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# Turbulent Photon Filamentation in Resonant Media

## Abstract

Optical turbulence is the term that is used being based on the analogy between hydrodynamic and optical equations. The phenomenon of turbulent photon filamentation occurs in lasers and other active optical media at high Fresnel numbers. A description of this phenomenon is suggested. The solutions to evolution equations are presented in the form of a bunch of filaments chaotically distributed in space and having different radii. The probability distribution of patterns is defined characterizing the probabilistic weight of different filaments. The most probable filament radius and filament number are found, being in good agreement with experiment.

PACS: 02.30.Jr, 42.65.Sf

Keywords: Turbulent photon filamentation, resonant collective phenomena, problem of pattern selection

1. Introduction

Different physical systems often display interesting similarity in their behaviour. This concerns, for example, hydrodynamic and optical systems. There exists a well established analogy between the evolution equations describing optical phenomena and hydrodynamic equations for compressible viscous liquid \[1–3\]. The Fresnel number for optical systems plays the same role as the Reynolds number for fluids. In optical systems, with increasing Fresnel number, there appears chaotic behaviour similar to fluid turbulence arising with increasing Reynolds number. Because of this analogy, one terms the optical turbulence \[1–3\] the chaotic phenomena occurring in high-Fresnel-number optical systems.

For an optical cavity of the standard cylindrical shape of radius $`R`$ and length $`L`$, the Fresnel number is $`F\pi R^2/\lambda L`$, with $`\lambda `$ being the optical wavelength. Physical processes accompanying the route from the regular behaviour to the turbulent regime, arising with increasing Fresnel numbers, are practically the same in different types of active optical media, such as lasers and photorefractive crystals.

When Fresnel numbers are very small, $`F1`$, there exists the sole transverse mode almost uniformly filling the optical cavity. At Fresnel numbers around $`F1`$, several transverse modes emerge seen as bright spots in the transverse cross-section. These spatial structures are regular both in space and in time, since in space they form ordered geometric arrays, as polygons, and because in time they are either stationary or oscillating periodically. These transverse structures are imposed by the cavity geometry and correspond to the empty-cavity Gauss-Laguerre modes. The appearance of such regular geometric structures is well understood theoretically, with the theory being in good agreement with experiments both for lasers \[4–9\] as well as for photorefractive crystals \[10–12\]. For Fresnel numbers up to $`F5`$, the number of regular modes is proportional to $`F^2`$.

The transition from the regular behaviour to a turbulent state occurs around the Fresnel number $`F10`$. For Fresnel numbers $`F>15`$, the arising spatial structures are principally different from those defined by the empty-cavity Gauss-Laguerre modes. The related modal description becomes no longer relevant and the boundary conditions do not play the role any more. In the medium, there appears a large number of filaments stretched along the cavity axis. In the transverse cross-section, they are distributed chaotically. The correlation length is much shorter than the mean distance between filaments, so that they radiate independently of each other, aperiodically flashing in time. The number of filaments, contrary to the regular regime, is proportional to $`F`$. This chaotic filamentation has been observed in both photorefractive crystals \[10–12\], e.g. in Bi12SiO20, as well as in many lasers, such as Ne, Tl, Pb, N2, and N$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{2}{}^{}`$ vapor lasers \[13–17\], CO2 and dye lasers \[18–26\]. The specific random properties of the observed filamentation, such as chaotic distribution of filaments in space, the absence of correlations between them, and their aperiodic flashing, are analogous to the properties of turbulent fluids \[1–3\]. Because of this analogy of the chaotic photon filamentation in high-Fresnel-number optical media with turbulent phenomena in high-Reynolds-number viscous fluids, one commonly calls \[18–26\] the former the optical turbulence or, because of the formation of bright filaments with a high density of photons, it can be called the turbulent photon filamentation.

Contrary to the low-Fresnel number case, with regular optical structures, for which a good theoretical understanding has been achieved \[4–12\], for the high-Fresnel-number regime of the turbulent photon filamentation, there has been no persuasive theory suggested. This problem was addressed in Refs. \[27–30\]. However, because of the complexity of the phenomenon, only some oversimplified stationary models were considered. In the present paper, the description of the phenomenon of turbulent photon filamentation is suggested, based on realistic evolution equations. It has become possible to solve now this problem owing to the recently developed method for treating nonlinear differential equations, called the scale separation approach \[31–33\].

2. Turbulent photon filamentation

For the system of $`N`$ resonant atoms interacting with electromagnetic field, we use the standard dipole approximation. The evolution equations to be considered are those for the averages of atomic operators,

$$u(\stackrel{}{r},t)<\sigma ^{}(\stackrel{}{r},t)>,s(\stackrel{}{r},t)<\sigma ^z(\stackrel{}{r},t)>,$$
(1)
where $`\sigma ^{}`$ is a transition operator and $`\sigma ^z`$ is the population-difference operator. Equations for the quantities (1) can be easily obtained following the usual way, by writing the Heisenberg equations of motion, eliminating the field variables, and employing the standard semiclassical and Born approximations. All this machinery is well known and can be found, for instance, in the book . In order to present resulting equations in a compact form, it is convenient to introduce the notation $`ff_0+f_{rad}`$ for an effective field acting on an atom. This field consists of the term $`f_0i\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}_0`$, due to the cavity seed field, and of the term

$$f_{rad}(\stackrel{}{r},t)\frac{3}{4}i\gamma \rho \left[\phi (\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})u(\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)\stackrel{}{e_d}^2\phi ^{}(\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{})u^{}(\stackrel{}{r}^{},t)\right]𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{}$$
(2)
describing the effective interaction of atoms through the common radiation field. Here $`\rho `$ is the density of atoms, $`\stackrel{}{d}d_0\stackrel{}{e}_d`$ is the transition dipole, and $`\phi (\stackrel{}{r})\mathrm{exp}(ik_0|\stackrel{}{r}|)/k_0|\stackrel{}{r}|`$, with $`k_0\omega _0/c`$ and $`\gamma 4k_0^3d_0^2/3`$. The cavity seed field selecting a longitudinal propagating mode, is taken, as usual, in the form of plane waves,

$$\stackrel{}{E}_0=\stackrel{}{E}_1e^{i(kz\omega t)}+\stackrel{}{E}_1^{}e^{i(kz\omega t)}.$$

The resulting equations are

$$\frac{du}{dt}=(i\omega _0+\gamma _2)u+sf,\frac{ds}{dt}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}(u^{}f+f^{}u)\gamma _1(s\zeta ),$$

$$\frac{d|u|^2}{dt}=2\gamma _2|u|^2+s(u^{}f+f^{}u),$$
(3)
where $`\omega _0`$ is the transition frequency, $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$ are the longitudinal and transverse relaxation widths, respectively, and $`\zeta `$ is the pumping parameter.

