to the underdoped cuprate HTSCs . We find that the leading edge of MgB2 spectrum at 15 K is almost parallel to that of gold reference, which suggests that the symmetry of gap is s-like and the gap size is within a few meV. In order to confirm this, we have performed numerical fittings to the PES spectrum and show the results in Fig. 3. In the simulation, we used the Dynes function  multiplied by the Fermi-Dirac function at T=15 K and convoluted it with a Gaussian with a full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of the instrumental resolution. We set the broadening parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ to 1.1 meV. As shown in Fig. 3, the fittings with d-wave gap of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$=5-10 meV seem to hardly reproduce the experimental PES spectrum at 15 K; both the coherent peak and the leading edge are not well reproduced simultaneously. On the other hand, the simulation with s-wave gap of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$=4.5 meV looks to fairly well reproduce the experimental curve. We found that the change of gap value by 0.5 meV in the fittings leads to an apparent deviation from the experimental spectrum. It is thus most probable that MgB2 has a s-like superconducting gap and the gap value at 15 K is 4.5$`\pm `$0.3 meV. The inset to Fig. 3 shows the gap value as a function of temperature obtained from the numerical fittings to the PES spectra measured at several temperature of 15 - 40 K. The temperature dependence follows well the BCS form, suggesting the gap value at T=0 being about 5 meV. This gap value gives the ratio 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$/kBTc of about 3, which is slightly smaller than the theoretical value (3.53) for a weak-coupling BCS superconductor . All these strongly suggest that MgB2 is categorized into a phonon-mediated BCS superconductor in the weak-coupling regime. It is inferred that high-frequency phonon(s) due to the light mass of boron atoms may cause the “high-temperature superconductivity” in MgB2.

In conclusion, we have performed high-resolution photoemission spectroscopy on a newly discovered novel superconductor MgB2. We have clearly observed opening/closure of a superconducting gap at EF on decreasing/increasing temperature across Tc. The gap is found to be s-like and the gap value ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$) is estimated to be 4.5$`\pm `$0.3 meV at 15 K from the numerical fittings to the PES spectra. The temperature dependence of gap value is well described with the BCS form. The present PES results indicate that MgB2 is categorized into a phonon-mediated BCS superconductor in the weak-coupling regime.

We thank T. Kamiyama, S. Nishina, and H. Matsui for their help in PES measurements. This work was supported by grants from the CREST (Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology Corporation) of JST, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan. TS thanks the JSPS for financial support.


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# Superposition of macroscopic numbers of atoms and molecules

## Abstract

We theoretically examine photoassociation of a non-ideal Bose-Einstein condensate, focusing on evidence for a macroscopic superposition of atoms and molecules. This problem raises an interest because, rather than two states of a given object, an atom-molecule system is a seemingly impossible macroscopic superposition of different objects. Nevertheless, photoassociation enables coherent intraparticle conversion, and we thereby propose a viable scheme for creating a superposition of a macroscopic number of atoms with a macroscopic number of molecules.

PACS number(s): 03.75.Fi, 03.65.Bz, 32.80.Wr

In a now famous gedanken experiment , Schrödinger highlighted the absurdity of applying quantum theory to macroscopic objects by coupling the fate of a cat to the decay of a radioactive atom, thereby forcing the animal into a superposition of alive and dead. Over the years, this nefarious situation has come to mark the fundamental difference of principle between microscopic quantum mechanics and macroscopic realism: whereas the latter asserts that a system with two (or more) macroscopically distinct states must be in one or the other of these states, the former of course allows for superpositions of different states . The technology of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) opened the door to the first proposed macroscopic superposition , and the latest SQUID experiments have taken a first step towards demonstrating such a state . Other candidates for creating macroscopic superpositions include nanoscale magnets , trapped ions , photons in a high-$`Q`$ cavity , second-harmonic generated  and amplitude-dispersed photons , C60 molecules , and two-component Bose-Einstein condensates  (BECs). While it is a matter of contention as to whether or not these states are correctly termed a Schrödinger cat , their unambiguous observation would nevertheless invalidate the concept of macroscopic realism.

Even more provocative, we propose coherent photoassociation of a BEC  as a means of creating a seemingly impossible macroscopic superposition of two different objects: atoms and molecules. Photoassociation occurs when two atoms absorb a photon, thereby forming a bound molecule. Besides the strongly enhanced efficiency of molecule formation , which actually relies on an order-unity phase-space density rather than coherence , recent theoretical investigations into photoassociation of a BEC have led to a variety of phenomena involving macroscopic quantum coherence. For example, there are predictions of coherent molecular solitons , rapid  and Raman  adiabatic passage from an atomic to a molecular condensate, Josephson-like BEC-MBEC oscillations , and squeezed atomic condensates formed from an initial MBEC .

