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# Heavy quark photoproduction at THERA

## Heavy quark photoproduction at THERA

P. Jankowski, M. Krawczyk
Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw
Warsaw, Poland
pjank@fuw.edu.pl, krawczyk@fuw.edu.pl
M. Wing
McGill University, Montreal
Canada
wing@mail.desy.de

### Abstract

## Abstract

Measurements of heavy quark production at a possible future $`ep`$ facility, THERA, would provide valuable information on the structure of the photon. QCD cross-section predictions are made at LO for both charm and beauty production and their sensitivity to current parametrisations of the photon parton densities is investigated.

## 1 Introduction

Heavy quark production can provide information on the structure of the real photon as well as provide stringent tests of QCD by itself. In this paper the potential of the possible future $`ep`$ collider, THERA, to give new information on the real photon structure through charm and beauty quark photoproduction is studied. The potential of the collider is also compared with other existing or planned colliders.

Photoproduction processes are dominated by the exchange of quasi-real photons (virtuality of the photon $`Q^21`$GeV2). Their energy distribution can be described by an effective (real) photon energy spectrum, i.e. using the Weizsäcker-Williams approximation. A hard scale is provided by a large transverse momentum or the mass of the produced heavy quark $`Q`$. In this paper the region $`p_Tm_Q`$ is studied. In LO QCD, two processes contribute to the photoproduction of heavy quarks: the direct process, in which the photon couples directly to a parton in the proton, and the resolved process, in which the photon acts as a source of partons, one of which scatters from a parton in the proton. Heavy quarks can be produced in the final state or they already exist in the initial state as partons in the photon and proton, depending on the scheme used in the calculations.

If not stated otherwise the computations were performed with the THERA electron and proton beams energies of 250 GeV and 920 GeV, respectively. In the first section results are presented on LO QCD calculations of inclusive charm quark production, $`epc/\overline{c}X`$, at the THERA collider. In particular the possible information this process can reveal on the structure of the photon is discussed. The second section uses MC expectations to investigate events where at least one heavy quark and two jets are produced. Further requirements on a final state muon from a semi-leptonic decay are also imposed and sensitivity to current parametrisations of the photon investigated.

## 2 Leading order QCD predictions of charm quark production

LO calculations were performed in two schemes which differ by the number of quark flavours which are considered to be part of the structure of the photon and proton, and can thus take part in the process as partons. The massive scheme, the so-called Fixed Flavour Number Scheme (FFNS), assumes that both the photon and proton consist of gluons and only light ($`u`$, $`d`$ and $`s`$) quarks whilst heavy quarks are produced in the final state. The massless Variable Flavour Number Scheme (VFNS), considers heavy quarks as active flavours. Therefore such partonic processes, $`Q+gQ+g`$ or $`Q+\overline{Q}Q+\overline{Q}`$, with $`Q`$ denoting a heavy quark, are also allowed. (Events in which the heavy quark is one of the active partons are also referred to as “flavour-excitation”.) In the FFNS scheme the mass of the produced charm quark is always kept nonzero in the calculations while in the VFNS all flavours are treated as massless.

In the massive (FFNS) calculations the number of active flavours ($`N_f`$) is taken to be 3. In the massless (VFNS) scheme it varies from 3 to 4 depending on the value of the hard (factorisation and renormalisation) scale, $`\mu `$. The charm quark is included in the computation provided that $`\mu >m_c`$ with the mass of the charm quark set to $`m_c=1.5`$GeV. Also the QCD energy scale, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$, which appears in the one loop formula for the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$ is affected by the change of the number of active flavours, so is denoted as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^{N_f}`$. The scale is taken to be $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^3=232`$ MeV and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}^4=200`$ MeV as in the GRV111The old GRV(’92) parametrisation was used in this analysis. It treats heavy quarks as massless above the heavy quark threshold region ($`W2m_Q`$), and moreover latest experimental results  indicate that its gluon distribution is closest to the data. parametrisation of the photon . If not stated otherwise $`\mu `$ is taken to be the transverse mass of the produced charm quark, $`m_T=\sqrt{m_c^2+p_T^2}`$, and the differential cross-section, $`d^2\sigma /d\eta dp_T^2`$, with $`p_T=10`$ GeV is calculated. This means that $`\mu p_T`$ and therefore $`N_f=4`$ in case of the VFNS calculations. The spectrum of the quasi-real photons taking part in the process is described by the Weizsäcker-Williams (EPA) formula,

$$f_{\gamma /e}(y)=\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }\left[\frac{1+(1y)^2}{y}\mathrm{ln}\frac{Q_{max}^2}{Q_{min}^2}+2m_e^2y\left(\frac{1}{Q_{max}^2}\frac{1}{Q_{min}^2}\right)\right],$$
(1)
where $`Q_{max}^2=4`$GeV2, $`Q_{min}^2=m_e^2y^2/(1y)`$ and $`y`$ is the fraction of the electron’s four-momentum carried by the photon ($`y=E_\gamma /E_e`$). No requirements were placed on $`y`$. Finally the LO CTEQ5L  and GRV  were used as the parton parametrisations of the proton and photon, respectively.

To show the power of the THERA collider for heavy quark physics it is useful to compare the cross-section for charm production that can be achieved in THERA with cross-sections expected for other existing or planned accelerators. In Fig. 1, a comparison with results from the $`ep`$ HERA ($`E_e=27.5`$ GeV, $`E_p=920`$ GeV), LEP ($`E_e=90`$ GeV), a Linear Collider (LC) and a Photon Collider (PC) both with $`E_e=250`$ GeV are presented for two options of THERA, $`ep`$ and $`\gamma p`$. Real photons in the PC and $`\gamma p`$ THERA option can be achieved through the Compton backscattering laser photons from the electron beam  (the full theoretical spectrum for $`0<y<0.83`$ was used). It can be seen that THERA provides the largest cross-sections over the whole range in $`\eta `$ and has the potential to probe regions kinematically inaccessible at other colliders.

It has been demonstrated elsewhere , that there is a large dependence of the cross-section for heavy quark production on the choice of scheme for the case of HERA energies. It is also true for the THERA collider. Direct and resolved contributions to the cross-section for charm production obtained using the two discussed schemes clearly show this dependency, as displayed in Fig. 2. Note that the resolved and direct cross-sections are similar for the VFNS scheme whereas in the FFNS scheme, the resolved cross-section is small compared to that of the direct contribution. The small difference between the direct cross-sections for the two schemes is due to the mass term in the matrix elements and phase space integral. Figure 3 presents the cross-sections with their dependence on the choice of the $`\mu `$ varied from $`1/2m_T`$ to $`2m_T`$. The dependence on the choice of scheme is most significant for resolved processes, varying by up to several orders of magnitude in the cross-section. In the case of direct processes the variation is relatively small and the subsequent total cross-section prediction variation is therefore dominated by the difference between the two schemes for the resolved process. The variation in the choice of scale leads to small effects in the cross-section in comparison with the scheme dependence as it only influences the value of $`\alpha _s`$ and the parton densities and not the set of allowed partonic processes.

To test the sensitivity of inclusive charm production to the form of the parton densities in the photon, cross-sections for this process were computed with three different LO parton parametrisations of the photon: GRV , GS96  and SaS1D . Sensitivity to the form of the current parametrisations of the photon structure function at the THERA collider is larger than at HERA as shown in Fig. 4a (the results of the VFNS calculation). Note that the SaS1D and GRV parametrisations give similar results. Figure 4b shows the uncertainty resulting from the variation of the hard scale by a factor of two compared to the central value. Here it is demonstrated that the differences between the cross-sections obtained using three parton parametrisations of the photon are significant for GRV (or SaS1D) and GS96 in the region $`2.5<\eta <0`$, despite this large theoretical uncertainty.

The differences between two current parton parametrisations of the photon, GRV and SaS1D, have previously been compared for LC and PC colliders . More specifically, the relative difference $`\frac{GRVSaS1D}{GRV}`$ of the cross-section, $`d^2\sigma /d\eta dp_T^2`$($`epc/\overline{c}X`$), was calculated in both VFNS and FFNS schemes. Values of $`0.10.4`$ were found with the PC having the larger value. Similar numbers (up to 0.3) to those for the LC and PC could be achieved at THERA in the forward $`\eta `$ region. The massive FFNS gives the same results for the considered sensitivity as those of the massless VFNS scheme.

Sensitivity to the photon parton densities can be also tested through the ratio of the resolved to the direct photon contributions. This is shown in Fig. 5 for $`d^2\sigma /d\eta dp_T^2`$ in comparison with the results for the HERA collider. Again the results for THERA show a larger resolved cross-section and increased sensitivity to the form of the current parametrisations. The sensitivity is also large in the central $`\eta `$ region where there is, experimentally, a large acceptance.

## 3 MC predictions of dijet production with charm and beauty quarks

The dijet system can be formed from the production of a heavy quark pair such as in the boson-gluon fusion process. When the heavy quark is an active parton in the photon then the dijet system is formed from one heavy quark and a gluon. The other heavy quark in the event is produced at low transverse energy and forms part of the photon remnant.

