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# The angular power spectrum of radio emission at 2.3 GHz

## 1 Introduction

The accuracy with which we are able to derive the cosmological parameters from the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) depends on the properties of Galactic and extra-galactic foreground emission. The future satellite missions Planck (ESA) and MAP (NASA) designed to perform high precision observations of the CMB have a wide frequency coverage in order to disentangle the various components of the microwave sky and provide clean CMB maps. The two satellites, therefore, will also provide new high quality data on Galactic diffuse emission and extra-galactic sources (Bersanelli et al. (1996)). However before these observations become available it is important to improve our knowledge of the statistical properties of the foreground emission in order to quantify the level of contamination of the CMB signal expected in the various channels and at the different angular scales. This will allow more realistic simulations of the missions to be performed and the analysis techniques to be refined.

Below 50 GHz measurements of the CMB anisotropy are mostly affected by Galactic radio emission: a combination of thermal bremsstrahlung from ionized gas, synchrotron radiation from cosmic ray electrons and possibly emission from spinning dust grains (de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1999)). As pointed out by Tegmark et al. (2000) when trying to recover the angular power spectrum (APS) of the CMB, the uncertainties in the shape of the APS of a foreground component is a greater source of error than the uncertainties in the frequency dependence. The only available estimates of the APS of synchrotron emission comes from the analysis of the 408-MHz survey of Haslam et al. (1982) and 1420-MHz survey of Reich & Reich (1986). They suggest a power-law spectrum with a spectral index around 2.5$``$3.0 down to the maps’ resolution limit $`1^{}`$ (Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996); Bouchet et al. (1996); Bouchet & Gispert (1999)).

Recently the Rhodes/HartRAO radio continuum survey at 2326 MHz (Jonas et al. (1998)) has become available. In this paper we use these new data to derive the APS of the radio continuum at 2.3 GHz for all the observed sky and for high Galactic latitude regions. We then extrapolate the high Galactic latitude results to predict the level of contamination that might be expected from diffuse synchrotron emission in the lowest frequency channel of Planck.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2 the data from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey are presented and the APS is derived for different regions of the sky, after point source subtraction. In Sect. 3 the simulations which were performed to assess the reliability of our results are described. Simulations and results are discussed in Sect. 4.

## 2 The angular power spectrum of radio emission at 2.3 GHz

The Rhodes/HartRAO radio continuum survey at 2326 MHz is a single-dish survey of the sky with a resolution (at FWHM) of 20 arcmin (Jonas et al. (1998)). The survey made from the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in South Africa covers the declination range $`83^{}<\delta <32^{}`$ for RA $`360^{}180^{}`$ and $`83^{}<\delta <13^{}`$ for most of RA $`180^{}0^{}`$ (in the RA range $`90^{}15^{}`$, $`80^{}<\delta <13^{}`$). The observations are spatially oversampled both in RA direction (6 arcmin) and in declination direction (1.5 arcmin). The uncertainty in the temperature scale is less than 5 per cent and the error in the absolute zero level is less than 80 mK in any direction.

In order to analyse the global properties of the radio continuum emission at 2326 MHz, the raw data of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey were re-gridded into a HEALPix tessellation. HEALPix is a Hierarchical, Equal Area and iso-Latitude Pixelisation of the sphere designed to support efficiently: local operations on the pixel set, a hierarchical tree structure for multi-resolution applications and the global Fast Spherical Harmonic transform (Górski et al. (1999)). This last property is crucial for fast computation of the APS of a field defined on the sphere. The recent CMB maps obtained from the observations of the balloon-born experiment Boomerang have also been pixelised according to the HEALPix scheme (de Bernardis et al. (2000)).

In the HEALPix tessellation the angular size of the pixels is determined by the nside parameter. For the Rhodes/HartRAO survey we used a HEALPix tessellation with nside=512 which corresponds to pixels of linear size 6.9 arcmin and therefore provides an adequate re-sampling of the survey. The Mollweide projection of the raw data of the survey re-gridded into HEALPix is displayed in Fig. 1. A great number of point sources are clearly visible in the map and the survey appears to be heavily affected by noise at the pixel scale.

The APS of a field on a rectangular-domain is given by the Fourier components of the 2-point correlation function. The analogue in spherical geometry are the $`C_l`$ components of the Legendre polynomial expansion

$$C(\theta )=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{l}{}(2l+1)C_lP_l(\mathrm{cos}\theta )$$

If $`T(\theta ,\varphi )=_{lm}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi )`$ is the spherical harmonic decomposition of the field defined on the sphere then the $`C_l`$ coefficients are simply given by:

$$C_l=\frac{1}{2l+1}\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}|a_{lm}|^2$$
(1)
The APS of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey has been obtained by performing a spherical harmonic analysis of the field in the HEALPix grid with the ANAFAST program (the software is part of the HEALPix package available at the web site http://www.eso.org/kgorski/healpix/). The result of the analysis for the whole set of raw data are shown in Fig. 3, as well as the APS derived after imposing a Galactic cut with $`|\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$ and the APS derived for $`|\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}|=20^{}`$ 111A Galactic cut with $`b=\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, means that all the data in the latitude range $`\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}<\mathrm{b}<\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, have been set to zero. The presence of an equatorial cut across the sphere affects the harmonic decomposition of the field. Performing a cut in the space domain is equivalent to multiplying the observed field by a window function and, in the frequency domain, this is equivalent to the convolution of the Spherical Transform of the field with the transform of the window function. As a Galactic cut is a discontinuous window function, its Spherical Transform is affected by aliasing. The resulting APS is affected by slow oscillations, which reflect the envelope of the transformed window function (which in this case is the combination of the incomplete sky coverage with the Galactic cut), and fast oscillations due to the aliasing signal. The oscillations are clearly visible in Fig. 3.

The cylindrical symmetry of a Galactic cut manifests itself as a “coherent” set of terms in m=0, therefore the effect of this window function on the measured APS can be mitigated by implementing a new definition of the APS in which one sets the $`a_{l0}`$ terms to zero, that is:

$$C_l=\frac{1}{2l}\left(\underset{m=l}{\overset{m=1}{}}|a_{lm}|^2+\underset{m=1}{\overset{m=l}{}}|a_{lm}|^2\right)l0$$
(2)
Eq. 2 is the definition (which we shall refer to as Modified APS, hereafter) that has been used to obtain the power spectra from the data with a Galactic cut in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 (grey-lines).

The window function of a Gaussian beam with dispersion $`\sigma _b`$ is given by:

$$W_l\mathrm{exp}[\frac{1}{2}\sigma _b^2l(l+1)]$$

which means that for a beam with a FWHM of 20 arcmin the beam suppression of the sky APS starts becoming appreciable (transmission factor $`<0.9`$) at $`l200`$ ($`\sigma _b=\mathrm{FWHM}/\sqrt{8\mathrm{ln}2}`$). We model the APS of this component of the radio sky as a single power law:

$$C_l=A^2l^\alpha $$

Up to $`l=200`$, a linear least-square fit to the APS of all raw data (black line in Fig. 3) gives $`A=0.63\pm 0.14`$ K and $`\alpha =2.11\pm 0.06`$. The APS at high Galactic latitude cannot clearly be described by a single power law up to $`l=200`$, however if one attempts a linear fit up to $`l=100`$, where the curves flatten, one obtains: $`A=0.2\pm 0.1`$ K and $`\alpha =2.38\pm 0.05`$, for $`|\mathrm{b}|>10^{}`$ (dark-grey line), and $`A=0.2\pm 0.1`$ K and $`\alpha =2.71\pm 0.03`$ for regions with $`|\mathrm{b}|>20^{}`$ (light-grey line). The noise level of the survey data, as given by Jonas et al. (1998), is also shown in Fig. 3 (dashed line). From the diagram it can be seen that the noise level is well below the signal, in the $`l`$-range considered.

The flattening of the spectrum at intermediate values of $`l`$ is due to the presence of point sources in the map. In fact, the APS of a population of point sources randomly distributed in the sky is Poissonian, that is a spectrum with constant power at all $`l`$. As the fluctuation amplitude of the diffuse emission diminishes at small angular scales, the Poissonian component due to the point sources becomes dominant.

Therefore, in order to analyse the angular power spectrum of the Galactic diffuse emission the point sources should be removed from the maps. Each point source in the map has a profile reflecting the point-spread function (PSF) of the observing beam. On a sufficiently resolved map one could attempt to remove the sources by fitting the pixel temperatures with the PSF. However at this low resolution several sources may be present in any given pixel, thus precluding this treatment. As a way of suppressing the point sources from the data we have made use of a median filter, that is, a convolution of the map with a median box of 9$`\times `$9 pixels. A box of size 9 pixels corresponds to the telescope beam size just over 3$`\sigma _b`$. Median filtering, is an effective and easy-to-implement method to remove point sources and suppress random instrumental noise (e.g. Pratt (1991)), without losing information at scales greater than three times the beam FWHM. The image of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey after being filtered is displayed in Fig. 2.

