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# …

## 1 Introduction

As in the 80’s the Einstein X-ray observatory discovered the high X-ray variability of low-mass pre-main sequence stars, called T Tauri stars, the ROSAT satellite reported in the 90’s the first clues of the X-ray activity of younger stellar objects ($`10^5`$ yr), called Class I protostars (Feigelson & Montmerle (1999)). Class I protostars (Lada (1991)) are composite objects including a central forming star surrounded by an accretion disk $``$10–100 AU in radius, and embedded in an extended infalling remnant envelope of gas and dust up to $`10^4`$ AU in size (Shu et al. (1987)). Using the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC), Casanova et al. (1995) reported in the $ρ$~Ophiuchi star-forming region ($``$145 pc; de Zeeuw et al. (1999)) the detection of seven X-ray sources coinciding with Class I protostars, but possible faint non-protostellar counterparts were also found in the same error boxes. The ASCA satellite detected more clearly a group of five Class I protostars in the R~CrA star-forming region ($``$130 pc), but the positional uncertainties was quite large ($`20\mathrm{}`$), and the individual source only partially resolved (Koyama et al. (1996)). In both cases ROSAT, with its High Resolution Imager (HRI) providing a much better spatial resolution (FWHM$``$5″), has helped to confirm these detections (Grosso et al. (1997), hereafter paper I; Neuhäuser & Preibisch (1997)). With the goal of preparing the upcoming study of these two star-forming regions with the new generation of X-ray satellites, Chandra and XMM-Newton, their ROSAT observations must be definitively exploited. This work was already done by Neuhäuser & Preibisch (1997) on R CrA. I study here the unpublished or partially published observations of the $`\rho `$ Ophiuchi dark cloud to search for X-rays from Class I protostars.

## 2 ROSAT observations

I found in the ROSAT archive that ten overlapping pointings were performed on the $`\rho `$ Ophiuchi dark cloud: one with the PSPC and nine with the HRI (see Table 1 for the log of these observations). Among these HRI pointings a sequence of six short exposures ($``$ hour) spreaded over one week, was used by Damiani et al. (1996) to study the X-ray variability of the T Tauri stars SR9 and SR12A-B. One more HRI pointing remains without published results. I thus analyzed these data (8 segments in all; see Table 1) with EXSAS (Zimmermann et al. (1997)).

Source detection was performed on each segment separately with the standard command DETECT/SOURCES, which generates a local source detection by a sliding-window technique followed by a maximum likelihood test, which compares the observed count distribution to a model of the point spread function and the local background to discriminate sources from statistical Poissonian background fluctuations. The likelihood of existence, defined as $``$=$`\mathrm{ln}P_0`$ (with $`P_0`$ the probability of the null hypothesis that the observed distribution of counts is only due to a statistical background fluctuation), provides a maximum likelihood measure for the source detection. I accepted only detections with $``$$``$10 ($`SNR`$$``$4.1 $`\sigma `$ for Gaussian statistics) to reduce the number of spurious detections per field to $``$0.7–$``$1.0. Identification of these X-ray sources was made by cross-correlation with published list of confirmed or suspected cloud members (e.g. André & Montmerle (1994)), IR surveys (e.g. Barsony et al. (1997)), and optical catalogue (Monet et al. (1996)). To correct X-ray positions for boresight errors, I selected the X-ray sources not associated with protostars having a positional error lower than $`2\mathrm{}`$ both in $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$, and compared their positions with their IR counterparts in the 2MASS catalogue (second incremental release; Cutri et al. (2000)); the mean offsets in $`\alpha `$ and $`\delta `$ was then substracted to the X-ray positions of all X-ray sources, and the residual dispersion was quadratically added to the positional errors. Table 2 gives the X-ray source list.

These short exposures detected mainly the X-ray brightest T Tauri stars of this star-forming region. Only two HRI sources are new X-ray sources. They are located $``$25$`\mathrm{}`$ south ($``$1 pc) of the core E/F (Loren et al. (1990)) and identified with optical stars11111589441 ($`B`$=14.8, $`R`$=12.6); 11614157 ($`B`$=17.9, $`R`$=14.1).: they are reliable Weak T Tauri star candidates. Meanwhile a weak HRI source ($``$=10), detected just in segment 8, is associated with the IRAS source YLW16 – a group of two Class I protostars (YLW16A; and YLW16B, also called IRS46) and one embedded Classical T Tauri star (GY262). In order to discuss the possible identification of this weak HRI source with protostars, Fig. 1 visualizes the different members of YLW16 in the 2MASS reference frame, to be consistent with my previous astrometric correction. The 2MASS position of YLW16A is within the $`4\mathrm{}`$-radius error circle of the HRI source. Using a Monte-Carlo simulation, I found that the probability that this identification is only due to chance is $`1.6\%`$. This reliable identification strenghtens the significance level of this weak HRI detection.

As shown in Fig. 1, other instruments detected also an X-ray source in this area. The ROSAT PSPC source ROXR1-45 (Casanova et al. (1995)) was identified with YLW16. The ASCA GIS source ROXA-9B (Kamata et al. (1997)) was only identified with YLW16B, whereas YLW16A is also in the ASCA GIS positional error box as mentioned by Carkner et al. (1998); moreover the new IR source discovered by Lucas & Roche (1998), YLW16D, is in the same error box. An ASCA follow-up observation, made 3.5 years after, did not detect again ROXA-9B (Tsuboi et al. 1997): this X-ray source is variable. I noted also in only one of the Einstein IPC observations of Montmerle et al. (1983; see observation I3749.2 Fig. 1.2) an X-ray emission around YLW16, blended with the Einstein X-ray sources associated with SR12 (ROX21) and GY292 (ROX25), which was not in the Montmerle et al.’s detection list. To solve this point, I took from HEASARC the archived screened photon event list222Sum of I3749.1 (8 March 1979), and I3749.2 (8 Sep. 1979)., and revisited it using the package XANADU/XIMAGE (also available at HEASARC). I selected only the 8 Sep. 1979 events and energy bins 3–13 (corresponding to 0.3–8.2 keV). From this event list, I studied the X-ray source standing near YLW16 with the interactive command sosta, which allows to estimate the background from a nearby area free of sources, and to tune the source box size to exclude events from neighbouring sources. I found for this source a signal to noise ratio $``$3.5 $`\sigma `$, and a corrected intensity $`S`$$``$0.02 cts s-1. Fig. 2 shows a contour map constructed from these data. I conclude that the Einstein IPC also detected X-rays from YLW16 (which was not yet discovered from IR at this time), but the Einstein IPC FWHM ($``$1′) is too large to find unambiguously the IR counterpart. By contrast to these previous detections with other X-ray instruments, we can see clearly in Fig. 1, thanks to the better angular resolution of the HRI, that the X-ray emission detected by the ROSAT HRI comes only from the Class I protostar YLW16A.