It is, however, a somewhat subtle point that marks the difference between macroscopic coherence and a macroscopic superposition. Given a collection of $`N`$ two-level systems, the macroscopic coherence that leads, e.g., to Josephson-like oscillations, where all $`N`$ systems tunnel in tandem between the two states, requires only that each system is in a coherent superposition of the two levels, whereas a macroscopic superposition with all of the systems in one or the other of the two states necessarily exhibits an $`N`$-body coherence . It is exactly this distinction that warrants the present investigation.

Beyond the usual macroscopic superposition of two states of a given object, photoassociation actually leads to a more counterintuitive situation since, like (say) protons and quarks, molecules and atoms are different objects. To the best of our knowledge, the only contemporary systems with a similar potential are a BEC tuned to a Feshbach resonance , which would also give a macroscopic atom-molecule superposition, and second-harmonic generation  (SHG), which would create, for example, a macroscopic superposition of red and blue photons. These three systems are of course mathematically identical, and the subsequent intramode superposition lies in the possibility for coherent atom-molecule (red-blue photon) conversion. So far, SHG has only yielded intramode phase superpositions between coherent states , but these results are somewhat ambiguous as they do not differentiate between a coherent superposition and a statistical mixture. In contrast, the present work, based on unitary evolution of a Fock state, clearly demonstrates an intramode superposition of a macroscopic number of atoms with a macroscopic number of molecules. With photoassociation currently  on the verge  of coherence, this state should be realizable in the next generation of experiments.

Nonetheless, one-color photoassociation generally involves an excited molecular state, and the ensuing spontaneous decay will inevitably introduce decoherence. Moreover, rogue photodissociation , i.e., irreversible bound-free transitions to non-condensate modes , will destroy coherence as well. In this Letter, we therefore consider an atom-molecule superposition formed via two-color free-bound-bound photoassociation of an interacting BEC, where the primary photoassociated molecules are transferred with another laser field to a stable molecular state. Adiabatic elimination  of the intermediate molecular state enables an effective two mode model involving only atoms and stable molecules , a sufficiently large intermediate detuning should eliminate the harmful effects of irreversible losses of primarily photoassociated molecules, rogue  or otherwise , and full inclusion of particle collisions– itself a novel aspect– sets the table for the appearance of the desired superposition.

The development herein is outlined as follows. First, we review the reduction of the problem from three to two modes, followed by an estimate of the fixed parameters for which the neglect of irreversible decay is reasonable. We then focus on a dynamical approach to creating a macroscopic superposition, which begins with a joint atom-molecule condensate formed by the photoassociative equivalent of a phase-tailored, strong $`\pi /2`$ pulse. Switching from a laser-dominated to a collision-dominated system, the symmetric BEC-MBEC is then shown to evolve into a superposition comprised of macroscopic numbers of atoms and molecules, with a “size” determined by the ratio of the free-bound and intraparticle interactions. Finally, we discuss a possible experimental signature, as well as the effects of any additional decoherence.

Turning to the situation of Fig. 1, we assume that $`N`$ atoms have Bose-condensed into the same one-particle state, e.g., a plane wave with wave vector $`𝐤=0`$. Photoassociation then removes two atoms from this state $`|1`$, creating a molecule in the excited state $`|2`$. Including a second laser, bound-bound transitions remove excited molecules from state $`|2`$ and create stable molecules in state $`|3`$. In second quantized notation, boson annihilation operators for atoms, primarily photoassociated molecules, and stable molecules are denoted, respectively, by $`a`$, $`b`$, and $`g`$. The laser-matter interactions that drive the atom-molecule and molecule-molecule transitions are written in terms of their respective Rabi frequencies: $`\kappa =d_1E_1/2\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=d_2E_2/2\mathrm{}`$, where $`E_i`$ is the electric field amplitude, and $`d_i`$ is the corresponding dipole matrix element $`(i=1,2)`$. Considering both spontaneous and dissociative decay to occur to states outside those of interest, these processes may be included with a non-Hermitian term proportional to the total decay rate of the excited-molecular state , $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_s+\mathrm{\Gamma }_d`$. Defining the two-photon and intermediate detunings as $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\delta `$, the three-mode Hamiltonian is then

$`H_3`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }g^{}g+(\delta \frac{1}{2}i\mathrm{\Gamma })b^{}b`$ (2)
$`\frac{1}{2}(\kappa b^{}aa+\kappa ^{}a^{}a^{}b)(\mathrm{\Omega }g^{}b+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}b^{}g),`$
where $`\mathrm{}=1`$ and photon recoil effects are implicitly included .

