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# Mining the Metal-Rich Stars for Planets

## 1 Introduction

The discovery of extrasolar planetary systems (Mayor & Queloz 1995, Marcy & Butler 1998, Marcy et al. 2000) has sparked a great deal of excitement. Nearly fifty planets have now been detected around other stars, and the total census has grown to the point where statistical trends are beginning to emerge.

There appears, for example, to be a dearth of objects in the mass range between 10 and 80 Jupiter masses, indicating that brown dwarfs and planets represent two distinct populations, presumably formed via different physical processes. There also appear to be at least two different classes of extrasolar planets. When the orbital period of a planet is less than approximately 20 days, the orbit tends to be nearly circular, whereas extrasolar planets with longer periods are generally on much more eccentric orbits. In this paper, we will refer to planets with $`P<20`$ days as “short-period”. Tidal circularization is inadequate to explain the circular orbits of short-period planets with semi-major axes greater than $`0.1`$ AU (Rasio & Ford 1996, Hut 1981). It is thus likely that many of these planets migrated gradually inward due to interactions with a gaseous protostellar disk (Lin, Bodenheimer & Richardson 1995), although in situ formation is also possible (Bodenheimer, Hubickyj & Lissauer 2000). The large eccentricities of the planets with periods longer than 20 days can arise through dynamical interactions between multiple planets (e.g. Levison, Lissauer & Duncan 1998), perturbations from a bound stellar companion (Holman, Touma & Tremaine 1997), and interactions with binary stars in the birth aggregate (Laughlin & Adams 1998).

Our own Solar System presents two more categories: (1) the terrestrial planets, and (2) the Jovian planets on long-period, nearly circular orbits. As the time baseline of the ongoing radial velocity surveys increases, long-period Jupiter-mass planets in other systems will be detectable (Vogt et al. 2000), whereas space-based transit surveys such as the proposed Kepler mission (Borucki et al. 1997; Koch et al. 1998) will be able to detect extrasolar terrestrial planets.

In this paper, we focus attention on another emerging trend. The stars known to harbor extrasolar planets tend to be considerably more metal-rich than the average population I star in the galactic neighborhood. Indications of this correlation were apparent even with the first detections (Gonzalez 1997, 1998, 1999). 51 Peg, for example, has a metallicity \[Fe/H\]=0.21 dex (Gonzalez 2000), which makes it more metal-rich than 98% of the G dwarfs in the Solar Neighborhood (Rocha-Pinto & Maciel 1996). Other planet bearing stars such as BD-10 3166, 55 Cnc, and 14 Her, all with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]`$0.5 dex, are among the most metal-rich stars currently known (Castro et al. 1997, Gonzalez et al. 1999).

Extrasolar planet searches have concentrated effort towards surveys of solar-type main sequence stars of spectral type ranging from roughly K5 through F7 (Marcy et al. 2000). These stars are relatively common, and are also relatively bright. Furthermore, solar analogs tend to be photometrically stable, and present a useful variety of absorption lines for radial velocity determination. The current census of planets is therefore concentrated among stars of approximately solar mass. There is, however, no apparent bias against metal-poor stars in the current surveys. Indeed, at a given mass, metal-poor stars are brighter than metal-rich stars. For instance, doubling the metallicity of a 1 $`M_{}`$ ZAMS star from \[Fe/H\]=0.00 to \[Fe/H\]=0.30 leads to a 320 K decrease in surface temperature and a factor of 1.3 decrease in luminosity (Forestini 1994). The current radial velocity searches are essentially magnitude-limited surveys. Metal-poor stars will thus tend to be overrepresented in the target lists.

Furthermore, Brown et al. (2000) have examined the detailed time-series photometry of 34091 stars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, they collected 8.3 days of data, and expected to find roughly 30 transiting short-period planets, based on the occurence rate among stars in the radial velocity surveys. No planets were found. The metallicity of 47 Tucanae is \[Fe/H\]=-0.7, which is considerably lower than the metallicity of any star known to harbor an extrasolar planet.

There are now enough planets for us to begin to quantify the short-period planet – stellar metallicity correlation, and to make reasonable estimates of the overall frequency of occurence of short-period planets. Rocha-Pinto & Maciel (1996) have used the Third Catalog of Nearby Stars (Gliese & Jahreiss 1991) to identify 345 dwarf stars within 25 pc of probable spectral type G0–G9. Within this volume-limited (and essentially complete) sample, three stars (51 Peg, HD 217107, and 55 Cnc) are known to have short-period planets, implying a frequency of occurence of roughly 1% among solar type stars. This estimate suffers from small number statistics, but is in rough agreement with the initial estimate of 2% by Butler et al. (1997) based on the number of short-period planets found in the original Lick radial velocity survey.

Butler et al. (2000) report that most single G, K, and late F dwarf stars of magnitude $`V<8`$ ($`2000`$ stars) are presently being monitored by the radial velocity surveys. The Rocha-Pinto & Maciel (1996) census indicates that there should be approximately 1,100 G dwarfs lying within a radius of 40 pc. A majority of these will be brighter than V=8, and hence should already be under surveillance. Short-period planets of mass $`M_p>0.3M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ are readily detected after a year or so of observation. One can thus conclude that the six short-period planets orbiting G dwarfs within 40 parsecs should constitute a reasonable fraction of those which actually exist. It would thus appear that at least 0.5% of solar type dwarfs are accompanied by short-period planets.

Finally, Vogt et al. (2000) report that among 1000 stars with more than two years of accumulated data, nine planets with $`P<20`$ days have been discovered. All of these estimates are in reasonable concordance, and together suggest that the rate of occurence of short-period planets among single main sequence stars in the solar neighborhood is of order 1%.

As mentioned above, the stars which bear planets are (on average) enriched in metals in comparison to the Sun, and this trend appears to be particularly strong for the short-period planets (Gonzalez 1997, Butler et al. 2000). In Table 1, we list the properties of currently known planets which have orbital periods of 20 days or less. The logarithmic average metallicity of the primary stars harboring short-period planets is $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=`$0.16 dex (excluding HD 83443 for which no metallicity determination or $`uvby`$ photometry currently exists), whereas the logarithmic average metallicity of G dwarfs in the solar neighborhood is $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=`$-0.2 dex (Rocha-Pinto & Maciel 1996). Of the six G dwarfs in Table 1 which lie within 40 pc, four have metallicity $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>`$0.2 dex. Stars of metallicity $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>`$0.2 dex constitute a mere 2.4% of the local G dwarf population, and hence about 35 such metal-rich G dwarfs are expected to lie within 40 parsecs. It therefore appears that approximately 10% of stars with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>`$0.2 dex are accompanied by short-period planets. In other words, the most metal-rich stars have a ten times increased probability of harboring a short-period planet. In this paper, we seek to explore the consequences of this remarkable correlation.

This paper is organized as follows: in §2 we compile a catalog of 206 high-metallicity stars which have an increased likelihood of harboring short-period planets. In §3 we search the Hipparcos epoch photometry for candidate transit events among the 206 stars in the catalog, and discuss the possibility of detecting transiting planets using this method. In §4 we discuss an emerging trend toward increasing metallicity as a function of stellar mass among the known planet-bearing stars. In §5 investigate the possibility of using metallicity measurements of spectroscopic binary stars to determine whether the short-period planet – stellar metallicity correlation arises from the intrinsic properties of the parent star-forming molecular cloud core or, alternately, through post-formation enrichment. We summarize and discuss our results in §6.

## 2 A Target List of High-Metallicity Stars

The clear existence of a correlation between high stellar metallicity and the presence of a short-period planet indicates that a selective targeting of high metallicity stars would constitute an effective search method. Indeed, this strategy has already yielded success. The formerly obscure star BD-10 3166 was listed by Castro et al. (1997) as one of the five most metal-rich stars known, with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=0.5`$. As reported in Butler et al. (2000), it was added to the Keck Radial Velocity Survey at the suggestion of Gonzalez, Wallerstein & Saar (1999), and was soon thereafter found to harbor a $`M\mathrm{sin}i=0.48M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ planet in a 3.487 day low-eccentricity orbit.

Although most dwarf stars with $`V<8`$ are currently being targeted by the various radial velocity searches, the total number of stars being surveyed is much smaller than the total population of dwarf stars now known to exist within the broader ($`d<100`$ pc) solar neighborhood. It is therefore of interest to compile a list of metal-rich stars that are dim enough to have likely eluded detailed attention thus far.

Spectroscopic abundance analyses exist for only a relatively small number of stars, but there are over 63,300 stars for which $`uvby`$ photometry has been reported in the literature. Furthermore, every individual $`uvby`$ measurement published prior to the middle of 1996 has been compiled in machine-readable form by Hauck & Mermilliod (1998).

Schuster & Nissen (1989) have published a calibration which uses the standard $`uvby`$ indices, $`by`$, $`m_1`$, and $`c_1`$ to estimate the metallicity of a given star:

$$[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.05273.21m_1+280.9m_1(by)+333.95m_1^2(by)595.5m_1(by)^2+$$

$$(5.48641.62m_17.963(by))\mathrm{log}[m_1(0.63223.58(by)+5.20(by)^2)]$$

for $`0.22(by)<0.375`$, and:

$$[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.0965+22.45m_153.8m_1^262.04m_1(by)+145.5m_1^2(by)+$$

$$(85.1m_113.8c_1137.2m_1^2)c_1$$
$`(1)`$
for $`0.375(by)0.59`$. The average uncertainty for this calibration is stated to be $`\mathrm{\Delta }[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=0.16`$ dex.