A natural variable to describe dijet production is the observable $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$, which is the fraction of the photon’s energy producing the two jets of highest transverse energy ;

$$x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}=\frac{E_T^{\mathrm{jet1}}\mathrm{e}^{\eta ^{\mathrm{jet1}}}+E_T^{\mathrm{jet2}}\mathrm{e}^{\eta ^{\mathrm{jet2}}}}{2yE_e},$$
(2)
where $`\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}`$ is the pseudorapidity of the jet and $`E_e`$ is the electron energy and $`y`$ the fraction of the electron’s energy carried by the photon.

Due to the increase in the beam energy, there is a corresponding order of magnitude extension in the minimum $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$. This is shown in Fig. 6 in which two THERA scenarios (with the electron beam energy $`E_e=250`$ GeV and $`E_e=400`$ GeV) are compared with HERA. A greatly increased cross-section possible at THERA over that at HERA for low$``$$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$, particularly in beauty production, is seen. Realistic scenarios for the cuts on the jet quantities have been made of transverse energy $`E_T^{\mathrm{jet1},2}>`$ 10,8 GeV and pseudorapidity $`\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}<`$ 2.5. The distribution is peaked at high-$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$, consistent with direct photon processes, but has a significant cross-section at low-$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ arising from resolved photon events.

Charm and beauty production at a $`\gamma p`$ collider has also been considered and compared with the nominal $`ep`$ scenario for THERA. The photon beam energy is assumed to be 0.8$`E_e`$, i.e. 200 GeV assuming an electron beam of energy 250 GeV. The predictions for the $`ep`$ and $`\gamma p`$ options with the same jet cuts are shown in Fig. 7. The cross-section prediction for the $`\gamma p`$ option is a factor of $``$ 25 higher than the nominal $`ep`$ option. This factor arises simply from the Weizsäcker-Williams flux associated with the electron.

Further requirements can be made such that the kinematic range closely corresponds to what could be measured. Therefore the observation of a final state muon from the semi-leptonic decay of a beauty quark is imposed. The momentum and angular requirements imposed on the muon are typical of those at HERA. Considering jets of slightly lower transverse energy ($`E_T^{\mathrm{jet1},2}>`$ 7,6 GeV), the effect on the low-$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ component of pseudorapidity cut is shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that for a pseudorapidity cut of $`\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}>1`$, the direct peak at high-$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is drastically reduced with respect to a cut of $`\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}>2`$. This demonstrates that by applying a cut of $`\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}>1`$ interactions of almost exclusively the resolved photon are being probed.

This rather tight restriction on the pseudorapidity of the jets of $`1<\eta ^{\mathrm{jet}}<2`$ is imposed and the sensitivity of the cross-section to the current parametrisations of the photon structure function investigated for THERA. In Fig. 9 predictions are shown for events where a beauty quark decays into a muon. Predictions are shown using both Herwig  and Pythia  MC generators for four different LO photon PDFs. At values of $`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$=0.1, differences between the four parametrisations of up to $`40\%`$ are seen. The predictions from GRV and GS96 generally have the largest cross-sections at low-$`x_\gamma ^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ and also rise more quickly. The large difference in the Pythia and Herwig MC predictions comes mainly from the different default treatments of $`\alpha _s`$, different scales and hadronisation and the use of massive matrix elements in Herwig and massless in Pythia for the generation of flavour-excitation processes.

## 4 Summary

It has been shown that the photoproduction of heavy quarks at THERA has a much increased cross-section relative to HERA. With the expected luminosity of about 100 pb-1/year stringent tests of pQCD could be performed. It has also been shown that the cross-sections are sensitive to the structure of the photon, with the current parametrisations differing by significant amounts. The THERA collider also compares favourably with other current and planned machines studying heavy quark production, with the $`\gamma p`$ mode for THERA providing the largest cross-section.

## Acknowledgements

Some of use (PJ and MK) have been partly supported by the Polish State Committee for Scientific Research (grant 2P03B05119, 2000-2001). MK is also grateful to the European Commission 50th Framework Contract HPRN-CT-2000-00149 and DESY for financial support.


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# Energy dissipation and scattering angle distribution analysis of the classical trajectory calculations of methane scattering from a Ni(111) surface

## I Introduction

The dissociative adsorption of methane on transition metals is an important reaction in catalysis; it is the rate limiting step in steam reforming to produce syngas, and it is prototypical for catalytic C–H activation. Therefore the dissociation is of high interest for many surface scientists. (See for a recent review Ref. .) Molecular beam experiments in which the dissociation probability was measured as a function of translational energy have observed that the dissociation probability is enhanced by the normal incidence component of the incidence translational energy. This suggests that the reaction occurs primarily through a direct dissociation mechanism at least for high translational kinetic energies. Some experiments have also observed that vibrationally hot CH4 dissociates more readily than cold CH4, with the energy in the internal vibrations being about as effective as the translational energy in inducing dissociation. A molecular beam experiment with laser excitation of the $`\nu _3`$ mode did succeed in measuring a strong enhancement of the dissociation on a Ni(100) surface. However, this enhancement was still much too low to account for the vibrational activation observed in previous studies and indicated that other vibrationally excited modes contribute significantly to the reactivity of thermal samples.

It is very interesting to simulate the dynamics of the dissociation, because of the direct dissociation mechanism, and the role of the internal vibrations. Wave packet simulations of the methane dissociation reaction on transition metals have treated the methane molecule always as a diatomic up to now. Apart from one C–H bond (a pseudo $`\nu _3`$ stretch mode) and the molecule surface distance, either (multiple) rotations or some lattice motion were included. None of these studies have looked at the role of the other internal vibrations, so there is no model that describes which vibrationally excited mode might be responsible for the experimental observed vibrational activation.

In previous papers we have reported on wave packet simulations to determine which and to what extent internal vibrations are important for the dissociation in the vibrational ground state of CH4, and CD4. We were not able yet to simulate the dissociation including all internal vibrations. Instead we simulated the scattering of methane in fixed orientations, for which all internal vibrations can be included, and used the results to deduce consequences for the dissociation. These simulations indicate that to dissociate methane the interaction of the molecule with the surface should lead to an elongated equilibrium C–H bond length close to the surface, and that the scattering was almost elastic. Later on we reported on wave packet simulations of the role of vibrational excitations for the scattering of CH4 and CD4. We predicted that initial vibrational excitations of the asymmetrical stretch ($`\nu _3`$) but especially the symmetrical stretch ($`\nu _1`$) modes will give the highest enhancement of the dissociation probability of methane. Although we have performed these wave packet simulations in ten dimensions, we still had to neglect two translational and three rotational coordinates of the methane molecule and we did not account for surface motion and corrugation. It is nowadays still hard to include all these features into a wave packet simulation, therefore we decided to study these with classical trajectory simulations.

In this article we will present full classical trajectory simulations of methane from a Ni(111) surface. We have especially interest in the effect of the molecular rotations and surface motion, which we study as a function of the nozzle and surface temperature. The methane molecule is flexible and able to vibrate. We do not include vibrational kinetic energy at the beginning of the simulation, because a study of vibrational excitation due to the nozzle temperature needs a special semi-classical treatment. Besides its relevance for the dissociation reaction of methane on transition metals, our scattering simulation can also be of interest as a reference model for the interpretation of methane scattering itself, which have been studied with molecular beams on Ag(111), Pt(111), and Cu(111) surfaces. It was observed that the scattering angles are in some cases in disagreement with the outcome of the classical Hard Cube Model (HCM) described in Ref. . We will show in this article that the assumptions of this HCM model are too crude for describing the processes obtained from our simulation. The time-of-flight experiments show that there is almost no vibrational excitation during the scattering, which is in agreement with our current classical simulations and our previous wave packet simulations.

The rest of this article is organized as follows. We start with a description of our model potential, and an explanation of the simulation conditions. The results and discussion are presented next. We start with the scattering angles, and relate them to the energy dissipation processes. Next we will compare our simulation with other experiments and theoretical models. We end with a summary and some general conclusions.

## II Computational details

We have used classical molecular dynamics for simulating the scattering of methane from a Ni(111) surface. The methane molecule was modelled as a flexible molecule. The forces on the carbon, hydrogen, and Ni atoms are given by the gradient of the model potential energy surface described below. The first-order ordinary differential equations for the Newtonian equations of motion of the Cartesian coordinates were solved with use of a variable-order, variable-step Adams method. We have simulated at translational energies of 24, 48, 72, and 96 kJ/mol at normal incidence, and at 96 kJ/mol for incidence angles of 30, 45, and 60 with the surface normal. The surface temperature and (rotational) nozzle temperature for a certain simulation were taken independently between 200 and 800 K.

### A Potential energy surface

The model potential energy surface used for the classical dynamics is derived from one of our model potentials with elongated C–H bond lengths towards the surface, previously used for wave packet simulation of the vibrational scattering of fixed oriented methane on a flat surface. In this original potential there is one part responsible for the repulsive interaction between the surface and the hydrogens, and another part for the intramolecular interaction between carbon and hydrogens.