First, we consider the time evolution of the primary photoassociated molecules, which is determined by the Heisenberg equation of motion

$$i\dot{b}=(\delta \frac{1}{2}i\mathrm{\Gamma })b(\frac{1}{2}\kappa aa+\mathrm{\Omega }g).$$
(3)
Assuming that $`|\delta |`$ is the largest evolution frequency in the system, we set $`\dot{b}/\delta =0`$ and obtain

$$b\left(\frac{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}\kappa aa+\mathrm{\Omega }g}{\delta }\right)\left(1+i\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\delta }\right).$$
(4)
Substituting this result into Eq. (2) amounts to adiabatic elimination of the excited molecular mode, and yields the effective two-mode Hamiltonian

$`H_2`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}g^{}g\frac{1}{2}(\chi a^{}a^{}g+\chi ^{}g^{}aa)`$ (6)
$`+\lambda _1a^{}a^{}aa+\lambda _2g^{}g^{}gg+2\lambda _{12}a^{}g^{}ag,`$
where the two-photon Rabi frequency is $`\chi =\kappa ^{}\mathrm{\Omega }/\delta `$ and the Stark-shifted two-photon detuning is $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }+(|\mathrm{\Omega }|^2/\delta )(1+i\mathrm{\Gamma }/2\delta )`$. Additionally, we have introduced atom-atom, molecule-molecule, and atom-molecule contact interactions with respective coupling strengths

$`\lambda _1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi a_{11}}{mV_{11}}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{mV_{11}|\kappa |^2}{4\pi \delta a_{11}}}\left(1i{\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\delta }}\right)\right],`$ (8)
$`\lambda _2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\pi a_{22}}{MV_{22}}},`$ (9)
$`\lambda _{12}`$ $`=`$ $`\lambda _{21}={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi a_{21}}{\mu V_{21}}},`$ (10)
where $`a_{ij}`$ is the particle-particle scattering length, $`V_{ij}^1=d^3r|\psi _i(𝐫)|^2|\psi _j(𝐫)|^2`$ is the inverse effective volume of the single particle wavefunctions ($`i,j=1,2`$), $`m`$ ($`M=2m`$) is the mass of the atom (molecule), and $`\mu =2m/3`$ is the reduced mass of the atom-molecule pair. Note that, due to the photoassociating laser , the atom-atom scattering length in Eq. (8) has also acquired a (complex) light shift.

Based generally on ratios of parameters, a quantum optics formalism is a definite plus here since the molecule-molecule and atom-molecule scattering lengths are unknown. Hence, we specify the magnitude of the intermediate detuning as $`|\delta |\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, allowing for neglect of the imaginary terms in $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$ and $`\lambda _1`$. To reduce the number of parameters we also set $`\lambda _2=4\lambda _1`$, where the factor of four arises from the conserved particle number being equal to the number of atoms plus twice the number of molecules (see below). Exploiting the light-shifted scattering length, this equality could in practice be achieved by setting $`\mathrm{sgn}\delta =\mathrm{sgn}(a_{11}V_{11}^12a_{22}V_{22}^1)`$ and $`I_1/I_0=35.6947(V|a_{11}V_{11}^12a_{22}V_{22}^1|/\mathrm{\lambda ̄})|\delta |/ϵ_R`$, where $`V`$ is the BEC volume, $`2\pi \mathrm{\lambda ̄}`$ is the wavelength of the photoassociating light, $`ϵ_R=(2m\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^2)^1`$ is the photon recoil frequency, and we have used  $`\kappa /ϵ_R=[(\mathrm{\lambda ̄}^3/V)(I_1/I_0)]^{1/2}`$. The obscure numerical factor comes from the definition of the characteristic intensity $`I_0`$ for a given photoassociation transition . Focusing on 87Rb, we have  $`I_0=0.07`$mW/cm2, $`2\pi \mathrm{\lambda ̄}=780`$nm, $`ϵ_R=3.77\times 2\pi `$kHz, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=12\times 2\pi `$MHz, and $`a_{11}=5`$nm. Estimating $`V|a_{11}V_{11}^12a_{22}V_{22}^1|=10a_{11}`$, the fixed parameters are $`|\delta |10^3\times 2\pi `$MHz and $`I_110`$W/cm2.