This calibration is applicable to the dwarf stars of spectral type ranging from F through early K which have been preferentially targeted in the radial velocity surveys. Rocha-Pinto & Maciel (1996) applied the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration to a sample of 79 G dwarfs in the solar neighborhood for which spectroscopic abundances have been determined, and found very good agreement across a wide range of metallicities. In particular, Rocha-Pinto & Maciel (1996) found that the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration shows better agreement with the spectroscopic abundances than does the calibration of Olsen (1984). In Figure 1, we compare $`uvby`$ metallicities obtained by applying Equation 1 to the aggregate of planet-bearing stars for which alternate, mostly spectroscopic, determinations of the metallicities are available (see Butler et al. 2000 for references to individual determinations). For this high-metallicity subsample, the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration tends to underestimate the metallicity of a given star by an average of 0.06 dex in comparison to the spectroscopically determined value. We can thus conclude that the $`uvby`$ calibration is sufficiently accurate for use in selecting a statistically metal-rich sample of stars from the Hauck & Mermilliod (1998) compilation.

The catalog shown in Table 2 was obtained with the following procedure. The database of Hipparcos target stars (Perryman et al. 1997) was queried for objects with (1) magnitudes in the range $`7.8<V<11`$, (2) parallaxes $`\pi >0.01`$ arcseconds, and (3) color indices in the range $`0.2<BV<0.9`$. This query yields a subset of 10,101 stars, most of which have HD identifiers. Within this subset, a second search was made for stars listed in the Hipparcos catalog as non-multiple and non-variable and which also appear in the Hauck & Mermilliod (1998) compilation. This cut yielded 4825 stars. \[Fe/H\] estimates were then computed from each star’s uvby photometry. We find that 206 stars (4.27% of the sample) have \[Fe/H\] values in excess of the Hyades metallicity of 0.125. Given the tendency of the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration to underestimate metallicity, these stars are quite likely to be very metal-rich, and, as such, should have an approximately tenfold increased probability (in comparison to field stars) of bearing short-period planets.

There are 31 stars in Table 2 with $`V`$ magnitudes in the range $`7.8<V<8.0`$. Hence, as stated in Butler et al. (2000), they are thus likely to already be under radial velocity surveillance. Indeed, out of these 31 bright stars, eight are currently included in the Keck survey (Marcy, 2000 personal communication). Of these eight stars, one, (HD 187123) has a planet with $`M\mathrm{sin}i=0.54`$ $`M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ and a period of 3.097 days (Butler et al. 1998). One planet in eight stars is consistent with our expected occurence rate of 10%.

We recommend that the stars in Table 2 be considered for targeting in planetary searches. The stars which are later than spectral type F5–F7 can be added to the radial velocity surveys currently underway, and all of the stars can be photometrically monitored for transits. In the next section, we describe a preliminary transit search of our catalog which makes use of the Hipparcos epoch photometry.

## 3 A Preliminary Search for Transiting Planets Among the High-Metallicity Catalog Stars

Given the frequency estimates in the introductory section, we expect that roughly 10% of the stars listed in Table 2 harbor short-period planets. Geometric arguments indicate that approximately 10% of short-period planets will display transits (Henry et al. 2000), so it is likely that there are 1–2 transiting planets orbiting stars in Table 2.

The roughly 10% fraction of short-period planets which exhibit transits are extremely useful. The orbital inclination of a transiting planet is determined to high accuracy, breaking the $`\mathrm{sin}i`$ degeneracy which plagues the radial velocity method of detection, and giving an unambiguous mass determination. A transit detection also yields a size and density for the planet. As more transiting planets are found, their distribution in the space delineated by mass, radius, and temperature will be instrumental in allowing for comparison with theoretical models. Each new transit will help to further unravel the structure and evolution of the extrasolar planets.

At present, only one transiting extrasolar planet is known. This object (HD 209458b) orbits its parent star with a period of 3.525 days, has a mass of $`0.62M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$, and a radius of $`1.42R_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$. The parent star HD 209458 is a G0 main sequence dwarf with no known stellar-mass companions. Based on Hipparcos measurements of $`V=7.65`$, $`BV=0.594`$, and $`d=47`$ pc, Allende Prieto & Lambert (1999) estimate a mass of 1.03 $`M_{}`$, and a radius of 1.15 $`R_{}`$ for the star. HD 209458b was initially discovered with the radial velocity method (Henry et al. 2000, Mazeh et al. 2000). Subsequent measurements of the photometric light curve of the star revealed that the planet was transiting, with a transit duration of 3.1 hours, and a maximum transit depth of 1.6% (Henry et al. 2000, Charbonneau et al. 2000).

The primary mission of the Hipparcos satellite was to produce astrometric information. However, in addition to positional astronomy, the satellite also obtained an extensive database of photometric measurements during its 3.36 year mission. This Hipparcos epoch photometry (Perryman et al. 1997, van Leeuwen et al. 1997) covers 118,204 stars and contains an average of $`n`$=110 observations per star. Almost immediately after the announcement of the HD 209458 transit detection (Henry et al. 2000, Charbonneau et al. 2000) several authors demonstrated that the transit is visible in the Hipparcos epoch photometry (Söderjhelm 1999, Castellano et al. 2000, Robichon & Arenou 2000).

Figure 2 shows the 89 photometric measurements which the Hipparcos satellite made of HD 209458 (HIP 108859), folded at a period of 3.5247 days (consistent with the period obtained from the radial velocity observations). The error bars attached to the data points correspond to the quoted uncertainty of each individual measurement. The heavy solid line shows an approximation to the transit lightcurve in which the assumed transit depth is 1.6%, and the transit duration is 3 hours (see below). Note that the slopes of ingress and egress have been omitted. The transit is manifested as a rather unremarkable group of six measurements clustered around orbital phase 0.7. Castellano et al. (2000), however, have shown that with an a priori knowledge of the approximate period, such a cluster of low points has approximately one chance in $`5\times 10^4`$ of occuring by chance. Robichon & Arenou (2000) find a similar result, and suggest that additional transiting planets might be detectable within the Hipparcos epoch photometry. It is thus informative to carry out a preliminary search for the 1–2 transiting short-period planets that are expected to exist among the high metallicity stars in Table 2. This is especially true for stars of spectral type F6 and earlier which are inaccesible to radial velocity surveys (due to a lack of adequate spectral lines for velocity cross-correlations).

An automated routine was written to search for transiting planets in the Hipparcos photometry. For a particular star, the stellar mass and radius are estimated from the spectral type (see Allen, 2000). A hypothetical transiting planet is assumed to have a radius of 1.3 $`R_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$. This value is consistent with the observed radius of HD 209458b, and it agrees with theoretical expectations for the sizes of the so-called “Hot Jupiters”. In a study of the 51 Peg system, Guillot et al. (1996) used a detailed non-adiabatic structure model to show that the radii of 8 Gyr old planets in four day orbits exhibit a very narrow range of sizes varying from 1.2 $`R_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ at 0.5 $`M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ to 1.4 $`R_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$ at 3.0 $`M_{\mathrm{JUP}}`$. Given the stellar properties and the radial size of the hypothetical transiting planet, we next choose a trial orbital period $`P`$. Transits are assumed to occur along the major chord of the star as seen from Earth. The orbital period is therefore sufficient to fix the transit duration, and the relative sizes of planet and star fix the transit depth, yielding an approximate light curve $`y_p(\varphi )`$. The effects of limb darkening and transit ingress and egress are not considered. The large intrinsic scatter and the sparse sampling of the Hipparcos photometry obviates any benefit from these refinements.

For each star in Table 2, the Hipparcos photometry annex lists the observation epoch (referred to Julian day 2,440,000.0), the Hipparcos magnitude $`H_p(i)`$, the magnitude uncertainty $`\sigma _H(i)`$, and a data quality flag $`f(i)`$, for each photometric measurement (van Leeuwen et al. 1997). We reject data points for which $`f(i)>8`$. The remaining $`n`$ points are phased modulo the trial orbital period $`P`$. A chi-squared statistic

$$\chi ^2(P,\varphi _j)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}(\frac{H_p(i)y_p(i,\varphi _j)}{\sigma _H(i)})^2$$
$`(2)`$
is computed succesively for 500 equally spaced trial transit phases $`\varphi _j`$ spanning the range from 0 to 1, and the minimum chi-squared value is noted.

The procedure is then applied to 90,000 trial periods in the 1-10 day range, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }P=`$0.0001 days. Figure 3 shows $`\chi _{min}^2(P)`$ for HD 209458, for periods in the subinterval ranging from three to four days. The correct transit period of 3.5247 days yields $`\chi _{min}^2(3.5247)`$=115.57, for a transit centered at phase $`\varphi `$=0.704. This value for $`\chi ^2`$ is the second-best fit to the data within the 3–4 day range. A spurious period of 3.7909 days yields a slightly lower value of $`\chi _{min}^2(3.7909)`$=115.50, and there is a third fit at 3.2952 days which is nearly as good.