We have rewritten the repulsive part in pair potential terms between top layer surface Ni atoms and hydrogens in such a way that the surface integral over all these Ni atoms give the same overall exponential fall-off as the original repulsive PES term for a methane molecule far away from the surface in an orientation with three bonds pointing towards the surface. The repulsive pair interaction term $`V_{\mathrm{rep}}`$ between hydrogen $`i`$ and Ni atom $`j`$ at the surface is then given by

$$V_{\mathrm{rep}}=\frac{Ae^{\alpha Z_{ij}}}{Z_{ij}},$$
(1)
where $`Z_{ij}`$ is the distance between hydrogen atom $`i`$ and Ni atom $`j`$.

The intramolecular potential part is split up in bond, bond angle, and cross potential energy terms. The single C–H bond energy is given by a Morse function with bond lengthening towards the surface

$$V_{\mathrm{bond}}=D_e\left[1e^{\gamma (R_iR_{eq})}\right]^2,$$
(2)
where $`D_e`$ is the dissociation energy of methane in the gas phase, and $`R_i`$ is the length of the C–H bond $`i`$. Dissociation is not possible at the surface with this potential term, but the entrance channel for dissociation is mimicked by an elongation of the equilibrium bond length $`R_{eq}`$ when the distance between the hydrogen atom and the Ni atoms in the top layer of the surface become shorter. This is achieved by

$$R_{eq}=R_0+S\underset{j}{}\frac{e^{\alpha Z_{ij}}}{Z_{ij}},$$
(3)
where $`R_0`$ is the equilibrium C–H bond length in the gas phase. The bond elongation factor $`S`$ was chosen in such a way that the elongation is 0.054 nm at the classical turning point of 93.2 kJ/mol incidence translational energy for a rigid methane molecule, when the molecule approach a surface Ni atom atop with one bond pointing towards the surface. The single angle energy is given by the harmonic expression

$$V_{\mathrm{angle}}=k_\theta (\theta _{ij}\theta _0)^2,$$
(4)
where $`\theta _{ij}`$ is the angle between C–H bond $`i`$ and $`j`$, and $`\theta _0`$ the equilibrium bond angle. Furthermore, there are some cross-term potentials between bonds and angles. The interaction between two bonds are given by

$$V_{\mathrm{bb}}=k_{RR}(R_iR_0)(R_jR_0).$$
(5)
The interaction between a bond angle and the bond angle on the other side is given by

$$V_{\mathrm{aa}}=k_{\theta \theta }(\theta _{ij}\theta _0)(\theta _{kl}\theta _0).$$
(6)
The interaction between a bond angle and one of its bonds is given by

$$V_{\mathrm{ab}}=k_{\theta R}(\theta _{ij}\theta _0)(R_iR_0).$$
(7)
The parameters of the intramolecular potential energy terms were calculated by fitting the second derivatives of these terms on the experimental vibrational frequencies of CH4 and CD4 in the gas phase.

The Ni-Ni interaction between nearest-neighbours is given by the harmonic form

$`V_{\mathrm{Ni}\mathrm{Ni}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\lambda _{ij}[(𝐮_i𝐮_j)\widehat{𝐫}_{ij}]`$ (9)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mu _{ij}\left\{(𝐮_i𝐮_j)^2[(𝐮_i𝐮_j)\widehat{𝐫}_{ij}]^2\right\}.`$
The $`𝐮`$’s are the displacements from the equilibrium positions, and $`\widehat{𝐫}`$ is a unit vector connecting the equilibrium positions. The Ni atoms were placed at bulk positions with a nearest-neighbour distance of 0.2489 nm. The parameters $`\lambda _{ij}`$ and $`\mu _{ij}`$ were fitted on the elastic constants  and cell parameters  of the bulk. The values of all parameters are given in Table I.

### B Simulation model

The surface is modelled by a slab consisting of four layers of eight times eight Ni atoms. Periodic boundary conditions have been used in the lateral direction for the Ni-Ni interactions. The methane molecule has interactions with the sixty-four Ni atoms in the top layer of the slab. The surface temperature is set according to the following procedure. The Ni atoms are placed in equilibrium positions and are given random velocities out of a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with twice the surface temperature. The velocities are corrected such that the total momentum of all surface atoms is zero in all directions, which fixes the surface in space. Next the surface is allowed to relax for 350 fs. We do the following ten times iteratively. If at the end of previous relaxation the total kinetic energy is above or below the given surface temperature, then all velocities are scaled down or up with a factor of $`\sqrt{1}.1`$ respectively. Afterwards a new relaxation simulation is performed. The end of each relaxation run is used as the begin condition of the surface for the actual scattering simulation.

The initial perpendicular carbon position was chosen 180 nm above the equilibrium $`z`$-position of the top layer atoms and was given randomly parallel ($`x`$, $`y`$) positions within the central surface unit cell of the simulation slab for the normal incidence simulations. The methane was placed in a random orientation with the bonds and angles of the methane in the minimum of the gas phase potential. The initial rotational angular momentum was generated randomly from a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution for the given nozzle temperature for all three rotation axis separately. No vibrational kinetic energy was given initially. Initial translational velocity was given to all methane atoms according to the translational energy. The simulations under an angle were given parallel momentum in the  direction. The parallel positions have been translated according to the parallel velocities in such a way that the first collision occurs one unit cell before the central unit cell of the simulation box. We tested other directions, but did not see any differences for the scattering.

Each scattering simulation consisted of 2500 trajectories with a simulation time of 1500 fs each. We calculated the (change of) translational, total kinetic, rotational and vibrational kinetic, intramolecular potential, and total energy of the methane molecule; and the scattering angles at the end of each trajectory. We calculated for them the averages and standard deviations, which gives the spread for the set of trajectories, and correlations coefficients from which we can abstract information about the energy transfer processes.

## III Results and discussion

We will now present and discuss the results of our simulations. We begin with the scattering angle distribution. Next we will explain this in terms of the energy dissipation processes. Finally we will compare our simulation with previous theoretical and experimental scattering studies, and discuss the possible effects on the dissociation of methane on transition metal surfaces.

### A Scattering angles

Figure 1 shows the scattering angle distribution for different incidence angles with a initial total translational energy of 96 kJ/mol at nozzle and surface temperatures of both 200 and 800 K. The scatter angle is calculated from the ratio between the normal and the total parallel momentum of the whole methane molecule. We observe that most of the trajectories scatter some degrees towards the surface from the specular. This means that there is relatively more parallel momentum than normal momentum at the end of the simulation compared with the initial ratio. This ratio change is almost completely caused by a decrease of normal momentum.

The higher nozzle and surface temperatures have almost no influence on the peak position of the distribution, but give a broader distribution. The standard deviation in the scattering angle distribution goes up from $`2.7^{}`$, $`2.4^{}`$, and $`2.2^{}`$ at 200K to $`4.4^{}`$, $`3.8^{}`$, and $`3.4^{}`$ at 800K for incidence angles of $`30^{}`$, $`45^{}`$, and $`60^{}`$ respectively. This means that the angular width is very narrow, because the full width at half maximum (FWHM) are usually larger than $`20^{}`$. (The FWHM is approximately somewhat more than twice the standard deviation.) The broadening is caused almost completely by raising the surface temperature, and has again primarily an effect on the spread of the normal momentum of the molecule. This indicates that the scattering of methane from Ni(111) is dominated by a thermal roughening process.

We do not observe an average out-of-plane diffraction for the non normal incidence simulations, but we do see some small out-of-plane broadening. The standard deviations in the out-of-plane angle were 0.9, 1.8, 3.4 at a surface temperature of 200K, and 1.7, 3.3, and 6.0 at 800K for incidence angles of 30, 45, and 60 with the surface normal. Raising the (rotational) nozzle temperature has hardly any effect on the out-of-plane broadening.

### B Energy dissipation processes

#### 1 Translational energy

Figure 2 shows the average energy change of some energy components of the methane molecule between the end and the begin of the trajectories as a function of the initial total translational energy. The incoming angle for all is 0 (normal incidence), and both the nozzle and surface are initially 400K. If we plot the normal incidence translational energy component of the simulation at 96 kJ/mol for the different incidence angles, then we see a similar relation. This means that there is normal translational energy scaling for the scattering process in general, except for some small differences discussed later on.

Most of the initial energy of methane is available as translational energy, so it cannot be surprising that we see here the highest energy loss. The translational energy loss takes a higher percentage of the initial translational energy at higher initial translational energies. Since almost all of the momentum loss is in the normal direction, we also see that the loss of translational energy can be found back in the normal component of the translational energy for the non-normal incidence simulations.

The average change of the total energy of the methane molecule is less negative than the average change in translational energy, which means that there is a net transfer of the initial methane energy towards the surface during the scattering. This is somewhat more than half of the loss of translational energy. The percentage of transfered energy to the surface related to the normal incidence translational energy is also enhanced at higher incidence energies. There is somewhat more translational energy loss, and energy transfer towards the surface for the larger scattering angles, than occurs at the comparable normal translational energy at normal incidence. This is caused probably by interactions with more surface atoms, when the molecule scatters under an larger angle with the surface normal.