The angular power spectra of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey for different latitude cut-off, after applying median filtering, are plotted in Fig. 4. For all the observed data, up to $`l=100`$, the best-fit power-law to the APS has a amplitude $`A=0.9\pm 0.2`$ K and spectral index $`\alpha =2.43\pm 0.01`$. For CMB studies one is particularly interested in the properties of radio emission at high Galactic latitudes because this is where the Galactic signal is weaker and where sensitive CMB measurements can be made. At this frequency the high Galactic latitude diffuse emission is dominated by synchrotron radiation. Indeed the power spectrum of the emission appears to steepen if we mask out the Galactic plane. For a Galactic cut with $`|b_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$, a linear least-square fit to the APS up to $`l=100`$ (dark-grey line) gives $`A=0.3\pm 0.2`$ K and $`\alpha =2.81\pm 0.06`$; for $`|b_{cut}|=20^{}`$ (light-grey line) one obtains $`A=0.3\pm 0.2`$ K and $`\alpha =2.92\pm 0.07`$. The quoted error takes into account an assessment of the uncertainties introduced by the partial sky coverage, the presence of a Galactic cut and median filtering. We have evaluated this error by performing various simulations, as described in Sect. 3. Note from Fig. 4 how the rapidly falling APS at high Galactic latitude becomes dominated by the aliasing noise from the equatorial cut off at $`l>200`$: suppression of the sky signal by the beam-window function is no longer visible.

### 2.1 Point-source contribution

The difference map of the raw data and the median-filtered data gives the map of the point sources plus the high-spatial-frequency instrumental noise. We have computed the APS of this difference map at high Galactic latitude and compared it with the APS from the source counts expected at 2.3 GHz.

Toffolatti et al. (1998) report the point-source differential counts at 1.4, 5 and 8.44 GHz, for flux ranges between $`10^5`$ and 10 Jy. It can be seen from Fig.1 of Toffolatti et al. (1998) that a differential source count distribution of the form

$$dN/dS=150\mathrm{S}^{2.5}\mathrm{sr}^1\mathrm{Jy}^1$$
(3)
can be taken as a reasonable approximation of the source counts at 2.3 GHz in the flux range $`0.110`$ Jy. Sources with lower flux levels will not contribute significantly to the fluctuation of antenna temperature in a 20 arcmin beam. The reason being that there are so many of these sources in a 20 arcmin beam that changing pointing does not cause significant changes to the average signal (Franceschini et al. (1989)). In addition, the estimated receiver noise level for the Rhodes/HartRAO survey is 25 mK and the measured Point Source Sensitivity (PSS) for the survey is 9.8 Jy/K. This means that point sources with fluxes lower than 0.2 Jy at 2.3 GHz are below the map noise level.

We produced 10 realisations of 40,000 point sources with source counts of the form given in Eq. 3, in the flux range $`0.1100`$ Jy, randomly distributed in the sky222In order to assess whether 10 realisations were enough to characterize the population of point sources we generated another 20 realisations and found that the mean of all the 30 realisations was within one standard deviation of the 3 subsamples of 10 realisations each. We convolved the realisations with a Gaussian beam with 20 arcmin FWHM333The convolution was performed in the spatial-domain, to prevent any aliasing effect due to the point-like nature of the source signal. The convolving Gaussian beam was truncated at $`5\sigma `$ and computed the APS for each one. The APS of a randomly distributed population of point sources is given by

$$C_l=_0^{S_c}\frac{dN}{dS}S^2𝑑S$$
(4)
where $`S_c`$ is the flux cut (Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996)). Therefore the amplitude of the APS of different realisations of point-sources with the same differential source counts distribution will vary slightly accordingly to the fluxes of the brightest sources present.

In Fig. 5 we show the APS of the sources extracted from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey by median filtering for sky regions with $`|b|>20^{}`$ (black line). The results can be compared with the mean APS of the 10 realisations of sources with differential counts distribution given by Eq. 3 (continuous grey line). In the figure the standard deviation (SD) of the amplitude of the APS of the 10 realisations of point sources is also reported (dashed grey line). The APS of the point sources extracted from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey is consistent with a population of point sources having differential source counts of the form given in 3, randomly distributed in the sky.

Comparing angular power spectra is not the ideal way of comparing source count distributions. As can be seen from Eq. 4 the $`C_l`$ coefficients are given by the integral of the distribution up to a flux-cutoff, therefore different source count distributions can give angular power spectra of the same amplitude. However the APS of the point-source distribution is the quantity used to predict the level of contamination to CMB anisotropy coming from extra-galactic point sources (Toffolatti et al. (1998); Hobson et al. (1999)). This result indicates that the basic assumptions on the spatial and flux distribution of extra-galactic radio sources used in CMB studies reproduce correctly the observations at 2.3 GHz made with a 20-arcmin FWHM beam.

## 3 Simulations

The incomplete sky coverage of the Rhodes/HartRAO data, point source suppression by median filtering and the presence of a Galactic cut affect the accuracy with which the angular power spectrum at high Galactic latitude may be recovered. In order to assess the impact of these factors on the estimates of the APS of diffuse radio emission we have performed a series of simulations and reproduced the processing procedure used on the real data.

We have produced two sets of simulations: one for an input APS with a spectral index of $`\alpha =2`$ and the other for an input APS with $`\alpha =3`$. For each set we generated 10 different realisations of a Gaussian random field on the sphere having that input APS. For this purpose we used the SYNFAST software (also part of the HEALPix software package). All the realisations were generated at a resolution of 20 arcmin (FWHM) and sampled into HEALPix maps with nside = 512, as in the case of the Rhodes/HartRAO map. From these we computed the APS for three different conditions: total sky coverage, Galactic plane cutoff with $`|b_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$ and partial sky coverage plus Galactic cutoff ($`|b_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$). For an input APS with $`\alpha =3`$ we also considered the case in which a population of spatially random point sources is added onto the simulated diffuse emission.

### 3.1 Diffuse emission only

In Fig. 6 the means of the derived APS from 10 different realisations of a spectrum with spectral index $`\alpha =2`$ are shown. The curves are for the three different cases considered, that is deriving the APS from full sky maps of the realisations, from maps with a Galactic cutoff with $`|b_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$ and from maps with coverage identical to that of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey plus a Galactic cutoff. With a Galactic cutoff both the usual definition for the APS and the Modified APS definition have been used. As seen from Fig. 6, in this case, the incomplete sky coverage and the presence of a Galactic cutoff do not affect the recovery of the input APS in a substantial way, and there is no appreciable difference between the standard APS definition and the Modified definition.

In order to quantify the accuracy of the recovery we have computed the best-fit power law of the spectra obtained from the 10 realisations, in the three different cases of sky coverage. The amplitude and spectral index of these best-fit power laws can be compared with the true amplitude and spectral index of the APS used as input for the 10 realisations. The standard deviation of the derived amplitudes and spectral indices with respect to the true (input) values provides an estimate of the standard error on the recovered amplitude and spectral index. The results are summarised in Table 1. For a full sky coverage the uncertainty in the measured spectral index over the $`l`$-range 2–200 is of about 2% as can be seen simply by taking the standard deviation over the mean. An incomplete sky coverage such as the one of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey plus the introduction of a Galactic latitude cutoff brings this uncertainty up to 4%. The error on the amplitude of the power law is not significantly affected by a diminished sky coverage.

The same cases of sky coverage have been considered also for an input APS with spectral index $`\alpha =3`$. Fig. 7 shows the mean of the recovered spectra from 10 different sky realisations of the input APS. In this case the derived spectra are more strongly affected by a Galactic cutoff and an incomplete sky coverage. The modulation of the APS caused by introducing the Galactic plane cutoff is clearly visible in the figure (middle panel). The figure also shows how the use of the Modified APS definition helps in reducing such aliasing.

The convolution of the field Spherical Transform by the Spherical Transform of the sky coverage window (which is undersampled) introduces a coupling between the $`a_{lm}`$ coefficients of the field, which is stronger for fields with steeper APS, simply because the gradient in $`l`$ is stronger. This is the reason why an input APS with $`\alpha =2`$ is barely affected by the incomplete sky coverage, while this has such a strong impact on the measure of an input APS with $`\alpha =3`$. In practice the coupling introduced by the sky-coverage window means that no APS with spectral index steeper than $`3.5`$ can be recovered in the presence an equatorial cutoff or large areas of missing data.

