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# Astroparticle Physics: The High Energy Tail of the Cosmic Ray Spectrum

## 1 HIGH ENERGY COSMIC RAYS

Cosmic rays are elementary particles arriving at the Earth from outside that were discovered in the beginning of the 20th century as one of the main sources of natural radiation. The cosmic ray spectrum has been observed as a continuum at all energies since their discovery. Throughout this period cosmic rays have always been the source of the highest energy elementary particles known to mankind, and for this reason they have given birth to particle physics. The high energy tail of the spectrum as it is known today corresponds to energies up to 3 $`10^{20}`$eV and rates of a few particles per km2 per century.

It is remarkable that the cosmic rays have a quite featureless power law energy spectrum which decreases as approximately the cube of the primary energy. For energies above the few hundred TeV the observed flux necessarily requires techniques that take advantage of the extensive air showers that the arriving particles develop as successive secondary particles cascade down into the atmosphere. Shower measurements allow the reconstruction of the arrival directions and the shower energy but the nature of the primary particle is extracted by a number of indirect methods.

For energies above few tens of GeV the detected particles, mainly protons, have arrival directions with a remarkably isotropic distribution. This is understood in terms of diffusive propagation in the galactic magnetic fields. As the energy rises above a given value that depends on the charge of the particle, propagation in the Galaxy should cease to be diffusive. Such high energy particles are expected to be extragalactic.

The observation of high energy cosmic rays has been recently reviewed by Nagano and Watson  who have shown that there is very good agreement between different experiments including the low and high energy regions of the spectrum. There is increasing evidence for a different component of the high energy end of the cosmic ray spectrum . Combining data of five different experiments, AGASA, AKENO, Haverah Park, Stereo Fly’s Eye and Yakutsk, Nagano and Watson conclude that there is a clear signal of a change of the spectral slope in the region just above $`10^{18}`$eV . Composition studies have also given indications that there is a change to light element composition for energies above $`10^{18}`$eV  although this conclusion is model dependent to some extent . Also the small anisotropy ( $`4\%`$) of $`10^{18}`$eV cosmic rays in the direction of the galactic anticenter detected with AGASA disappears at higher energies .

The highest energy events detected present a serious challenge to theory and little is known about their origin. If they are protons they should attenuate in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over distances of order 50 Mpc. Such attenuation was predicted to appear in the cosmic ray spectrum as a cutoff, the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuz’min (GZK) cutoff, just above 4 $`10^{10}`$GeV . If they are photons or iron nuclei it turns out that interactions with the radio and the infrared backgrounds are respectively responsible for attenuations over similar or even shorter distances. No such features are seen in the observed cosmic ray spectrum. If they are produced sufficiently close to us to avoid the cutoff then the arriving particles should be pointing to their sources. This seems difficult to accommodate because there are very few known astrophysical sources capable of reaching the observed energies and on the other hand there is little evidence for the anisotropy that would result.

This article firstly discuses the problem presented by the high energy end of the cosmic ray spectrum with emphasis in the role of composition. Then it outlines new progress made in understanding different features of inclined showers illustrating how these showers can contribute to the composition issue reviewing the results obtained by a recent analysis of the inclined data in Haverah Park.

## 2 ORIGIN: AN UNSETTLED ISSUE

The discovery of events with energies above $`10^{20}`$ eV (100 EeV) dates back to the 1960’s, to the early days of air shower detection experiments . Since then they have been slowly but steadily detected by different experiments as illustrated in Fig. 1. Now there is little doubt about the non observation of a GZK cutoff, with over 17 published events above $`10^{20}`$ eV and five preliminary new events from HiRes . On the contrary the data suggests that the spectrum continues smoothly within the statistical errors, possibly with a change of slope. On the other hand the data show no firm evidence of anisotropy but the significance of such studies is even more limited by the poor statistics.

Both the details of the spectrum at the cutoff region and the extent to which the arrival directions of these particles cluster in the direction of their sources are very dependent on a number of unestablished issues. These include the source distribution, the distance of the nearest sources, their emission spectra, the intervening magnetic fields and of course on the nature of the the cosmic rays themselves or composition. If these particles are nuclei or photons the observational evidence is suggesting that these are coming from relatively nearby sources compared to the 50 Mpc scale. The conclusive power of observations is however strongly limited by both the poor statistics and a complex interrelation of hypotheses, but the situation is bound to change in the immediate future with a new generation of large aperture experiments, some like HiRes  already in operation, others in construction  and many others in planning . The complex puzzle that connects particle physics, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays has attracted the attention of many fields in physics.

In a conventional approach these particles would be nuclei as the bulk of the cosmic ray spectrum which are accelerated through stochastic acceleration as suggested by Fermi in 1949. This happens every time charged particles cross interfaces between regions that have astrophysical plasmas with different bulk motions, such as shock fronts. Transport is assumed to be diffusive in the plasma’s magnetic field and on average in these processes a very small fraction of the bulk plasma kinetic energy is transferred as a boost to the individual particles, that typically end up with a power like spectrum. Acceleration of a particle of charge $`Ze`$ to an energy $`E`$ is strictly limited by dimensional arguments to objects that are sufficiently large or have sufficiently large magnetic fields. Basically for a particle with momentum $`p`$ to be able to undergo such a boost, propagation must be diffusive, or equivalently the accelerator region $`L`$ must be larger than the Larmor radius of the particle, $`R`$, in its characteristic magnetic field $`B`$:

$$R=\frac{p}{ZeB}<LEpc<ZeBcL$$
(1)
The requirement is well known by accelerator designers and is the ultimate reason for their high cost. It turns out that few of the known astrophysical objects satisfy the minimum requirements to accelerate particles to $`10^{20}`$eV. This is conveniently illustrated in a plot first conceived by Michael Hillas  which is reproduced in Fig. 2. A number of possible scenarios are being discussed; they imply acceleration in some objects including young pulsars, Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB), our own galaxy, active galaxies and the local group of galaxies . The power supply needed to keep the observed cosmic rays at the highest energies is consistent with the known power and distributions of these objects .

It is difficult to explain the observed flux spectrum in this conventional approach. A solution in which particles are accelerated nearby has difficulties because there are very few objects which are capable of accelerating particles to the maximum observed energies. Moreover many such objects are either too large or too distant for the cosmic ray spectrum detected at the Earth not to show the predicted GZK cutoff. If the sources were to be galactic no absorption cutoff would be expected but some spectral features are predicted for primary protons that are produced at a distance of more than a few Mpc. On the other hand the non observation of anisotropy complicates the puzzle, because the location of the possible accelerators in our vicinity is pretty well known. Primary protons having energies in the $`10^{20}`$ eV range are expected to be little deviated in the galactic magnetic fields. Our knowledge of extragalactic magnetic fields is poor but bounds on extragalactic magnetic fields also imply that the deviations of protons produced in the few Mpc range are not large. There are however possible configurations of the extragalactic magnetic fields that could explain many of the ultrahigh energy events as coming from a single source . The issue is far from being resolved and knowledge about composition is bound to play a crucial role for future progress in understanding.

Motivated by particle physics beyond the standard model, many alternatives have been proposed that avoid acceleration and others that postulate different particles or different interactions. These include annihilation of topological defects created in the early universe, heavy relics that survive from the primeval bath, non thermal particles that couple to gravity, or wimpzillas and annihilation of relic neutrinos with messenger neutrinos coming from remote places . As regards composition two large categories of possible scenarios can be made namely those in which the observed particles are accelerated and those in which they are decay products of other particles. These two classes differ greatly in composition. A knowledge of composition is doubly important because firstly it may decide between these two classes of solutions and secondly because it would simplify the task of interpreting anisotropy measurements.

## 3 COMPOSITION

The models that depend on acceleration can reach higher energies if the accelerated particles have large charge $`Z`$. This shows as a different restriction line in Fig 2. The relative composition of different nuclei resulting from such a scenario will depend on the local abundances of the different nuclei and on the energy. Depending on distance to the source and the surrounding environment there may be energy losses, absorption and the production of secondary particle fluxes. For instance in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) models the accelerated protons are expected to interact with ambient light or matter to produce pions that decay into photons and neutrinos. The neutrinos can reach the Earth unattenuated and provide a signature of proton acceleration. Unless the environment becomes opaque to protons the relative fluxes of neutrinos and protons that reach the Earth should be a number of order one or smaller, just because neutrinos are secondaries with repect to protons. The relative fluxes of photons and protons would be similar to neutrinos or smaller depending on the photon absorption both at the source and during transport to Earth. Ratios of the same order of magnitude would apply to most acceleration models.