In Fig. 2 we also plotted the average change of methane potential energy and the change of rotational and vibrational kinetic energy of methane. We observe that there is extremely little energy transfer towards the potential energy, and a lot of energy transfer towards rotational and vibrational kinetic energy. Vibrational motion gives an increase of both potential and kinetic energy. Rotational motion gives only an increase in kinetic energy. So this means that there is almost no vibrational inelastic scattering, and very much rotational inelastic scattering.

Figure 3 shows the standard deviations in the energy change of some energy components of methane versus the initial translational energy at normal incidence for a nozzle and surface temperature of 200K. (The temperature effects will be discussed below.) The standard deviations in the energy changes are quite large compared to the average values. The standard deviations in the change of the methane translational energy and in the change of methane rotational and vibrational kinetic energy increase more than the standard deviation in the change of methane total energy, when the initial translational energy is increased. We find again an identical relation if we plot the standard deviations versus the initial normal energy component of the scattering at different incidence angles. The standard deviations are much smaller in the parallel than in the normal component of the translational energy, so again only the normal component of the translational energy is important. Although the standard deviations in the translational energy is smaller at larger incidence angles than at smaller incidence angles, we see in Fig. 1 that the spread in the angle distribution is almost the same. This is caused by the fact that at large angles deviations in the normal direction has more effect on the deviation in the angle than at smaller angles with the normal.

#### 2 Surface temperature

An increase of surface temperature gives a small reduction of average translational energy loss (around 5 $`\%`$ from 200K to 800K at 96 kJ/mol normal incidence). This is the reason why we do not observe a large shift of the peak position of the scattering angle distribution. However, an increase of surface temperature does have a larger effect on the average energy transfer to the surface, but this is in part compensated through a decrease of energy transfer to rotational energy.

Figure 4 shows the standard deviations in the energy change of the translational energy, the methane total energy, and the methane rotational and vibrational kinetic energy as a function of the surface temperature. We observe that the standard deviation in the change of rotational and vibrational kinetic energy hardly changes at increasing surface temperature. At a low surface temperature it is much higher than the standard deviation in the change of the methane total energy. So the baseline broadening of translational energy is caused by the transfer of translational to rotational motion. The standard deviation in the change of the methane total energy increases much at higher surface temperature. This results also in an increase of the standard deviation in the change of translational energy, which means that the surface temperature influences the energy transfer process between translational and surface motion. The spread in the change of translational energy is related to the spread in the scattering angle distributions. It is now clear that the observed broadening of the scattering angle distribution with increasing surface temperature is really caused by a thermal roughening process.

#### 3 Nozzle temperature

Figure 5 shows the dependency of the standard deviations for the different energy changes on the nozzle temperature. From this figure it is clear that the nozzle temperature has relative little influence on the standard deviations in the different energy changes. Therefore we observe almost no peak broadening in the scattering angle distribution due to the nozzle temperature. The nozzle temperature has also no influence on the average change of rotational and vibrational kinetic energy, which means that this part of the energy transfer process is driven primarily by normal incidence translational energy.

We have to keep in mind that we only studied the rotational heating by the nozzle temperature, and that we did not take vibrational excitation by nozzle heating into account. From our wave packet simulations we know that vibrational excitations can contribute to a strong enhancement of vibrational inelastic scattering. So the actual effect of raising the nozzle temperature can be different than sketched here.

### C Comparison with other studies

#### 1 Scattering angles and the Hard Cube Model

The angular dependnece of scattered intensity for a fixed total scattering angle has only been measured at Pt(111). The measurement has been compared with the predictions of the Hard Cube Model (HCM) as described in Ref. . There seems to be more or less agreement for low translational energies under an angle around 45 with the surface, but is anomalous at a translational energy of 55 kJ/mol. The anomalous behaviour has been explained by altering the inelastic collision dynamics through intermediate methyl fragments.

Although our simulations are for Ni(111) instead of Pt(111) and we calculate real angular distributions, we will show now that the HCM is insufficient for describing the processes involved with the scattering of methane in our simulation. The HCM neglects the energy transfer to rotational excitations, and overestimates the energy transfer to the surface. This is not surprising, because the HCM is constructed as a simple classical model for the scattering of gas atoms from a solid surface. The basic assumptions are that (1) the interaction of the gas atom with a surface atom is represented by an impulsive force of repulsion, (2) the gas-surface intermolecular potential is uniform in the plane of the surface, (3) the surface is represented by a set of independent particles confined by square well potentials, (4) the surface particles have a Maxwellian velocity distribution. Assumption 1 excludes inelastic rotational scattering, because the gas particle is an atom without moment of inertia. So the HCM misses a large part of inelastic scattering. However, it still predicts scattering angles much more below the incidence angles than we found from our simulation. For example: The HCM predicts an average scattering angle with the surface normal of 64 from Ni(111), at an incidence angle of 45 at a surface temperature four times lower than the gas temperature. This is much more than for Pt(111), because the mass ratio between the gas particle and the surface atom is higher for Ni(111). There are several explanations for this error. First, the assumption 3 is unreasonable for atomic surfaces with low atom weight, because the surface atoms are strongly bound to each other. This means that effectively the surface has a higher mass than assumed. Second, there is no one-on-one interaction between surface atom and methane molecule, but multiple hydrogen atoms interacting with different Ni atoms. Third, the methane molecule is not rigid in contrast to assumption 1. We have followed the energy distribution during the simulation for some trajectories and find that the methane molecule adsorbs initial rotational and translational energy as vibrational energy in its bonds and bond angles when close the surface, which is returned after the methane moves away from it.

It would be nice to test our model with molecular beam experiment of the scattering angles on surfaces with relatively low atom weight, which also try to look at rotational inelastic scattering.

#### 2 Wave packet simulations

Let us now compare the full classical dynamics with our fixed oriented wave packet simulations, because this was initial the reason to perform the classical dynamics simulations. Again we observe very little vibrational inelastic scattering. This is in agreement with the observations in the time-of-flight experiments on Pt(111).

Since we used our wave packet simulations to deduce consequences for the dissociation of methane, we have to wonder whether the observed inelastic scattering in our classical simulations changes the picture of the dissociation in our previous publications. Therefore we have to look at what happens at the surface. We did so by following some trajectories in time.

We find approximately the same energy rearrangements for the classical simulations as discussed for the wave packet simulations for the vibrational groundstate in Refs.  and . Again most of the normal translational energy is transfered to the potential energy terms of the surface repulsion \[see Eq. 1\]. This repulsive potential energy was only given back to translational energy in the wave packet simulations, because the orientations and surface were fixed. For the classical trajectory simulations presented in this article, the repulsive potential energy is transfered to translational, rotational, and surface energy through the inherent force of the repulsive energy terms. We observe almost no energy transfers to translational energy parallel to the surface, so exclusion of these translational coordinates in the wave packet simulations do not effect our deduction on the dissociation. The energy transfers to the rotational and surface energy during the collision make it harder for the molecule to approach the surface. This will have a quantitative effect on the effective bond lengthening near the surface, but not a qualitative.

The remaining problem deals with the effect of rotational motion on the dissociation probability and steering. Our first intension was to look for the favourable orientation at the surface, but from following some trajectories it is clear that steering does not seem to occur. There is always some rotational motion, and the molecule leaves the surface often with another hydrogen pointing towards to surface than when it approaches the surface. This indicates that multiple bonds have a chance to dissociate during one collision. However, it will be very speculative to draw more conclusion on the dissociation of methane based on the scattering in these classical trajectory simulations. Classical trajectory simulation with an extension of our potentials with an exit channel for dissociation can possibly learn us more.

## IV Conclusions

We have performed classical dynamics simulations of the rotational vibrational scattering of non-rigid methane from a corrugated Ni(111) surface. Energy dissipation and scattering angles have been studied as a function of the translational kinetic energy, the incidence angle, the (rotational) nozzle temperature, and the surface temperature.

We find the peak of the scattering angle distribution somewhat below the incidence angle of 30, 45, and 60 at a translational energy of 96 kJ/mol. This is caused by an average energy loss in the normal component of the translational energy. An increase of initial normal translational energy gives an enhancement of inelastic scattering. The energy loss is transfered for somewhat more than half to the surface and the rest mostly to rotational motion. The vibrational scattering is almost completely elastic.

The broadening of the scattering angle distribution is mainly caused by the energy transfer process of translational energy to rotational energy. Heating of the nozzle temperature gives no peak broadening. Heating of the surface temperature gives an extra peak broadening through thermal roughening of the surface.

The Hard Cube Model seems to be insufficient for describing the scattering angles of methane from Ni(111), if we compare its assumptions with the processes found in our simulations.

