text:
# Effect of Impurities and Effective Masses on Spin-Dependent Electrical Transport in Ferromagnet-Normal Metal-Ferromagnet Hybrid Junctions

## I Introduction

It is getting realized that the successful control of spin-polarized electrical currents would give rise to essential impact in information technology, thereby resulting in that the spin-dependent tunneling in hybrid systems of ferromagnetic and normal metals (insulators) has attracted much attention during the past years (see, e.g. Refs. for review). A nascent field dubbed as spintronics, is therefore emerging. Among others, a large number of studies on the electrical transport properties in metallic magnetic multilayers show the existence of the effect of a so-called giant magnetoresistance (GMR), which is now believed to be caused by spin-dependent scattering in the systems. Since its potential applications, the GMR effect has been actively studied both theoretically and experimentally in recent years (see, e.g. Refs.).

Apart from the GMR found in metallic magnetic multilayers, the spin-valve effect is observed in ferromagnetic (FM) tunneling junctions. Following the discovery of spin-polarized tunneling of conduction electrons in ferromagnets by Tedrow and Meservey, Jullière was the first to observe the effect that the tunneling resistance in an F-I-F junction consisting of two FM electrodes separated by an insulating (I) barrier depends strongly on the relative orientations of magnetizations, namely the resistance is low when magnetizations in FM electrodes are parallel, and the resistance is high when magnetizations in FM electrodes are antiparallel, and a two-current model was proposed to interpret the observed large junction magnetoresistance in Fe-Ge-Co junctions at $`4.2`$ $`K`$ by assuming the spin conservation so that the tunneling of spin up and spin down electrons undergoes two independent processes. The tunneling magnetoresistance has also been observed by Maekawa and Gäfvert. Treating the F-I-F junction as a single quantum-mechanical system, Slonczewski adopted a free-electron model to describe the tunneling of spin-polarized conduction electrons, and recovered the spin-valve effect. The extension of Slonczewski’s model to a realistic band structure based on a tight-binding model was established. Recently, on the basis of scattering matrix theory the spin-dependent electrical and thermal transport in F-I-F junctions was developed at finite bias voltage and at finite temperatures. It is found that not only the electrical conductance but also the thermal conductance reveals the spin-valve effect at low temperatures. There are also some theories devoted to F-I-F tunneling junctions (see Ref. for a review). Moreover, the spin-valve effect can also appear in ferromagnet-normal metal-ferromagnet (F-N-F) junctions which may have different transport properties from the F-I-F junctions. Johnson was the first to predict the phenomenon of spin accumulation in F-N-F junctions, which was soon confirmed in a three-terminal device, and a transistor effect was observed in such a device. Valet and Fert studied the F-N-F structure and applied the Boltzmann equation to the current perpendicular to the plane structure by assuming that the thickness of nonmagnetic metallic layer is much shorter than the spin-diffusion length. The theory can reduce to Johnson’s theory as the thickness of nonmagnetic metal is much longer than the spin-diffusion length. By taking into account different magnetizations of ferromagnetic reservoirs and spin diffusion in the normal metal, Hernando et al studied the equation for the diffusive spin transport in the F-N-F structure and showed that the difference between the conductance of the parallel and antiparallel configuration can be either positive or negative as a function of the applied magnetic field. Zheng et al have investigated a double tunnel junction model describing the F-I-N-I-F structure by means of quantum mechanical approach, and the oscillation of the tunneling conductance and the TMR on the spacer’s thickness is found. A finite-element method and nonequilibrium Green function method has also been applied to the mesoscopic junction systems.

Within the theories above mentioned, the effect of impurities was not much investigated. Although it is argued that the impurities and defects may lead to the resonant tunneling in F-I-F junctions, the study on the effect of impurities on the spin-dependent transport in F-N-F junctions is still sparse. Another important factor, which is usually ignored in theories, is the effect of the effective masses of electrons in FM and normal layers. As in realistic hybrid junctions the electrodes are made by different ferromagnets, such as half-metals  and magnetic semiconductors, the effective mass would have significant effect on the transport properties. In this paper, by treating the F-N-F junction as a quantum-mechanical system we shall investigate the effect of nonmagnetic impurities as well as the effective masses of electrons in FM and normal layers on the spin-dependent electrical transport properties in spin-valve systems. It is found that the impurity and the effective mass can both lead to nonmonotonous oscillation of $`JMR`$ with the incident energy and the thickness of the normal metal. The effective mass can enlarge the $`JMR`$ effect when the difference between the two FM layers is small. On the other hand, if the difference is large, the $`JMR`$ effect becomes smaller and the inverse $`JMR`$ effect would appear.

The rest of this paper is outlined as follows. In Sec. II the model which we shall adopt in the subsequent sections will be described and some relevant formalism will be derived. Sec. III will present the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the junction magnetoresistance in F-N-F junctions, and the effect of effective masses of electrons in FM electrodes will be given in Sec. IV. Finally, a summary will be presented.

## II Model and Formalism

Consider an F-N-F junction consisting of two ferromagnetic layers separated by a normal metal layer with thickness $`d`$. In a nearly-free-electron approximation of the spin-polarized conduction electrons, the longitudinal part of the effective one-electron Hamiltonian can be written as

$$H=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_j^{}}\frac{d^2}{dx^2}+U(x)+[\gamma _1\delta (x)+\gamma _2\delta (xd)]𝐡(j)\sigma $$
(1)
where $`m_j^{}`$ ($`j=1,2,3`$) is the effective mass of an electron in three regions (Region 1: left FM electrode; Region 2: normal metal; Region 3: right FM electrode), respectively. The potential $`U(x)`$ is composed of three parts: a small bias voltage $`V`$, two contact potentials $`V_1`$ and $`V_2`$ defined as $`U(x)=V_1`$ for $`x0`$, $`U(x)=V_2`$ for $`xd`$ and zero otherwise. The contact potentials between the ferromagnetic layers and the normal metallic layer could be effectively considered to be caused either by roughness of interfaces or by two equivalent, thin insulating layers. $`𝐡(j)`$ represents the molecular field in FM electrodes, and $`\sigma `$ is the conventional Pauli matrices. By assumption, $`𝐡=0`$ inside the nonmagnetic normal metal. In FM electrodes $`𝐡=𝐡_L`$ or $`𝐡_R`$ is constant with relative orientation labeled by angle $`\theta `$. The potentials induced by impurities or defects on the interfaces between the ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic metal layers have been discussed in Ref. . Generally speaking, the delta-potentials of impurities or defects on interfaces depend on three-dimensional coordinates. To simplify the problem and to get useful analytical results, the potentials are supposed to have forms of $`\delta `$ potentials as shown in Eq. (1) where $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$ are corresponding coefficients. We expect that such an approximation would not cause significate qualitative changes on the interested transport properties, as the motion of electrons along the transverse direction are not emphasized in the present approach. The schematic layout of the F-N-F junction is depicted in Fig. 1. Inside the ferromagnets, a two-band model will be used to describe the motion of spin-polarized electrons. As spin up and spin down bands are split by exchange interactions, the electrons with spin up and down have different energies in FM electrodes, and the one-electron energy is $`E_{1x}=\mathrm{}^2k_{1\sigma }^2/2m_1^{}\sigma h_L`$ $`+`$ $`V_1`$ for the left FM electrode, and $`E_{3x}=\mathrm{}^2k_{3\sigma }^2/2m_3^{}\sigma h_R`$ $`+`$ $`V_2`$ for the right FM electrode with $`\sigma =\pm 1`$ corresponding to $`\sigma =,`$ respectively. Inside the nonmagnetic normal metal layer, the one-electron energy is $`E_{2x}=\mathrm{}^2k^2/2m_2^{}`$.

