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# A database of high and medium-resolution stellar spectra based on observations made on the 193cm telescope at the Haute-Provence Observatory, France.

## 1 Introduction

Spectral libraries covering the HR diagram with medium to high resolution and large spectral range are essential tools in astronomy. We have identified two areas where there will be a special need of such libraries in the coming years : the automated parameterization of stellar spectra and the spectral synthesis of stellar populations of galaxies. New multi-object spectrographs on large telescopes, like Giraffe on the VLT for example, will soon make it possible to observe hundreds of objects during the same exposure with an unprecedented resolution and spectral coverage. The challenge will be to extract the maximal information in a reasonable time.

For stars, medium to high resolution spectra are the basis for determining radial velocities, atmospheric parameters (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) and eventually projected rotational velocities, v$`\mathrm{sin}`$ i . A new method, called TGMET, is emerging to make the parameterization of stellar spectra in terms of temperature, gravity and metallicity fast and automatic (Katz et al k98 (1998)). It relies on the direct comparison of a target spectrum to a library of reference spectra with known atmospheric parameters (Soubiran et al s98 (1998)). TGMET was originally dedicated to the measurement of F, G, K stars observed with ELODIE. The present paper, which continues the TGMET project, participates to release these limitations. The two major points addressed are (1) the extension of the reference library to all spectroscopic types and luminosity classes and its densification, and (2) to resample the spectra in wavelength (i.e. remove the instrumental signature in ELODIE spectra and connect the echelle orders together) in order to enable comparison of spectra from any origin.

The TGMET project appeared to be also very useful for extragalactic studies where medium resolution libraries with large coverage in stellar parameters are needed. Stellar libraries, calibrated in flux, are used to model composite spectra through stellar population synthesis (eg. the PEGASE program, Fioc & Rocca-Volmerange f97 (1997)). An important issue is to disentangle the effects of age and metallicity and it has been demonstrated that the spectral resolution is a key factor (Worthey & Ottviani wo97 (1997), hereafter WO97, Vazdekis v99 (1999)). To take profit of a resolution higher than about R=2000 both the internal kinematics and the characteristics of the stellar populations must be fitted simultaneously. Making available an extended library of stellar spectra is the first step in this direction.

Current libraries are based on low resolution spectroscopy (eg Jacoby et al. jaco84 (1984), Serote Roos et al s96 (1996), Pickles p98 (1998)) or they are restricted to a limited area of the HR diagram (eg Montes et al 2000 and Soubiran et al s98 (1998) for F,G,K stars). Here we present an homogeneous dataset of spectra which fills the deficiency of such libraries. The sample of stars and associated data are presented in Sect. 2. Sect. 3 & 4 describe the two phases of the data processing. In Sect. 5 we evaluate the quality of the archive. The access to the data through HYPERCAT111http://www-obs.univ-lyon1.fr/hypercat/11/spectrophotometry.html or at the Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg222http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cats/III.htx are described in Sect. 6.

## 2 Stellar content and data

### 2.1 Physical parameters of the stars

The present sample was assembled by merging the stellar library of F,G,K stars (Soubiran et al s98 (1998)) serving as a basis for the TGMET program with additional spectra taken from other observing programs and from the near-to-line ELODIE archive (http://www.obs-hp.fr). The spectra of the database correspond to stars which have been selected because they have published values of Teffor (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) , or reliable estimations of the absolute magnitude MV, deduced from Hipparcos parallaxes. The main source of atmospheric parameters is the catalogue of \[Fe/H\] determinations, 1996 and 2001 versions (Cayrel de Strobel et al c97 (1997) and c01 (2001)) but two other sources have been also used : Carney et al (c94 (1994)) and Thévenin (t98 (1998)). Effective temperatures were also taken in the lists published by Blackwell & Lynas-Gray (b98 (1998)), Alonso et al (1996a ) and Alonso et al (1999a ), or calculated from the colour indices V-K or b-y following the relations Teff=f(colour,\[Fe/H\] ) established by Alonso et al 1996b  and 1999b  for dwarfs and giants respectively. Each star had (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) estimated by averaging the determinations found in the literature, giving a half weight to old references and Strömgren photometry and a double weight to Teffdetermined by Blackwell & Lynas-Gray (b98 (1998)). As in the TGMET library, the parameters were then labelled according to their reliability which was estimated from the number of determinations and their standard deviation around the mean. The reliability scale runs from 0 to 4, with the highest reliability 4 corresponding to uncertainties lower than 80 K in Teff, and 0.06 dex in \[Fe/H\] . These uncertainties can reach 115 K and 0.09 dex for reliability 3, and 150 K and 0.11 dex for the reliability 2. Reliability 1 is attributed for parameters based on old determinations or photometry, or presenting large discrepancies between references. Reliability 0 means that no reference on atmospheric parameters was found in the literature. The database is made of 908 spectra corresponding to 709 different stars which are shown in the plane ($`\mathrm{log}`$ Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g ) in Fig 1 and in the plane ($`\mathrm{log}`$ Teff, \[Fe/H\] ) in Fig. 2. Teffranges from 3700 K to 13600 K, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g ranges from 0.03 to 5.86 and \[Fe/H\] ranges from -2.8 to +0.7. In these two plots, new estimations of (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) were used instead of those from the literature which are incomplete. These new estimations were obtained with the current version of TGMET which is still under development (a paper presenting this new version is in preparation and a description is given in the electronic version of the archive). Atmospheric parameters from the literature together with new estimations and measured line indices from the spectra presented here are given in Table 1, only available in electronic form (see sect. 6).

More information on each star is available in the header of the FITS spectra. It includes the absolute magnitude MVfrom Hipparcos parallaxe when available. A scale of reliability was also established from the precision of the parallaxe and V magnitude from Tycho-2 (Høg et al h00 (2000)), 4 corresponding to parallaxes with a precision better than 10%. Also available in the FITS headers are the spectral types, (V, B-V) taken from the Tycho-2 catalogue (converted from the Tycho-2 BT and VT) and radial velocities usually measured at the telescope. The on-line cross-correlation technique was used to measure the radial velocity of strong-lined spectra, corresponding to moderate effective temperatures up to 6500 K but for hotter stars, the radial velocity was estimated using a least-squares deconvolution technique (Donati et al. d97 (1997)).

The database includes several stars with line profiles broadened by rotation, macroturbulence or binarity and a few stars with spectral peculiarities (Ap, Am, emission line stars…). These pecularities are indicated in the headers.

### 2.2 ELODIE spectra

ELODIE provides a spectral range of 390-680 nm recorded in a single exposure as 67 orders on a 1K CCD at a mean resolving power of 42000. Optimal extraction and wavelength calibration are automatically performed by the on-line reduction software TACOS. Complete information on ELODIE can be found in Baranne et al (b96 (1996)) and in the TACOS user manual by Queloz (q96 (1996)). The global efficiency of the instrument drops in the blue by a factor 5 at 440 nm for a solar-type star and by a factor 50 at 390 nm. Hence we decided to limit the spectral range to $`\lambda \lambda =410680`$ nm.

The typical signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio per pixel at 550 nm is 150 (it is higher than 80 for more than 90% of the spectra). Several spectra with a lower S/N, down to 35, correspond generally to faint deficient stars which have been included in the database for a better sampling of the parameter space.

For the present purpose, the 908 spectra of the database were processed to provide 1D spectra rebinned in wavelength and calibrated in absolute fluxes. Since the main goal of the archive was to construct a library of spectra representative of the various stellar types and an interpolated grid of spectra covering the parameters space, all the spectra were reduced to the rest-frame. The archive was prepared from the flat-fielded and order-extracted TACOS spectra in two main steps. (1) The orders were de-blazed, the spikes due to cosmic rays and telluric lines were masked, all the orders were connected in one spectrum, and the pseudo-continuum normalization was computed. (2) The spectra were calibrated into “physical” flux, ie. above the atmosphere.

## 3 Strengthening and normalization to the pseudo-continuum

This phase of the data processing takes the TACOS spectra to deliver order-connected spectra with a constant wavelength step. Both the instrumental and continuum fluxes are evaluated.

The operations follow these steps:

* Strengthen the spectra by dividing them by a de-blazing function
* Compute the pseudo-continuum normalization and analyze the “shape” of each order to determine a correction to the diffuse-light subtraction.
* Mask spikes and telluric lines.
* Convolve and rebin with two desired resolutions (R=10000 and R=42000) to 1D spectra.

### 3.1 De-blazing and pseudo-continuum normalization

The instrument, hard- and soft-ware, was mostly designed as a “velocimeter” and hence the spectrophotometric quality was not optimized. The standard flat-field correction and order extraction was applied as described in Baranne et al. (b96 (1996)). This procedure alone would not permit to connect the spectra since the blaze is not accurately enough corrected, each order presents a residual “curvature” of about 2%. This effect is certainly due to diffuse light within the spectrograph which is imperfectly corrected by the TACOS program, this is a common difficulty with echelle spectrographs.