However, despite the aliasing noise introduced by the Galactic plane cutoff and the incomplete sky coverage, one can still recover the spectral index of an input APS with $`\alpha 3`$. The parameters resulting from least-square fits to the Modified APS obtained from the 10 realisations are reported also in Table 1. The percentage error on the recovery of the input spectral index from a full-sky observation, is in this case about 1.5% and does not increase substantially with decreasing sky coverage.

### 3.2 Diffuse emission and point sources

In Sect 2.1 we have described how we generated 10 realisations of a spatially random population of point sources with differential source counts of the form given in Eq. 3. From Toffolatti et al. (1998) one can see how this expression of the differential source counts approximate quite well the extra-galactic source counts that are expected at 2.3 GHz, in the flux range $`0.110`$ Jy. Sources with flux lower than 0.1 Jy do not contribute significantly to the temperature fluctuations in the Rhodes/HartRAO survey. The 10 different realisations of point sources were then added onto 10 different realisations of an input APS with a spectral index of $`\alpha =3`$, normalised to the amplitude of the APS of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey measured for a Galactic cutoff with $`|\mathrm{b}_{\mathrm{cut}}|=10^{}`$. Each resulting map, which mimics the superposition of diffuse emission with a Poissonian population of point sources was then convolved with a median filter of size 9$`\times `$9. The APS and the Modified APS of the filtered map was then computed. This APS represents a recovery of the spectrum of the diffuse component and can be directly compared with the input spectrum of the diffuse component to assess the systematic error introduced by median filtering the map.

In Fig. 8 the angular power spectra of two simulated skies are shown on the same scale as the data in Fig. 3. As in the case of the real data the flattening of the spectrum at high $`l`$ due to the Poissonian APS of the point source component is clearly recognizable. These 2 particular cases of simulated skies mimic quite closely the spectra of the raw data in Fig. 3. In these two cases the fitted-spectral index up to $`l=100`$ of the input maps (diffuse emission plus sources) are respectively $`\alpha =2.49\pm 0.02`$ and $`\alpha =2.79\pm 0.02`$444the fit error is given in this case, and after median filtering one obtains $`\alpha =3.04\pm 0.07`$ and $`\alpha =2.96\pm 0.07`$, which are good recoveries of the true spectral index of the simulated diffuse emission.

Fig. 9 shows the Mean APS of the diffuse component recovered by median filtering in the three different cases of sky coverage considered. The median filtering suppression of the high frequency signal starts to affect the APS at $`l100`$. Up to this multipole order the filtering process allows the correct spectral index of the input APS to be recovered, with an error lower than 3%, as taken from Table 2. The average spectral index of the spectra of the 10 maps before median filtering is 2.8, with a standard deviation of $`0.1`$ for $`l[2,100]`$.

## 4 Discussion

The analysis of the Rhodes/HartRAO data shows that the global APS of synchrotron emission at high Galactic latitudes ($`|b|>20^{}`$) is well approximated by a power law spectrum having spectral index $`\alpha =2.92\pm 0.07`$. This result at 2.3 GHz is consistent with the results of Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996) and Bouchet et al. (1996) who found a spectral index $`\alpha `$ of $`2.53`$ up to $`l100`$ from the analysis of square patches of the 408-MHz survey. Bouchet & Gispert (1999) also found $`\alpha 3`$ for $`l100`$ from the analysis of patches of the 1420-MHz survey.

Lasenby (1997) found $`\alpha 2`$ by analysing the 408-MHz and the 1420-MHz surveys in the “Tenerife” patch of sky. This is a $`60\times 10`$ degree patch of the northern hemisphere at high Galactic latitude. This could be a local property of that region of the sky. Alternatively, it could be due to the effect of point sources: Lasenby did not attempt to subtract point sources (private communication) and this may have the effect of flattening the spectrum. From Fig. 3 one can see that without point source subtraction the APS of the synchrotron emission has a slope of approximately $`2`$ in the $`l`$-range 50–150, which is the $`l`$-range that can be probed with a patch of sky of the size of the “Tenerife patch”, at a resolution of $`1^{}`$.

A spectral index of $`\alpha 3`$ has also been derived for the APS of Galactic dust emission (Gautier et al. (1992); Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996); Wright (1998)) and this is the same slope measured for the APS of single velocity neutral hydrogen in the Galaxy (Crovisier & Dickey (1983)). However, Schlegel et al. (1998) report a flatter slope of $`\alpha =2.5`$ for dust emission from the combined DIRBE and IRAS dust maps, at high Galactic latitudes.

The simulations we have performed showed that incomplete sky coverage and a Galactic cut do not introduce significant errors when deriving the spectrum of an input field with $`C_ll^2`$. This is reassuring since $`\alpha 2`$ is approximately the spectral index of the APS of the CMB. On the other hand the incomplete sky coverage of the Rhodes/HartRAO survey and a Galactic cut seriously degrade the quality of the spectrum that can be derived from an input field with a spectral index steeper than 3. Therefore, while spherical harmonic decomposition is a suitable tool to analyse the statistical properties of CMB emission with incomplete sky coverage, it is not ideal when one tries to analyse fields whose spectra have index $`\alpha 3`$. This highlights the need to refine the analysis tools in view of the new observations of the Galactic diffuse emission that will be carried out by Planck and MAP satellites.

Indeed, one limit of our simulations is that the synthesized diffuse emission is a realisation of a random Gaussian field with a given APS while the Galactic signal is not a spatially random field. The spectral index measured from the map of Galactic radio emission changes significantly as the brightest regions of the Galactic plane are gradually masked off. This does not happen when one applies the same type of masking to a random field. We are planning to study the level of Gaussianity of the Galactic signal from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey data in a future work.

As it is apparent from Fig. 2, the Rhodes/HartRAO survey is affected by a certain level of striping, which reflects baseline instabilities due to ground spillover and weather effects (Jonas et al. (1998)). This is more visible around the South Pole region, where the scans necessarily traversed low elevation angles. This striping, with a typical angular scale of $`5^{}`$, will introduce some additional power in the spectrum at multipole order $`l40`$. However, as apparent from the map, even at high-Galactic latitudes, the amplitude of these striations are on the average lower than the observed variation of sky brightness temperature, therefore we expect striations to be only a minor contribution to the overall power measured around $`l40`$. The fact that no significant change of slope is observed in the APS after point-source suppression for $`l<100`$ (Fig. 4), is another indication that striping makes a minor contribution to the total power at a given angular scale. If striping does make a major contribution, then its effect is being disguised by a steeply falling power from the Galactic diffuse emission. So, for the purpose of estimating the contribution of synchrotron emission relatively to the CMB anisotropy, a spectral index of $`\alpha =2.9`$ for the synchrotron APS is a conservative estimate.

One can use the APS derived at 2.3 GHz to infer the level of contamination of the CMB signal at the different angular scales at 30 GHz: this is the lowest frequency channel of Planck and the one for which the highest level of synchrotron contaminations are expected. On the $`7^{}`$ scale, Kogut et al. (1996) derived an upper limit of 11 $`\mu K`$ to the temperature fluctuations due to synchrotron emission in the COBE DMR channel at 31.5 GHz for Galactic latitudes with $`|b|>20^{}`$. If we combine this limit with our measure of $`\alpha =2.92\pm 0.07`$ for the spectral index of the APS we derive an upper limit of $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}=120\mu `$K for the amplitude of synchrotron emission . This upper-limit to synchrotron emission is shown against a CMB spectrum in Fig. 10, as a function of the multipole order $`l`$. The APS for the CMB has been computed assuming a flat inflationary model with purely scalar scale-invariant fluctuations, vacuum energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.43`$, cold dark matter density $`h^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{cdm}}=0.20`$ and baryon density $`h^2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.03`$, (where $`h=0.63`$ is the Hubble parameter), as derived by Tegmark & Zaldarriaga (2000) from the latest CMB measurements (de Bernardis et al. (2000); Winant et al. (2000)). From Fig. 10, it is apparent that synchrotron emission can be a significant contribution to the sky anisotropy at 30 GHz at scales larger than $`20^{}`$, but it is an order of magnitude weaker than the cosmological signal at degree angular scales where the first “acoustic” peak of the CMB is observed. Indeed from COBE observations we know that for the quadrupole (l=2), Galactic emission is comparable in amplitude to the anisotropy of the CMB (Bennett et al. (1996)).

If $`\beta `$ is the spectral index of the frequency dependency of $`A`$, then $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}=120\mu `$K combined with the value $`A_{2.3\mathrm{GHz}}=0.3\pm 0.2`$ K measured at 2.3 GHz provides a lower limit on the frequency spectral index of $`\beta >2.9`$, between 2.3 and 31.5 GHz. At large angular scales ($`18^{}`$), Platania et al. (1998) derive an average value for the spectral index of the synchrotron frequency dependency between 1 and 7.5 GHz of $`\beta =2.81\pm 0.16`$. The spectral index is expected to steepen at frequencies higher than 10 GHz, since the observed energy spectrum of cosmic ray electrons steepens at energy of $`1020`$ GeV (Banday & Wolfendale (1990); Banday et al. (1991)).