## 3 X-ray luminosity of YLW16A

YLW16A is the second Class I protostar detected by the HRI in the $`\rho `$ Ophiuchi dark cloud after YLW15 (paper I). It is remarkable to detect it with only an one-hour HRI exposure, whereas no detection was obtained with a 20 times longer HRI exposure (see Table 1; Grosso et al. (2000)). The fact that YLW16A was not detected by the HRI only one day before, with an exposure 2 times longer, implies a variation of its X-ray luminosity by at least a factor 2 in less than one day. This suggests that YLW16A was detected during a state of higher X-ray luminosity, probably due to an X-ray flare, usual in young stellar objects (see Feigelson & Montmerle 1999). However the source X-ray variability cannot be tested (e.g. with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test) with only $`8`$ cts detected during this short exposure. It is impossible to deduce from this HRI detection whether the previous X-ray observations by other instruments actually detected YLW16A, as this X-ray source is not constant.

The determination of the intrinsic X-ray luminosities of such embedded young stellar object critically depends on the absorption of the X-ray photons by the gas along the line of sight, $`N_\mathrm{H}`$, combination of both the circumstellar material and the interstellar medium. As the HRI has no spectral resolution, no direct information on $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ can be provided by the X-ray event. I thus derive $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ from the source visual extinction due to the dust, $`A_\mathrm{V}`$, assuming the conversion factor $`N_\mathrm{H}`$=2.23$`\times `$10$`{}_{}{}^{21}A_{\mathrm{V}}^{}`$ mag cm-2 (Ryter (1996)). Applying the methods used in paper I, I find from near-IR: $`A_\mathrm{V}`$=30–40, and thus $`N_\mathrm{H}`$=(6.7–8.9)$`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2. For comparison if I assume that ASCA observed the same source, I have directly from the ASCA spectrum (the only one with enough statistics): $`N_\mathrm{H}`$=2.8$`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2, corresponding to $`A_\mathrm{V}`$=13. Such extinction discrepancies between near-IR and X-ray estimates are not unusual for Class I protostars, but are not well understood (see Kamata et al. (1997)), and thus this low value of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ cannot be excluded. Taking the range $`N_\mathrm{H}`$=(2.8–8.9)$`\times 10^{22}`$ cm-2 for the absorption, a distance of 145 pc, an isothermal Raymond-Smith plasma spectrum with a typical protostar flare temperature $`kT`$=4 keV, standard solar elemental abundances, I find using W3PIMMS (see HEASARC homepage): $`L_\mathrm{X}`$\[0.1–2.4 keV\]=(9.4–450)$`\times 10^{30}`$ erg s-1 (for comparison $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$$``$13$`L_{}`$; Wilking et al. (1989)), i.e. a factor $`50`$ of uncertainties remains in the X-ray luminosity of this events. Nevertheless, this X-ray luminosity is comparable to the one observed during the X-ray triple flare detected from YLW15 by ASCA (Tsuboi et al. (2000)).

Improvements of such studies will come from the Chandra and XMM-Newton observations, which will give unambiguous X-ray spectra of YLW16A, and thus will provide an accurate value of $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ to constrain the X-ray luminosity observed by the HRI.

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank the anonymous referee for valuable comments, and T. Montmerle for discussions about his pioneering work with the Einstein observatory. I would like also to thank my host institution, and particularly Prof. J. Trümper and R. Neuhäuser, who have welcomed me for my Marie Curie Individual fellowship supported by the European Union (HPMF-CT-1999-00228).


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# Quark Stars as inner engines for Gamma Ray Bursts?

## 1 Introduction

A central problem contributing to the Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) mystery is the unknown nature of the engine powering them (Kouveliotou et al. 1995; Kulkarni et al. 1999; Piran 1999a; Piran 1999b). Many have been suggested but it is fair to say that we are still far from a definite answer. Regardless of the nature of the engine, however, it is widely accepted that the most conventional interpretation of the observed GRBs result from the conversion of the kinetic energy of ultra-relativistic particles to radiation in an optically thin region. The particles being accelerated by a fireball mechanism (or explosion of radiation) taking place near the central engine (Goodman 1986; Shemi & Piran 1990; Paczyński 1990).

The first challenge is to conceive of circumstances that would create a sufficiently energetic fireball. Conversion of neutron stars to quark stars (Olinto 1987; Cheng & Dai 1996; Bombaci & Datta 2000) has been suggested as one possibility. Other models also involve the compact object element; such as black holes (Blandford & Znajek 1977) and coalescing neutron stars (Eichler et al. 1989; Ruffert & Janka 1999; Janka et al. 1999). We show in this work that the plausible existence of quark stars combined with the onset of a newly revived state of quark matter - called color superconductivity - in these objects offers a new way of tackling the GRB puzzle (Ouyed 2002). Here we will argue that quark stars might constitute new candidates for GRB inner engines.

Quark matter at very high density is expected to behave as a color superconductor (see Rajagopal & Wilczek 2000 for a review). Associated with superconductivity is the so-called gap energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ inducing the quark-quark pairing and the critical temperature ($`T_\mathrm{c}`$) above which thermal fluctuations will wash out the superconductive state. A novel feature of such a phase is the generation of glueball like particles (hadrons made of gluons) which as demonstrated in Ouyed & Sannino (2001) immediately decay into photons. If color superconductivity sets in at the surface of a quark star the glueball decay becomes a natural mechanism for a fireball generation.

The paper is presented as follows: In Sect. 2 we briefly describe the concept of color superconductivity in quark matter. Glueball formation and their subsequent two-photon decay is described. Sect. 3 deals with quark stars and the onset of color superconductivity at their surface. In Sect. 4, we explain how GRBs are powered in this picture and show that variability (multiple shell emission) is inherent to the inner engine. We isolate two GRB regimes in Sect. 5 associated with small and massive quark stars. The model’s features and its predictions are summarized in Sect. 6 while a discussion and conclusion follows in Sect. 7 where the model’s assumptions and limitations are highlighted.

## 2 Color Superconductivity

While in this paper we deal mostly with the astrophysics aspect of the model, we nevertheless give a brief overview of color superconductivity and the glueball-to-photon decay process which leads to the fireball. The interested reader is referred to Ouyed & Sannino (2001) for the underlying physics. For a recent review see Sannino (2002)

### 2.1 2-flavour color superconductivity

A reasonable Quantum Chromo-Dynamics (QCD) phase diagram (in the $`\mu T`$ plane, where $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential simply related to matter density) is shown in Fig. 1. At high temperature and density, matter is believed to be in a quark-gluon plasma phase (QGP). The hadronic phase lies in the region of low temperature and density. At high densities but low temperatures, when nuclei melt into each other, it is now believed that a color superconductive phase sets in. This phase is characterized by the formation of quark-quark condensate. In the 2-flavor color superconductivity (2SC) the up and down quark come into play during pairing. Furthermore, 2SC is characterized by five out of the eight gluons acquiring mass. We refer the interested reader to Rajagopal & Wilczek (2000) for a review of the dynamical properties of 2SC.