To solve this problem we found no other possibility but to analyze this residual curvature on the actual spectra and correct it. Obviously, it is a risky approach since the spectrum itself is used to determine the correction. To minimize possible biases, the residual curvature is modeled with only a few parameters : each order is represented by a second degree polynomial whose coefficients are not independent from order to order, but are themselves second degree polynomials of the order number. The total effect of the diffuse light is modeled by only 3 coefficients.

Practically, we divide the TACOS spectrum by a de-blazing function determined from a tungsten-lamp spectrum (internal flat-field) and corrected using 3 metal-deficient stars (because the blaze function appears to have slight systematic differences between internal flat-field and star).

To analyze the “residual” curvature of each order, we normalized the spectrum to its pseudo-continuum. The pseudo-continuum has been defined using one point in each order and then interpolated over the whole range of wavelengths with a $`3^{\mathrm{rd}}`$ degree spline. The pseudo-continuum level is determined by fitting a second degree polynomial to each order. The spectrum is weighted with a mask intended to avoid as much as possible the stellar lines, the fit is iterated after $`\kappa \sigma `$ clipping and the remaining bias due to the weak stellar lines is statistically corrected. The latter correction is based of the analysis of the skewness of the distribution of residuals. The weighting mask is prepared from a previous iteration of the reduction of the whole archive: for each wavelength point it gives the probability to have a stellar line (we started with no weight).

Though the visual inspection of the strengthened spectra appear satisfactory, the detection of possible biases have been a major concern and is presented in Sect. 5.

After the correction for diffuse light was applied, the pseudo-continuum was re-computed. These normalized spectra are scoped for abundance studies, and determination of the atmospheric parameters with TGMET.

All the information permitting calculation of the detected flux (in electrons) is kept in the form of a table extension attached to the FITS image. The S/N of each pixel is also kept in a separate extension. The detailed description of the FITS files is given with the electronic version of the tables and spectra.

### 3.2 Cosmic rays and telluric lines

The spikes due cosmics and defective pixels and the telluric lines have been masked following the procedure developed by Katz et al. (k98 (1998)).

### 3.3 Resampling to 1D spectra

The orders are normalized to their pseudo-continuum and resampled to a 1D spectrum with a wavelength step of 0.005 nm using spline interpolation (the observations are over-sampled by about 20%).

To produce a version of the archive at the resolution 10000 (i.e. 30 km.s-1at $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm) the spectra are convolved by a Gaussian function of FWHM = 0.054 nm, and rebinned with a step of 0.02 nm.

The high resolution version has a constant resolution of R=42000, ie. the resolution in nm changes with the wavelength. At variance, with the low resolution archive, the wavelength resolution, in nm, is constant throughout the spectra.

Note also that the convolution to produce the low resolution archive is done on the continuum-normalized spectra, which is not formally equivalent to convolving the flux calibrated spectra. However the induced difference is absolutely insignificant.

## 4 Flux calibration

The goal of the flux calibration is to determine the spectral energy distribution above the atmosphere (the physical flux). The standard procedure to achieve the objective (Bessell b99 (1999)) consists in determining the instrumental response and correct for the atmospheric absorption by comparing the spectra to templates of known spectral energy distribution observed with the same setup between the target stars.

Since the primary scope of the observation was not spectrophotometry, no particular care was taken in interleaving template stars and some observations were done through heavy atmospheric absorption. Therefore, the standard procedure cannot be straightforwardly applied. Before entering into the details of the procedure, we present hereafter its genesis.

The relation between the instrumental flux deduced in the previous section and the physical flux (the flux calibration relation) primarily reflects the effects of (1) the instrumental response (ie. the combined effect of the whole optics and CCD spectral sensitivity), (2) the absorption by a clear atmosphere and (3) an additional extinction due to an atmospheric haze.

We started from the assumptions that (1) the instrumental response is stable or at least stable during each observing run, (2) the absorption by the clear atmosphere can be parameterized by the airmass and (3) that the effect of the haze can be parameterized by a color excess defined as the difference between the measured B-V color and the Tycho-2 B-V color.

A fit of these three functions of the wavelength using spectra of stars with known spectral energy distribution (the details are presented below) resulted in a photometric precision of about 5% when we considered the instrumental response stable over all observation runs.

The shape of the three functions entering the calibration relation, and the analysis of the residuals lead to the suspicion that the correction of the atmospheric refraction provided by the spectrograph was not fully effective. This was diagnosed by (1) a stronger than expected wavelength dependence of the apparent atmospheric and haze transmissions and (2) a residual random “curvature” of the calibrated spectra that increases with airmass. Our interpretation is that the “clear atmosphere” function corrects at the first order the effect of the refraction (the star is centered on the fiber aperture by the auto-guider on the blue end of the atmospheric spectrum). The uncertainty on the centering of the star (miss-guiding) results in a “color excess” absorbed by the haze function, but depending on the value of the miss-centering and of the seeing a residual curvature is left.

It was unfortunately not possible to parameterize this effect since it depends on a random and unknown miss-centering and on the seeing which is not always recorded in the observing logs. An alternative would have been to use an additional color excess to constrain the curvature, but no such independent measurement is available for the stars of our archive.

Adding a quadratic airmass term, another function of color excess and allowing for variation of the instrumental response between the different observing runs led to a photometric quality of about 3% which was then improved to 2% after corrections based on internal comparisons. We did not find hints for other effect on the photometric quality, such as the effect of the stress on the optical fiber or positioning of the color correction filter that may change the instrumental response.

We will now describe the different steps of the calibrations: (1) primary calibration based on the comparison with low spectral resolution flux templates (2) secondary calibration based on internal comparison and (3) correction of the instrumental response using template spectra with a better spectral resolution than for the primary calibration.

### 4.1 Primary calibration

As already explained, the observations were not originally scoped for photometry and no flux templates were explicitly observed. However, since the archive contains bright stars, many of them are in common with other libraries or datasets.

The largest intersection is with the collection of low resolution spectra presented in Burnashev (b85 (1985), CDS III/126). The spectral resolution is about R=100 (FWHM = 5 - 6 nm), and the observations are from different sources which were homogenized to a common scale. The observations were done with photo-electric spectro-photometers mostly a the Crimean Observatory, and are not corrected from the interstellar extinction.

Some stars in our archive are in common with other datasets with a better spectral resolution, but not in a number sufficient to fit the calibration relation. For this reason we choose to first calibrate the archive with this dataset. It was entered in the Hypercat Fits Archive (HFA) with the identification L1985BURN.

The first step was to assess the photometric quality of these templates. The B and V magnitudes were integrated on the spectra and compared with the measurements converted from the Tycho-2 catalogue. We found a RMS difference on B-V of 0.05. The difference with the Tycho-2 color is used for affecting a weight to each of these template observations.

The determination of the calibration relation is done after the instrumental spectra from our archive are convolved to the resolution of L1985BURN. The original reference does not precisely document this resolution which varies with the origin of the observations, and we had to determine it. A first guess was obtained by fitting Gaussians on strong Balmer lines and this was fine-tuned afterwards to minimize the residuals on the strong lines. It was necessary to adopt slightly different resolutions for the blue and red parts of the spectra.

The model adopted for the primary calibration relation is:

$`\mathrm{log}(F_{phys}(\lambda ))`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{log}(F_{inst}(\lambda ))+\mathrm{log}(F_{inst}^{}(\lambda ,run))`$ (1)
$`+a(\lambda )Airm+b(\lambda )Airm^2`$
$`+c(\lambda )E_{BV}+d(\lambda )E_{BV}^{}`$
$`F_{phys}`$ is the physical flux reduced above the atmosphere. The two right-hand terms $`\mathrm{log}(F_{inst}(\lambda )`$ and $`\mathrm{log}(F_{inst}^{}(\lambda ,run))`$ represent the instrumental response. The first is stable over all the observing runs while the second contains the variable part. We separated the two terms because the second could not be determined for all the observing runs: when the number of calibrated observations was less than 10 the second term was not computed and assumed to be 0. The run-dependent instrumental response was determined for 9 runs out of 21, and a secondary calibration (next sub-section) was also obtained.

The next two terms depend on the airmass ($`Airm`$). The first of them accounts for the clear atmosphere absorption and mean aperture effect due to the atmospheric extinction. The second partly corrects the “curvature” of the spectrum due to the refraction (the length of the atmospheric spectra is proportional to $`\mathrm{tan}z`$, $`z`$ being the zenithal distance).

The two last terms are parameterized by a B-V color excess, defined as the difference between B-V determined on our spectra and the Tycho-2 B-V.

It is not possible to measure directly the B magnitude on our spectra since the standard B band extend farther blue-ward than their limit. Hence it was necessary to “calibrate” a different color, by fitting a color equation as it is usually done for converting between photometric systems. This procedure has the disadvantage that it formally depends on the actual spectral energy distribution of the star and hence may introduce a bias linked to the atmospheric parameters of the stars. However, such effect may be estimated from the residuals of the fit of the color equation, and for small color terms (ie. if our internal B is close to the Johnson B) it can be neglected.

Since this conversion was necessary, we used this opportunity to define 2 B bands ($`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$, converted to Johnson scale as $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$) giving two estimates of the color excess. The difference between these two estimates gives an approximate measure of the residual curvature of the spectra due to the atmospheric dispersion.