In order to bracket the synchrotron contribution to the sky fluctuations at 30 GHz one can combine the lowest ($`1\sigma `$) boundary of our measure for the amplitude, $`A_{2.3\mathrm{GHz}}=0.1`$ K, with the lowest boundary of the frequency spectral index derived by Platania et al. (1998), that is $`\beta =3`$: one obtains $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}=40\mu `$K. This lower limit on the synchrotron contribution is also shown in Fig. 10 as a function of the multipole order.

Tegmark et al. (2000) give three possible estimates of $`A`$ for Galactic synchrotron emission at 19 GHz and label them as optimistic, pessimistic and “middle-of-road”. Their pessimistic value of 192 $`\mu `$K at 19 GHz with a frequency spectral index of $`\beta =2.6`$, corresponds to a $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}60\mu `$K which is within the range of our estimate, but somewhat on the lower bound.

## 5 Summary and Conclusions

In order to analyse the global angular power spectrum of Galactic radio emission we have re-sampled the Rhodes/HartRAO Galactic survey at 2326 MHz into a HEALPix map with nside$`=512`$. The point sources were removed from the map by median filtering. We find that a best-fit to the angular power spectrum of the entire Rhodes/HartRAO survey with a power-law spectrum $`C_ll^\alpha `$, gives $`\alpha =2.43\pm 0.05`$ in the $`l`$ range $`1100`$. At high Galactic latitudes, $`|b|>20^{}`$, where CMB observations are carried out, the APS of the radio emission steepens and it is well described by a power-law with spectral index $`\alpha =2.92\pm 0.07`$ and amplitude $`A_{2.3\mathrm{GHz}}=0.3\pm 0.2`$ K, up to $`l=100`$. At these latitudes radio emission is dominated by synchrotron emission. By combining our results with the upper limit of 11 $`\mu `$K on the synchrotron contribution to temperature fluctuations at 31.5 GHz, obtained by COBE-DMR for the 7-degree angular scale, we derive an upper limit of $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}=120\mu `$K to the amplitude of synchrotron emission at high Galactic latidue. This in turn implies a lower limit of $`\beta >2.9`$ on the spectral index of the frequency dependency of $`A`$.

With an APS index of $`\alpha =2.9`$ and an amplitude $`A_{30\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}<120\mu `$K, at 30 GHz synchrotron emission could be a contaminant of CMB observations at large angular scales ($`l10`$), but will not obstruct a clean view of the CMB anisotropy at degree angular scales.

A map of point sources from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey was also obtained. The APS at high Galactic latitude was compared with the prediction derived from extra-galactic source counts, as interpolated between 1.4 and 5 GHz, under the assumption of a purely random sky distribution. The same source counts and the randomness assumption are the bases of the studies that predict the level of temperature fluctuation to be expected from extra-galactic point sources in CMB observations (Franceschini et al. (1989); Toffolatti et al. (1998)). We conclude that at 2.3 GHz and for a resolution of 20 arcmin, predictions of the point source contribution and observations are consistent with each other.

The simulations that we have performed to evaluate the accuracy of the results show that the spectra derived from the Rhodes/HartRAO survey in the $`l`$-range 2–100 are reliable. Incomplete sky coverage does not compromise the accuracy with which one can derive the APS of the field by spherical harmonic decompoistion, if this field has a spectrum with spectral index $`\alpha <3`$. However we have also found that the quality of the spectrum derived degrades significantly for spectral index $`\alpha 3`$, if large areas of the sky are missing.

The simulations showed that median filtering can be used to effectively remove point sources and derive the APS of the diffuse component up to $`l=100`$, for a beam FWHM of 20 arcmin.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank U. Seljak & M. Zaldarriaga for their CMBFAST software, which was used to generate the CMB angular power spectrum.


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# Theory of Magnetic Properties and Spin-Wave Dispersion for Ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As

## I Introduction

The recent discovery of carrier-mediated ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS) has generated intense interest, in part because it suggests the prospect of developing devices which combine information processing and storage functionalities in one material. Ferromagnetism has been observed in Mn doped GaAs up to critical temperatures $`T_c`$ of $`110\mathrm{K}`$ (see Ref. ). Doping a III-V compound semiconductor with Mn introduces both local magnetic moments, with concentration $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ and spin $`S=5/2`$, and itinerant valence-band carriers with density $`p`$ and spin $`s=1/2`$. An antiferromagnetic interaction between both kinds of spin mediates an effective ferromagnetic interaction between $`\mathrm{Mn}^{2+}`$ spins.

A phenomenological long-wavelength description of ferromagnets usually requires only a small set of characteristic parameters. For example, a ferromagnet which possesses an uniaxial anisotropy can be modeled by a classical micromagnetic energy functional $`E[\widehat{𝐧}(𝐫)]`$,

$$E[\widehat{𝐧}(𝐫)]=E_0+d^3r\left[K\mathrm{sin}^2\theta +A\left(\widehat{𝐧}\right)^2\right],$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{𝐧}(𝐫)`$ is the unit vector that specifies the (space-dependent) local Mn spin orientation, and $`\theta `$ is its angle with respect to the easy axis. The dependence on the orientation of the magnetic moment is parametrized by the anisotropy constant $`K`$. The exchange constant (or spin stiffness) $`A`$ governs the energy cost to twist the orientations of adjacent spins relative to each other. Together with the saturation moment $`\mu _0M_s`$ and the magnetostatic energy, dropped for convenience in Eq. (1), the parameters $`K`$ and $`A`$ determine a whole variety of magnetic properties such as domain-wall width $`\delta _\mathrm{B}`$, domain-wall energy per area $`\gamma `$, exchange length $`l_{\mathrm{ex}}`$, hardness parameter $`\kappa `$, single-domain radius $`R_{\mathrm{sd}}`$, and anisotropy field $`\mu _0H_0`$. In addition they determine the energy cost $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k`$ of collective long-wavelength spin excitations, spin waves. For uniaxial anisotropy the quantized energy is

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_k=\frac{2K}{M_s/(g\mu _B)}+\frac{2A}{M_s/(g\mu _B)}k^2,$$
(2)
at wavevector $`k`$. Here, $`g`$ is the $`g`$-factor and $`\mu _B`$ the Bohr magneton. There is an energy gap which is determined by the anisotropy $`K`$. The spin exchange constant $`A`$ defines the curvature of the spin-wave dispersion.

The purpose of this paper is to present a microscopic theory for the phenomenological parameters which characterize (Ga,Mn)As as a ferromagnet. The form of the micromagnetic energy functional appropriate to the symmetry of the crystal will be addressed in Sec. IV. We expect that these predictions will be useful in interpreting experimental studies of these semiconductor’s magnetic properties. The search for the carrier density, Mn concentration and (III,Mn)V compound semiconductor material for which the critical temperature has its maximum value is, perhaps, the most important endeavor in this research area. It has been guided to date by mean-field-theory considerations that neglect the low-energy correlated magnetization fluctuations characterized by $`M_s`$, $`K`$, and $`A`$. However, as we have emphasized earlier, small exchange can also limit the temperature at which long-range magnetic order exists.

In recent work we developed a theory of diluted magnetic semiconductor ferromagnetism which accounts for dynamic correlations in the ordered state. For simplicity we used parabolic bands for the itinerant carriers, leading to isotropic ferromagnetism. We found, in addition to the usual spin-wave mode, a continuum of Stoner excitations, and another collective branch of excitations, optical spin waves. As we have shown, the low-energy Goldstone modes can suppress the critical temperature in comparison to mean-field estimates and can even change trends in $`T_c`$ as a function of the system’s parameters.

To address anisotropy one has to go beyond a parabolic-band model and take details of the band structure into account. The itinerant-carrier bands are $`p`$-type and reflect the crystal symmetry of the underlying lattice. Due to spin-orbit coupling the spin degrees of freedom also feel the crystal anisotropy. We will use a six-band description based on the Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian to model the (Ga,Mn)As valence bands. States near the Fermi energy in our model include substantial mixing with the split-off valence band making the six-band model we employ the minimal band model. Mean-field calculations as well as Monte Carlo studies based on this more realistic band structure have been performed recently to address magnetic anisotropy effects and explore trends in the critical temperature.

