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# The Instanton/Sphaleron Mechanism of Prompt Gluon Production in High Energy Heavy Ion Collisions at RHIC

From Edward.Shuryak@cern.ch Mon Jun 25 04:20:43 2001 Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 10:18:02 +0200 (MET DST) From: Edward Shuryak ¡Edward.Shuryak@cern.ch¿

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## Abstract

We argue that if the growing part of hadron-hadron cross section (described phenomenologically by the supercritical soft Pomeron) is due to instanton/sphaleron mechanism, one should find certain qualitative features of the produced cluster which differ from the usual string fragmentation. Furthermore, we suggest that this mechanism should be even more important for heavy ion collisions in the RHIC energy domain. Large number of parton-parton collisions should result in hundreds of produced sphaleron-like gluomagnetic clusters per unit rapidity. Unlike perturbative gluons (or mini-jets), these classically unstable objects promptly decay into several gluons and quarks in mini-explosions, leading to very rapid entropy generation. This may help to explain why the QGP seem to be produced at RHIC so early. We further argue that this mechanism cannot be important at higher energies (LHC), where perturbative description should apply.

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1.At high energies $`s>10^3GeV^2`$ hadronic cross sections ($`\overline{p}p,pp,\pi p,Kp`$, $`\gamma N`$ and even $`\gamma \gamma `$) slowly grow with the collision energy s. This behavior can be parameterised by a Regge pole, the so called soft Pomeron (see e.g. ). In this Letter we will not address very high s and therefore use only the logarithmic fit

$`\sigma _{hh^{}}(s)=\sigma _{hh^{}}(s_0)+log(s/s_0)X_{hh^{}}\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{}`$ (1)
ignoring both the question of whether it is indeed a Regge pole, as well as other Reggions leading to contribution decreasing with energy. For estimates below we use parameters from the latest Particle Data Group fits , which give the “Pomeron intercept” and a constant equal to $`pp,\overline{p}p`$ collisions, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\alpha (0)1=0.093(2),X_{NN}=18.951(27)mb.`$

A qualitative difference between constant and logarithmically growing parts of the cross section will be emphasised. The former can be explained by prompt color $`exchanges`$, as suggested by Low and Nussinov  long ago. The $`growing`$ part of the cross section cannot be generated by t-channel vector exchanges and is associated with prompt (prior to formation of strings) production of some objects, with log(s) coming from longitudinal phase space. Perturbative QCD describes gluon production, by processes like the one shown in Fig.1(a), which can be iterated in the t-channel in ladder-type fashion resulting in a BFKL pole . Although its intercept is much larger than $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mentioned, it is consistent with much stronger growth seen in hard processes at HERA: thus it is often called a “hard pomeron”.

The physical origin of growing cross section remains an outstanding open problem: neither the perturbative resummations nor existing non-perturbative models are really quantitative. It is hardly surprising, since the scale at which soft Pomeron operates (as seen e.g. from the Pomeron slope $`\alpha ^{}(0)1/(2GeV)^2`$) is the semi-hard or “substructure scale” $`Q^2\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}2GeV^2`$, which is notoriously difficult for theorists because it is simultaneously the lower boundary of pQCD (serving therefore as the cut-off $`p_{min}`$ already mentioned), as well as the upper boundary of low energy effective approaches like chiral Lagrangians or Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. At the same time, a number of objects/phenomena are naturally ascribed to this scale: “constituent quarks”, flux tubes (or QCD strings) and their junctions, to name a few. We do not have a quantitative description of flux tubes (other than lattice QCD), but constituent quarks and related issues can be well understood in an instanton liquid model, see review . Its primary parameters are the number density of instantons (plus anti-instantons) and their average size, determined long ago , from QCD phenomenology to be $`n1`$ fm-4 and small average size of $`\overline{\rho }1/3`$ fm leading to vacuum diluteness $`n\rho ^410^2`$. Amazingly, with those two numbers one can get truly quantitative description of correlators, form-factors and other hadronic parameters111For recent example see  where vector and axial correlators obtained from the $`\tau `$ decays are explained literally within their error bars, or withing few percent accuracy..

Application of the instanton-induced dynamics to high energy hadronic collisions have been suggested recently . One important precursor has been the Kharzeev-Levin work  in which contribution to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of scalar colorless states – the sigma meson and the scalar glueball – has been non-perturbatively evaluated. Two last works in  have benefited from deep insights obtained a decade ago in studies of instanton-induced processes in electroweak theory, see  and references therein. In these works the growing part of the hh cross sections is due to prompt multi-gluon production via instantons, or more accurately, via $`colored`$ gluonic clusters called sphalerons, see Fig.1(b).

Among qualitative features of this theory is the explanation of why no odderon appears (instantons are SU(2) objects, in which quarks and antiquarks are not really distinct), an explanation of the small power $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (it is proportional to “instanton diluteness parameter” $`n\rho ^4`$ mentioned above), the small size of the soft Pomeron (governed simply by small size of instantons mentioned above, $`\rho 1/3fm`$). Although instanton-induced amplitudes are proportional to small “diluteness” factor, there is no extra penalty for production of new gluons: thus one should expect instanton effects to beat perturbative amplitudes of sufficiently high order. This generic idea is also behind the present work, dealing with prompt multi-gluon production.

Technical description of the process is split into two stages. The first (at which one evaluates the cross section) is the motion under the barrier, described by Euclidean paths approximated by instantons. Their interaction with the high energy colliding partons results in some energy deposition and subsequent real motion above the barrier. At this second stage the action is real, and the factor $`|exp(iS)|=1`$, so it does not affect the cross section and is need only to detail the final state. The relevant Minkowski paths start with configurations close to QCD analogs of electroweak sphalerons , static spherically-symmetric clusters of gluomagnetic field222 Those can be obtained from known electroweak solutions in the limit of infinitely large Higgs self-coupling.. Their mass in QCD is also determined by the isnatnton size

$`M_{sph}{\displaystyle \frac{30}{g^2(\rho )\rho }}2.5GeV`$ (2)
Since those field configurations are close to classically unstable saddle point at the top of the barrier, they roll downhill and develop gluoelectric fields. When both become weak enough, solution can be decomposed into perturbative gluons. This part of the process can also be studied directly from classical Yang-Mills equation: for electroweak sphalerons it has been done in Refs, calculation for its QCD version is in progress . While rolling, the configurations tend to forget the initial imperfections (such as a non-spherical shapes) since there is only one basic instability path downward: so the resulting fields should be nearly perfect spherical expanding shells. Electroweak sphalerons decay into approximately 51 W,Z,H quanta, of which only about 10% are Higgses, which carry only 4% of energy. Ignoring those, one can make crude tentative estimate of mean gluon multiplicity per sphaleron decay, by simple re-scaling of the coupling constants

$`<N_g><N_{W,Z}>{\displaystyle \frac{g_{electroweak}^2}{g_{QCD}(\rho )^2}}34`$ (3)
The spectrum (also derived from a solution ) has a wide maximum and can roughly be approximated by thermal one, with a temperature of about $`T_0300MeV`$, see .

2.The first points we would like to make in this Letter are some suggestions of how one can experimentally test this scenario, by some qualitative effects.