$`E(BV)`$ $`=`$ $`(BV)_{Tycho}(B_1V)_{Elodie}`$ (2)
$`E(BV)^{}`$ $`=`$ $`B_2B_1`$ (3)
The $`B_1`$ and $`B_2`$ bands were respectively defined as the integral of the flux distribution between $`\lambda \lambda =450470`$ nm and $`\lambda \lambda =437450`$ nm.

The color equation was determined with the 2238 spectra of L1985BURN, using ordinary least squares and iterative rejection of outliers, as:

$`b_1`$ $`=`$ $`14.830+1.001B_10.337(BV)`$ (4)
$`b_2`$ $`=`$ $`15.195+1.003B_20.081(BV)`$ (5)
The RMS residuals from these fits are about 0.025 mag. The magnitudes and colors are practically measured on the instrumental spectra (not physical flux), and hence the measured excess is biased due to the instrumental response and depends on the airmass. Though it does not change the fit to Eq. 1, in order to have independent functions we corrected the excess from the effect of instrumental response and atmospheric extinction using an a posteriori fit between corrected and un-corrected excess.

The flux calibration relation was fitted on 369 spectra of stars in common between our archive and L1985BURN. The different functions of the wavelength were finally smoothed by fitting polynomials in order to erase the residual effects of resolution miss-matching which results in spurious irregularities in these functions (in particular around $`H_\gamma `$ and G-band).

### 4.2 Secondary calibration

The primary calibration allowed us to determine the run-dependent response for only half the runs (but more than half the spectra since the number of stars is not equal in each run). By inter-comparing spectra of the same stars for which several observations were available it is possible to make a secondary calibration, using the runs where the run-dependent response was available as “template”.

This exercise allowed us to detect a significant change in the response of the instrument between the observations prior to 1995 and those done after. This change seems to be due to a modification of the differential refraction corrector at the end of year 1994. In addition, for two other runs the number of inter-comparisons was large enough to adopt a reliable run-dependent corrections. The run-dependent correction account for a RMS photometric effect of about 0.025 mag. For 9 runs no such correction is available at present.

### 4.3 Correction of the instrumental response

Up to this point the flux calibration can be assumed to properly correct the effect of atmospheric absorption and to correct at the best the aperture effect due to the differential refraction. However, the instrumental response was evaluated using low-resolution spectra and had furthermore to be smoothed. At variance with the other functions which presumably vary smoothly with wavelength, the instrumental response may be more chaotic.

Therefore, the last step of the calibration process consists in using higher spectral resolution ($`R1000`$) to correct the instrumental response. These reference spectra are taken from the following dataset, referenced by their HFA identification:

* L96111KP1 and L96111KP2. The ELODIE database contains 191 spectra of 144 stars from the Jones library (Leitherer et al. 1998) ($`R=2800`$). This library cover two narrow wavelength ranges, one in the blue part below $`\lambda =451`$ nm the other between $`\lambda \lambda =478547`$ nm. This is the highest resolution reference for stellar spectra yet available for comparison. This library is not corrected for the aperture effect due to differential refraction and is not of photometric quality. After re-calibrating the “color” of this spectra (defining special color-band as we did for our spectra for the primary calibration), the mean agreement with our spectra is satisfactory.
* L1996SERO. The ELODIE database has 8 spectra of 6 stars in common with Serote Ross et al. (s96 (1996)). These spectra are from CFH (R=650) and OHP (R=4000) observations. They intersect the red half of our spectral range. The comparison with the L1996SERO spectra, after the spectral resolutions are matched by convolving our spectra with a Gaussian, show pixel-to-pixel variations of the order of 2% (rms) and low-frequency variations of typically 5%. These figures are consistent with the comparison performed by Serote Ross et al. (s96 (1996)) with the Silva & Cornell (s92 (1992)) library.
* L1984JACO. We have 2 spectra for 2 stars (HD094028 & HD028099) in common with the Jacoby library (R=1200) which cover the full wavelength range. The two spectra compared with L1984JACO reveal a significant gradient (the difference over the whole range of wavelength are respectively 29% and 14% for the first and second spectrum) and a pixel-to-pixel variation of 0.5% rms. The B-V color integrated from the L1984JACO spectra disagrees with the Tycho-2 value in amounts that explain the differences with our spectra.
* L1987KIEH. We have 13 spectra of 7 stars from the dataset of Kiehling (1987) (R=800).
* L1994DANK. We have 17 spectra from 14 stars in common with Danks & Dennefeld (danks (1994)) (R=1500). The red half of our wavelength range intersects with L1994DANK.
* L1983GUNN. The Gunn & Stryker (gunn (1983)) library (R=500) counts 5 stars in common with our archive.
* L1984NSOA. Finally we compared our 7 solar spectra with the Solar flux atlas (Kurucz et al. k84 (1984)) (R=500000, also stored in HFA with R=10000).

We made all the individual comparisons between our spectra, convolved by a Gaussian to match the resolution, and these references. Because the broad-band variations are probably due either to random photometric errors in our archive (certainly not systematic), correction of the interstellar extinction (it was not always possible to de-correct the templates) or errors in the templates, we subtracted a low-degree polynomial (1 to 3 depending for which dataset) to these comparisons.

The individual comparisons (see Fig. 3) were then combined and produced a mean residual convolved to a resolution of 2 nm FWHM (each order of the original spectrum covers about 4 nm and no correction of the instrumental response at a lower scale is desired). This was used to correct the instrumental response.

We also made an unsuccessful attempt to compare our archive with the Pickles (p98 (1998)) library (L1998PICK): all the spectra were compared to the nearest (in the Teff\- $`\mathrm{log}`$ g \- \[Fe/H\] space) template in L1998PICK. But the mapping of the parameters space in L1998PICK is not dense enough and the residuals are too affected by the distance in the parameter space to permit a useful analysis. We did not attempt to interpolate the spectra within the Pickles library.

## 5 Quality control

To check the reliability of our data and reduction we used the following tests: (1) analyze the inter-comparison of repeated observations and analyze internal consistency, (2) compare fully reduced spectra with other libraries and (3) compare Lick indices for stars with published measurements.

There are a priori three possible sources of discrepancy to search: (1) errors on the instrumental response and/or correction of atmospheric extinction are likely to result in low and intermediate spatial frequencies variations. (2) inaccurate subtraction of the diffuse light may be diagnosed as significant mismatch of the strongest lines and (3) inaccurate correction for the blaze will lead to oscillations with a one-order period.

### 5.1 Internal consistency

#### 5.1.1 Multiple observations of the same star

There are in total 358 repeated observations for 104 stars in the archive. After giving a double weight to the observations in the runs for which the run-dependent response was computed from primary calibration and half weight to the observations done with an airmass larger than 1.5 (their photometric quality is lower because of the differential refraction), we find a global RMS dispersion for the pairwise comparison of about 3.5%, see Fig. 4. Without weighting, the dispersion is 4% and the difference was a hint for the lowest photometric quality of high airmass observations, hence leading to suspicion about the refraction corrector. Since it is a pairwise comparison, the mean photometric error on individual observations is: $`3.5/\sqrt{2}=2.5\%`$. (Note that this error does not account for possible systematic errors affecting uniformly the whole archive, it will be discussed in Sect. 5.2 & 5.3).

Most of the photometric errors lie in residual “curvature” of the spectra. After subtracting a third degree polynomial to each pairwyse comparison, the RMS dispersion becomes 0.7%, corresponding to a mean photometric precision of 0.5%, in full agreement with the mean S/N ratio. No hint for a modulation at the scale of one order of the echelle spectra is found.

#### 5.1.2 Modeled spectra

Random errors on the strengthening of the spectra are probably in average smaller than 0.5% because otherwise they would increase the dispersion of the pairwyse internal comparison (after the third degree polynomial is subtracted).

The new version of the TGMET program that will be described in a separate paper allowed us to generate interpolated spectra for a given position in the (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) space. The difference between the spectra in the archive and these modeled spectra can potentially uncover possible random errors on the strengthening.

Therefore we computed and averaged the differences to the modeled spectra for all the spectra in the archive. The mean residuals were searched for a modulation at the scale of one order, either in the spectrum or in its Fourier transform. We did not detect any signal. We made simulations that told that a 0.5% (RMS) modulation would probably have been detected, but a 0.2% modulation would not.

### 5.2 External comparisons

The comparisons between our physically calibrated spectra and other libraries were used in the previous section to compute the correction to the instrumental response. The goal was to determine the variation of the response at the scale of 1 to 5 nm that was not constrained by the primary calibration. Therefore, by construction, the mean external comparison is flat (ie. may only varies smoothly with the wavelength). A careful analysis of the individual comparison could assess the level of stability of the instrumental response.

The patterns in the correction to the instrumental response were consistently found in the different individual comparisons and no significant effect was found after this correction was applied. However, the scarcity of the available comparisons did not allow us to measure a photometric precision.

### 5.3 Comparison of Lick indices

The Lick indices (see eg. WO97) measure equivalent widths of features defined in bands of 2 to 5 nm (hence of the width of about 1/2 or 1 order of the echelle spectra). Their measurements are then sensitive to both incorrect strengthening of the spectra and errors in the instrumental response.