The HD 209458 measurements (which are by no means atypical within the epoch photometry annex) indicate that unambiguous transit detections are not possible with typical Hipparcos data. Nevertheless, the quality of the HD 209458 detection is high enough to warrant a survey of possible candidate events (period determinations) within the high metallicity catalog. The above-described procedure was applied to all 206 stars in Table 2, and periods with low chi-squared values were noted. These good-fit periods were then screened according to the several criteria chosen to enhance the likelihood of a period fit being a true detection. First, periods were required to fall in the range $`3<P<4`$ days. This period range is seemingly preferred by actual systems; as mentioned above, nearly half of the known short period planets fall in this one day interval. Second, only events with particularly low minima were chosen. Candidates are required to have unit weight error $`u=\sqrt{\chi ^2/n}<1`$. We also require that a candidate transit interval contain no more than 2.5 times the expected number of photometric measurements. In practice, particularly low chi-squared fits are often achieved by folding a large number of outlying points into a spurious transit interval. Nevertheless, true detections are enhanced by a lucky distribution of points. In the case of HD209485b, the six transiting points which contribute to the 3.5247 day period shown in Figure 3 are 2.25 times the number expected among 89 randomly distributed measurements. (Note that the Hipparcos photometric measurements are not distributed randomly in time. In many cases, successive measurements are either spaced very closely or interspersed with longer gaps than would be expected from a random distribution.) Candidate transits which meet these criteria are listed in Table 2. For these stars, we list (1) $`n`$, the number of acceptable photometric measurements for the star, (2) $`P`$, the best-fit period, (3) $`u`$, the unit weight error of the best chi-squared fit, and (4) $`n_t/n_{expected}`$, the ratio of observed to expected points in the transit interval. If multiple candidate periods are found for a particular star, only the period with the lowest chi-squared fit is listed. An example candidate transit detection is shown in Figure 4. The interested reader can examine other candidate transits in Table 2 by entering the Hipparcos identifier and the trial period into the folding algorithm featured at the Hipparcos website: http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Hipparcos/apps/PlotCurve.html.

## 4 A Connection Between Metallicity and Stellar Mass for Planet-Bearing Stars

There appear to be two broad classes of explanation for the correlation between short-period planets and high stellar metallicity (see e.g. Gonzalez 1997). The first explanation posits that high metallicity parent clouds lead more readily to planet formation, and hence to a higher rate of occurence of short-period planets. High values for $`Z`$ mean that more rocky material is available in the nebula to form protoplanetary cores. Furthermore, the presence of nebular dust above a particular threshold may trigger vigorous planet formation. A possible explanation might proceed as follows: The paradigm scenario for the formation of planetesimals is that dust grains settle to the midplane of the disk where they become gravitationally unstable (Goldreich & Ward 1973). Within the last decade, however, it has been shown that turbulence driven by the vertical shear in the orbiting disk can prevent dust from settling into the thin layer required to activate gravitational instability (see Weidenschilling & Cuzzi 1993). Recently, however, Youdin & Shu (2000, private communication) have shown that inclusion of off-diagonal Brunt-Väisälä frequencies can considerably reduce the effectiveness of the vertical shear in stirring up turbulence (see also Sekiya 1998). They find that if the dust density is more than twice the value expected in the minimum solar nebula, then the turbulence becomes ineffective for supressing the Goldreich-Ward (1973) instability. Photoevaporation of a protostellar disk is one mechanism which can increase the dust-to-gas ratio to the required threshold, and a high metallicity nebula would require a smaller degree of photoevaporation to trigger instability, thus allowing for vigorous planet formation within the inner regions of a metal-rich disk.

The second hypothesis for the planet-metallicity correlation holds that systems which form short-period planets (independently of the initial metallicity) are also able to efficiently enrich their parent stars. The large observed metallicities therefore occur only in the convective envelope, and not within the star as a whole. This can occur by  complete inward migration of (metal-rich) planets onto the star in response to tidal interactions with the protostellar disk (Lin, Bodenheimer & Richardson 1996),  via the scattering of metal-rich planets onto the star (Rasio & Ford 1996), or  through the dumping of debris such as planetesimals, comets or asteroids onto the star (Murray et al. 1998, Quillen & Holman 2000).

Main sequence stars which are more massive than $`0.25M_{}`$ and less massive than $`1.4M_{}`$ have a radiative central core surrounded by a convective envelope. The more massive the star, the less mass is contained in the convective envelope. In the present day Sun, for example, the convection zone contains 0.02 $`M_{}`$ and extends over the outer 26% of the Sun’s radius (Sackmann, Boothroyd, & Kraemer 1993). The gas giant planets in our solar system appear to be enriched in heavy elements (partially as the result of their rock-ice cores), and are likely to have metallicities of order $`Z0.1`$. The dissolution of Jupiter (assuming $`Z_{\mathrm{JUP}}=0.1`$) into the convective envelope of the present day Sun would thus raise the metallicity of the convective envelope by 0.08 dex. By contrast, adding Jupiter to a 0.8 $`M_{}`$ ZAMS solar metallicity main sequence star, which has a 0.73 $`M_{}`$ convective envelope (Forestini 1994), yields a metallicity increase of only 0.025 dex. Folding Jupiter into the 0.007 $`M_{}`$ convective envelope of a 1.2 $`M_{}`$ ZAMS star gives a large metallicity increase of 0.176 dex.

Figure 5 indicates that there is some evidence for increasing metallicity with increasing stellar mass among all known planet-bearing stars for which metallicities are available. Most of the masses and metallicities shown in this plot were taken from Table 5 of Butler et al. (2000). Many of these metallicities result from spectroscopic determinations. In addition, four of the five new planet-bearing stars announced by Mayor et al. (2000), and the three new planet-bearing stars announced by Fischer et al. (2000) are also included. The planet-bearing stars HD 177830, GJ 876, and HD 83443 are not included in the figure, since neither high resolution spectroscopy nor $`uvby`$ photometry is yet available for these stars. A linear regression to the data yields a best fit slope of 0.548 $`\mathrm{dex}/M_{}`$.

Stars which are heavier than roughly 1 $`M_{}`$ have main sequence lifetimes which are shorter than the age of the galactic disk. In general, therefore, a population of F dwarfs will be younger than a population of G dwarfs. For example, assuming a constant rate of star formation in the Galaxy, and the stellar mass-lifetime relation given by Iben & Laughlin (1989), the average age of a sample of 1 $`M_{}`$ G dwarf stars is 4.15 Gyr, whereas the average age of an aggregate of 1.3 $`M_{}`$ F dwarf stars would be only 1.7 Gyr.

Edvardson et al. (1993) examined a sample of nearby F and G stars, and found that the average metallicity in their sample was a gradually decreasing function of age. Ng & Bertelli (1998) further quantified this relation, and found that the age-metallicity relation for the averaged population displays a small, but nevertheless discernable slope of 0.07 dex/Gyr. This result is in accordance with the enrichment of the galactic disk as a result of ongoing stellar evolution, and it means that a local sample of F dwarfs should be statistically more metal-rich than a similar sample of G dwarfs. Much of the enrichment, however, is reflected in the paucity of very metal-poor main sequence F stars.

We can check the degree to which the trend in Figure 5 is due to the younger average age of the F stars by a constructing a local, volume-limited comparison sample of G, F, and early K dwarfs: We queried the Hipparcos catalog (Perryman et al. 1997) for all objects lying within 25 pc, and then removed the stars which are listed as either multiple (Hipparcos field $`\mathrm{H58}>1`$) or variable. From this volume-limited subset, we retained all stars for which $`uvby`$ measurements exist, and for which $`0.22<by<0.59`$. The masses of these stars were then obtained from the database of Prieto & Lambert (1998), and metallicities were computed using the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration. This yields an essentially complete, volume-limited sample of 196 G and F dwarfs which have metallicities in excess of \[Fe/H\]=-0.4, and masses in the range 0.88 $`M_{}`$ – 1.45 $`M_{}`$. These stars are plotted as open circles in Figure 6. For comparison, the metallicities of the planet-bearing stars were recomputed using the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration) and plotted as filled circles. As mentioned in Butler et al. (2000), most of the mass estimates for the planet-bearing stars in Figure 5 are from the Prieto & Lambert (1998) database, so a comparison of \[Fe/H\] vs. $`M`$ for the two populations is readily justified.

The use of the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration in Figure 6 maintains a noticeable metallicity-mass gradient among the planet-bearing stars of 0.498 $`\mathrm{dex}/M_{}`$, yet there is only a marginal -0.064 $`\mathrm{dex}/M_{}`$ gradient among the stars in the local sample with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>0.4`$. This nearly null slope for the local aggregate is in good agreement with the conclusion of Rocha-Pinto & Maciel (1998), who find that there is a “remarkable consistency amongst the \[metallicity\] distributions of F, G, and K type dwarfs.”

Furthermore, Figure 6 shows that for $`M<M_{}`$, the planet-bearing stars are drawn essentially randomly from the metallicity distribution of stars having $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>0.4`$. By 1.2 $`M_{}`$, however, the planet-bearing stars lie in the region occupied by the most metal-rich stars of the local distribution. The two planet-bearing stars with $`M1.4M_{}`$ (HD 38429 and HD 89744) are more metal-rich than any star of similar mass within 25 pc.

As a general trend, solar-type stars begin their pre-main-sequence evolution on the Hayashi track with a fully convective stellar configuration. After several million years, radiative cores appear and the size of the convective envelope steadily decreases over the next 10 million years or so. The lifetimes of protostellar disks are on the order of several million years. As discussed by Laughlin & Adams (1997), if planets are added to the star primarily as a result of inward migration caused by tidal interactions between the disk and its embedded planets, then a metallicity gradient as a function of stellar mass is likely to exist only among early F-type and A-type stars (1.5 –2.5 $`M_{}`$). Stars in this mass range have relatively low-mass convective envelopes during the phase when a protoplanetary disk is present. Laughlin & Adams (1997) examined the metallicities of a volume-limited sample of F dwarfs, and found only marginal evidence for such a trend. If the much more dramatic trend shown in Figure 5 among the K-type through late F-type type planet-bearing stars is real, then the enrichment processes must be occuring over timescales which are considerably longer than the typical disk lifetime. The long-term process of resonant scattering of planetesimals into the parent star would thus provide the most natural mechanism for enrichment.

## 5 Using Binary Stars to Probe the Metallicity Correlation

Short-period binary stars can provide another observational test to select between the initial metallicity hypothesis and the enrichment hypotheses. The basic idea is straightforward. A close binary star, once formed, will tend to protect itself against accretion of either planets or other debris. Material which wanders within several binary separations of the central stars tends to be ejected from the system as a result of three-body interactions.