## acknowledgments

This research has been financially supported by the Council for Chemical Sciences of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (CW-NWO), and has been performed under the auspices of the Netherlands Institute for Catalysis Research (NIOK).


text:
# A detector of small harmonic displacements based on two coupled microwave cavities

## I Introduction

The detection of weak forces acting on macroscopic bodies often entails the measurement of extremely small displacements of these bodies or their boundaries. This is the case in the attempts to detect gravitational waves (g.w.) or in the search for possible new long range interactions. In 1978 Bernard, Pegoraro, Picasso and Radicati (BPPR) suggested that superconducting coupled cavities could be used as a sensitive detector of gravitational effects, through the coupling of the gravitational wave with the cavity walls and with the stored electromagnetic field. It has been shown that the principle that underlies this detector is analogous to the one used in parametric processes and in particular in frequency converters, i.e. in a device which converts energy from a reference frequency to a signal at a different frequency as a consequence of the time variation of a parameter of the system. In more detail the rf superconducting coupled cavities detector consists of an electromagnetic resonator, with two levels whose frequencies $`\omega _s`$ and $`\omega _a`$ are both much larger than the angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of the g.w. and satisfy the resonance condition $`|\omega _a\omega _s|=\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In the scheme suggested by Bernard et al. the two levels are obtained by coupling two identical high frequency resonators. The angular frequency $`\omega _s`$ is the frequency of the level symmetrical in the fields of the two resonators, and $`\omega _a`$ is that of the antisymmetrical one; if initially some energy $`U`$ is stored in, say, the symmetrical level, leaving empty the antisymmetrical one, the g.w. can induce a transition between the two levels, provided that a suitable geometric configuration of the detector is chosen. In fact the interaction between the g.w. and the detector is characterized by a transfer of energy and of angular momentum. Since the elicity of the g.w. (i.e. the angular momentum along its direction of propagation) is 2, it can induce a transition between the two levels provided their angular momenta, along the direction of the g.w., differ by 2. This can be achieved by putting the two resonators at right angle or by a suitable polarization of the e.m. field inside the cavity.

The power $`P`$ exchanged between the g.w. and the detector is proportional to the incoming gravitational flux $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{gw}`$, to the electromagnetic energy $`U`$ stored in the cavity, and it depends upon the mechanical properties of the detector and the spatial symmetries of the stored electromagnetic field; it can be written as:

$$P=\frac{1}{4}h^2|\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })|^2|𝒞|^2\mathrm{\Omega }UQ_L$$
(1)
where $`h`$ is the adimensional amplitude of the g.w., usually defined in terms of the incoming gravitational flux as

$$h=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\left(32\pi \frac{G}{c^3}\mathrm{\Phi }_{gw}\right)^{1/2}$$
(2)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the g.w. angular frequency and $`Q_L`$ is the loaded electromagnetic quality factor of the microwave cavity. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the mechanical transfer function of the detector. If we apply a simple model in which the detector mechanical properties are approximated by those of a simple harmonic oscillator with proper angular frequency $`\omega _m`$ and quality factor $`Q_m`$ we obtain

$$|\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })|^2=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^4}{\left(\mathrm{\Omega }^2\omega _m^2\right)^2+\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }^2\omega _m^2}{Q_m^2}}$$
(3)
We see that for $`\mathrm{\Omega }\omega _m`$, $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })|^21`$, while near a mecanical resonance $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })|^2Q_m^2`$; in the following, since the working frequency of our detector is chosen to be $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 1`$ MHz, we shall take in our formulas $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })|1`$.

$`𝒞`$ is a complex coefficient, depending on the symmetries of the fields of the electromagnetic modes coupled by the g.w. and is defined so that $`|𝒞|1`$. Obviously a clever choice of field symmetries has to be done in order to have $`|𝒞|1`$ when designing a detector. The discussion on field symmetries and their influence on g.w. detection is done elsewhere. In the following we shall suppose that the system is designed to have $`|𝒞|=1`$.

In 1984 Reece, Reiner and Melissinos (RRM), built a detector in the 10 GHz frequency range, using two identical cylindrical cavities mounted end–to–end and coupled via a small circular aperture in their common endwall, and tested it as a transducer of harmonic mechanical motion. In order to measure the sensitivity limit of the detector, one of its walls was excited by an harmonic perturbation (by a piezoelectric); with a quality factor of the superconducting cavity $`Q=3\times 10^8`$ and a stored electromagnetic energy $`U0.1`$ mJ they showed a sensitivity to relative deformations $`\delta \mathrm{}/\mathrm{}10^{17}`$ Hz-1/2, with $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 1`$ MHz. We repeated the RRM experiment and, with a quality factor $`Q10^8`$ and a stored energy $`U=1.8`$ J, improved its sensitivity by a factor $`10^3`$, thus reaching a sensitivity to harmonic displacements of the order $`\delta \mathrm{}/\mathrm{}10^{20}`$ (Hz)-1/2 at $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 1`$ MHz. With these figures this detector could be an interesting candidate for the detection of gravitational waves or in the search of long range interactions of weak intensity.

## II Basic principles of parametric power conversion

A parametric converter is a nonlinear device which transfers energy from a reference frequency to a signal with different frequency, utilizing a nonlinear parameter of the system, or a parameter that can be varied as a function of time by applying a suitable signal. The time varying parameter may be electrical or mechanical; in the latter case the device acts as a transducer of mechanical displacements.

The basic equations describing the parametric converter are the Manley–Rowe relations. They are a set of power conservation relations that are extremely useful in evaluating the performance of a parametric device. We will not derive here the complete Manley–Rowe relations, but we will just describe the fundamental ideas upon which the parametric converter behavior is based.

Let us consider a physical system which can exist in two distinct energy levels. To fix our ideas let us take as an example a system of two identical coupled resonant cavities like those proposed by BPPR. If the resonant angular frequency of the unperturbed single cell is $`\omega _0`$, then the frequency spectrum of the coupled system consists of two levels at angular frequencies $`\omega _s`$ and $`\omega _a`$, where $`\omega _s=\omega _0\delta \omega `$ and $`\omega _a=\omega _0+\delta \omega `$, and $`2\delta \omega /\omega _0=K1`$, is the coupling coefficient of the system.

We can store some electromagnetic energy in the system, say at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$; if some external harmonic perturbation at angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\omega _a\omega _s`$ induces the time variation of one system parameter we can have the transfer of energy between the two energy levels. The external perturbation can be an harmonic modulation of the cavity end wall by a piezoelectric crystal, which causes the variation of the system reactance, or a gravitational wave deforming the cavity walls.

Let us call $`P`$ the total power absorbed by the device. We can write

$$P=P_s+P_a=\dot{N}_s\mathrm{}\omega _s+\dot{N}_a\mathrm{}\omega _a$$
(4)
where $`\dot{N}_i`$ is the time variation of the number of photons in level i. If we assume that the total number of photons in the systems $`N=N_s+N_a`$ is conserved we have

$$\dot{N}_a=\dot{N}_s=\dot{N}$$
(5)
The total power absorbed by the system is therefore

$$P=\dot{N}\mathrm{}\left(\omega _a\omega _s\right)$$
(6)
and the power transferred to the upper level is given by

$$P_a=\dot{N}\mathrm{}\omega _a=\frac{P}{\mathrm{}(\omega _a\omega _s)}\mathrm{}\omega _a=\frac{\omega _a}{\mathrm{\Omega }}P$$
(7)
The amplification factor $`\omega _a/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is characteristic of parametric frequency converters.

To get deeper insight into eq. 7 we have to know the exact expression of $`P`$; in fact the power exchanged between the external perturbation and the system is proportional to the square of the fractional change of the time varying system parameter. If we denote this quantity with $`h`$, and use eq. 1 for the exchanged power (with $`|\mathrm{\Lambda }|=|𝒞|=1`$) we can easily derive the expression for the power transferred to the initially empty level

$$P_a=\frac{1}{4}h^2\omega _aU_sQ_{sL}$$
(8)
In the last equation $`U_s`$ is the energy stored in level $`s`$, $`Q_{sL}`$ is the loaded quality factor of the cavity excited in the symmetric mode.

The quantity $`h`$ above may represent the fractional change of the system reactance, or of the system length being harmonically modulated ($`\delta \mathrm{}/\mathrm{}`$), or the dimensionless amplitude of the g.w.

Since $`P_a`$ is proportional to the electromagnetic quality factor, superconducting resonant cavities should be employed to achieve maximum sensitivity.

## III Sensitivity limits

Equation 8 could be a good starting point for a detailed discussion of the theoretical sensitivity limits of the detector. Let us choose a configuration very similar to the RRM experiment with two cylindrical niobium cavities coupled through a small circular aperture on the axis and let the operating mode be the TE011 at 3 GHz, which, due to the coupling, splits into a symmetrical and an antisymmetrical mode respectively at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$ and $`\omega _a`$. The system is designed so that mode separation is about 1 MHz (see section V for more details on system design). For our geometry, we can calculate the relation between the maximum energy that can be stored in a superconducting niobium cavity (due to the thermodinamical critical field $`H_c`$) and the frequency of the electromagnetic field. The temperature dependence of the critical magnetic field is given by

$$H_c(T)=H_c(0)\left[1\left(\frac{T}{T_c}\right)^2\right]$$
(9)
For niobium $`T_c=9.2`$ K and $`H_c(T=0)=0.2`$ T.