Within the two-mode approximation, the total number of particles $`N=a^{}a+2g^{}g`$ is conserved and, without altering the physics, we may subtract the term $`\lambda _1(N^2N)`$ from $`H_2`$, resulting in the simplified form

$$H_2=H_0\frac{1}{2}\chi (e^{i\phi }a^{}a^{}g+e^{i\phi }g^{}aa)2\lambda a^{}ag^{}g,$$
(11)
where $`H_0=\mathrm{\Delta }^{}g^{}g`$, $`\lambda =2\lambda _1\lambda _{12}`$, and a factor of $`\lambda _1`$ has been absorbed into the detuning. Furthermore, $`\chi `$ is hereafter a real quantity, and $`\phi `$ specifies the relative phase between the free-bound and bound-bound lasers. The main difference from the dual atomic condensate problem  is that the photoassociative coupling is trilinear, and the “tunneling rate”, as opposed to being $`N`$-independent, therefore scales as $`\sqrt{N}`$. Comparing $`\sqrt{N}\chi `$ to $`N\lambda `$, the qualitative condition that determines a collision-dominated system is $`\chi /\lambda \stackrel{<}{}\sqrt{N}`$, where the ratio $`\chi /\lambda `$ is readily adjustable according to bound-bound intensity $`I_2`$.

Considering the formation of a macroscopic superposition of atoms and molecules, we strongly suspect that a superposition as a ground state  is absent due to the lack of particle-exchange symmetry for the photoassociation Hamiltonian (11). Hence, we take a dynamical approach , which begins with the production of a joint atom-molecule condensate having an “evenly” split population (i.e., $`N/2`$ atoms and $`N/4`$ molecules), and a real-amplitude. Setting the relative phase between the lasers to $`\phi =\pi /2`$, this state \[shown in Fig. 2 (a)\] is formed by a strong ($`\chi /\lambda \sqrt{N}`$) two-photon-resonant photoassociation pulse lasting a duration $`\overline{t}`$ determined by the solution to the semiclassical approximation  for the number of molecules: $`N/4=(N/2)\mathrm{tanh}^2(\sqrt{2N}\chi \overline{t})`$. Interestingly enough, rather than the binomial distribution of particles obtained for dual atomic condensates , the trilinear free-bound interaction leads to a squeezed atom-molecule condensate. Such squeezing occurs exactly as in SHG , and is a source of many-particle entanglement .

If, upon preparation of the dual atom-molecule condensate, the lasers are adjusted so that  $`\phi =0`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}\sqrt{N}\chi `$, and $`\chi /\lambda \stackrel{<}{}\sqrt{N}`$, the system will, as shown in Fig. 2 (b), evolve into a macroscopic atom-molecule superposition over a timescale set by the Bose-enhanced two-photon Rabi coupling $`\sqrt{N}\chi `$. The lack of smoothness in the probability distribution increases with particle number, and occurs due to the nonlinear nature of the system. Furthermore, the “size” of the superposition, defined by the separation between the main peaks, depends on the ratio $`\chi /\lambda `$, and for a large number of particles is a maximum $`N/2`$ when $`\chi /\lambda \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{N}`$. Consistent with the lack of particle-exchange symmetry, the formation of this state depends on the relative sign of $`\chi `$ and $`\lambda `$, which may be flipped if needed by setting $`\phi =\pi `$.

Referring to Fig. 2 (c), because the system returns approximately to the initial dual condensate, one could, for example, imprint a phase on the molecular component of the system, leading to a signature interference effect. Crucially, the rate of phase variations in the amplitude $`C_n(t)`$, dictated by the collisional interaction term, is large only near $`n=N/4`$ molecules, so that the subsequent decoherence from a temporally imprecise imprinting of the phase should not effect a large superposition. The main obstacle to realization is then external decoherence arising from interactions with the ubiquitous thermal cloud of atoms; however, because the BEC-MBEC superposition involves more than two states the loss of coherence for one particle is not catastrophic. The relevant frequency is $`\sqrt{N}\chi =0.1N|\lambda |`$, so that estimating $`\rho =10^{14}`$cm-3 and $`|\lambda |=10\lambda _{\text{Rb}}`$ leads to a roughly millisecond birth rate. While the asymmetric trilinear system will of course defy symmetrization, a trap engineered as a wide well plus a narrow dip should sufficiently control the thermal-cloud decoherence , leaving a superposition of macroscopic numbers of atoms and molecules within reach of the next generation of photoassociation experiments in 87Rb condensates.

