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# Characterization of M, L and T Dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky SurveyBased on observations obtained with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-meter telescope, which are owned and operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium.

## 1 Abstract

An extensive sample of M, L and T dwarfs identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has been compiled. The sample of 718 dwarfs includes 677 new objects (629 M dwarfs, 48 L dwarfs) together with 41 that have been previously published. All new objects and some of the previously published ones have new optical spectra obtained either with the SDSS spectrographs or with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5m ARC telescope. Spectral types and SDSS colors are available for all objects; approximately 35% also have near-infrared magnitudes measured by 2MASS or on the Mauna Kea system. We use this sample to characterize the color–spectral type and color–color relations of late type dwarfs in the SDSS filters, and to derive spectroscopic and photometric parallax relations for use in future studies of the luminosity and mass functions based on SDSS data. We find that the $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) colors provide good spectral type and absolute magnitude (M$`_i^{}`$) estimates for M and L dwarfs. Our distance estimates for the current sample indicate that SDSS is finding early M dwarfs out to $``$ 1.5 kpc, L dwarfs to $``$ 100 pc and T dwarfs to $``$ 20 pc. The T dwarf photometric data show large scatter and are therefore less reliable for spectral type and distance estimation.

## 2 Introduction

Large sky surveys have proven to be fertile ground for identifying extremely late-type stellar and substellar objects (Reid & Hawley, 2000). In the past decade, the accumulation of sizable samples of low mass stars and brown dwarfs has been largely the result of near-infrared surveys such as the Deep Near-Infrared Survey (DENIS) (Delfosse et al., 1997) and the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) (Skrutskie et al., 1997). These discoveries culminated in the definition of the L spectral class (Kirkpatrick et al., 1999; Martin et al., 1999; Kirkpatrick et al., 2000; Basri et al., 2000). Recently, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry was used to identify the first isolated field T dwarfs (Strauss et al., 1999; Tsvetanov et al., 2000) and later to provide candidates that filled the gap separating the L and T spectral sequences (Leggett et al., 2000). Numerous L dwarfs have also been found from SDSS photometry (Fan et al., 2000; Schneider et al., 2002). The reward of these and additional 2MASS efforts has been a well defined spectral sequence from M through T dwarfs (Burgasser et al., 2002; Geballe et al., 2002).

The SDSS offers more than just photometric candidates. The spectral database is expected to ultimately contain more than one million calibrated spectra, many of which will be late type dwarfs. Here we present a study of hundreds of M and L dwarfs compiled from SDSS spectra, together with spectra of SDSS photometric candidates obtained at the 3.5m ARC telescope at Apache Point Observatory (APO). Our final sample also includes all previously published SDSS late-type dwarfs. We first describe the assembly of the sample and the methods used to assign spectral types. We then investigate color–spectral type and color–color relationships, and determine empirical spectroscopic and photometric parallax relations in the red SDSS filters. This paper is intended to provide the necessary calibration information so that SDSS objects may be characterized on the basis of their photometry. Later efforts will be directed at compiling complete samples of objects and using the information described here to determine luminosity and mass functions.

## 3 Data

Data in our sample include SDSS photometry, 2MASS near-infrared photometry, and spectra obtained from three distinct sources: the SDSS Early Data Release (EDR) (Stoughton et al., 2002), SDSS spectra taken after the EDR, and APO 3.5m telescope followup observations of SDSS photometric candidates. The following sections describe these various data sets.

### 3.1 SDSS photometry

The SDSS mission is to map a quarter of the sky centered on the North Galactic cap, acquiring accurate photometry of 100 million objects in 5 filters (Fukugita et al., 1996; Gunn et al., 1998) and accumulating over 1 million spectra (York et al., 2000). The survey promises to provide astronomers with an unprecedented source of new astronomical objects. Both photometric and spectroscopic data are obtained with a dedicated 2.5 meter telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico. The telescope’s 3 degree field is imaged in the 5 filters ($`u`$,$`g`$,$`r`$,$`i`$,$`z`$) simultaneously by scanning a great circle across the sky at the sidereal rate.111 We adopt italics to denote the filters (e.g. $`u`$), while asterisks indicate the preliminary calibration of magnitudes within that filter (e.g. $`u^{}`$). Photometric data are automatically reduced by SDSS data processing software (Lupton et al., 2001) and calibrations are obtained from observations with a 20-inch photometric telescope at the same site (Hogg et al., 2001; Smith et al., 2002). Stoughton et al. (2002) provides information on the central wavelengths and widths of the SDSS filters. See the extensive discussions by Lupton, Gunn & Szalay (1999) and Smith et al. (2002) for further description of the SDSS photometric system. The late type dwarfs reported here are exceedingly red, and many are not detected in the $`u`$ and $`g`$ filters. We discuss only $`r^{}`$, $`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ magnitudes in this paper.

There are two sources of uncertainty in the photometric data that have possible ramifications for late type dwarfs. First, there are slight differences in the response of the detectors used for the $`z`$ filter observations. Spectral synthesis of L and T dwarfs (Burgasser, private communication) indicates that these differences may introduce $`z^{}`$ magnitude errors of up to 0.1 mags for early L through late T dwarfs. We have not attempted to correct for this source of error. Second, the magnitudes used here are the observed magnitudes, with no correction for reddening. As we show in Section 6.5, some of the early M dwarfs in our sample lie as much as 1.5 kpc distant. We examined the reddening values returned by the SDSS target selection software, which calculates the total Galactic extinction in the SDSS bands using the maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998). The reddest objects at each spectral type have typical values $`0.1`$ in $`r`$, $`0.07`$ in $`i`$, and $`0.05`$ in $`z`$. These are upper limits, as most objects are nearby and will have negligible reddening. Therefore, reddening should introduce only a small uncertainty into our photometric parallax relations.

### 3.2 SDSS spectroscopy

Areas of the sky which have been observed by the SDSS photometric camera provide candidates for spectroscopic observation with the SDSS twin fiber-fed spectrographs. The fibers have 3 arcsec diameter and provide wavelength coverage from 3800Å to 9200Å with resolution $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$ $``$ 1800. As described by Stoughton et al. (2002), SDSS targets fall into three categories: (1) spectrophotometric and extinction calibration stars and sky fibers; (2) galaxies, luminous red galaxies and quasars, the primary SDSS targets; and (3) additional objects of interest (various categories of stars, objects of unusual color) which use excess fibers in fields of low galaxy density. The last category includes unresolved objects of extremely red color which are late type dwarf candidates. Only objects in categories (1) and (2), plus the very rare brown dwarf candidates, are tiled, i.e. guaranteed a fiber (Stoughton et al., 2002; Blanton et al., 2002), subject to physical limitations which prevent the placement of fibers closer than 55 arcsec apart. During the SDSS commissioning period, the selection criteria for the primary targets were refined and the efficiency improved. Because many of the spectra of late M and L dwarfs are obtained from observations of quasar candidates, especially high-redshift candidates (Richards et al., 2002), the number of such spectra has been declining as the survey progresses, though it is still substantial.

The spectroscopic data are automatically reduced by the SDSS pipeline software which produces spectrophotometrically calibrated spectra including telluric correction. The pipeline also provides spectral classification, emission line identification and redshifts.

#### 3.2.1 Early Data Release spectra

The SDSS EDR contains some 55,000 spectra. Those spectra that met at least one of the following criteria were selected as candidate late type dwarfs: a) colors of $`(r^{}i^{})>1.8`$ and $`(i^{}z^{})>1.0`$; b) spectrum was identified automatically as a late type star by the SDSS processing software; c) object was targeted for spectral observation as a possible brown or red dwarf on the basis of photometric colors. There is significant overlap between these criteria. The initial sample contained $``$ 1000 objects, which was reduced to 626 objects after removing spectra that were too noisy to positively identify with a spectral type, or that were clearly not M, L, or T dwarfs. No additional spectral reduction or calibration was performed aside from rebinning to increase the signal-to-noise ratio.

Using the EDR sample, we investigated the behavior and characteristics of the first implementation of the spectral targetting algorithms. Figure 1 shows the distribution by target category for the M and L dwarfs in our EDR sample. Clearly, most of the objects were targetted as quasars, galaxies or serendipity, the latter because of their unusually red colors. The categories aimed at discovering red and brown dwarfs contributed about 15% of the total, while the other stars and ROSAT selected targets made up the remainder. A large number (120) of the spectra in our sample, nearly all of M dwarfs, were obtained from a single plate of objects targetted to sample the stellar locus and given the arbitrary designation Star: BHB (blue horizontal branch). In general, that category does not contribute a significant number of M and L dwarf targets.

#### 3.2.2 Recent SDSS spectra

An additional sample of candidate late type dwarfs with SDSS spectra (the “recent” sample) was created by searching the SDSS spectral database as of July, 2001 for spectra of objects with $`(i^{}z^{})>1.4`$ in order to increase the numbers of very late objects (spectral types M9 and later). This sample, once culled of objects previously identified in the EDR sample, contained about 100 candidates. The number was reduced to 33 after removing extremely noisy spectra and retaining only objects with late M and L spectra. Notably, one previously known T dwarf, SDSSJ1254$``$0122 was found in this sample. Thus, although the T dwarfs are in general very faint in the SDSS bandpasses, and the SDSS discoveries to date have been confirmed using follow-up observations on other telescopes, a few may emerge with SDSS spectra during the course of the survey.