Note that the fate of the produced sphalerons is different in hh and AA collisions: in the former case they decay in the confining vacuum, in the latter into a deconfined media (see below). Some fraction of produced clusters have net zero color and can directly form glueballs, with $`J^P=0^+,0^{}`$ 333But not a channel with e.g. $`2^+`$ quantum numbers, which does not classically couple to instantons .. The scalar isoscalar channel has been considered first in : however, it can only account for a fraction444In terms of pomeron intersept, it is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0^+}0.05`$ for scalar glueball and sigma together  , while (including shadowing) the experimental total is $`0.16`$ . of prompt production. Most of the promptly produced gluon clusters have non-zero net color, and the thus have to be connected by color flux tubes to other partons.

This clearly makes their direct observation difficult, but not hopeless: we briefly describe two particular ideas of how it can be done. The scalar glueball candidate $`f_0(1700)`$ decay into $`\eta \eta ,\overline{K}K`$ and only a little bit into $`\pi \pi `$. We do not yet have experimental pseudo-scalar glueball candidate, while lattice predicts it to be right at the mass of the sphaleron (2). However, as noticed by Bjorken , the $`\eta _c`$ decay has three distinct 3-meson modes, $`KK\pi ,\eta \pi \pi ,\eta ^{}\pi \pi `$, with about 0.05 branching each: those fit well to the idea that they come directly from the ’t Hooft instanton-induced Lagrangian $`\overline{u}u\overline{d}d\overline{s}s`$. Presumably the instanton-induced decays modes of the $`0^{}`$ glueball should prefer the same 3 channels.

One may speculate further, and suggest that scalar (pseudo-scalar) projections of the sphaleron may still follow the same scalar (pseudo-scalar) glueball decay pattern, even while the total color is non-zero. The pattern of enhanced production of $`\eta ^{},\eta ,K`$ via strange part of ’t Hooft Lagrangian leads to a specific frature of the final state. Indeed, when $`\eta ^{},\eta ,K_S`$ decay into 5,3,2 pions, respectively, all of them are produced much later than the average pion production time. They are different from others in one important aspect: they do not participate in Bose-Einstein (or HBT) correlations. Its strength is traditionally expressed in terms of the so called $`\lambda _{HBT}=(1f)^2`$, where $`f`$ is the fraction of pions coming from long-lived555Defined relative to $`\mathrm{}/\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ is the energy resolution of the detector. sources. In minimal bias pp, or heavy ion collisions with $`any`$ multiplicity, or in the $`e^+e^{}`$ reactions the usual value $`\lambda _{HBT}0.5`$. However for high multiplicity $`\overline{p}p`$ collisions experiments show that the intensity of the correlations decreases substantially, to only $`\lambda _{HBT}0.2`$. As far as we know, this effect has not been explaned: see discussion of data and proposed suggestions in . Although clearly much more studies are needed, it may indicate that promptly produced hadrons have an origin other than the usual string fragmentation.

Another possible approach is based on the (so far ignored) topological properties of instantons/sphalerons. Roughly speaking, each sphaleron has an option to roll down in two directions, selecting two possible orientations of its gluoelectric field relative to gluomagnetic one. Parity is of course conserved in QCD: but on the $`eventbyevent`$ basis large fluctuations may appear in P- and CP-odd kinematical observables specified in .

3.We now turn to heavy ion collisions. Recent experiments at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, taken during its first run in summer 2000 and reported recently at Quark Matter 2001 conference , have shown that heavy ions collisions (AA) at highest energies significantly differ $`both`$ from the hh collisions and the AA collisions at lower (SPS/AGS) energies. Many features of these data are quite consistent with the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) (or Little Bang) scenario , in which entropy is produced promptly and subsequent expansion is close to adiabatic expansion of equilibrated hot medium.

Already the very first multiplicity measurements reported by PHOBOS collaboration  have shown that particle production per participant nucleon is no longer constant, as was the case at lower (SPS/AGS) energies, but grows more rapidly. This behaviour may be due to long-anticipated pQCD processes, leading to perturbative production of new partons. Unlike high $`p_t`$ processes, those are (directly undetectable) “mini-jets”. Their production and decay was discussed in Refs , and also used in widely used event generator HIJING . Its crucial parameter is the cutoff scale $`p_{min}=1.52GeV`$: if fitted from pp data to be, it leads to predicted mini-jet multiplicity $`dN_g/dy200`$ for central AuAu collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=130AGeV`$. If those fragment independently into hadrons, and are supplemented by “soft” string-decay component, the predicted total multiplicity was found to be in good agreement with the first RHIC multiplicity data. Because partons interact perturbatively, with their scattering and radiation being strongly peaked at small angles, their equilibration is expected to be relatively long .

However, next set of RHIC data reported in  have provided serious arguments against the mini-jet scenario, and point toward quite rapid entropy production rate and early QGP formation.

(i) If most of secondaries come from independent mini-jets fragmentation, there would be no collective phenomena such as transverse flow related with the QGP pressure. However, such effects are very strong at RHIC. In particular, STAR collaboration have observed very robust elliptic flow , which is in perfect agreement with predictions of hydrodynamical model  assuming equilibrated QGP with its full pressure $`pϵ/3`$ above the QCD phase transition. This agreement persists to rather peripheral collisions, in which the overlap almond-shaped region of two nuclei is only a couple fm thick. STAR and PHENIX data on spectra of identified particles, especially $`p,\overline{p}`$, indicate spectacular radial expansion, also in agreement with hydro calculations .

(ii) Spectra of hadrons at large $`p_t`$, especially the $`\pi ^0`$ spectra from PHENIX, agree well with HIJING for peripheral collisions, but show much smaller yields for central ones, with rather different spectra both in shape and composition. Moreover, those agree weel with hydro predictions which had been established at low $`p_t`$ previously. It means that not only long-anticipated “jet quenching” is observed, it seems to be as large as it can possibly be666 Jets originating from the surface outward is very difficult to quench, and thus the suppression factor of about $`1/10`$ is difficult to decrease further, whatever happens in dense matter. Counting from expected Cronin effect (which in pA collisions is about factor 2 at $`p_t`$ in question), the observed suppression is not far from such number.. For that to happen, the outgoing high-$`p_t`$ jets should propagate through matter with parton population much larger than the abovementioned minijet density predicted by pQCD (HIJING).

(iii) Curious interplay between collective and jet effects have also been studied by STAR collaboration, in form of elliptic asymmetry parameter $`v_2(p_t)`$. At large transverse momenta $`p_t>2GeV`$ the data behave according to predictions of jet quenching model , indicating gluon multiplicity several times larger than HIJING prediction. Moreover, the result is in fact consistent with the $`maximal`$ possible value evaluated from the final entropy at freeze-out, $`(dN/dy)_\pi 1000`$.