### 2.2 Light GlueBalls

The 3 massless gluons in the 2SC phase which bind into light glueballs (LGBs) together with the quarks up and down constitute the 2SC phase mixture. In Ouyed & Sannino (2001) we studied certain properties of these LGBs. Among the properties relevant to our present study we found, i) The LGBS decay into photons with an associated lifetime of the order of $`10^{14}`$ s; ii) The mass of the LGBs is of the order of 1 MeV.

## 3 Quark stars

We now turn to study the astrophysical consequences when such a state sets in at the surface of quark stars. As such, we first assume that quark stars exists in nature (further discussed in Sect. 7.1) and constitutes the first major assumption in our model.

### 3.1 Hot Quark stars

We are concerned with quark stars born with surface temperatures above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. We shall refer to these stars as “hot” quark stars (HQSs) in order to avoid any confusion with strange stars which are conjectured to exist even at zero pressure if strange matter is the absolute ground state of strong interacting matter rather than iron (Bodmer 1971; Witten 1984; Haensel et al. 1986; Alcock et al. 1986; Dey et al. 1998).

We borrow the language of the MIT-bag model formalism at low temperature and high density to describe HQSs (Farhi & Jaffe 1984). This gives a simple equation of state

$$P=b(\rho \rho _{\mathrm{HQS}})c^2,$$
(1)
where $`b`$ is a constant of model-dependent value (close to, but generally not equal, to 1/3 of the MIT-bag model), and $`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$ is the density at zero-pressure (the star’s surface density). We should keep in mind that $`T_\mathrm{c}/\mu 1`$ as is confirmed later.

Features of HQSs are - to a leading order in $`T_\mathrm{c}/\mu `$ \- identical to that of strange stars. The latter have been studied in details (Alcock et al. 1986; Glendenning & Weber 1992; Glendenning 1997). Of importance to our model:

i) The “surface” of a HQS is very different from the surface of a neutron star, or any other type of stars. Because it is bound by the strong force, the density at the surface changes abruptly from zero to $`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$. The abrupt change (the thickness of the quark surface) occurs within about 1 fm, which is a typical strong interaction length scale.

ii) The electrons being bound to the quark matter by the electro-magnetic interaction and not by the strong force, are able to move freely across the quark surface extending up to $`10^3`$ fm above the surface of the star. Associated with this electron layer is a strong electric field ($`5\times 10^{17}`$ V/cm)- higher than the critical value ($`1.3\times 10^{16}`$ V/cm) to make the vacuum region unstable to spontaneously create $`(e^+,e^{})`$ pairs.

iii) The presence of normal matter (a crust made of ions) at the surface of the quark star is subject to the enormous electric dipole. The strong positive Coulomb barrier prevents atomic nuclei bound in the nuclear crust from coming into direct contact with the quark core. The crust is suspended above the vacuum region.

iv) One can show that the maximum mass of the crust cannot exceed $`M_{\mathrm{crust}}5\times 10^5M_{}`$ set by the requirement that if the density in the inner crust is above the neutron drip density ($`\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}4.3\times 10^{11}`$ g/cc), free neutrons will gravitate to the surface of the HQS and be converted to quark matter. This is due to the fact that neutrons can easily penetrate the Coulomb barrier and are readily absorbed.

### 3.2 Cooling and 2SC layer formation

The HQS surface layer might enter the 2SC phase as illustrated in Fig. 1. In the QCD phase diagram (Fig. 2), ($`\rho _{𝐁_\mathrm{𝟎}}`$, $`T_{𝐁_\mathrm{𝟎}}`$) is the critical point beyond which one re-enters the QGP phase (the extent of the 2SC layer into the star). The star consists of a QGP phase surrounded by a 2SC layer where the photons (from the LGB/photon decay) leaking from the surface of the star provides the dominant cooling source. This picture, as illustrated in Fig. 2, is only valid if neutrino cooling in the 2SC phase is heavily suppressed as to become slower than the photon cooling. Unfortunately, the details of neutrino cooling in the 2SC phase is still a topic of debate and studies (Carter & Reddy 2000; Schaab et al. 2000 to cite only few). One can only assume such a scenario which constitutes the second major assumption in our model. In Sect. 7.2, we discuss the remaining alternative when photon cooling is dwarfed by neutrino cooling.

### 3.3 LGBs decay and photon thermalization

The photons from LGB decay are generated at energy $`E_\gamma <T_\mathrm{c}`$ and find themselves immersed in a degenerate quark gas. They quickly gain energy via the inverse Compton process and become thermalized to $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. We estimate the photon mean free path to be smaller than few hundred Fermi (Rybicki & Lightman 1979; Longair 1992) while the 2SC layer is measured in meters (see Sect. 5.2). A local thermodynamic equilibrium is thus reached with the photon luminosity given by that of a black body radiation,

$$L_\gamma =3.23\times 10^{52}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1(\frac{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{5\mathrm{km}})^2(\frac{T_\mathrm{c}}{10\mathrm{MeV}})^4.$$
(2)
The energy for a single 2SC event is thus

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{LGB}}=\delta _{\mathrm{LGB}}M_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}c^2,$$
(3)
where $`M_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}=\delta _{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}M_{\mathrm{HQS}}`$ is the portion of the star in 2SC. Here, $`\delta _{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}`$ depends on the star’s mass while $`\delta _{\mathrm{LGB}}`$ represent the portion of the 2SC that is in LGBs (intrinsic property of 2SC; see Ouyed & Sannino 2001). The emission/cooling time is then

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{cool}}=\frac{ϵM_{\mathrm{HQS}}c^2}{L_\gamma },$$
(4)
with $`ϵ=\delta _{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}\delta _{\mathrm{LGB}}`$.

## 4 Powering Gamma-Ray Bursts

### 4.1 Fireball and baryon loading

The fireball stems from the LGB decay and photon thermalization. The photons are emitted from the star’s surface into the vacuum region beneath the inner crust ($`10^3`$ fm in size). Photon-photon interaction occurs in a much longer time than the vacuum region crossing time. Also, the cross-section for the creation of pairs through interactions with the electrons in the vacuum region is negligible (Rybicki & Lightman 1979; Longair 1992). The fireball energy is thus directly deposited in the crust. If its energy density, $`aT_\mathrm{c}^4`$ (with $`a`$ being the radiation density constant), exceeds that of the gravitational energy density in the crust, energy outflow in the form of ions occurs. One can show that the condition

$$aT_\mathrm{c}^4>\frac{GM_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}}\rho _{\mathrm{crust}},$$
(5)
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}`$ is the crust density and $`G`$ the gravitational constant, is equivalent to

$$(\frac{T_\mathrm{c}}{30\mathrm{Mev}})^4>(\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{M_{}})(\frac{5\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}})(\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}}{\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}}),$$
(6)
which is always true if $`T_\mathrm{c}>30`$ MeV. The fireball is thus loaded with nuclei present in the crust. More specifically, it is the energy transfer from photons to electrons which drag the positively charged nuclei in the process. Note that the 2SC layer is not carried out during the two-photon decay process because of the star’s high gravitational energy density: $`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}/\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}>>1`$.