In Sec. II we set the starting point of our theory by deriving a formal expression for the effective action for the Mn impurity spins after integration out the itinerant carriers. This formal development generalizes earlier work to general spin-orbit coupled band models. Using the effective action we numerically determine the zero-temperature spin-wave dispersion in Sec. III. Then, in Sec. IV we establish the connection between our spin-wave results and the classical micromagnetic energy functional, adjusted to the symmetry defined by the crystal structure. Finally, in Sec. V, we present numerical results for the spin-wave dispersion and the exchange constant. We find that for the parameter range of interest the exchange constant is enhanced by up to an order of magnitude compared to naive results obtained earlier, in which light-hole bands were neglected and the heavy-hole bands were approximated as parabolic.

## II Hamiltonian and effective action

Our theory is based on the following model. Magnetic ions with spin $`S=5/2`$ at positions $`𝐑_I`$ are antiferromagnetically coupled to valence-band carriers described by an envelope-function approach,

$$H=H_0+J_{\mathrm{pd}}d^3r𝐒(𝐫)𝐬(𝐫),$$
(3)
where $`𝐒(𝐫)=_I𝐒_I\delta (𝐫𝐑_I)`$ is the impurity-spin density and $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}>0`$. We approximate the impurity-spin density by a continuous functions (instead of a sum of delta functions). Provided that $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}`$ is not strong enough to localize valence-band carriers near the Mn sites and the average distance between two Mn ions is small in comparison to the Fermi wavelength of the itinerant carriers, this approximation can be justified. The itinerant-carrier spin density is expressed in terms of carrier field operators by $`𝐬(𝐫)=_{ij}\mathrm{\Psi }_i^{}(𝐫)𝐬_{ij}\mathrm{\Psi }_j(𝐫)`$ where $`i`$ and $`j`$ label the basis in Hilbert space of spin and orbital angular momentum, and $`𝐬_{ij}`$ is the corresponding representation of the spin operator. The envelope-function Hamiltonian $`H_0`$ for the valence bands can be parametrized by a small number of symmetry-adapted parameters, the Luttinger parameters $`\gamma _1`$, $`\gamma _2`$, $`\gamma _3`$, and the spin-orbit coupling $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{so}}`$ which splits the six states at the band edge into a quartet and a doublet. For explicit expressions of $`H_0`$ as well as representations of the spin matrices in a coordinate system in which the $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$-axis are along the crystal axes, we refer to Eqs. (A8)-(A10) of Ref. , based on the Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian.

Phenomenological Hamiltonians of this form have proven successful in understanding optical properties of the closely related magnetically doped II-VI semiconductors. In that case however, the inclusion of direct antiferromagnetic interactions between Mn spins that lie on neighboring lattice sites proved to be important. This interactions appear to be much weaker in the III-V case, although this difference is not fully understood. We do not include these spin-spin interactions in our calculations, because we have no knowledge of the strength of the coupling coefficient. If included, they would mainly influence short-distance spin excitations which are not in any event the focus of this work.

We note that local-spin-density-approximation electronic structure calculations, taken at face value, find a strong hybridization between $`p`$ and $`d`$ carriers, which is not completely consistent with the model we use. However, given the overwhelming success of the present model in the case of paramagnetic (II,Mn)VI materials, we find it unlikely that the Mn $`d`$ electrons are itinerant. If they were, the phenomenological approach we study here would be incomplete.

Our treatment of the Mn spin system as a continuum greatly simplifies our calculation by eliminating disorder associated with randomness in the Mn positions. We do anticipate that the disorder can influence both anisotropy and exchange constant at the low- and high-carrier-concentration extremes. These effects are, however, outside the scope of the present study. We will identify several important features of the microscopic physics in the disorder-free model that we expect to be robust.

Our first goal is to integrate out the itinerant carriers and arrive at an effective description for the impurity-spin degrees of freedom. This procedure follows the analysis presented in Ref.  for the (simpler) two-band model. For small fluctuations around its mean-field polarization, we can approximate the spin operators by $`S^+(𝐫)b(𝐫)\sqrt{2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}`$, $`S^{}(𝐫)=\left(S^+(𝐫)\right)^{}`$, and $`S^z(𝐫)=N_{\mathrm{Mn}}Sb^{}(𝐫)b(𝐫)`$, where $`b^{}(𝐫),b(𝐫)`$ are bosonic Holstein-Primakoff fields. The quantization axis $`z`$ is chosen here along the zero-temperature spin orientation. After integrating out the itinerant carriers the partition function, $`Z=𝒟[\overline{z}z]\mathrm{exp}(S_{\mathrm{eff}}[\overline{z}z])`$, is governed by the effective action for the impurity spins,

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}[\overline{z}z]=S_{\mathrm{BP}}[\overline{z}z]\mathrm{ln}det\left[(G^{\mathrm{MF}})^1+\delta G^1(\overline{z}z)\right],$$
(4)
where $`S_{\mathrm{BP}}[\overline{z}z]=_0^\beta 𝑑\tau d^3r\overline{z}_\tau z`$ is the usual Berry’s phase term, and the complex numbers $`\overline{z}`$ and $`z`$ label the bosonic degrees of freedom. In Eq. (4), we have already split the total kernel $`G^1`$ into a mean-field part $`(G^{\mathrm{MF}})^1`$ and a fluctuating part $`\delta G^1`$,

$`(G^{\mathrm{MF}})_{ij}^1`$ $`=`$ $`\left(_\tau \mu \right)\delta _{ij}+i|H_0|j+N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}Ss_{ij}^z`$ (5)
$`\delta G_{ij}^1(\overline{z}z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{J_{\mathrm{pd}}}{2}}\left[\left(zs_{ij}^{}+\overline{z}s_{ij}^+\right)\sqrt{2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}2\overline{z}zs_{ij}^z\right]`$ (6)
where $`\mu `$ denotes the chemical potential, and $`i`$ and $`j`$ range over a complete set of hole-band states. In the following we define the mean-field energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }=N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}S`$ to flip the spin of an itinerant carrier. The physics of the itinerant carriers is embedded in the effective action of the magnetic ions. It is responsible for the retarded and non-local character of the interactions between magnetic ions.

## III Independent spin-wave theory

Independent spin-wave theory is obtained by expanding Eq. (4) up to quadratic order in $`z`$ and performing Matsubara imaginary time and space Fourier transforms. Since $`\delta G^1`$ is at least linear in $`z`$ the series

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}[\overline{z}z]=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(n)}[\overline{z}z],$$
(7)
can be truncated after $`n=2`$, where $`n`$ denotes the order in $`\delta G^1`$. The zeroth-order contribution, $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(0)}[\overline{z}z]=S_{\mathrm{BP}}[\overline{z}z]\mathrm{ln}det(G^{\mathrm{MF}})^1`$ contains the Berry’s phase term

$$S_{\mathrm{BP}}[\overline{z}z]=\underset{m,𝐤}{}(i\nu _m)\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)z(𝐤,\nu _m),$$
(8)
and the mean-field contribution from the itinerant carriers, which is independent of the bosonic fields $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$. Here, $`\nu _m`$ are the bosonic Matsubara frequencies.

The next term of the expansion, $`S^{(1)}[\overline{z}z]=\mathrm{tr}\left(G^{\mathrm{MF}}\delta G^1\right)`$, reads in Fourier representation

$`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(1)}[\overline{z}z]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{J_{\mathrm{pd}}}{(\beta V)^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n,𝐪}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{ij}{}}G_{ij}^{\mathrm{MF}}(𝐪,\omega _n)s_{ji}^z`$ (10)
$`\times {\displaystyle \underset{m,𝐤}{}}\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)z(𝐤,\nu _m),`$
plus terms linear in $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$. Here, $`\omega _n`$ and $`\nu _m`$ are fermionic and bosonic Matsubara frequencies, respectively. To determine the mean-field Green’s functions we diagonalize the matrix $`i|H_0(𝐪)+\mathrm{\Delta }s^z|j`$ for each wavevector $`𝐪`$ and denote eigenvalues and eigenstates by $`ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)`$ and $`|\alpha `$, respectively. Since the itinerant-carrier spin density $`𝐬=(1/V)_𝐪_\alpha f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]\alpha |𝐬|\alpha `$ is aligned antiparallel to the impurity spin-polarization axis (otherwise this would not be an easy axis), the terms linear in $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$ drop out, and we get

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(1)}[\overline{z}z]=\frac{J_{\mathrm{pd}}p\xi }{2\beta V}\underset{m,𝐤}{}\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)z(𝐤,\nu _m),$$
(11)
where $`\xi =2s^z/p`$ is the fractional itinerant-carrier polarization, $`0\xi 1`$.