In this Letter we propose a non-perturbative solution to this puzzle. But before we come to it, let us also mention its alternative: significantly lower cutoff scale in excited matter, as compared to $`p_{min}=1.52GeV`$ fitted from the pp data. It may lead to larger perturbative cross sections, both due to smaller momenta transfer and larger coupling constant. As argued over the years (see e.g. one of the talks ), the QGP is a new phase of QCD which is qualitatively different from the QCD vacuum: therefore the cut-offs of pQCD may have entirely different values and be determined by different phenomena. Furthermore, since QGP is a plasma-like phase which screens itself perturbatively , one may think of a cut-offs to be determined self-consistently from resummation of perturbative effects. These ideas known as self-screening or QGP saturation were discussed in Refs. . Although the scale in question grows with temperature or density, just above $`T_c`$ it may actually be smaller than the value 1.5-2 GeV observed in vacuum. Its direct experimental manifestation may be deformation of dilepton spectra, whcih can be well described by decreasing “duality scale” .

4.In order to specify the magnitude of new production mechanism one can study dependence on the impact parameter $`b`$. This dependence of the pseudo-rapidity density at mid-rapidity, measured at RHIC  can be very accurately described by simple parameterization

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dn_{AuAu}(\eta =0,b)/d\eta }{dn_{NN}(\eta =0)/d\eta }}={\displaystyle \frac{(1x)}{2}}N_{part}(b)+xN_{coll}(b)`$ (4)
where the average number of participants $`N_{part}(b)`$ and NN collisions $`N_{coll}(b)`$ are calculated in standard Glauber model.

The key is new (b-independent) parameter $`x(s)`$, defining which fraction of NN collisions scales differently in AA. We propose to identify $`x(s)`$ with the growing part of the NN cross section discussed above, namely

$`x(s)=\mathrm{\Delta }{\displaystyle \frac{X_{NN}}{\sigma _{hh^{}}(s_0)}}log(s/s_0)`$ (5)
Note that two phenomenological values fitted at two RHIC energies $`x(\sqrt{s}=56Gev)=0.05\pm 0.03,x(\sqrt{s}=130Gev)=0.09\pm 0.03`$  are both well reproduced if one selects the threshold value at $`s_0=1000GeV^2`$, the position of the NN cross section $`minimum`$. Furthermore, because this $`s_0`$ is above the highest SPS energy, it explains why this component has not been seen before. This identification is due to the picture of prompt production of some objects – minijets or sphalerons – in partonic collisions 777 The $`const(s)`$ part of the cross section, which is associated with color exchanges, should scale as the number of participants because, no matter how many exchanges took place, each outgoing parton pulls out only one color flux tube per quark (or 2 per gluon)..

Partons which participate in such interaction should be appropriately normalized at the scale $`\mu ^212GeV^2`$. Constituent quark models of 60’s would count only them, so $`N_p^{baryons}=3`$. Using parton densities derived from structure functions one finds that (at scale under discussion) sea can be neglected, but gluons do not. With significant uncertainties, for RHIC energy one can integrate structure functions for $`x>0.01`$ and get roughly additional 3 gluons, leading to $`N_p^N6`$ 888Detailed evaluation of semi-hard partonic cross sections from (i) the growing part of all hadron-hadron scattering cross sections, (ii) elastic amplitudes and (iii) p,$`\pi ,\gamma `$ structure functions will be reported elsewhere ..

The inelastic hh’ cross section can be schematically written in a simple multiplicative form

$`\sigma _{hh}=N_p^hN_p^h^{}(\sigma _{pp}^0+\sigma _{pp}^1logs+O(log^2(s))`$ (6)
For simplicity of presentation, we ignore the difference between $`qq,\overline{q}q,qg,gg`$ cases, as well as possible dependence on quark flavor. Here $`N_p^h`$ is the number of partons per hadron and $`\sigma _{pp}^0,\sigma _{pp}^1`$ are the parton-parton cross sections, without and with prompt production. In what follows we ignore the former and only concentrate on the latter part, normalizing it to the observed soft Pomeron growth $`\sigma _{pp}^1=X_{NN}/(N_p^N)^2`$. Bypassing dynamical calculations , we then estimate the probability of the sphaleron production directly from data, by assuming it to be the dominant process behind the logarithmic growth of the cross section.

It means that in mean parton-parton collision, the cross section per rapidity of prompt production999Note a surprisingly small, factor 1/100, compared to geometric cross section $`\pi \rho ^2`$. In instanton-based theory it originates directly from the first power  of instanton diluteness of such magnitude.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{prompt}}{dy}}={\displaystyle \frac{X_{NN}\mathrm{\Delta }}{(N_p^N)^2}}0.005fm^2,`$ (7)
Now we evaluate the total number of parton-parton collisions in $`central`$ AA collision. Unlike the total cross section, it is not just a multiplicative expression: nuclear geometry leads to

$`N_{ppcollisions}(AA)(AN_p^N)^{4/3}10^4`$ (8)
where in numerical estimate we have used $`A=200`$. Assuming simple factorization of the cross sections101010 Note that we are still very far from unitarity constraints. Inside the tube with instanton radius $`\pi \rho ^2`$ we find about .67 partons in a nucleon and 3.6 in Au: so even factorized cross section lead to interaction probablity of only 1/200 and 1/10 respectively, much less than 1. It does not mean however that factorization is accurate: we use it only as an estimate. For instanton processes presence of extra partons lead to extra factors – Wilson lines – in the amplitude, but averaging over instanton collective variables (such as color orientations) may upset factorization. This question deserves quantitative study. Note also, that partons found at the same position in transverse plane most likely come from different nucleons, so position and color correlations between them are likely to be small: so no assumptions about wave functions are probably needed here. . Combining these two simple ingredients we now estimate the total density of “promptly-produced objects” (mini-jet pairs or sphalerons) in AA collisions per unit rapidity

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{prompt}}{dy}}=({\displaystyle \frac{X_{NN}\mathrm{\Delta }}{\pi \rho ^2}}){\displaystyle \frac{A^{4/3}}{(N_p^N)^{2/3}}}200`$ (9)
Presumably one can still treat these objects as produced independently, since the number of available cells in the transverse plane $`N_{cells}=(R/\rho )^2400`$ is still larger than this $`maximal`$ sphaleron number.

The number of “promptly produced objects” estimated above is rather close to mini jet-production111111As should be expected, since minijet models fit the pp cross section as well. calculated with HIJING . Furthermore, multiplying it by the transverse energy (2/3)$`m_{sph}`$, we find that our prompt production should result in roughly $`dE_t/dy400GeV`$ of transverse energy, again comparable to HIJING predictions. So a critical reader may ask whether actually anything has been gained, by substituting one hypothetical mechanisms of prompt production – the mini-jet scenario – by another one, based on instantons/sphalerons. Indeed, provided both are similarly normalized to growing part of the pp collisions and then scaled to AA case, we get about the same number of semi-hard events and the sama excitation energy.

Our first (theoretical) answer is that the suggested scenario suggests an explanation to the semi-hard scale involved, derived from the well known vacuum instanton parameters, while in pQCD the cutoff should be just guessed or fitted. Furthermore, it implies detailed microscopic knowledge of the specific gluon field configuration involved, not just estimate of a number of gluons produced.