Most of the non accelerating alternatives postulate the cosmic rays are products of the decay of other more massive particles produced by different mechanisms. Typically these particles of mass of $`10^{2425}`$eV (often an $`X`$ particle) decay into standard model particles which eventually fragment into hadrons, mostly pions and a small fraction of order $`3\%`$ of nucleons. While neutral pions decay into photons charged pions decay into neutrinos. Fragmentation processes, known form accelerator experiments and extrapolated to the high energies, become the common reference point for these mechanisms. For this reason all these models share a very similar composition dominated by photons and neutrinos which typically are about ten times more numerous than nucleons at the production site.

Depending on the source distribution the relative fluxes of these particles are modified through their interactions with the background radiation fields. The neutrinos are the particles that preserve their production spectrum without being attenuated. Protons get attenuated in few tens of Mpc in the cosmic microwave background, (the GZK cutoff), while photons are attenuated already in few Mps mainly through pair production in the radio background. As a result the ratio of neutrinos to protons can in principle become higher at the Earth than when they are produced if the sources are quite distant or cosmologically distributed. Many of the proposed mechanisms are expected to cluster in our galactic halo. This possibility is receiving a lot of attention because it would provide a relatively natural explanation for the absence of the GZK cutoff. In that case however the sources will be quite near and the ratio of photons to nucleons should be expected to be of order 10, close to its value at production. Other sources are not expected to cluster and hence the photon to nucleon ratio is expected to drop to values close to one. The ratio of photons to nucleons depends on the source distribution and is rather sensitive to clustering.

## 4 INCLINED SHOWER FEATURES

Most air shower detectors in existence consist on arrays of particle detectors that sample the extensive air shower front as it reaches the ground. Multiple particle production takes place in the successive high energy interactions produced as the shower penetrates the medium. As a result the number of particles in the shower front increases exponentially. When the average particle energy in the front becomes too low for multiple particle production the shower reaches it maximum number of particles. The development of these showers is typically governed by the radiation length in the material which is of order 36 g cm-2 in air and shower maximum, which is only logarithmically dependent on the primary particle energy, occurs at a couple of thousand meters for vertical showers of energies of order $`10^{20}`$ eV.

Vertical showers are close to shower maximum when reaching the Earth’s surface, have pretty good circular symmetry and are less affected by the Earth’s magnetic field. It is thus not surprising that air showers have traditionally been studied at close to vertical incidence, typically for zenith angles below $`45^{}`$, in summary because it is much simpler. Moreover in most extensive air shower arrays the particle detectors are oriented to have maximum collection area for vertical incidence. Since these detectors are often scintillator sheets, they tend to become very inefficient for very inclined showers.

As the zenith angle increases the traversed atmospheric depth rises from 1000 to close to 36000 g cm-2. As a result the shower maximum is reached in the upper layers of the atmosphere and most of the shower is absorbed before reaching the ground. It has been known for a long time that weakly interacting particles such as neutrinos can induce close to horizontal air showers deep in the atmosphere with particle distributions that are quite similar to vertical showers . Air shower array detectors looking in the close to horizontal direction can thus be sensitive to high energy neutrino fluxes . In fact most bounds on neutrino fluxes have already been obtained from air shower experiments .

The original motivation of studying inclined showers was to understand the cosmic ray background to the neutrino induced showers. Although the electromagnetic part of the air shower induced by an inclined cosmic ray is indeed absorbed before reaching ground level, the shower front however also contains muons which are mainly produced by charge pion decay when the primary particle is a hadron. These muons do travel practically unattenuated all the slant atmospheric depth and produce density patterns on the ground that are much affected by the Earth’s magnetic field. It has recently become quite clear that such inclined showers can be analysed. This not only nearly doubles the aperture of any air shower array but, when combined with vertical measurements, it has a remarkable potential for the study of primary composition .

Much development in this field has been possible by the modelling of the muon density patterns produced by inclined showers under the influence of the Earth’s magnetic field . The lateral distributions of muons in inclined showers can be understood in terms of a simple model  in which the magnetic field is firstly neglected. The model stresses two important facts that have been extensively checked with simulations in the absence of a magnetic field : Most of the muons in an inclined shower are produced in a well defined region of shower development which is quite distant from the ground and the lateral deviation of a muon is inversely correlated with its energy.

Indeed most of the fundamental properties of these inclined showers are governed by the distance and depth travelled by the muons. It is remarkable that the average slant distance travelled by the muons is of order 4 km for vertical showers, becomes 16 km at 60 and continues to rise as the zenith angle rises to reach 300 km for a completely horizontal shower. This distance plays a crucial role as a low energy smooth cutoff for the muon energy distribution. For inclined showers the muons must have much more energy at production to reach ground level without decaying than in the vertical case. Both the travel time and the muon energy loss become relevant.

The model simply assumes that all muons are produced at a given altitude $`d`$ with a fixed transverse momentum $`p_{}`$ that is uniquely responsible for the muon deviation from shower axis. In the transverse plane to the shower at ground level the muon deviation, $`\overline{r}`$, is inversely related to muon momentum $`p`$. The density pattern has full circular symmetry when there is no magnetic field. When the magnetic field effects are considered the muons deviate a further distance $`\delta x`$ in the perpendicular direction to the magnetic field projected onto the transverse plane $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$, given by:

$$\delta x=\frac{e|B_{}|d^2}{2p}=\frac{0.15|B_{}|d}{p_{}}\overline{r}=\alpha \overline{r},$$
(2)
where in the last equation $`B_{}`$ is to be expressed in Tesla, $`d`$ in m and $`p_{}`$ in GeV. As the muon deviations are small compared to $`d`$ they can be added as vectors in the transverse plane and the muon density pattern is a relatively simple transform of the circularly symmetry pattern. The muon patterns in the transverse plane can be projected onto the ground plane to compare with data as well as standard simulation programs.

Eq. 2 is telling us that all positive (negative) muons that in the absence of a magnetic field would fall in a circle of radius $`\overline{r}`$ around shower axis, are translated a distance $`\delta x`$ to the right (left) of the $`\stackrel{}{B}_{}`$ direction. The dimensionless parameter $`\alpha `$ measures the relative effect of the translation. For small zenith angles $`d`$ is relatively small and $`\alpha <<1`$ so that the magnetic effects are also small, and results into slight elliptical shape of the isodensity curves.

For high zeniths however $`\alpha >1`$ the magnetic translation exceeds the deviation the muons have due to their $`p_{}`$. In this case shadow regions with no muons are expected in the muon density profiles. For an approximate $`p_{}200`$ MeV and $`B_{}=40\mu `$T this happens when $`d`$ exceeds a distance of order 30 km, that is for zeniths above $`70^{}`$. These shadow regions in the transverse plane are indeed an outstanding feature of the ground density profiles at high zeniths as seen in the simulations.

The simple model can be actually generalized to account for muon energy distributions as a function of distance to shower axis, and improved using the correlation between the average muon energy and the distance to shower axis as obtained in dedicated simulations. When all this is done the obtained muon density patterns are shown to be accurately reflect those obtained with simulations and this proves to be a very useful tool for the study of inclined showers.

For each zenith angle the primary particle energy sets the normalization of the particle densities. For proton primaries the total number of muons in the shower scales with the proton energy $`E`$ as:

$$N=N_{ref}E^\beta $$
(3)
where $`\beta `$ is a constant. It is remarkable that the shape of the lateral distribution of the muons does not significantly change for showers of energy spanning over three orders of magnitude. The same happens for heavier nuclei with slightly different parameters. The results are slightly model dependent. Two alternative hadronic interaction models have been compared, the Quark Gluon String Model (QGSM) and SIBYLL to give also the same behaviour with also different parameters. Table 1 illustrates these effects.

As a final result the muon distributions can be represented by continuous functions which are analytically obtained once we know the main features of a shower in the absence of magnetic field. In practice this implies that only different zenith angles have to be simulated. Different azimuths are obtained by adequate transformations of the showers without magnetic deflections. The algorithm is fast and allows detector simulation and also event by event reconstruction of data obtained by air shower experiments.

## 5 PHOTON COMPOSITION

This powerful technique has been used to analyse the inclined shower data obtained in the Haverah Park array. The Haverah Park detector was a 12 km2 air shower array using 1.2 m deep water Čerenkov tanks that was running from 1974 until 1987 in Northern England which has been described elsewhere . It is possibly the most appropriate detector for this study because the water Čerenkov tanks have a uniquely large cross section to sample shower fronts of horizontal air showers. Moreover the Čerenkov technique gives larger signals for muons than for electrons simply because the muons have typically larger energies and travel through the whole detector.