We consider a cylindrical cavity, typical of lasers, with radius $`R`$ and length $`L`$. For the case of high Fresnel numbers $`F10`$, the cavity can house several transverse modes. Therefore, it is reasonable to look for solutions of Eqs. (3) in the form of a bunch of $`N_f`$ filaments, so that

$$u(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}u_n(\stackrel{}{r},t)\mathrm{\Theta }_n(x,y)e^{ikz},s(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{N_f}{}}s_n(\stackrel{}{r},t)\mathrm{\Theta }_n(x,y),$$
(4)
where

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_n(x,y)=\mathrm{\Theta }(b_n^2(xx_n)^2+(yy_n)^2)$$

is a unit-step function; the pair $`x_n`$ and $`y_n`$ defines the axis of a filament; and $`b_n`$ is the radial distance from the filament axis, at which the solutions decrease by an order of magnitude. If the filament profile is approximately of normal law $`\mathrm{exp}(r^2/2r_n^2)`$, with $`r_n`$ being the filament radius, then $`b_n=\sqrt{2\mathrm{ln}10}r_n`$. The filaments do not interact with each other, because of which they cannot form a regular space structure, and the locations of their axes in the transverse cross-section are random. The absence of interactions between filaments is due to the fact that the kernel $`\phi (\stackrel{}{r})`$, playing the role of a Green function in the effective interaction field (2), fastly oscillates and diminishes with increasing $`r`$. Let us stress that the presentation of solutions in the form of a bunch of filaments (4) does not exclude the possible case of a sole filament almost uniformly filling the whole sample. This is because the number of filaments and their radii will be defined in a self-consistent way. Substituting the form (4) into Eqs. (3), we obtain a system of equations for $`u_n,s_n`$, and $`|u_n|^2`$. To simplify these equations, we employ the mean-field approximation for the averages

$$u(t)\frac{1}{V_n}_{V_n}u_n(\stackrel{}{r},t)𝑑\stackrel{}{r},s(t)\frac{1}{V_n}_{V_n}s_n(\stackrel{}{r},t)𝑑\stackrel{}{r},$$
(5)
and for the similarly defined $`|u(t)|^2`$, where the integration is over the volume $`V_n\pi b_n^2L`$ of a cylinder enveloping a filament. For the simplicity of notation, the index $`n`$ labelling filaments is dropped from the left-hand sides of Eqs. (5). In this way, Eqs. (3) are transformed to the system of equations

$$\frac{du}{dt}=(i\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Gamma })uis\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}_1e^{i\omega t},$$

$$\frac{ds}{dt}=4g\gamma _2|u|^2\gamma _1(s\zeta )4\mathrm{Im}\left(u^{}\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}_1e^{i\omega t}\right),$$
(6)
$$\frac{d|u|^2}{dt}=2\mathrm{\Gamma }|u|^2+2s\mathrm{Im}\left(u^{}\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}_1e^{i\omega t}\right)$$

for the functions (5). Here the notations for the collective frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }\omega _0+g^{}\gamma _2s`$ and for the collective width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\gamma _2(1gs)`$ are used, with the effective coupling parameters

$$g\frac{3\gamma \rho }{4\gamma _2V_n}_{V_n}\frac{\mathrm{sin}[k_0|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|k(zz^{})]}{k_0|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{},$$

$$g^{}\frac{3\gamma \rho }{4\gamma _2V_n}_{V_n}\frac{\mathrm{cos}[k_0|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|k(zz^{})]}{k_0|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}𝑑\stackrel{}{r}^{},$$
(7)
Equations (6) describe the evolution of a filament. These evolution equations can be analysed by using the scale separation approach \[31–33\]. For applying the latter, we, first, take into account the existence of usual small parameters $`\gamma _1/\omega _01`$ and $`\gamma _2/\omega _01`$, and also we consider the quasiresonance case, when $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|/\omega _01`$, with the detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega \omega _0`$. Then the functional variable $`u`$ in Eqs. (6) is to be classified as fast, as compared to the slow variables $`s`$ and $`|u|^2`$. The latter are quasi-invariants for the fast variable. Following the scale separation approach \[31-33\], we solve the equation for the fast variable $`u`$, which is straightforward when $`s`$ is a quasi-invariant. The found solution for $`u`$ has to be substituted into the right-hand sides of the equations for the slow variables $`s`$ and $`|u|^2`$, with averaging these right-hand sides over explicitly entering time of fast oscillations. This procedure, complimented by the transformation

$$w|u|^2\alpha s^2,\alpha \frac{|\stackrel{}{d}\stackrel{}{E}_1|^2}{(\omega \mathrm{\Omega })^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2},$$
(8)
where $`\alpha `$ is assumed to be small, $`\alpha 1`$, leads to the equations

$$\frac{ds}{dt}=4g\gamma _2w\gamma _1(s\zeta ),\frac{dw}{dt}=2\gamma _2(1gs)w$$
(9)
for the slow variables.

The properties of solutions to Eqs. (9) essentially depend on the value of the effective coupling $`g`$ defined in Eq. (7). From this definition, it is evident that the value of $`g`$ depends on the characteristics of the considered filament, in particular, on the filament radius $`r_n`$ which enters Eq. (7) through the radius $`b_n`$ of the enveloping cylinder. It is convenient to introduce the dimensionless parameter $`\beta \pi b_n^2/\lambda L`$ and to consider $`g=g(\beta )`$ as a function of this parameter in the domain $`0\beta F`$. Thus, each filament can be characterized by its radius or, equivalently, by the related parameter $`\beta `$. The bunch of filaments parametrized by $`\beta `$ forms the solutions (4). The stability properties of filaments with different values of $`\beta `$ are different, which can be described by defining the probability distribution of patterns corresponding to filaments with $`\beta `$ varying in the interval $`[0,F]`$. The latter can be done as follows. Any system of evolution equations, like Eqs. (9), can always be presented in the normal form $`dy/dt=v`$, in which $`y=\{y_i\}`$, and $`v=\{v_i\}`$ is a velocity field. In the case of Eqs. (9), we have $`y_1s,y_2w`$.

As is known from statistical mechanics, a probability $`p`$ is connected with entropy $`S`$ by the relation $`pe^S`$. In the nonequilibrium case, it is more appropriate to count the entropy $`S(t)`$, which is a function of time, from its initial value $`S(0)`$, thus, considering the entropy variation $`\mathrm{\Delta }S(t)S(t)S(0)`$. The entropy is defined as the logarithm of an elementary phase volume, $`S(t)=\mathrm{ln}|\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }(t)|`$, where, in the nonequilibrium case, $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }(t)_j\delta y_j(t)`$. The elementary phase volume can be expressed as $`\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }(t)=_i_jM_{ij}(t)\delta y_j(0)`$ through the elements $`M_{ij}(t)\delta y_i(t)/\delta y_j(0)`$ of the multiplier matrix $`\widehat{M}(t)=[M_{ij}(t)]`$. Hence, the entropy variation is $`\mathrm{\Delta }S(t)=\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{L}`$, with the matrix $`\widehat{L}=[L_{ij}]`$ being composed of the elements $`L_{ij}\mathrm{ln}|M_{ij}|`$. By varying the evolution equations, one gets the equation $`d\widehat{M}/dt=\widehat{J}\widehat{M}`$ for the multiplier matrix $`\widehat{M}(t)`$, where $`\widehat{J}=[J_{ij}]`$ is the Jacobian matrix with the elements $`J_{ij}\delta v_i/\delta y_j`$. In this way, the probability $`pe^{\mathrm{\Delta }S}`$ acquires the form $`p\mathrm{exp}\{\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{L}\}`$. From the equation for the multiplier matrix, one has the entropy variation $`\mathrm{\Delta }S(t)=_0^tK(t^{})𝑑t^{}`$, where $`K\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{J}`$ called the contraction rate . Therefore, for the probability distribution of patterns, labelled by a parameter $`\beta `$, one obtains

$$p(\beta ,t)=\frac{1}{Z(t)}\mathrm{exp}\left\{_0^tK(\beta ,t^{})𝑑t^{}\right\},$$
(10)
where

$$Z(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left\{_0^tK(\beta ,t^{})𝑑t^{}\right\}𝑑\beta $$
(11)
is the normalization factor. As is clear, that pattern is preferred over the other which possesses a higher probability weight. This implies, because of the form (10), that the most preferable pattern is that for which the local contraction

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }(t)\frac{1}{t}_0^tK(t^{})𝑑t^{}$$
(12)
is minimal. At the initial stage of pattern formation, one may write $`p\mathrm{exp}\{K(\beta ,0)t\}`$. Hence, the most probable pattern to be formed is that corresponding to the minimal contraction rate $`K(\beta ,0)`$.