We acknowledge Jani Martikainen and Jyrki Piilo for helpful discussions, and Artur Ishkhanyan for pointing out the results of Ref. . This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (project 43336) and the EU IST EQUIP program.


text:
# Inappropriateness of the Rindler quantization

## Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia under Contract No. 00980102.


text:
# THE EVOLUTION OF THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION IN DEEP FIELDS: A COMPARISON WITH CDM MODELS

## 1. INTRODUCTION

The evolution of the luminosity function (LF) is a fundamental probe for cosmological theories of galaxy formation. Indeed, the red and blue/UV luminosities are related to the galaxy stellar mass and star formation rate, respectively. Thus the evolution of the LF reflects the differential contribution of different galaxy types to the cosmic history of mass growth and of star formation which are the main outcomes of hierarchical models for galaxy formation.

Adopting a Schechter fit to the LF, recent estimates (Zucca et al. 1997, Marzke & da Costa 1997, Folkes et al. 1999) point toward a relatively steep power law at the faint end (with a power index $`1.2`$), although an excess of dwarf blue galaxies relative to the Schechter fit is found at the faint end.

In the intermediate redshift range (up to $`z1`$), first steps toward the evaluation of the LF evolution were undertaken by the Canada France Redshift Survey (CFRS, Lilly et al. 1995) and by the Autofib Redshift Survey (Ellis et al. 1996, Heyl et al. 1997). These surveys have shown some increase in the number density of the fainter population together with some increase in the luminosity of the brighter blue fraction. These two effects are responsible for the strong increase with $`z`$ of the average cosmic UV luminosity density (by a factor 5–10) in the redshift interval $`0<z<1`$.

Deep multicolor surveys of galaxies represent an effective way to explore the galaxy distribution in the redshift interval $`1<z<5`$. Successful spectroscopic confirmation was obtained for the brightest fraction by Steidel et al. (1996,1999). For the bulk of the population reliable photometric redshifts are currently used (e.g. Connolly et al. 1997; Giallongo et al. 1998, Fernandez-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil 1999; Fontana et al. 2000).

The average UV luminosity density resulting from these studies shows a flat distribution at $`z>1`$ that extends up to $`z4.5`$. Such a result represents a strong constraint to hierarchical galaxy formation theories that predict a significant contribution by a large population of small objects. In a previous paper we showed that when the effects of the sample magnitude limits are included in the models, a steadly decline in the predicted UV luminosity density appears in contrast with the observed behavior (Fontana et al. 1999).

Attempts to clarify the contribution of different (in mass and SFR) galaxy populations to the global UV luminosity density, requires an evaluation of the high redshift LF down to the faintest accessible magnitudes. In this Letter we present a first estimate of the intermediate/high-$`z`$ luminosity function using a composite deep multicolor sample of about 1200 galaxies with reliable photometric redshifts down to $`I_{AB}=27.5`$. The depth of this data sample, together with its relatively large area, allows a direct comparison of the observed LF shape and evolution with theoretical predictions. Such comparison is performed using a semianalytic implementation of recent hierarchical models of galaxy formation.

## 2. THE DATA SAMPLE

The analyzed dataset covers a wavelength range from the UV to the K bands, and observations were taken from ground based telescopes and from the HST as well. The first field, known as New Technology Telescope deep field (NTTDF) consists of an area of $`4.84`$ arcmin2 where optical and near-IR UBVRIJK observations have been taken at the ESO NTT telescope with various instrumentation (SUSI, SUSI-2, SOFI). Further details about the multicolor catalog can be found in Arnouts et al. (1999) and in Fontana et al. (2000).

We have also used the Hubble Deep Fields North and South catalogs provided by Fernandez-Soto et al. (1999), with an overall area of $`3.92`$ arcmin2 and 4.22 arcmin2 respectively. After appropriate selections to remove contamination by stars and low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) regions, we applied our photometric redshift code to the data down to $`I_{AB}=27.5`$. A detailed description of this procedure, along with photometric $`z`$ catalogs, can be found in Fontana et al. (2000).