A careful study has been made of the energy deposition of signal in water Čerenkov tanks by horizontal muons using conventional simulation programs for this purpose . A number of effects have to be considered to interpret the observed data. Inclined particles can produce light that falls directly into the phototubes without being reflected in the tank walls. Horizontal muons produce more signal through delta rays because on average they have higher energies than in vertical showers. There is a significant signal deposited by electromagnetic particles that arise mainly through muon decay. Finally the higher energy muons are more likely to deposit more energy in the tanks because of catastrophic energy losses. The event rate as a function of zenith angle has been simulated with careful treatment of all these effects using the muon distributions obtained as described in the previous section. The qualitative behaviour of the registered rate is well described in the simulation and the normalization is also shown to agree with data to better than $`30\%`$ using the measured cosmic ray spectrum for vertical incidence, assuming proton primaries and using the QGSM model .

More impressive are the results of fits of the models for muon densities to the observed particle densities sampled by the different detectors on an event by event basis. The nearly 10,000 events recorded with zenith angles above $`60^{}`$ have been analysed for arrival directions, impact point and primary energy in the assumption the primaries are protons. A complex sequence of arrival direction and density fits is performed to minimize the effect of correlations between energy and arrival directions.

The analysed date is subject to a set of quality cuts: the shower is contained in the detector (distance to core less than 2 km), the $`\chi ^2`$ probability of the event is greater than $`1\%`$ and the downward error in the reconstructed energy is less than $`50\%`$. These cuts ensure that the events are correctly reconstructed and exclude all events detected above $`80^{}`$. Examples of reconstructed events compared to predictions are illustrated in Fig. 3. Two new events with energy exceeding $`10^{20}`$ eV have been revealed. The results have been compared to a simulation that reproduces the same fitting procedure and cuts using the cosmic ray spectrum deduced from vertical air shower measurements in reference . The agreement between the integral rate above $`10^{19}`$ eV measured and that obtained with simulation is striking when the QGSJET model is used. Sibyll leads to a slight underestimate .

The universality of the muon lateral distribution function is very powerful and once the equivalent proton energy is determined for all events, the corresponding energies in the assumption that the primaries are iron nuclei (photons) can be obtained multiplying the proton energy by a factor which is $`0.7`$ (6) for $`10^{19}`$ eV. As a result when a photon primary spectrum is assumed the simulated rate seriously underestimates the observed data by a factor between 10 and 20. A fairly robust bound on the photon composition at ultra high energies can be established assuming a two component proton photon scenario. The photon component of the integral spectrum above $`10^{19}`$eV (4 $`10^{19}`$ eV) must be less than $`41\%`$ ($`65\%`$) at the $`95\%`$ confidence level. Details of the analysis are presented in .

The results of this method when applied to a first analysis of inclined showers produced by cosmic rays above $`10^{19}`$eV demonstrates that the study of inclined showers not only can double the acceptance of air shower arrays but it can be a very useful tool for the study of photon composition.


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# Recurrent very-long type-I X-ray bursts in the low-mass X-ray binary 4U 1636–53

## 1 Introduction

Type-I X-ray bursts in low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) systems are thought to be due to thermonuclear flashes on the surfaces of neutron stars, which occur when the unstable burning of helium or hydrogen ignites the unburned matter on the surface of the neutron stars. These bursts are characterized by fast rise times (of order seconds), long decay times (seconds to minutes), spectral softening during the bursts, and recurrence times of hours to days. Also their X-ray spectra can usually very well be described by black-body radiation. The exact physics behind type-I X-ray bursts is very complex, but it is thought that the properties of the bursts are governed by the properties of the neutron star (radius, mass, magnetic field strength) and by the properties of the accreted matter (accretion rate, composition of the material). For reviews about the X-ray bursts and the physics involved see, e.g., Lewin et al. (1993) and Bildsten (1998).

In recent years, exciting new discoveries were reported concerning type-I X-ray bursts. Soon after the launch of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE; Bradt, Rothschild, & Swank 1993) at the end of 1995, nearly coherent oscillations (called burst oscillations, with frequencies of 300–600 Hz) were found during the type-I X-ray bursts of several LMXBs (e.g., Strohmayer et al. 1996). These burst oscillations are most likely due to the spin frequency of the neutron star (see Strohmayer 2001 for a review about burst oscillations), demonstrating that at least several LMXBs harbor rapidly spinning neutron stars as expected if the neutron star LMXBs are the progenitors of the millisecond radio pulsars. Cornelisse et al. (2000) reported an extremely long (hours) type-I X-ray burst (a “super-burst”) from 4U 1735–44 using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) on board BeppoSAX. Such super-bursts have now also been reported in several other sources (4U1820–30: Strohmayer 2000; KS 1731–260 and Serpens X-1; Heise, in ’t Zand, & Kuulkers 2000). The physics behind such super-bursts is not yet well-known, which is mostly due to the very recent discovery of such bursts and the limited information available for them. However, it was suggested that they are not regular hydrogen or helium flashes, but due to unstable carbon burning (Strohmayer 2000). Here, I present recurrent super-bursts from the LMXB 4U 1636–53 as observed with the all sky monitor (ASM; Levine et al. 1996) on board RXTE.

## 2 The RXTE/ASM light curve of 4U 1636–53

The RXTE/ASM light curve222The quick-look RXTE/ASM data can be obtained form http://xte.mit.edu/ASM\_lc.html and is provided by the ASM/RXTE team of 4U 1636–53 is shown in Figure 2 (up to 2001 March 22, 13:33 UTC). Clearly visible is the very recent flare-like event on 2001 Feb 22 17:10 UTC (event 2), just at the end of the light curve. This flare triggered this study and a close-up of it is shown in Figure 2b. Clearly, the rise of this flare is faster than the decay time. The ratio between the count rate in the range 5–12 keV and the one in the range 1.5–3 keV is given in Figure 2d, which shows that the flux at the peak of the event is harder than the persistent emission but its spectrum softens considerably during the decay.

As can been seen from Figure 2, another flare-like event occurred prior to the 2001 Feb 22 one on 1996 June 19 14:42 UTC (event 1), which is shown in detail in Figure 2a. The event has a similar peak count rate, profile, and 5–12 keV/1.5–3 keV count rate ratio (Fig. 2c) as those of event 2 (Fig. 2d). These similarities between the two events strongly suggest that they are due to the same physical mechanism, demonstrating that this behavior of 4U 1636–53 is recurrent.

The events were fitted with an exponential function in order to determine a characteristic decay time scale. The results are listed in Table 1. The first event likely has a longer duration (about twice as long) as the second event, although the sporadic sampling of the events with the RXTE/ASM might have artificially caused this effect. It is clear, however, that both events lasted more than one hour and possibly as long as three hours. The decay time for event 2 decreased with photon energy (Tab. 1), which is consistent with the spectral softening of its spectrum during the decay (Fig. 2b). The decay time for event 1 increases with photon energy, although the inverse cannot be excluded due to the large errors. A smaller decay time at higher energies (similar to that of event 2) is more likely given the softening of the spectrum during the decay of event 1.

A detailed spectral analysis of the events is not possible due to the lack of energy resolution of the RXTE/ASM data (only three energy channels). Therefore, the total peak count rates of the events have been converted into a flux estimate using PIMMS333A web-based version of PIMMS is available at http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Tools/w3pimms.html. As an input spectrum, a black-body was used with $`kT`$ of 2 keV (see Cornelisse et al. 2000 for the temperature of the super-burst in 4U 1735–44, and assuming the events in 4U 1636–53 are super-bursts as claimed in section 3) and a column density of $`4.7\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2 (Schulz 1999; note that due to the relative high energy of the first energy channel of the RXTE/ASM \[1.5 keV\], the flux results are rather insensitive to the exact column density). The derived maximum unabsorbed fluxes at the peak of the events are $`2.4\times 10^8`$ erg s-1 cm-2 (1.5–12 keV), which for a distance of 5.9 kpc (Augusteijn et al. 1998) corresponds to a luminosity of $`1.0\times 10^{38}`$ erg s-1. This is only a lower limit to the peak luminosity; due to the erratic sampling by the RXTE/ASM the true peak might not have been observed. For the same reason, the total fluences of the events are rather uncertain, but they are likely to be in the range 0.5–1 $`\times 10^{42}`$ ergs.