As a first illustration of this principle, one can imagine a circumbinary disk which has formed a Jupiter-mass planet. Tidal interactions between the disk and the planet are then imagined to cause the planet to migrate inwards towards the central binary star. This process can be simulated by placing Jupiter-mass particles in 2 AU circular orbits around the center of mass of a 0.25 AU zero-eccentricity binary with equal componet masses of 0.5 $`M_{}`$. The tidal effect of the circumbinary disk is modeled as a tiny, constant azimuthal torque which causes the planetary orbit to spiral inward on a $`10^5`$ year timescale. Once the orbit has decayed to the point where the planet reaches an orbital radius of several binary separations, 3-body interactions tend to eject the planet from the system. A typical example of this process is illustrated in Figure 7.

Using a Bulirsch-Stoer integration scheme, we have computed 400 different simulations of inward planetary migration onto the binary star system described above. Variations in the initial conditions were obtained simply by varying the initial orbital phase of the Jupiter-mass planet in its 2 AU circular orbit. We find that in 356 cases (89% of the time), the planet is ejected from the system. We found that 23 of the simulations resulted in the planet colliding with the first star, and that 21 of the simulations ended in collision with the second star. As we discussed above, if the mass-metallicity trend shown in Figures 5 and 6 continues to hold as more planets are discovered, then it is rather unlikely that the planet – stellar metallicity correlation results from accretion of planets during the phase when a gaseous protostellar disk is present. However, if accreting planets really are responsible for the metallicity trend, it is clear that close binary stars can eject most planets which migrate into their vicinity, and one would expect a deficit of super-metal-rich spectroscopic binaries, especially among the easily enriched A and F type stars.

Once the gaseous nebula has dispersed, enrichment of the convective envelope can occur as long-term dynamical instabilities among the planets, planetesimals and debris still present in the system cause material to be cast onto the fully formed star. Again, however, close binaries should be more adept than single stars at keeping such material at bay.

To illustrate how binary self-protection works in the longer-term context of resonant scattering, we have computed two sets of long-term integrations of a simplified model of a planetary system. In the first set of integrations, two planets are placed in orbit around a solar mass star. The inner planet is given a semi-major axis $`a=5AU`$, and an eccentricity $`e=0.05`$. The planetary mass is assumed to be $`1.0\times 10^3M_{}`$. These parameters are quite close to the present day properties of Jupiter. The second planet is given a mass of $`6.0\times 10^4M_{}`$, an eccentricity $`e=0.1`$, and a semi-major axis $`a=9AU`$. These values were chosen in order to yield a system which is similar to, but dynamically slightly more active than our own Jupiter-Saturn pair.

256 test particles were placed on circular orbits around the central star, with initial semi-major axes ranging in equally spaced increments from 1.0 to 3.6 AU. The system was then integrated forward in time for one million years using a Bulirsch-Stoer integration scheme (Press et al. 1996). The eccentricities and semi-major axes of the test particles were frequently evaluated. In Figure 8, the maximum eccentricity achieved by each particle is indicated by an open circle plotted with respect to the initial semi-major axis.

Figure 8 indicates that many orbital trajectories within the two planet model system suffer large increases in eccentricity. The broad resonant feature centered at approximately 2.1 AU is the analog of the $`\nu _6`$ secular resonance in the Solar System. This resonance arises because the induced precession rates of the perihelia of the test particles in this region are commensurate with the precession of the perihelion of the outer saturn-like planet (see e.g. Murray & Dermott 1999). Powerful resonances of this sort are expected to be common when a system contains more than one giant planet. Other resonance features are also visible. At 3.15 AU, for example, the 2:1 mean motion resonance with the inner Jupiter-mass planet leads to a significant eccentricity increase for the particles having initial semi-major axes that place them in this region.

Particles which find themselves in strong resonances such as the $`\nu _6`$ rapidly develop very large eccentricities. In many calculations, the eccentricitity grows so large that the perihelion, $`r_p=a(1e)`$, of the particle is smaller than the stellar radius. When this situation occurs, the object is destroyed by the star, and its burden of heavy elements is mixed through the convective envelope (see Quillen & Holman 2000). Alternately, some particles which develop extreme eccentricities also experience increases in semi-major axis which cause their orbits to cross the orbits of the planets. In such cases, the particles are often ejected from the system without encountering the central star. In Figure 8, the particles which crash into the central star are indicated by filled black circles. The wide $`\nu _6`$ resonance is seen to be the most effective mechanism for delivering debris to the surface of the central star.

Figure 8 also shows the results of integrations in which the same system of two planets was started in circumbinary orbit around a pair of 0.5 $`M_{}`$ stars on an $`e`$=0.0 orbit of separation $`a=0.25`$ AU. A total of 220 test particles were placed on circular orbits in the region between 1.5 and 3.8 AU. In this alternate system, the strong high-frequency perturbation arising from the binary potential destroys or weakens many of the resonances. In particular, the $`\nu _6`$ resonance, which efficiently directed material onto a single central star, is now completely absent. Furthermore, those particles which do receive large eccentricities tend to suffer close encounters with the perturbing planets and are ejected from the system without encountering the central stars, and the small fraction of particles that do manage to find themselves in the vicinity of the central stars stand a high probability of being ejected. Out of the 220 test particles in the simulation, none were observed to hit either member of the binary pair.

The foregoing calculations are by no means exhaustive or definitive, but the suggestion is clear. A close binary star is capable of protecting itself against enrichment. If enrichment is responsible for the enhanced metallicity of planet-bearing stars, then there should be a statistical deficit of super-metal-rich short period binary systems.

Can such a statistical deficit be observed? For spectroscopic binary stars, individual double lines will represent an added technical difficulty for spectroscopic determinations of the metallicity. One must separate the composite spectrum into two spectra corresponding to the individual stars. There have been some attempts to obtain metallicities for double-lined eclipsing spectroscopic binaries in order to make the eclipsing systems a better test of stellar evolution models (e.g. Ryabchikova et al. 1999). However, there are not yet enough determinations to constitute a statistically meaningful sample, and the metallicities which have been obtained are not as accurate as for single stars (G. Gonzalez, personal communication).

If the two binary components are of the same spectral type (as would be the case in the system used for our test integrations) then $`uvby`$ photometry gives a meaningful metallicity estimate if one assumes that the metallicities of both stars are the same. Alternately, for systems with extreme mass ratios – an F8, say, and an M8 – where the flux from the secondary is swamped by the flux from the primary, it should be possible to get a determination of the metallicity of the primary component either with a spectroscopic analysis or with $`uvby`$ photometry. In any case, a comprehensive survey of metallicities of close binary systems would be a very valuable resource.

## 6 Discussion

We have studied the emerging correlation between high stellar metallicity and the presence of extrasolar planets. This correlation is one of several unexpected and exciting results which have stemmed from the growing census of extrasolar planets. Our results are summarized as follows:

1. The frequency of occurence of short-period planets (those with periods $`P<20`$ days) is approximately 1% among solar type stars. Among the most metal-rich stars ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]>`$0.2) this fraction increases to approximately 10%.

2. Metallicity estimates using the Schuster & Nissen (1989) calibration of $`uvby`$ photometry yield \[Fe/H\] values which are well correlated with metallicities derived from detailed spectroscpic analysis (see Figure 1). The $`uvby`$ calibration, however, systematically underestimates metallicities by $``$ 0.06 dex for stars of solar metallicity and above.

3. Using the Hipparcos database (Perryman et al. 1997), and the Hauck & Mermilliod (1998) listing of $`uvby`$ photometry, we have compiled a catalog of 206 metal-rich stars which are dim enough ($`V>`$8) to have likely eluded inclusion in the current radial velocity surveys (Table 2). We advocate that these stars be added to ongoing surveys, due to their high likelihood of possessing short-period planets. It is important to locate more short-period planets in order to be assured of further transiting systems. Transits are very important because they allow planetary properties (mass, radius, density) to be uniquely determined. We should mention, however, that the new systems discovered within this candidate list should not be used in future statistical analyses of the incidence rate of planets discovered with the Doppler method.

4. We have used the Hipparcos epoch photometry to carry out a search for transiting planets associated with the stars in our high-metallicity catalog. We show that in the absence of a priori information regarding the period, the quality of the Hipparcos photometry is insufficient to make unambiguous detections. The data quality is, however, high enough to identify candidate events (see for example Figure 4), and we have listed a number of candidate periods associated with the stars in our catalog.

5. There is a preliminary suggestion of a trend toward increasing metallicity with increasing stellar mass among the aggregate of known planet-bearing stars (Figure 5). This trend is consistent with a scenario in which systems capable of forming short-period planets are also capable of enriching the convective envelopes of their parent stars after the gaseous protoplanetary disks have dispersed. As shown by Figure 6, the trend does not appear to stem from the systematic differences in age between F and G stars.

6. We have explored the possibility of using spectroscopic binary stars to determine the underlying cause of the extrasolar planet – stellar metallicity correlation. If the large stellar metallicities are due to a post-formation enrichment process, then super-metal-rich spectroscopic binaries should be rare in comparison to their single counterparts.

As more planets are discovered, the true extent of the correlations discussed here will become evident. In particular, it will be interesting to see whether the correlation continues to hold for systems like our own, in which the Jovian-mass planets have orbital periods of a decade or longer. Such systems, if they are common, will soon be uncovered by the radial velocity surveys.