In addition, in the present evaluation of the luminosity function, we have also considered one of the main systematic errors affecting the estimates of the galaxy total absolute magnitudes at various $`z`$, which is the surface brightness cosmological dimming effect. To correct for this effect one has to recover the total galaxy emitted flux. To estimate the systematic losses associated with any recovering procedure, we performed simulations of synthetic galaxies (having exponential intensity profiles with an ellipticity of 0.5) with different apparent magnitudes, as seen with the appropriate S/N in the HDF images. Then we compared the total input flux with the one obtained by extrapolating the intensity profiles as computed in the SEtractor package (Bertin & Arnouts 1996). The simulations show that the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }I`$ between the input and the measured apparent magnitudes increases from 0.1 to 0.25 when the input magnitude increases from $`I25`$ to $`I27.2`$. For these reasons, although the catalogs in the HDFs go deeper, we will confine the analysis of the LF at magnitudes $`I27.2`$ in the HDFs (and 25.7 in the NTTDF) where errors in the estimate of the total magnitudes are small and do not affect our main results on the shape of the LF.

## 3. ESTIMATING THE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION

Several methods are available in the literature (see Efstathiou, Ellis & Peterson 1988 for a discussion): here we choose to adopt the classical $`1/V_{max}`$ estimator (Schmidt 1968) jointly with the Sandage,Tammann & Yahil (1979) maximum likelihood fit for a Schechter function. In the $`1/V_{max}`$ method, for any given redshift bin ($`z_1,z_2`$) an effective maximum volume is assigned to each object. This volume is enclosed between $`z_1`$ and $`z_{up}`$, the latter being defined as the minimum between $`z_2`$ and the maximum redshift at which the object could have been observed given the magnitude limit of the sample.

Combining data from separate fields with different magnitude limits, we then compute the galaxy number density $`\varphi (M_B,z)`$ in every $`(\mathrm{\Delta }z,\mathrm{\Delta }M_B)`$ bin as follows:

$$\varphi (M_B,z)=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }M_B}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\underset{j}{}\omega (j)_{z_1}^{z_{up}(i,j)}\frac{dV}{dz}𝑑z\right]^1$$
(1)
where $`\omega (j)`$ is the area in units of steradians corresponding to the field $`j`$ and $`N`$ is the total number of objects in the chosen bin. The number of fields involved in the sum over index j is restricted to the ones with a faint enough magnitude limit for the i-th object to be detected. In this way each galaxy has a different $`z_{up}(j)`$ in every field and the overall volume available for this object is obtained summing the corresponding $`V_{max}(j)`$.

On the other hand the STY technique, once assumed a Schechter behaviour for the LF, is an endeavour to maximize the likelihood of representing the observed set of galaxies with the best fit parameters of the Schechter function. Assuming that, in an appropriately thin bin of redshift, the number of sources with redshift between $`z`$ and $`z+dz`$, and with absolute magnitude between $`M_B`$ and $`M_B+dM_B`$ can be factorized as $`\varphi (M_B,z)dzdM_B=\rho (z)\psi (M_B)dzdM_B`$, where $`\rho (z)`$ is the density of galaxies at redshift $`z`$, that can be considered constant within the bin. The function $`\psi (M_B)`$ is taken to have a Schechter form, parametrized by the characteristic absolute magnitude $`M_B^{}`$, by the logarithmic slope at the faint end $`\alpha `$ and by the normalization $`\psi _{}`$.

If we choose an appropriate redshift bin $`(z_1,z_2)`$, it is possible to give an estimation of $`\alpha `$ and $`M_B^{}`$ considering the probability density $`p_{i,j}`$ to find a galaxy with redshift in the range $`z_i,z_i+dz`$ and absolute magnitude between $`M_i`$ and $`M_i+dM`$ in the j-th magnitude-limited field and maximizing the likelihood of observing the set of galaxies that comes from the surveys, wich is simply given by the product of the single probabilities:

$$\underset{j}{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}p_{i,j}=\underset{j}{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}\frac{\rho (z_i)\psi (M_i)dzdM}{\omega (j)_{z_1}^{z_2}\rho (z)\frac{dV}{dz}𝑑z_{\mathrm{}}^{M_{lim}^{i,j}(z)}\psi (M)𝑑M}$$
(2)
$`\omega (j)`$ beeing the field area in steradians, and $`M_{lim}^{i,j}(z)`$ the absolute magnitude value that the i-th object, if detected with the magnitude limit $`m_{lim}^j`$ in the j-th survey, should have at that redshift. This value clearly depends on the details of the spectrum of each object. Here j runs over the number of fields where the i-th galaxy can be detected, each one containing $`N_j`$ objects.