Apart from the two very obvious flares, the RXTE/ASM light curve of 4U 1636–53 shows evidence for several smaller flares (Fig. 2). For these flares, no exponential decays nor a significant softening of the spectra are observed, although this might be due to the sampling of the RXTE/ASM data. It is unclear if (any of) those smaller flares are due to the same mechanism as the two large events discussed above. A possible alternative explanation is that these smaller flares are due to “normal” type-I X-ray bursts which happened to occur at the time that the source was observed with the RXTE/ASM.

## 3 Discussion

Two flares were found in the RXTE/ASM light curve of 4U 1636–53, with characteristic exponential decay profiles which last for several hours. The limited energy resolution of the RXTE/ASM data does not allow a detailed spectral analysis, but it is clear that during the decay the flares become considerably softer. The total peak luminosities and fluences are in the order of $`10^{38}`$ erg s-1 and $`10^{42}`$ ergs, respectively. All these characteristics are very similar to similar flares found with the BeppoSAX/WFC for 4U 1735–44 (Cornelisse et al. 2000) and the RXTE proportional counter array (PCA) for 4U 1820–30 (Strohmayer 2000). These flares were interpreted as very long type-I X-ray bursts (“super-burst”). The similarities between those super-bursts and the flares observed for 4U 1636–53 strongly suggest that the latter events are also super-bursts. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that during the second event, data were also obtained with the RXTE/PCA, which again suggests that this flare is a super-burst (T. Strohmayer 2001, private communication). These high time and spectral resolution RXTE/PCA data during this super-burst opens the exiting possibility of studying a second super-burst in great detail (after the one already reported for 4U 1820–30; Strohmayer 2000).

4U 1636–53 is the fifth source which exhibits such super-bursts, demonstrating that this phenomenon is common among the neutron star LMXBs. So far, 4U 1636–53 is the only source for which more than one super-burst has been detected. Two clear super-bursts have been observed from this source, although some of the smaller flares might also be related to the super-burst phenomenon. Due to the erratic sampling of RXTE/ASM, it is also possible that several other super-bursts were missed. Therefore, the time span between the two super-bursts of 4.7 years reflects only an upper limit on the recurrence time of super-bursts in 4U 1636–53.

Now, with five sources which exhibit these super-bursts identified a remarkable trend is visible. All five sources are relatively bright, with a peak intrinsic luminosity of 0.1–0.3 times the Eddington luminosity ($`L_\mathrm{E}`$) for a 1.4 M accreting neutron star. No neutron star LMXB with considerably higher ($`>`$0.5 $`L_\mathrm{E}`$) or lower ($`<`$0.1 $`L_\mathrm{E}`$) peak luminosity has (so far) shown a super-burst, although this might well be possible due to a chance coincidence or a selection effect. Due to the higher statistics, the brightness of the super-burst sources makes it easier to conclusive identify a possible super-burst with a real super-burst. However, this argument is invalid for the brightest neutron star LMXBs, for which even better statistics are available. Those systems already show less-normal type-I X-ray bursts, so the mechanism behind the suppression of the normal bursts might also suppress super-bursts. A quick-look of the RXTE/ASM light curves of the LMXBs currently monitored by RXTE did not reveal for those sources an obvious event like the super-bursts in 4U 1636–53. A more detailed analysis might reveal less obvious events, but such a study is beyond the scope of this paper. A detailed study of the RXTE/ASM light curves and/or the BeppoSAX/WFC of all the burst sources is necessary to perform a statistical analyses in order to accurately determine how significant the above noted correlation is.

Although it cannot be excluded that the above correlation is due to chance coincidence or selection effects, it is also possible that this correlation is real and that only above a certain (averaged) mass accretion rate such bursts can occur. If true, then good candidates to also exhibit super-bursts would be the relatively bright neutron star LMXBs 4U 1728–34, 4U 1705–44, and 4U 1702–42. The preliminary examination of their RXTE/ASM light curve did not reveal a convincing super-burst. However, this does not mean that they did not exhibit such burst or can exhibit them in the future, as the super-bursts reported in 4U 1735–44 and 4U 1820–30 are not present in the RXTE/ASM light curves of these sources due to the lack of coverage by the instrument at the time of the bursts. Furthermore, no obvious super-bursts are present in the RXTE/ASM light curves of KS 1731–260 and Serpens X-1 (the times of the occurrence of the super-bursts in these sources have not been published yet), although a possible candidate super-burst occurred in KS 1731–260 at 1996 Sep. 23 12:58 UTC. However, the evidence is inconclusive (i.e., no evidence for spectral softening is observed) so it is not possible to claim this event as a super-burst.

The nature and the physics of super-bursts are not well-known, which is mostly due to the very recent discovery of such bursts and the limited amount of information available about them. Long type-I X-ray bursts were already investigated by Fujimoto et al. (1987), but they predicted that such very long bursts would only occur at an accretion rate below 1% of the critical Eddington rate. However, as already pointed-out for 4U 1735–44 by Cornelisse et al. (2000), all five sources exhibiting super-bursts accrete well above this level. This discrepancy might be due to the fact that Fujimoto et al. (1987) only considered hydrogen and helium flashes and not carbon flashes, which Strohmayer (2000) suggests as a mechanism for the super-burst in 4U 1820–30. He found that just prior to the super-burst in 4U 1820–30, a regular helium flash occurred, demonstrating that a helium flash nature for the super-burst in this source can be excluded, suggesting that the super-burst might be due to a carbon flash. Taam & Picklum (1978) studied carbon flashes and found that such bursts occur for accretion rates between $`10^{10}`$ and $`10^9`$ M yr-1, which is only slightly lower than the accretion rates observed for the five super-burst sources (see also Strohmayer 2000).

However, Brown & Bildsten argued that only for pure helium accreting sources, enough carbon is expected to remain available after normal type-I bursts, that a carbon burst could occur. Therefore, carbon bursts could explain the super-burst in 4U 1820–30, which has a white dwarf companion, but it less likely that they can explain the super-bursts in 4U 1636–53 for which hydrogen has been observed in its optical spectrum (see, e.g., Canizares, McClintock, & Grindlay 1979; Augusteijn et al. 1998). More theoretical investigations are needed to determine if all super-bursts are due to carbon flashes or that a different mechanism is necessary for the super-bursts in certain sources.

Instruments like the BeppoSAX/WFC and the RXTE/ASM are good to study many sources simultaneously to increase the chances of observing a super-burst, but they have limited capabilities (limited spectral and timing resolution and/or limited sensitivity). In order to get a better understanding of super-bursts, high resolution spectral instruments and/or high timing resolution instruments are necessary. However, due to the rarity of super-bursts such data are difficult to obtain. It is very fortunate that such data exist now, not only for the super-burst in 4U 1820–30 (Strohmayer 2000), but also for one in 4U 1636–53 (T. Strohmayer 2001 private communication).

This work was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship grant number PF9-10010 awarded by CXC, which is operated by SAO for NASA under contract NAS8-39073. This research has made use of the quick-look results provided by the ASM/RXTE team. I thank Jon Miller, Tod Strohmayer, and Remon Cornelisse for helpful and insightful discussions.


text:
# 1/2–Anyons in small atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

\]www.uibk.ac.at

## Abstract

We discuss a way of creating, manipulating and detecting anyons in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates consisting of a small number of atoms . By achieving a quasidegeneracy in the atomic motional states we drive the system into a $`\frac{1}{2}`$–Laughlin state for fractional quantum Hall bosons. Localized $`\frac{1}{2}`$–quasiholes can be created by focusing lasers at the desired positions. We show how to manipulate these quasiholes in order to probe directly their $`\frac{1}{2}`$–statistics.

The experimental achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation of weakly interacting atomic gases BEC  promises new possibilities to study the quantum properties of many–body systems. As compared to other systems, quantum degenerate atomic gases can be easily controlled and manipulated by electromagnetic fields, which makes them ideal candidates for the study of several intrinsically quantum phenomena. Until now, interest has focused mainly on using atomic condensates to study single particle quantum phenomena (as those occurring in atomic interferometry or atom optics), since for low temperatures atoms in condensates occupy essentially the same single particle state. In contrast, the possibility of observing entanglement, one of the most fascinating features of quantum mechanics, remains almost unexplored, requiring a way of making the gas to effectively behave in a strongly interacting manner. First steps in this direction are the recent proposals to entangle atomic beams and atomic spin squeezing in Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) entangle , and the numerical prediction of new correlated phases appearing in rotating condensates Wilkin .