The second (pragmatic) answer is that these two scenarios differ significantly in the amount of the entropy produced. The minijets are just plane waves: they are classically stable and weakly interacting. The sphalerons are unstable, a kind of resonances existing already at classical level. They explode into spherical expanding shells of strong field, which rapidly sweep the whole volume and may convert it into Quark-Gluon Plasma, in which the charge is screened rather than confined . The “initial temperature” of gluons produced from sphaleron decay $`T300Mev`$ indicated above is definitely above the critical value. Most important, the produced entropy is several times larger than for minjets, as recent RHIC data seem to indicate.

In heavy ion collisions at RHIC the QGP is supposed to exist at RHIC for several fm/c, much longer than the sphaleron lifetime $`\tau _{sph}1/\rho `$. If so, partons produced do not hadronize immediately (as for hh collisions) but decay into 3-4 gluons, plus 0-6 quarks121212 Although in QGP there are no quark condensates and one may think that all 6 ’t Hooft $`\overline{u}u\overline{d}d\overline{s}s`$ are produced, it is not nacessarily so since they could still be from the initial vacuum. Evaluation of probablities for each quark multiplicity we hope to report elsewhere. and start real equilibration.

Phenomenologically, comparing $`dN_{sphalerons}/dy200`$ sphalerons to $`dN_{gluons}/dy1000`$ one sees that about 5 partons/sphaleron would produce the right amount of entropy. that about 5 partons/sphaleron would do the job, which is concievable. In order to test the conjectured mechanism experimentally, one may try to infer gluon/quark ratio at early time from dilepton production. Another possibility is to look at event-by-event fluctuations following from clustering at the production stage.

5.Finally, let us briefly discuss what we predict should happen at much higher collision energy, e.g. at CERN LHC? At what partonic scale the main processes will be stabilized? A plausible answer suggested in Ref.  is that high parton density will generate its own $`saturation`$ scale, estimated for LHC to be about $`\mu ^210GeV^2`$.

If so, the instanton/sphaleron mechanism described above can no longer be important. The reason for that is extremely sharp dependence of the instanton effects on the scale involved, originating in semiclassical action $`exp(S)(\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}/\mu )^{(11/3)N_c(2/3)N_f}`$. Therefore, if going from RHIC to LHC we change $`\mu `$ by factor 3, the sphaleron production is expected to drop by 3-4 orders of magnitude, becoming much less than its pQCD background.

Acknowledgments. It is a pleasure to thank G.Carter,D.Kharzeev,L.McLerran, M Gyulassy and especially I.Zahed for valuable discussions and critical remarks. I am also indepted to J. D. Bjorken, who explained to me his intriquing observation about $`\eta _c`$ decay, and to B. Buschbeck for relevant literature on clustering in pp collisions. This work was supported in parts by the US-DOE grant DE-FG-88ER40388.


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# Superconductivity-induced changes of the phonon resonances in 𝑅𝐁𝐚_𝟐𝐂𝐮_𝟑𝐎_𝟕 (𝑅 = rare earth)

## I introduction

Several superconductivity-induced changes of parameters describing the phonons in the cuprate superconductors can be determined by Raman spectroscopy. Frequency and linewidth anomalies like hardening and broadening have been the subject of several experimental and theoretical studies. While the superconductivity-induced phonon self-energy effects allow conclusions regarding the order parameter only for energies similar to the phonon energies (up to 100 meV), high-energy ($`>`$1 eV) questions cannot be addressed this way. Resonant Raman scattering is an experimental technique which allows one to examine the physics at high energy through the resonances of phonons. In contrast to reflectivity or transmission spectroscopy the affected phonons provide direct information on incorporated electronic bands as the assignments of the phonon modes in the spectra to the vibrating atoms is well known through group theoretical calculations and isotope substitution experiments. Thus, the dependence of the phonon intensities on temperature and excitation energy can provide information about the scattering mechanism and especially about the superconducting state.

In contrast to the usually observed increase of the intensity below the critical temperature $`T_c`$ we observe a drop of intensity in several modes when exciting with photons of energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _i<2.1`$ eV. In the same region of excitation energy the apical oxygen mode at 500 cm-1 shows a violation of the symmetry selection rule which cannot be explained in terms of an orthorhombic distortion. Summarizing our data we conclude that the origin of the intensity anomaly is related to a modification of the Cu-O charge transfer mechanism in the superconducting state in comparison to the normal state.

## II experimental details

Subject of this paper are Yb-123, Er-123, Sm-123 and Nd-123 single crystals, with $`T_c=`$ 76 K, 81 K, 94 K, and 90 K, respectively. All measured single crystals were grown with a self-flux method and annealed with oxygen under high pressure. Due to the high oxygen content and the different radii of the rare earth atoms Yb-123 and Er-123 are overdoped whereas Sm-123 and Nd-123 are nearly optimally doped. The laser beam is focused onto the sample along the c-direction. The orthorhombic symmetry of the $`R`$-123 system can be treated as tetragonal. Accordingly, the Raman active phonons are of $`\mathrm{A}_{1\mathrm{g}}`$ and $`\mathrm{B}_{1\mathrm{g}}`$ symmetry, which are allowed for $`\mathrm{z}(\mathrm{xx})\overline{\mathrm{z}}`$/$`\mathrm{z}(\mathrm{x}^{}\mathrm{x}^{})\overline{\mathrm{z}}`$ and $`\mathrm{z}(\mathrm{xx})\overline{\mathrm{z}}`$/$`\mathrm{z}(\mathrm{x}^{}\mathrm{y}^{})\overline{\mathrm{z}}`$ polarizations in the Porto notation, respectively. All polarizations are specified with respect to the axes along the Cu-O bonds of the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ planes, primed polarizations are rotated by $`45^\mathrm{o}`$. For simplicity z and $`\overline{\mathrm{z}}`$ are omitted in the following. The measurements were performed using several lines of Ar+, He-Ne and Ti:Saphir lasers in quasi-backscattering geometry. The details of the setup are described elsewhere. In order to achieve a high accuracy of intensity measurements the laser power was monitored during the measurements. All spectra were corrected for the response of the detector and the optical system. Also, they are normalized to the incident photon rate.

For a comparison of intensities obtained with different excitation energies the cross-section is calculated from the efficiencies using ellipsometric data of Yb-123. The complex dielectric function of Bi-2212 shows only a slight variation with temperature at our excitation energies between 1.68 eV and 2.71 eV and the resulting reflectivity exhibits maximal variations below 1%. As the reflectivity of the $`R`$-123 system behaves similar, Raman spectra of all temperatures can be evaluated with the ellipsometric data obtained at room-temperature. In Fig. 1 the complex dielectric function of Yb-123 at room-temperature is given. From the real part $`\epsilon _1`$ of the dielectric function we can estimate a screened plasma frequency $`\omega _p`$ of 1.44 eV.