Consider an incident plane wave of spin-up electrons with unit flux in Region 1. The solution of the Schrödinger equation with eigenvalue $`E_{1x}`$ in the region of the left FM electrode can be written as

$$\psi _1=k_1^{1/2}e^{ik_1x}+R_{}e^{ik_1x},\text{ }\psi _1=R_{}e^{ik_1x}.$$
(2)
In the normal metal region, the eigenfunctions of $`H`$ with eigenvalue $`E_{2x}`$ are written as

$$\psi _{2\sigma }=A_\sigma e^{ikx}+B_\sigma e^{ikx},\text{ }\sigma =,.$$
(3)
In the region of the right FM electrode, the eigenfunctions of $`H`$ with eigenvalue $`E_{3x}`$ have the form

$$\psi _{3\sigma }=C_\sigma e^{ik_{3\sigma }(xd)},\text{ }\sigma =,.$$
(4)
The coefficients $`R_{}`$, $`R_{}`$, $`A_\sigma ,B_\sigma ,C_\sigma (\sigma =\pm 1)`$ are to be determined by properly matching $`\psi _{j\sigma }`$ and $`d\psi _{j\sigma }/dx`$ at the interfaces $`x=0`$ and $`x=d`$ (the boundary conditions). Owing to the spin conservation the spin directions are fixed as the electrons move from Region1 to Region 2. The existence of $`\delta `$-like impurity potential at the interfaces makes the derivatives of wave functions no longer continuous. For the simplicity we shall set $`m_1^{}=m_2^{}=m_3^{}=m`$ first, and then consider the effect of different effective masses in Sec. IV. At the interface $`x=0`$, the boundary condition is

$$\psi _1(0)=\psi _2(0),\text{ }\frac{d\psi _2(0)}{dx}\frac{d\psi _1(0)}{dx}=\mu _1\psi _2(0),$$
(5)
where $`\mu _1=\frac{2m_2^{}\gamma _1}{\mathrm{}^2}.`$ At the interface $`x=d`$, the boundary condition is

$$\psi _2(d)=\psi _3(d),\text{ }\frac{d\psi _2(d)}{dx}=[\frac{d\psi _3(d)}{dx}\mu _2\psi _3(d)],$$
(6)
where the rotation matrix $`=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}& \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}\\ \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}& \mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}\end{array}\right)`$ and $`\mu _2=\frac{2m_3^{}\gamma _2}{\mathrm{}^2}`$. In accordance with Eqs. (2)-(6), all unknown coefficients introduced above can be obtained. The results are collected in Appendix, where the quantities $`q_1(\frac{m_2^{}}{m_1^{}})=q_2(\frac{m_3^{}}{m_2^{}})=1`$ should be taken due to the assumption of the same effective masses here. (The case $`q_1q_2`$ will be discussed later.) In comparison to the results in F-I-F junctions as discussed by Slonczewski, our equations (3), (5) and (6) for F-N-F junctions with impurities are quite different. It is these differences that enable the transport properties in two kind of junctions to show different behaviors.

The transmissivity $`T_{p\sigma }=Im_\sigma \psi _\sigma ^{}(d\psi _\sigma /dx)`$ can be derived analytically

$$T_p=\frac{R_{}^{}R_{}}{4(a_3a_4)^2}[\frac{k_3(c_{31}^2+c_{32}^2)}{\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}+\frac{k_3(c_{61}^2+c_{62}^2)}{\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}],$$
(7)
where $`R_{},a_3,a_4,c_{31},c_{32},c_{61},c_{62}`$ are given in the Appendix. $`T_p`$ is valid for spin-up incident electrons and $`T_p`$ is valid for spin-down electrons by the same expression as Eq.(7) with $`k_1`$ and $`k_1`$, $`k_3`$ and $`k_3`$ interchanged. Thus the total transmissivity in the two-band case, $`T_p(\theta )=T_p(\theta )+T_p(\theta ),`$ may be obtained.

At zero temperature, it can be reasonably assumed that the electrons with $`E_x`$ near Fermi energy $`E_F`$ carry most of the current. With this assumption and by summing the charge transmission over $`E_x`$ and $`𝐤_{}`$ for the occupied states in the usual manner, one can find the conventional expression of surface conductance at a small bias voltage

$$G(\theta )=\frac{I_e}{V}=\frac{m_1^{}e^2}{2\pi ^2\mathrm{}^3}E_FT_p(\theta ),$$
(8)
where $`m_1^{}=m_2^{}=m_3^{}=m.`$ The junction magnetoresistance (JMR) is defined as usual

$$JMR(\theta )=\frac{G(\theta =0)G(\theta )}{G(\theta =0)},$$
(9)
which reflects the relative change of the conductance with respect to the different orientation of magnetic moments in FM electrodes, an quantity being measurable experimentally. Within the framework of the above formalism, one may investigate the effect of nonmagnetic impurities and the effective masses of conduction electrons on the conductance in F-N-F junctions.

## III Effect of nonmagnetic impurities

To investigate the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the conductance of F-N-F junctions, we have to make proper assumptions. First, we take $`m_1^{}=m_2^{}=m_3^{}=m`$, and suppose the two FM electrodes the same, i.e. $`\left|𝐡_L\right|=\left|𝐡_R\right|=h`$. Then, without loss of generality the coefficients of $`\delta `$-like impurity potentials at the interfaces are taken as $`\gamma _1=\gamma _2=\gamma `$. We have found that $`\gamma _1\gamma _2`$ does not alter qualitatively the behaviors observed. The Fermi energy of the normal metal layer is assumed to be the same as in FM electrodes.

We find that the conductance depends strongly on the relative orientation of magnetizations of FM electrodes, as shown in Fig.2. It is observed that for given $`d`$ (the thickness of the normal metal layer) and $`\gamma `$ (the amplitude of the impurity potential), the conductance is the largest at $`\theta =0`$, while at $`\theta =\pi `$ the conductance reaches the smallest, resurging the spin-valve effect. However, one may note that the conductance is not zero as $`\theta =\pi `$, indicating the spin-valve effect is imperfect. This is because in the two-band model the spins in the left FM electrode are not perfectly polarized, there is a portion of electrons with spin down at the Fermi level available, leading to a small current flowing through the junction even if the magnetizations in two FM electrodes are antiparallel, a result quite close to the realistic situation. With increasing $`\theta `$ to $`\pi `$ the conductance $`G(\theta )`$ is monotonically decreasing, while $`JMR(\theta )`$ is monotonically increasing. In experiments, people are usually interested in the quantity $`JMRJMR(\theta =\pi )`$. Without particular specification the $`JMR`$ refers to $`JMR(\pi )`$ hereafter.