### 4.2 Episodic behavior

The star’s surface pressure is reduced following photon emission111The pressure gradient in the 2SC layer is $`\mathrm{\Delta }p(85)T_\mathrm{c}^4`$ (Farhi & Jaffe 1984) where the massless gluons (3 out of 8) have been consumed by the LGB/photon process.. A heat and mass flux is thus triggered from the QGP phase to the 2SC layer re-heating (above $`T_\mathrm{c}`$) and destroying the superconductive phase. The entire star is now in a QGP phase (5 gluons$``$ 8 gluons at the surface) and hence the cooling process can start again. This corresponds to the transition $`[\rho (𝐁_0),T(𝐁_0)][\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}},T(𝐁_0)]`$ in the QCD phase diagram (thermal adjustment). The stage is now set for the 2SC/LGB/photon process to start all over again resulting in another emission. For the subsequent emission, however, we expect the system to evolve to point $`𝐁_1`$ generally located at different densities and temperatures than $`𝐁_0`$ (see Fig. 2). The cycle ends after $`N`$ emissions when $`\rho (𝐁_N)\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$.

The time it takes to consume most of the star (the glue component) by this process is

$$t_{\mathrm{engine}}\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}c^2}{L_\gamma }1\mathrm{s}(\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{M_{}})(\frac{5\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}})^2(\frac{30\mathrm{MeV}}{T_\mathrm{c}})^4,$$
(7)
which is representative of the engine’s activity. The above assumes quick adjustment of the star following each event, but is not necessarily the case for the most massive stars.

### 4.3 Multiple shell emission

The episodic behavior of the star together with the resulting loaded fireball (we call shell) offers a natural mechanism for multiple shell emission if $`T_c<30`$ MeV. Indeed from Eq. (6) a higher $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ value would imply extraction of the entire crust in a single emission and no loading of the subsequent fireballs. Clearly, $`T_\mathrm{c}<30`$ MeV must be considered if multiple ejections are to occur222Even if $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ turns out to be greater than 30 MeV, in which case the entire crust will be blown away (Eq. (6)), one can imagine mechanisms where crust material is replenished. By accretion, for instance, if the HQS is part of a binary. There are also geometrical considerations where asymmetric emission/ejection can occur due to the rapid rotation of Quark Stars; here only a portion of the crust is extracted at a time. This aspect of the model requires better knowledge of the conditions and environments where HQSs are formed..

The fraction ($`f`$) of the crust extracted in a single event is,

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{crust}}=fM_{\mathrm{crust}}.$$
(8)
The shell is accelerated with the rest of the fireball converting most of the radiation energy into bulk kinetic energy. The corresponding Lorentz factor we estimate to be,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}\frac{ϵM_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{fM_{\mathrm{crust}}},$$
(9)
where we used Eq. (3) and Eq. (8). $`ϵ`$ and $`f`$ depend on the star’s mass and characterize the two emission regimes in our model.

### 4.4 Shell-shell collision

The Lorentz factor for the $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ shell is

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell},n}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_nM_{\mathrm{HQS},n}}{f_nM_{\mathrm{crust},n}}}`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ_n}{ϵ_{n1}}})({\displaystyle \frac{f_{n1}}{f_n}}){\displaystyle \frac{(1ϵ_{n1})}{(1f_{n1})}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell},n1}.`$
The ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell},n}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell},n1}`$ is a function of $`ϵ`$ (which depends on the details of the cooling process and the spread of the 2SC front) and $`f`$ (mostly related to the density in the crust). With the two parameters varying from one emission to another, the ratio can be randomly greater or less than 1. As such, the shells will have random Lorentz factors and random energies. Faster shells will catch up with slower ones and will collide, converting some of their kinetic energy to internal energy.

## 5 The two regimes

When the inner crust density is the neutron drip value, one finds a minimum mass star of $`0.015M_{}`$. For masses above this critical value, the corresponding crusts are thin and light. They do not exceed few kilometers in thickness. Matter at the density of such crusts is a Coulomb lattice of iron and nickel all the way from the inner edge to the surface of the star (Baym et al. 1971). For masses below $`0.015M_{}`$, the crust can extend up to thousands of kilometers with densities much below the neutron drip. This allows us to identify two distinct emission regimes for a given $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ ($`<30`$ MeV).

### 5.1 Light stars ($`M_{\mathrm{HQS}}<0.015M_{}`$)

These are objects whose average density is $`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$ ($`M_{\mathrm{HQS}}\frac{4\pi }{3}R_{\mathrm{HQS}}^3\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$). The 2SC front extends deeper inside the star ($`\delta _{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C}}1`$). The star can be represented by a system close to $`𝐀_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ in Fig. 2. Each of the few emissions (defined by $`ϵ`$) is thus capable of consuming a big portion of the star. Furthermore, the entire crust material can be extracted in a few 2SC/LGB/photon cycles ($`\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}/\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}1`$).

Using Eq. (7), the few emissions lead to

$`t_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{fraction}\times t_{\mathrm{engine}}`$
$``$ $`\mathrm{fraction}\times 0.25\mathrm{s}({\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{0.01M_{}}})({\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}}})^2({\displaystyle \frac{30\mathrm{MeV}}{T_\mathrm{c}}})^4,`$
where $`t_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ is representative of the observable time which takes into account the presence of the crust.

### 5.2 Massive stars ($`M_{\mathrm{HQS}}0.015M_{}`$)

The surface density of a massive star being that of a light star ($`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$ given by $`P=0`$ in Eq. (1)), defines a standard unit in our model. In other words, the mass of the 2SC layer in a massive star case is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }M_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C},\mathrm{m}}M_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C},\mathrm{l}},$$
(12)
where “$`m`$” and “$`l`$” stand for massive and light, respectively. It implies

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }R_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C},\mathrm{m}}}{R_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C},\mathrm{m}}}\frac{1}{3}(\frac{R_\mathrm{l}}{R_\mathrm{m}})^3\frac{1}{3}(\frac{1\mathrm{km}}{5\mathrm{km}})^30.003.$$
(13)
For a typical star of 5 km in radius, we then estimate a 2SC layer of about 15 meters thick (much larger than the photon mean free path thus justifying the local thermal equilibrium hypothesis). Equivalently,

$$\overline{ϵ}=\frac{M_\mathrm{l}}{M_\mathrm{m}}(\frac{1\mathrm{km}}{5\mathrm{km}})^30.01,$$
(14)
where $`\overline{ϵ}`$ is the average value. This naturally account for many events (or $`N`$ fireballs). The average number of fireballs with which an entire star is consumed is thus

$$N\frac{1}{\overline{ϵ}}100.$$
(15)
Since most of the crust is at densities close to the neutron drip value, Eq. (6) implies that only a tiny part of the crust surface material (where $`\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}<<\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}`$) can be extracted by each of the fireballs. This allows for a continuous loading of the fireballs.