The work in this paper represents a first effort to exploit the planet – metallicity connection, and hence there is a great deal of additional interesting research which could be done. For example, it would be worthwhile to search the brightest early F dwarfs in the Hipparcos database for transits. The early F dwarfs are inaccessible to planet detection via the radial velocity method, and have not yet been monitored for planets. These stars, however, have considerably smaller relative errors in their photometric measurements, and are hence considerably better suited to transit detection than the dim stars analyzed in Table 2. The dynamical calculations in this paper would benefit from a wider survey of parameter space in order to better quantify the ability of close binary stars to protect themselves against enrichment. Additionally, as discussed in section 5, it will be very useful to obtain the metallicities of a statistically significant sample of spectroscopic binary stars.

The existence of a connection between high stellar metallicity and the presence of a short-period planet is one of the most exciting developments that has accompanied the discovery of extrasolar planets. This remarkable correlation is telling us something profound about the formation and evolution of planetary systems.

### 6.1 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Fred Adams, Douglas Caldwell, Tim Castellano, John Chambers, Debra Fischer Guillermo Gonzalez, Geoff Marcy, Doug Lin, & Andrew Youdin for discussions which made this work possible. Guillermo Gonzalez provided a helpful referee’s report, which led to the inclusion of Figure 6 in the manuscript. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. This work was supported by a NASA astrophysics theory program which supports a joint Center for Star Formation Studies at NASA-Ames Research Center, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

Table 1

Short Period Planets and their Parent Stars

$$\begin{array}{c}\\ \\ \\ \mathrm{Star}& \mathrm{Spectra}& \mathrm{Period}& e& M\mathrm{sin}(i)& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]\\ \\ \\ \\ \mathrm{HD83443}& \mathrm{K0V}& 2.986& 0.00& 0.30& \\ \mathrm{HD46375}& \mathrm{K1IV}\mathrm{V}& 3.024& 0.00& 0.24& 0.34\\ \mathrm{HD187123}& \mathrm{G3V}& 3.097& 0.01& 0.54& 0.16\\ \mathrm{HD120136}& \mathrm{F7V}& 3.313& 0.02& 4.14& 0.32\\ \mathrm{BD}103166& \mathrm{G4V}& 3.487& 0.05& 0.48& 0.50\\ \mathrm{HD75289}& \mathrm{G0V}& 3.508& 0.00& 0.46& 0.28\\ \mathrm{HD209458}& \mathrm{G0V}& 3.524& 0.02& 0.63& 0.00\\ \mathrm{HD217014}& \mathrm{G2V}& 4.231& 0.01& 0.46& 0.21\\ \mathrm{HD9826}& \mathrm{F8V}& 4.617& 0.02& 0.68& 0.12\\ \mathrm{HD168746}& \mathrm{G5}& 6.400& 0.00& 0.24& 0.09\\ \mathrm{HD217107}& \mathrm{G7V}& 7.130& 0.14& 1.29& 0.30\\ \mathrm{HD108147}& \mathrm{F8}/\mathrm{G0V}& 10.88& 0.56& 0.30& 0.02\\ \mathrm{HD130322}& \mathrm{K0V}& 10.72& 0.05& 1.15& 0.02\\ \mathrm{HD38529}& \mathrm{G4IV}& 14.30& 0.27& 0.77& 0.23\\ \mathrm{HD75732}& \mathrm{G8V}& 14.66& 0.03& 0.93& 0.45\\ \mathrm{HD13445}& \mathrm{K1V}& 15.80& 0.04& 4.23& 0.24\\ \mathrm{HD195019}& \mathrm{G3V}& 18.20& 0.01& 3.55& 0.00\\ \end{array}$$