### 3.3 APO spectroscopy

Many L and T dwarf candidates identified with SDSS photometry are too faint to be targetted by the SDSS spectrographs, so programs of followup observations on larger telescopes have been initiated. Results from UKIRT, Keck and HET have been previously published (see Section 3.5). Here we present a collection of 35 previously unpublished spectra obtained with the 3.5m ARC telescope at Apache Point Observatory. Targets were chosen from the photometric database based on their red colors (typically $`(i^{}z^{})>1.6`$). The red side of the Double Imaging Spectrograph222DIS was built by J. Gunn, M. Carr and R. Lupton. A description is available at http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/Instruments/DIS/dis.html with the low dispersion grating gave usable wavelength coverage from 6000-10000Å with resolution $``$ 600. Exposure times of 20 minutes at $`i^{}19`$ and up to an hour at $`i^{}20.5`$ gave adequate signal-to-noise ratio for spectral typing purposes. For one run, the medium dispersion grating was used, giving resolution $``$ 1200 and wavelength coverage 7200-9700Å. Standard data reduction was carried out with IRAF333 IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. including bias subtraction, flat-field correction, automatic extraction and sky subtraction, and wavelength calibration using exposures of HeNeAr arc lamps. Flux standards (typically O subdwarfs and white dwarfs) were observed each night, and all data were placed on a relative flux scale. On many occasions there were clouds and/or light losses from the (1.5 arcsecond) slit, so the spectra are not uniformly spectrophotometric. We estimate that the relative flux calibration, which is required for our spectral type template fitting procedure (Section 4.3), has a typical uncertainty of 10%. No telluric corrections were applied to the APO spectra.

### 3.4 2MASS near-infrared photometry

To supplement the SDSS color information with near-infrared photometry, we searched the public 2MASS database available in December, 2001 for all of our new SDSS objects. Position matches within 2 arcseconds were accepted as detections; more than 95% of the matches were within 1 arcsecond. Approximately 35% of our SDSS sample was detected in 2MASS. This is almost entirely due to the incomplete sky coverage of the public 2MASS data release that is currently available; only four of the M9 and later dwarfs given in Table 4 that are located in the released area were not detected by 2MASS. These four have very faint expected magnitudes, below the 2MASS survey limits. They are noted individually in the table. Thus, when the full 2MASS catalog is made available, we anticipate that most of our objects will have measured near-infrared colors. Unfortunately, none of the objects with spectral types later than L4 and only 6 objects with types L2-L4 were matched, so our near-infrared information is still quite incomplete at the later types. Note that the 2MASS magnitudes are calibrated on a Vega-based magnitude system while the SDSS magnitudes are on the ABν system (Fukugita et al., 1996).

### 3.5 Previously published data

We also included data from previously published SDSS late type dwarfs in the sample (Strauss et al., 1999; Fan et al., 2000; Tsvetanov et al., 2000; Leggett et al., 2000; Geballe et al., 2002; Leggett et al., 2002; Schneider et al., 2002). This added 24 objects (14 of the objects with new optical spectra are previously identified SDSS late type dwarfs), many of them late L and T dwarfs that have been confirmed with near-infrared spectroscopy. Three objects were found to have been previously identified by other groups: 2MASSJ1707+6439 (type M9) by Gizis et al. (2000); DENISpJ1159+0057 (type L0) by Martin et al. (1999); and 2MASSWJ0801+4628 by Kirkpatrick et al. (2000).

Some of the published near-infrared photometry was obtained with the Mauna Kea Observatory (MKO) system at UKIRT (Hawarden et al., 2001; Leggett et al., 2002). There are systematic differences between the MKO and 2MASS photometry for these very cool objects. Figure 2 shows the difference in measured J band magnitude as a function of spectral type for 21 objects of type M8 and later which have been measured on both systems (Kirkpatrick et al., 1999, 2000; Burgasser et al., 2002; Leggett et al., 2002). The line is a simple linear fit:

J (2MASS) $``$ J (MKO) = $`0.177+0.021\times `$ (spectral type)

(1)
applicable between spectral type L0 (10) and T8 (28), with a dispersion of 0.13 mags.444 The numerical spectral type in equation 3.5 follows standard convention and is used throughout this paper: M0=0, M5=5, L0=10, L5=15, T0=20, and so forth through T8=28. We will use the 2MASS J magnitudes extensively in our analysis, so for consistency we convert the published MKO J magnitudes to the 2MASS system using equation 3.5.

The large dispersion present in the measurements is probably due to the sizable 2MASS uncertainties at these faint magnitudes. One of us (HCH) has independently investigated the J magnitude differences between the two systems. He finds a similar $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$J relation, indicating that equation 3.5 is probably more reliable than suggested by the large scatter, at least among the L dwarfs. For the T dwarfs, the data are still too poor to make any firm statement about whether the dispersion is real.

## 4 Spectral typing

To assign spectral types to the objects in our sample we first compiled a set of high signal-to-noise ratio spectral type standards. We then employed two automatic fitting methods which made use of complementary information. In the first method, spectral indices of individual features were measured and compared to a standard sequence, following Reid, Hawley & Gizis (1995) and Kirkpatrick et al. (1999) (hereafter K99). The second method used a least squares fitting algorithm to match primarily the continuum shape to the spectral type standards, as described by Kirkpatrick et al. (1991) and Henry et al. (2002). The two methods provided independent measures of the spectral type. Each spectrum was then examined visually by two of us (SLH, KRC) and a final type assigned.

### 4.1 Standards

The spectral type standards used as templates in the least squares fitting routine are listed in Table 1. The late M and L dwarfs were chosen from the standards described in K99 and Kirkpatrick et al. (2000) (hereafter K00), and used to define their L dwarf sequence. The early-mid M dwarfs were chosen from the list of primary spectral type standards used to define the M dwarf sequence by Kirkpatrick et al. (1991) (except GJ1141B which was taken from Reid, Hawley & Gizis (1995)). The APO 3.5m data in Table 1 were obtained by us for this purpose, and have the same resolution and wavelength coverage as the majority of the data described in Section 3.3. The Keck data have been made public courtesy of Neill Reid555See the website at www.physics.upenn.edu/$``$inr for links to these data. and are described in K99 and Kirkpatrick et al. (2000).

### 4.2 Spectral indices method

The standards listed in Table 1, and a number of additional objects with well-known spectral types from the same references, were measured to develop polynomial relationships between spectral type and individual spectral features. We first implemented the spectral indices suggested in K99 for the L dwarf sequence, which combine measurements of molecular bands (CrH, TiO, VO) and atomic lines (Rb I, Cs I) as described therein. Specifically, we computed their indices CrH-a, Rb-b/TiO-b, Cs-a/VO-b and Color-d. Our task was immediately complicated by two problems: our spectra have lower resolution and generally lower signal-to-noise ratio compared to the Keck spectra used by K99. Thus, for example, our Rb I and Cs I line measurements were usually too noisy to give useful results. We therefore tried numerous additional diagnostics, settling finally on the set described in Table 2. In the early-mid M dwarf range, we also computed the TiO5 and CaH3 indices, which are defined and used extensively for spectral typing in the PMSU survey of 2000 M dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood (Reid, Hawley & Gizis, 1995; Hawley, Gizis & Reid, 1996).

Figure 3 shows most of the new indices defined here, together with the TiO5 and CaH3 indices for reference. Open triangles indicate stars with spectral types M0-M8, while the pluses are M9-L8 dwarfs. All of the indices reverse strength near spectral type M8, necessitating two part fits as shown with dotted and solid lines for the earlier and later types, respectively. VO7912 reverses strength again near type L4 (similar to the behavior of CrH-a in the K99 scheme) so we did not use it for fitting the later type dwarfs. VO7434 was also useful only to type L6. Color-d as defined in K99 provides useful information, but it includes measurements at red wavelengths that are not observed in the SDSS spectra. Therefore we tried our index Color-1 (not shown in the figure), but it provided only limited information on the mid-late L dwarfs and was not useful for earlier type dwarfs. Figure 3 highlights the particular difficulty with classifying objects in the M7-L1 range as nearly all of the indices overlap in this spectral type region. We relied more heavily on the template fitting results and examination by eye for those objects.

The final type produced by the spectral indices method consisted of an average of the types given by each individual index. The M and L types were computed separately for each object using the M and L fits to the indices, respectively. The standard deviation of the average type usually gave a good indication of which type (M or L) was more appropriate. However, inspection by eye and comparison with the template type was required to ensure that the automatic indices type was reasonable.

### 4.3 Template fitting method

Our template fitting method followed closely the procedure outlined by Henry et al. (2002) (hereafter H02), using a modified version of their ALLSTAR program. The SDSS candidate spectrum was interpolated onto a 1Å wavelength scale, smoothed with a 25Å window function, and normalized to the flux in the region 8651-8661Å. This differs slightly from the H02 procedure; they do not smooth their spectra, which typically have much higher signal-to-noise ratio, and they normalize their spectra at 7500Å. We required a location where there was more flux and hence a better signal-to-noise ratio in the very cool late M and L dwarfs, and which avoided the broad blue wing of the K I feature. As described by H02, to compensate for anomalous errors caused by noise in the normalization region, the candidate spectrum was multiplied by a factor from 0.9 to 1.1 in steps of 0.01. The template spectra (also normalized to the 8651-8661Å region) were then successively fit by least squares to the 21 scaled candidate spectra, and the best match (lowest sum of mean squared residuals) for each template was recorded. Deviant pixels were treated with 2-$`\sigma `$ rejection as in the H02 description. When all templates (M0-L8) had been fit, the 3 best fits were reported. We had additional confidence in the fit if the 3 best matches gave both low residuals and neighboring spectral types.