The total observable time in our simplified approach is thus,

$$t_{\mathrm{tot}}t_{\mathrm{engine}}=1\mathrm{s}(\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{M_{}})(\frac{5\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}})^2(\frac{30\mathrm{MeV}}{T_\mathrm{c}})^4.$$
(16)
We isolated two regimes:

(i) Light stars $``$ short emissions.

(ii) Massive stars $``$ long emissions.

It appears, according to BATSE (Burst and Transient Source Experiment detector on the COMPTON-GRO satellite), that the bursts can be classified into two distinct categories (Kouveliotou et al. 1993): short ($`<2`$ s) bursts and long ($`>2`$ s, typically $`50`$ s) bursts. The black body behavior ($`T_\mathrm{c}^4`$) inherent to our model puts stringent constraints on the value of $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ which best comply with these observations. Using $`T_\mathrm{c}10`$ MeV, from Eq. (LABEL:tsmall) and Eq. (16) we obtain in the star’s rest frame

$$t_{tot}81\mathrm{s}(\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{M_{}})(\frac{5\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}})^2,$$
(17)
for massive stars (suggestive of long GRBs), and

$$t_{\mathrm{tot}}2\mathrm{s}(\frac{M_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{0.01M_{}})(\frac{1\mathrm{km}}{R_{\mathrm{HQS}}})^2,$$
(18)
for light stars (suggestive of short GRBs). There is a clear correlation (almost one to one) between the observed burst time and the time at which the source ejected the specific shell (see Figure 3 in Kobayashi et al. 1997, for example). Note that $`T_\mathrm{c}10\mathrm{MeV}`$ implies that only a portion of the crust is extracted. This is also consistent with our previous assumption ($`T_\mathrm{c}<30`$ MeV) and subsequent calculations.

When $`T_\mathrm{c}10`$ MeV, Eq. (6) gives $`\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}/\rho _{\mathrm{drip}}1/16`$. For an appropriate crust density profile (using the equation of state given in Baym et al. 1971), from Eq. (8) we find $`\overline{f}0.01`$. This implies (making use of Eq. (14))

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}=2\times 10^5(\frac{ϵ}{0.01})(\frac{0.01}{f}).$$
(19)
For massive stars then333Note that a relativistic loaded fireball is not necessarily achieved since $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}<100`$ at times. Gaps in the GRBs spectra are thus expected according to our model.

$$0<\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}<2\times 10^5.$$
(20)
For light stars, where both $`ϵ`$ and $`f`$ are close to unity, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}10^5`$. The shells are also heavier than in the massive stars case. We thus expect stronger shocks from the shell-shell collision resulting in harder bursts. Combined with our previous results, this is suggestive of

(i) Light stars $``$ short and hard bursts.

(ii) Massive stars $``$ long and soft bursts.

Eq. (17) and Eq. (18) is simply Eq. (7) rescaled to the appropriate object size. We separated two regimes due to intrinsic differences in the engine and the crust. From the engine point of view, massive stars generate many more emissions when compared to light ones, and no substantial reduction of the engine time is expected because of the omni-presence of the crust. Another important difference is related to the physics of the multiple re-adjustments following each event which is more pronounced for very massive stars. The latter among other factors is related to $`ϵ`$ which can vary from one event to another.

## 6 Features and predictions

### 6.1 GRB energies

The maximum available energy is when the heaviest HQS ($`M_{\mathrm{HQS},\mathrm{max}}2M_{}`$) is entirely consumed. That is,

$$E_{\mathrm{LGB},\mathrm{max}}4\times 10^{54}\mathrm{ergs}.$$
(21)
The corresponding GRB energy is

$$E_{\mathrm{GRB},\mathrm{max}}1.6\times 10^{54}\mathrm{ergs},$$
(22)
where we used a fiducial conversion efficiency of 40% (Sect. 6.4).

Since $`M_{\mathrm{HQS},\mathrm{min}}<0.015M_{}`$ we conclude that,

$$E_{\mathrm{LGB},\mathrm{min}}<3\times 10^{52}\mathrm{ergs},$$
(23)
implying

$$E_{\mathrm{GRB},\mathrm{min}}<1.2\times 10^{52}\mathrm{ergs}.$$
(24)
### 6.2 GRB total duration

From Eq. (17) and Eq. (18) we have

$$t_{\mathrm{tot}}81\mathrm{s},$$
(25)
for typical massive stars, and

$$t_{\mathrm{tot}}2\mathrm{s},$$
(26)
for typical light stars.

Our estimate of the duration time for the massive star case should be taken as a lower limit. As we have said, a complete model should take into account star re-adjustments. Nevertheless, we can still account for a wide range in GRB duration by an appropriate choice of different values of the mass and radius.

### 6.3 Peak duration vs energy

The peak duration ($`t_\mathrm{p}`$) is related to the time measured by a clock on the shell via (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 1999),

$$t_\mathrm{p}\frac{t_{\mathrm{shell}}}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}}=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}}\times \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }X_{\mathrm{shell}}}{c_\mathrm{s}},$$
(27)
where $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ is the speed of the shock front crossing the shell leading to the burst. We find

$$t_\mathrm{p}\frac{1}{c_\mathrm{s}}\times \frac{ϵM_{\mathrm{HQS}}}{4\pi R_{\mathrm{HQS}}^2\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}}.$$
(28)
In the above we used Eq. (9) and $`M_{\mathrm{shell}}=\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{crust}}=4\pi R_{\mathrm{crust}}^2\mathrm{\Delta }X_{\mathrm{crust}}\rho _{\mathrm{crust}}`$. The expression on the right is $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ as can be seen from Eq. (4) and in our model is constant for a given star. The only parameter which is directly linked to the shell dynamics and energetics is $`c_\mathrm{s}`$. Shock physics gives (Ouyed & Pudritz 1993)

$$c_\mathrm{s}^2E_{\mathrm{int}.},$$
(29)
where $`E_{\mathrm{int}.}`$ is the shell’s internal energy gained during the collision observed as the peak’s energy ($`E_\mathrm{p}`$). That is,

$$t_\mathrm{p}E_\mathrm{p}^{0.5},$$
(30)
in reasonable agreement with the power law dependence extracted from temporal vs energy structure in GRBs (index that is between $`0.37`$ and $`0.46`$; Fenimore et al. 1995).