The low-temperature background intensity of the cross-section at $`\omega 700\mathrm{cm}^1`$ is plotted versus the excitation energy for the x’x’ and x’y’ polarization geometry in the inset of Fig. 1 in the top and bottom panel, respectively. Within experimental error no significant resonance of the cross-section can be determined. The scattering of the data points results from uncertainties in the adjustment of the setup. Thus, the measured phonon intensities will scatter in a similar way. To obtain the integrated phonon intensities we fitted the spectra to the model presented in a previous paper. An extended Fano profile is described by

$`I(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{C}{\gamma (\omega )\left[1+ϵ^2(\omega )\right]}}\times `$ (2)
$`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{R_{}^2(\omega )}{C^2}}2ϵ(\omega ){\displaystyle \frac{R_{}(\omega )\varrho _{}(\omega )}{C^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\varrho _{}^2(\omega )}{C^2}}\right\}`$
with the substitutions $`\varrho _{}(\omega )=Cg_\sigma ^2\varrho _\sigma ^e(\omega )`$, $`R_{}(\omega )=Cg_\sigma ^2R_\sigma ^e(\omega )+R_0`$, $`ϵ(\omega )=\left[\omega ^2\omega _\nu ^2(\omega )\right]/2\omega _p\gamma (\omega )`$, $`\gamma (\omega )=\mathrm{\Gamma }+\varrho _{}(\omega )/C`$, and $`\omega _\nu ^2(\omega )=\omega _p^22\omega _pR_{}(\omega )/C`$. Here, $`\varrho _\sigma ^e(\omega )`$ and $`R_\sigma ^e(\omega )`$ are the imaginary and real part of the electronic response function, respectively, and $`g_\sigma `$ is the lowest-order expansion coefficient of the electron-phonon vertex. The bare frequency and linewidth of the phonon are $`\omega _p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, respectively. The constant $`C`$ is a scaling parameter due to the use of arbitrary units in the spectra.

We use this extended Fano profile for the asymmetric phonon modes and Lorentzian profiles for the remaining phonons. As described in Ref. , the measured electronic response $`\varrho _{}(\omega )`$ is described via a phenomenological formula which contains a $`\mathrm{tanh}(\omega /\omega _T)`$ term for the incoherent background and two coupled Lorentzian profiles for the redistribution of the spectra below $`T_c`$ — one for the pair breaking peak and a negative one for the suppression of spectral weight at low Raman shifts. This formula allows a simultaneous description of $`R_{}(\omega )`$.

## III results

In the top panels of Fig. 2 we present spectra of Yb-123 obtained at 15 K nominal temperature in x’x’ ($`\mathrm{A}_{1\mathrm{g}}+\mathrm{B}_{2\mathrm{g}}`$) and in x’y’ ($`\mathrm{B}_{1\mathrm{g}}`$) geometry with excitation energies of 2.71 eV and 1.96 eV. The original spectra have been scaled to equal background intensity for clarity. Exciting with 2.71 eV all phonons show up mainly in the spectra of the expected polarization geometry. For the x’x’ geometry we have the Ba mode at 120 cm-1, Cu(2) at 150 cm-1, O(2)+O(3) at 440 cm-1, and O(4) at 500 cm-1. For the x’y’ geometry the O(2)-O(3) mode appears at 340 cm-1. In contrast, exciting with 1.96 eV the O(4) mode has nearly vanished in x’x’ geometry but only slightly changed in x’y’ symmetry. Nearly the same behavior is observed for the resonance of the intensity of the O(4) mode in Er-123, Sm-123, and Nd-123. Orthorhombic distortion, which is usually mentioned as the cause for phonon intensity in forbidden symmetries, cannot explain this behavior. Though resonance effects can disturb symmetry selection rules in principle, the symmetry violation should appear under resonance conditions but not out of resonance.

Subtracting the phononic contribution we get the electronic background of Yb-123, which is plotted in the lower panels of Fig. 2. The x’x’ spectra are nearly identical for both excitation energies and even the x’y’ spectra are quite similar. The $`\mathrm{B}_{1\mathrm{g}}`$ pair breaking peak lies at a relatively low energy of $`320\mathrm{cm}^1`$ due to the high doping level of $`p0.2`$, which is determined from $`T_c/T_{c,\mathrm{max}}`$ (see Ref. ). There is no enhancement of the gap excitation from 1.96 eV to 2.71 eV. This is consistent with the behavior observed for Bi-2212 which shows non-resonant gap excitations for doping levels up to approximately 0.2 and a gap resonance only for higher doping levels as reported in Ref. .

Figure 3 depicts the results of a detailed study of the integrated O(4) mode intensity. For temperatures above $`T_c`$ the x’x’ intensity increases when the temperature is lowered for excitation energies of 1.96 eV, 2.41 eV, and 2.71 eV. This increase is hardly influenced by the phase transition below $`T_c`$ for 2.41 eV and 2.71 eV in contrast to 1.96 eV where the intensity suddenly drops. The comparatively high values for intensities of the 2.71 eV data in the range of 100 K to 200 K are due to the scattering mentioned in the introduction. Here it results from a slight shift of the laser spot with respect to the entrance slit of the spectrometer. On the other hand the x’y’ intensity shows the same behavior for all measured excitation energies: a slight increase with decreasing temperature not or only slightly affected by $`T_c`$. For temperatures above $`T_c`$ the relation for the x’x’ intensities $`I_{2.71}`$:$`I_{2.41}`$:$`I_{1.96}`$ is approximately 5.0:3.1:1.0 as indicated by the solid lines in the left panel of Fig. 3. The superconductivity-induced drop of the x’x’ intensity at low excitation energies leads to a superconductivity-induced enhancement of the resonance profile of the x’x’ O(4) mode intensity.

Figure 4 yields the excitation energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c=2.1\pm 0.1\mathrm{cm}^1`$ where the O(4) mode exhibits equal intensity in x’x’ and x’y’ geometries. This is also the energy of the crossover between the superconductivity-induced increase and decrease of the x’x’ intensity shown in Fig. 3, i. e. 2.0-2.4 eV. While the measurements have been carried out in this detail for Yb-123 only, spectra of Er-123, Sm-123, and Nd-123 at low temperature exhibit a similar behavior as shown in the inset of Fig. 4. There the ratio of the x’x’ and x’y’ O(4) mode intensity is plotted against the excitation energy. It exhibits no significant doping dependence. The O(2)-O(3) mode displays a similar behavior in the x’y’ as the O(4) mode in the x’x’ symmetry. In Fig. 5 the temperature dependence of its intensity is plotted for excitation energies $`\mathrm{}\omega _i=`$ 1.68 eV, 1.96 eV, 2.41 eV, and 2.71 eV. Above $`T_c`$ the intensity is only slightly affected by the temperature, below $`T_c`$ the intensity drops only for excitation energies below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$.

The intensity of the Cu(2) mode shows a strong increase with decreasing temperature above $`T_c`$ but also a slight drop below $`T_c`$. The intensity at low temperatures is approximately 70%–80% of the highest value at $`T_c`$. While this ratio is independent of excitation energy and polarization geometry the resonance energy itself depends on the polarization geometry as shown in Fig. 6. Gaussian profiles guide the eye and help to determine the resonance energy of the Cu(2) mode intensity, which is about 2.1 eV for x’x’ and well below 2.0 eV for x’y’ symmetry. The Ba mode which is not shown here exhibits a slight intensity gain below $`T_c`$, which seems to be unaffected by $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. The x’x’ intensity is resonant at 2.6 eV or even higher energy, the x’y’ intensity follows this profile with about 30% of the intensity in x’x’ geometry.