Considering the evolution equations (9), we keep in mind the standard way of exciting laser media by means of a nonresonant pumping described by the pumping parameter $`\zeta >0`$. No resonant fields are involved, so that $`s(0)<0`$. It is easy to calculate the contraction rate $`K(\beta ,0)`$ corresponding to Eqs. (9), which is

$$K(\beta ,0)=\gamma _12\gamma _2(1gs_0),$$
(13)
where $`s_0s(0)`$. The minimum of this contraction rate is provided by the maximum of $`g=g(\beta )`$. The maximum of $`g(\beta )`$, with $`g(\beta )`$ given by Eq. (7), occurs at $`\beta =0.96`$. From here we find the most probable filament radius

$$r_f=0.26\sqrt{\lambda L}.$$
(14)
The most probable number of filaments can be evaluated from the normalization integral

$$\frac{1}{V}s(\stackrel{}{r},t)𝑑\stackrel{}{r}=\zeta ,$$

where the integration runs over the whole volume of the sample, $`V=\pi R^2L`$. Considering this normalization integral for the stage when the filaments have already been formed and the population difference inside a filament of radius $`r_f`$ has reached a value close to $`\zeta `$, we obtain

$$N_f=\left(\frac{R}{r_f}\right)^2=4.71F.$$
(15)
The number of filaments is proportional to the Fresnel number $`F`$, which is common for the turbulent photon filamentation.

Calculating the filament radius $`r_f`$ for the variety of experiments with different lasers, we find that the theoretical values of $`r_f`$ are in perfect agreement with all experimental data available. Thus, for Ne, Tl, Pb, N2, and N$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{2}{}^{}`$ laser \[13–17\], we find $`r_f0.01`$ cm and for CO2 and dye lasers \[18–24\], we have $`r_f0.08`$ cm and $`r_f0.01`$ cm, respectively. It is interesting that the coefficient $`4.71`$ in the dependence (15) for the number of filaments is also in good agreement with those experiments where it was measured \[10–12\].

3. Conclusion

The solution for the problem of turbulent photon filamentation occurring in resonant media at high Fresnel numbers is suggested. The consideration is based on realistic evolution equations for resonant atoms under conditions typical of lasers. The solutions to these equations have the form corresponding to a bunch of filaments with different radii. The probability distribution of filament radii is found self-consistently from the evolution equations. The results are in good agreement with all experiments on the turbulent photon filamentation in laser media \[13–24\]. The method presented in this paper can also be employed for considering other physical systems with arising spatio-temporal structures, when one confronts the so-called problem of pattern selection.

This work has been supported by the Bogolubov-Infeld Grant of the State Agency for Atomic Energy, Poland and by a Grant of the São Paulo State Research Foundation, Brazil.


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# Acoustic scattering by a cylinder near a pressure release surface

## INTRODUCTION

Acoustic scattering by underwater objects near a pressure release boundary is a very important issue in a number of current research and applications, including the modeling of scattering from surface dwelling fish, the understanding of oceanic fluxes and ambient noises generated at ocean surface layers. It may also be of great help in models of acoustic scattering by submarines near the ocean surface.

In the literature, the research on sound scattering by underwater objects near a pressure release surface has been mainly focused on the scattering by a spherical object such as an air bubble (Refs. e. g. ). In many important applications, however, underwater objects may not take the spherical geometry. Rather they often take elongated shapes. This includes, for example, the surface dwelling fish, the floating logs in rivers, military objects, and so on. For these situations, it is desirable to study acoustic scattering by an elongated object near a boundary. By searching the literature, we find that the research along this line is surprisingly scarce. The purpose of the the present paper is to present an investigation of acoustic scattering by a cylinder of either infinite or finite length near a flat pressure-release boundary.

We consider acoustic scattering by an elongated object near a flat pressure release surface; the sea or river surface can be regarded as one of such surfaces when the acoustic wavelength is long compared to the surface wave. As a first step, for simplicity yet not to compromising the generality, we assume the object as a straight cylinder. Due to the presence of the surface, the wave will be scattered back and forth between the surface and the object before it reaches a receiver. The rescattering from the scatterer and rereflection from the surface are studied using a self-consistent method by expressing all the waves in terms of modal series. The scattering by the cylinder is thus exactly evaluated, and analyzed. The theory is first developed for an infinite cylinder, then extended to finite cylinders using the genuine approach given by Ref. . Although the theory allows us to consider a variety of cylinders, in order to show the essence of the theory in its most transparent way we focus on two important types of cylinders, that is, the air-filled and the rigid cylinders. The former can be used to model the fish while the latter may resemble some acoustic scattering characteristics of military objects.

## I. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM

The problem considered in this paper is depicted in Fig. 1. A straight cylinder is located in the water at a depth $`d`$ beneath a pressure release plane which can be the sea surface. For simplicity, we assume that the axis of the cylinder is parallel to the plane. The radius of the cylinder is $`a`$. The acoustic parameters of the cylinder are taken as: the mass density $`\rho _1`$ and sound speed $`c_1`$, while those of the surround water are $`\rho `$ and $`c`$; therefore the acoustic contrasts are $`g=\rho _1/\rho `$ and $`h=c_1/c`$. A parallel line acoustic source transmitting a wave of frequency $`\omega `$ is at $`\stackrel{}{r}_s`$ some distance away from the surface. The transmitted wave is scattered by the cylinder and reflected from the surface, as shown in Fig. 1. The reflected wave is also scattered by the cylinder. The wave scattered by the cylinder is again reflected by the surface. Such a process is repeated, establishing an infinite series of rescattering and rereflection between the cylinder and the surface. This multiple scattering process can be conveniently treated by a self-consistent manner. The rectangular frame is set up in such a way that the $`z`$-axis is parallel to the axis of the cylinder. the $`x`$-axis and $`y`$-axis are shown in Fig. 1. To solve the scattering problem, however, we use the cylindrical coordinates in the rectangular system. We note that in the present paper, for brevity we do not consider the case that the incident direction is oblique to the axis of the cylinder; the extension to oblique cases is straightforward. The setting in the problem is by analogy with that described in Ref. , where a spherical air bubble is placed beneath the flat boundary.

### A. Scattering by a cylinder of infinite length

In this section, we present a formulation for sound scattering by an infinite cylinder near a pressure-release boundary. For succinctness, we only show the most essential steps in the derivation. First the direct wave from the line source can be written as

$$p_{inc}=i\pi H_0^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_s|),$$
(1)
with $`k`$ being the wave number of the transmitted wave ($`k=\omega /c`$), and $`H_0^{(1)}`$ being the zero-th order Hankel function of the first kind. The reason why we choose to use the line source is that it can easily used to include the usual plane wave situation; for this we just need to put the source at a place so that $`k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_s|>>1`$. Due to the presence of the pressure release surface, the reflection from the surface of the direct wave can be regarded as coming from an image source located symmetrically about the surface, and is written as

$$p_r=i\pi H_0^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_{si}|),$$
(2)
where $`\stackrel{}{r}_{si}`$ is the vector coordinate for the image, which is at the parity position about the plane.