Before being implemented on the SDSS sample, the algorithm was first tested by adding Gaussian noise to spectra of objects with known spectral types to achieve signal-to-noise ratios ranging from 2 to 40 (per Å), and optimizing parameters (smoothing width, normalization location, etc.) such that the objects were re-identified as correctly as possible, resulting in the parameters described above. Our results from testing both the indices and template methods on spectra of objects with known types (but not the templates themselves when testing the template method!) are shown in Figure 4. The good agreement indicates that the methods are independently reliable, and each is able to predict the spectral type within $``$ 1 spectral class for both M and L dwarfs.

Finally, we note that the template method presumes accurate relative flux calibration for both template and program data. Both the APO and Keck data, as well as the SDSS data, proved to have adequate relative spectrophotometry as shown by the good agreement between the template and indices typing methods for nearly all objects.

### 4.4 Final Types

After being typed automatically by both the indices and template methods, the spectra were examined by eye. If the two measures gave different results, a final type was assigned by visual inspection and comparison to templates. There are two previously known T dwarfs for which we have new optical spectra. We classified these as T:: by visual inspection, as the spectra appeared to be later than our latest L dwarf template. Ultimately, 616 M dwarfs, 42 L dwarfs, and 1 T dwarf were typed on the basis of their SDSS spectra, and an additional 13 Ms, 21 Ls, and 1 T were typed using APO spectra.

We estimate that this complete method of spectral typing gives types with an uncertainty of $`\pm `$ 1 spectral type for the M and L dwarfs presented here. This uncertainty estimate is bolstered by considering that 1) objects with multiple spectra were consistently typed with identical or neighboring spectral types; and 2) our spectral types match those of other groups within $``$ 1 spectral type for the few stars in common (see Table 4).

## 5 Results

The large number of early and mid M dwarfs prohibits showing individual spectra of all objects. Instead, we provide the mean and standard deviation for several optical and near-infrared colors at each spectral type in Table 3.666We will make available the data file giving individual information for each star upon request. Contact the first author at the email address given. Our highest signal-to-noise ratio SDSS spectrum for each spectral type (M0-L4) is shown in Figure 5(a,b). The signal-to-noise ratios range from 10 (at type L4) to 50 (at type M3), measured at our normalization region near 8650Å. This set of SDSS standard spectra has been submitted to the collaboration for inclusion in the spectral pipeline software to assist in assigning automatic types to late type dwarfs during the SDSS processing.777These spectra are also available upon request.

Individual photometric and spectral type information for all dwarfs with types M9 and later are given in Table 4. Near-infrared data are from 2MASS except where noted, and the K magnitudes are therefore measured in the Ks filter (see K99 for discussion of this filter bandpass and typical effects in late type dwarfs). The M9 and L dwarf spectral types are ours, with the exception of SDSSJ0830+4828 which has a previously determined type of L9 based on its near-infrared spectrum (Geballe et al., 2002). All objects with previously determined spectral types are noted, and the references are given in the table notes. For the late L dwarfs, differences between optical and near-infrared spectral types have been discussed by Geballe et al. (2002). However, the few objects in common in our sample do not appear to differ systematically in type. All T dwarfs have spectral types determined from near-infrared spectra.

Typical photometric errors for the $`r^{}`$ data in Table 4 are (in magnitudes): $`0.02`$ for $`r^{}<20`$; 0.05 at $`r^{}=21`$; 0.1 at $`r^{}=22`$; 0.25 at $`r^{}=23`$; and 0.5 at $`r^{}=24`$. As described by York et al. (2000) and the table notes, the nominal 5$`\sigma `$ detection limit is $`r^{}=23.1`$. We have indicated detections fainter than this limit with an asterisk, and individual measurements with uncertainty greater than 0.5 magnitudes with a colon.

The $`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ photometry are brighter for these very red objects. Photometric errors in $`i^{}`$ range from $`0.05`$ for $`i^{}<20`$ to 0.2 at $`i^{}=22.5`$; corresponding values for $`z^{}`$ are $`0.05`$ for $`z^{}<19`$ and 0.2 at $`z^{}=21`$. The nominal 5$`\sigma `$ detection limits are $`i^{}`$ = 22.3 and $`z^{}=20.8`$. Again we indicate detections fainter than these limits with an asterisk, and note uncertainties greater than 0.2 magnitudes in the $`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ measurements with a colon.

Spectra for the M9 and later objects are shown in Figure 6(a-f) for the SDSS spectra and Figure 7(a-d) for the APO spectra. The SDSS spectra have been smoothed by 11 pixels and the APO spectra have been smoothed by 3 pixels. The smoothing amounts to $``$ 20Å in each case. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios range from 2-10 for these spectra, measured at the normalization region near 8650Å. For reference, the M9 dwarf SDSSJ0249-0034 (Figure 6a) has a relatively high S/N ratio $``$ 10; the M9 dwarf SDSSJ1719+6053 (Figure 6b) has moderate S/N ratio $``$ 5; and the L6 dwarf SDSSJ0236+0048 (Figure 6f) has low S/N ratio $``$ 2.

## 6 Discussion

The total sample assembled for this paper, including our new identifications and those previously published, consists of 718 SDSS late type dwarfs (632 M, 76 L, and 10 T). All have well-determined spectral types and photometric measurements in $`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$. Many also have $`r^{}`$ and/or near-infrared data. This sample allows us to investigate the color–spectral type and color–color relationships in the SDSS and near-infrared colors. Using a calibrated spectral type – absolute J magnitude relation for objects with known distances, we can determine absolute magnitude relations in the SDSS filters. Finally, we use those relations to estimate distances for the sample. We caution that the present sample is not complete within either distance or apparent magnitude limits, as the selection of spectra from the various SDSS targetting algorithms gives neither homogeneous nor fully sampled results. The sample as it stands is therefore not useful for luminosity or mass function determinations. Rather, we seek to provide the necessary color, spectral type and absolute magnitude calibration information to be used in a future study, when complete samples are available.

### 6.1 Color – spectral type relations

Figure 8 shows the correlation between color and spectral type for six different colors: two optical SDSS colors \[$`(r^{}i^{}),(i^{}z^{})`$\], three optical–near-infrared colors \[$`(i^{}`$J), $`(z^{}`$J), $`(z^{}`$K)\], and one near-infrared color \[(J-K)\]. We do not present any results for colors using H magnitudes as they are very similar to the results for colors formed with K magnitudes and do not provide additional useful diagnostics. Note again that the objects with MKO J-band magnitudes have been converted via equation 3.5 to the 2MASS J-band system. No correction was attempted for the MKO K-band magnitudes so colors that include K photometry may have systematic offsets for those objects. We have not used colors that include the K-band in any of our numerical fitting.

The SDSS $`(r^{}i^{})`$ color peaks at $``$ 2.8 near spectral type M8. Later type objects apparently become somewhat bluer, with late L dwarfs having similar $`(r^{}i^{})`$ colors to mid M dwarfs. However, the $`r^{}`$ photometry is very uncertain for the later objects, and it may be that ($`r^{}i^{}`$) simply flattens at $``$ 2 with large observational scatter for dwarfs of mid L and later types. The $`(r^{}i^{})`$ color by itself is not a good diagnostic for dwarfs later than type M8.

The $`(i^{}z^{})`$ color does not show such a turnover; it increases monotonically from early M into the T dwarfs. However, it is quite flat at $``$ 1.8 between M9-L3 (see also Schneider et al. (2002)), and appears to flatten in the T’s at $``$ 4.0 though with large scatter (probably due to uncertainty in the $`i^{}`$ measurements at these faint magnitudes). It is very useful for identifying candidate late type dwarfs: $`(i^{}z^{})>1.6`$ will pick out objects M8 and later (as noted by Strauss et al. (1999) who found the first isolated T dwarf using its very red $`(i^{}z^{})`$ color). If one has only optical (SDSS) colors, it is possible to partially discriminate for very late objects by first requiring $`(i^{}z^{})>1.6`$, and then choosing objects with bluer $`(r^{}i^{})`$ colors (e.g. $``$ 2.0). A problem with this approach is that those objects are very faint, and often do not have good $`r^{}`$ photometry, so the $`(r^{}i^{})`$ colors may not be reliable.

The (I$``$J) color, where I is the Cousins I band, was shown by Reid et al. (2001) to be a good spectral type discriminant from M through T. Here we plot ($`i^{}`$J), which shows similar behavior to $`(i^{}z^{})`$, but with the flattening confined to types L2–L4 at $`(i^{}`$J) $``$ 4.7, and the T dwarfs all having $`(i^{}`$J) $``$ 7. An advantage of $`(i^{}`$J) is that it covers a large total range in color, varying from 2 $`<(i^{}`$J) $`<`$ 8 between early M and late T.