The value of $`\varphi ^{}`$ is then obtained summing the density in the $`z,M`$ space for every galaxy, taking account of all the fields where it could be detected (i.e. the fields with enough bright magnitude limit):

$$\varphi ^{}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}\left[\underset{jdetect}{}\omega (j)_{z_1}^{z_2}\frac{dV}{dz}𝑑z_{\mathrm{}}^{M_{lim}^{i,j}(z)}\psi (M)𝑑M\right]^1$$
(3)
As for an appropriate selection in magnitude of the sample, it is important to bear in mind that once a rest frame wavelength $`\lambda `$ is chosen (e.g. the $`4400`$ Å band), this corresponds to different observed wavelengths $`\lambda (1+z)`$ when $`z`$ runs inside the redshift bin $`(z_1,z_2)`$. Since our aim is to choose appropriately a complete subsample selected in the rest-frame, we ought to take into account the different redshifts of each galaxy and the details of the spectra as well, to be sure that we are selecting objects in a coherent way. One major concern is fixing the bins in redshift in a suitable way for matching the observed bands once the wavelength displacement is taken into account. Subsequentely the right selection criterion can be achieved by comparing the photometric limit with the $`\lambda (1+z)`$ magnitude value taken from the spectrum. This implies a limiting magnitude $`27.2`$ at a wavelength of $`4400(1+z)`$ Å for $`z1.25`$ and $`27.2`$ at $`1700(1+z)`$ Å for $`z>2.5`$ in the HDFs.

## 4. THE COSMOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF THE LF

The luminosity function at the rest frame B magnitude in the AB system, $`M_B`$, is shown in Fig. 1 for three redshift bins ($`0.20.5,0.50.75,0.751.25`$). The left panels refer to a critical universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$ and $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, while the right panels refer to a flat universe dominated by the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. The rest frame B magnitude is computed from the best fit theoretical spectral energy distribution used to derive the photometric redshift. The magnitude limit of the sample has been evaluated at the same rest-frame wavelength centered in the rest frame B band, which roughly corresponds to the observed V,R,I bands for the three redshift bins, respectively. In addition we show in Fig.2 the $`1700`$Å rest-frame LF in the bins $`2.5<z<3.5`$ and $`3.5<z<4.5`$ for the same cosmologies.

The best fit values of the Schechter parameters obtained from the maximum likelihood method are summarized in table 1 together with the relevant sample parameters for both the considered cosmologies. In the highest redshift bin ($`3.5<z<4.5`$) the small number of objects prevented an accurate estimate of the Schechter parameters. The Schechter curves corresponding to the tabulated fitting parameters are shown in Figs. 1,2 only for the case of the critical universe (left panels) for comparison with previous LFs computed in the same cosmology. In particular, the Schechter LFs from the Canada France Redshift Survey and the Autofib survey are also shown for $`z<1.25`$ as dotted and dashed curves, respectively. An overall agreement with the spectroscopic data is evident at bright magnitudes, supporting the reliability of our LF photometric estimation. The variance between spectroscopic surveys could be due to different k-corrections applied for the estimate of the rest-frame blue magnitudes from samples selected in different bands. As discussed in Sawicki et al. (1997), the uncertainties in the photometric redshift estimates do not affect appreciably the behavior of the LF: suitable Monte Carlo simulations have shown that perturbations arising from redshift uncertanties result in effects smaller than one sigma error bars in the $`1/V_{max}`$ estimator and in small changes in the best-fit Schechter parameters. In our case the good match with CFRS leaves little space for this kind of substantial changes in the distribution.

It can be seen that from $`z0.2`$ up to $`z1.25`$, there is no evidence of a significant trend with redshift in the faint-end slope parameter $`\alpha `$, which remains close to its local value $`\alpha 1.2`$ (Zucca et al. 1997). Also, the characteristic magnitude $`M_{}`$ shows a mild brightening with the look-back time.At high redshifts a steepening effect is evident in the $`1700`$Å LF (Fig.2, left panel), where the slope parameter reaches a value of $`1.37`$, consistent within uncertainties with the $`\alpha =1.6`$ found by Steidel et al. (1999) in an analogous redshift bin. We note however that in this high redshift bin the slope is weakly constrained by the present depth of the galaxy sample.

## 5. A COMPARISON WITH HIERARCHICAL MODELS FOR GALAXY EVOLUTION

We compare our data with our rendition of the semianalytic models. The structure of such rendition is described in Poli et al. (1999). We updated our model to implement some of the most recent improvements inserted in the recent versions of semianalytic models, following the lines of Cole et al. (2000). In particular we now adopt the Lacey & Cole (1993) dynamical friction timescale, the new star formation and feedback recipes and the new modelization for hot gas distribution implemented by the above authors. This allows us to obtain a Tully-Fisher relation in reasonable agreement with observations together with a good fit to the local luminosity function, the two observables that have been used to calibrate the free parameters governing the star formation and the feedback processes. In addition we have included dust absorption, which is modelled as in Poli et al. (1999). We have checked that the predictions of our model agree with those from Cole et al. (2000) for both the local observables and the global cosmic star formation history.