For the second-order term of the expansion, $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(2)}[\overline{z}z]=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{tr}\left(G^{\mathrm{MF}}\delta G^1G^{\mathrm{MF}}\delta G^1\right)`$, we find

$`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(2)}[\overline{z}z]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}^2S}{4\beta V^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{m,𝐪,𝐤}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \beta }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]f[ϵ_\beta (𝐪+𝐤)]}{i\nu _m+ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)ϵ_\beta (𝐪+𝐤)}}`$ (15)
$`[2s_{\alpha \beta }^+s_{\beta \alpha }^{}\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)z(𝐤,\nu _m)`$
$`+s_{\alpha \beta }^+s_{\beta \alpha }^+\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)\overline{z}(𝐤,\nu _m)`$
$`+s_{\alpha \beta }^{}s_{\beta \alpha }^{}z(𝐤,\nu _m)z(𝐤,\nu _m)]+𝒪(z^3),`$
with $`s_{\alpha \beta }^\pm =\alpha |s^\pm |\beta `$ and $`s_{\beta \alpha }^\pm =\beta |s^\pm |\alpha `$. Note, that the indices $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ label the single-particle eigenstates for valence-band carriers with different wavevectors, namely q and q+k, respectively.

The Matsubara frequency $`\nu _m`$ in the denominator on the r.h.s of Eq. (15) accounts for the dynamics of the itinerant carriers. This frequency dependence is crucial to account for the existence of the Stoner spin-flip continuum and the optical spin-wave mode. On the other hand, the existence of the usual spin wave follows already from the static limit (i.e., when the frequency dependence in the denominator in Eq. (15) is dropped), and the spin-wave dispersion is described rather accurately.

The sum of Eqs. (8), (11), and (15) is a quadratic form in the bosonic fields $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$. The zeros of the kernel define the spin-wave energies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐤`$ as a function of momentum $`𝐤`$ (after analytic continuation $`i\nu _m\mathrm{\Omega }+i0^+`$). In the following we go the static limit as discussed above. We define the quantities

$$E_𝐤^{\sigma \sigma ^{}}=\frac{1}{V}\underset{𝐪}{}\underset{\alpha \beta }{}\frac{f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]f[ϵ_\beta (𝐪+𝐤)]}{ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)ϵ_\beta (𝐪+𝐤)}s_{\alpha \beta }^\sigma s_{\beta \alpha }^\sigma ^{}$$
(16)
with $`\sigma ,\sigma ^{}=\pm `$, and perform a Bogoliubov transformation, which eventually yields

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐤}{\mathrm{\Delta }}=\frac{J_{\mathrm{pd}}}{2}\sqrt{\left(\frac{p\xi }{\mathrm{\Delta }}E_𝐤^+\right)^2\left|E_𝐤^{++}\right|^2}.$$
(17)
From the definition Eq. (16) we see that $`E_𝐤^+`$ is real and $`E_𝐤^{}=\left(E_𝐤^{++}\right)^{}`$. Equation (17) is the central result of this section. The remaining task is to evaluate the fractional itinerant-carrier polarization $`\xi `$ and the quantities $`E_𝐤^+`$ and $`E_𝐤^{++}`$ numerically.

Before we carry on with establishing the relation between Eq. (17) and micromagnetic parameters of a classical energy functional, we make three remarks:

(i) Correlation effects among the Mn spins, which are not described by the mean-field picture, enter our theory via the contribution $`S_{\mathrm{eff}}^{(2)}[\overline{z}z]`$. To reduce our theory to the mean-field level we would have to neglect this term, i.e., truncate the series Eq. (7) already after $`n=1`$. In this case, the energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{MF}}=J_{\mathrm{pd}}p\xi /2`$ of a Mn spin excitation would be dispersionless and by a factor of $`p\xi /(2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S)`$ smaller than the mean-field energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ to flip an itinerant-carrier spin. Due to correlations between Mn and band-spin orientations, however, the spin-wave energy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_𝐤`$ is always smaller than $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{\mathrm{MF}}`$.

(ii) In the absence of spin-orbit coupling all products of the form $`s_{\alpha \beta }^+s_{\beta \alpha }^+`$ or $`s_{\alpha \beta }^{}s_{\beta \alpha }^{}`$ vanish. As a consequence, $`E_𝐤^{++}=E_𝐤^{}=0`$ for all $`𝐤`$. This statement is even true for finite spin-orbit coupling in case when the valence bands are isotropic.

(iii) To go beyond the static limit, we may expand the fraction on the r.h.s of Eq. (15) up to linear order in $`i\nu _m`$. As shown in Appendix A, this linear correction simply amounts to a renormalization of the Berry’s phase term by replacing $`\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega }(1x)`$. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling we find that $`x`$ is just the ratio of the spin densities, $`x=s^z/(N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S)`$, where $`\mathrm{}=(1/V)_𝐪_\alpha f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]\alpha |\mathrm{}|\alpha `$. For finite spin-orbit coupling but with a band Hamiltonian that is invariant under rotation in space, the spin $`s^z`$ has to be replaced by the total angular momentum $`s^z+l^z`$, i.e., we find $`x=s^z+l^z/(N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S)`$.

The renormalization factor $`(1x)`$ indicates that in a semiclassical picture, as employed in Sec. IV, the effective spin density is not quite given by the Mn impurities, but has to be reduced due to coupling to the valence-band carriers. On the other hand, $`x`$ is always small since the impurity spin density $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ is larger than the itinerant-carrier concentration $`p`$ and the Mn spin $`S=5/2`$ is comparatively large. We, therefore, stick to the static limit in the following discussion.

## IV Easy axis, energy gap and spin stiffness

The purpose of this section is to establish the connection between the spin-wave dispersions evaluated later and the micromagnetic energy functional. The non-local magnetostatic contribution which is omitted from our theory can be added as needed in applications. The short-range part of the functional is a symmetry-adapted gradient expansion of the energy density $`e[\widehat{𝐧}]`$. In magnetism literature the non-constant portion of the zeroth-order term $`e^{\mathrm{ani}}[\widehat{𝐧}]`$ is known as the magnetic anisotropy energy, and the leading gradient term $`e^{\mathrm{ex}}[\widehat{𝐧}]`$ is known as the exchange energy. As shown in Ref.  magnetic anisotropy effect in ferromagnetic semiconductors are, in the absence of strain, very well described by a cubic harmonic expansion which is truncated after sixth order,

$$e^{\mathrm{ani}}[\widehat{𝐧}]=K_1\left(n_x^2n_y^2+n_x^2n_z^2+n_y^2n_z^2\right)+K_2\left(n_xn_yn_z\right)^2$$
(18)
with anisotropy parameters $`K_1`$ and $`K_2`$. Correlation of spin polarizations at different positions are described by the gradient term $`e^{\mathrm{ex}}[\widehat{𝐧}]`$. In order to address long-wavelength spatial fluctuations, we expand the gradient term up to lowest nonvanishing order,

$$e^{\mathrm{ex}}[\widehat{𝐧}]=\underset{a,b\{x,y,z\}}{}A_{ab}|_an_b|^2,$$
(19)
with exchange parameters $`A_{ab}`$. We find in our numerical calculations that anisotropy in the exchange constant is negligibly small, i.e., we can choose $`A_{ab}=A`$ for all $`a,b`$, as generally assumed in the magnetism literature.

To establish the connection of the energy functional to our microscopic spin-wave calculation, we first have to determine the direction of the mean-field spin polarization and then to study small fluctuations. The first step is achieved by minimizing the energy Eq. (18). It is easy to show that the mean-field orientation $`\widehat{𝐧}^{\mathrm{MF}}`$ can only point along a high-symmetry axis $`100`$, $`110`$, $`111`$, or an equivalent direction (except for the special case $`K_2=0`$ and $`K_1>0`$, where we find an easy-plane anisotropy in the planes $`n_x=0`$, $`n_y=0`$ or $`n_z=0`$, and, of course, the isotropic case $`K_1=K_2=0`$). In Fig. 1 we show how the mean-field polarization direction depends on $`K_1`$ and $`K_2`$.

Now we consider small fluctuations around the mean-field orientation $`\widehat{𝐧}^{\mathrm{MF}}`$. The kernel of the quadratic form $`e^{\mathrm{ani}}[\widehat{𝐧}]e^{\mathrm{ani}}[\widehat{𝐧}^{\mathrm{MF}}]`$ has two eigenvalues $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$. We find for $`\widehat{𝐧}^{\mathrm{MF}}`$ along $`100`$ that $`\lambda _1=\lambda _2=K_1`$, for $`110`$ we get $`\lambda _1=K_1`$ and $`\lambda _2=(2K_1+K_2)/4`$, and for $`111`$ we obtain $`\lambda _1=\lambda _2=(6K_1+2K_2)/9`$. In all cases, $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are positive. Quantizing the collective spin coordinate at long wavelengths, it follows that

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_k=\frac{2\sqrt{\lambda _1\lambda _2}}{N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}+\frac{2A}{N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}k^2+𝒪(k^4).$$
(20)
There are two alternative ways to determine the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{k=0}`$. One can either perform the $`k=0`$ limit of the spin-wave dispersion Eq. (17) or evaluate the coefficients $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ from calculating the energy for mean-field orientation $`\widehat{𝐧}^{\mathrm{MF}}`$ along the three high-symmetry axes $`100`$, $`110`$, and $`111`$. The numerical effort of the latter procedure, which has been used previously in Ref. , is lesser for given accuracy. The virtue of the spin-wave calculation is to determine the exchange constant $`A`$.