Let us suppose to work at $`T=1.8`$ K, with a stored energy corresponding to a maximum surface magnetic field $`H_{max}=0.75\times H_c(T=1.8)`$. We have $`H_c(T=1.8)0.19`$ T, and $`H_{max}0.14`$ T. We find for a pill–box cavity at 3 GHz

$$\omega U_{max}10^{11}\mathrm{Joule}\frac{\mathrm{rad}}{\mathrm{sec}}$$
(10)
If we define the minimum measurable $`h`$ per unit bandwidth, $`h_{min}`$, as the perturbation value which induces a parametric conversion of power equal to the noise power spectral density in the system, $`𝒫_{min}`$, we find, deriving $`h`$ from eq. 8 and using eq. 10:

$$h_{min}\left(\frac{𝒫_{min}}{\omega U_{max}Q_L}\right)^{1/2}$$
(11)
Bearing in mind that in a cavity the stored energy is proportional to the cavity volume (keeping constants the fields, i.e. the incident power and the coupling coefficients) and that the resonant angular frequency is inversely proportional to the cavity linear dimension, we find that $`U_{max}1/\omega ^3`$, so that $`\omega ^3U_{max}=`$ const., eq. 11 can be put in the form:

$$h_{min}3\times 10^{22}\left(\frac{\omega /2\pi }{1\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}\right)\left(\frac{𝒫_{min}}{10^{22}\mathrm{Watt}/\mathrm{Hz}}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{10^{10}}{Q_L}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{Hz}^{1/2}$$
(12)
From eq. 11 is apparent that to get better sensitivity lower operating frequencies and higher quality factors are preferred.

## IV Electromagnetic noise at angular frequency $`\omega _a`$

To operate our device we have to feed microwave power into one resonant mode and then to perturb one system parameter at a frequency equal to the mode separation, in order to detect the energy transfer between the symmetric and the antisymmetric mode. Here we suppose that the initially full mode is the symmetrical one, and that this mode is the lower frequency one. This is very likely to be the case, but is not at all crucial for the following discussion.

If $`P_i`$ is the power input at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$, and the system bandwidth is determined by the quality factor $`Q_L`$ of the cavity, we have that the frequency distribution of the stored energy of the symmetric mode is given by the usual Breit–Wigner function, describing an oscillator’s response to an harmonic driving force:

$$U_s\left(\omega \right)=\frac{\beta _1}{1+\beta _1}\frac{\frac{4P_iQ_L}{\omega _s}}{1+Q_L^2\left(\frac{\omega }{\omega _s}\frac{\omega _s}{\omega }\right)^2}$$
(13)
From the above equation we can evaluate the symmetric mode power that can be extracted at the antisymmetric frequency, i.e. the tail of mode s at the frequency of mode a:

$$P_{symm}\left(\omega _a\right)=\beta _2\frac{\omega _aU_s\left(\omega _a\right)}{Q_0}\frac{\beta _1\beta _2}{(1+\beta _1)^2}\frac{P_i}{Q_L^2}\left(\frac{\omega _a}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\right)^2$$
(14)
where $`\beta _1`$ is the coupling coefficient of the input cavity port for the symmetric mode and $`\beta _2`$ is the coupling coefficient of the output cavity port for the antisymmetric mode; for optimum system sensitivity we should have $`\beta _1=\beta _2=1`$.

It can easily be verified that this noise source at detection frequencies $`\mathrm{\Omega }10^5`$ Hz lowers the detector sensitivity at an unacceptable level, even for high $`Q`$ superconducting cavities. A properly designed detection system can strongly reduce this problem: in fact what we want to do is to detect a small signal at angular frequency $`\omega _a`$, which is quite near to the frequency of the very large signal present at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$. Nevertheless we can make use of the fact that the two signals belong to resonant modes with very different field symmetries, the symmetric and antisymmetric mode. In fact we designed a detection system capable to discriminate the field parity, which attenuates the symmetric component at angular frequency $`\omega _a`$ by a factor $`R`$, while leaving unaffected the antisymmetric one. $`R`$ is a number which depends upon the details of the detection system; if the receiver does not discriminate the parity of the field at angular frequency $`\omega _a`$, $`R1`$. Discrimination of the parity would considerably reduce this value. RRM used a magic–tee to excite the symmetric mode through the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port, and to detect the antisymmetric mode through the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port. With careful adjustments they obtained $`R10^7`$. The detection system designed for our experiment, based on two magic–tees, one at the cavity input and one at the cavity output allowed to get $`R10^{14}`$. For a schematic view see figure 1; experimental details are described in section VI.

## V Mechanical and Electromagnetic Design of the Detector

The detector is built using two coupled rf cavities. The geometry of the resonators gives us the electromagnetic field needed for the detection of the wanted physical quantities.

Because the ultimate sensitivity of the detector at a given frequency is related to the quality factor and the stored energy of the resonator, a resonator geometry with high geometric magnetic factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is preferred, where

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\omega _0\mu _0\frac{_VH^2𝑑V}{_SH^2𝑑S}$$
(15)
To avoid rf electronic vacuum discharges and Fowler–Nordheim like non resonant electron loading, rf modes with vanishing electric field at the surface (TE modes) are preferred.

Early analysis of the best resonator shape suggested to use two spherical cavities coupled through an iris; nevertheless the dimension of the spherical resonator and the will to avoid unessential (at this stage) difficulties suggested us to use as a first step a conservative approach using two cylindrical cavities coupled through an axial iris.

The choice of the frequency was imposed by the maximum dimension for the resonator that can be housed in our standard test cryostat in a comfortable way; in our case the inner diameter is 300 mm giving us enough room for a 3 GHz resonator. We started our design with a couple of cylindrical resonators having the lenght equal to the diameter. For this configuration we can compute all the relevant quantities, as geometric factor and frequencies, starting from analytical expressions for the fields, or using the Bethe perturbation theory for the evaluation of the coupling coefficient and mode separation.

Using a pill box like TE011 geometry could be a little bit upsetting due to the degeneracy of the TE01 and TM11 modes; this problem is quite mild in our case: due to the very high $`Q`$ value of the superconducting cavities, any distortion of the cavity geometry will split the TE and TM modes avoiding unwanted interactions. Nevertheless we would like to enhance the splitting to be sure to remove any possible interaction between the TE and TM resonances. To do that we design the cavity with a little modified geometry substituting the straight end plates with a spherical segment; the effect of this modification is to move away by 50 MHz the TM11 modes (see figure 2).

The selected geometry for the coupled resonators is reported on figure 3 with superimposed the magnetic field lines for the antisymmetric mode of the coupled resonators. With the coupling hole diameter used in the calculation (40 mm) the mode splitting is about 1.9 MHz. At the final design stage the hole diameter will be 35 mm to have $`\mathrm{\Delta }f1.3`$ MHz. The coupling iris is a circular hole on the cavity axis. The effect of the coupling gives a symmetric field distribution at the lower frequency and the antisymmetric at the higher frequency. Running the resonator geometry with different openings of the coupling hole we got informations about the sensitivity of the coupling on the iris diameter (see figure 4).

Finally the effect of the coupling ports on the resonant frequency is evaluated computing the field distribution and scattering matrix for the full 3D problem (including the coupling loops) in a frequency interval centered on the operating frequency of the detector. The full 3D simulations have been done with the HFSS package. The 3D simulation on the complete resonator confirmed the results of Oscar2D simulations both for the distribution of the fields of the resonant modes and for the coupling coefficient for a given iris diameter.

On the basis of the results of the simulations the final design of the cavity was decided: the construction drawing of the resonator is shown in figure 5.

Experimental results obtained with this device will be shown in section VII.

### A Mechanical Analysis

The mechanical behaviour of the resonator structure plays an important role in setting the ultimate sensitivity of the detector: as is shown in equation 1, the power absorbed by the device depends from its mechanical properties through the transfer function $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ defined in equation 3. Furthermore the thermal noise, due to the brownian motion of the cavity walls depends on the mechanical characteristics of the detector. If the cavity is approximated by a simple harmonic oscillator the wall fluctuates with a displacement spectral density that has the typical lorentzian shape:

$$S_{xx}=\frac{4kT}{m\tau }\frac{1}{\left(\omega _m^2\omega ^2\right)^2+\left(\frac{\omega }{\tau }\right)^2}$$
(16)
where $`\tau `$ is the damping time of the oscillator. The sensitivity limit due to the thermal noise is roughly given by $`h_{min}\sqrt{S_{xx}}/L`$, where $`L`$ is the detectors’ length; setting $`m10`$ Kg, $`L0.3`$ m, $`Q_m=\omega _m\tau 10^3`$, we find, at $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ MHz and at $`T=1.8`$ K, $`h_{min}10^{21}`$ Hz1/2, an order of magnitude better than the limit imposed by our detection electronics at the same frequency.

The knowledge of the deformation of the cavity walls (for an harmonic distortion of given amplitude and frequency) allows us to have a calibration of the detector when driven by a piezoelectric crystal in the test runs.

To estimate the modal spectrum of the resonator and the response to a 1 mm displacement of a portion of the end wall we used the ANSYS mechanical analysis package.

The frequencies of the first 19 mechanical modes of the cavity, computed using a full 3D model are reported on table I. The modes from 4 to 11 are all doubly degenerate.