### 6.4 Shell dynamics

Take a shell of thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_{\mathrm{crust}}`$ to be extracted from the crust. The upper surface of the shell is extracted first while its lower surface lags behind by $`(cv_{\mathrm{shell}})tct/(2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}^2)`$ ($`t`$ is the time to eject the entire shell in the star’s rest frame). Taking into account mass conservation and the fact that $`\mathrm{\Delta }X_{\mathrm{shell}}=2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}^2\mathrm{\Delta }X_{\mathrm{crust}}`$, it is straightforward to show

$$\rho _{\mathrm{shell}}\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{shell}}^2}.$$
(31)
Interestingly enough, these are the required conditions (including the result from Eq. (20)) in the internal shock model which lead to the highest (up to 40%) conversion efficiency and the most desirable temporal structure (Kobayashi et al. 1997; Mochkovitch et al. 1995).

## 7 Discussion and Conclusion

### 7.1 Existence and formation of quark stars

In the last few years, thanks to the large amount of fresh observational data collected by the new generation of X-ray and $`\gamma `$-ray satellites, new observations suggest that the compact objects associated with the X-ray pulsars, the X-ray bursters, particularly the SAX J1808.4-3658, are good quark stars candidates (see Li et al. 1999). While these observations/measurements are hints that such objects might exist in nature it remains to explain their formation. More importantly to our model, the bimodal mass distribution remains to be explained.

#### 7.1.1 Massive stars

For the massive stars the conversion of neutron stars to quark stars is one plausible scenario (Cheng & Dai 1996; Ma 1996; Bombaci & Datta 2000). They could also form via the direct mechanism following a supernova collapse where the core collapsed to a stable quark matter instead of neutron matter (Gentile et al. 1993; Dai et al. 1995). Both mechanisms would lead to the formation of quark stars (strange stars to be more specific) with masses in the solar mass range.

#### 7.1.2 Light stars

The formation of small quark stars has already been discussed (early discussions can be found in Alpar 1987; Glendenning et al. 1995; see also Chapter 10.5 in Glendenning 1997) although these remain less understood than the massive ones. In the case of 4U 1728-34 (where a mass of much less than $`1.0M_{}`$ was derived; Bombaci 1999), it seems that accretion-induced collapse of white dwarfs is a favored formation mechanism. If the quark star formed via the direct conversion mechanism then it required too much mass (at least $`0.8M_{}`$ to be ejected during the conversion).

How and why stars in the 0.01$`M_{}`$ range would form remains to be explained. Our arguments were solely based on theoretical considerations related to the critical density in the inner crust (neutron drip) as to differentiate between small stars with thick and heavy crust versus stars with thinner and lighter crusts.

### 7.2 Neutrino cooling and HQSs

If neutrino cooling is shown to remain efficient in the 2SC phase (for comparison of cooling paths between quark stars and neutron stars and the plausible effects of 2SC on cooling we refer the interested reader to Schaab et al. 1997; Blaschke et al. 2000; Blaschke et al. 2001), we would be left with the scenario where the entire HQS enters the 2SC phase, in which case the 2SC/LGB/photon process (the fireball) occurs only once and inside the entire star. Here, one must involve more complicated physics (such as that of the crust) to account for the episodic emissions so crucial to any model of GRBs. It is not clear at the moment how to achieve this and is left as an avenue for future research.

### 7.3 2SC-II stars

The 2SC/LGB/photon process might proceed until one is left with an object made entirely of 2SC. We name such objects 2SC-II stars444The “II” in 2SC is a simple reminder of the final state of the star, namely the 2SC with only 5 gluons. which are still bound by strong interactions (their density is constant $`\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}`$). 2SC-II stars carry an Iron/Nickel crust left over from the GRB phase. The crust mass range is $`0<M_{2\mathrm{S}\mathrm{C},\mathrm{crust}}<5\times 10^5M_{}`$ depending on the efficiency of crust extraction/ejection during the GRB phase.

BATSE observes on average one burst per day. This corresponds, with the simplest model - assuming no cosmic evolution of the rate - to about once per million years in a galaxy (Piran 1999a). In the Milky way we thus expect up to $`10^5`$ of 2SC-II stars. Nevertheless, they are tiny enough ($`M10^2M_{}`$, $`R1`$ km) to be difficult to detect.

### 7.4 The Mass$``$Radius Plane

Take observed GRBs with known energies and total duration. From the burst total energy $`E_{\mathrm{GRB}}0.4Mc^2`$ we derive the mass while the burst total duration ($`t_{\mathrm{tot}}`$) gives us the radius (using Eq. (16) with $`T_\mathrm{c}10`$ MeV). In Fig. 3 we plot the resulting Mass$``$Radius. Note that while neutron stars, can only exists above a certain mass ($`0.1M_{}`$; Baym et al. 1971), there is no lower limit to the mass of quark stars. These would be bound by the strong interaction even in the absence of gravity.

The solid curve shows the $`M_{\mathrm{HQS}}=\frac{4\pi }{3}\rho _{\mathrm{HQS}}R_{\mathrm{HQS}}^3`$ equation which is a reasonable approximation for quark stars. While the GRB data set used is limited nevertheless it seems to support the idea that extremely compact objects ($`MR^3`$) are behind GRBs activity within our model.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank J. Schechter, K. Rajagopal, I. Bombaci, and F. Weber for interesting and helpful discussions.


text:
# An adaptive inelastic magnetic mirror for Bose-Einstein condensates

## Abstract

We report the reflection and focussing of a Bose-Einstein condensate by a new pulsed magnetic mirror. The mirror is adaptive, inelastic, and of extremely high optical quality. The deviations from specularity are less than $`0.5\text{mrad}`$ rms, making this the best atomic mirror demonstrated to date. We have also used the mirror to realize the analog of a beam-expander, producing an ultra-cold collimated fountain of matter waves.

A major aim of the field of atom optics is to build analogs of mirrors, lenses, and waveguides for manipulating ultra-cold atoms in applications ranging from high resolution lithography to ultra-sensitive atom interferometry. To this end, static magnetic fields and the optical dipole potential have already been used to both reflect and focus Roach ; Saba ; Drndic ; Lau1 ; Kasev1 ; Amin ; Hinds  conventional cold atomic clouds, and laser-cooled neutral atoms have also been focused in both 1D Marec  and 3D mon1  using pulsed magnetic fields. Since a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) And1  is the ultimate source of coherent atoms, it is essential to develop high-quality atom-optical elements which can be applied to BECs. A first step in this direction was the recent demonstration of a flat mirror based on the optical dipole force Bongs .

In this Letter we show that a different kind of atomic mirror ArnProc , based on pulsed magnetic fields ArnProc ; Bloch2 , can be used to manipulate Bose condensates. This new mirror has several attractive features: it can be inelastic, it permits adjustable three-dimensional focusing, and it has extremely high optical quality. In addition to demonstrations of simple reflection and focussing, these properties also allow us to realize a BEC “beam expander” which produces an extremely cold, collimated beam of matter waves. Finally, we show that the evolution of the condensate in these experiments is in good agreement with theory.