The effect of impurity on the conductance is shown in Fig.3 for $`\theta =\pi /3`$ for an example. One may see that at a given Fermi energy (e.g. $`E_F=2.5eV`$) with increasing $`\gamma `$ the conductance $`G`$ is first decreasing to a minimum, then increasing to a maximum, and then decreasing to zero. When the energy barrier produced by impurities is high enough, the conductance tends to zero, which is quite reasonable in physics, because in this situation the electrons cannot overcome the impurity-barrier to tunnel through the junction. It is interesting to note that $`G`$ has a maximum at a certain value of $`\gamma `$, suggesting that the resonant tunneling occurs in this case. This could be viewed as a kind of the impurity-induced resonant tunneling. As the impurity potentials in our model are simulated by the double-$`\delta `$ potential barriers, in the region of normal metal layer there might be some quasi-bound states under certain conditions. The appearance of the quasi-bound states is a consequence arised from both the double-$`\delta `$ potential barriers at two interfaces and the quantum size effect of the middle metal film. When the incident energy of electrons matches approximately the level of the quasi-bound states, the resonant tunneling occurs, manifested by the occurrence of the peak of the conductance versus $`\gamma `$. For other values of $`E_F`$, the conductance has the similar behaviors, in spite of positions of maxima being different. From Fig. 3, one may observe that the conductance is oscillating with the Fermi energy.

We also study the $`JMR`$ versus $`\gamma `$, as shown in Fig.4. It is seen that the $`JMR`$ is nonmonotonous increasing with $`\gamma `$. At low $`E_F`$ (e.g. $`2.4eV`$) the $`JMR`$ shows one peak, and with increasing $`E_F`$ (e.g. $`2.6eV`$) the $`JMR`$ has two peaks. When $`E_F`$ takes a larger value (e.g. $`2.7eV`$) only one peak of the $`JMR`$ is left, which is a consequence of the conductance oscillating with the Fermi energy, leading to that the resonant positions of the $`JMR`$ depends strongly on the magnitudes of Fermi energies. At larger $`\gamma `$, the $`JMR`$ saturates to a constant. Furthermore, one may observe that the $`JMR`$ is negative for some low $`\gamma `$ and low $`E_F`$. This is not difficult to understand by noting the fact that the spin-up and spin-down electrons in Region 1 have the same incident energies but with different wave vectors, and the transmissivity $`T_{p\sigma }(\theta )`$ is oscillatory increasing with increasing $`E_F`$. At some regimes of low $`\gamma `$ and $`E_F`$, it is found that $`T_p(0)T_p(\pi )>0`$ but $`T_p(0)T_p(\pi )<0`$, while the absolute value of the latter is greater than the former, resulting in that the conductance $`G`$ of parallel alignment of magnetizations is smaller than that of antiparallel alignment at some low $`E_F`$ and $`\gamma `$, which finally gives rise to the negative $`JMR`$. This is actually a result of the two-band model. The $`JMR`$ is oscillating with the Fermi energy, as shown in Fig.5. When $`\gamma =0`$, the $`JMR`$ is symmetrically oscillating with respect to zero axis. This can be readily understood by taking the two-band feature into account. With increasing $`\gamma `$, the $`JMR`$ becomes asymmetrically oscillating with more oscillating peaks. Such behaviors are closely related to the quasi-bound states induced by impurity barriers. If $`E_f`$ is very large, the spin-dependent effect will be smaller, leading to the $`JMR`$ approaching to zero with increasing $`E_f`$.

The dependence of the $`JMR`$ on the thickness of the normal metal layer is depicted in Fig. 6. It can be seen that the $`JMR`$ is oscillating with the thickness $`d`$. In absence of the impurity potential, the $`JMR`$ is symmetrically oscillating with increasing the thickness with one oscillation period. This phenomenon can be of quantum origin, and more specifically, of the quantum-size effect, which has been noted before for the GMR in a one-band model and in double tunnel junction structure. With increasing $`\gamma `$, the oscillation period becomes two, which is closely related to the impurity-induced resonant tunneling or the quasi-bound states. It is interesting to note that the positive and negative $`JMR`$ effect was also found in the giant magnetoresistance of F-N-F system , as well as in N/F/I/F/N structure.

## IV Effect of Effective Masses

Now we turn to consider the case that the electrons in the three layers have different effective masses. The solutions of Schrödinger equation have the same forms as Eqs. (2) - (4). However, the boundary conditions are changed. At the interface $`x=0`$, it is

$$\psi _1(0)=\psi _2(0);\text{ }\frac{d\psi _2(0)}{dx}q_1\frac{d\psi _1(0)}{dx}=\mu _1\psi _2(0),$$
(10)
and at the interface $`x=d,`$ it becomes

$$\psi _2(d)=\mathrm{}\psi _3(d);\text{ }q_2\frac{d\psi _2(d)}{dx}=\mathrm{}[\frac{d\psi _3(d)}{dx}\mu _2\psi _3(d)].$$
(11)
Recall that $`q_1=\frac{m_2^{}}{m_1^{}}`$, $`q_2=\frac{m_3^{}}{m_2^{}}`$, $`\mu _1=\frac{2m_2^{}\gamma _1}{\mathrm{}^2}`$, and $`\mu _2=\frac{2m_3^{}\gamma _2}{\mathrm{}^2}`$. Note that $`q_1q_2`$ and $`\mu _1\mu _2`$ here. The coefficients contained in the wave functions are given in the Appendix. As the effective masses are different in three regions, the transmissivity, according to its definition $`T_p=j_3/j_1=\frac{m_1^{}}{m_3^{}}(Im_\sigma \psi _\sigma ^{}(d\psi _\sigma /dx))`$, has the form of

$$T_p=\frac{m_1^{}}{m_3^{}}\frac{R_{}^{}(\theta )R_{}(\theta )}{4(a_3a_4)^2}[\frac{k_3(c_{31}^2+c_{32}^2)}{\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}+\frac{k_3(c_{61}^2+c_{62}^2)}{\mathrm{cos}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}].$$
(12)
$`T_p`$ has the same expression as Eq.(12) but with $`k_1`$ and $`k_1`$, $`k_3`$ and $`k_3`$ interchanged. The total transmissivity in the two-band case is still $`T_p(\theta )=T_p(\theta )+T_p(\theta )`$. The conductance $`G(\theta )`$ and the $`JMR`$ are also defined as Eqs. (8) and (9). To investigate the effect of the effective masses of electrons on the transport properties in F-N-F junctions, in the following we shall assume the same values of parameters (except for $`q_1q_2`$ and $`\mu _1\mu _2`$) as those in Sec. III. In this case, the wavevectors are different for different effective masses.

The $`\gamma `$\- and $`E_F`$-dependences of the conductance $`G`$ for different effective masses are plotted in Figs. 7 (a) and (b), respectively, where we have taken $`m_2^{}`$ as a scale for effective masses. It is seen that compared with Fig. 3 the effect of the effective masses on the conductance versus $`\gamma `$ and $`E_F`$ is quite dramatic. From Fig. 7(a) one may observe that for a given $`m_1^{}`$ the conductance $`G`$ versus $`\gamma `$ is monotonous decreasing for smaller $`m_3^{}`$ but shows resonant peaks for larger $`m_3^{}`$, namely, when the ratio $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}`$ is larger, the conductance versus $`\gamma `$ shows no resonant peaks, implying that the effect of the effective masses smears out the impurity-induced resonant tunneling, while $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}`$ is near unity, the sharp peak appears in the curve of $`G`$ vs. $`\gamma `$, and the impurity-induced tunneling recovers. This observation might be related to the quasi-bound states induced by impurities. The conductance $`G`$ versus the Fermi energy is oscillating, but the behavior is quite different for different effective masses, as shown in Fig. 7(b). There are two notable characters about $`G`$ varying with the Fermi energy, namely, the oscillating amplitudes of $`G`$ for $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}=1`$ are always larger than those for $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}1`$, and the conductance is increasingly oscillating with increasing the Fermi energy.