The spectral range of the Elodie archive allowed us to measure most of the Lick indices. Only the blue CN indices are missed as well as the H$`\delta `$ indices (H$`\delta _A`$ and H$`\delta _F`$) defined in WO97.

We used the definitions from WO97 or Cardiel et al. (c98 (1998)) to measure the indices for all the spectra in the archive. The results are reported in Table 1 given in the electronic version only.

The measurement errors computed from the photon noise (see eg. Prugniel et al p01 (2001)) is in the present case negligible because of the extremely high S/N per Å. The main source of error is due to the photometric calibration and may be systematic. The comparison the Lick indices measured in WO97 constrain the magnitude of these systematic errors.

The archive has 102 stars which have been previously measured in WO97. The comparisons are reported in Table 2.

We do not find systematic effects that would result from errors in the instrumental errors and the residual dispersions are compatible with the errors in the WO97 measurements (the internal error due to the photon noise in the archive is totally negligible).

The systematic shifts are always smaller than the dispersion except for Ca4455 (where it is equal) and for Fe4383 the shift may be significant. However, we cannot attribute this to an error in our measurements and in particular we note that the shift for Fe4383 is similar to the one found by WO97 when they compared the original Lick measurements with the spectra of the Jones library (note that our flux calibration is not fully independent from the Jones library since this latter was used among others to correct the instrumental response). The Ca4455 index is not in the range of the Jones spectra and we cannot comment of the shift we found. Fig. 5 presents the distributions of the differences (us - WO97) for two indices: Mg2 and H$`\gamma _A`$. The first one is very important for extragalactic studies, it is defined on a broad region (53 nm between the extrema of the red and blue side-bands). Though it is potentially sensitive to the uncertainties on the flux calibration described above, the agreement between us and WO97 is excellent. The second index presented in Fig. 5, H$`\gamma _A`$, is narrower (14 nm) but it is located in the blue region of our spectra were our calibration is probably less accurate. There is a systematic shift with respect to WO97, but the rms residual is fully accounted for by the errors on WO97.

## 6 Data format and public access

The spectra are stored in HFA in the form of FITS files containing 4 extensions (Grøsbol et al g88 (1988)):

The first extension is a 1D image header data unit (HDU) containing the spectra calibrated in wavelength expressed in the rest-frame of each star and sampled between 410 and 680 nm. The high resolution version is normalized with a step between the sampling points of 0.005 nm and the low resolution version is given in physical flux with a step of 0.020 nm.

Another image HDU (EXTNAME=NOISE), with the same sampling, contains the noise attached to the values in the primary HDU (in the unit of this spectra). Pixels are independent.

The other extensions are the flux calibration relations which enable to convert the instrumental flux into physical or normalized flux. They are binary table extensions and the relations are coded as spline representations. The details are given in the Pleinpot user’s manual333http://www-obs.univ-lyon1.fr/$``$prugniel/cgi-bin/pleinpot/pleinpot.html, and the conversions can be done on-the-fly with the pipeline attached to HFA.

The physical flux calibration (EXTNAME=FCAPHY) and the normalized flux relation (EXTNAME=FCANOR) have a spectral resolution of about 2 nm.

Each header, which includes the keywords created during the observations and TACOS reduction, have been completed with useful information on the star : spectral type, Tycho-2 V and B-V, absolute magnitude MVand (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) with their reliability flag, and vr. The nominal FWHM of the spectrum can also be retrieved in the header.

In addition to the spectra of the stars, the archive contains the different intermediate files used along the data processing. They are described in the electronic version of the paper.

## 7 Conclusion

We have presented an archive of 908 spectra of 709 stars at two resolutions, R=10000 and R=42000, and in the wavelength range $`\lambda \lambda =410680`$ nm. The high resolution version is archived normalized to its pseudo-continuum while the low resolution is given in physical flux (above the earth atmosphere) normalized to one at $`\lambda =555`$ nm.

The mean S/N per pixel in the high resolution version of the archive is 150 (S/N $``$ 700 per 0.1 nm), the photometric precision of the strengthening of the orders of the echelle spectra is better than 0.5 %, the precision in bands of about 10-20 nm is 0.5 % and the overall (broad-band) precision is 2.5 %, limited by the effect of differential refraction.

The stars in this archive cover a large range of the parameter’s space, though the mapping is still crude for hot and very cool stars.

This archive supersedes the TGMET (s96 (1996)) library and is being used for automatic determination of the stellar parameters (Teff, $`\mathrm{log}`$ g , \[Fe/H\]) by direct comparison of spectra with interpolations in the archive. The new version of the TGMET program is still under development and will enableto determine the parameters from any R$`>`$10000 spectra, independently of the detailed observational setup. It will be presented in a future paper.

The archive will also be used to synthesize extragalactic stellar populations and to use these high resolution synthetic spectra as kinematical templates to determine simultaneously the parameters of the stellar population and the line-of-sight velocity distribution.

The archive itself will be completed with new observations and spectra from the OHP archive with the goal of improving the mapping of the parameters space and the quality of the photometric calibration.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the director and technical staff of Observatoire de Haute-Provence for their constant support of our observing programs and for providing some spectra retrieved from the ELODIE archive. We thank all the observers who provided their observations to complete the database, especially the COROT team : D. Ballereau, J.-C. Bouret, C. Catala, T. Hua, D. Katz, F. Lignieres, T. Lueftinger and C. Van’t Veer. We acknowlegde, with gratitude, financial support from the GDR Galaxies, CNRS, France. This work made extensive use of the SIMBAD and VIZIER databases, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.


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# 1 (a) Current 𝐼 through a CeNiSn MCBJ in c-direction vs piezo voltage 𝑉_PZ (curve 1) at 𝑇=0.1K and 𝑉_bias=0.1 V. Curve 2 shows the same data in conductance units, normalized to the quantum conductance G₀=2e²/ℎ≃77.5𝜇S. (b) Reduced d𝑉/d𝐼 vs 𝑉 for two contacts with low (28 Ω) and high (5 kΩ) resistance. Solid lines are fits to the Daybell formula [] 𝑅=1-𝐴log(1+(𝑉/𝑉₀)²), with A= 0.019(0.066), 𝑉₀=0.357(0.345)mV for the bottom(top) curve. Inset shows the same curves for both polarities.

Is CeNiSn a Kondo semiconductor? - break-junction experiments

Yu. G. Naidyuk1111naidyuk@ilt.kharkov.ua, K. Gloos2, and T. Takabatake3

1 B. Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, NAS of Ukraine, 61164 Kharkiv, Ukraine

2 Institut für Festkörperphysik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, D-64289, Germany and Department of Physics, University of Jyväskylä, FIN-40351 Jyväskylä, Finland

3 Department of Quantum Matter, ADSM, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan

## Abstract

We investigated break junctions of the Kondo semiconductor CeNiSn, both in the metallic and in the tunnelling regime, at low temperatures and in magnetic fields up to $`8`$T. Our experiments demonstrate that direct CeNiSn junctions have typical metallic properties instead of the expected semiconducting ones. There is no clear-cut evidence for an energy (pseudo)gap. The main spectral feature, a pronounced $`1020`$ meV wide zero-bias conductance minimum, appears to be of magnetic nature.

Cerium intermetallic compounds can have different ground states, depending on the hybridization between f- and conduction electrons. CeNiSn is usually classified as a Kondo semiconductor, originally because of the enhanced electrical resistivity at low temperatures . But when high quality samples became available, the low-temperature resistivity turned out to be metallic . Tunnel spectroscopy provides a direct access to the electronic density of states (EDOS) . Using mechanically controllable break junctions (MCBJ), Ekino et al.  observed d$`I/`$d$`V`$ spectra with $`10`$meV broad zero-bias (ZB) minima. They assumed – without further experimental evidence – that their junctions were in the tunnel regime, and interpreted the ZB minima as being due to a gap in the EDOS. These ZB minima were found to be suppressed in magnetic fields $`B`$14 T only along the a-axis, indicating as a crossover from a pseudogap to a metallic heavy-fermion state . Our investigation of MCBJs of CeNiSn, both in the metallic (direct contact) and in the vacuum-tunneling regime, is based on three CeNiSn single crystals with long sides in the a, b, and c-direction of the orthorhombic crystal lattice, respectively. Magnetic fields up to 8 T could be applied perpendicular to the long side of the sample (perpendicular to current flow). For further details see Refs. .

To identify the regime of charge transport through the junctions we measured how the contact resistance depends on the distance between the two broken pieces of the sample, set by the piezo voltage $`V_{\mathrm{PZ}}`$. Fig. 1a clearly shows an exponential $`I(V_{\mathrm{PZ}})`$ dependence at constant bias voltage as long as $`R>100`$k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, as expected for true vacuum tunneling. The step-like change of conductance at $`R<`$G$`{}_{0}{}^{1}=`$h$`/`$2e$`{}_{}{}^{2}13`$k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ characterizes atomic-size metallic contacts . Therefore, our CeNiSn junctions with $`R<13`$k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are made up of a metallic constriction.