Table 2

A Catalog of Metal-Rich Stars

$$\begin{array}{c}\\ \\ \\ \mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 3391& 4113& \mathrm{G5V}& 7.99& 44.05& .159& & & & \\ 6978& 9070& \mathrm{G5}& 8.00& 42.74& .321& & & & \\ 9035& 11833& \mathrm{G0}& 8.00& 87.18& .148& & & & \\ 15005& 20155& \mathrm{G0V}& 7.95& 93.46& .131& & & & \\ 19148& 25825& \mathrm{G0}& 7.88& 46.71& .133& & & & \\ 20723& 28185& \mathrm{G5}& 7.88& 39.56& .150& & & & \\ 30860& 45350& \mathrm{G5}& 7.96& 48.95& .190& & & & \\ 32161& 48458& \mathrm{F3V}& 7.88& 95.06& .185& & & & \\ 38127& 64141& \mathrm{F2IV}& 7.93& 96.15& .197& 106& 3.5533& .939& 1.29\\ 40761& 69809& \mathrm{G0}& 7.93& 50.58& .140& 92& 3.0658& .971& .61\\ 44137& 76909& \mathrm{G5}& 7.92& 47.66& .221& & & & \\ 46324& 81659& \mathrm{G6}/\mathrm{G8V}& 7.97& 39.89& .130& & & & \\ 50020& 88864& \mathrm{F8V}& 7.97& 92.76& .235& 114& 3.8726& .873& 2.04\\ 51257& 90711& \mathrm{K0V}& 7.94& 32.13& .174& 80& 3.1836& .861& 1.96\\ 51258& 90722& \mathrm{G5}/\mathrm{G6IV}& 7.96& 50.74& .271& & & & \\ 51579& 91204& \mathrm{G0}& 7.89& 51.76& .171& 89& 3.1787& .896& 2.26\\ 52939& 93849& \mathrm{G0}/\mathrm{G1V}& 7.92& 74.07& .240& 154& 3.5060& .909& 1.79\\ 53537& 94835& \mathrm{G0}& 7.99& 49.46& .151& & & & \\ 55464& 98727& \mathrm{F7V}& 7.91& 68.17& .187& 65& 3.7355& .998& 1.31\\ 57345& 102165& \mathrm{F7V}& 7.88& 85.40& .360& 102& 3.6098& .921& 1.36\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 59572& 106156& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.00& 30.96& .149& & & & \\ 60753& 108351& \mathrm{F7V}& 7.96& 88.11& .306& 116& 3.7653& .852& .74\\ 61044& 108942& \mathrm{G5}& 7.99& 47.57& .156& & & & \\ 66749& 118984& \mathrm{F3V}& 7.93& 93.28& .400& 100& 3.7593& .877& 2.28\\ 81347& 149724& \mathrm{G5}& 7.92& 55.77& .178& 94& 3.2479& .920& 2.17\\ 81767& 150437& \mathrm{G5V}& 7.92& 55.13& .187& 50& 3.6016& .830& 2.50\\ 85017& 157172& \mathrm{G8V}& 7.94& 33.48& .143& & & & \\ 97336& 187123& \mathrm{G5}& 7.92& 47.92& .168& & & & \\ 104367& 201203& \mathrm{F8}/\mathrm{G0V}& 7.95& 91.32& .183& 57& 3.5761& .908& 1.45\\ 109836& 211080& \mathrm{G0}& 7.89& 81.37& .162& 56& 3.1948& .860& 2.06\\ 111486& 213401& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 7.97& 67.52& .134& & & & \\ 112187& 215192& \mathrm{F2}& 7.97& 97.47& .167& 92& 3.5231& .971& 1.78\\ 5529& 7199& \mathrm{K0IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.12& 35.88& .126& & & & \\ 10492& 13945& \mathrm{G6IV}& 8.15& 43.37& .139& & & & \\ 10599& 13997& \mathrm{G5}& 8.06& 34.07& .141& 68& 3.2407& .896& 2.14\\ 16405& 21774& \mathrm{G5}& 8.15& 49.90& .163& & & & \\ 28395& 40590& \mathrm{F6V}& 8.15& 85.91& .148& 80& 3.3677& .886& 1.65\\ 31895& 48265& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.14& 87.41& .175& 98& 3.2525& .748& 1.19\\ 32916& 49674& \mathrm{G0}& 8.18& 40.73& .225& & & & \\ 36993& 60521& \mathrm{G0}& 8.06& 51.92& .129& & & & \\ 38104& 62923& \mathrm{G5}& 8.13& 51.47& .159& & & & \\ 40411& 68659& \mathrm{F2}& 8.05& 96.25& .200& & & & \\ 41022& 69960& \mathrm{G5}& 8.08& 61.20& .130& & & & \\ 42214& 73256& \mathrm{G8}/\mathrm{K0V}& 8.15& 36.52& .127& & & & \\ 45406& 79498& \mathrm{G5}& 8.11& 48.64& .199& 78& 3.9984& .824& 2.14\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 49060& 86680& \mathrm{G0V}& 8.05& 99.70& .262& & & & \\ 58813& 104760& \mathrm{G2}/\mathrm{G3III}& 8.09& 55.68& .262& & & & \\ 59382& 105844& \mathrm{G5}& 8.14& 42.90& .147& & & & \\ 60081& 107148& \mathrm{G5}& 8.09& 51.26& .253& & & & \\ 62583& 111431& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.09& 83.61& .227& 86& 3.5510& .839& 1.44\\ 81421& 149933& \mathrm{G5}& 8.12& 37.65& .143& & & & \\ 91332& 171918& \mathrm{G0}& 8.06& 57.64& .277& & & & \\ 94625& 179699& \mathrm{F8}/\mathrm{G0V}& 8.08& 79.94& .141& & & & \\ 94718& 180556& \mathrm{F8}& 8.16& 76.10& .196& 121& 3.0382& .937& 1.02\\ 99727& 192343& \mathrm{G4V}& 8.09& 65.83& .773& 81& 3.1428& .973& 2.46\\ 103692& 200078& \mathrm{G5}& 8.13& 52.69& .157& & & & \\ 104903& 202206& \mathrm{G6V}& 8.15& 46.34& .236& 137& 3.6257& .987& .92\\ 105906& 205521& \mathrm{G5}& 8.13& 46.99& .199& & & & \\ 106006& 204313& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.09& 47.30& .130& & & & \\ 109169& 211681& \mathrm{G5}& 8.17& 70.87& .144& 127& 3.0527& .921& 1.54\\ 3488& 4333& \mathrm{F5V}& 8.17& 81.23& .243& & & & \\ 5189& 6558& \mathrm{F8}& 8.27& 73.75& .137& 88& 3.7859& 1.000& 1.62\\ 6712& 8765& \mathrm{G5}& 8.22& 75.13& .196& 88& 3.0972& .813& 2.25\\ 14180& 19493& \mathrm{G3IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.24& 76.45& .129& & & & \\ 16107& 21313& \mathrm{G0}& 8.24& 71.23& .252& & & & \\ 22429& 30339& \mathrm{F8}& 8.27& 73.48& .238& 85& 3.7961& .913& 2.02\\ 24176& 33822& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.19& 55.49& .138& 115& 3.1219& .844& 1.98\\ 25436& 35996& \mathrm{F3}/\mathrm{F5IV}& 8.23& 81.83& .256& & & & \\ 36310& 59062& \mathrm{G5}& 8.20& 46.88& .147& & & & \\ 39417& 66428& \mathrm{G5}& 8.33& 55.04& .201& 86& 3.0396& .786& 2.27\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 40687& 68988& \mathrm{G0}& 8.27& 58.82& .364& 145& 3.2838& .945& 1.01\\ 41777& 72579& \mathrm{K0V}& 8.28& 43.18& .136& & & & \\ 43686& 76700& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.23& 59.70& .138& 109& 3.2804& .876& 1.35\\ 44823& 78277& \mathrm{G2IV}& 8.25& 91.91& .156& & & & \\ 45841& 80685& \mathrm{F5}/\mathrm{F6V}& 8.20& 77.70& .209& 80& 3.7714& .777& 2.14\\ 53301& 94482& \mathrm{G1}/\mathrm{G2V}& 8.18& 77.22& .164& 123& 3.0261& .975& 1.36\\ 53424& 94690& \mathrm{G5}& 8.31& 52.08& .128& & & & \\ 55076& 97854& \mathrm{G0}& 8.29& 81.23& .133& & & & \\ 57468& 102361& \mathrm{F8V}& 8.22& 84.46& .318& & & & \\ 60052& 107077& \mathrm{F3V}& 8.29& 92.08& .127& & & & \\ 64028& 114036& \mathrm{G8III}& 8.20& 52.85& .134& & & & \\ 73408& 131664& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.19& 57.21& .156& 162& 3.5112& .978& 1.89\\ 77547& 141514& \mathrm{F8V}& 8.21& 66.09& .168& & & & \\ 77641& 141599& \mathrm{G6V}& 8.28& 46.38& .181& & & & \\ 81037& 148628& \mathrm{F8}/\mathrm{G0V}& 8.22& 76.80& .212& & & & \\ 82059& 151329& \mathrm{G0}& 8.23& 53.79& .168& & & & \\ 85454& 157798& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.23& 92.25& .165& & & & \\ 89247& 167081& \mathrm{F8}& 8.32& 49.21& .179& & & & \\ 90593& 170469& \mathrm{G5}& 8.28& 64.98& .264& & & & \\ 97769& 188015& \mathrm{G5IV}& 8.29& 52.63& .209& & & & \\ 98228& 187978& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.29& 84.60& .165& & & & \\ 99034& 190613& \mathrm{G3}/\mathrm{G5V}& 8.20& 53.48& .193& & & & \\ 111136& 213472& \mathrm{G5}& 8.26& 64.35& .126& 130& 3.7727& .944& 1.24\\ 113905& 218168& \mathrm{G5}& 8.18& 48.80& .177& & & & \\ 4423& 5470& \mathrm{G0}& 8.42& 67.80& .178& 63& 3.2387& .788& 1.85\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 6498& 8328& \mathrm{G5}& 8.36& 78.80& .134& & & & \\ 12797& 17152& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.47& 44.09& .146& 90& 3.5859& .880& 2.07\\ 15631& 21089& \mathrm{G3IV}& 8.36& 68.92& .142& 113& 3.0146& .871& 1.23\\ 16115& 22104& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.40& 64.72& .154& & & & \\ 19024& 25682& \mathrm{G5}& 8.39& 45.96& .133& & & & \\ 22953& 31827& \mathrm{G8IV}& 8.33& 52.49& .274& & & & \\ 27090& 38467& \mathrm{G3}/\mathrm{G5V}& 8.33& 72.57& .209& & & & \\ 27799& 39480& \mathrm{G5}& 8.42& 81.90& .160& & & & \\ 38188& 64122& \mathrm{F6}/\mathrm{F7V}& 8.43& 73.10& .138& & & & \\ 38636& 64273& \mathrm{G5}& 8.43& 55.43& .133& 90& 3.3756& .910& 1.33\\ 45967& 80903& \mathrm{G5}& 8.39& 84.89& .139& 89& 3.0949& .980& 2.22\\ 46007& 81110& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.37& 46.77& .180& & & & \\ 46325& 81505& \mathrm{G8III}& 8.49& 86.81& .237& 96& 3.3513& .891& 2.17\\ 50839& 90028& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.38& 83.61& .291& & & & \\ 61880& 110314& \mathrm{G2V}& 8.35& 69.54& .187& & & & \\ 65747& 117243& \mathrm{G5III}& 8.41& 66.23& .284& 121& 3.6613& .977& .78\\ 79296& 145331& \mathrm{K0}/\mathrm{K1III}& 8.45& 65.10& .133& & & & \\ 82757& 152776& \mathrm{G5}& 8.46& 86.21& .140& 169& 3.6598& .879& 1.49\\ 106336& 204807& \mathrm{G6IV}& 8.37& 64.68& .172& & & & \\ 107397& 206683& \mathrm{G3IV}& 8.39& 64.68& .135& & & & \\ 112336& 215460& \mathrm{F0}& 8.42& 92.51& .229& 78& 3.0005& .863& 1.26\\ 117526& 223498& \mathrm{G7V}& 8.40& 48.66& .140& 130& 3.3603& .953& 2.06\\ 2282& 2587& \mathrm{G6V}& 8.53& 48.54& .172& & & & \\ 6197& 8038& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.48& 52.97& .200& & & & \\ 7221& 9331& \mathrm{G5}& 8.49& 51.07& .251& & & & \\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 16727& 22282& \mathrm{G5}& 8.59& 50.48& .160& & & & \\ 17269& 23398& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.52& 75.19& .214& & & & \\ 21850& 30177& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.49& 54.70& .196& & & & \\ 24660& 34386& \mathrm{G5III}& 8.60& 53.94& .215& & & & \\ 30377& 45133& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.47& 64.81& .156& 114& 3.9419& .972& 2.33\\ 37309& 61686& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.61& 72.20& .166& & & & \\ 46871& 82606& \mathrm{G0}& 8.59& 67.34& .170& 84& 3.7138& .920& 2.28\\ 48143& 85249& \mathrm{F7V}& 8.58& 88.42& .203& 137& 3.5194& .957& 2.39\\ 51877& 91702& \mathrm{G5}& 8.54& 52.06& .185& & & & \\ 53624& 94861& \mathrm{G0}& 8.51& 90.33& .136& & & & \\ 59968& 106937& \mathrm{G6}/\mathrm{G8V}& 8.56& 78.43& .149& & & & \\ 60096& 107181& \mathrm{G3V}& 8.49& 82.51& .170& 96& 3.0243& .837& 1.16\\ 64955& 115762& \mathrm{G2V}& 8.59& 60.35& .129& & & & \\ 70435& 126530& \mathrm{G0}& 8.54& 74.91& .169& 113& 3.7472& .913& 2.27\\ 71103& 127423& \mathrm{G0V}& 8.61& 69.06& .196& 106& 3.4208& .906& 2.28\\ 80936& 149028& \mathrm{G}& 8.57& 48.50& .126& & & & \\ 81269& 149396& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.59& 56.24& .127& 51& 3.5559& .737& 2.43\\ 87679& 162907& \mathrm{K0V}& 8.63& 48.17& .141& & & & \\ 89321& 166745& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.59& 52.03& .143& 74& 3.9670& .964& 1.80\\ 100363& 193795& \mathrm{G4IV}& 8.57& 71.33& .245& & & & \\ 104399& 201364& \mathrm{A5}& 8.41& 42.25& .470& & & & \\ 105063& 202697& \mathrm{G5}& 8.64& 83.13& .168& 185& 3.2085& .869& 1.88\\ 3502& 4203& \mathrm{G5}& 8.75& 77.82& .225& & & & \\ 12198& 16275& \mathrm{G5}& 8.72& 74.46& .188& & & & \\ 17054& 23127& \mathrm{G2V}& 8.64& 89.13& .259& 107& 3.9807& .850& 2.18\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 24110& 33811& \mathrm{G8IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.79& 55.99& .250& & & & \\ 43618& 75880& \mathrm{G0}& 8.69& 60.64& .125& & & & \\ 49387& 87000& \mathrm{G5}& 8.80& 40.50& .143& & & & \\ 51664& 91348& \mathrm{G8III}& 8.73& 89.61& .252& & & & \\ 58656& 104437& \mathrm{G5IV}& 8.71& 64.72& .182& 186& 3.5137& .991& 1.32\\ 59278& 105618& \mathrm{G0}& 8.71& 66.76& .259& 106& 3.7422& .987& 1.81\\ 62350& 111069& \mathrm{G5}& 8.74& 59.49& .165& & & & \\ 72041& 129401& \mathrm{G8}& 8.76& 92.68& .260& 99& 3.7066& .894& 2.25\\ 81369& 149194& \mathrm{F8V}& 8.72& 97.66& .386& 114& 3.4416& .989& 1.18\\ 104182& 201093& \mathrm{G5}& 8.69& 96.90& .175& & & & \\ 109355& 210312& \mathrm{G5}& 8.71& 55.90& .179& & & & \\ 116517& 221954& \mathrm{G5}/\mathrm{G6V}& 8.82& 98.81& .211& 96& 3.1993& .940& 1.50\\ 116984& 222697& \mathrm{G5}& 8.73& 43.76& .143& & & & \\ 5807& 7487& \mathrm{F7V}& 8.86& 94.43& .168& & & & \\ 5881& 7483& \mathrm{G5}& 8.94& 59.17& .254& 94& 3.7366& .909& 2.04\\ 19126& 26071& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 8.97& 91.16& .130& 137& 3.9492& .964& 1.70\\ 21889& 30295& \mathrm{K0}/\mathrm{K1V}& 8.94& 58.34& .150& & & & \\ 23069& 31609& \mathrm{G5}& 8.99& 50.86& .158& 90& 3.0239& .924& 1.85\\ 54104& 96020& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.89& 77.34& .278& & & & \\ 54381& 96529& \mathrm{G5}& 8.93& 77.10& .158& & & & \\ 61028& 108874& \mathrm{G5}& 8.84& 68.54& .138& 96& 3.2223& .992& 2.11\\ 65882& 117497& \mathrm{G0III}& 8.80& 78.62& .167& & & & \\ 66621& 118914& \mathrm{G0}& 8.90& 73.75& .304& 143& 3.1064& .961& 1.78\\ 69660& 124595& \mathrm{G1}/\mathrm{G2V}& 8.85& 76.86& .148& 68& 3.1879& .683& 2.12\\ 72203& 129445& \mathrm{G6V}& 8.85& 67.61& .246& & & & \\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 109207& 209913& \mathrm{G8V}& 8.86& 69.64& .158& & & & \\ 109428& 210392& \mathrm{G0}& 8.80& 90.50& .280& & & & \\ 116756& 222342& \mathrm{F0}& 8.90& 79.05& .191& & & & \\ 117427& 223315& \mathrm{G5V}& 8.87& 53.62& .203& & & & \\ 4752& 5946& \mathrm{G5}& 9.01& 91.24& .154& 78& 3.2105& .875& 1.85\\ 5389& 6880& \mathrm{G8}/\mathrm{K0V}& 9.20& 46.36& .248& & & & \\ 20273& 27496& \mathrm{G5}& 9.03& 92.51& .133& & & & \\ 21703& 29528& \mathrm{K0}& 8.99& 56.69& .206& & & & \\ 27688& 39503& \mathrm{G5IV}/\mathrm{V}& 9.04& 63.53& .138& & & & \\ 29550& 43197& \mathrm{G8}/\mathrm{K0IV}& 9.03& 54.95& .180& 123& 3.6620& .995& 2.05\\ 42084& 72680& \mathrm{K0}& 9.00& 51.63& .200& 64& 3.0322& .737& 2.37\\ 44279& 77417& \mathrm{G8IV}& 9.10& 65.06& .192& & & & \\ 45982& 80606& \mathrm{G5}& 9.01& 58.38& .195& & & & \\ 46113& 81270& \mathrm{F6V}& 9.01& 91.83& .253& 88& 3.2640& .925& 2.36\\ 62198& 110855& \mathrm{G0}& 9.11& 80.65& .138& 101& 3.3616& .883& 1.77\\ 101982& 340795& \mathrm{G5}& 8.99& 75.82& .182& & & & \\ 114967& 219556& \mathrm{K0V}& 9.19& 58.17& .136& & & & \\ 9550& 12585& \mathrm{G3V}& 9.29& 77.40& .233& & & & \\ 22320& 30669& \mathrm{G8}/\mathrm{K0V}& 9.17& 54.91& .142& 151& 3.8691& .955& 1.52\\ 46639& 233641& \mathrm{G0}& 9.28& 96.62& .335& & & & \\ 57735& 102843& \mathrm{K0}& 9.32& 54.44& .172& & & & \\ 58318& 103829& \mathrm{F8}& 9.29& 89.21& .274& & & & \\ 61123& 108953& \mathrm{G8}/\mathrm{K0IV}/& 9.36& 63.73& .176& & & & \\ 62093& 110605& \mathrm{G8V}& 9.21& 71.68& .162& & & & \\ 78521& 143361& \mathrm{G6V}& 9.24& 59.35& .204& 96& 3.2201& .789& 1.81\\ \end{array}$$