The $`(z^{}`$J) color is rather flat, with large scatter, through the mid-L range (L2-L7). It is not clear if this scatter represents intrinsic variations in the objects, or if it is just the result of small numbers and uncertain data. The $`(z^{}`$J) color does change systematically through the late-M and early-L regime, where the spectral types are not easy to distinguish spectroscopically (see Section 4.2). Interestingly, the $`(z^{}`$J) color shown here behaves somewhat differently than the (Z-J) color discussed by Leggett et al. (2002), which uses the MKO Z and J filters. Their (Z-J) color is flat at $``$ 1.7 between mid-L and mid-T types. Presumably this is related to differences in the filter bandpasses and detector sensitivities.

The $`(z^{}`$K) color is very well behaved from M through mid L types, showing a monotonic increase with little scatter. However, it turns over and becomes blue in the late L and T dwarfs where methane absorption dominates the K band.

Finally, the (J-K) color has been investigated previously for late type dwarfs (Reid, 1993; Kirkpatrick et al., 1999; Leggett et al., 2002). As discussed by those authors, it is of limited usefulness, showing small range in the M dwarfs and large scatter among the L dwarfs. It also becomes blue in the T dwarfs, again because of methane absorption in the K band.

In summary, $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) provide spectral type information across most of the range from M through T. The $`(z^{}`$J) and $`(z^{}`$K) are useful discriminators in the spectral type ranges where $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) flatten. A combination of optical and near-infrared photometry allows a reasonable determination of the spectral type at least through the M and L dwarf classes. The sparse and relatively uncertain data on T dwarfs make the color-spectral type relations still poorly defined for those objects.

### 6.2 Color – color relations

Figure 9 shows several color-color relations for the sample. The spectral type of each object is coded by symbol, given in the figure caption, to verify that indeed the color-color relations are mapping the spectral sequence. As expected from the behavior of $`(r^{}i^{})`$ and $`(i^{}z^{})`$ described above, the $`(r^{}i^{})`$ vs $`(i^{}z^{})`$ diagram is not useful past the mid-M dwarfs, with objects M5-L4 occupying the same region of color–color space. The $`(r^{}i^{})`$ vs $`(i^{}`$J) diagram is somewhat more spread out, but still shows significant overlap in spectral type at the same colors. Both the $`(i^{}z^{},z^{}`$J) and the $`(i^{}`$J,$`z^{}`$J) diagrams show significant overlap in the L dwarfs, with the latter providing a better sequence from M through early L. The $`(z^{}`$J,$`z^{}`$K) diagram is also well-behaved in the M and early L regimes, but has significant overlap between mid and late L dwarfs and turns over in the T dwarfs where the K band flux is diminished by methane absorption. Overall, the color–color plot which provides the best spectral type discrimination is $`(i^{}z^{},i^{}`$J) which shows only a mild flattening in the early L’s, but otherwise provides a monotonic sequence from early M through late T. The average colors at each spectral type given in Table 3 provide the information necessary to assign a spectral type if optical and near-infrared photometry are available.

### 6.3 Spectroscopic parallaxes

Our ultimate goal is to determine photometric relations between color, spectral type and absolute magnitude that will allow us to find the spectral type and distance of an object without needing to take a spectrum. The previous sections describe the color-spectral type relations, and we now investigate parallax relations. Unfortunately the sample of objects with both measured trigonometric parallax and measured SDSS colors is much too small at present to provide a useful calibration. Instead, we must employ a two-step process where we first use a well-observed sample of nearby MLT dwarfs with measured trigonometric parallaxes, 2MASS J magnitudes and spectral types to calibrate a spectroscopic parallax relation. We then apply this relation to our SDSS sample and obtain parallax estimates which we combine with the SDSS colors to get photometric parallax relations. Eventually, as more trigonometric parallaxes are obtained for SDSS targets, we expect that the SDSS photometric parallax relation will be calibrated directly and it will not be necessary to resort to a spectroscopic parallax relation for calibration.

Figure 10 shows our MJ spectroscopic parallax relation, incorporating the eight parsec sample distances (Reid & Gizis, 1997; Reid & Hawley, 2000) for types M0-M7, and distances quoted by Leggett et al. (2002) (see references therein) for objects with types M8 and later. New distances from Dahn et al. (2002) were available for five objects (DENISpJ0205-1159, 2MASSJ0559-1404, 2MASSJ0850+1057, SDSSJ1254-0122, SDSSJ1624+0029). We applied the magnitude differences for the resolved L dwarf binaries described by Reid et al. (2001) to correct the absolute magnitudes for those objects. Only objects with measured 2MASS J magnitudes are included (i.e. those objects that were only measured in other systems were left out rather than being transformed to the 2MASS system).

The early M dwarfs show the well-documented drop in luminosity near spectral type M4 (Hawley, Gizis & Reid, 1996; Reid & Gizis, 1997), making fitting difficult. It appears that there is also a change in slope near spectral type M8, and another drop in luminosity near type L6. The latter effect is poorly defined, and clearly more parallaxes of objects near this type are required. In addition, spectral types for the late L and T dwarfs are based on near-infrared spectra, while those for the M and early-mid L dwarfs are based on optical spectra. This may introduce systematic effects which could contribute to the apparent discontinuity at L6. We therefore caution that the relation for the L6-T8 dwarfs remains ill-defined at present.

Numerous instances of incorrect fitting which propagated into incorrect luminosity and mass function determinations exist in the literature (see (Reid & Hawley, 2000)). Therefore, we chose to be very conservative in our fit to the MJ – spectral type relation shown here. We adopt a fit consisting of several line segments, together with a single value for type M4. Our best fit relations are given by:

MJ = $`6.46+0.26\times `$ (spectral type) (K7-M3)

MJ = 8.34 (M4)

MJ = $`5.73+0.74\times `$ (spectral type) (M5-M7)

MJ = $`8.83+0.29\times `$ (spectral type) (M8-L5)

MJ = $`12.13+0.14\times `$ (spectral type) (L6-T8)

(2)
Note that all T dwarfs with known distances are shown, but 2MASSJ0559-1404 (T4) and Gl 229B (T6), indicated by open triangles in the figure, are not included in the fit. The former is omitted because it lies several magnitudes above the best fit line and has an undue influence on it. Burgasser (2001) discusses this T4 dwarf in detail, and notes that it has an unusual flux distribution which may indicate it is a binary system. Gl 229B has a UKIRT J magnitude and we chose to use only those objects with 2MASS J magnitudes. In any case, it does not significantly alter the fit.

Figure 10 allows us to assign MJ values to the objects with measured J magnitudes in our sample. With our measured colors, we may then compute M$`_r^{}`$, M$`_i^{}`$ and M$`_z^{}`$ spectroscopic parallax relations as shown in Figure 11. The M$`_z^{}`$ relation retains some signature of the discontinuity near L6, but all three relations are fairly well-behaved. Absolute magnitudes may thus be assigned in any of the red SDSS filters if the spectral type is known. We have not attempted to fit the other absolute magnitude - spectral type relations, but Table 3 includes the MJ values together with the average colors, so the average absolute magnitude in $`r^{}`$,$`i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$ may easily be computed at each spectral type.

### 6.4 Photometric parallaxes

Using the spectroscopic parallax results from the previous section, we can now investigate photometric parallax relations. Figure 12 shows the results for the colors $`(r^{}i^{}),(i^{}z^{}),(i^{}`$J) and $`(z^{}`$J). We did not compute relations using colors involving the K band, because those colors turn over and become bluer in the T dwarfs. The $`(r^{}i^{})`$ color is not useful, as expected from its behavior in Figure 8. The $`(z^{}`$J) plots show the effect of the discontinuity at L6 quite strongly, with significant color overlap between early and late L dwarfs. Not surprisingly, the best relations are those using the $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) colors. Figure 13 shows the two relations for which reasonable least squares fits were obtained with second order polynomials to the average colors from Table 3. The fits are:

M$`{}_{i^{}}{}^{}=4.471+7.907(i^{}z^{})0.837(i^{}z^{})^2`$

M$`{}_{i^{}}{}^{}=1.213+4.379(i^{}`$J$`)0.195(i^{}`$J)2

(3)
The second fit (M$`_i^{}`$, $`i^{}`$J) has slight systematic residuals at the discontinuities near M4 $`(i^{}`$J $``$ 3) and L6 $`(i^{}`$J $``$ 5), and should be used with caution.

### 6.5 Distance distribution

The approximate distance limits to which the SDSS is probing the late type dwarf population can be estimated using these parallax relations. Figure 14 is a plot of log distance vs spectral type for all of the sample objects. The distances were obtained from the mean spectral type - absolute magnitude relations given in Table 3. Distances obtained from the photometric parallax relations in equation 6.4 typically agree within 25%, and the photometric distance estimates are unbiased when compared to those found from the spectroscopic parallax relations (i.e. the mean distance differences for the sample are close to zero).