## IV discussion and conclusions

Summarizing our data we find a characteristic energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c2.1\mathrm{eV}`$ which separates the regions of red and blue excitations. It is very similar to the crossing point at 2.2 eV observed in the imaginary part of the dielectric function of Bi-2212. For red excitation the $`R`$-123 system exhibits a superconductivity-induced drop of the intensity of the O(4) mode in x’x’ and the O(2)-O(3) mode in x’y’ symmetry, for blue excitation the drop is absent. Additionally, for red excitations the symmetry selection rule of the O(4) mode is violated as the x’y’ intensity exceeds the x’x’ intensity. The maximum of the intensity of the Cu(2) mode in x’x’ symmetry coincides with $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. All these effects are characterized by $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ indicating a common microscopic origin. Low temperature measurements of overdoped Er-123 as well as of underdoped Sm-123 and Nd-123 show a similar behavior as Yb-123, especially the symmetry violation of the O(4) mode for excitation energies below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. Thus $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ could be a general property of the $`R`$-123 system without a significant doping dependence.

Friedl et al. observed a superconductivity-induced gain of the xx phonon intensities of Y-123 films on $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ substrates, which are independent of excitation energy in the range of 1.92 eV to 2.60 eV, a drop of intensity is observed only for the Cu(2) mode. The differences between their data and the data presented here may in principle result from the different doping levels of Y-123 and Yb-123. But as we have noted above, the effects are mainly independent of doping, our explanation for the discrepancies between Friedl’s and our data is the following: As the lattice constant of Y-123 (3.82/3.88 Å) is smaller than that of $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ (3.91 Å) and as the thermal expansion coefficient of Y-123 (11.7 Å/K) exceeds that of $`\mathrm{SrTiO}_3`$ (9.4 Å/K), the lattice mismatch increases with decreasing temperature. The additional stress may explain the high intensity increase I(100K):I(250K)$``$2.5 of the Y-123 films in comparison to I(100K):I(300K)$``$1.3 of the Yb-123 single crystal. Thus, the drop below $`T_c`$ is masked in this strong increase, especially as Friedl et al. recorded xx+yy data which include x’y’ where no intensity drop appears. In underdoped $`R`$-123 the O(2)-O(3) mode is known to show a strong intensity gain. Thus, the intensity drop of the O(2)-O(3) mode can only be observed in overdoped samples as the drop is not masked by an intensity gain.

Sherman et al. explained the increase of the total $`\mathrm{B}_{1\mathrm{g}}`$ mode intensity below $`T_c`$ of Y-123 in terms of an extension of the number of intermediate electronic states near the Fermi surface that participate in the Raman process. Accordingly, the doping dependence of the gain of the O(2)-O(3) mode intensity can be explained in this picture by the vicinity to the Fermi-level. Analogously, an intensity drop means a reduction of the number of intermediate states which is not consistent with this model. Possibly the intensity gain and the intensity drop have different origins, which are doping dependent and independent, respectively.

Due to the different resonance profiles in x’x’ and x’y’ geometry the drop of the phonon intensities can only be explained in the framework of a resonant theory which must account for the bands of the initial and final states. Calculations for the phonons of Y-123 in the superconducting state which have been performed by Heyen et al. and which are based on the local-density approximation and the linear muffin-tin-orbital method do not show any signature of an intensity drop around 2 eV for xx/yy and zz symmetry. The calculated xx/yy intensity of the O(4) mode has a local intensity minimum at 2.0 eV but at 1.6 eV the predicted intensity is more than twice the intensity at 2.0 eV excitation energy which is strong contrast to our data.

As no appropriate theory is available we try an interpretation in a simple picture: The intensity drop is observed for the Cu(2) mode and, for excitation energies below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$, for the plane-related O(2)-O(3) mode and for the x’x’ O(4) mode. This indicates that plane bands are responsible for the observed resonance effect. In case of the O(4) mode two processes seem to contribute to the phonon intensity, as the strongly resonant x’x’ intensity exhibits the drop below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ and the x’y’ intensity shows no resonance and no superconductivity-induced effects. As the characteristic energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ which separates the regions with and without the superconductivity-induced intensity drop is the same for the O(4) mode as for the O(2)-O(3) mode, we conclude that the relevant initial or final state bands are the same. Thus, we attribute the x’x’ intensity to a process involving that plane bands. On the other hand the x’y’ intensity is attributed to the chain bands. Another hint for this interpretation is that the pairing mechanism is believed to be located in the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ planes. Thus, superconductivity-induced effects would be expected for processes which involve plane bands.

Within a simple band structure picture the opening of the gap cannot explain the threshold of $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ directly: If the opening of the gap would enhance the energy distance between the possible initial and final states for an allowed transition to a value which exceeds the excitation energy, this process would also be suppressed for lower excitation energies in the normal state. Figure 5 clearly shows that the behavior of the phonon intensity for 1.96 eV and 1.68 eV excitations is essentially the same. Thus, only a fundamental change of the band structure could explain the different behavior for blue and red excitation. As the x’x’ intensity of the Cu(2) mode has its maximum right at the critical energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ (see Fig. 6) the fundamental change with the superconducting transition should take place in a plane band involving the Cu(2) atom. As mentioned above the O(4) mode intensity in x’x’ and x’y’ symmetry results from different processes due to the coupling to the Cu(2)-O(2)-O(3) plane bands and to the Cu(1)-O(1) chain bands, respectively.

In comparison to the superconducting gap $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the critical energy $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ is quite a large energy. Superconductivity-induced high-energy effects have been observed previously by thermal difference reflectance (TDR) spectroscopy and by ellipsometry. In the ellipsometry data a crossing point in $`\epsilon _2`$ at 2 eV separates two spectral regions of different behavior in their temperature dependencies. The TDR spectra of Y-123 and other high-temperature superconductors exhibit a deviation from unity in the ratio $`R_S/R_N`$ of the superconducting to normal state spectra at high photon energies ($``$2.0 eV). Within the Eliashberg theory the deviation can only be explained if the electron-boson coupling function contains a high-energy component in addition to the electron-phonon interaction leading to an order parameter which is non-zero for similar energies. The microscopic origin of the high-energy interaction is most likely a $`d^9d^{10}\underset{¯}{L}`$ Cu-O charge-transfer within the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ planes.

The Cu(2) mode intensity seems to correlate with the charge-transfer excitation at about 2.1 eV. The intensity drop of this mode below $`T_c`$ is independent of excitation energy and supports the interpretation of a modified charge-transfer-mechanism in the superconducting state. On the other hand the O(2)-O(3) mode in x’y’ and the O(4) mode in x’x’ geometry behave completely different for excitation energies above and below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$. This indicates that the underlying mechanism is not the modified charge-transfer itself but the opening of the gap, which is non-zero for high energies as argued by Holcomb et al. Thus, superconductivity-induced high-energy effects which cannot be detected in transport experiments, leave their signature in resonant Raman experiments through different behavior of the phonon intensity above and below $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$ as well as in other optical experiments.