In order to figure out the effect of the effective masses on the $`JMR`$, we plot the $`JMR`$ versus $`m_3^{}`$ for different $`m_1^{}`$’s, as shown in Fig. 8, where we have taken $`\gamma =0`$ for simplicity. It is seen that the $`JMR`$ exhibits maxima when the condition $`m_1^{}m_3^{}`$ is satisfied, which is clearly illustrated in the inset of Fig. 8, where the contour plot for the maximum $`JMR`$ in the $`m_1^{}`$-$`m_3^{}`$ plane is presented. Away from this condition, the JMR is sharply increasing for smaller $`m_3^{}`$ and decreasing for larger $`m_3^{}`$. This result shows that to get larger $`JMR`$ one may do the best to choose those ferromagnetic metals with almost the same effective masses of electrons to fabricate the two FM electrodes in a spin-valve. The smaller the difference of the effective masses in the two FM electrodes has, the larger the $`JMR`$ is.

We have also studied the thickness of the normal metal dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different $`m_1^{}`$ and $`m_3^{}`$, as depicted in Fig. 9, where we have taken $`\gamma =0`$. In comparison to Fig. 6, one may find that different effective masses would lead to different oscillating behaviors of the $`JMR`$. In the upper panel of Fig. 9 where $`m_1=0.05`$, with increasing $`m_3^{}`$ the periodic oscillations of the $`JMR`$ with $`k_Fd`$ becomes quite different, and when $`m_3^{}>1`$ the $`JMR`$ becomes negative. In the middle panel of Fig. 9 where $`m_1^{}=1`$, one may find that except $`m_3^{}m_1^{}`$ the oscillation amplitudes are much suppressed as the ratio $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}`$ is much larger or smaller than one. In this case the $`JMR`$ is negative when $`m_3^{}`$ is smaller. In the lower panel of Fig. 9 where $`m_1=10`$, the situation is just opposite to the case in the upper panel, namely, with increasing $`m_3^{}`$ the oscillating $`JMR`$ becomes positive from negative. It appears that the sign of the $`JMR`$ is primarily controlled by $`m_1^{}`$. As mentioned above, the cause for the oscillation of the $`JMR`$ with the thickness of the normal metal layer stems from the quantum-size effect, while the oscillation period and amplitude are remarkably affected by the effective masses of electrons, i.e. $`m_1^{}`$ and $`m_3^{}`$.

To get the knowledge of the resultant effect of both impurity and effective masses on the $`JMR`$, we present the results shown in Figs. 10. It is observed that for a given $`m_1^{}=0.05`$ the $`JMR`$ is increasing to a maximum due to the impurity-induced tunneling, then decreasing to a minimum, and then increasing to saturate with increasing $`\gamma `$, and those maxima and minima are decreasing with increasing $`m_3^{}`$, as shown in Fig. 10 (a). With slightly increasing $`m_1^{}`$, the behaviors of the $`JMR`$ versus $`\gamma `$ and $`m_3^{}`$ are not altered so much, but the resonant positions are changed for different $`m_1^{}`$’s, as presented in Fig. 10 (b). When $`m_1^{}`$ is larger (e.g. $`m_1^{}=5`$), the situation changes. Though the behaviors of the $`JMR`$ versus $`\gamma `$ are qualitatively similar for $`m_3^{}<1`$, two dips appear for $`m_3^{}>1`$, and those maxima and minima are increasing with increasing $`m_3^{}`$, as given in Fig. 10 (c). It is indicated that even in the presence of impurities the difference of the effective masses between the left and the right FM electrodes would yield dramatic effect on the behaviors of the $`JMR`$. To obtain larger $`JMR`$, the proper ratio $`m_1^{}/m_3^{}`$ should be carefully chosen.

## V Summary

Based on a two-band model in this paper, we have investigated the effects of nonmagnetic impurities and effective masses of electrons in FM and normal metallic layers on the spin-dependent transport in a F-N-F hybrid structure by treating the system as a quantum-mechanical system. It is observed that both impurities and effective masses have remarkable effects on the conductance and the $`JMR`$ as well. The spin-valve effect, though imperfect due to the two-band feature, is recovered for low impurity barriers, while it becomes less obvious for high barriers. The so-called impurity-induced resonant tunneling is clearly seen in the F-N-F system. The reason for this property is that the quasi-bound states induced by impurities are formed in this system, and if the incident energy meets with the quasi-bound energy, the resonant tunneling occurs, leading to peaks observed in the curve of the conductance versus the amplitude of the impurity potential. It is found that the $`JMR`$ is oscillating with the amplitude of the impurity potential, the incident energies of electrons, as well as the thickness of the normal metallic layer. The impurity is also observed to influence remarkably the oscillating amplitudes and periods of the $`JMR`$. The effective masses of electrons in the three layers were found to have significant effects on the conductance and the $`JMR`$. It is demonstrated that the difference between the effective masses would tend to suppress the amplitudes of the conductance, namely, the larger the difference, the smaller the amplitude of the conductance. In other words, a smaller difference of the effective masses in the two FM electrodes would give rise to a larger amplitude of the $`JMR`$, suggesting that to get larger $`JMR`$ one ought ot choose those FM materials with almost identical effective masses of electrons. We have also found that the effective masses affect considerably the oscillating periods, amplitudes, as well as the positions of resonant peaks of the $`JMR`$. Recently magnetic semiconductors are used to be the injector of electrons in both resonant tunneling diodes and light-emitting diodes. Magnetic semiconductor has both properties of semiconductor and ferromagnet, and in these systems the effective mass of conduction electrons would have considerable effect on the transport properties. Therefore, our above discussion would be meaningful, and the reported results could be examined experimentally. Here we would like to point out that although we do not incorporate factors like spin-flip scatterings from magnons and magnetic impurities, as well as the spin accumulation, our obtained results are expected to shed some useful light on the spin-dependent transport in F-N-F hybrid junctions. How to develop a microscopic theory which includes properly the effects of correlations between electrons, is a challenging issue, which is now in progress.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Z.C. Wang for useful discussions. This work is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90103023, 10104015), the State Key Project for Fundamental Research in China, and by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

## Appendix

In this Appendix, the coefficients introduced in solving the Schrödinger equations in Secs. II and IV are collected here without giving detail derivations.