It appears that early M dwarfs are present in the sample out to almost 1.5 kpc, but the distance limit rapidly decreases at later types. The SDSS imaging has bright magnitude limits of $``$ 14 in $`r^{}`$ and $`i^{}`$ and $``$ 12 in $`z^{}`$, while spectroscopic targetting is limited to objects fainter than $`r^{}15`$ to minimize scattered light in the spectra (Stoughton et al., 2002). This explains the lack of nearby early-mid M dwarfs in the sample. L dwarfs are being observed to $``$ 100 pc, which is not unexpected given the magnitude limits ($`i^{}`$ 19-21) of the various targetting algorithms and the monotonic decrease in luminosity for objects of later types. The T dwarf results imply a distance limit of $``$ 20 pc, but the distance estimates are less reliable considering the large scatter in the calibrated MJ – spectral type relation (Figure 10), the statistical correction which had to be applied to the measured MKO J magnitudes for several of the objects, and the sparse sample. The two SDSS T dwarfs with trigonometric parallax measurements (SDSSJ1254-0122, 11.8 pc; SDSSJ1624+0029, 10.9 pc; Dahn et al. (2002)) have predicted distances of 8.9 pc and 8.1 pc respectively.

## 7 Summary

We have compiled a large sample of M, L and T dwarfs discovered in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data. New objects have followup SDSS or APO optical spectroscopy. About 35% of the sample also has near-infrared photometry. In combination with previously published SDSS objects, a final sample of 718 objects was analyzed. Color–spectral type and color–color relations for several optical and near-infrared colors were examined, and the $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) colors were found to be the most useful for estimating spectral types based solely on photometric information.

We then employed a spectroscopic parallax relation for nearby dwarfs with known distances to investigate spectroscopic and photometric parallaxes in the SDSS filters. The $`(i^{}z^{})`$ and $`(i^{}`$J) colors gave good estimates of M$`_i^{}`$ and hence are useful distance indicators. Our distance estimates show that SDSS is finding early M dwarfs at distances $`>`$ 1 kpc, L dwarfs to distances $``$ 100 pc, and T dwarfs out to 20 pc. Thus, the SDSS will provide numerous examples of the latest type dwarfs, and the early M dwarfs should be useful for probing Galactic structure. The next step is to compile samples that are complete to some distance and/or apparent magnitude limit, in order to investigate the luminosity and mass functions of these late type dwarfs. Additional efforts will be aimed at investigating the magnetic activity properties of the sample, the incidence of subdwarfs, and possible photometric metallicity indicators.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a joint project of The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Apache Point Observatory, site of the SDSS telescopes and the 3.5-meter telescope, is operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC). Funding for the project has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. We acknowledge generous support from Princeton University and NASA via grant NAG5-6734. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service, the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) Second Incremental Release Point Source Catalog (PSC), a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.


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# Physics potential of future long baseline neutrino oscillation experiments with KEK-JAERI HIPA

## 1 Introduction

In order to measure the neutrino oscillation parameters, such as the neutrino mass-squared differences and the elements of the 3$`\times `$3 Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (MNS) lepton flavor-mixing matrix elements , various long base-line (LBL) neutrino oscillation experiments are proposed. In Japan, as a sequel to the K2K experiment, a new LBL neutrino oscillation experiment between the High Intensity Proton Accelerator (HIPA)  and the Super-Kamiokande (SK) with the base-line length of $`L`$=295 km has been proposed . The HIPA has a 50 GeV proton accelerator, which will be completed by the year 2007 in the site of Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) as the joint project of KEK and JAERI. It is expected to deliver $`10^{21}`$ protons on target (POT) in one year. The intensity of the neutrino beam in the $``$ 1 GeV range is two orders of magnitude higher than that of the KEK beam for the K2K experiment. The HIPA-to-SK experiment with $`E_\nu `$= 1.3 GeV will measure the larger mass-squared difference with 3 $`\%`$ accuracy and the mixing angle at about 1 $`\%`$ accuracy.

In this report we examine physics potential of Very Long Base-Line (VLBL) neutrino oscillation experiments with HIPA and a huge neutrino detector  in Beijing, at about $`L`$=2,100 km away. As a beam option, the pulsed narrow-band $`\nu _\mu `$ beam (NBB) is assumed. For a target at $`L`$=2,100 km, we consider a 100 kton water-$`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{C}}`$erenkov detector which is capable of measuring the $`\nu _\mu `$ to $`\nu _e`$ transition probability, $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _e}`$, and the $`\nu _\mu `$ survival probability, $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _\mu }`$. We study the sensitivity of such experiments to the neutrino mass hierarchy, the mass-squared differences, the three angles and one CP phase of the MNS matrix .

## 2 Neutrino oscillation in the three-neutrino model

The MNS matrix has three mixing angles and three phases in general. We adopt the following parameterization

$`V=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}U_{e1}& U_{e2}& U_{e3}\\ U_{\mu 1}& U_{\mu 2}& U_{\mu 3}\\ U_{\tau 1}& U_{\tau 2}& U_{\tau 3}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1& 0& 0\\ 0& e^{i\phi _2}& 0\\ 0& 0& e^{i\phi _3}\end{array}\right).`$ (7)
Two Majorana phases in the latter matrix, $`\phi _2`$ and $`\phi _3`$, do not contribute to the neutrino oscillation. The former matrix can be parameterized by three mixing angles and one phase just the same as the CKM matrix. Because the present neutrino oscillation experiments constrain directly the elements, $`U_{e2}`$, $`U_{e3}`$, and $`U_{\mu 3}`$, these three matrix elements are taken as the independent parameters. Without losing generality, we can take $`U_{e2}`$ and $`U_{\mu 3}`$ to be real and non-negative. By allowing $`U_{e3}`$ to have the complex phase $`U_{e3}=|U_{e3}|e^{i\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}}(0\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}<2\pi ),`$ the four independent parameters are $`U_{e2},U_{\mu 3},|U_{e3}|`$ and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$. All the other matrix elements are then determined by the unitary conditions.

The constraints on the MNS matrix elements and the mass-squared differences are given by the atmospheric- and solar-neutrino and the CHOOZ reactor experiments. An analysis of the atmospheric-neutrino data from the SK experiment  finds $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}(0.881.0)`$ and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2(\mathrm{eV}^2)(1.64.0)\times 10^3.`$ From the observations of the solar-neutrino deficit by the SK collaboration , the MSW large-mixing-angle solution (LMA) is preferred to MSW small-mixing-angle solution (SMA), MSW low-$`\delta m^2`$ solution (LOW) and Vacuum Oscillation solution (VO). The CHOOZ experiment  gives the constraint $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}<0.1`$ for $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^2>1.0\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$. From the above experiments, the independent parameters in the MNS matrix are obtained as
$`U_{\mu 3}=\sqrt{1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}}}/\sqrt{2},`$
$`U_{e2}=`$
$`\sqrt{1|U_{e3}|^2\sqrt{\left(1|U_{e3}|^2\right)^2\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}}}/\sqrt{2},`$
$`\left|U_{e3}\right|=\sqrt{1\sqrt{1\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}}}/\sqrt{2}<0.16.`$
Here, we have made the identification $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2=\left|\delta m_{12}^2\right|\left|\delta m_{13}^2\right|=\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2,`$ with $`\delta m_{ij}^2=m_j^2m_i^2`$.

Since all the above constraints are obtained from the survival probabilities which are even-functions of $`\delta m_{ij}^2`$, there are four neutrino-mass hierarchy cases corresponding to the sign of the $`\delta m_{ij}^2`$ as shown in Fig. 1. If the MSW effect is relevant for the solar-neutrino oscillation, then the hierarchy cases II and IV are not favored. The hierarchy I (III) is called ‘normal’ (‘inverted’) hierarchy, which corresponds to $`\delta m_{12}^2>0`$ and $`\delta m_{13}^2>0`$ ( $`\delta m_{13}^2<0`$). From the Super-Nova 1987A observation, the hierarchy I is favored against the hierarchy III .

## 3 VLBL neutrino oscillation experiment with $`L`$=2,100 km

We explore the capability of a VLBL experiment with $`L`$=2,100 km by using $`\nu _\mu `$ NBB. The parameterization of the NBB is made to study the effects of changing the peak energy, $`E_\mathrm{p}`$, of the NBB. We find that the use of two different-energy NBB’s, NBB’s with $`E_\mathrm{p}=`$ 4 GeV (NBB(4GeV)) and $`E_\mathrm{p}=`$ 6 GeV (NBB(6GeV)), improves the physics resolving power of the experiment significantly. Fig. 2 shows our parameterizations of the main part of NBB(4GeV) and NBB(6GeV) fluxes ($`\times `$ neutrino-energy). Also overlayed in Fig. 2 are the oscillation probabilities, which are calculated for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}=1.0,\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2=3.5\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}=0.8,\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2=10\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2,\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}=0.1,\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}=270^{}`$ and the matter density, $`\rho =3`$ g/cm$`^3,`$ with the hierarchy I. Note that the NBB(6GeV) makes the $`e`$-like event rates high while keeping $`\mu `$-like event rates low.

For a detector at $`L`$=2,100 km, we assume a 100 kton water-$`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{C}}`$erenkov detector. It has a capability of distinguishing $`e^\pm `$ charged-current (CC) events from $`\mu ^\pm `$ CC events, but does not distinguish their charges. The detection efficiencies of the $`\mu `$-like and $`e`$-like events are assumed to be 100 $`\%`$ for simplicity. The statistical errors of each predictions are then simply square values of the observed numbers of events. We do not require capability of the detector to reconstruct the neutrino energy.