Metallic MCBJs show rather similar spectra with a pronounced ZB peak (Fig. 1b, inset). d$`V`$/d$`I`$ decreases logarithmically between 1 and 10 mV. It can be well described by an empirical formula for the temperature dependence of Kondo scattering if $`T`$ is replaced by $`V`$ (Fig. 1b ). Fig. 2a shows the temperature and field dependence of the d$`V`$/d$`I`$ spectra in b-direction. In addition to the ZB peak, the background of the curves increases with voltage, resulting in a double-minimum structure similar to that found earlier . However, contacts with $`R<13`$k$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are not in the tunnel regime, and those ZB anomalies can not be attributed directly to the gap in the EDOS, as proposed in Refs. . According to Fig. 2a, the d$`V/`$d$`I(V)`$ spectra look like the $`T`$-dependence of the ZB contact resistance d$`V/`$d$`I(T,V=0)`$. This characterizes the thermal and not the ballistic regime of metallic contacts . A natural explanation for the ZB peak in Fig. 2a could be Kondo scattering which is indeed supported by fitting of d$`V`$/d$`I(V)`$ with the corresponding expression, see Fig. 1b. The enhanced low-$`T`$ resistance probably has the same origin as that observed earlier on less perfect (less pure) CeNiSn samples . Probably the quality of the interface is degraded with respect to the bulk material, for example due to mechanical stress.

Two different type of CeNiSn tunnel junctions can be distinguished (Fig. 2b): $`(i)`$ Contacts with a large ($`>100\%`$) ZB minima, similar to the d$`V`$/d$`I`$ \- maxima of the metallic contacts in Fig. 1b. $`(ii)`$ Contacts with a shallow ($`10\%`$) minimum. The latter have a relatively broad and also more asymmetric ZB dip. A magnetic field only slightly broadens ZB minima. If we attribute those ZB minima to a gap of the EDOS, then its width determined by the position of the maxima is $`2\mathrm{\Delta }20`$mV. At a characteristic temperature of $`T_\mathrm{c}10`$K this yields an excessibly large $`2\mathrm{\Delta }/`$k$`{}_{\mathrm{B}}{}^{}T_{\mathrm{c}}^{}20`$. But there are other explanations, too. The first type of spectra could be caused by magnetic scattering. For example, evaporating less than one monolayer of magnetic impurities onto thin film metal-oxide-metal planar tunnel junctions can produce either a ZB conductance maximum or a minimum, depending on the sign of the exchange integral between conduction electron spin and magnetic impurity spin . The size of those anomalies is of order 10%. A giant ZB resistance maximum similar to that in Fig. 2b and with a logarithmic variation between a few mV and 100 mV was observed in Cr-oxide-Ag tunnel junctions, and explained by Kondo scattering as well .

Another explanation could be Coulomb blockade, depending on the capacitance of the tunnel junctions. Pronounced ZB minima could result when the junctions consist of several isolated metallic (magnetic) clusters, formed accidentally while breaking the sample. Their capacitances are not shortcircuited by the distributed lead capacitances, therefore Coulomb blockade can be much stronger than at solitary junctions.

In summary, MCBJ experiments so far do not provide clear-cut evidence for an energy (pseudo)gap of CeNiSb, even when the junctions are in the true vacuum tunnel regime. The observed anomalies could equally well be produced by Kondo scattering or even by Coulomb blockade.


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# Characterization of high finesse mirrors: loss, phase shifts and mode structure in an optical cavity

## I Introduction

For many contemporary physics experiments, measurement enhancement via an optical cavity is a useful tool. Indeed, an optical cavity allows one to extend the interaction length between matter and field, to build up the optical power, to maintain a well-defined mode structure, and to study the extreme nonlinear optics and quantum mechanics associated with the large field of a single photon for small cavity volumes HJK1 . In most situations, a better understanding of cavity and mirror properties is important for achieving improved sensitivity and for elimination of systematic errors. For example, in cavity QED, one needs to know the mode structure of the intracavity field in order to develop the optimum strategy of atom-cavity coupling; for frequency metrology, accurate determination of phase shifts of the resonant fields can provide precision frequency markers; and in quantitative spectroscopy, knowledge of the mirror loss sets the accuracy scale of absorption measurement. On the technology development side, the knowledge gained from careful mirror characterization could provide guidelines for the optic coating community to develop in situ measurement and control capabilities of the coating process.

The work presented in this paper is motivated by the ever-increasing demand for a high coherent coupling rate between an atom and the field, as well as of a decreasing cavity loss rate. The aim is to have coherent (reversible) evolution dominating over dissipative processes, and thereby to explore manifestly quantum dynamics in real time, which in turn should lead eventually to the investigation of the strong conditioning of system evolution on measurement results and the realization of quantum feedback control. An important feature associated with strong coupling is that system dynamics are readily influenced by single quanta. Thus single-atom and single-photon cavity QED provides an ideal stage where the dynamical processes of individual quantum systems can be isolated and manipulated. A collection of such coherent systems could help to realize a distributed quantum networks for computation and communication ENK . At each node the quantum information is stored by one or a collection of entangled atoms. Photons serve as the communication link which in turn entangle the whole network. Within this context, technical advances in optical cavity quantum electrodynamics have become increasingly important. Some significant developments down this road have been achieved by the group at Caltech HMabuchi96 ; Hood98 ; HMJY99 ; Ye99 ; Yeprl99 ; Hood2000 , where in Ref. Hood2000  the one-photon Rabi frequency is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1/2\pi =220`$MHz, in comparison with the atomic decay rate $`\gamma _{}=2.6`$MHz and the cavity decay rate $`\kappa /2\pi =14.2`$MHz.

The strong coupling condition $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\gamma _{},\kappa )`$ is achieved by using a small cavity length, of the order of 10$`\mu `$m. Precise measurement of the length of a short optical cavity facilitates the determination of mirror coating characteristics. A 10$`\mu `$m cavity length translates to a free-spectral-range ($`FSR`$) of 15 THz, or a wavelength difference of a few tens of nanometers (for example, it is 36 nm for a center wavelength of 852 nm) for neighboring cavity modes. Therefore a straightforward 6-digit measurement of the wavelengths (Burleigh wavemeter) of the cavity modes acquires a precision of the order of 5 x 10-5 for accurate determination of the equivalent optical length of the cavity, from which details of the index of refraction and layer thickness of materials in the mirror stack can be inferred.

The low loss rate of the cavity field is made possible by high quality mirror coatings that lead to scatter and absorption losses in the 10-6 range Rempe92 ; REO . The cavity finesse and overall cavity transmission can be measured directly to determine the mirror losses, $`l`$, and transmission, $`T`$. This information can be combined with the $`FSR`$ measurement in two useful ways: Firstly, the $`FSR`$ measurement is sensitive to the difference in refractive index $`n_Hn_L`$ of the materials making up the multilayer mirror stack, whereas the transmission $`T`$ depends on the ratio $`n_H/n_L`$, as will be shown later. As a result, a precise measurement of both the $`FSR`$ and $`T`$ can be used to determine the values of $`n_H`$ and $`n_L`$ independently. Moreover, by mapping out the wavelength dependence of the $`FSR`$, the thickness of layers in the mirror stack can be determined. Secondly, if one of the refractive indices (here $`n_L`$) is well known, then the $`FSR`$ measurement determines $`n_H`$, and an independent value for the mirror transmission $`T`$ can then be calculated from $`n_H`$ and $`n_L`$, and compared to the experimentally measured result. Indeed, the work presented in this paper shows that we are able to make complementary and mutually-confirming measurements of the cavity properties by the two approaches, i.e., measurements of the direct cavity loss and the dispersion of the cavity modes.

Coming back to the cavity QED experiments, we note that knowledge of the cavity properties is of importance in two particular ways: 1. Mirror absorption/scatter losses are a critical limiting factor in the loss rate from our cavity QED system - for our current cavities the loss rate from photon scattering due to mirror imperfections is similar in size to the atomic spontaneous emission rate. To build robust quantum computing/communications devices from cavity QED components, it is necessary to improve the ratio of mirror transmission to mirror losses. 2. The standing-wave light field inside the cavity penetrates into the mirror coatings, giving a larger mode-volume $`V_{\text{mode}}`$ than would be expected naively from the physical distance between the mirror surfaces. Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }_11/\sqrt{V_{\text{mode}}}`$, as our micro-cavities are pushed to shorter lengths, this leakage field will have a non-negligible effect on the achievable coupling strength $`g_0=\mathrm{\Omega }_1/2`$.

## II Direct Transmission and Loss Measurements

All of the mirrors described in this paper were fabricated by Research Electro-Optics in Boulder, ColoradoREO . More specifically, the measurements were made for the particular coating run REO #T95 and involved mirrors with radius of curvature R = 10 and 20 cm. The coating run had a design transmission of $`T^{th}`$=7ppm at a center wavelength of 852nm, from which a cavity finesse of $``$=370,000 was expected. It was somewhat surprising therefore to measure a finesse of $``$=480,000 at the targeted wavelength, and this prompted us to make more detailed measurements of the mirror properties, and design a model to match these measurements.