In this Letter we show how a quantum degenerate Bose gas consisting of a small number of atoms can be used to study a quantum phenomenon highly collective in nature, namely the formation of quasiparticles exhibiting fractional statistics. This system offers the novel possibility of creating and manipulating anyons in a well controlled way that may allow for the experimental probing of their fractional statistics. The idea is to achieve a quasidegeneracy of the atomic motional states by rotating the trap that confines the atoms, as it has successfully been done for the creation of vortices Vortices . Under appropriate conditions (like two dimensional confinement), the situation we describe can be understood in terms of the fractional quantum Hall effect QHE  for bosons DasSarma . As in the theory of the fractional quantum Hall for electrons Mac1 , elementary excitations exhibiting fractional statistics appear. We consider a situation where the atomic system is first prepared in a $`\frac{1}{2}`$–Laughlin state, a highly correlated quantum liquid with nearly uniform density. We then show that piericing the system by offresonant laser light a single Laughlin quasihole localized at some chosen position $`z_0`$ can be created. This excitation involves a density profile in which exactly $`\frac{1}{2}`$–atom has been removed at $`z_0`$. In addition, lasers provide us with a tool for creating states with two quasiholes at the desired positions, and moreover, for creating superpositions of states having one and two quasiholes. Driving the superposition state along the proper path, as in a Ramsey-type interferometer, will allow to test the fractional statistical phase. Apart from interest of detecting such a phase directly, the ideas developed in the present work may pave the way for a physical implementation for quantum information processing based on anyons; as reported in fault , the most robust way of performing quantum computations seems to be based on excitations with fractional statistics since they have several fault–tolerant properties built–in. On the other hand, the conditions required to observe the effects predicted here are very demanding, and we expect that can be reached in the near future only with a small number of atoms.

We consider a set of $`N`$ bosonic atoms confined in a potential which rotates in the $`xy`$ plane at a frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. We will assume that the confinement in the $`z`$ direction is sufficiently strong so that we can ignore the excitations in that direction, and we will consider that the potential in two dimensions is isotropic and harmonic. The Hamiltonian describing this situation in a frame rotating with the trap is:

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left(_i^2+r_i^22\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{\omega }L_{iz}\right)+\eta \underset{i<j}{\overset{N}{}}\delta (𝐫_𝐢𝐫_𝐣),$$
(1)
with $`L_{iz}`$ being the $`z`$ component of the angular momentum of the $`i`$–th atom, and where we have used the trap energy, $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, as the unit of energy, and $`\mathrm{}=(\mathrm{}/m\omega )^{1/2}`$ as the unit of length. The atoms are interacting via an effective contact potential, and the interacting coupling constant $`\eta `$ is related to the $`s`$–wave scattering length, $`a`$, and to the localization length in the $`z`$ direction, $`\mathrm{}_z`$, by $`\eta =\sqrt{2/\pi }a/\mathrm{}_z`$.

As pointed out recently Wilkin , in the limit $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\omega `$ the Hamiltonian (1) is formally identical to the Hamiltonian of electrons in the quantum Hall effect QHE  with $`\omega `$ playing the role of the magnetic field (with cyclotron frequency $`\omega _c=2\omega `$), and the usual Coulomb interaction between electrons replaced by a contact interaction. Regardless that we are dealing with bosons instead of fermions the two problems are formally identical in this limit. We will now study how to create and manipulate anyons Mac1  in our twin atomic system.

We begin by writing the Hamiltonian (1) in the following form:

$$H=H_B+H_L+V.$$
(2)
Here, $`H_B=_{i=1}^N_i^2/2+r_i^2/2L_{iz}`$ is the quantum Hall single particle Hamiltonian, whose single particle energy levels are the Landau levels equally spaced by the cyclotron energy $`2\mathrm{}\omega `$. The Hamiltonian $`H_L=(1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )L_z`$ is proportional to the $`z`$ component of the total angular momentum, $`L_z=_{i=1}^NL_{iz}`$, and $`V`$ is the interaction term. From now on we consider the limit in which the energy scales characterizing Hamiltonians $`H_B`$ and $`V`$ are much larger than the one corresponding to $`H_L`$. This means that both the trap energy and the typical interaction energy are large compared to the angular momentum term. In this limit the ground state and elementary excitations of the system will lie on the subspace of common zero energy eigenstates of $`H_B`$ and $`V`$. We now derive the spatial form of the many-body wave functions $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ lying within this subspace. In order to be a zero energy eigenstate of $`H_B`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ must lie within the subspace generated by tensor products of lowest Landau level single particle states Mac1 ,

$$\mathrm{\Psi }[z]=P(z_1,\mathrm{},z_N)\underset{k}{}e^{|z_k|^2/4},$$
(3)
where $`P[z]`$ is a polynomial in each of the atomic coordinates $`z_k=x_k+iy_k`$. Let’s assume that $`\mathrm{\Psi }[z]`$ is also an eigenstate of $`V`$ with eigenvalue zero, and let’s choose any pair of particles $`i`$ and $`j`$. The dependence of $`\mathrm{\Psi }[z]`$ on $`z_i`$ and $`z_j`$ can be reexpressed in terms of the relative and center mass coordinates, $`z_{ij}`$, $`Z_{ij}`$, so that we can expand $`P[z]=_mz_{ij}^mF_m`$, where $`F_m`$ depends on $`Z_{ij}`$ and on the positions of all the other particles. As we are dealing with bosons only even values of $`m`$ appear in the sum. In order for $`\mathrm{\Psi }[z]`$ to be annihilated by the hard-core interaction $`V`$, $`F_0`$ must be identically zero. It follows that $`z_{ij}^2`$ is a factor of $`P[z]`$ so that

$$P[z]=Q[z]\underset{i<j}{}(z_iz_j)^2.$$
(4)
We then diagonalize Hamiltonian $`H_L`$ within the truncated Hilbert space of wave functions of the form specified by (3) and (4). We note that when $`P[z]`$ is a homogeneous polynomial in $`[z]`$ the state (3) is an eigenstate of $`H_L`$ with eigenvalue $`E(M)=(1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )M`$, where the total angular momentum $`M`$ equals the homogeneous degree of $`P[z]`$. It follows that the ground state of the system is the state with the lowest angular momentum, that is, the one with $`Q[z]=1`$:

$$\psi [z]=\underset{i<j}{}(z_iz_j)^2\underset{k}{}e^{|z_k|^2/4}.$$
(5)
This state is the bosonic variant of the Laughlin wave function for quantum Hall electrons Lau .

We have confirmed the above arguments by diagonalizing the Hamiltonian (1) exactly for $`N=5`$ bosons. Fig. (1) shows the energy spectrum. There is a branch of states well separated in energy from the rest of the spectrum. These states are polynomial states of the form given by (3) and (4), and the ground state is the five atoms Laughlin state (5), with angular momentum $`M_0=N(N1)/2=20`$.

To create a single fractional quasiparticles in the Laughlin state we insert a laser localized (within an area $`\mathrm{}^2`$) at some position $`z_0`$. We require $`|z_0|`$ to be within the size of the Laughlin state ( $`2\sqrt{N1}`$). The presence of the laser can be described by a localized repulsive potential, so that the new Hamiltonian of the system can be approximated by:

$$H_{}=H_L+V_0\underset{i}{}\delta (z_iz_0).$$
(6)
We have studied the time evolution of the ground state as the intensity $`V_0`$ of the laser increases with time, under the assumption that the system remains always in the truncated Hilbert space of polynomial wave functions of the form (4). We note that the total angular momentum $`L`$ does not commute anymore with the Hamiltonian (6), since the $`\delta `$-potential breaks the rotational symmetry. We have solved the dynamics exactly for the model system of $`N=5`$ bosons. Fig. 2 shows the time evolution of the ground state. For low intensities of the laser the angular momentum term dominates and the system remains in the Laughlin state. But when the laser power becomes sufficiently large the system evolves to a Laughlin quasihole state with wave function

$$\psi _{z_0}[z]=\underset{i}{}(z_iz_0)\psi [z],$$
(7)
where $`\psi [z]`$ is the Laughlin wave function (5). Note that the state $`\psi _{z_0}`$ is a superposition of homogeneous polynomial states with angular momenta running from $`M_0`$ to $`M_0+N`$. In this quasihole state all the particles are expelled from the position where the laser is located, so that the potential energy is minimized. This gain in potential energy compensates the cost of confining energy due to the spreading of the gas.

It is remarkable that for intermediate laser intensities the ground state is approximately equal to a superposition of the Laughlin state and the quasihole state: $`\mathrm{\Psi }\alpha \psi +\alpha _0\psi _{z_0}`$, with no other states participating significantly in the evolution of the system. To understand this behavior let us consider a state quasi-orthogonal to this subspace, that is a state having a quasihole localized at some other position $`z_{\mathrm{}}z_0`$. To reach this state the system has to pay confining energy (because of the system spreading around $`z_{\mathrm{}}`$), but there is no gain in potential energy since the hole has been created at the wrong position. It follows that any state out of the subspace generated by $`\psi `$ and $`\psi _0`$ will be always much higher in energy (no matter the intensity of the laser), and will not take part in the evolution of the system.