Table 1.

Parameters of the Schechter function fits

| z range | $`\alpha ^a`$ | $`M_{}^b`$ | $`\varphi _{}`$ | N |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 02-0.5 | $`1.18\pm 0.05`$ | $`21.36\pm 0.37`$ | 0.0059 | 188 |
|  | $`1.19\pm 0.05`$ | $`21.03\pm 0.38`$ | 0.0086 |  |
| 0.5-0.75 | $`1.18\pm 0.06`$ | $`21.00\pm 0.29`$ | 0.0091 | 251 |
|  | $`1.19\pm 0.06`$ | $`20.75\pm 0.30`$ | 0.01 |  |
| 0.75-1.25 | $`1.24\pm 0.06`$ | $`21.45\pm 0.24`$ | 0.0045 | 409 |
|  | $`1.25\pm 0.05`$ | $`21.38\pm 0.25`$ | 0.0041 |  |
| 2.5-3.5 | $`1.37\pm 0.20`$ | $`20.72\pm 0.37`$ | 0.0025 | 187 |
|  | $`1.37\pm 0.19`$ | $`20.84\pm 0.37`$ | 0.0023 |  |

a The second row for each $`z`$ bin refers to the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ cosmology.

b $`M_{}`$ is $`M_B`$ (AB) except in the $`z=2.53.5`$ bin where it is computed at 1700 Å, $`M_{1700}`$

To compare with the data we focus on the flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM (Cold Dark Matter) cosmology. Such choice is favoured by a significant amount of recent observational results, from the high-fraction of the baryons-to-DM ratio in galaxy clusters (see, e.g., White & Fabian 1995) to the high-redshift SNe (see Perlmutter et al. 1999). When inserted into galaxy formation models, the above set of parameters also yields a cosmic star formation history in reasonable agreement with observations (see Fontana et al. 1999), in contrast, e.g., with the Standard CDM with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$.

Fig.1 and Fig. 2 (right panels) show a comparison of the observed luminosity functions derived from our composite sample and our CDM model. First we note a general agreement for $`M_B<20`$ and $`z1`$. Both data and predictions show weak luminosity evolution resulting from a balance between a mild decrease with $`z`$ of the number of massive objects and the increase of their star formation activity and hence of their blue luminosity. At the same time, the normalization of the LF rises by a factor of $`2`$.

At low luminosities the theoretical LF appears steeper than the observed one, with an excess at the faint end that becomes larger with increasing redshift. In addition, at $`z>3.5`$ the model tends to slightly underestimate the magnitudes of bright galaxies when the model with larger dust extinction ($`1`$ mag, in agreement with Pettini et al. 1998) is considered. Such results show that a refinement of the models is required, both in terms of dynamical processes (like merging of satellites in common halos, see Somerville, Primack, & Faber 2001) and in terms of stellar processes (like the feedback from Supernovae, appreciably affecting the LF at the faint-end). Indeed, the apparent agreement of the predicted vs. observed UV luminosity density at $`z>3`$ (Fontana et al. 1999) results from the balance in the LF between the excess of the predicted dwarfs and the deficit of predicted bright galaxies, as shown in the right panels of fig. 2.

This shows that the $`z`$-resolved LFs constitute a particulary powerful way of constraining the two most uncertain processes in the theoretical modelling, i.e., the dust absorption affecting the prediction of the number of bright galaxies and the Supernovae feedback affecting the slope of the predicted LF at the faint end.

The above considerations suggest that the comparison of the observed and predicted UV luminosity density at $`z3`$ is critical at the bright end. Indeed, the details of the dust extinction are important at the bright end of the steep LF function since the dust extinction affects not only the observed UV luminosities but also the number of galaxies that are detected within the magnitude limit. Some spectroscopic information for the brightest sources can better constrain the dust content at these high $`z`$.

For such a reason, the comparison between the predicted and observed UV luminosity densities should be performed over wider areas of the sky, to reduce fluctuations in the number of bright sources, and using different limiting magnitudes, extended to the faintest limits, to explore the dust content as a function of the galaxy star formation rate and mass. This will allow us to sample the shape of the LF at the faint end, which is crucial to assess whether complementary physical processes have to be included in the current hierarchical models.