The signals of our analysis are then the numbers of $`\nu _\mu `$ CC events and those of $`\nu _e`$ CC events from the $`\nu _\mu `$ NBB. For NBB($`E_\mathrm{p}`$), they are calculated as

$`N(\mu (e),E_\mathrm{p})=`$
$`MN_A{\displaystyle _0^{E_\mathrm{p}}}𝑑E_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }(E_\mathrm{p})\sigma _{\mu (e)}^{\mathrm{CC}}P_{\nu _\mu \nu _{\mu (e)}},`$
where $`M`$ is the statistical significance (mass of the detector (= 100 kton) times the running years), $`N_A=6.017\times 10^{23}`$ is the Avogadro number, $`\mathrm{\Phi }(E_\nu )`$ is the flux at $`L=2,100`$ km. The $`\sigma _{\mu (e)}^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ is the $`\nu _\mu (\nu _e)`$ CC cross section per nucleon off water target.

Fig. 3 shows the numbers of signal events, $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ and $`N(e,E_\mathrm{p})`$, expected at the base-line length of $`L`$=2,100 km for 500 kton$``$year with (a) the NBB(4GeV) and with (b) the NBB(6GeV). The predictions for the four cases of the neutrino-mass hierarchies, I, II, III and IV, are indicated explicitly. We take

$`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}=1.0,\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2=3.5\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$
$`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}=0.06,0.1,`$
$`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}=0^{}360^{},`$
with $`\rho =3\mathrm{g}/\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The remaining two parameters, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}`$ and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2`$, are taken as the following sets for the three possible solutions to the solar-neutrino deficit anomaly : $`(\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}},\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2)=(0.8,15(3)\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2)`$ for LMA, $`(7\times 10^3,5\times 10^6\mathrm{eV}^2)`$ for SMA, $`(0.7,7\times 10^{11}\mathrm{eV}^2)`$ for VO.

For the hierarchy I, the predictions reside in the corner at small $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ and large $`N(e,E_\mathrm{p})`$. For the LMA scenario, the predictions are shown by circles when $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ is allowed to vary freely. We show the four representative phase values by solid-circle ($`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}=0^{}`$), solid-square ($`90^{}`$), open-circle ($`180^{}`$), and open-square ($`270^{}`$) in the largest circle. The two grand circles with smaller $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ give the predictions of the LMA solution for $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2=15\times 10^5`$ eV2, and those with larger $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ are for $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2=3\times 10^5`$ eV2. The $`\nu _e`$ CC event number $`N(e,E_\mathrm{p})`$ grows with increasing $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$. It is clearly seen that $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ dependence is larger for larger $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2`$ and for larger $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$. Note that the $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ dependence of $`N(e,4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ is ‘orthogonal’ to that of $`N(e,6\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$. The predictions of the SMA and the VO parameters appear just above the upper LMA circles, where the $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ dependence diminishes to zero. We cannot distinguish the VO predictions between the neutrino-mass hierarchy I and II, nor between III and IV.

All the predictions of the hierarchy cases III and IV have very small $`N(e,E_\mathrm{p})`$, typically a factor of 5 or more smaller in magnitude than the corresponding number of events in case I. This striking sensitivity of $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _e}`$ on the hierarchy cases is the bases of the capability of distinguishing the cases in the VLBL experiments. On the other hand, we find that the 5 $`\%`$ level differences in $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ between the hierarchy cases I and III are not useful for this purpose because $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _\mu }`$ depends strongly on the atmospheric parameters $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}`$, and also because $`N(\mu ,E_\mathrm{p})`$ suffers from the neutrino-beam flux uncertainty.

We take into account for the background contributions to the $`\mu `$-like and the $`e`$-like events from the secondary-beams and the $`\tau `$ pure-leptonic decays. The $`e`$-like events also receive contributions from the neutral-current (NC) events where produced $`\pi ^0`$’s mimic electron shower in the water-$`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{C}}`$erenkov detector. The error in the $`e/\mathrm{NC}`$ misidentification probability, $`P_{e/\mathrm{NC}}=0.0055\pm 0.00055,`$ is accounted for as a systematic error. The $`\nu _\tau `$ CC events with hadronic $`\tau `$-decays are counted as NC-like events with the same $`P_{e/\mathrm{NC}}`$ factor. The 10 $`\%`$ errors in the branching fractions of the $`\tau `$ decay are accounted for as systematic errors.

In addition, we account for the uncertainties in the total fluxes of the neutrino NBB’s and the matter density as the major part of the systematic uncertainty. We allocate common 3 $`\%`$ uncertainty for all the NBB’s and 3.3 $`\%`$ overall uncertainty in the matter density.

## 4 Results of the $`\chi ^2`$ analysis

We examine the capability of the VLBL experiments with $`L=2,100`$ km in determining the model parameters. The following questions are of our concern.
1. Can we distinguish the neutrino-mass hierarchy cases I ($`\delta m_{13}^2>0`$) and III ($`\delta m_{13}^2<0`$) ?
2. Can we measure $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ ?
3. Can we distinguish the solar-neutrino oscillation scenarios ?
4. How much can we improve the measurements of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}`$ and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2`$ ?

We examine the questions by combining two experiments with different base-line length, $`L=2,100`$ km (HIPA-to-Beijing) and $`L=295`$ km (HIPA-to-SK). For a VLBL experiment at $`L=2,100`$ km, we assume the statistical significance of 500 kton$``$year each with the NBB(4GeV)and NBB(6GeV). As for the LBL experiment at $`L`$= 295 km, we assume that 100 kton$``$year for the low-energy NBB with $`p_\pi `$= 2 GeV (NBB(2$`\pi `$)). The data obtained from the LBL experiment is what SK can gather in approximately 5 years with $`10^{21}`$ POT par year. (The latest design of the HIPA-to-SK project  adopts off-axis beams in the first stage.)

The $`\chi ^2`$ is a function of the three angles, the two mass-squared differences, the CP phase, the flux normalization factors and the matter density. For a given set of these parameters, we have defined predictions of the $`\mu `$-like and $`e`$-like event numbers including both the signal and the background.

### 4.1 I v.s. III

We show in Fig. 4 the minimum $`\chi ^2`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ by assuming the hierarchy III in the analysis, when the expected event numbers are generated for the following input (true) parameters with the hierarchy I in the LMA region.
Input (true) parameters :
$`\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^{true}=1.0,\hfill & \delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^{2true}=3.5\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2\hfill \\ \mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^{true}=0.8,\hfill & \delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^{2true}=10\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2\hfill \end{array}`$ $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^{true}=0.02,0.04,0.1,\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}=0^{},90^{},180^{},270^{}.\delta m_{12}^2=\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^{2true},\delta m_{13}^2=\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^{2true}(\mathrm{hierarchy}\mathrm{I})`$
In total 12 minimum $`\chi ^2`$ lines are labeled by the input values of $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^{true}`$ = 0.02 (thin lines), 0.04 (medium-thick lines), 0.1 (thick lines) and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}`$ = $`0^{}`$ (solid lines), $`90^{}`$ (long-dashed lines), $`180^{}`$ (short-dashed lines), $`270^{}`$ (dot-dashed lines).

The $`\chi ^2`$ fit has been performed by assuming the hierarchy III. The minimum of the $`\chi ^2`$ function is found for a $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ value in the range below 0.12, by varying the parameters, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}`$ and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2`$, in the LMA region, and the remaining three parameters, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}`$, $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2`$ and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$, freely.
Fitting parameters:
$`\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}:\mathrm{free},\hfill & \delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2:\mathrm{free},\hfill \\ \mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}=0.70.9,\hfill & \delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2=(315)\times 10^5\mathrm{eV}^2,\hfill \\ \mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}:\mathrm{free},\hfill & \delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}:\mathrm{free},\hfill \end{array}`$ $`\delta m_{12}^2=\delta m_{_{\mathrm{SOL}}}^2,\delta m_{13}^2=\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2(\mathrm{hierarchy}\mathrm{III})`$
The uncertainties in the total fluxes of the NBB’s and the matter density are taken into account.

The minimum $`\chi ^2`$ for $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^{true}=0.1`$ is always larger than 50, which allows us to distinguish the hierarchy I from III at $`7\sigma `$ level. We also find that the hierarchy III can be rejected at 3$`\sigma `$ level when $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}\mathrm{\Gamma }>`$ 0.04, and at 1$`\sigma `$ level $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}\mathrm{\Gamma }>`$ 0.02. The capability of distinguishing the hierarchy cases I and III comes from the remarkable differences of the transition probability $`P_{\nu _\mu \nu _e}`$ between them.

### 4.2 $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$

Fig. 5 shows the minimum $`\chi ^2`$ in the $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ v.s. $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ plane. The event numbers are calculated at $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^{true}=0.06`$ for $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}=0^{},90^{},180^{},270^{}`$ in each figure. The other parameters are taken as the same as in Fig. 4. We show the input parameter point by a solid-circle and the minimum $`\chi ^2=1,4,`$ and 9 by the solid-line, dashed-line and dotted-line, respectively. The $`\chi ^2`$ fit has been performed by assuming the LMA scenario with the hierarchy I, while the other parameters are freely varied.