Based on the creation of quasiholes and superposition states we describe now a possible experiment to reveal directly the statistics of anyons in a Ramsey-type interferometer:

1)First step: Preparation of the initial state. We focus a laser at position $`z_0`$ and increase its intensity until a single quasihole is created. Keeping constant the intensity of this laser we then adiabatically insert another laser at position $`z_1`$, far enough from $`z_0`$ ($`|z_1z_0|\mathrm{}`$). The new Hamiltonian is: $`H_{}=H_L+V_0_i\delta (z_iz_0)+V_1_i\delta (z_iz_1)`$. Following an analogous pattern to the one shown in Fig. 2 for a single quasihole, the system now evolves from the one-quasihole state to a two-quasihole state of the form: $`\psi _{z_0,z_1}[z]=_i(z_iz_0)(z_iz_1)\psi [z]`$. The crucial point is that at a certain point of the evolution the system reaches a superposition state $`\mathrm{\Psi }(\psi _{z_0}+\psi _{z_0,z_1})`$. This is precisely the superposition we need to test the statistical angle. We then stop the evolution of the system at this point, and remove instantaneously the laser located at $`z_1`$. In this way the state of the system remains unchanged but we go back to Hamiltonian $`H_{}`$. Note that the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is no longer an eigenstate of this Hamiltonian. We are now in a position to detect the statistical phase.

2)Second step: Statistical phase accumulation. We adiabatically move the remaining laser along a path enclosing position $`z_1`$, so that the time dependent Hamiltonian is: $`H(t)=H_L+V_0_i\delta (z_iz(t))`$, with $`z(t)z_1=|z_0z_1|e^{i\beta t}`$. As follows from the adiabatic theorem Berry  the evolved state at the end of the process will be:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }^{}=e^{iE_1T+\phi _1}\psi _{z_0}+e^{iE_2T+\phi _2}\psi _{z_0,z_1},$$
(8)
where besides the dynamical phase each state picks up a Berry phase. The difference between the Berry phases $`\phi =\phi _1\phi _2`$ of the two states reflects the extra phase that the quasihole at $`z_0`$ picks up due to the presence of the other quasihole at $`z_1`$, thus it is the statistical phase.

We have simulated this experiment with our $`5`$ bosons model system. In order to have a more precise detection of the Berry phase we have considered a regime in which the dynamical relative phase is much smaller than the relative Berry phase, so that $`(E_1E_2)/\beta 5(1\omega /\mathrm{\Omega })1`$. We have performed the simulation for different closed paths and different positions of the two quasiholes. The relative phase emerging from the numerical calculation is $`\phi =1.031\pi `$, so that $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\psi _{z_0}\psi _{z_0,z_1}`$. Since the closed loop we have performed is equivalent to two consecutive interchanges, this result states that, as it should be, $`\frac{1}{2}`$– quasiholes pick up a phase $`\phi =\frac{1}{2}\pi `$ when we interchange them. Thus, they do not behave as bosons nor fermions, but as anyons with statistics $`\frac{1}{2}`$.

3)Third step: Detecting the statistical phase. Suppose that we come back to the point at which we stopped the evolution of the system. This means that we instantaneously restore the laser we had removed at position $`z_1`$ and continue increasing its intensity. If we had not made the step 2 of the experiment, the system would be in the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and would evolve to the two-quasihole state $`\psi _{z_0,z_1}`$. However, after performing step 2 the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ has changed into $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ and the system will now evolve in a different way. Fig. 3 shows how the minus sign is reflected in the density profile of the final state. Instead of getting a two hole state we go back to the state with only one quasihole at $`z_0`$.

We discuss now the set of conditions that a system of $`N`$ atoms must fulfill to perform an experiment as the one we have described above. First of all, we have made a two-dimension approximation, so that we need $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{}_z`$. We have considered also a contact interaction between the atoms and this requires $`a<\mathrm{}_z`$ Petrov . We have created a state with two Laughlin quasiholes. This implies a total angular momentum $`M=M_0+2N`$ and thus an angular momentum energy per particle $`e_L2(1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )N`$. Remember that we have projected onto the subspace of common zero eigenstates of $`H_B`$ and $`V`$. In order for this projection to be valid we then need $`e_L`$ to be much smaller than both the trap energy and the typical interaction energy, so that the conditions $`2(1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )N1,\eta /4\pi `$ are required Belen2 . For creating the $`\frac{1}{2}`$–quasiholes we had to focus the lasers within a distance $`\mathrm{}`$. For a localization length $`\mathrm{}1\mu m`$ this implies an upper limit for the trap frequency of $`1kHz`$. The preparation of the superposition state used to test the statistical angle requires to adiabatically increase the laser intensity. In order to estimate how slowly the laser needs to be inserted for a system of $`N`$ particles we have used a two state approximation. Confining ourselves to a basis formed by states $`\psi _{z_0}`$ and $`\psi _{z_0,z_1}`$, we find that the width of the avoided crossing is $`\mathrm{\Delta }N(1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )(|z_1|/\sqrt{N})^N.`$ This is normally a small quantity, quickly decreasing when the hole is made closer to the center of the trap. The time scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }^1`$ gives us the estimation on how slowly the laser is to be set on/off in order to reach the necessary adiabaticity requirements. Finally, the most restrictive condition is the temperature. In order to freeze out the excitations we need $`kT/\mathrm{}\omega (1\mathrm{\Omega }/\omega )`$, which together with the above conditions implies $`kT/\mathrm{}\omega 1/N,\eta /N`$ ions .

In conclusion, this letter provides a way of creating anyons in rotating Bose Einstein condensates, and proposes an experiment in which the fractional statistics can be tested. While the requirements are very demanding, we expect that creation and (effectively) ground state cooling of small ensembles of bosonic atoms to be within experimental reach in coming years. Development of these experimental techniques promises the controlled engineering of strongly correlated, entangled states of atoms, with novel applications in quantum information.

We thank L. Pitaevskii, G. Shlyapnikov and C. Tejedor for discussions. Work supported by the Austrian Science Foundation, EQUIP, ESF, the European TMR networks, and the Institute for Quantum Information Gmbh.


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# Low-energy renormalization of the electron dispersion of high-Tc superconductors

## Abstract

High-resolution ARPES studies in cuprates have detected low-energy changes in the dispersion and absorption of quasi-particles at low temperatures, in particular, in the superconducting state. Based on a new 1/N expansion of the t-J-Holstein model, which includes collective antiferromagnetic fluctuations already in leading order, we argue that the observed low-energy structures are mainly caused by phonons and not by spin fluctuations, at least, in the optimal and overdoped regime.

PACS numbers:72.12.DI, 63.20.Kr., 74.72.-h

ARPES studies in cuprates have recently detected changes in the electronic spectral function near the Fermi energy at low temperatures and, in particular, in the superconducting state . The dispersion of quasi-particles changes its slope by about a factor 2 over an energy region of about 50 meV and this change occurs in a rather isotropic way around the Fermi surface. These results indicate that the particles near the Fermi surface interact with excitations characterized by an energy scale of about 50 meV with a dimensionless coupling constant of about 1. Possible candidates for these excitations are phonons or spin fluctuations. In particular, the collective spin excitation associated with the resonance peak of neutron scattering has been assumed to cause this new low-energy scale.

Band structure calculations yield an overall dimensionless coupling constant $`\lambda `$ of electrons near the Fermi surface and phonons between 0.5 and 1.5. On the other hand, transport relaxation times indicate a very weak coupling $`\lambda _{tr}<0.3`$ between electrons and phonons in the optimally doped case. One explanation for this is that electronic correlations make the effective electron-phonon coupling strongly momentum and frequency dependent suppressing large-momentum scattering. Below we will study whether a similar large reduction of the effective electron-phonon coupling by correlations occurs in the electronic self-energy and the renormalization function $`Z`$ which determines the change in the quasi-particle dispersion. Another relevant point is the anisotropy of this renormalization. Assuming a bare, momentum-independent electron-phonon coupling the same correlation-induced momentum dependence in the effective coupling which suppresses transport scattering rates will make $`Z`$ in general anisotropic. The calculation has to show whether this induced anisotropy is small enough to account for the rather isotropic behavior of the slope change observed in experiment.