$`R_{}=k_1^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{c_3c_4+c_1c_6\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}{c_3c_5+c_2c_6\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}},\text{ }R_{}=k_1^{1/2}\mathrm{tan}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_2c_4c_1c_5}{c_3c_5+c_2c_6\mathrm{tan}^2\frac{\theta }{2}}};`$

$`A_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[(a_1^{}+1)k_1^{1/2}(a_11)R_{}],\text{ }A_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1a_2)R_{},`$

$`B_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[(1a_1^{})k_1^{1/2}+(a_1+1)R_{}],\text{ }B_{}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+a_2)R_{};`$

$`C_{}={\displaystyle \frac{c_3R_{}}{2(a_3a_4)\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}}},\text{ }C_{}={\displaystyle \frac{c_6R_{}}{2(a_3a_4)\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}}}\text{ };`$where

$`c_1`$ $`=`$ $`c_{11}+ic_{12},\text{ }c_2=c_{21}+ic_{22},\text{ }c_3=c_{31}+ic_{32},`$
$`c_4`$ $`=`$ $`c_{41}+ic_{42},\text{ }c_5=c_{51}+ic_{52},\text{ }c_6=c_{61}+ic_{62},`$
$`c_{11}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{q_1\mu _2k_1\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{12}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1+\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}1)\mathrm{sin}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`c_{21}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3+q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _2k_1q_1+\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}+1)\mathrm{sin}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`c_{31}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3+q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _2k_1q_1+\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{32}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}+1)\mathrm{sin}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`c_{41}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{q_1\mu _2k_1\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{42}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1+\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}1)\mathrm{sin}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`c_{51}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3+q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _2k_1q_1+\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{52}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}+1)\mathrm{sin}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`c_{61}`$ $`=`$ $`2[{\displaystyle \frac{k_3+q_1q_2k_1}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _2k_1q_1+\mu _1k_3}{k^2q_2}}\mathrm{sin}(kd)],`$
$`c_{62}`$ $`=`$ $`2[({\displaystyle \frac{k_3k_1q_1\mu _1\mu _2}{k^2q_2}}+1)\mathrm{sin}(kd){\displaystyle \frac{\mu _1q_2+\mu _2}{kq_2}}\mathrm{cos}(kd)],`$
$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{q_1k_1+i\mu _1}{k}},\text{ }a_2={\displaystyle \frac{q_1k_1+i\mu _1}{k}},`$
$`a_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{k_3+i\mu _2}{kq_2}},\text{ }a_4={\displaystyle \frac{k_3+i\mu _2}{kq_2}}.`$
FIGURE CAPTIONS

Fig.1 The schematic layout of the F-N-F hybrid junction.

Fig.2 The relative orientation ($`\theta `$) dependence of the conductance for different $`\gamma `$ \[in atomic unit (au)\], where $`E_F=2.7eV`$, $`|𝐡_L|=|𝐡_R|=1.9eV`$, $`V_1=V_2=0.06`$ $`eV`$, $`\mathrm{}=1,`$ $`m=m_1^{}=m_2^{}=m_3^{}=1`$ and $`d=30`$ Å.

Fig.3 The $`\gamma `$-dependence of the conductance $`G`$ for different Fermi energies, where $`\theta =\pi /3`$. The other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2.

Fig.4 The $`\gamma `$-dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different Fermi energies, where the parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2.

Fig.5 $`JMR`$ as a function of $`E_F`$ for different $`\gamma `$’s. The parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2.

Fig.6 The thickness dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different $`\gamma `$’s. The other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2.

Fig.7 (a) The $`\gamma `$-dependence of the conductance $`G`$ for different effective masses; (b) The $`E_F`$-dependence of the conductance $`G`$ for different effective masses, here $`\gamma =0`$. Both $`\theta =\pi /3,`$ $`m_2^{}=1`$, $`d=50`$ Å, and the other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig. 2.

Fig.8 The $`m_3^{}`$-dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different $`m_1^{}`$’s, here $`m_2^{}=1`$ and $`\gamma =0`$. Inset: The contour plot for the maximum $`JMR`$ in $`m_1^{}`$-$`m_3^{}`$ plane. The other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig. 2.

Fig.9 The thickness dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different effective masses, where $`m_2^{}=1`$, $`\gamma =0`$, and the other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2.

Fig.10 The $`\gamma `$-dependence of the $`JMR`$ for different $`m_3^{}`$’s, where $`m_2^{}=1`$, and the other parameters are chosen the same as in Fig.2. (a) $`m_1^{}=0.05`$; (b) $`m_1^{}=0.5`$; (c) $`m_1^{}=5`$.


format: text

text:
# Domain wall lattices

## Abstract

We construct lattices with alternating kinks and anti-kinks. The lattice is shown to be stable in certain models. We consider the forces between kinks and antikinks and find that the lattice dynamics is that of a Toda lattice. Such lattices are exotic metastable states in which the system can get trapped during a phase transition.

Domain walls are among the simplest topological defects known and have often been used as a test-bed for studying non-perturbative effects. An example of a domain wall is the “$`\varphi ^4`$ kink” trivially extended to three spatial dimensions. This solution is often thought to typify all domain walls. However, it has recently become clear that the properties of $`\varphi ^4`$ kinks do not simply carry over to more complicated systems PogVac00 ; Vac01 ; PogVac01 ; Pog02 ; Davetal02 ; Ton02  including condensed matter systems such as He-3 SalVol88 . Instead a much richer structure of kinks emerges. As we show in this paper, the enhanced structure of kinks in $`SU(N)\times Z_2`$ (for odd $`N`$) allows for the construction of lattices of kinks and anti-kinks. In related models the kink lattice is also perturbatively stable.

The lattices we are constructing are different from other known lattices such as an Abrikosov lattice Abr57 . The total topological charge of an Abrikosov lattice is non-vanishing. In contrast, the kink lattice we will construct will have zero topological charge. This means that we can construct the kink lattice in a box with periodic boundary conditions, and also that the lattice is topologically equivalent to the vacuum. Hence if we start out in an unbroken symmetry phase, with vanishing net topological charge, there is a chance that, after the symmetry is spontaneously broken, the system will be trapped in the lattice phase instead of the true vacuum. From the lattice phase, the system can then only reach the true vacuum by quantum tunneling.

We start with an $`SU(N)\times Z_2`$ field theory whose Lagrangian is:

$$L=\mathrm{Tr}(_\mu \mathrm{\Phi })^2V(\mathrm{\Phi })$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is an $`SU(N)`$ adjoint and $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ is invariant under

$$GSU(N)\times Z_2.$$
(2)
$`N3`$ is taken to be odd, and the parameters in $`V`$ are such that $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ has an expectation value that can be chosen to be

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0=\eta \sqrt{\frac{2}{N(N^21)}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}n\mathrm{𝟏}_{n+1}& \mathrm{𝟎}\\ \mathrm{𝟎}& (n+1)\mathrm{𝟏}_n\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where, $`n=(N1)/2`$, $`\mathrm{𝟏}_p`$ is the $`p\times p`$ identity matrix and $`\eta `$ is an energy scale determined by the minima of the potential $`V`$. Such an expectation value spontaneously breaks the symmetry down to:

$$H=[SU(n+1)\times SU(n)\times U(1)]/Z_{n+1}\times Z_n,$$
(4)
We will choose $`V(\mathrm{\Phi })`$ to be a quartic polynomial:

$$V(\mathrm{\Phi })=m^2\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Phi }^2]+h(\mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Phi }^2])^2+\lambda \mathrm{Tr}[\mathrm{\Phi }^4]+V_0$$
(5)
where $`V_0`$ is a constant chosen so that the minimum of the potential has $`V=0`$. The Lagrangian is symmetric under $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and it is the breaking of this $`Z_2`$ symmetry that gives rise to topological domain wall solutions. We could also extend the model by making it locally gauge invariant. The solutions described below will still be valid with the gauge fields set to zero; the stability analysis will change.