Firstly, losses were measured directly with a 40$`\mu m`$ length cavity of 20cm radius of curvature mirrors in the usual way by recording resonant cavity transmission, reflection and finesse. If we denote the transmission of mirrors 1 and 2 by $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$, respectively, and the (absorption + scatter) loss per mirror as $`l_i=(A+S)_i`$, then the total cavity losses $`=T_1+T_2+l_1+l_2`$ can be determined from the cavity finesse $`=FSR/2\kappa `$, with $`FSR`$ as the cavity free spectral range and $`\kappa `$ as the HWHM for the TEM00 mode of the cavity; equivalently, $`=2\pi /`$. The cavity linewidth $`\beta =2\kappa `$ can be determined from a ringdown measurement or using a modulation sideband as a frequency marker with the cavity length scanned, which is the technique employed here. The cavity transmission $`I_{trans}=\frac{4T_1T_2}{(T_1+T_2+l_1+l_2)^2}`$ can then be used to determine $`l_1+l_2`$, if $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ are known independently. In practice this is a difficult measurement to make, because the overall transmission $`I_{trans}`$ depends on the mode-matching into the cavity being perfect. A variation of this protocol that does not require perfect mode-matching can be derived, by comparing the cavity reflection and transmission values with the cavity locked on resonance and off resonance.

The rudiments of this protocol are as follows. First of all, the total loss ($`=T_1+T_2+l_1+l_2`$) is always measured first with the determination of the cavity $`FSR`$ and linewidth. Now let us denote the input power as $`P_{in}`$, the reflected power $`P_r`$ , and the transmitted power $`P_t`$. There is also a mode matching factor $`ϵ`$, meaning that of the input power of $`P_{in}`$, only $`ϵP_{in}`$ is useful for coupling to the cavity TEM00 mode, $`(1ϵ)P_{in}`$ is wasted. We have the following equations (the assumption of two equal mirrors is reasonable since the two mirrors are produced in the same coating run)

$$=\frac{2\pi }{T_1+T_2+l_1+l_2}=\frac{\pi }{l+T}$$
(1)
$$\frac{P_t}{ϵP_{in}}=4T_1T_2(\frac{}{2\pi })^2=T^2(\frac{}{\pi })^2$$
(2)
$$\frac{P_r(1ϵ)P_{in}}{ϵP_{in}}=(l_1+l_2+T_1T_2)^2(\frac{}{2\pi })^2=l^2(\frac{}{\pi })^2$$
(3)
Remember that $`(1ϵ)P_{in}`$ is the “useless” power that is reflected directly off of the input mirror, and must be subtracted from $`P_r`$ to leave the reflected power we wish to measure, that is, the sum of the field leaked from the cavity storage and the field (mode-matched) directly reflected off the input mirror. This cavity contrast is a direct result of the mirror properties. Division of equation 2 by 3 gives

$$\frac{P_t}{P_rP_{in}}=\frac{T^2(\frac{}{\pi })^2}{l^2(\frac{}{\pi })^21}$$
(4)
Equation 4, combined with 1, will determine completely $`T`$ and $`l`$ .

In the actual experiment, this direct measurement approach found that (from finesse we have $`l+T=7.2ppm`$) $`P_{in}=54\mu W`$, $`P_r=42.6\mu W`$ and $`P_t=4.82\mu W`$ and therefore $`l=2.9ppm`$ and $`T=4.3ppm`$, with measurement uncertainties below $`5\%`$.

Another way to measure the ($`T,l`$) is by sweeping out all the high order spatial modes and carefully noting the transmission and reflection powers at each spatial mode. One measures the total input power and also sums together the powers of every matched mode for transmission and reflection. These three powers can be used in Eq. 2 and 3 to calculate the partition between $`T`$ and $`l`$. That measurement produced $`l=3ppm`$, and $`T=4.2ppm`$. The value of $`T`$ should be a bit lower in this case because it is not possible to include all higher order modes in the measurement, some of them are simply impossible to resolve due to their weakness.

Other cavities measured with mirrors from the same coating run had higher finesse, very likely due to a lower density of surface defects. To construct a cavity of minimal mode volume for the intended maximal coherent coupling rate, we need to have the distance between two mirrors (radius of curvature $`R=10cm`$) on the order of $`10\mu m`$ or below. To avoid contact between the outer edges of the two mirrors, the mirrors were fabricated with cone-shaped fronts, reducing the substrate radius from 3 mm to 1 mm. We notice this extra machine process might have introduced some additional surface defects on some mirrors. However, the highest finesse achieved with cone-shaped mirrors was comparable to unmodified pieces, at $``$=480,000$`\pm `$10,000, corresponding to losses $`l=2.2ppm`$ if mirror transmission $`T=4.3ppm`$ as determined from the above measurements.

## III Technical details of the model

In this section we derive a model for the coating properties. A transfer-matrix formalism was used to calculate the input-output propagation of a plane-wave field through the 37 layer stack of alternating high index (Ta20$`_5,`$ $`n_H`$=2.0411) and low index (SiO$`_2,`$ $`n_L`$=1.455) dielectric layers (these dielectric constants are assumed to be constant with wavelength). The substrate refractive index (supplied by REO) used was $`n_{sub}=`$1.5098. That is, the transfer of the field through each $`\lambda /4`$ layer is represented by a matrix, and the response of the entire mirror (or cavity) is determined by the product of these individual matrices.

Following the treatment of Hecht hecht  for normal incidence, we take the matrix representing layer $`j`$ to be given by M$`{}_{j}{}^{}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}(kh_j)& (i\mathrm{sin}(kh_j))/Y_j\\ iY_j\mathrm{sin}(kh_j)& \mathrm{cos}(kh_j)\end{array}\right].`$ Here Mj relates the electric and magnetic fields $`(E,H)`$ of the input and output via

$$\left[\begin{array}{c}E_{out}\\ H_{out}\end{array}\right]=\left[M\right]\left[\begin{array}{c}E_{in}\\ H_{in}\end{array}\right]\text{.}$$
(5)
$`k=2\pi /\lambda `$ is the free-space wavevector of the incident light, $`h_j=n_j`$ x (layer thickness) with $`n_j`$ the refractive index, and $`Y_j=\sqrt{\frac{ϵ_0}{\mu _0}}n_j`$ with ($`ϵ_0,\mu _0`$) the electric and magnetic constants in SI units. For an exact $`\lambda /4`$ layer (and for light at the design wavelength of the coating), this simplifies to M$`{}_{j}{}^{}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& i/Y_j\\ iY_j& 0\end{array}\right].`$ A multilayer stack is represented by multiplying the matrices of the individual layers: For light incident on layer 1, the matrix for the entire structure of q layers is defined as the product $`M=M_1M_2\mathrm{}M_q.`$ For our mirror stack, this gives $`M=(M_{Ta_2O_5}M_{SiO_2})^{18}M_{Ta_2O_5}.`$ Note that at the coating center (where there is an exact $`\lambda /4`$ layer), $`M_{Ta_2O_5}M_{SiO_2}=\left[\begin{array}{cc}\frac{n_L}{n_H}& 0\\ 0& \frac{n_H}{n_L}\end{array}\right]`$, so the system matrix has the simple form $`M=\left[\begin{array}{cc}0& \frac{i}{Y_H}(\frac{n_L}{n_H})^{18}\\ iY_H(\frac{n_H}{n_L})^{18}& 0\end{array}\right].`$

For a field incident from material with index $`n_0`$ and exiting into material with index $`n_s,`$ the resulting transmission coefficient is given by

$$t=2Y_0/(Y_0M_{11}+Y_0Y_SM_{12}+M_{21}+Y_SM_{22}),$$
(6)
with transmission $`T=\frac{n_s}{n_0}|t|^2`$ (the factor $`\frac{n_s}{n_0}`$ accounts for the change in the amplitude of the electric field in the dielectric, thereby conserving the net energy flux). At the center wavelength of the coating then,

$$T=\frac{n_s}{n_0}|2i/[(n_S/n_H)(n_L/n_H)^{18}+(n_H/n_0)(n_H/n_L)^{18}]|^2.$$
(7)
We can make a further simplification: as $`(n_L/n_H)^{18}=0.0018`$ and $`(n_H/n_L)^{18}`$ =557, the first term in the denominator of the above equation is only a 10-6 correction, so the final result for $`T`$ at the coating center becomes

$$T=4n_Sn_0(n_L)^{36}/(n_H)^{38},$$
(8)
and the transmission is determined by the $`ratio`$ of the refractive indices.

This calculation reproduced the target reflectivity of $`T^{th}`$=7.3ppm for the coating run #T95, and $`T^{th}`$=14.6ppm for another REO coating run #D1306 where the number of layers was reduced to 35. The model and measured (REO spectrophotometer data) “coating curves” are shown in Fig. 1 for the #D1306 coating run.