Spin fluctuations within the usual 1/N expansion yield only small contributions to the electronic self-energy and to scattering rates at low energies. Though the coupling between spin fluctuations and electrons is set by the large hopping integral $`t`$, the spin fluctuation spectrum at large N is rather structureless and extends in energy over several $`t^{}s`$. Most spin flips thus are high-energy excitations yielding only small renormalizations at low energies. Below we will present results from a different 1/N expansion which favors antiferromagnetic fluctuations and accounts for the resonance peak in the spin susceptibility already in leading order. This approach is convenient to make a fair comparison of phonon- and spin fluctuations-induced contributions to the electronic self-energy.

In the following we consider a slightly modified version of the Hamiltonian Eq.(1) of Ref. describing the t-J model coupled to dispersionless phonons. First, we assume that the underlying internal symmetry is the symplectic group Sp(N/2) and not SU(N). Consequently, we split the internal index $`p`$ in Eq.(1) of Ref. into an index $`\sigma `$ describing the two spin components and a flavor index $`\mu `$ running from 1 to N/2. Secondly, we modify the second term in Eq.(1) in the following way:

$$\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ij}{p,p^{}=1\mathrm{}N}}{}\frac{J_{ij}}{4N}X_i^{pp^{}}X_j^{p^{}p}\underset{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{ij,\sigma \sigma ^{}=1,2}{\mu ,\mu ^{}=1\mathrm{}N/2}}{}\frac{J_{ij}}{4N}X_i^{\mu \sigma ,\mu \sigma ^{}}X_j^{\mu ^{}\sigma ^{},\mu ^{}\sigma }.$$
(1)
In the modified term the sum over the flavor index is carried out independently in each X operator, whereas the sum over spins retains the old form. The two terms in Eq.(1) are identical in the physical case N=2. At large N they differ, however, and the label arrangement in the left and right terms in Eq.(1) favor RVB and antiferromagnetic correlations, respectively. Thirdly, we multiply the Hamiltonian with an overall factor 2 so that it coincides with the usual Hamiltonian for $`N=2`$ and $`t`$ and $`J`$ have the usual meaning.

The 11 element of the electronic Green’s function matrix in a BCS superconductor has the following form,

$$G(i\omega _n,𝐤)=\frac{1}{i\omega _nϵ(𝐤)\mathrm{\Sigma }(i\omega _n,𝐤)\mathrm{\Delta }^2(𝐤)/(i\omega _n+ϵ(𝐤)\mathrm{\Sigma }(i\omega _n,𝐤))}.$$
(2)
$`\omega _n=(2n+1)\pi T`$ is a fermionic Matsubara frequency and $`T`$ the temperature. $`\mathrm{\Delta }(𝐤)=\mathrm{\Delta }(cos(k_x)cos(k_y))`$ describes a frequency-independent superconducting order parameter with d-wave symmetry which is a rather good approximation for the anomalous self-energy at large N. The one-particle energy $`ϵ(𝐤)`$ is in the leading $`O(1)`$ of the 1/N expansion given by $`2t(cos(k_x)+cos(k_y))4t^{}cos(k_x)cos(k_y)`$. $`t=t_0\delta /2`$ and $`t^{}=t_0^{}\delta /2`$ are renormalized hopping elements with $`t_0,t_0^{}`$ being bare hopping matrix elements between nearest and second-nearest neighbors on the square lattice, respectively. $`\delta `$ is the doping away from half-filling. In our modified 1/N expansion $`ϵ(𝐤)`$ does not have any contribution from $`J`$ as long as there is no long-range antiferromagnetic order. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the diagonal self-energy due to the many-body interactions in $`H`$. In the leading O(1/N) $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is additive in a purely electronic part $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{el}`$ and a phononic part, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}`$, renormalized by electronic correlations. We have analyzed all the contributions to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{el}`$ and found that the RPA-like term

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{RPA}(k)=\frac{T}{NN_c}\underset{k_1}{}J(𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏})\gamma _s(k_1)G^{(0)}(k+k_1),$$
(3)
with the spin vertex $`\gamma _s(k_1)=1/(1J(𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏})a(k_1)/2)`$, is the only term which may give rise to interesting structures at low energies. In Eq.(3) we combined the Matsubara frequency $`i\omega _{n_1}`$ and the two-dimensional wave vector $`𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ into a three-dimensional vector $`k_1`$. $`N_c`$ is the number of cells and $`a(k_1)`$ is defined below. The imaginary part of the remaining terms of O(1/N) exhibits a featureless $`\omega ^2`$ law at low energies and acquires structures only on the energy scales $`J`$ or $`t`$. This contribution is similar to the total O(1/N) contribution to the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ in the usual 1/N expansion depicted in Fig. 5 of Ref..

The phonon contribution $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}`$ is given in O(1/N) by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{Ph}(k)=\frac{2T}{NN_c}\underset{k_1}{}G^{(0)}(k+k_1)\frac{16\lambda \omega _o^2}{(\omega _n\omega _{n_1})^2+\omega _0^2}\gamma _c(k_1+k,k_1)\gamma _c(k,k_1),$$
(4)
where $`\omega _0`$ and $`\lambda `$ denote the phonon frequency and the dimensionless electron-phonon coupling constant, respectively, and $`G^{(0)}`$ is given by Eq.(2) with $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=0`$. The phonon vertex $`\gamma _c`$ reads

$$\gamma _c(k,k_1)=\frac{1b(k_1)+2a(k_1)t(𝐤)}{1+b(k_1)(1+c(k_1))a(k_1)d(k_1)+a(k_1)J(𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏})/2}.$$
(5)
$`t(𝐤)`$ is equal to $`ϵ(𝐤)/(\delta /2)`$. The four susceptibilites $`a,b,c,d`$ are the generalizations of the normal state susceptibilities given in Eqs.(10)-(13) in Ref. to the superconducting state. Omitting the term proportional to $`J`$ in the denominator the expression for $`\gamma _c`$ in Eq.(5) is identical with the $`J0`$ limit of the expression obtained in the 1/N expansion used in Ref..

Fig. 1 shows the imaginary part of the electronic self-energy in the superconducting state at $`T=0`$ as a function of the frequency $`\omega `$ for two momenta $`𝐐`$ on the Fermi surface, namely, $`𝐐=(1.33,1.33)=L`$ along the diagonal (left panel) and $`𝐐=(3.14,0.26)=X`$ (right panel). The energy unit is an effective nearest neighbor hopping constant $`t`$ of 150 meV. $`t^{}/t`$ is equal to -0.25 and the value for $`J`$, $`J=1.11`$, is chosen such it reproduces the resonance peak in the spin susceptibility at the experimental value of about 40 meV. The doping $`\delta `$ away from half-filling is $`\delta =0.20`$. The definition of the coupling constant $`\lambda `$, Eq.(7) of Ref., is based on the bare coupling and an average density of states of $`1/8t`$. The dashed and solid lines have been calculated neglecting and including vertex corrections, respectively. The dash-dotted lines represent the spin fluctuation contribution, Eq.(3).

The solid and dashed lines in Fig. 1 show a gap near the Fermi energy bounded by two sharp peaks with an energy distance of about $`2(\mathrm{\Delta }+\omega _0)`$. The lines fall to zero below $`\omega 2.5`$ and above $`\omega 6`$ reflecting the finite electronic band-width. Comparing the left and right panel one recognizes that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}`$ is rather isotropic in spite of the fact that the vertex corrections depend strongly on momentum and that the superconducting gap is anisotropic. The vertex corrections $`\gamma _c`$, which represent one effect of electronic correlations, suppress large momentum transfers in the sum over $`𝐤_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ in Eq.(4) but enhance small momentum transfers. Comparison of the dashed and solid lines shows that altogether the suppression prevails making the solid curves smaller by roughly a factor 2 compared to the dashed ones.