All magnetic atom-optical elements make use of the Stern-Gerlach potential $`U=\mu B`$ experienced by an atom moving adiabatically in a magnetic field of magnitude $`B`$ (with $`\mu `$ being the component of the atomic magnetic moment parallel to the field). For weak-field seeking atoms, any field for which $`B`$ increases in the direction of the initial atomic velocity will act as a simple mirror. If the atoms are to be focussed as well as reflected, then $`B`$ must in addition have positive curvature in the appropriate directions. Other desirable properties of a condensate mirror are equipotential surfaces with sufficient smoothness to preserve coherence, and compatibility with the ultra-high vacuum environment of a typical BEC apparatus. Since these conditions must all be satisfied by the magnetic trap in which the condensate is formed, the trap field itself provides an ideal starting point for the construction of a mirror. Particularly important here is the fact that all magnetic elements in the trap are a relatively large distance $`d20\text{mm}`$ from the atoms. Thus, because curvature in the magnetic field scales as $`d^3,`$ microscopic corrugations are drastically reduced compared to mirrors in which atoms make a close $`(d<100\mu \text{m})`$ approach to the surface. Such corrugations, and their optical analogs, presently limit the quality of existing atomic mirrors Hinds ; Asp  and so large-scale mirrors might provide an easier route to fully coherent atomic manipulation. Also, with this mirror the condensate is focused in three dimensions with a single magnetic pulse, in contrast to previous work with cold atoms which has either been restricted to one dimension Marec  or required the judicious application of two magnetic pulses mon1 .

In our experiment the magnetic mirror is formed by combining a horizontal Ioffe-Pritchard Pri  magnetic trap with a uniform vertical magnetic field $`B_c`$. We use a co-ordinate system where the symmetry axis of the trap is in the $`z`$ direction, gravity acts in the $`y`$ direction and the origin is at the center of the magnetic trap. The total magnetic mirror field to second-order is then

$`\text{B}(\text{r})`$ $`=`$ $`\{0,B_c,B_0\}+B^{}\{x,y,0\}`$ (1)
$`+B^{\prime \prime }/2\{xz,yz,z^2(x^2+y^2)/2\}.`$
The parameters $`B_0,`$ $`B^{},`$ and $`B^{\prime \prime }`$ are respectively the bias field, gradient, and curvature of the trap. One can show that the magnitude of this field (Fig. 1) is essentially parabolic in the axial $`(z)`$ direction, but hyperbolic in the offset radial co-ordinate $`r=\sqrt{x^2+(yy_c)^2}`$ and thus effectively linear for radii $`r>\sqrt{2}B_0/B^{}.`$ The potential therefore closely approximates that of a horizontal cylindrical mirror. The control field $`B_c`$ allows us to shift the minimum of the potential vertically from $`y=0`$ to $`y_c=B_c/B^{}`$, moving the center of curvature of the mirror to $`y_c`$ and making the radius of curvature at a particular height $`y`$ below the trap center equal to $`y+y_c`$. A condensate falling under gravity can be reflected by a brief pulse of the magnetic mirror field. During the pulse the atoms experience a potential that is weakly confining in the $`z`$ direction, strongly confining (with strength dependent on $`B_c`$) in the $`x`$ direction and almost linear in the $`y`$ coordinate. The linear variation of the potential with height results simply in a change in the center-of-mass motion (i.e. bouncing), whereas the parabolic dependence in the two horizontal directions focuses the condensate. The field pulses can be repeated at appropriate intervals to produce multiple reflections.

The BECs used in our experiments are produced as follows. About $`10^9`$ 87Rb atoms are collected at the low-pressure end of a double magneto-optical trap (MOT) gib2  system. Three simple extended-cavity diode lasers arn  provide the necessary $`780\text{nm}`$ $`(5s^2S_{1/2}5p^2P_{3/2})`$ MOT trapping and repumping light. For both MOTs the trap laser light is detuned $`\mathrm{\Delta }=13\text{MHz}`$ (i.e. red) of the $`F=2F^{}=3`$ transition, whilst the repumping light is resonant with the $`F=1F^{}=2`$ line. The atoms are cooled to $`40\mu \text{K}`$ in optical molasses $`(\mathrm{\Delta }=35\text{MHz}),`$ optically pumped on the $`F=2F^{}=2`$ transition into the $`|F,m_F=|2,2`$ state, and then transferred into the Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap. The trap coils are formed from water-cooled $`3\text{mm}`$ o.d. copper tubing: a 9-turn cuboidal baseball coil with average side dimensions $`45\times 45\times 55\text{mm}^3,`$ and two three-turn $`64\times 101\text{mm}^2`$ rectangular bias coils. With a typical bias field of $`1\text{G},`$ the axial and radial magnetic trapping frequencies were measured to be $`\nu _z=10\text{Hz}`$ and $`\nu _r=223\text{Hz}`$ respectively at a current of $`220\text{A}.`$ The trap lifetime was typically $`70\text{s}.`$ After a $`32\text{s}`$ RF evaporative cooling ramp pure condensates are reproducibly obtained with more than $`10^5`$ atoms. The atoms are imaged in absorption using an $`8\mu \text{s}`$ pulse of near-resonant light from a beam which propagates horizontally at an angle of $`60^{}`$ to the $`z`$ axis of the magnetic trap. We refer to the resulting horizontal axis in our images as $`z^{}`$. The imaging system has a magnification of $`0.80.`$ Comparison of the absorption images with a Thomas-Fermi model Cast1  shows that distortion of the probe beam by the initially optically dense BEC Andr1  becomes negligible after $`10\text{ms}`$ of expansion.

Fig. 2 (a) and (b) are typical sequences of absorption images showing reflection and focussing of the condensate by mirrors of small and large radii of curvature respectively. The magnetic field, with a current of $`155\text{A}`$ in the magnetic trap coils, was pulsed on for $`5\text{ms}`$ every $`35\text{ms}`$. This pulse duration was chosen to give an elastic bounce for our magnetic acceleration $`\mu B^{}/m6g.`$ In these sequences we have suppressed a horizontal motion of the condensate, discussed below, to illustrate the bouncing more clearly and focus attention on the evolution of the condensate shape.

The rapid growth in the condensate width seen in Fig. 2 (a) is a consequence of the instability of the cavity formed by the magnetic mirror and gravity. A gravity-cavity is unstable, meaning that the atomic trajectories walk out of the cavity, when the the radius of curvature $`R`$ of the mirror is less than twice the release height $`h`$. wal ; Hinds ; HughesNew . This is the case for Fig. 2 (a), where the radius of curvature in the $`xy`$ plane $`R_{xy}=h1.4\text{mm}`$. The corresponding classical motion is easily visualized in this case. Since the gravitational potential energy is much larger than the initial kinetic energy of the condensate, all atomic trajectories strike the mirror at an angle very close to vertical. The reflected trajectories then all cross the mirror axis at a focal point $`0.5R_{xy}`$ above the mirror surface on their way to turning points at height $`h`$. The condensate will therefore be strongly focused through this focal point after each bounce, as can be can be clearly seen after the second bounce in Fig. 2 (a), even though our viewpoint is at an angle of $`60^{}`$ to the $`z`$ axis. In contrast Fig. 2 (b) corresponds to the stable case $`R_{xy}=5h`$. The evolution here is similar to that expected for bouncing on a flat mirror.