For a fixed cavity length the resonance wavelengths of the cavity can be calculated simply with the same transfer-matrix formalism, using a matrix for the entire system, $`M_{total}=MM_{gap}M`$, (a product of two mirrors plus a fixed-length vacuum gap in between). The calculation steps through a series of wavelengths calculating the cavity transmission $`T`$ at each, and by finding places of maximum transmission finds the vacuum wavelengths of the cavity resonances.

Conversely, for a given set of measured cavity-resonance wavelengths, it is possible to determine the effective cavity length precisely. With a commercial wavelength-meter that gives 6-digit wavelength measurement, we typically measure the cavity resonance within an uncertainty of 0.01 nm. Error propagation analysis gives an uncertainty for the determination of the effective cavity length (tens of microns) on the order of $`0.050.1`$ nm. The parameters of the model (index contrast, layer thickness) are set by comparison to such measurements. Hence, armed with the detailed knowledge of the mirrors provided from the model, the physical cavity length can be determined precisely from a single measurement of resonance, for example, when the cavity is locked to a laser of known frequency (in our case a cesium transition at 852.359nm). Close to the center of the design wavelength of the coating, the effective cavity length (on resonance) is roughly $`L_{eff}=L+1.633\lambda /2`$ with $`L`$ (the physical distance between the mirror surfaces) an integer number of $`\lambda /2`$. The physical cavity length can therefore be determined, with an uncertainty of $``$ 0.5 nm, limited by the overall parameter-fitting in the model. Further details of the wavelength-dependence are provided by reference to the model.

## IV Free-Spectral Range (FSR) Measurements

To determine the parameters of the model (index contrast, layer thickness), a series of precise measurements of the cavity FSR (frequency between successive cavity resonances) was madedevoe ; lichten ; layer . At fixed cavity length a Ti-Sapphire laser was tuned to find successive resonant wavelengths ($`\lambda _1,\lambda _2`$) of the cavity, and an experimentally determined length was then defined by $`L_{expt}=\lambda _1\lambda _2/2(\lambda _1\lambda _2).`$

This length comprises the actual physical length between the two mirror surfaces, $`L`$, plus a contribution from leakage of the mode into the mirror stack, which gives rise to an additional phase shift at the coatings, to give a length $`L_{eff}>L.`$ In addition, the leakage into the coatings increases with wavelength as ($`\lambda _1,\lambda _2`$) move away from the coating design wavelength, so this gives another additional contribution to the round-trip phase and hence to the measured length $`L_{expt}.`$

As discussed in Ref. devoe , if $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ were closely spaced compared to the scale on which the coating properties vary (so that coating dispersion could be neglected) then near the design wavelength of the coating, we would have $`L_{expt}=L_{eff}=L+(\frac{1}{n_Hn_L})\times \lambda _c/2`$ where $`n_H`$ and $`n_L`$ are the high and low index materials of the stack, and $`\lambda _c=2\lambda _1\lambda _2/(\lambda _1+\lambda _2)`$ is the average (in frequency) of wavelengths $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$. We thereby have a dependence of the free spectral range on $`(\frac{1}{n_Hn_L}),`$ which combined with the transmission (which depends on $`n_L/n_H`$) can fix $`n_H`$ and $`n_L.`$ For these materials, this gives $`L_{eff}=L+1.633\lambda _c/2.`$ However, for our measurements with short cavities, $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are separated by $``$30nm, so $`L_{expt}>L_{eff}`$. But we can still use the complete model to fit to the measured values ($`\lambda _1,\lambda _2`$) and determine parameters of the coating. Finally, by mapping out this wavelength dependence of the free-spectral range to find $`min(L_{expt})`$, we find the center wavelength of the coating.

In the model, the refractive indices used are adjusted to obtain the same pairs ($`\lambda _1,\lambda _2`$) as measured. Then, the layer thickness in the model is adjusted to agree with the measured coating center wavelength. By using the additional information of the measured mirror transmission $`T`$ from Section II, we can now either:

1. Derive independent values for the refractive indices and layer thickness, or

2. Assuming one index is known, use the refractive indices and layer thickness information to give an independent value for the mirror transmission, which can be compared to the measurement of Section II.

That the dispersion (FSR) measurement alone is sufficient to determine the loss-less part of the mirror properties represents some useful information for the mirror coating technician: the index difference $`n_Hn_L`$ and the optical thickness of the coating layers can be simply measured in this way without interference from absorption/scatter losses. And, if $`n_L`$ is known, this also gives a simple way of finding the mirror transmission. Adding in a direct measurement of mirror transmission yields values for $`n_H`$ and $`n_L`$ separately.

Data obtained from these measurements are shown in Figure 2, where $`L_{expt}`$ is plotted as a function of wavelength, for a 10 $`\mu `$m cavity with 10 cm radius of curvature mirrors. The circles are measured data, and the curves the calculation from the model, with parameters chosen to best fit the data. This data was taken by setting the cavity to a series of different lengths, and recording a pair of resonant wavelengths $`(\lambda _1,\lambda _2)`$ at each length. The x axis is center wavelength $`\lambda _c=2\lambda _1\lambda _2/(\lambda _1+\lambda _2)`$, the y axis the measured cavity length $`L_{expt}=\lambda _1\lambda _2/2(\lambda _1\lambda _2)`$ shown in units of $`\lambda _1/2`$ : for each pair $`(\lambda _1,\lambda _2)`$, the length is such that $`L_{expt}/(\lambda _1/2)=24.`$xx . Dividing by $`\lambda _2`$ instead would exactly give 23.xx, since by rearranging the formula for $`L_{expt}`$ we see that $`L_{expt}/(\lambda _1/2)L_{expt}/(\lambda _2/2)+1`$. Due to a finite drift in the cavity length, each measurement of $`\lambda `$ was made to only 5 digits resolution (e.g. 852.59$`\pm `$0.01nm), leading to the uncertainty in $`L_{expt}`$ shown. Uncertainty in $`\lambda _c`$ is $`\pm `$ 0.03nm and cannot be seen on this scale.

Two theory curves are shown. The solid curve shows a model with $`n_L`$ assumed to be fixed at its nominal value of $`n_L`$=1.455. To best fit the data, $`n_H`$ was $`increased`$ to $`n_H`$=2.0676 (a factor of 1.3%). In addition, the center wavelength was shifted to 847nm (by reducing the thickness of each $`\lambda /4`$ layer by 0.6%). Discussions with REO confirmed that 1.3% is a known offset in $`n_H`$ for the particular coating machine which produced this run, and also that a few nm uncertainty in the center wavelength is typical. With these parameters, the inferred mirror transmission is $`T_{inf}=`$4.6$`\pm `$0.2 ppm, agreeing well with the measured value $`T_{\mathrm{exp}}=`$4.3 ppm from Section II. The dotted curve (which overlaps the solid curve) shows the model when both $`n_L`$ and $`n_H`$ are allowed to vary. Their values are chosen to match both the FSR measurement shown, and to give a mirror transmission to match exactly the experimentally determined value $`T_{\mathrm{exp}}=4.3`$ ppm. Parameters which satisfy these criteria are $`n_H`$ =2.0564 (0.75% increase) and $`n_L`$=1.4440 (0.76% decrease). Our direct measurement of $`T`$ in Section II had a large uncertainty, which limits the absolute determination of $`n_H`$ and $`n_L`$ to about this 1% level. However, a more precise measurement could in principle determine the indices at the 0.1% level. One application might be to measure $`T`$ and the FSR as a function of position across a mirror substrate, thereby mapping out stress induced variations in the refractive indices at the 0.1% level with a spatial resolution of $``$ 10 $`\mu `$m.

In this data set the correction for the Gaussian phase difference between the actual resonator mode and the plane-wave of the model has been neglected. After the propagation distance from the mode waist to the mirror surfaces, a Gaussian beam will have acquired less phase than a plane wave traveling the same distance. For a 10 $`\mu `$m cavity with 10 cm radius of curvature mirrors, this gives a 2% correction, corresponding to a shift in $`L_{expt}`$ by $`0.0045`$ cavity orders (that is, $`\mathrm{\Delta }L+\frac{\lambda }{2}\times 0.0045`$). Lowering the refractive index contrast of the model to shift the calculated curve by this amount would increase the inferred mirror transmission by $``$ 0.1 ppm. For our second cavity (44 $`\mu `$m, 20 cm radius of curvature mirrors), the correction is 0.0066 cavity orders.

The mirror phase shift (FSR measurement) is only sensitive to the transmission (index contrast) and center wavelength (layer thickness). Therefore, if absorption/scatter losses are added to the model (by introducing an imaginary component to the refractive index) the cavity resonance wavelengths do not change. More precisely, adding a scattering loss at the mirror surfaces has exactly zero effect on the FSR and mirror transmission. Adding losses within the coatings has a small effect: increasing the mirror absorption from 0.5ppm to 2ppm (an experimentally reasonable range) changes the mirror transmission by a factor of $`10^5T`$, clearly negligible, and again there is no effect on the FSR measurement. As a result, this measurement (with $`n_L`$ assumed fixed) provided a very simple and sensitive inference of the mirror transmission of $`T_{inf}=`$4.6$`\pm `$0.2 ppm, which is unaffected by absorption/scatter losses.