We conclude this section with two remarks:

(i) In case that the easy axis is along $`100`$ or $`111`$ (as it is for all parameter sets considered in Sec. V), the energy cost of tilting the polarization axis by small angles is independent of the direction of the deflection. This is required by symmetry and indicated by the fact that $`\lambda _1`$ equals $`\lambda _2`$. As shown in Appendix B, the term $`E_{k=0}^{++}`$ then vanishes, and the $`k=0`$ limit of Eq. (17) is identical to the energy gap calculated from standard perturbation theory where the perturbation describes the deviation of the spin polarization from the mean-field direction.

(ii) The denominators $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S`$ in Eq. (20) corresponds to the static limit employed in our calculation. The renormalization of the Berry’s phase term due to corrections to the static limit (see discussion in the previous section) could be accounted for by multiplying $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S`$ with $`(1x)`$.

## V Numerical results for the spin-wave dispersion

In this section we present numerical results for the spin-wave dispersion of (Ga,Mn)As. From these calculations we extract the spin stiffness as a function of the itinerant-carrier concentration $`p`$ and on the exchange coupling $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}`$. To model the sample which showed the highest transition temperature of $`110\mathrm{K}`$ so far, we choose as parameters $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}=1\mathrm{nm}^3`$, $`p=0.35\mathrm{nm}^3`$, and $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}=0.068\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{nm}^3`$. As a consequence, the mean-field spin-splitting gap for the itinerant carriers is $`\mathrm{\Delta }=N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}S=0.17\mathrm{eV}`$.

### A Isotropic vs. six-band model

The origin of ferromagnetism, the nature of the spin excitations, and trends in the critical temperatures can be explained within a simple model which describes the itinerant carriers by parabolic bands. For more quantitative statements, a more realistic description of the band structure should be employed.

In Fig. 2 we show results for the isotropic model with two parabolic band with effective mass $`m^{}=0.5m_e`$ (a Debye cutoff $`k_D`$ with $`k_D^3=6\pi ^2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}`$ ensures that we include the correct number of magnetic ion degrees of freedom). We find for the majority-spin Fermi energy $`ϵ_F=0.44\mathrm{eV}`$ measured from the bottom of the band. This yields the itinerant-carrier polarization $`\xi =0.35`$. The dashed line in Fig. 2 marks the mean-field spin-flip energy, obtained by neglecting correlation. Since the spin-wave energies are far below the mean-field result, the isotropic model suggest that for these parameters correlation is very important and the critical temperature is limited by collective fluctuations. According to the classification scheme introduced in Ref. , the system would be in the ”RKKY collective regime”.

By fitting a parabola at small momenta we find $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k/\mathrm{\Delta }=0.0068(k/k_D)^2`$ which yields $`A=0.095\mathrm{meV}\mathrm{nm}^1=0.015\mathrm{pJ}\mathrm{m}^1`$.

Now we use the six-band Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian with Luttinger parameters $`\gamma _1=6.85`$, $`\gamma _2=2.1`$, and $`\gamma _3=2.9`$ and spin-orbit coupling $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{so}}=0.34\mathrm{eV}`$. In the absence of the Mn ion, this model has anisotropic heavy- and light-hole bands with masses $`m_h0.498m_e`$ and $`m_l0.086m_e`$. The spirit of the naive parabolic band model is the hope that only the band with the larger density of states matters and the anisotropy is unimportant. We will see that these hopes are not fulfilled.

We find a much lower Fermi energy $`ϵ_F=0.25\mathrm{eV}`$ than obtained for the isotropic model, and, therefore, a much higher itinerant-carrier spin polarization $`\xi =0.73`$. By calculating the mean-field energy for a Mn spin polarization along the three high-symmetry axes we determine the anisotropy parameters as $`K_1=19.6\times 10^6\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{nm}^3`$ and $`K_2=1.6\times 10^6\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{nm}^3`$. As a consequence, the easy axis is $`100`$ and the energy gap, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{k=0}/\mathrm{\Delta }=9.2\times 10^5`$, is very small in comparison to the bandwidth of the spin-wave dispersion.

In Fig. 3 we show the spin-wave dispersion for wavevectors $`𝐤`$ along the easy axis. We observe that the effect of $`E_𝐤^{++}`$ in Eq. (17) is negligibly small and can, therefore, be dropped. Furthermore, we find that the dispersion for a spin wave perpendicular to the easy axis cannot be distinguished from the dispersion of spin waves along the easy axis within numerical accuracy. By fitting a parabola at small momenta we find $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k/\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Omega }_{k=0}/\mathrm{\Delta }+0.16(k/k_D)^2`$ which yields $`A=2.2\mathrm{meV}\mathrm{nm}^1=0.36\mathrm{pJ}\mathrm{m}^1`$ (see inset of Fig. 3). Furthermore, we see that the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{k=0}/\mathrm{\Delta }`$ determined in the previous paragraph is consistent with our spin-wave results. Employing the six-band model we see that for the given parameters the spin-wave energies are much closer to the mean-field value than for the isotropic model. According to our classification given in Ref.  the system is rather in the ”mean-field regime”, which explains the success of mean-field theory to reproduce the critical temperature.

### B Six-band model plus strain

The lattice constants of (Ga,Mn)As and GaAs do not match. Since low-temperature molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has to be used to overcome the low solubility of Mn in GaAs, even thick films of (Ga,Mn)As grown on GaAs cannot relax to their equilibrium. The lattice of (Ga,Mn)As is instead locked to that of the underlying substrate. This induces strain which breaks the cubic symmetry. The influence of MBE growth lattice-matching strain on hole bands of cubic semiconductors is well understood. This effect can easily be accounted for adding a strain term to the Hamiltonian (we use Eq. (32) of Ref.  with strain parameters $`e_0=0.0028`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.24\mathrm{eV}`$).

We choose the growth direction to be along $`001`$ and compute the energy for five different directions $`100`$, $`001`$, $`110`$, $`011`$, and $`111`$. The lowest energy is found for $`100`$, i.e., we find an easy-axis anisotropy where the easy axis is in the plane perpendicular to the growth direction, in accordance with experiments. From the expansion of the mean-field anisotropy energy for small fluctuations around $`100`$ and determining the eigenvalues for small fluctuations we estimate that the energy gap in the dispersion is larger than in the absence of strain by a factor of 1.4, i.e., still small. The spin stiffness derived from the curvature of the spin-wave dispersion is identical to that in the absence of strain within the accuracy of our numerical calculations. We will, therefore, ignore the effect of strain in the following.

### C Spin stiffness

In Fig. 4 we show the exchange constant (or spin stiffness) $`A`$ as a function of the itinerant-carrier density for both the isotropic two-band and the full six-band model. We find that the spin stiffness is much larger for the six-band calculation than for the two-band model. Furthermore, for the chosen range of itinerant-carrier densities the trend is different: in the two-band model the exchange constant decreases with increasing density, while for the six-band description we observe an increase with a subsequent saturation.

Experimental estimates for $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}`$ vary from $`0.054\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{nm}^3`$ to $`0.15\mathrm{eV}\mathrm{nm}^3`$, with more recent work suggesting a value toward the lower end of this range. To address the dependence of the spin stiffness on $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}`$, we show in Fig. 4 results for a two values of $`J_{\mathrm{pd}}`$ which differ by a factor two.

To understand the different behavior of the two-band and the six-band model we recall that the two-band model predicts $`A=p\mathrm{}^2/(8m^{})`$ for low densities $`p`$, while at high densities $`A`$ decreases as a function of $`p`$ (note that in Refs.  and  the spin stiffness was characterized by $`\rho =2A`$). The crossover occurs near $`\mathrm{\Delta }ϵ_F`$. The difference in the trends seen for the two- and six-band model in Fig. 4 is consistent with the observation that, at given itinerant-carrier concentration $`p`$, the Fermi energy $`ϵ_F`$ is much smaller when the six-band model is employed, where more bands are available for the carriers, than in the two-band case. Furthermore, we emphasize that, even in the limit of low carrier concentration, it is not only the (heavy-hole) mass of the lowest band which is important for the spin stiffness. Instead, a collective state in which the spins of the itinerant carriers follow the spatial variation of a Mn spin-wave configuration will involve the light-hole band, too.