The scattered wave from the cylinder can be generally written as

$$p_{s1}=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_nH_n^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1}},$$
(3)
where $`A_n`$ are the coefficients to be determined later, $`H_n^{(1)}`$ are the $`n`$-th order Hankel functions of the first kind, and $`\varphi `$ is the azimuthal angle that sweeps through the plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the cylinder. According to Brekhovskikh, the effect of the boundary on the cylinder can be represented by introducing an image cylinder located at the mirror symmetry site about the plane surface. The rereflection and rescattering between the surface and the cylinder can be represented by the multiple scattering between the cylinder and its image. The scattered wave from this image can be similarly written as

$$p_{s2}=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}B_nH_n^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_2|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_2}},$$
(4)
where $`\stackrel{}{r}_2`$ is the location of the image of the cylinder, which is symmetric about the pressure-release plane. At the pressure release surface, the boundary condition requires $`p_{s1}+p_{s2}=0`$, leading to

$$B_n=A_n,$$
(5)
where we have used the relations

$$\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1}=\pi \varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_2},\text{and}H_n^{(1)}(x)=(1)^nH_n^{(1)}(x).$$

Similarly the wave inside the cylinder can be written as

$$p_{in}=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_nJ_n(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1}}.$$
(6)
Again, $`C_n`$ are the unknown coefficients, and $`J_n`$ are the $`n`$-th order Bessel functions of the first kind.

To solve for the unknown coefficients $`A_n`$ (thus $`B_n`$) and $`C_n`$, we employ the boundary conditions at the surface of the cylinder. For the purpose, we express all wave fields in the coordinates with respect to the position of the cylinder. This can be achieved by using the addition theorem for the Hankel functions

$$H_n^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}^{}}}=e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}^{}}}\underset{l=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}H_{nl}^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}^{}|)e^{il\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}^{}}}J_l(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1|)e^{il\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1}},$$
(7)
where $`\stackrel{}{r}^{}`$ can either be the location of the source by setting $`\stackrel{}{r}^{}=\stackrel{}{r}_s`$, the location of the image of the source with $`\stackrel{}{r}^{}=\stackrel{}{r}_{si}`$, or the location of the image of the cylinder with $`\stackrel{}{r}^{}=\stackrel{}{r}_2`$. The boundary conditions on the surface of the cylinder state that both the acoustic field and the radial displacement be continuous across the interface. Applying the addition theorem to the expressions for the concerned waves in Eqs. (1), (2), (4), and (6), then plugging them into the boundary conditions, and after a careful calculation, we are led to the following equation

$$D_l\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_ne^{i(nl)\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2}}H_{nl}^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_2|)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_lA_l,$$
(8)
where we have used

$$B_n=A_n.$$

In Eq. (8), we derived

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_l=\frac{H_l^{(1)}(ka)J_l^{}(ka/h)ghH_{l}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}(ka)J_l(ka/h)}{J_l(ka)J_l^{}(ka/h)ghJ_l^{}(ka)J_l(ka/h)},$$
(9)
and

$$D_l=i\pi \left[H_l^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_s|)e^{il\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_s}}H_l^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_{si}|)e^{il\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}_1\stackrel{}{r}_{si}}}\right].$$
(10)
The coefficients $`A_n`$ are thus determined by a set of self-consistent equations in (8). Once $`A_n`$ are found, the total scattered wave can be evaluated from

$`p_s`$ $`=`$ $`p_{s1}+p_{s2}`$ (11)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[A_nH_n^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_1}}+B_nH_n^{(1)}(k|\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_2|)e^{in\varphi _{\stackrel{}{r}\stackrel{}{r}_2}}\right].`$
In the far field limit, $`r\mathrm{}`$, by expanding the Hankel functions, we have

$`p_s`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi r}}}e^{ikr}{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}e^{i(n\pi /2+\pi /4)}\left[A_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}+B_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_2\widehat{r}}\right]e^{in\varphi _\stackrel{}{r}}`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\pi r}}}Qe^{ikr},`$
where we define

$$Q\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{i(n\pi /2+\pi /4)}\left[A_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}+B_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_2\widehat{r}}\right]e^{in\varphi _\stackrel{}{r}},$$
(13)
with $`B_n=A_n`$, as a measure of the scattering strength.

### B. Scattering by a cylinder of finite length

In practice, we are often concerned with acoustic scattering by objects of finite length. Here we consider the scattering by a finite cylinder beneath a flat pressure release surface such as the sea plane. The problem of acoustic scattering by a finite object has been difficult enough, let alone the presence of a boundary. Exact solutions only exist for simply shaped objects. Approximate methods have been developed. A review on various methods for computing sound scattering by an isolated elongated object is presented in Ref. . In this section, we extend the cylinder-method proposed in Ref. , devised for an isolated cylinder, to the present case of a cylinder near a boundary. The reason for choosing this method is that it has been verified both theoretically and experimentally that this method is reasonably accurate for a wide range of situations. This is particularly true for the scenarios discussed in the present paper.

From the Kirchhoff integral theorem, the scattering function from any scatter can be evaluated from

$$f(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=\frac{e^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}}{4\pi }_S𝑑s^{}e^{ik\stackrel{}{r}^{}\widehat{r}}\stackrel{}{n}\left[_r^{}p_s(\stackrel{}{r}^{})+ik\widehat{r}p_s(\stackrel{}{r}^{})\right],$$
(14)
where $`\stackrel{}{n}`$ is an outwardly directed unit vector normal to the surface, and $`\widehat{r}`$ is the unit vector in the scattering direction defined as $`\widehat{r}=\stackrel{}{r}/r`$. Function $`f(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)`$ refers to the scattering function for incident direction at $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ implicit in the scattering field $`p_s(\stackrel{}{r})`$ and the scattering direction $`\widehat{r}`$.

First we consider the scattering from the cylinder. Then in Eq. (14), the field $`p_s`$ is the scattering field taking values at the surface of scatterer. According to , this can be mimicked by that of an infinite cylinder of the same radius. On the surface of the cylinder (not the image), from Eq. (3) the scattered field can be expressed as

$$p_{s1}=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_nH_n^{(1)}(ka)e^{in\varphi },$$
(15)
and

$$\stackrel{}{n}_r^{}p_{s1}=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}A_nkH_{n}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}(ka)e^{in\varphi }.$$
(16)
Then the integral for the scattering function of the cylinder, using Eq. (14), becomes

$$f^c(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}f_n(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i),$$
(17)
with

$`f_n(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{aLA_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}𝑑\varphi e^{ika\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{scat}\varphi )}`$ (18)
$`\times \left[ik\mathrm{cos}(\varphi _{scat}\varphi )H_n^{(1)}(ka)e^{in\varphi }+kH_{n}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}(ka)e^{in\varphi }\right],`$
where $`\varphi _{scat}`$ is the scattering angle with respect to $`x`$axis (i. e. $`\varphi _{scat}=\varphi _\stackrel{}{r}`$).