The mechanical spectrum of the detector has been mesured in the frequency range 500–2000 Hz using a piezoelectric crystal fixed to a cavity end wall and driven by a sinusoidal signal of fixed amplitude (1 V) and varying frequency. Since electromagnetic energy is fed into the cavity by a voltage controlled oscillator locked to the cavity resonant frequency by a feedback signal proportional to the displacement of the cavity frequency, coming from the IF port of an harmonic mixer, we could use the feedback signal to detect the cavity response to the mechanical excitation. A small portion ($`1\%`$) of the feedback signal was sent to a Stanford Research SR780 FFT Signal Analyzer, operating in swept sine mode and providing the excitation signal for the piezoelectric crystal as well. The measurement results are shown in figure 6, showing good agreement with the calculated mode distribution. The quality factor of the modes could be estimated from the data of figure 6 and is $`Q_m1000`$. Above 2000 Hz essentially no isolated mechanical mode was detected.

After the modal analysis the study of the mechanical response to a fixed amplitude sinusoidal displacement of one end plate was performed using a 2D model to cope with the tiny mesh size needed at the higher frequencies to get meaningful results.

This simulations gave us informations about the transition frequency from the insulated mechanical resonances regime to the elastic continuum regime, giving again useful information about the influence of the thermal noise of the cavity walls on the detector ultimate sensitivity.

The harmonic analysis, performed at four frequencies 1 KHz, 10 KHz, 100 KHz and 1 MHz, showed a wall distortion decreasing with increasing frequency.

## VI rf Control and Detection System Design

The three main functions of rf control and measurement system of the experiment are shown in figure 7:

1. The first task of the system is to lock the rf frequency of the master oscillator to the resonant frequency of the symmetric mode of the cavity and to keep constant the energy stored in the mode. The frequency lock of the master oscillator to the cavity mode is necessary to fill in energy in the fundamental mode of the cavity. The reduction of fluctuations of the stored energy to less than 100 ppm greatly reduces the possibility of ponderomotive effects due to the radiation pressure of the electromagnetic field on the cavity walls and helps to minimize the contribution of the mechanical perturbations of the resonator to the output noise. The frequency lock allows also to design a detection scheme insensitive to fluctuations of the resonant frequency of the two cavities forming our detector.
2. The second task is to increase the detector’s sensitivity by driving the coupled resonators purely in the symmetric mode and receiving only the rf power up–converted to the antisymmetric mode by the perturbation of the cavity walls. This goal can be obtained by rejecting the signal at the symmetric mode frequency taking advantage of the symmetries in the field distribution of the two modes. Our system, despite of some additional complexity, guarantees the following improvements over the one used in previous experiments:

* a better rejection of the phase noise of the master oscillator obtained using the sharp resonance ($`Q=10^{10}`$) of the resonator as a filter;
    * a better insulation of the drive and detector ports obtained by using separate drive and detection arms of the rf system;
    * the possibility of an independent adjustment of the phase lag in the two arms giving a better magic–tee insulation at the operating frequencies;
    * a greater reliability for the frequency amplitude loop using the transmitted power, instead of the reflected, coming from the cavity.
3. The third task is the detection of the up–converted signal achieving the detector sensitivity limit set by the contribution of the noise sources. Slow pressure fluctuations on the cooling bath, hydrostatic pressure variations due to the changes in the helium level, pressure radiation, and so on, will change in the same way the resonant frequency of both modes. Using a fraction of the main oscillator power as local oscillator for the detection mixer, the detection system becomes insensitive to frequency drifts of both modes, allowing for a narrow band detection of the up–converted signal produced by the cavity wall modulation.

### A The rf control loop

The shematic layout of the rf control loop is shown in fig. 8.

The RF signal generated by the master oscillator (HP4422B) is fed into the cavity through a TWT amplifier giving a saturated output of 20 Watt in the frequency range 2–4 GHz. The energy stored in the cavity is adjusted at the operating level by controlling the output of the master oscillator via the built–in variable attenuator.

The output signal is divided by a 3 dB power splitter. The $`A`$ output of the splitter is sent to the TWT amplifier, the $`B`$ output is sent, through the phase shifter (PS), to the local oscillator (LO) input of a rf mixer acting as a phase detector (PD). The output of the rf power amplifier is fed to the resonant cavity through a double directional coupler, and a $`180^\mathrm{o}`$ hybrid ring acting as a magic–tee. The rf power enters the magic–tee via the sum arm, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and is split in two signals of same amplitude and zero relative phase, coming out the tee co–linear arms 1 and 2.

The rf signal, reflected by the input ports of the cavity, enters the magic–tee through the co–linear arms. The two signals are added at the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ arm and sampled by the directional coupler to give information about the energy stored in cavity allowing for the measurement of the coupling factor, quality factor, stored energy. While driving the cavity on the symmetric mode no reflected signal is shown at the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the magic–tee where the signals coming from the co–linear arms are algebraically added to zero due to the $`180^\mathrm{o}`$ phase shift.

To get the maximum of the performances of the magic–tee we need to have equal reflected signals (phase and amplitude) at the cavity input ports. To preserve the signal integrity we use matched lines (in phase and amplitude) inside the cryostat. Because the phase shift is very sensitive to temperature inhomogeneities between the two cables and the phase difference between the two co–linear arms of the magic–tee gives a quite strong signal at the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port, we need to compensate for differential thermal contractions of the cables inside the cryostat, leading to phase unbalance in the feed lines. To do that we insert a phase shifter in one of the lines to compensate for differences and to reduce to a minimum the leakage of the unwanted modes on the two ports. As we will show in section VI B, mode leakage of the symmetric mode to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port sets a limit to the system sensitivity increasing the overall noise level of the detector.

Mode leakage of the antisymmetric mode to the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port reduces the system sensitivity by reducing the signal level available for detection. The output ports of the cavity are coupled for a maximum output signal on the antisymmetric mode (detection mode) and the magic–tee is used to reject the rf power at the frequency of the symmetric mode. A fraction of the signal at the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port is fed to the rf input of the phase detector PD via a low noise rf amplifier. The intermediate frequency (IF) output of the phase detector PD is fed back to the rf master oscillator to lock the output signal to the resonant frequency of the resonator. The total phase shift around the loop is set through the phase shifter PS, to have the maximum energy stored in the detector. A careful design of the servo loop amplifier (SLA) guarantees the stability of the system and the rejection of the residual noise of the master oscillator up to one MHz. The same fraction of the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ output of the output magic–tee is used to keep constant, to 100 ppm, the energy stored in the cavity feeding back an error signal to drive the electronically controlled output attenuator of the master oscillator.

Great deal of care is needed in tailoring the frequency response of both controls because the two loops can interact producing phase–amplitude oscillations in the rf fields stored in the cavities.

### B Sensitivity enhancement using the mode symmetry

The layout of the sensitivity enhancement circuit is shown in fig. 9.

The two modes of the detector cavity have (as in the case of two coupled pendula) opposite symmetries of the fields.

Using two separate sets of ports to drive the cavity and to receive the up–converted signal at the frequency of the antisymmetric mode, the cavity acts as a very sharp filter (due to the high $`Q`$), with an high rejection of the noise coming from the master oscillator at the frequency of the up–converted signal. This already low residual noise, can be even more reduced in our scheme using two magic–tees to drive the cavity purely in the symmetric mode and to detect only the up–converted energy, rejecting the unwanted field components by an amount given by the magic–tee insulation.

In the case of an ideal magic–tee the mode rejection is infinite. If the cavity is driven purely in the symmetric mode no symmetric mode component is transmitted through the system and there will be no signal at the output port. In the ideal case this result is obtained also in the more simple scheme used by Melissinos and Reece, measuring the up–converted power coming out of the detector along the input lines.

Our scheme gives better sensitivity and performances in the real case. The first obvious gain is the sum of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port insulation of the two tees, plus the possibility of adjusting separately the input and output lines to get better mode rejection. In a commercial magic–tee the insulation is specified to be $`25`$$`35`$ dB over its own bandwidth. The reason for this quite low insulation is mainly due to the difficulty of balancing on a large range of frequency the phases of the signals coming from the two co–linear arms of the tee.

A phase unbalance as small as five degrees reduces the insulation from $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port to only 25 dB.

Our electronic scheme allows for an independent compensation of the magic–tee phase mismatch both at the feed frequency and at the detection frequency in a flexible way: the phase mismatch is compensated using a variable phase shifter at the input of one of the co–linear arms. The optimum phase at the input side results in a pure excitation of the symmetric (drive) mode, keeping the power at the frequency of the antisymmetric (detection) mode 70 dB below the level of the drive mode. Adjusting the phase at the output will couple only the antisymmetric mode component, rejecting the symmetric mode component by 70 dB. The total symmetric–antisymmetric mode rejection of the system is the sum of the attenuation we can obtain from the two $`180^\mathrm{o}`$ hybrids.