$$\begin{array}{cccccccccc}\mathrm{HIP}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{HD}\mathrm{\#}& \mathrm{Type}& \mathrm{V}& d& [\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]& n& P& \chi ^2& n_t/n_{ex}\\ \\ \\ \\ 82632& 152079& \mathrm{G6V}& 9.27& 85.18& .186& 85& 3.4298& .804& 1.78\\ 88631& 165204& \mathrm{G6}/\mathrm{G8V}& 9.20& 75.87& .165& & & & \\ 97125& 186265& \mathrm{G8V}& 9.29& 86.81& .138& 86& 3.1557& .880& 2.00\\ 117882& 224040& \mathrm{F3}/\mathrm{F5V}& 9.27& 84.18& .354& & & & \\ 5311& 6790& \mathrm{G0V}& 9.43& 87.80& .363& & & & \\ 27113& 38554& \mathrm{G6V}& 9.46& 82.78& .140& & & & \\ 48809& 86397& \mathrm{G8V}& 9.62& 69.40& .179& & & & \\ 94552& 179640& \mathrm{G6V}& 9.56& 91.16& .201& & & & \\ 94615& 230999& \mathrm{G5}& 9.76& 99.30& .410& & & & \\ 104226& 200869& \mathrm{K1IV}/\mathrm{V}& 9.48& 63.65& .206& & & & \\ 33634& 52217& \mathrm{G8V}& 9.98& 74.35& .156& & & & \\ \end{array}$$


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# Wave Packet Echoes in the Motion of Trapped Atoms

## Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate and systematically study the stimulated revival (echo) of motional wave packet oscillations. For this purpose, we prepare wave packets in an optical lattice by non-adiabatically shifting the potential and stimulate their reoccurence by a second shift after a variable time delay. This technique, analogous to spin echoes, enables one even in the presence of strong dephasing to determine the coherence time of the wave packets. We find that for strongly bound atoms it is comparable to the cooling time and much longer than the inverse of the photon scattering rate.

The process of decoherence, i.e. the collapse of superposition states due to the dissipative interaction with their environment is one of the basic concepts for our understanding of the connection between classical and quantum physics. In order to study the effect of decoherence unambiguously, one has to be able to distinguish it from other, non-dissipative effects. The macroscopic (i.e. ensemble- or time-averaged) response of a quantum system prepared in a superposition state typically decays not only due to the loss of coherence (homogeneous decay) but also due to dephasing resulting from local variations in the evolution of the quantum system (inhomogeneous decay). In many cases decoherence cannot be studied directly because the inhomogeneous decay is by far the dominating process.

This limitation has been overcome in a famous series of experiments by introducing the techniques of spin echo for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and photon echo for optical resonance, respectively . These techniques are based on the observation that inhomogeneous decay due to dephasing is a reversible process. Thus, by appropriately modifying superposition states at a time $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t after their preparation, the dephasing can be partially or fully reversed and a stimulated macroscopic response (echo) is induced at 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t. This effect enables one to measure the coherence time even in the presence of strong dephasing. We have, for the first time, applied this method to the investigation of the decoherence of motional wave packets of trapped atoms (Fig. 1). The method can be used independent of the specific experimental realization of the confining potential (e.g. a single dipole potential, periodic dipole potentials, magnetic trapping potentials, inhomogeneous arrays of atom traps, etc.).

The specific system investigated here consists of motional wave packets of neutral atoms in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Optical lattices are periodic dipole potentials for atoms created by the interference of multiple laser beams . Atoms can be trapped and cooled at the potential minima (mean position spread $`z_{rms}`$=$`\lambda `$/18 ). In optical lattices symmetrically and asymmetrically oscillating motional wave packets can be induced by non-adiabatically changing the lattice potential . Quantum mechanically, the original atomic wave function is projected onto a coherent superposition of the eigenstates of the new potential and the quantum interference of the contributions from different eigenstates results in a wave packet oscillation (see Fig. 1(a)).

In dipole potentials, the macroscopic oscillation signal decays because of decoherence due to the spontaneous scattering of photons and because of dephasing due to the anharmonicity of the potential wells and spatial variations of the potential depth. Typically, the effect of dephasing is dominating decoherence , so that a direct determination of the coherence time is not possible. Here, we show how these limitations can be overcome: For the case of symmetrical oscillations, Bulatov et al.  have recently proposed and numerically simulated an echo-mechanism to reverse the effect of dephasing and stimulate the revival of the wave packet oscillations by means of two successive non-adiabatic changes in the depth of the lattice potential. With our work we

extend their proposal to the case of asymmetrical wave packet oscillations, present the first experimental observation of the echo effect, and apply it to determine the coherence time of the motional wave packets.

In our experiment, we chirp-slow rubidium atoms (85Rb) from a thermal beam and trap and cool them in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) giving a sample of approximately $`10^7`$ atoms with a central density of $`10^9`$ atoms/$`cm^3`$. After the loading phase the magnetic field of the MOT is switched off and the intensity of the trapping beams is reduced to achieve optimal cooling in a 3-dimensional molasses. The MOT-laser beams are then turned off and two lattice beams are switched on, forming a 1-dimensional lin$``$lin optical lattice . The lattice beams have intensities of up to $`I=60`$ $`mW/cm^2`$, and detunings $`\delta `$ of 2 to 10 natural linewidths ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }/2\pi =5.89MHz`$) below the $`5S_{1/2}(F=3)5P_{3/2}(F^{}=4)`$ transition at $`\lambda =780nm`$. The beam waist of about 2.75mm ($`1/e^2`$ radius) is large compared to the $`1/e^2`$ radius of the atomic cloud of 1.52 mm.