## Conclusion

In conclusion we present a microscopic calculation of micromagnetic parameters for ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As. We draw the connection of the anisotropy and exchange constant of a classical energy functional to the gap and curvature of the spin-wave dispersion. Numerical results for the spin stiffness as a function of itinerant-carrier concentration and $`pd`$ exchange coupling are shown. We find that the energy gap is much smaller than the bandwidth, the spin stiffness is nearly isotropic, and strain does not effect the dispersion much. Furthermore, we see that a model with isotropic valence bands underestimates the spin stiffness considerably.

## Acknowledgements

We acknowledge useful discussions with M. Abolfath, B. Beschoten, T. Dietl, J. Furdyna, H.H. Lin, and J. Schliemann. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, the EU COST Program, the Welch Foundation, the Indiana $`21^{\mathrm{st}}`$ Century Fund, and the Office of Naval Research and the Research Foundation of the State University of New York under grant number N000140010951.

## A Renormalization of Berry’s phase term

In this section, we show that the linear correction beyond the static limit yields a correction to the Berry’s phase. This accounts for the fact that the effective spin in a semiclassical approach does not have the length $`S`$ of the Mn impurities by is reduced by a factor $`(1x)`$ due to coupling to the itinerant-carrier spin degree of freedom. We expand the r.h.s of Eq. (15) up to linear order in $`i\nu _m`$. The terms with $`\overline{z}\overline{z}`$ and $`zz`$ vanish since it is an odd function under the following operation: we shift $`𝐪𝐪𝐤`$, use the fact that $`ϵ_\alpha (𝐪𝐤)=ϵ_\alpha (𝐪+𝐤)`$ and $`ϵ_\beta (𝐪)=ϵ_\beta (𝐪)`$ and, eventually, exchange $`\alpha \beta `$. Hence, we only have to deal with the term which involves $`\overline{z}z`$.

Assume that there is an operator $`Q`$ such that $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}Ss^+=[H,Q]`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}Ss^{}=[H,Q^{}]`$. Then the renormalization for the Berry’s phase is given by $`(1x)`$ with

$$x=\frac{1}{2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}SV}\underset{𝐪}{}\underset{\alpha }{}f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]\alpha |[Q^{},Q]|\alpha $$
(A1)
independent of $`𝐤`$. In the absence of spin-orbit coupling we choose $`Q=s^+`$, which yields

$$x=\frac{s^z}{N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}=\frac{p\xi }{2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S},$$
(A2)
i.e., $`x`$ is just the ratio of itinerant-carrier spin concentration to Mn spin density. For finite spin-orbit coupling the spin of the itinerant carrier is coupled to the orbital angular momentum. If the band Hamiltonian is invariant under rotation in space, we can choose $`Q=s^++l^+`$ and find

$$x=\frac{s^z+l^z}{N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S}.$$
(A3)
In this case the correction is given by the ratio of the total angular momentum density of the itinerant carriers and the Mn concentration.

If the valence bands are described by the Kohn-Luttinger Hamiltonian, however, the total angular momentum is no longer a conserved quantity. Or, equivalently, the orbital angular momentum of the valence-band carriers couples to the crystal lattice, and the simple form Eq. (A3) no longer holds.

## B Spin-wave dispersion gap

The goal of this section is to rederive the $`k=0`$ limit of the spin-wave energy Eq. (17) by standard perturbation theory where the perturbation describes the deviation of the spin polarization from the mean-field direction $`100`$ or $`111`$.

### 1 Proof that $`E_{k=0}^{++}=0`$ for $`100`$ or $`111`$ easy axis

We start by showing that

$$E_{k=0}^{++}=\frac{1}{V}\underset{𝐪}{}\underset{\alpha \beta }{}\frac{f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]f[ϵ_\beta (𝐪)]}{ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)ϵ_\beta (𝐪)}s_{\alpha \beta }^+s_{\beta \alpha }^+$$
(B1)
vanishes, if the mean-field polarization is along $`100`$ or $`111`$. Note that $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ now label the same basis states.

Let $`\stackrel{~}{𝐪}`$ be a wavevector which is obtained from $`𝐪`$ by rotation about the $`z`$-axis (which is defined by the mean-field Mn spin polarization direction) by an angle $`\phi `$ which respects the symmetry of the crystal. If the $`z`$-axis is $`100`$ or $`111`$, then the allowed angles are $`\phi \{0,\pi /2,\pi ,3\pi /2\}`$ or $`\{0,2\pi /3,\pi ,4\pi /3\}`$, respectively. For $`110`$ it would be $`\phi \{0,\pi \}`$. Due to the symmetry of the crystal, the spectrum at $`\stackrel{~}{𝐪}`$, labeled by $`\stackrel{~}{\alpha }`$ (or $`\stackrel{~}{\beta }`$), is identical to that at $`𝐪`$, i.e., $`ϵ_{\stackrel{~}{\alpha }}=ϵ_\alpha `$. The corresponding eigenstates are connected by $`|\stackrel{~}{\alpha }=U|\alpha `$ with $`U=\mathrm{exp}[i(s^z+l^z)\phi ]`$.

Since the spin operator $`s^+`$ and the operator for the orbital angular momentum $`l^z`$ commute, the following relation is satisfied,

$`s_{\stackrel{~}{\alpha }\stackrel{~}{\beta }}^+s_{\stackrel{~}{\beta }\stackrel{~}{\alpha }}^+`$ $`=`$ $`\alpha |U^1s^+U|\beta \beta |U^1s^+U|\alpha `$ (B2)
$`=`$ $`e^{2i\phi }s_{\alpha \beta }^+s_{\beta \alpha }^+.`$ (B3)
As a consequence, the partial summation in Eq. (B1) over all wavevectors $`𝐪`$ which are equivalent due to symmetry yields a factor $`(1+e^{i\pi }+e^{2i\pi }+e^{3i\pi })=0`$ for the easy axis $`100`$ and $`(1+e^{4i\pi /3}+e^{8i\pi /3})=0`$ for $`111`$, i.e., $`E_{k=0}^{++}=0`$ in both cases. In contrast, the corresponding factor $`(1+e^{2i\pi })`$ for $`110`$ is nonzero, and $`E_{k=0}^{++}`$ is, in general, finite.

### 2 Relation between energy gap and $`E_{k=0}^+`$

To determine the energy cost of tilting the spin polarization by small angle $`\theta `$ out of the mean-field direction, we add to the Hamiltonian the perturbation

$$H^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }\left[\frac{\theta ^2}{2}s^z+\theta \left(s^x\mathrm{cos}\phi +s^y\mathrm{sin}\phi \right)\right],$$
(B4)
and use standard perturbation theory. Here, $`\phi [0,2\pi )`$ is the azimuth, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=N_{\mathrm{Mn}}J_{\mathrm{pd}}S`$. The linear order in $`\theta `$ does not contribute since $`s^x=s^y=0`$. To obtain the quadratic order in $`\theta `$ we use first-order perturbation theory for the $`s^z`$ term in Eq. (B4) and second-order perturbation theory for the $`s^x\mathrm{cos}\phi +s^y\mathrm{sin}\phi =(s^+e^{i\phi }+s^{}e^{i\phi })/2`$ contribution. For the former we get

$$\delta E^{}=\frac{\theta ^2\mathrm{\Delta }}{2V}\underset{𝐪}{}\underset{\alpha }{}f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]\alpha |s^z|\alpha =\frac{\theta ^2\mathrm{\Delta }p\xi }{4},$$
(B5)
and the result for latter reads

$`\delta E^{\prime \prime }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{4V}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha \beta }{}}f[ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)]{\displaystyle \frac{|\alpha |s^+e^{i\phi }+s^{}e^{i\phi }|\beta |^2}{ϵ_\alpha (𝐪)ϵ_\beta (𝐪)}}`$ (B6)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^2\mathrm{\Delta }^2}{8}}\left(2E_{k=0}^++e^{2i\phi }E_{k=0}^{++}+e^{2i\phi }E_{k=0}^{}\right).`$ (B7)
If the easy axis is along $`100`$ or $`111`$, then $`E_{k=0}^{++}=E_{k=0}^{}=0`$, and the energy is independent of $`\phi `$. The spin wave energy at $`k=0`$ can now be obtained from the ratio of the energy change $`\delta E^{}+\delta E^{\prime \prime }`$ and the change of the spin $`\delta S=\theta ^2N_{\mathrm{Mn}}S/2`$, which yields

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{k=0}}{\mathrm{\Delta }}=\frac{J_{\mathrm{pd}}}{2}\left(\frac{p\xi }{\mathrm{\Delta }}E_{k=0}^+\right),$$
(B8)
and, as desired, we recover the $`k=0`$ limit of Eq. (17) for an easy-axis direction $`100`$ or $`111`$.