When $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}`$ is around $`0^{}`$ or $`180^{}`$, $`0.04<\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}<0.1`$ is obtained and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ can be constrained to local values at 1$`\sigma `$ level. On the other hand, when $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}`$ is around $`90^{}`$ or $`270^{}`$, $`0.02<\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}<0.08`$ or $`0.045<\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}<0.12`$ are obtained, respectively, but we cannot constrain $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$. As shown in Fig. 3, the $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}=90^{}`$ ($`270^{}`$) point for the hierarchy I lies in the lower (higher) $`N(e,E_\mathrm{p})`$ corner. The same values of $`N(e,4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ and $`N(e,6\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ can be obtained for the other $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ by changing appropriately the $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ parameter. On the other hand, in the case of $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}=0^{}`$ or $`180^{}`$, it is difficult to reproduce both $`N(e,4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ and $`N(e,6\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ simultaneously because of the orthogonal $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$-dependence between $`N(e,4\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$ and $`N(e,6\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})`$.

### 4.3 Solar- and atmospheric-neutrino parameters

We give only results for the remaining two questions. If the LMA scenario is realized in Nature and $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}^{true}\mathrm{\Gamma }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.06}`$, the SMA/LOW/VO scenarios can be rejected at 1$`\sigma `$ level when $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}`$ is around $`0^{}`$ or $`180^{}`$ but not at all when $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}^{true}`$ is around $`90^{}`$ or $`270^{}`$.

For the atmospheric-neutrino oscillation parameters, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}`$ is measured to 1$`\%`$ level and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^2`$ with the 3$`\%`$ accuracy when $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^{true}=1.0`$ and $`\delta m_{_{\mathrm{ATM}}}^{2true}=3.5\times 10^3`$ with the LMA scenario.

## 5 Summary

The HIPA will be completed by the year 2007 and deliver $`10^{21}`$ POT at 50 GeV for one year operation. Assuming the NBB’s from the HIPA and a 100 kton-level water-$`\stackrel{ˇ}{\mathrm{C}}`$erenkov detector, we study the physics potential of the VLBL experiments with $`L`$=2,100 km as a sequel to the proposed HIPA-to-SK LBL experiment with $`L=`$295 km. Thanks to the enhancement of matter effect, it is expected to distinguish the neutrino-mass hierarchy cases in such VLBL experiments. We find that a combination of LBL experiments at $`L`$=295 km and VLBL experiments at $`L`$=2,100 km can determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at 3$`\sigma `$ level if $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}>`$0.04. Also it is found that, if the LMA scenario is realized in Nature, $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{_{\mathrm{CHOOZ}}}`$ and $`\delta _{_{\mathrm{MNS}}}`$ can be constrained at 1$`\sigma `$ level in favorable cases.


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# Cold atom gas at very high densities in an optical surface microtrap

## Abstract

An optical microtrap is realized on a dielectric surface by crossing a tightly focused laser beam with an horizontal evanescent-wave atom mirror. The nondissipative trap is loaded with $``$$`10^5`$ cesium atoms through elastic collisions from a cold reservoir provided by a large-volume optical surface trap. With an observed 300-fold local increase of the atomic number density approaching $`10^{14}\mathrm{cm}^3`$, unprecedented conditions of cold atoms close to a surface are realized.

The trapping of cold atoms very close to material objects has attracted considerable interest Ovchinnikov et al. (1997); Gauck et al. (1998); Schneble et al. (1999); Reichel et al. (1999); Müller et al. (1999); Dekker et al. (2000); Folman et al. (2000); Ott et al. (2001); Hänsel et al. (2001); Leanhardt et al. (2002) and opens up fascinating perspectives for a great variety of experiments ranging from fundamental studies of surface interactions to the realization of low-dimensional quantum gases to applications in the field of quantum information processing. Material structures that carry currents, produce electric fields, or transport light are the key to realize novel trapping configurations such as microtraps and integrated devices for atom optics. In this context a surface constitutes an interface that connects the atomic quantum system to the environment with the prospect of gaining control and enabling measurements on the quantum level.

For experiments in this research field, various surface trapping and guiding schemes have been devised: Magneto-optical traps near surfaces Ovchinnikov et al. (1997); Schneble et al. (1999); Reichel et al. (1999), magnetic surface traps and guides Reichel et al. (1999); Müller et al. (1999); Dekker et al. (2000); Folman et al. (2000), and optical dipole traps and guides Ovchinnikov et al. (1997); Gauck et al. (1998) represent the three main classes. Very recently magnetic surface traps could be combined with Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) Ott et al. (2001); Hänsel et al. (2001); Leanhardt et al. (2002). While in present magnetic surface trapping schemes the atomic samples are still separated from the surface by typically a few ten $`\mu `$m, optical schemes Ovchinnikov et al. (1997); Gauck et al. (1998); Hammes et al. (2000, 2001) have already trapped atoms much closer to the surface with distances on the order of the optical wavelength and quasi-2D conditions have been attained in low-density samples. Optical surface trapping fields thus offer an intriguing potential for future nanotraps and guides based on integrated optical waveguides Burke et al. (2002).

In this Letter, we demonstrate a novel optical surface trap based on an evanescent-wave (EW) atom mirror in combination with a tightly focused red-detuned laser beam; see Fig. 1. This optical dipole trap confines atoms in a very small volume very close to a dielectric surface. Efficient loading through elastic collisions allows us to trap a large number of atoms from an optically precooled reservoir and thus to reach exceptionally high densities even with a classical gas. This scheme also opens up a possible new route for an all-optical production of a Bose-Einstein condensate Barrett et al. (2001) with prospects for future experiments on quantum-degenerate gases near the surface.

The starting point for our experiments with cesium atoms is the “gravito-optical surface trap” Ovchinnikov et al. (1997); Hammes et al. (2000, 2001). This trap is realized under ultrahigh vacuum conditions ($`p10^{11}`$mbar) by combining the EW atom mirror with a blue-detuned hollow beam (HB). The EW is produced with the 55-mW beam of a diode laser (SDL-5712-H1) in a nearly round spot with a 1/$`e^2`$-radius of 0.65 mm on the surface of a fused-silica prism. The angle of incidence is about $`2^{}`$ above the critical angle of total internal reflection and the polarization lies in the plane of incidence. A heated cesium cell is used to filter resonant background light out of this beam Hammes et al. (2001). The HB for horizontal confinement is derived from a Ti:Sapphire laser (Coherent 899-01/895) at a wavelength of 849 nm, i.e. with a detuning of about $``$3 nm from the 852-nm Cs resonance line. It is shaped with a special axicon optics Manek et al. (1998) to provide a two-dimensional cylindrical box potential. The HB has a total power of 330 mW, a diameter of 820 $`\mu `$m, and a potential height on the order of 100 $`\mu `$K. Typically $`2\times 10^7`$ atoms are initially loaded from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) operating a few mm above the surface. First, the optical detuning of the EW is set to 5 GHz to implement Sisyphus cooling by inelastic reflections Ovchinnikov et al. (1997). After 5 s of optical cooling the EW detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{EW}}`$ is increased in a 2-s linear ramp to a large value in the range between 100 GHz and 200 GHz; this frequency ramp is accomplished by rapid temperature tuning of the laser diode. In this way a conservative trapping potential is realized with negligible photon scattering and heating below 100 nK/s. The large detuning also strongly reduces light-induced collisional loss in the blue-detuned trap light Hammes et al. (2000).

Our surface reservoir prepared in this way contains $`2\times 10^6`$ Cs atoms at a temperature of $`T3\mu `$K at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{EW}}=160`$GHz. The vertical density distribution follows the barometric equation with a $`1/e`$-height of $``$$`20\mu `$m Ovchinnikov et al. (1997) with a peak value close to the EW atom mirror of $`2\times 10^{11}`$cm-3. The peak phase-space density of the unpolarized sample in the $`F=3`$ ground state is $``$$`2\times 10^5`$, where we assume that the sample at low magnetic field ($`5\mu `$T) is equally distributed over the seven magnetic substates. The elastic collision rate is of the order of 20 s-1, leading to a thermalization time of $``$0.5 s. At the large EW detuning, the lifetime of the reservoir is limited to typically 1.5 s. We believe that this is due to escape through weaker regions of the EW potential barrier in the Gaussian profile and at local surface defects.

All measurements reported here are based on recapturing the atoms trapped on the EW atom mirror into the MOT. The number of atoms is determined from the integrated fluorescence detected with a carefully calibrated CCD camera. For the absolute atom number we estimate a calibration error below a factor of 1.5. The temperature is measured with a release-and-recapture method by turning off the EW for a short time interval and measuring the relative loss of atoms Ovchinnikov et al. (1997).

For implementing the surface microtrap we use the beam of a Nd:YAG laser at a wavelength of 1064 nm, which is focused right into the center of the cesium ensemble with a power of 330 mW and a waist of $`w_0=32\mu `$m. There it produces a Gaussian-shaped horizontally attractive optical potential with a calculated depth of a $`\widehat{U}/k_B=48\mu `$K Grimm et al. (2000). In a harmonic approximation to the trap center the oscillation frequency is $`\omega _\mathrm{r}=(4\widehat{U}/mw_0^2)^{1/2}=2\pi \times 540`$ Hz. After turning on the Nd:YAG beam, this additional narrow potential well is filled by thermalizing elastic collisions. Since the narrow well is deep compared with the temperature of the reservoir ($`\widehat{U}/k_BT15`$) a very large increase of the local density can be expected. After loading the Nd:YAG beam the reservoir can be removed by shutting down the HB. In this way, a very dense sample of atoms stored in the surface microtrap is realized.