While our analysis can easily be carried out for general $`N`$, the physics is more transparent for a specific choice of $`N`$. Hence we will choose $`N=5`$ and, where relevant, remark on the case of general $`N`$ 111The corresponding quartic model with $`N=3`$ has an accidental $`SO(8)`$ symmetry. We could consider $`N=3`$ if (Tr$`(\mathrm{\Phi }^3))^2`$ and Tr$`(\mathrm{\Phi }^6)`$ terms were added to the potential. We have chosen to work with quartic potentials and with the larger value of $`N`$.. Then the desired symmetry breaking to

$$H=[SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)]/[Z_3\times Z_2]$$
(6)
is achieved in the parameter range

$$\frac{h}{\lambda }>\frac{N^2+3}{N(N^21)}|_{N=5}=\frac{7}{30}.$$
(7)
The vacuum expectation value (VEV), $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ is (up to any gauge rotation)

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0=\frac{\eta }{\sqrt{60}}\mathrm{diag}(2,2,2,3,3)$$
(8)
with $`\eta m/\sqrt{\lambda ^{}}`$ and

$$\lambda ^{}h+\frac{N^2+3}{N(N^21)}|_{N=5}\lambda =h+\frac{7}{30}\lambda .$$
(9)
In Refs. PogVac00 ; Vac01 ; PogVac01  it was found that there are several domain wall solutions in this model but a solution with least energy is achieved if $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{})\mathrm{\Phi }_{}=\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ and

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(+\mathrm{})\mathrm{\Phi }_+=\frac{\eta }{\sqrt{60}}\mathrm{diag}(2,3,3,2,2)$$
(10)
Two features of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ are worthy of note. First, there is a minus sign in front. This puts $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ in disconnected parts of the vacuum manifold. The second feature is that two blocks of entries of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ are permuted with respect to those of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$. In other words, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_+`$ are related by a non-trivial gauge rotation. Furthermore, the kink solution (or, domain wall solution, in more than one dimension) can be written down explicitly in the case when $`h/\lambda =3/20`$ PogVac00 ; Vac01 :

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_k=\frac{1\mathrm{tanh}(\sigma x)}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }_{}+\frac{1+\mathrm{tanh}(\sigma x)}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }_+$$
(11)
where $`\sigma =m/\sqrt{2}`$. For other values of the coupling constants, the solution has been found numerically PogVac00 .

The topological charge of a kink can be defined as

$$Q=\frac{\sqrt{60}}{\eta }(\mathrm{\Phi }_R\mathrm{\Phi }_L)$$
(12)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_R`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_L`$ are the asymptotic values of the Higgs field to the right ($`R`$) and left ($`L`$) of the kink. (The rescaling has been done for convenience.) Then the charge of the kink in eq. (11) is:

$$Q^{(1)}=\mathrm{diag}(4,1,1,1,1)$$
(13)
Similarly, one can construct kinks with charge matrices $`Q^{(i)}`$ ($`i=1,\mathrm{},5`$) which have $`4`$ as the $`ii`$ entry and $`+1`$ in the remaining diagonal entries. Hence there are kink solutions with 5 different topological charge matrices. Individually, the kinks can be gauge rotated into one another. But when two kinks are present, the different charges are physically relevant. This is most easily seen by noting that the interaction between a kink with charge $`Q^{(i)}`$ and an antikink with charge $`\overline{Q}^{(j)}=Q^{(j)}`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{Tr}(Q^{(i)}\overline{Q}^{(j)})`$ Pog02 . Then we have

$`\mathrm{Tr}(Q^{(i)}\overline{Q}^{(j)})`$ $`=`$ $`20\mathrm{if}i=j`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`+5\mathrm{if}ij`$
The sign of the trace tells us if the force between the kink and antikink is attractive (minus) or repulsive (plus). Hence the force between a kink and an antikink with different orientations ($`ij`$) is repulsive. This observation is key to the construction of kink lattices.

In Ref. Pog02 , the repulsive potential between a kink and an antikink at rest was derived. When the kink and antikink separation, $`R`$, is large, the result reduces to:

$$U(R)=\frac{4\sqrt{2}m^3}{\lambda }e^{2\sqrt{2}mR}$$
(15)
To construct a kink lattice, we now need to arrange a periodic sequence of kink charges such that the nearest neighbor interactions are repulsive. Kinks that are not nearest neighbors but are further apart will also interact, and perhaps even attract each other. However the forces between kinks and antikinks fall off exponentially fast and just taking nearest-neighbor interactions into account should be sufficient, at least for lattice spacing larger than the kink width. So now we can write down a sequence of charges that can form a kink lattice. This is:

$$\mathrm{}Q^{(1)}\overline{Q}^{(5)}Q^{(3)}\overline{Q}^{(1)}Q^{(5)}\overline{Q}^{(3)}\mathrm{}$$
(16)
and the sequence just repeats itself. Alternately, we could have a finite lattice if the kinks were in a compact space, such as a compact higher dimension, or the $`S^1`$ that arises in evaluating the partition function in statistical mechanics.

The sequence listed above is the minimum sequence for which the nearest neighbor interactions are repulsive. The repeating length of 6 kinks is independent of $`N`$ in $`SU(N)`$ since it is clear that we need at least, and no more than, 3 different kinds of kink charges.

Another way to write the kink sequence is to write it as a sequence of Higgs field expectation values. We write this sequence for the above minimal lattice:

$`\mathrm{}`$ $``$ $`+(2,2,2,3,3)(2,3,3,2,2)`$ (17)
$``$ $`+(3,2,2,3,2)(2,3,2,2,3)`$
$``$ $`+(2,2,3,3,2)(3,3,2,2,2)`$
$``$ $`+(2,2,2,3,3)\mathrm{}`$
We have constructed the solution for the minimal kink lattice numerically on a space with periodic boundary conditions. In Fig. 1 we show the total energy of the minimal lattice as a function of lattice spacing.

The minimal lattice of 6 kinks is easily generalized to longer sequences. A sequence of 10 kinks in the $`N=5`$ case is aesthetic in the sense that it uses all the 5 different charge matrices democratically:

$$\mathrm{}Q^{(1)}\overline{Q}^{(5)}Q^{(3)}\overline{Q}^{(4)}Q^{(2)}\overline{Q}^{(1)}Q^{(5)}\overline{Q}^{(3)}Q^{(4)}\overline{Q}^{(2)}\mathrm{}$$
(18)
Similarly one can construct sequences in the general $`N`$ case.

We have also numerically studied the dynamics of the lattice by giving one of the kinks an initial velocity. We find that the kink scatters elastically on the neighboring anti-kink, and the motion propagates down the lattice. Indeed, lattices of masses interacting via exponentially decaying repulsive forces (see eq. (15)) have been studied in the literature and are known as Toda lattices Tod88 . Hence the kink lattice is a Toda lattice.

We now discuss the stability of the lattice. A detailed stability analysis shows that the lattice in eq. (16) has three unstable modes, corresponding to rotations in the 1-3, 1-5, 3-5 blocks. To clarify the instability, we draw an analogy between the kink lattice and a lattice of bar magnets (Fig. 2). Each bar magnet on its own has a zero mode that corresponds to rotations in three dimensional space. When placed in the lattice shown in Fig. 2, rotational zero modes turn into unstable modes. Similarly, an isolated kink has zero modes corresponding to rotations in gauge space – for example, a kink with charge $`Q_1`$ can be rotated into the kink with charge $`Q_3`$ without any cost in energy. When a kink of charge $`Q_1`$ is placed near an antikink of charge $`\overline{Q}_3`$, the zero mode becomes an unstable mode, making it favorable for $`Q_1`$ to rotate into $`Q_3`$ after which the kink and antikink can annihilate.

This understanding of the instability also suggests a resolution: if the rotational zero modes are sufficiently suppressed or absent, the lattice will become stable. To suppress the rotational zero modes, we could break the symmetry further so that the kink is no longer invariant under rotations. We can also consider a case where the zero modes are completely absent right from the start. We will discuss this latter case as it is simpler to deal with and provides an explicit example of a field theory with stable kink lattices.