## V Summary

A resonance enhancement of the integrated phonon intensity is observed for the O(4) mode in x’x’ and for the O(2)-O(3) mode in x’y’ polarization geometry. It results mainly from an intensity drop for temperatures below $`T_c`$ at excitation energies less then $`\mathrm{}\omega _c2.1`$ eV. This drop is also observed for the Cu(2) mode, which has its maximum x’x’ intensity right at this excitation energy. We believe that the charge-transfer is responsible for the intensity drop of all three phonon modes, directly for Cu(2) and indirectly via the order parameter for O(4) and O(2)-O(3). As the x’y’ intensity of the O(4) mode shows hardly any resonance we believe that its origin is completely different from the one of the x’x’ intensity.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank M. Rübhausen and M. V. Klein for stimulating discussions and for performing the ellipsometry measurements of Yb-123. Financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the Graduiertenkolleg “Physik nanostrukturierter Festkörper” is gratefully acknowledged.


text:
# A stochastic rainbow caustic observed with cold atoms

## Abstract

We report the direct observation of a novel type of rainbow caustic. In contrast to known examples, this caustic originates from a dissipative, stochastic process. We have observed this using cold 87Rb atoms bouncing inelastically on an evanescent-wave atom mirror. The caustic appears as a sharp peak at the lower edge of the asymmetric velocity distribution of the bouncing atoms. The stochastic process is a spontaneous Raman transition due to photon scattering during the bounce. The results are in good agreement with a classical calculation.

32.80.Lg, 42.50.Vk, 03.75.-b

Caustics are ubiquitous phenomena in nature. Examples are the cusp-shaped patterns of light reflection on the inside of a coffee-cup and the patterns of bright lines observed on the bottom of a swimming pool . The prime example of a caustic is the common rainbow, which can be understood in a ray-optics picture by considering how the scattering angle of a light ray depends on its impact parameter on a water droplet  . Whereas the incident rays have smoothly distributed impact parameters, the outgoing rays pile up where the scattering angle has a local extremum. Such a divergence of the ray density, the caustic, appears at the rainbow angle. In atomic  and nuclear  scattering experiments analogous rainbow phenomena have also been observed.

The examples of caustics that have been known so far have in common that the outgoing parameter (scattering angle) is a deterministic function of the incoming parameter (impact parameter). In this Letter we report on our observation of a new type of rainbow caustic existing by virtue of a stochastic process, which distributes a single-valued “impact parameter” over a range of “scattering angles”. To our knowledge, such stochastic caustics have not been observed before.

We have observed this caustic in the vertical velocity distribution of cold atoms, after bouncing inelastically off an evanescent-wave mirror . Previous experiments on the transverse velocity distribution of atoms bouncing elastically on corrugated mirrors  also allow an interpretation in terms of caustics. However, those were of the usual deterministic kind, where the outgoing transverse velocity is a deterministic function of the position where the atom hits the mirror. The caustic then originates from atoms reflecting from inflection points on the mirror surface.

Whereas other experiments on inelastically bouncing atoms concentrated on the cooling properties, the appearence of the velocity caustic seems to have escaped attention. The incident atoms in our experiment are nearly monochromatic, i.e. they have a narrow velocity distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }v/v=0.03`$. During the bounce the atoms are optically pumped to a different hyperfine ground-state, by a spontaneous Raman transition. They leave the surface with less kinetic energy, due to the difference in optical potential. The outgoing atoms have a broad velocity distribution. This is due to the stochastic nature of the spontaneous Raman process, so that atoms make the transition at different depths in the evanescent wave. Our measurements and analysis show that the resulting velocity distribution is highly asymmetric. The caustic appears as a sharp peak at the minimum possible velocity. This divergence demonstrates the strong preference for making the Raman transition at the turning point.

The experiment is performed in a rubidium vapor cell. We trap about $`10^7`$ atoms of 87Rb in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and subsequently cool them in optical molasses to 15 $`\mu `$K corresponding to a r.m.s. velocity spread of $`\sigma _v=3.8`$ cm/s. The MOT has a $`1/e^2`$ radius of $`0.6`$ mm and is centered $`5.8`$ mm above the horizontal surface of a right-angle BK7 prism. When the falling cloud arrives at the surface, the mean velocity is $`34`$ cm/s, and the velocity spread is $`\sigma _v=0.9`$ cm/s. Note that this distribution is for fixed $`z=0`$, not for fixed time. At the surface, we create an evanescent wave (EW) by a Gaussian shaped laser beam of $`0.8`$ mm $`1/e^2`$ radius, which undergoes total internal reflection.

The blue detuned EW induces a repulsive optical dipole potential $`U_F(z)=U_F(0)\mathrm{exp}(2\kappa z)`$, where the subscript $`F=1,2`$ denotes the hyperfine ground state, $`\kappa =k_0\sqrt{n^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta 1}`$, with $`k_0=2\pi /\lambda `$ the free space wave vector of the light, $`n=1.51`$ the refractive index and $`\theta `$ the angle of incidence . The maximum potential $`U_F(0)I_0/\delta _F`$, where $`I_0`$ is the incident intensity at the glass surface, and $`\delta _F`$ is the detuning. Here we define the detuning $`\delta _{1,2}`$ relative to the transition $`5S_{1/2}(F=1,2)5P_{3/2}(F^{}=F+1)`$ of the $`D_2`$ line (780 nm), see Fig.1. Note that we neglect the van der Waals surface attraction. This is justified as long as $`U_F(0)`$ is much larger than the kinetic energy of the atoms. The main influence of this force is a reduction of the effective mirror area .

An atom entering the EW in the $`F=1`$ state is slowed down by the potential $`U_1(z)`$. Spontaneous Raman-scattering can transfer the atom to the higher hyperfine ground state ($`F=2`$). When transferred into this state, the potential acting on the atom is $`U_2(z)`$, which is weaker due to the increase of the detuning by approximately the hyperfine splitting $`\delta _2\delta _1+\delta _{\mathrm{hfs}}`$ (Fig.1). The ratio of the two potentials, $`\beta U_2(0)/U_1(0)`$, quantifies the reduction in potential energy. As a result the atoms will bounce inelastically, i.e. to a lower height than their initial release position.

Experimental data of bouncing atoms are taken by absorption imaging. After a variable time delay the atomic cloud is exposed to $`20\mu `$s of probe light, resonant with the $`5S_{1/2}(F=2)5P_{3/2}(F^{}=3)`$ transition. Thus only atoms which have been transferred to $`F=2`$ contribute to the signal. The atomic cloud is imaged on a digital frame-transfer CCD camera. The presented images show an area of $`2.2\times 4.5`$mm2 with a pixel resolution of $`15\mu `$m (Fig.2) . The initial position of the MOT is outside the field of view. The horizontal line at the bottom shows the prism surface.

A typical series with 2 ms time increments is shown in Fig.2, where $`t=0`$ is defined as the time that the center of the cloud reaches the mirror. Each density profile has been converted into a horizontal line sum. The solid curve is the result of a calculation described below. The amplitude of the experimental curves is rescaled such that the maximum optical density of the experimental curve coincides with the theoretical maximum value. This is the only fit parameter.