This highly efficient collisional loading scheme plays a crucial role in our experiments as it leads to a drastic local increase of number and phase-space density. The basic idea of a local gain by adiabatically changing the potential shape was first pointed out in Pinkse et al. (1997). Our scheme is similar to the “dimple trap” desribed in Stamper-Kurn et al. (1998) where an optical dipole trap was combined with a magnetic trap and a 50-fold increase in local phase-space density was reached. We believe that this mechanisum also plays an important role for trap loading in the all-optical BEC experiment of Ref. Barrett et al., 2001, where two tightly focused CO2-laser beams formed sort of a dimple in their crossing region. The efficient “dimple trick” may also find very interesting applications in context with degenerate Fermi gases as suggested in Viverit et al. (2001).

In order to study the collisional loading process we suddenly turn on the Nd:YAG beam after preparation of the reservoir with $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{EW}}=120`$ GHz and $`T4\mu `$K. The measured number of atoms loaded into the microtrap with increasing time is displayed in Fig. 2 together with the number of reservoir atoms. The latter is very well described by an exponential decay $`N_{\mathrm{res}}=N_{\mathrm{res},0}\mathrm{exp}(t/\tau _{\mathrm{res}})`$ with $`N_{\mathrm{res},0}=3.5\times 10^6`$ and $`\tau _{\mathrm{res}}=1.4`$s. At zero loading time, a sudden transfer puts an initial number of $`4\times 10^4`$ atoms into the phase-space of the microtrap. This transfer of $``$1% agrees very well with a calculation of the sudden transfer ratio. Thermalizing elastic collisions then fill the optical microtrap on the timescale of a few 100 ms and the trapped number of atoms reaches a maximum of $``$$`10^5`$ after about 500 ms. The atomic ensemble in the microtrap then decays slower than the reservoir, which is due to the high EW potential barrier in the middle of the reservoir.

We can model the loading in a simple way by a differential equation for the number $`N(t)`$ of atoms in the microtrap,

$$\dot{N}=\kappa N_{\mathrm{res}}(NaN_{\mathrm{res}})bN^2.$$
(1)
The loading model is based on the experimental facts that the temperature stays constant and that the microtrap does not significantly affect the reservoir. By introducing the parameter $`a1`$ we assume that thermalization tends to load a certain fraction of the reservoir atoms into the microtrap. The loading rate $`\kappa N_{\mathrm{res}}`$ is assumed to be proportional to the elastic collision rate in the reservoir. For the loss out of the microtrap, we consider two-body collisions as the main mechanism. The loss coefficient is determined independently to $`b=7.2\times 10^6`$ s-1 by observing the decay in the absence of a reservoir ($`N_{\mathrm{res}}=0`$). A fit of $`N(t)`$ to the experimental loading data in Fig. 2 then yields $`\kappa =3.3\times 10^7`$ s-1 and $`a=0.08`$. The resulting initial loading rate $`\kappa N_{\mathrm{res},0}1`$s-1 is of the same order as thermalization rate of the reservoir. The parameter $`a8`$ % indicates the thermal equilibrium transfer ratio into the microtrap, which exceeds the sudden transfer by almost an order of magnitude.

The loaded atom number can be maximized by turning on the Nd:YAG beam right after the optical cooling phase at the begin of the 2-s EW detuning ramp. When right after the ramp the HB is turned off and the reservoir atoms completely disappear after 200ms, we observe up to $`N=1.5\times 10^5`$ atoms in the microtrap.

The density distribution can be calculated under the assumption of thermal equilibrium from the potential shape and the measured temperature. The trap shape with its cylindrical symmetry is approximately harmonic in the two dimensions of the horizontal $`x,y`$-plane and has a one-dimensional wedge shape in the vertical $`z`$-direction. In such a potential the density distribution can be described by

$$n(𝐫)=n_0\mathrm{exp}(\rho ^2/\rho _0^2)\mathrm{exp}(z/z_0)$$
(2)
where $`\rho ^2=x^2+y^2`$. The $`1/e`$-decrease of the density is characterized by a horizontal radius $`\rho _0=\omega _\mathrm{r}^1\sqrt{2k_BT/m}`$ and a height $`z_0=k_BT/mg`$; here $`m`$ denotes the mass of a Cs atom and $`g`$ represents the gravitational acceleration. With an effective volume defined as $`V_0=\pi \rho _0^2z_0`$, the peak number density $`n_0`$ is related to the trapped atom number and the effective volume by $`n_0=N/V_0`$. Note that the mean density and the mean quadratic density in this trapping potential are related to the peak density by $`n=n_0/4`$ and $`n^2=n_0^2/9`$.

The effective volume $`V_0`$ occupied in the microtrap depends on the horizontal trap frequency $`\omega _\mathrm{r}`$ and the temperature $`T`$. Fig. 3 shows measurements of these two quantities. In (a) the calculated value of $`\omega _\mathrm{r}/2\pi =540`$Hz is nicely confirmed. In (b) the temperature measurement shows $`T=2.9\mu `$K, obtained at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _{\mathrm{EW}}=160`$GHz. These measurements yield a horizontal $`1/e`$-radius $`\rho _0=6.1\mu `$m, a $`1/e`$-height $`z_0=19\mu `$m and an effective volume of $`V_0=2200\mu `$m3. With $`N=1.5\times 10^5`$ atoms a peak density as high as $`7\times 10^{13}`$cm-3 is obtained. This number is about 300 times higher as compared to our reservoir and thus the largest gain realized by loading a “dimple” Stamper-Kurn et al. (1998). The attained density also clearly exceeds the maximum values reported for Cs in previous dipole trapping experiments Boiron et al. (1998); Vuletić et al. (1998); Han et al. (2001). The peak phase-space density for a fully unpolarized sample in $`F=3`$ is calculated to $`7\times 10^3`$. The very high elastic collison rate in the dense sample exceeds 2 kHz and a posteriori justifies the assumption of a thermal equilibrium distribution.

In order to investigate trap loss at these high densities we have measured the number of stored atoms as a function of time. The corresponding experimental data are shown in Fig. 4. Trap loss can be described by $`\dot{N}/N=\alpha \beta nK_3n^2`$, where $`\alpha `$ is a density-independent loss rate and the coefficients $`\beta `$ and $`K_3`$ characterize two-body and three-body inelastic trap loss. For our trap the mean density and mean quadratic density can be written as $`n=N/(4V_0)`$ and $`n^2=N^2/(9V_0^2)`$, so that the loss equation yields a differential equation for $`N(t)`$. An attempt to fit the observed decay with $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`K_3`$ as free parametes in addition to the initial particle number $`N(t=0)`$ gives ambiguous results. We therefore vary $`\alpha `$ as an external parameter in a reasonable range ($`\alpha 0.1`$s-1) and obtain good fit results for $`\beta `$ and $`K_3`$ (see solid line in Fig. 4). In this way we obtain a two-body loss coefficient of $`5\times 10^{14}`$cm$`{}_{}{}^{3}/`$s together with an upper bound for the three-body coefficient of $`K_33\times 10^{27}`$cm$`{}_{}{}^{6}/`$s. According to previous experiments Hammes et al. (2000) the value for $`\beta `$ indeed corresponds to an expected loss coefficient for light-induced inelastic collisions in the field of the evanescent wave involving the excitation of repulsive molecular states. The upper bound for three-body loss appears to be surprisingly low regarding the resonant scattering properties of Cs Kerman et al. (2001).

In another series of experiments, we have tried to further increase the phase-space density by evaporative cooling. For this purpose, we have lowered the intensity of the Nd:YAG beam in an exponential ramp with variable time constants. An optimum result, obtained with a 400-ms ramp down to 10% of the initial intensity is shown in Fig. 5. After 350ms of the ramp, with a potential depth reduced to $``$7$`\mu `$K the temperature reaches values slightly below 1 $`\mu `$K as a result of combined adiabatic and evaporative cooling. With about $`4\times 10^4`$ atoms remaining, the phase-space density of the unpolarized gas in its seven magnetic substates reaches values slightly above $`10^2`$. Further reduction of the intensity leads to increased loss, but not to lower temperatures. This indicates that evaporation under our conditions is limited by inelastic loss, which is being studied in more detail in ongoing experiments.

A great improvement of evaporative cooling in our microtrap can be expected with polarized atoms in the lowest internal state $`F=3,m_F=3`$ at appropriate values of a magnetic field. A factor of seven will be gained in phase-space density at the same number density and temperature. Inelastic collisions involving changes of the magnetic quantum numbers and the release of Zeeman energy will be energetically suppressed. Moreover, the scattering length can be tuned into a positive region for magnetic fields larger than 1.7 mT Kerman et al. (2001). In this situation, a further factor of about 30 in phase-space density and the attainment of Cs-BEC in an optical surface trap seems feasible with an appropriate evaporation strategy. A very interesting further prospect would then be to load the dense gas into a two-dimensional trap formed by two evanescent waves Ovchinnikov et al. (1991) and to study the properties of a two-dimensional surface gas of Cs atoms with their large and tunable interactions.

In summary, by loading an optical surface microtrap through elastic collisions from a reservoir we have locally increased the number and phase-space density by a factor of up to 300. This demonstrates a very efficient and universal loading scheme for nondissipative microtraps or future nanotrapping schemes at surfaces. Moreover it opens up new possibilities to create a degenerate gas of Cs atoms and to create a two-dimensional surface quantum gas with tunable interactions.

###### Acknowledgements.

We gratefully acknowledge support by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) within project P15115 and SFB 15.