Using integral identities

$$_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi e^{ika\mathrm{cos}(\varphi \varphi _{scat})}e^{in\varphi }=2\pi (i)^nJ_n(ka)e^{in\varphi _{scat}},$$
(19)
and

$$_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi e^{ika\mathrm{cos}(\varphi \varphi _{scat})}\mathrm{cos}(\varphi \varphi _{scat})e^{in\varphi }=2\pi (i)^niJ_n^{}(ka)e^{in\varphi _{scat}},$$
(20)
we can reduce Eq. (18) to

$$f_n(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=\frac{kaL(i)^nA_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}}{2}e^{in\varphi _{scat}}\left[H_n^{(1)}(ka)^{}J_n(ka)H_n^{(1)}(ka)J_n^{}(ka)\right].$$
(21)
By the Wronskian identity

$$[J_n(x)H_{n}^{(1)}{}_{}{}^{}(x)J_n^{}(x)H_n^{(1)}(x)]=\frac{2i}{\pi x},$$
(22)
Eq. (21) becomes

$$f_n(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=\frac{i(i)^nLA_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}}{\pi }e^{in\varphi _{scat}}.$$
(23)
The scattering from the image of the cylinder can be considered in the same spirit. We thus obtain

$$f^i(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=\underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{i(i)^nLB_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_2\widehat{r}}}{\pi }e^{in\varphi _{scat}}.$$
(24)
The total scattering function is

$`f(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(i)^{n+1}LA_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}}{\pi }}+{\displaystyle \frac{(i)^{n+1}LB_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_2\widehat{r}}}{\pi }}\right]e^{in\varphi _{scat}}`$ (25)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\left(A_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_1\widehat{r}}+B_ne^{ik\stackrel{}{r}_2\widehat{r}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{(i)^{n+1}Le^{in\varphi _{scat}}}{\pi }}.`$
The reduced differential scattering cross section is

$$\sigma (\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)=|f(\stackrel{}{r},\stackrel{}{r}_i)/L|^2.$$
(26)
The reduced target strength is evaluated from

$$\text{TS}=10\mathrm{log}_{10}(\sigma ).$$
(27)
This equation bears much similarity with the scattering strength for the infinite cylinder given in Eq. (13). In the following section, we should compute the target strength for finite cylinders near a pressure release boundary. In particularly, we are interested in the situation of backscattering, in which the scattering direction is opposite to the incident direction, i. e. $`\stackrel{}{r}=\stackrel{}{r}_i`$.

## II. NUMERICAL RESULTS

Some interesting properties are found for acoustic scattering by a cylindrical object beneath a flat pressure release plane. Two kinds of cylinders are considered: air-filled and rigid cylinders.

Let us first consider the sound scattering by an air-filled cylinder of length $`L`$. Although the theory developed in the last section allows the study of scattering for arbitrary incident and scattering angles, we will first concentrate on backscattering. In addition, without notification we will consider the incident at an angle of $`\pi /4`$ with respect to the normal to the flat surface. Fig. 2 shows the reduced backscattering target strength in an arbitrary unit as a function of frequency in terms of the non-dimensional parameter $`ka`$. The cylinder is placed at the depths of $`d/a=1,2,4,8`$, and $`16`$ respectively. For comparison, the situation that the boundary is absent is also plotted. Without boundary, the scattering by a single cylinder has a resonant peak at about $`ka=0.005`$. When a flat pressure-plane is added, the scattering from the cylinder will be greatly suppressed for most frequencies under consideration, except for the resonance. At the resonance, the scattering is in fact enhanced by the presence of the surface. This is a unique feature for the cylinder situation. Another effect of the boundary is to shift the resonance peak of the cylinder towards higher frequencies. As the distance between the cylinder and the surface is decreased, the position of the peak moves further towards higher frequencies, and the resonance peak is becoming narrower and narrower. Before the resonance peak, there is a prominent dip in the scattering strength. For the extreme case that the cylinder touches the boundary, the significant dip appears immediately before the resonance. This dip is not observed in the case of a spherical bubble beneath a boundary.

When the distance between the cylinder and the surface is increased, the resonance peak moves to lower frequencies until reaching that of the cylinder without a boundary. In Fig. 3, the reduced target strength is plotted against $`ka`$ for $`d/a=25,50,`$ and 100. Here we see that, as the cylinder is moved further from the surface, regular oscillatory features appear in the scattering strength around the values without the boundary. The observed peaks and nulls are mainly due to interference effects between the cylinder and the boundary, as these oscillatory features persist even when the multiple scattering is turned off. The nulls, appearing at some frequency intervals, are more numerous and are spaced more closely together as the cylinder is moved away from the boundary. The peak and null structures are somewhat in accordance with the Lloyd’s mirror effect. These features are in analogy with the results shown for the case of a spherical bubble beneath the boundary . However, there is a distinct difference. Namely, the separation between the peaks or between the nulls decreases as the frequency increases.

We have also studied the contributions from different oscillation modes of a cylinder to the scattering. From Eq. (27), it is clear that the scattering is contributed from various vibration modes and the contributions are represented by the summation in which the index $`n`$ denotes the modes. We find that when the cylinder is located far enough from the surface, the scattering is dominated by $`n=0`$ mode for low frequencies (e. g. $`ka<1`$); mode $`n=0`$ is the omni-directional pulsating mode of the cylinder, i. e. its scattering is uniform in every direction. When the cylinder is moved close to the surface, higher vibration modes become important. These properties are illustrated in Fig. 4. For the extreme case that the cylinder touches the boundary as shown in Fig. 4(a), the result from including only $`n=0`$ mode is compared with that including all modes. It is interesting to see that the effect of coupling the pulsating mode with other modes is only to shift the resonance and dip peaks. For low frequencies away from the resonance and the dip, the effect from higher models is not evident. As the cylinder is move away from the surface, the effect of higher modes gradually decreases. For the case $`d/a=4`$, the effect of higher modes (i. e. $`|n|2`$) virtually diminished.

The effects of the incident angle on the back scattering is shown by Fig. 5. The results show that the scattering is highly anisotropic except at the scattering dip and peak positions; note the scale used in plotting Fig. 5. The fact that the scattering dip does not rely on the incident angle implies that it is not caused by the Lloyd mirror effect. This is because if it were due to the Lloyd mirror effect, different incident angles would lead to different acoustic paths in reflection and incidence and thus result in different phases, causing the scattering pattern to vary.

Next we consider scattering from a rigid cylinder beneath a pressure release boundary. For the rigid cylinder, in contrast to the air cylinder case, the scattering is not so significantly reduced by the presence of the surface. Instead, it is interesting that the presence of the surface in fact can enhance the scattering strength for most frequencies, except for the frequencies at which the Lloyd effect comes into function. This enhancement is particularly obvious in the low frequency regime. Similar to the air cylinder case, when the distance is large enough, the Lloyd mirror effect causes the scattering strength to oscillate around the values without the boundary for low frequencies. Fig. 6 shows that for low frequencies, the frequency dependence of the scattering is similar for different distances between the cylinder and the surface. For high frequencies, e. g. $`ka>0.4`$, the multiple scattering is evident and is shown to increase the scattering strength.

The backscattering by the rigid cylinder under the boundary is anisotropic. This is illustrated in Fig. 7, which shows the backscattering target strength as a function of $`ka`$ for different incidence angles. The separation between he cylinder and the surface is $`d/a=4`$, and the incidence angle is measured with respect to the $`x`$-axis, referring to Fig. 1. For low frequencies, i. e. $`ka<0.1`$, the scattering is strongest when the incidence is normal to the surface (i. e. for the zero degree incidence). Different from the above air cylinder case, the dips in the scattering strength depend on the incident angles.