Consider the model with four real scalar fields,

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}(_\mu f_i)^2+V(f_1,f_2,f_3,f_4)$$
(19)
and

$`V`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}f_i^2+{\displaystyle \frac{h}{4}}({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}}f_i^2)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{8}}{\displaystyle \underset{a=1}{\overset{3}{}}}f_a^4`$ (20)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{7}{30}}f_4^4+f_1^2f_2^2\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{20}}[4(f_1^2+f_2^2)+9f_3^2]f_4^2`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{\sqrt{5}}}f_2f_4\left(f_1^2{\displaystyle \frac{f_2^2}{3}}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{4}}\eta ^2`$
This model has been obtained by truncating the field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ occurring in eq. (1) to its diagonal elements. The fields $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ correspond to the diagonal generators $`\lambda _3`$ and $`\lambda _8`$ of $`SU(3)`$ (see eq. (6)) in the Gell-Man basis, $`f_3`$ corresponds to the diagonal generator $`\tau _3`$ of $`SU(2)`$, and $`f_4`$ corresponds to the generator of $`U(1)`$. Now our four field model does not have the continuous $`SU(5)`$ symmetry of the model in eq. (1). The only remnant of the $`SU(5)`$ symmetry corresponds to the permutation of the five diagonal entries of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. In addition, the model also has the $`Z_2`$ symmetry under which $`f_if_i`$. Hence the model has an $`S_5\times Z_2`$ symmetry.

A vacuum of the model is given by $`f_1=0=f_2=f_3`$ and $`f_40`$. This breaks the symmetry to $`S_3\times S_2`$, corresponding to permutations of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ in the $`SU(3)`$ and $`SU(2)`$ blocks. The vacuum manifold consists of $`5!\times 2/3!\times 2!=20`$ discrete points. If we fix the vacua at $`x=\mathrm{}`$, this implies that there are 20 kink solutions in the model. All these 20 kink solutions have been described in Ref. PogVac01 .

The construction of kink lattices proceeds exactly as in the $`SU(5)`$ case above because the off-diagonal components of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ vanish there. Hence the $`S_5\times Z_2`$ model contains kink lattice solutions. Furthermore, these lattices are stable because the dangerous rotational perturbations are absent by the very construction of the model.

The occurrence of stable kink lattices with net vanishing topological charge implies that there are metastable states in the field theory. Generally metastable states are present in field theories due to features in the potential. Here, however, the metastable states are non-perturbative features of the model.

The existence of domain wall lattices is of interest in the context of phase transitions. What is the probability that a domain wall lattice will form during a phase transition? The answer depends on the complicated dynamics of a domain wall network in three spatial dimensions. For example, the model admits wall junctions of the kind shown in Fig. 3 Davetal02  and different walls can have different tensions. A simpler situation to consider is the formation in one spatial dimension for the $`S_5`$ model. We first note that the kinks with charge given in eq. (13) (and permutations thereof) are the lightest kinks in the system having $`Z_2`$ topology. Other kinks will decay into these kinks upon evolution. So we can restrict our attention to a sequence of kinks with charges given in eq. (13) and permutations. Now let us assume that we have a kink with charge $`Q_1`$. A neigboring antikink can have charge $`\overline{Q}_1`$, $`\overline{Q}_4`$ or $`\overline{Q}_5`$ (see eq. (17)). Of these only the first is unsuitable for a lattice and has a probability 1/3. Therefore if the phase transition produces $`2n`$ kinks, then the probability of having exactly $`2j`$ kinks that annihilate and $`2n2j`$ survive to form a lattice is derived by finding the number of ways of choosing the $`j`$ annihilating pairs and $`nj`$ surviving pairs and multiplying by the probability of annihilation (1/3) and survival (2/3). The result is that the probability of exactly $`j`$ pairs annihilating is: $`{}_{}{}^{n}C_{j}^{}(1/3)^j(2/3)^{nj}`$. Summing this expression from $`j=0`$ to $`n3`$ gives the total probability for obtaining a lattice provided we have $`2n`$ kinks. The sum can easily be evaluated. The interesting limit is when $`2n`$ is large. In that case, the probability tends to unity. Hence a kink lattice is certain to form if there are a large number of kinks. Further, the number of kinks is large if a large number of correlation domains are produced during the phase transition.

It would be interesting to test these ideas in a laboratory systems in which a kink lattice can exist. Periodic boundary conditions could be achieved if a toroidal sample were to undergo a phase transition.

Finally we mention the implications of a domain wall lattice produced during a cosmological phase transition. If spacetime is $`R^4\times S^1`$ and the wall lattice resides in the (small) compact dimension, there will be an effective cosmological constant in the $`R^4`$ due to invariance under Lorentz boosts of the wall Ref. Zeletal74 ; Vil81 . The effective cosmological constant may be time dependent if the coupling constant $`\lambda `$ were to run with energy scale, or to depend on the dynamics of the spacetime, or on another field. Yet another source of time dependence can come via the number of walls in the lattice since the wall lattice is not protected by topology or any conserved number. So the number of walls in the lattice can cascade down and eventually become zero. The difficulty with this cosmological scenario is that the extra compact dimension will not be static and will lead to an effective Newton’s gravitational constant that is time dependent. Since the metric of the system is not yet known, it is not possible to say if the time variation can be slow enough for the scenario to be viable.

In conclusion, we have shown that stable lattices of domain walls can exist in a wide class of field theories. These are exotic metastable states in which the system can get trapped with high probability during a phase transition.

###### Acknowledgements.

TV is grateful to Craig Copi, Jaume Garriga, Tom Kibble, Arthur Lue, Harsh Mathur, Glenn Starkman, and Alex Vilenkin for discussions. We thank the organizers of the 2002 ESF COSLAB School in Cracow where a part of this project was completed. TV was supported by DOE grant number DEFG0295ER40898 at CWRU.


text:
# Semiconductor-cavity QED in high-Q regimes: Detuning effect

## I introduction

The optical properties of the semiconductor structures have been the subject of intensive experimental and theoretical investigation during recent years. Technical progress in the semiconductor crystal growth has made it possible to control semiconductor structures in all three spatial dimensions. Experimentally, physicists can fabricate the quantum wells, in which a thin semiconductor film is sandwiched between different materials via heterojunctions so that the motion of carriers is confined in the two dimensional thin-film plane. This confinement of carriers to two dimensions gives rise to new quantum effect not observed in bulk materials, for example, an electric field-induced energy shift of the resonance which is called the quantum confined Stark effect . Multi-dimensional quantum confined structure, such as quantum wires and quantum dots, are expected to further improve the quantum effect of the optical devices. Experiments have shown that the confinement of carriers in these low dimensional semiconductor structures (LDSS’s) can result in novel optical-electronic effects which may lead to fabrication of new optical components. Some new fascinating achievements in the areas, such as semiconductor microcavity (SMC) quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum dot microlaser and turnstile device , quantum computer with quantum dot , and semiconductor random laser  etc., encourage the study of optical-electronic properties of these micro-structures.

The present trend toward smaller-scale nanostructures and the continuous development of new and improved materials have started a steady progress towards fabrication of more ideal optical microcavities. If an LDSS is placed in an SMC, the optical mode structure of the SMC will change around the LDSS. Using this effect many interesting phenomena, such as tailoring the spontaneous radiation pattern and rate , the coupled exciton-photon mode splitting in a semiconductor quantum microcavity , have been demonstrated. Therefore the investigation of optical properties of an LDSS placed into a semiconductor cavity is very important and necessary for theoretical and experimental physicists.