The input and output ports of the two cell cavity need to be critically coupled ($`\beta `$ = 1) to the rf source and to the rf detection system. In this way we have the optimum transfer of power to the symmetric mode (a maximum of stored energy) and to the antisymmetric mode (a maximum in the detector output). Because the frequency and field distribution of the two modes are quite close, the input and output ports are critically coupled to both modes. For that reason 50$`\%`$ of the symmetric mode signal is coupled to the idle $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port at the output magic–tee, and symmetrically 50$`\%`$ of the antisymmetric mode signal is coupled to the idle $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port at the input magic–tee. We remark that, since those two ports are not used in our detection scheme, it is necessary to reflect back into the cavity the energy flowing out of them. This task is achieved by a proper termination of the ports; a careful analysis showed that closing the ports with an open circuit completely decouples the input and output arms (optimum rejection of the symmetric mode) and maximizes the stored energy and the detector sensitivity.

At the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port of the detection arm we insert a directional coupler to sample a tiny amount of the symmetric mode power coming from the cavity. This signal is fed into the frequency–amplitude servo loop used to lock the master oscillator to the cavity frequency and to keep constant the energy stored in the cavity.

### C Detection of the converted signal

The layout of the detection electronics is shown in fig. 10.

The signal converted to the antisymmetric mode by the interaction between the mechanical perturbation and the rf fields is coupled to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the detection arm of the rf system and amplified by the low noise rf amplifier LNA. Great deal of care must be used in the choice of the LNA, because the noise figure of the amplifier greatly affects the detector’s sensitivity in the detection region above the mechanical resonances of the cavity (typically spanning the frequency interval 1–10 kHz) The LNA we choose is a commercial, room temperature, low noise amplifier with 48 dB gain and bandwidth of 500 MHz centered on our operating frequency of 3 GHz. The LNA noise figure is 0.6 dB corresponding to a noise temperature $`T_n=340`$ K.

The converted rf signal amplified by the LNA is fed to the rf input port (RF) of a low noise double balanced mixer M1; the local oscillator port (LO) of M1 is driven by the symmetric mode rf power (at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$). The LO input level is adjusted to minimize the noise contribution from the mixer. As shown in the previous section the input spectrum to the RF port of the mixer consists of two signals: the first at angular frequency $`\omega _s`$ coming from the rf leakage of the symmetric mode through the detection system; the second is the converted energy at angular frequency $`\omega _a`$. Both signals are down–converted by the M1 mixer giving to the IF port a DC signal proportional to the symmetric mode leakage and a signal at angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ proportional to the antisymmetric mode excitation.

The down–converted IF output is further amplified using a low noise audio preamplifier (Stanford Research SR560). The combination of tunable built in filters of the SR560 amplifier allows us to further reject (if necessary) the DC component coming from the symmetric mode leakage. Finally the output of the audio amplifier is fed to the lock–in amplifier (Stanford Research SR844) used as synchronous detector driven by the low frequency synthesizer used to drive the detector cavity through a piezoelectric ceramic at angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

For the detection electronics of mechanically coupled interactions, at angular frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, as gravitational waves, since the exact frequency and phase of the driving source is not known, we can’t perform a synchronous detection. We need to perform an auto–correlation of the detector output, or to cross–correlate the outputs of two different detectors. The output of the SR560 preamplifier is fed to an fft signal analyzer (Stanford Research SR780) able to average the input signal on a bandwidth as small as 0.1 mHz.

The outlined detection scheme gives the benefit of being insensitive to perturbations affecting in the same way the frequency of the two modes.

## VII Experimental Results

The electromagnetic properties were measured in a vertical cryostat after careful tuning of the two cells frequencies. In fact in order to get maximum sensitivity we need to have two identical coupled resonators, or, in other words, a flat field distribution between the two cavities.

The symmetric mode frequency was measured at 3.03 GHz and the mode separation was 1.38 MHz.

In figure 11 the signal from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the output magic–tee is shown for an input power $`P_i=1`$ W and no adjustments made on the phase and amplitudes of the rf signal entering and leaving the cavity. The overall attenuation of the symmetric mode is $`R48`$ dB. After balancing the arms of the two magic–tees in order to launch the symmetrical mode at the cavity input and to pick up the antisymmetrical one at the cavity output, with 1 W (30 dBm) of power at the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ port of the first magic–tee, $`6.3\times 10^{15}`$ W (-112 dBm) were detected at the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the second one, giving an overall attenuation of the symmetric mode of $`R140`$ dB (see figure 12). At a detection frequency of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/2\pi 1`$ MHz system sensitivity is quite independent from the value of $`R`$, because of the high cavity $`Q_L`$. Nevertheless for lower frequencies, in a range $`\mathrm{\Omega }10`$ kHz, where astrophysical sources of gravitational waves are expected to exist, this noise source can become dominant and the achieved rejection is fundamental in order to pursue the design of a working g.w. detector in the 1–10 kHz frequency range.

The cavity loaded quality factor was $`Q_L=1\times 10^9`$ at 1.8 K, and the energy stored in the cavity with 10 W input power was approximately 1.8 J (limited by the maximum power delivered by the rf amplifier), with both the input and output ports critically coupled ($`\beta _1\beta _21`$).

To excite the antisymmetric mode a piezoelectric crystal (Physik Instrument PIC 140, with longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient $`\kappa _{\mathrm{}}=2\times 10^{10}`$ m/V) has been fixed to one cavity wall. The driving signal to the crystal was provided by a synthesized oscillator with a power output in the range 2–20 mW (3–13 dBm). The oscillator output was further attenuated to reduce the voltage applied to the piezo by a series of fixed attenuators and a variable attenuator (10 dB step). The oscillator frequency was carefully tuned to maximize the energy transfer between the cavity modes. The signal emerging from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the output magic–tee was amplified by the LNA (48 dB gain) and fed into a spectrum analyzer. In figure 11 an example of the parametric conversion process is shown.

The minimum detected noise signal level at the antisymmetric mode frequency, with no excitation coming from the piezo, was $`P_{out}(\omega _a)=5\times 10^{19}`$ W in a bandwidth $`\delta f=100`$ Hz, giving a noise power spectral density $`𝒫_{out}(\omega _a)=5\times 10^{21}`$ W/Hz; the main contribution to this signal was the johnson noise of the rf amplifier used to amplify the signal picked from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ port of the output magic–tee.

Taking into account the input and output coupling coefficients system sensitivity is given by:

$$h_{min}=\frac{\delta \mathrm{}}{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{Q_L}\left[\frac{𝒫_{out}(\omega _a)}{P_{in}(\omega _s)}\frac{(1+\beta _1)(1+\beta _2)}{\beta _1\beta _2}\right]^{1/2}3\times 10^{20}(\mathrm{Hz})^{1/2}$$
(17)
The experimental results are summarized in table II.

## VIII Future Plans

In order to design a working g.w. detector based on the parametric converter principle, we must concentrate on the following main items:

1. Lower detection frequency. The test made at 1 MHz have to be repeated at lower frequencies (say in the range between 1–10 kHz) to span the frequency region of interest for astrophysical sources.
2. Tuning system. Since our detector might be particularly useful for the analysis of the gravitational signal coming from a continous source of known frequency, a tuning system has to be designed for the fine frequency adjustment needed to match the detection frequency with the source. One possible solution is to mount a superconducting bellow in the region of the coupling between the two cavities to vary the distance (i.e. the coupling strength) between them. Even if this solution appears to be feasible, at least in principle, some tests are needed to verify its applicability; in particular the tuning system should not degrade too much the cavity $`Q`$. Extensive numerical simulations are at the moment underway.
3. System stability over time ranges of the order of magnitude of the inverse of our detection bandwidth. Obviously if we are going to detect our signal in a narrow bandwidth, we have to check carefully that system parameters do not change significantly over a time scale as long as possible. In particular the most critical parameter is the frequency stability of the system.
4. Among other possible improvements, a cryogenic preamplifier, with operating temperature in the 20–30 K range, will be implemented.

At the end of the experimental tests on the cylindrical detector, we shall build and test the spherical cavities detector configuration, which should give best performances in view of gravitational waves detection, due to the more favourable electromagnetic geometric factor and field symmetries. Moreover, using niobium sputtered copper cavities, we should take advantage of the very high quality factors obtained so far with this technique (up to $`10^{11}`$ in 1.5 GHz structures).

If the goal sensitivity would be obtained, a detector based on these principles and with a suitable geometry could be an interesting candidate in the search of gravitational waves. In fact it is conceivable to push down the rf operating frequency around 300 MHz and the detection frequency in the 1–10 kHz range. Making a series of similar detectors, working at different frequencies and/or mode separations we can cover the 103–106 Hz range.

Recent works focused their attention on the dection of stochastic g.w., in particular of the relic g.w. background, and pointed out that a relic background detected at high frequency would be unambiguously of cosmological origin. The detection of stochastic g.w. could be done by correlating two (or more) detectors put at a distance small compared to the g.w. wavelength (so that the signals could be correlated) but large enough to be sufficient to decorrelate local noises. With this experimental arrangement system sensitivity could be increased by several orders of magnitude making possible the detection of very low signal levels.

## IX Acknowledgements

We wish to thank dr. S. Farinon of INFN–Genova for the contribution given in the development and analysis of the detector mechanical model, dr. C. Benvenuti and dr. E. Chiaveri, with the staff of CERN, for the chemical and thermal treatments of the niobium cavity. We had numerous fruitful discussions with many of our colleagues, in particular with dr. A. Chincarini.