Finally we consider the bistatic scattering. The scattering is in the $`xy`$ plane (See Fig. 1). We fix the incident angle at $`45`$ degree with respect to the normal to the boundary. The scattering azimuthal angle is measured from the negative direction of the $`x`$-axis (Referring to Fig. 1). Fig. 8 shows the scattering angle dependence of the bistatic scattering target strength for the air filled and rigid cylinders respectively. It is interesting to see that when the frequency is low, the scattering tends to be symmetric around the normal to the boundary, i. e. the zero degree scattering angle, for both the air-filled and rigid cylinders. The scattering is strongest at the zero scattering angles. This result indicates that when the frequency is low, the scattering from a cylinder near a boundary bears similar properties of the acoustic radiation from a dipole source, independent of the incident angle. This feature seems against the intuition at the first sight, but can be understood as follows. The scattering from a target can be regarded as a second source radiating waves into the space. From, for instance, Eq. (3), we know that the radiated wave consists of the contributions from all vibration modes of the cylinder. The mode of $`n=0`$ is the monopole which radiates an omni-directional wave. At low frequencies, this monopole radiation dominates. In the low frequency regime, both the cylinder and its image radiate waves but in the opposite phase. If the monopole mode dominates, the resulting radiation should appear as that from a dipole source: the strongest radiation is along the dipole axis. This is in fact exactly what is shown by Fig. 8. Comparing Figs. 5 with 7, however, the fact that the bacskscattering relies on the incident angle indicates that the overall bistatic scattering does depend on the incident angle. When the frequency is increased to a certain extent, the bistatic scattering pattern is no longer symmetric around the normal to the boundary.

## III. SUMMARY

In this paper, we considered acoustic scattering by cylinders near a pressure-release boundary. A novel method has been developed to describe the multiple scattering between the boundary and the cylinder in terms of an infinite modal series. The complete solution has been derived. Although the theory developed allows for study of various cylinders, for brevity only the cases of air-filled and rigid cylinders are considered. The numerical results show that the presence of the boundary modifies the scattering strength in various ways. One of the most significant discoveries is that the present of the surface can greatly suppress the scattering from ‘soft’ targets while may enhance rigid bodies. In addition, comparison has been made with the previously investigated case of a spherical air-bubble beneath a pressure-release boundary. The study presented here may link to various applications such as acoustic scattering from ocean-surface dwelling fish or from any underwater elongated objects including submarine.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The work received support from the National Science Council.


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# Interference enhanced polarization entanglement and the concept of an Entangled-Photon Laser

## Abstract

Inspired by laser operation, we address the question of whether stimulated emission into polarization entangled modes can be achieved. We describe a state produced by stimulated emission of the singlet Bell state and propose a setup for creating it. As a first important step towards an entangled-photon laser we demonstrate experimentally interference-enhanced polarization entanglement.

In the past two decades there has been a wealth of fascinating experiments on the production and applications of entangled photons. Whereas the earlier research mainly focused on fundamental tests of quantum mechanics Clauser ; Aspect2 ; OuMandel ; Shih ; Kwiat1 , the recently emerged field of quantum-information science added an unexpected twist to the research leading to intriguing topics such as entanglement-based quantum cryptography Ekert1 ; Ekert2 ; Jennewein ; Tittel , and quantum teleportation Bennett1 ; Popescu ; Bouwmeester1 ; Boschi . See Ref. Springer  for an overview and Refs. Brendel ; Weihs ; Pan1  for recent fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. So far, mainly pairs of entangled photons, produced by parametric down-conversion inside non-linear crystals OuMandel ; Shih ; kim:00 ; Kwiat1 ; Kwiat2 ; Kwiat3 ; Atature  have been used in the experiments and only few experiments addressed three- and four-photon quantum correlations Pan1 ; Pan2 ; Bouwmeester2 ; Ou ; Martini1 . At the other end of the optical energy range, where the number of photons is large and the optical fields can be described by in- and out-of-phase amplitudes with respect to a classical electro-magnetic field, quantum correlations may still play an important role. For example, squeezed light fields Slusher ; Wu  can be used to create entangled light beams (entangled in the noise-level of the quadrature components Ou2  and to implement quantum teleportation Vaidman ; Braunstein ; Furusawa .

The nature of the quantum correlations at the few photon level and at the high-intensity level are very different. For entangled photons the quantum correlation is between degrees of freedom for each particle (e.g. their polarization degrees of freedom). On the other hand, the quantum correlation at the high-intensity level is between photon numbers in the entangled modes.

In this Letter, we introduce the notion of laser-like operation for polarization entangled photons. The quantum correlations will be both between the polarization degree of freedom for each particle and between the photon numbers in the entangled modes. Therefore, the proposed device will operate in the new and virtually unexplored regime of many-particle entanglement.

As the acronym LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) indicates, entangled laser operation would mean that a (spontaneously created) photon pair in two polarization-entangled modes stimulate, inside a non-linear gain medium, the emission of additional pairs. For this process a non-linear gain medium is required for which we consider type-II parametric down conversion Kwiat2 . A simplified interaction Hamiltonian Kok ; Simon  for the nonlinear interaction between a classical pump field and two polarization-entangled modes is given by

$$\widehat{H}_{\text{int}}=e^{i\varphi }\kappa \widehat{K}^{}+e^{i\varphi }\kappa \widehat{K},$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{K}^{}(\widehat{a}_h^{}\widehat{b}_v^{}\widehat{a}_v^{}\widehat{b}_h^{})`$ and $`\widehat{K}(\widehat{a}_h\widehat{b}_v\widehat{a}_v\widehat{b}_h),`$ are the creation and annihilation operators of polarization entangled photon pairs in modes $`a`$ and $`b`$. Horizontal and vertical polarization are represented by $`h`$ and $`v`$, and $`\kappa `$ is a real-valued coupling coefficient. When acting on the vacuum state the time evolution operator $`\widehat{U}=\mathrm{exp}(i\widehat{H}t/\mathrm{})`$ yields Kok

$$\widehat{U}(\tau )|0=e^q\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}r^n\left(\underset{m=0}{\overset{n}{}}(1)^m|nm,m;m,nm\right),$$
(2)
where $`\tau \frac{\kappa t}{\mathrm{}}`$, $`r\mathrm{tanh}\tau `$ and $`q2\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{cosh}\tau )`$. We used the shorthand notation $`|i,j;k,l`$ for $`|i_{ah}|j_{av}|k_{bh}|l_{bv}`$ and $`|0`$ represents $`|0,0;0,0`$. The fact that for a given $`n`$, all terms in Eq. (2) have equal absolute amplitudes is the result of stimulated emission. This is in contrast to the state obtained by the product of $`n`$ entangled pairs in the $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ state, which would yield a binomial distribution over the terms. An important consequence of the equally weighted terms for a given $`n`$ is that they form a highly polarisation entangled state of $`2n`$ photons. In addition the state (2) is entangled in photon numbers in the two modes, though only weakly since the terms with different $`n`$’s have different weights $`r^n`$ ($`r<1`$).

The state described in Eq. (2) would be a desirable output for what we call a polarization entangled-photon laser. It has similar features to the output of a conventional laser, in the sense that the photon number distribution broadens and shifts its peak as the average number of photons increases in marked contrast to the behaviour of a thermal or squeezing distribution. It does not however approach a stationary state, because no loss mechanisms are included in the description. In a conventional laser the intra-cavity photons can be seen as copies of one another (except for the one spontaneously emitted photon in the mode), which implies that a conventional laser can operate with continuous outcoupling. In contrast, the photons in a polarization entangled-photon laser form one complex entangled state. Therefore the entangled fields first have to build up inside a high finesse resonator and then they have to be switched out. This requires a pulsed laser operation.