In order to discuss $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{RPA}`$ let us first consider the momentum integrated susceptibility $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(\omega )`$ at large N, shown in the left panel of Fig. 2. In accordance with previous work $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐐,\omega )`$ develops a bound state in a very localized region around $`𝐐=(\pi ,\pi )`$ with nearly no spectral weight left at higher energies at this momentum. Fig. 2 shows that also $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(\omega )`$ exhibits a sharp structure in the region around 40 meV. It consists of a stronger component at lower energy which comes from transitions near $`(\pi ,\pi )`$ and corresponds to the resonance peak, i.e., an approximate pole in the denominator of $`\gamma _s`$. The upper weaker peak is mainly due to momenta near the X point and is caused by spin flip excitations across the superconducting gap. Experimentally, a two peak structure has been seen in inelastic neutron scattering in the momentum integrated spin susceptibility in $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.5}`$ and $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.7}`$ (Figs. 5 and 6 of Ref.) but not in $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(𝐐,\omega )`$ for $`𝐐=(\pi ,\pi )`$ in $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.7}`$ (Fig. 7 of Ref.). The higher peak is sensitive to temperature, in contrast to the lower peak, and vanishes somewhere above the superconducting transition temperature $`T_c`$. Guided by the result of our calculation we identify the upper peak in the experimental $`\chi \mathrm{"}(\omega )`$ with the pseudogap with energies of about 60 and 55 meV in $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.5}`$ and $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.7}`$, respectively. Accepting this interpretation the pseudogap increases slightly with decreasing doping which is in line with the well-investigated behavior of the pseudogap in the $`Bi`$-cuprates. Fig. 2 also illustrates that $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(\omega )`$ extends over a large energy region set by the band-width and that most of the spectral weight resides at high energies. Using the exact sum rule one finds that the resonance peak exhausts only about 1.5 per cents of the total spectral weight which agrees well with experiment.

The dash-dotted lines in Fig. 1 represent the imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{RPA}`$. In contrast to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{ph}`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{RPA}`$ is strongly anisotropic along the Fermi surface. The low-frequency spin fluctuations which are concentrated around momentum transfers of about $`(\pi ,\pi )`$, can probe the superconducting gap if $`𝐐`$ is near the X but not the L point. Therefore sharp gap features appear only in the right but not in the left panel. One also notes that the dot-dashed lines are substantially smaller in absolute value at low energies and decay slower towards higher energies compared to the case of phonon scattering. The reason for this behavior can be inferred from $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(\omega )`$, as shown in the left panel of Fig. 2. Most of the spectral weight in $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }(\omega )`$ is found at high energies which leads to the slow decay of the dash-dotted curves towards high energies. The rather small spectral weight associated with low energies and the resonance peak yields, together with $`J`$ as the coupling constant between electrons and spin fluctuations, only small values in the self-energy near the Fermi energy. The neutron resonance peak leads in the calculation of Ref. to much larger effects in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`Z`$. There the employed coupling constant and the frequency-integrated resonance peak are taken as 0.65 eV and 13 per cents of the total sum rule, respectively. The corresponding values are in our case $`J=0.166eV`$ and 1.5 per cents, respectively. Our rather small spectral weight of the resonance peak agrees well with the experiment. The present 1/N expansion also identifies in a unique way $`J`$ as the coupling constant between electrons and spin excitations.

The right panel in Fig. 2 shows the renormalization function $`Z(𝐐,\omega )=1Re(\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐐,\omega )\mathrm{\Sigma }(𝐐,0))/\omega `$, where $`Re`$ denotes the real part. The solid line is calculated from the phonon induced self-energy at the point L and at $`T=0`$. A very similar curve is obtained for the point X. The solid line deviates substantially from 1 only in a narrow energy range around the Fermi energy set by the phonon energy and the superconducting gap assuming a value of 1.76 at $`\omega =0`$. Defining a renormalized coupling function $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(𝐐)`$ by $`Z(𝐐,0)=1+\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(𝐐)`$ one finds a rather isotropic $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(𝐐)`$ of 0.76. There are two competing effects due to electronic correlations in renormalizing the original bare coupling constant $`\lambda `$: Vertex corrections suppress $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{Ph}`$ by roughly a factor 2, but density of state effects increase the effective $`\lambda `$ again so that $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ and $`\lambda `$ do not differ much. Calculating the related quantitiy $`\lambda _{tr}`$, which determines the coupling strength in transport phenomena, one has for the bare values $`\lambda _{tr}=\lambda `$ because the electron-phonon interaction was assumed to be momentum-independent. The renormalized quantity $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{tr}`$ is, however, equal to 0.24, i.e., it is about three times smaller than $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$. In this case the strong suppression of large-momentum scattering by vertex corrections dominates. Such a big difference between $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{tr}`$ is needed to have agreement with experiment: The observed slope change in the quasi-particle dispersion by about a factor 2 corresponds to $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }1`$, whereas the transport data suggest a three or four times smaller $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{tr}`$ in the optimally doped case.

The dashed curve in the right panel of Fig. 2 describes the phonon-induced $`Z`$ at the L point at T=180K. It illustrates that its value at $`\omega =0`$ is sensitive to temperature and thus would decrease the slope change substantially with increasing temperature. The dotted and dash-dotted curves in Fig. 2 represent the spin fluctuation induced renormalization factor. It is very anisotropic and in general much smaller than the phonon-induced contribution to $`Z`$. As shown in Ref. the transport quantity $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{tr}`$ tends generally to be larger than $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ in the case of spin fluctuations. The dotted and dash-dotted curves thus yield an effective $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }_{tr}`$ of about 0.2 which is compatible with transport but indicates, on the other hand, that the spin fluctuation contribution to $`Z`$ is not the dominant one.

The left panel in Fig. 3 shows the evolution of the spectral function at low temperatures in the superconducting state as a function of frequency for six momenta approaching the Fermi wave vector in the direction L. The interaction with phonons as well as the parameters of Fig. 1 were used in calculating the self-energy. The dashed lines represent the spectral function without the self-energy. Going away from the Fermi surface in momentum space the quasi-particle peak disperses much weaker than the free peak away from the Fermi energy and looses rapidly spectral weight. The weak hump seen near the Fermi surface disperses roughly with the free particle dispersion at somewhat lower energy and becomes broad further away from the Fermi surface. Plotting the same as a function of momentum for a fixed energy one essentially obtains Lorentzians dispersing like free particles. All these properties are well reflected in the experimental data showing that the self-energy is rather isotropic along the Fermi surface but strongly frequency-dependent.

From this one concludes again that the spin fluctuation contribution to $`Z`$ cannot dominate in agreement with the right panel in Fig. 2.

The right panel in Fig. 3 shows the imaginary part of the total self-energy $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ associated with $`G`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Pi }(i\omega _n,𝐤)=G^1(i\omega _n,𝐤)+i\omega _nϵ(𝐤)`$. The curves in this Figure can directly be compared with the corresponding curves extracted from ARPES data, Fig. 2a of Ref.. In the calculation we used for all temperatures the same T=0 gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ which approximately is found in the analysis of the data. There is good agreement on a qualitative level. Quantitatively, there are, however, several discrepancies: in order to reproduce the absolute value of the hump (our energy unit t corresponds to 150 meV) $`\lambda `$ should be increased by about a factor 2 which would tend to yield too large slope changes in the quasiparticle dispersion at the point L. At low temperatures the gap between the hump and zero energy is in our case much more pronounced than in the experiment. One reason for this discrepancy is our use of just one phonon frequency instead of the true, rather broad phonon density of states. It is also possible that the spin fluctuation contribution cannot be totally neglected at the point $`X`$ and enhance the dump-dip feature.

The situation is less clear in the underdoped region. Experimentally, the momentum-integrated susceptibilities, if integrated between 0 and 65 meV, are typically one order of magnitude or more larger than in the optimally doped case. For instance, $`YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.7}`$ exhausts in this region about 17 (10) per cents of the sum rule at T=12K (200K) whereas the resonance peak does only 1 per cent. Using the experimental susceptibility in Eq.(3) instead of the calculated large N susceptibility we find in the above case for $`𝐐=L`$ $`Z(𝐐,0)=1.47(1.27)`$ and for $`𝐐=X`$ $`Z(𝐐,0)=3.30(2.31)`$ at T=12K (200K). Because $`\lambda _{tr}\lambda `$ in the case of spin fluctuations the resulting values for $`\lambda _{tr}`$ seem to be too large to be compatible with the resistivity curves. Also the large anisotropy in the slope change of the quasi-particle dispersion, implied by these values, seems not to be supported by the available experiments.

Using a 1/N expansion which takes into account the magnetic resonance peak already in leading order we have calculated the contributions of O(1/N) to the electronic self-energy for a t-J-Holstein model. We find that the recently observed low-energy renormalization of quasi-particles in the superconducting state of cuprates can well accounted for taking a phonon energy of 35 meV and a dimensionless coupling constant of about $`0.751`$. In calculating the spin fluctuation part to the self-energy our approach does not contain any adjustable parameter. Due to the rather small value of $`J`$, which acts as the coupling constant, and due to the structureless $`\chi ^{\prime \prime }`$ at large N we find that this contribution is rather small and strongly anisotropic along the Fermi surface. This means that it does not play the dominant role in the observed low-frequency renormalization of quasi-particles, at least, in the optimal and overdoped regime.