As expected, the atoms bounce up less high than their initial height. Furthermore, the spatial distribution shows another striking feature: it displays a high density peak at low $`z`$, and a long low-density tail extending upward. Note also that there is a time-focus: the density peak is sharpest when the slowest atoms reach their upper turning point. This density peak is an immediate consequence of a caustic appearing at the minimum possible velocity.

The caustic can be understood by considering the atoms as point particles moving in the EW potential. This corresponds to the ray-optics limit for the optical rainbow. We consider an atom arriving at the surface in its $`F=1`$ hyperfine ground state, with an initial downward velocity $`v_i<0`$. Its trajectory through phase space is determined by energy conservation: $`U_1(0)\mathrm{exp}(2\kappa z)+\frac{1}{2}mv^2=\frac{1}{2}mv_i^2`$, and is depicted in Fig.3 by the thick line. While it is slowed down by the EW it may scatter a photon at a velocity $`v_p`$, and be transferred to the $`F=2`$ state. The atom continues on a new trajectory determined by $`U_2(z)`$. To illustrate the formation of the caustic, possible trajectories starting at various positions in phase space are depicted as thin gray ($`v_p<0`$) and black ($`v_p>0`$) curves. For asymptotically large $`z`$ the density of curves represents the outgoing velocity distribution, showing the caustic where the trajectories pile up. This distribution is similar to a rainbow. The density of outgoing trajectories diverges at the *”rainbow velocity”*. Below this velocity the intensity is zero, similar to Alexander’s dark band in the optical rainbow . Above the rainbow velocity the intensity distribution decreases smoothly.

Despite the similarities, there is a crucial difference between a rainbow created by sunlight refracted by waterdroplets and our ’velocity caustic’. The appearance of a rainbow is due to a deterministic process, where the scattering angle is uniquely determined by the impact parameter. In our experiment the incoming velocity $`v_i`$ is nearly single-valued, and is distributed over a broad range of outgoing velocities by the stochastic process of spontaneous Raman scattering.

Given the novel character of this caustic, the analogy with known examples can only be valid to some extent. For example, the position of the caustic is independent of the size parameter $`\kappa `$. Similarly the optical rainbow angle does not depend on the droplet size. We measured for three different values of the decay length $`\kappa ^1`$ the atomic density profile at the upper turning point (Fig.4a). This is defined as the highest position reached by the peak density. The shape of the cloud did not change, but the number of atoms decreased with decreasing $`\kappa ^1`$ since the total number of scattered photons is lower.

The limitation to the analogy becomes apparent through the parameter $`\beta `$ which determines the position of the caustic. This parameter characterizes the “degree of dissipation” and therefore has no analogy in the optical rainbow, or any other deterministic caustic. For example, the optical rainbow angle is determined by the index of refraction $`n`$ of water. However, the energy of the photons is not changed, and therefore $`n`$ cannot be compared to $`\beta `$. The change in the position of the caustic with $`\beta `$ can clearly be seen in Fig.3b,c. Here we measured the height of the upper turning point, as a fraction of the initial MOT height, for three values of the detuning.

In order to quantitatively analyze our experimental data, we write the optical hyperfine-pumping rate during the bounce as $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(z)=(1q)\mathrm{\Gamma }U_1(z)/\mathrm{}\delta _1`$, where $`q`$ is the branching ratio to $`F=1`$. We define $`\eta (v)`$ as the survival probability for the atom to reach the velocity $`v`$ without undergoing optical pumping. This function decreases monotonically as $`\dot{\eta }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\eta `$, with $`\eta (v_i)=1`$. For $`|v||v_i|`$, the solution is $`\eta (v)=\mathrm{exp}((vv_i)/v_c)`$ , where $`v_c2\kappa \mathrm{}\delta _1/(1q)m\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, with $`m`$ the atomic mass. When the pumping process takes place at a certain velocity $`v=v_p`$, the atom leaves the surface with velocity $`v_f=\sqrt{v_p^2(1\beta )+\beta v_i^2}`$ (Fig.1). This results in a distribution of bouncing velocities, resulting from atoms which were pumped while moving toward ($`v_p^{}`$) or away from ($`v_p^+`$) the surface : $`n(v_f)=\eta (v_p^{}(v_f))\times |\frac{v_p^{}}{v_f}|+\eta (v_p^+(v_f))\times |\frac{v_p^+}{v_f}|`$ for $`\sqrt{\beta }|v_i|v_f<|v_i|`$ , which diverges at $`v_f=\sqrt{\beta }|v_i|`$. This velocity caustic originates from atoms which are pumped near the turning point. There are two reasons for scattering preferentially at this position. An atom spends a relatively long time at the turning point since its velocity is lowest there. In addition, the intensity of the EW, and thus the photon scattering rate is highest at the turning point. The divergence is an artefact of the ray-optics description. It disappears due to diffraction when the atoms are treated as matter waves.

To compare the experimentally obtained spatial distributions with the model, we first calculated the one-dimensional phase-space density $`\rho (z,v)`$. The spatial distribution is obtained by projecting $`\rho `$ on the $`z`$-axis. Initially the MOT is described by a normalized gaussian, $`\rho (z,v)\mathrm{exp}((zz_0)^2/2\sigma _z^2)\mathrm{exp}(v^2/2\sigma _v^2)`$ with $`z_0=5.8`$ mm, $`\sigma _z=0.3`$ mm and $`\sigma _v=3.8`$ cm/s. The cloud falls due to gravity and expands due to thermal motion. When it arrives at the EW, its velocity distribution is nearly gaussian centered around $`v=34`$ cm/s, with a spread of $`\sigma _v=0.9`$ cm/s. When the cloud is reflected, its velocity distribution is changed in the way described above. We measure the spatial distribution of inelastically bounced atoms after a time of flight $`t`$. To illustrate the agreement with the experimental data, the result for a time $`t=7`$ ms is drawn as the thick line in Fig. 2.

A very intriguing aspect of our experiment is the possibility to observe supernumeraries: interference of two trajectories with the same outgoing velocity, but with opposite pumping velocity $`v_p`$. In the velocity distribution after the inelastic bounce, the high velocity tail is the sum of two contributions: from atoms moving towards and moving away from the surface when they are pumped to $`F=2`$. Interference between these two paths should result in oscillations in the velocity distribution. This is a nontrivial effect because it involves the spontaneous emission of a photon.

Given our experimental parameters, we expect a typical oscillation period of $`1`$ cm/s. This spacing depends on $`\kappa `$, just as in a rainbow the supernumeraries depend on the droplet size. These oscillations are not yet resolved in our measurements, because in the EW-field the magnetic substates are not degenerate, each producing a different velocity distribution.

In conclusion, we have observed a new type of caustic due to the stochastic distribution of a monochromatic input. The caustic appears as a sharp peak at the lower edge of the velocity distribution of rubidium atoms, bouncing inelastically on an evanescent-wave atom mirror. The caustic bears some resemblance to the common optical rainbow. However its dissipative character makes it uncomparable with any deterministic caustics and qualifies it as a new physical phenomenon.

This work is part of the research program of the “Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek van de Materie” (FOM) which is financially supported by the “Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek” (NWO). R.S. has been financially supported by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.