At the heart of our design for an entangled photon laser is the bow-tie cavity, shown in Fig. 1(a). The reason for this design is two-fold. First, since we consider non-collinear down-conversion the modes diverge out of the gain region and have to be redirected into the non-linear interaction region in order to achieve efficient stimulated emission. Second, the two entangled modes are counter propagating modes in the same resonator and therefore experience exactly the same path length and mode structure. By including a $`\lambda /2`$ wave plate in the resonator, such that the vertical and horizontal field components will interchange every round trip, each photon will also experience exactly the same birefringence and spatial walk off as any other photon. Therefore, the bow-tie ring resonator together with the $`\lambda /2`$ wave plate guarantees the indistinguishability of all photons created throughout the amplification process which is the key to obtaining optimal entanglement. The resonator has to be interferometrically stable with respect to the phase of the pump laser pulses because the parametric down-conversion can be considered as a phase-dependent gain mechanism.

There are many experimental complications to be overcome before an entangled photon laser can be built, but as a first experimental feasibility study of the main operation mechanism we reduced the design to the double-pass configuration shown in Fig. 1(b). Photon pairs in the singlet $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{}`$ Bell-state can be created in the first and second pass of a noncollinear type-II parametric down-conversion crystal. Since the creation is rather inefficient, we restrict our attention to the observation of resonant enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate which is an adequate measure of how well the indistinguishability requirements can be met.

The time-evolution operator for the two-pass system is given by

$$\widehat{U}=\widehat{U}_2\widehat{U}_1=e^{\tau (e^{i\theta }\widehat{K}_2^{}e^{i\theta }\widehat{K}_2)}e^{\tau (\widehat{K}_1^{}\widehat{K}_1)}$$
(3)
where $`\theta =\varphi +\pi /2`$ and the subscripts on $`\widehat{K}`$ denote on which pass they operate. Expanding to first order yields

$$\widehat{U}=1+\tau \widehat{K}_1^{}+e^{i\theta }\tau \widehat{K}_2^{}$$
(4)
where the terms containing $`\widehat{K}`$ are neglected, since they yield zero when they operate on the vacuum. If the entangled photon pairs created by $`\widehat{K}_1^{}`$ and $`\widehat{K}_2^{}`$ are indistinguishable, then

$$\widehat{U}=1+\tau \widehat{K}^{}(1+e^{i\theta }).$$
(5)
Equation (5) is most easily understood as an interference pattern of two polarization-entangled photon-pair amplitudes. Generalizing for $`n`$ passes, the result is that the probability for obtaining a pair of entangled photons scales as $`n^2`$ for indistinguishable fields and as $`n`$ for distinguishable fields.

In addition to the general design of the counter-propagating entangled-mode configuration and the $`\lambda /2`$ wave-plate, two 1mm BBO crystals, rotated by 90 with respect to the main BBO crystal, and narrow-bandwidth filters f1 and f2 have been included in the detection stage in order to complete the birefringence and temporal walk-off compensation Kwiat2 ; Zukowski .

Figure 2(a) shows the detected number of polarization-entangled photon pairs as function of the difference in path length between the entangled-photon feed-back loop and the delay of the reflected pump-pulse. Figure 2(b) shows that inside the region of interference, the coincidence rate oscillates with a period corresponding to half the wavelength of the pump field milonni:96 .

The entanglement was assesed by looking at the visibility of the coincidence rate variation as function of the difference in angle between the polarizers in front of detectors D1 and D2 (see Fig. 3). In particular we fix one of the polarizers at $`45^0`$ and thus avoid the experimentally favoured basis $`H`$, $`V`$. This visibility was measured both in the maximum overlap and in the no overlap region with results of 0.92 and 0.83 respectively. The higher quality obtained when the two passes are indistinguishable can be explained as a by-product of the exchange in polarization in the feedback loop. This has the additional effect of eliminating the spectral distinguishability branning:99  between the down-converted photons. In conclusion, the high interference contrast indicates that the experimental setup operates under the important indistinguishability requirements between pairs created at different times.

Related experiments on interference enhanced emission and stimulated emission of photon pairs that are not entangled in polarization have been reported and analysed in Refs. Ou ; Herzog ; milonni:96 . Experiments and theory involving single-photon injection into type-II crystals (rather than pair-photon injection as presented in this letter) have been reported in Ref. Martini1 ; Martini2 .

Having demonstrated the feasibility of one of the main mechanisms of an entangled photon laser we now briefly discuss what the prospects are for the construction and possible applications of an operational device. First of all, just like squeezing experiments, the device will be very sensitive to loss, both in the generation of the entangled output modes as well as during the propagation and detection of the output state. With current technology it is possible to obtain a round-trip cavity loss of 2-3% (including switching elements) and a pair-photon creation efficiency of 0.5 per pump pulse per pass of the nonlinear material. Under these conditions polarization-entangled output modes with 10 to 1000 photons per pulse are conceivable. With the current advances in ultra low-loss optical fibres and high efficiency multiphoton detectors kim:99  the transmission and analysis of the produced state might not be too daunting. However, despite ingeneuos experimental progress, we will always have to face the situation of losing photons in the process of creating, transporting and analyzing the desired state (2). Since the desired state is one large complex entangled state (entangled in polarization and photon numbers) one might think that loss destroys all the intersting properties of the state. However, on the contrary, the complex entanglement has the remarkable feature that the loss or measurement of one (or more) particles does not eliminate all the entanglement between the remaining particles. To illustrate this important property let us focus on the (un-normalised) four-particle terms in Eq (2): $`|2,0;0,2|1,1;1,1+|0,2;2,0`$. Consider the case that a polarisation measurement in the H, V basis is made on one particle, say in mode $`a`$, and the measurement result is $`h`$. The state of the remaining three particles will be $`\sqrt{2}|1,0;0,2|0,1;1,1`$ which contains (non-maximally) three-particle entanglement. This feature of robustness seems to indicate a connection with *high entanglement persistency* states Briegel .

In this letter we introduced the concept of an entangled photon laser and studied crucial experimental aspects of its construction. Currently we are exploring the multi-particle correlations of the entangled photon laser for novel secure quantum communication, quantum cloning Simon , and entanglement purification Geze .

Acknowledgements

We thank Piero Varisco and William Irvine for their experimental support. This work was supported by the EPSRC GR/M88976 and the European QuComm (ISI-1999-10033) projects.


text:
# 1 Grancanonical response versus correlation.

Ricci-Tersenghi et al. reply: In their comment  to our paper  de Candia and Coniglio show evidence that the equilibrium overlap distribution $`P(q)`$ of the frustrated Ising lattice gas (FILG), do not coincide with the one that could be estimated from the off-equilibrium correlation and response functions presented in , for low temperatures and large chemical potentials. From the theoretical point of view one expects the relation between static and dynamic quantities to hold as long as one-time observables (like energy or density) converge to the equilibrium values .

In order to clarify what is happening in the glassy phase of the FILG, we have performed a new large set of simulations, working mainly at $`\beta J=\mathrm{}`$ and $`\beta \mu =10`$. At equilibrium we find a $`P(q)`$ with two clear peaks and a continuous part in between (like in ). Whether the continuous part disappears in the thermodynamical limit, thus suggesting a one step replica symmetry broken (RSB) solution, is hard to decide at present.