After an initial cooling phase of 1 to 2 ms in the lattice, which localizes the atoms at the center of the potential wells, we non-adiabatically change the relative phase between the two lattice beams with an electrooptic phase shifter  (1/e switching time of 0.4 $`\mu `$s). This causes a translation of the lattice by a controllable amount $`dz`$ ($`0<dz<\lambda /4`$) and induces asymmetrical coherent-state-like motional wave packets. We observe the wave packet oscillations by measuring the photon redistribution-induced power difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$P(t) between the two lattice beams . No repumping light is present during the wave packet evolution. Fig. 1(a) shows a typical example of a wave packet oscillation. Clearly visible are about 5 oscillations with a period of $`(5.2\pm 0.1)\mu `$s. The oscillation signal is damped with a decay time of $`\tau _1=(7\pm 1)\mu `$s (exponential fit).

Fig. 2 shows the decay time $`\tau _1`$ (relative uncertainty $``$ 20%) of asymmetrical wave packet oscillations as a function of the potential depth $`U_0`$ for various detunings $`\delta `$. $`U_0`$ is calculated from the measured oscillation frequency $`\omega _{osc}`$ according to $`U_0/E_R=(1/(0.86)^2)(\omega _{osc}/2\omega _R)^2`$ taking into account the anharmonicity of the potential wells . The data show that the decay is not due to decoherence caused by spontaneous scattering, for in that case the decay time $`\tau _1`$ should be proportional to the inverse of the photon scattering rate, $`\tau _{sc}=1/\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}=1/(U_0\mathrm{\Gamma }/(\mathrm{}|\delta |)`$. For different detunings this should result in different decay times $`\tau _1`$ for the same $`U_0`$, which is not observed for $`|`$$`\delta `$$`|`$ $``$ 7$`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. For a decay caused by anharmonicity on the other hand, the decay time should be proportional to the inverse of the mean spread $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{osc}`$ of the occuring oscillation frequencies, which can be approximated by the mean shift of the oscillation frequencies from the harmonic frequency minus the common shift of $`\omega _R`$, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{osc}0.14\omega _{osc}\omega _R`$ . The line in Fig. 2 is a plot of $`1/\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _{osc}`$ as a function of $`U_0`$. Within the 20%

uncertainty of our data the decay times $`\tau _1`$ are in agreement with this calculation. This shows that the decay of the wave packet oscillations is dominated by dephasing .

The investigation of decoherence, on the other hand, becomes possible by non-adiabatically shifting the lattice back to its initial position after a variable delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t. This second translation leads to a stimulated revival (echo) of the oscillations with a maximum amplitude at about 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t  if the coherence of the wave packets induced by the first shift still persists - at least partially - at 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t.

Fig. 1 shows the first experimental demonstration of this echo effect . Fig. 1 (a) serves as a reference curve showing wave packet oscillations for atoms that move fully incoherently at the time of the shift. For the purpose of reducing systematic uncertainties, this curve also has been recorded after two translations of the lattice. However, here the long delay time $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t=108$`\mu `$s guarantees a complete loss of coherence before the second shift. Fig.1 (b) depicts the wave packet oscillations after the second shift with $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t=32$`\mu `$s. The curve shows additional oscillations at about t=32$`\mu `$s. Fig.1 (c) presents the magnified difference of curves (b) and (a). Clearly visible is the reocurrence of wave packet oscillation, i.e. echo, centered around a time close to t=32$`\mu `$s. This time corresponds to a total time of $`t_{total}`$=32$`\mu `$s+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t=64$`\mu `$s=2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t after the first shift, as predicted.

In order to gain a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the echo mechanism, we have performed a full quantum Monte-Carlo wave-function simulation (QMCWF)  of the echo experiment taking into account the full coherent and dissipative dynamics as well as all internal ground states while adiabatically eliminating the excited states. Fig. 3 shows the result for the experimental conditions of Fig. 1. In Fig. 3 (a) the spontaneous scattering rate is reduced ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}/1000`$) in order to

emphasize the coherent dynamics which gives rise to the echo mechanism. Clearly visible is the occurence of the wave packet echo at t = 32 $`\mu `$s.

The underlying physics of the echo mechanism can be understood in terms of the coherent evolution of the contributions of different eigenstates to the wave packet: The first translation creates a coherent superposition of eigenstates of the translated anharmonic trapping potential which are all in phase (with phase = 0 per definition). The phases of different eigenstates evolve with different frequencies in time which causes the decay of the oscillation signal. Shifting the lattice back after $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t creates a new superposition state. Due to the asymmetry of the translation, eigenstates with phases close to odd multiples of $`\pi `$ give the strongest and eigenstates with phases close to even multiples of $`\pi `$ give the weakest contributions to the new superposition state which leads to new wave packet oscillations which again dephase in time. However, eigenstates that were in phase at t=$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t are again in phase at t=2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t, so that the strongest contributions again realign at t=2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t which results in a partial revival of the oscillations. Thus, the phase-dependent selection of the strength of eigenstate contributions at the second shift leads to the wave packet echo.

Spontaneous scattering leads to an incoherent evolution of the superposition state by randomizing the phases of the eigenstates and thus causes a decrease in the echo amplitude. This is clearly observed in our wave function simulation for a non-reduced spontaneous scattering rate (Fig. 3 (b)). The wave packet echo is still visible but its amplitude is reduced to a value that is consistent with the one obtained in the experiment (Fig. 1).

In order to experimentally study additional effects of dephasing, we have narrowed the transverse intensity profile of our lattice beams causing different parts of the atom cloud to experience different potential depths $`U_0`$.

The almost free-standing echo in the signal curve of Fig. 4 experimentally demonstrates, that the method of wave packet echoes can also be applied to other systems where the spatial variation in the coherent dynamics is the dominating effect for dephasing as e.g. in anharmonic dipole traps based on focused laser beams, inhomogeneous arrays of atom traps, or magnetic quadrupole traps, etc. (see e.g. ).

The physics behind the echo effect predicts that the time at which the echo occurs can be varied by changing the time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t between lattice shifts. Fig. 5 shows echo curves (analogous to Fig.1 (c)) for the indicated values of the time delay $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t. For each curve, t=0 corresponds to the second lattice shift. The total time after the first shift is given by $`t_{total}`$=t+$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t. Our measurements confirm that the echo moves to larger t with increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t and has its maximum value at approximately $`t_{total}`$=2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t .

We can use the echo technique to determine the coherence time $`\tau _2`$ of the atomic motion by measuring the echo amplitude as a function of the echo time 2$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t. Fig. 6 (a) shows this for the data of Fig. 5. With increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$t

the echo amplitude decreases exponentially as expected for a coherence loss being induced by spontaneous scattering processes occuring at a constant rate to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. An exponential fit to the data (line in Fig. 6 (a)) gives a 1/e decay time of $`\tau _2`$=(27$`\pm `$3) $`\mu `$s which is significantly longer than the observed dephasing time of 7 $`\mu s`$. This shows that the coherent motion still persists for times at which the macroscopic oscillation signal has already disappeared.

The echo technique even enables a quantitative determination of the constant of proportionality between the coherence time $`\tau _2`$ and the photon scattering time $`\tau _{sc}=1/\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. For the data of Fig. 6 (a), $`\tau _{sc}`$ = (0.40$`\pm `$0.04) $`\mu `$s and we find that during the coherence time one atom scatters 68$`\pm `$10 photons. In a series of measurements similar to Fig. 5 for -10$`\mathrm{\Gamma }\delta 4\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ we observe coherence times in the range from 40 to 68 scattering times $`\tau _{sc}`$ with an average value of $`\tau _2=(49\pm 7)\tau _{sc}`$ independent of the detuning $`\delta `$ (Fig. 6 (b)). This proves that the coherence time $`\tau _2`$ is proportional to the scattering time $`\tau _{sc}`$ and that for the decay of motional coherence a large number of photons has to be scattered spontaneously.

The quantitative determination of the coherence time enables us to prove an important prediction given for the dissipative coupling of the motion of atoms in (nearly) harmonic potentials to their environment: It has been pointed out that for (nearly) harmonic oscillators the coherence time $`\tau _2`$ should be twice as long as the damping time of the oscillator’s energy, i.e. the cooling time $`\tau _{cool}`$ of the atoms . In a recent experiment, $`\tau _{cool}`$ in one-dimensional optical lattices was found to be the time to spontaneously scatter 30 photons: $`\tau _{cool}=30\tau _{sc}`$ . Our direct measurement of the coherence time $`\tau _2=(49\pm 7)\tau _{sc}`$ is the first experimental confirmation of the predicted relation between the coherence time and the cooling time. We expect the relation $`\tau _2=2\tau _{cool}`$ to hold universally for (nearly) harmonic trapping potentials in which the motion of atoms is coupled to a dissipative reservoir .

In summary, we have experimentally demonstrated and systematically investigated a new echo technique to access the coherent and dissipative dynamics of atomic wave packet oscillations in trapping potentials. With this technique, we have measured the coherence time of wave packet oscillations in strongly confining dipole potentials, in a regime, which was previously inaccesible. We showed that the coherence time is directly connected to the energy dissipation time. We also demonstrated that the echo technique works for atomic motion exhibiting various causes of dephasing which shows that it can be used to access the external dynamics in a broad range of different atom traps or inhomogeneous arrays of atom traps.

We thank A. Pahl and M. Wilken for their support in the early stages of the project. This work is supported by the SFB 407 of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.