A complete theoretical analysis of our experiment would require a numerical integration of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation on a large mesh in three dimensions, a rather formidable task. We have therefore developed two simpler theoretical models of the bounce dynamics. The first extends the work of Castin and Dum Cast1  who showed that a BEC, in the Thomas-Fermi regime and confined in a time-dependent parabolic potential $`U(\text{r},t)=\frac{m}{2}_{j=1}^3\omega _j(t)^2r_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{2},`$ has an atomic spatial distribution which obeys the simple scaling law:

$$n(\text{r},t)=\mathrm{max}\{\frac{n_0}{\lambda _1\lambda _2\lambda _3}(1\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{r_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}{A_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\lambda _{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}),0\}$$
(2)
where $`\lambda _j(t)`$ is the solution of

$$\frac{d^2\lambda _j(t)}{dt^2}+\omega _j(t)^2\lambda _j(t)\frac{\omega _j(0)^2}{_{i=1}^3\lambda _i(t)^{1+\delta _{ij}}}=0,$$
(3)
$`\lambda _j(0)=1`$ and the initial Thomas-Fermi radii are $`A_j.`$ It can be shown ArnNext  that if the potential is parabolic about the time-varying center $`\text{r}_c(t)`$ of the BEC, i.e. if $`U(\text{r},t)=\frac{m}{2}_{j=1}^3\omega _j(t)^2(r_jr_{c}^{}{}_{j}{}^{}(t))^2,`$ then the same scaling law applies for the BEC if one subtracts out the overall center-of-mass motion and uses the magnetic curvatures acting at the condensate center. This model is analytic, and therefore fast to compute, and it includes the effects of mean-field repulsion. In order to verify that this locally harmonic potential approximation is valid for our mirror, we developed a second model, based on a Monte Carlo simulation of the classical dynamics. The simulation computes the classical trajectories of $`10^5`$ atoms with initial positions and velocities chosen at random so as to give the Thomas-Fermi result for the free expansion (Eq. 2). In this model the mirror potential can be treated exactly, but atomic interactions after the initial mean-field energy driven expansion are neglected. Both theoretical models make the reasonable approximation that diffraction is negligible, and both use values of the parameters characterizing our mirror ($`B_0,B^{},B^{\prime \prime },B_c`$) measured in other experiments.

Fig. 3 shows that the Monte Carlo simulation is in excellent agreement with the experimental data of Fig. 2 (b). The horizontal motion seen here (and suppressed in Fig. 2) is partly due to a tilt in the magnetic trap with respect to gravity, and partly due to the fact that for our coil orientation the magnetic potentials have an increasingly large slope in the $`z`$ direction as $`y`$ decreases (see Fig. 1). This slope also causes the condensate to rotate in the $`zy`$ plane during a bounce. The analytic Thomas-Fermi calculation yields very similar results, except that the rotation of the condensate is not reproduced because this model assumes a perfectly harmonic trap.

To make a more quantitative comparison of the experimental data with these models, we fitted both the Monte Carlo simulation and the experimental absorption images to a Thomas-Fermi column density to obtain the condensate radii (see inset in Fig. 4). These two quantities can also be obtained directly from our analytic Thomas-Fermi model. The comparison between experiment and the two models is shown in Fig. 4. The two models are in good agreement with each other, confirming the validity of their respective approximations, and both are in good agreement with the measured condensate radii.

The horizontal size of the bouncing condensate is a sensitive probe of the optical quality of the mirror because any corrugations or other aberration will increase the size of the condensate on each bounce. We therefore repeated the two simulations, adding the effects of an rms mirror roughness of $`0.5\text{mrad}`$ to the condensate on each bounce. The results are shown as the dashed curves in Fig. 4. The discrepancy between these curves and the experimental data implies that any deviations from specularity in our mirror are less than $`0.5\text{mrad}`$. This performance is at least a factor of three better than the best atomic mirrors based on evanescent waves Asp  and magnetic media Saba , making our pulsed magnetic mirror the smoothest cold atom mirror yet demonstrated.

In addition to the extremely good optical quality, the mirror also has the property of being adaptive (changing $`B_c`$ changes the focal length) and inelastic (changing the pulse duration changes the vertical impulse imparted to the BEC). A second experiment was performed to explicitly take advantage of these aspects of the mirror. We realized a BEC “beam expander”, by first expanding the BEC by reflection from a short radius $`(R_{xy}=h)`$ mirror, and then on the second reflection launching KettICAP  and collimating it by a longer interaction with a weakly focusing mirror. The results are shown in Fig. 2 (c). This process produces a low density, ultracold, condensate fountain, which might find application, for example, in atomic clocks. It can also be regarded as a demonstration of delta-kick cooling Amm .

Fig. 4 shows that the evolution of a condensate reflected by the magnetic mirror is well described by classical physics. This is in contrast to the reflection of condensates by light sheets Bongs , where the reflected condensate develops a complicated self-interference structure near the turning point of its trajectory. Fringes occur when the de Broglie wavelength of the condensate is large at positions where the classical atomic trajectories cross, a condition which is never satisfied for our mirror. Of course in many atom-optical applications the absence of interference fringes is an advantage.

Our two theoretical models do suggest that non-classical evolution should be visible in the $`xy`$ plane under certain conditions. In particular, for the case $`R_{xy}=h`$ (Fig. 2 (a)) the density and the “waist” size at the tight focus near the $`R_{xy}/2`$ point are respectively high enough and small enough that the effects of atomic interactions and diffraction might be visible. The condensate’s behavior near this tight waist provides a sensitive probe of the mirror quality, so it would therefore be interesting to image the condensate along the trap axis and compare the results with a full calculation using the time-dependent 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Another topic for future investigation is the coherence of the mirror. Since the trap field is sufficiently well-controlled to produce a condensate in the first place, it seems very likely that the mirror will preserve coherence. Nevertheless it would be desirable to demonstrate this directly, e.g. by splitting a condensate coherently and then interfering the two reflections.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated adjustable focusing and reflection of a BEC from a pulsed magnetic mirror, and shown that the evolution of the reflected condensate is well-described by a simple theory. The mirror establishes a new limit for the optical quality of atom-optical elements. Finally, we have also used the adaptive and inelastic properties of the mirror to realize an atomic “beam expander” and used it to make a condensate fountain.

We gratefully acknowledge valuable discussions with Ed Hinds. This work was supported by the UK EPSRC and the University of Sussex. ASA was funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.