In the out of equilibrium regime (quenching from $`\beta \mu =\mathrm{}`$ to $`\beta \mu =10`$) we have repeated all the experiments presented in , but now letting the density grow even after the waiting time $`t_w`$. The results (see Fig. 1) are indeed different from those where the density is kept fixed after time $`t_w`$. In Fig. 1 we clearly see that for large waiting times the agreement between static and dynamic susceptibilities is very good indicating that the system is not trapped in any long-lived metastable state.

Still the open question is why in the experiments presented in  (and confirmed in ) the responses are so different and seem not to be related to the corresponding static susceptibilities. The answer is related to the sudden change of dynamics at time $`t_w`$: up to $`t_w`$ we evolved the system in a grancanonical ensemble where the density tends to increase thanks to the large chemical potential, while after time $`t_w`$ we kept the density fixed, allowing the system evolve only in a canonical ensemble. In order to verify this hypothesis we have done the following numerical experiment: after quenching the system we let it evolve for $`t_w`$ time steps within the grancanonical ensemble and for $`\alpha t_w`$ more in the canonical one. Finally at time $`(1+\alpha )t_w`$ we switch the field on and we measure the response \[always with a fixed density $`\rho (t_w)`$\]. For $`\alpha =0`$ we recover the behavior reported in . Nevertheless for large $`\alpha `$ the system “forgets” the drastic change of the dynamics done at time $`t_w`$, thermalizing in the canonical ensemble at a fixed density $`\rho (t_w)`$ and the dynamical susceptibilities are in agreement with the static ones measured at the same density as can be seen in Fig. 2.

It must be emphasized that, in both figures, the off-equilibrium results obtained with $`L=40`$ systems are still compatible with linear fits and that the curvature of the static result ($`L=10`$) may show strong finite size effects.

Concluding, we have shown that the link between static and dynamic susceptibilities is valid on the time scales we can reach in our simulations for both the canonical and the grancanonical ensembles. Regarding the kind of RSB solution present in the glassy phase of the 3d FILG (whether it is characterized by one or infinite RSB steps), we believe that further studies are needed in order to clarify this point. The model still seems to be a good candidate for a 3d system with 1-RSB.

F. Ricci-Tersenghi1, G. Parisi2, D.A. Stariolo3 and J.J. Arenzon3

1 Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste (Italy)
2 Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Roma (Italy)
3 Univ. Fed. Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre RS (Brazil)


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# Probing the Early Universe with the S-Z Effect

The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) we observe today provides a window to an early stage in our universe’s evolution, when the expanding universe had cooled to the point that free electrons and ionized nuclei recombined to form atoms. Before recombination, scattering between photons and free electrons was frequent, and the distance that light could penetrate was small; afterward, with free electrons out of circulation, the universe became largely transparent to light. Small variations in the CMBR intensity trace small perturbations in the primordial matter density, which have been amplified by gravitational forces to form the magnificent, complex structures that make up the present-day universe.

In certain massive objects, however, interactions between CMBR photons and free electrons continue to play an important cosmological role. The largest gravitationally collapsed structures in the universe are clusters of galaxies with masses up to 100,000 times greater than the mass of our galaxy, the Milky Way. At optical wavelengths, clusters are beautiful objects consisting of thousands of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, all bound together by a strong gravitational field. The galaxies and stars, however, only account for a few percent of the total mass. Most of the normal (baryonic) matter resides in the hot ($`100`$ million K) gas that permeates the galaxy cluster. When CMBR photons interact with the free electrons in this ionized gas, a unique feature–the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect–is imprinted on the spectrum of the microwave background. This feature proves to be of fundamental importance for cosmology.

The interaction of a CMBR photon with a hot cluster electron will, on average, cause the photon to gain a small amount of energy. A cluster of galaxies contains a tremendous amount of gas ($`10^{14}`$ times the mass of our sun), but the probability that a CMBR photon will interact with an electron in the cluster gas is nevertheless small. The SZ effect is therefore subtle, changing the brightness of the CMBR spectrum by at most 0.1%. This spectral distortion has a distinct signature: In the low-frequency part of the CMBR spectrum, the SZ scattering process causes the brightness of the CMBR to be diminished toward galaxy clusters, producing ”holes” in the background radiation field (see the left panel in the first figure). The scattered photons are shifted to higher energies, producing an excess in the high-frequency part of the CMBR spectrum (see the right panel in the first figure).

The SZ effect was first proposed 30 years ago (1, 2) but proved exceptionally difficult to detect. Accurate measurements are now possible with experimental techniques developed over the last decade (3, 4). The SZ effect has been used to independently determine the expansion rate of the universe (Hubble’s constant) and the matter density of the universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$).

The ability to determine these important cosmological quantities rests on the fact that the magnitude of the SZ effect is proportional to the total number of free electrons contained in the cluster, weighted by their temperature. An accurate measure of the SZ effect thus leads to an estimate of the cluster gas mass, provided that the gas temperature is known. This temperature is obtained from the x-ray emission spectrum of the hot gas, from which we can infer the kinetic energy and the total mass required to bind the cluster together. It is then possible to determine the fraction of normal matter to total matter contained within galaxy clusters; this fraction is important because the composition of objects as large and massive as galaxy clusters should reflect the composition of the universe as a whole. Finally, the total matter density of the universe is obtained by scaling the measured baryon density of the universe (5) by the baryon fraction derived from SZ effect measurements.

Like other recent techniques, the SZ effect observations indicate that the mass density of the universe, including the mysterious dark matter, is quite low: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$$`0.25`$ (6, 7). This measured mass density accounts for only 25% of the critical density in a flat universe, which is inferred from recent CMBR anisotropy measurements (8-10). This suggests that about 75% of the present energy density in the universe is in some as yet undiscovered form.

The expansion rate of the universe, Hubble’s constant, can be determined by combining the SZ effect and x-ray measurements. The strength of the x-ray emission is proportional to the square of the gas density, in contrast to the SZ effect, which is linearly proportional to the gas density. A combination of the two measurements allows the gas density and cluster distance to be determined; the expansion rate is then obtained by dividing the cluster’s recessional velocity by its distance. SZ effect and x-ray observations of a large sample of galaxy clusters currently under way (3, 4, 11, 12) will provide an independent measurement of the Hubble constant.

Unlike most emission mechanisms, the brightness of the SZ effect depends only on the properties of the cluster gas and not on cluster distance. It will soon be possible to exploit this powerful and unusual property to explore the distant universe. The SZ effect will be used to determine the abundance and evolution of massive galaxy clusters from the time of their formation to the present, which reflect the underlying cosmological parameters of the universe (see the second figure). A large-area interferometric SZ effect survey will be able to detect massive galaxy clusters at whatever epoch they have formed (13, 14). Present theories, which assume that the initial spectrum of density fluctuations has a normal (Gaussian) distribution, predict that massive clusters should not have formed at redshifts $`z3`$, but this has not yet been confirmed experimentally (a higher redshift corresponds to a larger cluster distance and to an earlier period in the evolution of the universe). If large non-Gaussian fluctuations existed in the early universe, then clusters will have formed at earlier epochs than currently predicted. Because the SZ effect is independent of distance, results of SZ effect surveys will provide an incisive test of theories of the structure and evolution of the universe, as well as an independent determination of fundamental cosmological parameters.
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# Acknowledgment

## Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Professor Koichi Yamawaki for collaboration in Ref.  on which this talk is based. I would be grateful to the organizers for giving me an opportunity to present this talk.