The same measurement and fitting procedure was used on another cavity with mirrors from the same coating run. This 44 $`\mu `$m cavity made from 20 cm radius of curvature mirrors gave a transmission of $`T_{inf}=`$4.5$`\pm `$0.2 ppm, with a center wavelength of 848 nm.(This was the cavity used for the direct measurements of Section II which gave $`T`$=4.3 ppm).

One other factor which has been ignored so far is the effect of fluctuations in the $`\lambda /4`$ layer thickness. Discussions with REO suggested that a 1% variation in thickness was reasonable, so a Gaussian-distributed variation (of standard deviation 1%) was added to the layer thicknesses of the model. For cavity calculations, identical mirrors were used for both sides of the cavity. The principal effect of this variation is to shift the center wavelength of the coating - over several realizations of random coatings, this resulted in an rms shift of the center wavelength by $`\pm 1.2`$ nm. So, the measured shift of center wavelength in the coating (from 852 nm to 847 nm) is probably due partly to a systematic offset, and partly to fluctuations. The mirror transmission is also affected: the value of the transmission is on average increased slightly, by 0.6% in the case studied, from 4.55 ppm to 4.58 ppm at the center of the coating. At the level of our current measurements this is another negligible effect, but with a more precise measurement aimed at determining $`n_H`$ and $`n_L,`$ the possibility of a systematic offset from this mechanism should be considered. Lastly, the FSR measurement is mostly effected via the change in center wavelength of the coating - the value of $`min(L_{expt(simulated)})`$ has a mean the same as without the added fluctuations, and varies by only 0.0014 mode orders rms, again negligible for our purposes.

Another useful result of these calculations is that the free spectral range of the cavity is well known, so that resonant wavelengths of the cavity can be accurately predicted. This is important for choosing a diode laser of correct center wavelength to match the mode, for applications such as cavity locking or dipole-force traps. With the idea of using a laser of $`>`$920 nm wavelength to form an intracavity dipole-force trap,kimbleICOLS  this knowledge was particularly important: our Ti:Sapphire laser tuned only as high as 890nm so cavity resonances in this wavelength range could not be measured, only predicted. With the parameters chosen above for the model, the following theoretical and experimental resonance wavelengths resulted:

| theory | 787.208nm | 818.659 | 853.255 | 890.798 | 930.683 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| experiment | 787.170nm | 818.651 | 853.255 | 890.800 | N/A |

The experimental value for the cavity resonance can then confidently be predicted to be 930.7$`\pm `$0.05nm, and a diode laser chosen accordingly.

## V Limitations to Mode Volume

In a similar calculation to the one described above, it is possible to calculate the field distribution of light inside the resonant cavity, by describing each layer separately with a left and right travelling plane wave, then matching electromagnetic boundary conditions between layers. An example of this kind of calculation is shown in Figure 3, where refractive index and field distribution (modulus of the electric-field) are plotted as a function of distance for a cavity with length $`L_{eff}=3\lambda /2`$. The coupling strength $`g_0`$ of an atom placed in the center of the cavity mode is proportional to $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{V_m}}`$, where $`V_m`$ the cavity mode volume is found by integrating the field ($`DE`$) over the standing wave and Gaussian transverse mode profile. Large coupling is achieved by making a short cavity with a small mode waist (short radius of curvature mirrors).

For a cavity of physical length $`L`$, the “leakage” of the mode into the $`\lambda /4`$ mirror stack (look at the tails of the mode in Fig. 3) that increases $`L`$ to $`L_{eff}`$ also increases the cavity mode volume. For our materials at 852nm, $`L_{eff}=L+1.633\lambda /2`$ , so for a cavity with physical distance between mirror surfaces $`L=\lambda /2`$, the cavity mode volume ends up being 2.63 times larger than might otherwise have been expected, and hence the atom-cavity coupling $`g_0`$ is 0.6 times smaller than the naive estimate based on the physical separation of the mirror surfaces.

This effect is proportionately larger as the cavity length gets shorter. In Figure 4, the expected $`g_0`$ is plotted for a cavity formed with two 20cm radius of curvature mirrors, as a function of the physical distance $`L`$ between the mirrors. The two curves show a real mirror (with $`g_0`$ reduced by leakage into the coatings) and an idealized mirror with no leakage (perfect reflectors at $`\pm L/2`$). The transverse (Gaussian waist) dimension is calculated by simple Gaussian beam propagation, which is not strictly accurate for length scales less than a few microns; however any error in this should be roughly the same for both the ideal and actual mirror cases, so the ratio of these should remain sensibly correct. The cavity is assumed resonant at an integer number of half-wavelengths of light at the 852nm Cs D2 transition; that is, each $`\lambda /2`$ is a distance of 0.426 microns.

The discrepancy between the expected and achieved coupling $`g`$ is large even for our longer cavities - 5% for a 10$`\mu `$m cavity. However, in the lab this is largely compensated by the fact that we never measure the actual physical distance $`L`$ between mirror surfaces, but instead $`L_{expt}=\lambda _1\lambda _2/2(\lambda _1\lambda _2)`$, which is close to $`L_{eff},`$ and so incorporates the same offset of mirror penetration that determines $`g_0`$. This method of length measurement breaks down eventually due to the dispersion of the mirror coatings: Eventually if $`\lambda _1`$ is at the center of the coating, $`\lambda _2`$ will be so far separated in wavelength that it reaches the edges of the mirror coating stopband, and the observed round-trip phase has then more to do with the structure of the dielectric coatings than it does with the vacuum gap between the surfaces of the cavity mirrors. That is to say, our measured $`L_{expt}`$ becomes increasingly different from $`L_{eff}`$ and introduces an offset in estimating the mode volume as the cavity length approaches the scale of the wavelength.

At $`L=20\lambda /2`$ physical length (the regime of our present cavities) the difference between the coupling coefficient $`g_0`$ inferred from $`L_{expt}`$ and that found by integrating $`DE`$ over the mode volume is $`<`$0.1%. At $`L=10\lambda /2`$ (4.26$`\mu `$m) it would be a 1% error, at $`5\lambda /2`$ an 8% error. Note however that knowledge of these offsets means that when calculating $`g_0`$ from $`L_{expt}`$ we can compensate for this effect. Measurements of $`L_{expt}`$ for cavities any shorter than $`5\lambda /2`$ would be impossible since $`\lambda _2`$ has reached the edge of the mirror stopband. To align shorter cavities a new method for length measurement will need to be developed, such as measuring the frequency spacing of transverse modes.

We are now in a position to estimate parameters for the best Fabry-Perot cavity that will be experimentally feasible in the near future using this type of mirrors. First consider a $`L=\lambda /2`$ cavity with 20cm radius of curvature mirrors. If the mirror transmission and losses were each reduced to $`T=l=`$0.5ppm to yield a cavity finesse of $`=3.14\times 10^6`$ , then this cavity has parameters $`(g_0,\kappa ,\gamma _{})/2\pi =(647,56,2.6)`$MHz, which gives critical photon number $`n_0=\gamma _{}^2/2g_0^2=8.1\times 10^6`$ and critical atom number $`N_0=2\kappa \gamma _{}/g_0^2=7.0\times 10^4.`$ To make a cavity of this length the 20cm mirrors would have to be reduced to a diameter of 0.5mm rather than 1mm. At this size there would still be a 0.11$`\mu `$m gap between the mirror edges for the $`L=\lambda /2`$ (0.426 micron) cavity length, which should make it possible to still get atoms into and out of the cavity (as in Ref. HMabuchi96 ; Hood98 ; HMJY99 ; Ye99 ; Yeprl99 ; Hood2000 ), and to align the mirrors.

If the mirror diameter could be reduced to 350$`\mu `$m (without adversely affecting the cavity losses), then 10cm radius of curvature mirrors could be used, with a 0.12$`\mu `$m gap at the edges. Due to the tighter radius of curvature, $`g_0/2\pi `$ would be increased to 770MHz in this case. Now speculating that “dream” mirrors of $`T=`$0.2ppm transmission, $`l=`$0.2ppm loss might be possible $`(=7.85\times 10^6)`$, we could aim for the ultimate goal of $`(g_0,\kappa ,\gamma _{})/2\pi =(770,22,2.6)`$ MHz, in which case $`n_0=5.7\times 10^6`$ photons, and $`N_0=1.9\times 10^4`$ atoms.

In conclusion, we have presented two measurement approaches, one based upon direct loss and the other on cavity dispersion, that produce the same quantitative determination of the mirror coating properties. The dispersion measurement is more informative, as it has the potential to determine the complete characteristics of a mirror. A model has been derived to link the mirror properties to the physical parameters of coating layers. Issues relevant to optical cavity QED, such as the cavity field mode structure, have been discussed.

First and foremost, we thank Research Electro-Optics, Inc. for providing the best quality mirrors and coatings that have made our work possible. In particular, the critical and ongoing contributions of R. Lalezari and J. Sandburg to our reserach program in cavity QED are gratefully acknowledged. Our Caltech colleagues David Vernooy and Theresa Lynn made important contributions to the work presented here. Funding has been provided in part by DARPA through the QUIC (Quantum Information and Computing) program administered by the US Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.