It is known that the interaction between the light and these micro-systems occurs via exciton  which is an electron-hole pair bound by the Coulomb attraction. The radiation of exciton exhibits the superradiant character. The initial theoretical  and experimental  studies were focused on the superradiance of the Wannier excitons in semiconductor micro-crystallites. Then, the superradiance of the Frenkel excitons was observed in J aggregates at low temperature . In 1995, the superradiance of high density Frenkel excitons in a R-Phycoerythrin(R-PE) single crystal was observed at room temperature for the first time . We have studied the spontaneous radiation of the Frenkel excitons in a crystal slab under the condition of low excitation with an exactly solvable model and shown its superradiance nature . We have also discussed the quantum statistical properties of the output field and the semiconductor QED for the high density excitons in a semiconductor microcavity . In the former works, our main interest was the resonant interaction between the excitons and the cavity field. But we know that the detuning between the cavity field and exciton always affects the radiation properties of the exciton in the quantum well . So in this paper we will discuss a general model of the interaction between the high density excitons in a quantum well and a single-mode cavity field.

In section II, we give a general theoretical model of the non-resonant interaction between a single-mode cavity field and the exctions. By virtue of the Schwinger’s representation of the angular momentum using two boson modes, we approximately obtain the analytical solution of the system. In section III, the stationary physical spectrum of the excitons, which are initially in the number state or the superposed state of two different number states is presented. A comparison of these results with those of the resonant cases will be also given. Finally, a brief summary and conclusion are presented in section IV.

## II theoretical model and analytical solution

In this section, we present a theoretical model to study the interaction between a quantum well and a single-mode cavity field. We assume that the cavity and the quantum well are ideal, and they are in an extremely low temperature circumstance. The quantum well interacts with cavity field via exciton, which is an electron-hole pair bound by the Coulomb attraction. At extremely low temperatures, the thermal momentum of the excitons is so small that the thermalized excitons can be neglected. Then there are only excitons with zero in-plane momentum. It is well known that when the density of the excitons becomes high, the ideal bosonic model of the excitons is no longer adequate (In the case of a GaAs quantum well, the ideal bosonic model becomes inadequate when the density of the excitons exceeds $`1.3\times 10^9`$ cm$`{}_{}{}^{}2`$  ) for a theoretical study. However, we can describe exciton operators as hypothetical bosonic operators. In order to deal with the deviation of the exciton operators from the ideal bosonic operators, we introduce an effective non-linear interaction between these hypothetical ideal bosons to correct the high excitons density effect . These considerations lead to the following Hamiltonian after the rotating-wave approximation is made :

$$H=H_0+H^{}$$
(1)
with

$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega _1a^{}a+\mathrm{}\omega _2b^{}b+\mathrm{}g(a^{}b+b^{}a),`$ (3)
$`H^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}Ab^{}b^{}bb\mathrm{}\nu (a^{}b^{}bb+b^{}b^{}ab),`$ (4)
where $`b^{}(b)`$ are creation (annihilation) operators of the excitons with frequency $`\omega _2`$, and $`a^{}(a)`$ are the creation (annihilation) operators of the cavity field with frequency $`\omega _1`$. We assume that both of them obey the bosonic commutation relation $`[b,b^{}]=[a,a^{}]=1`$. $`g`$ stands for the interaction strength between the cavity field and the excitons. $`A`$ represents an effective interaction constant between the excitons. $`A`$ is assumed as a positive real number, which means that the bi-excitons are not stable in this system of the quantum well. So, it is reasonable to consider that only excitons are present in the quantum well. $`\nu `$ is a positive real number which describes the phase space filling factor. The ratio of the phase space filling factor to the interaction constant of the excitons is about $`\nu /A=0.3`$ . For the sake of simplicity, we assume that the parameters $`A`$ and $`\nu `$ are of the same order, or $`A^2<\nu `$. In that case, it is convenient to give the solution of eq.(3) using the Schwinger’s representation of the angular momentum for two-mode bosonic operators . Angular momentum operators can be constructed as

$`J_x`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(a^{}b+b^{}a),J_y={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2i}}(a^{}bb^{}a),`$ (6)
$`J_z`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(a^+ab^+b),`$ (7)
and total number operator as

$$\widehat{N}=a^+a+b^+b,$$
(8)
using the ladder operators $`a^{},a`$ of the cavity field and the exciton operators $`b^{},b`$. It is obvious that $`\widehat{N}`$ is the constant of motion with respect to the Hamiltonian (1). Then the total angular momentum operator can be expressed as

$$J^2=J_x^2+J_y^2+J_z^2=\frac{\widehat{N}}{2}(\frac{\widehat{N}}{2}+1).$$
(9)
For any fixed total particle number $`𝒩`$, the common eigen-states of $`J^2`$ and $`J_z`$ are

$$|jm=\frac{(a^{})^{j+m}(b^{})^{jm}}{\sqrt{(j+m)!(jm)!}}|0,$$
(10)
with the eigenvalues $`j=\frac{𝒩}{2}`$, and $`m=\frac{𝒩}{2},\mathrm{},\frac{𝒩}{2}`$, where $`|jm`$ are the Fock states with $`j+m`$ photons in the cavity and $`jm`$ excitons in the quantum well, respectively. Although $`j\pm m`$ must be integers, $`j`$ and $`m`$ can both be integers or both be half-odd integers. If we define

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{1}{2}(\omega _1+\omega _2),\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{1}{2}(\omega _1\omega _2),$$
(11)
then eq.(3) can be simplified into

$`H_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{N}+\mathrm{}G(sin\theta J_x+cos\theta J_z)`$ (12)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\widehat{N}+\mathrm{}Ge^{i\theta J_y}J_ze^{i\theta J_y}`$ (13)
in terms of an $`SO(3)`$ rotation $`e^{i\theta J_y}`$ of $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{N}+\mathrm{}G(sin\theta J_x+cos\theta J_y)`$ with $`G=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }^2+4g^2}`$ and $`tg\theta =\frac{2g}{\mathrm{\Delta }}`$. The eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of Hamiltonian (13) are, respectively,

$$|\psi _{jm}^{(0)}=e^{i\theta J_y}|jm,E_{jm}^{(0)}=\mathrm{}(𝒩\mathrm{\Omega }+mG).$$
(14)
It is clear that eigenfunction $`|\psi _{jm}^{(0)}`$ represents a dressed exciton state or a polariton state. Based on eq.(14), using perturbation theory and keeping $`A`$ and $`\nu `$ parameters up to their first-order, we obtain the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian (1) as:

$$E_{jm}=E_{jm}^{(0)}+jm|e^{i\theta J_y}H^{}e^{i\theta J_y}|jm,$$
(16)
and

$$|\psi _{jk}=|\psi _{jk}^{(0)}+\underset{nk}{}\frac{\psi _{jn}^{(0)}|H^{}|\psi _{jk}^{(0)}}{E_{jk}^{(0)}E_{jn}^{(0)}}|\psi _{jn}^{(0)}.$$
(17)
In order to obtain $`E_{jm}`$ and $`|\psi _{jk}`$, we first calculate the matrix elements of the perturbation term as follows

$`\psi _{jn}^{(0)}|H^{}|\psi _{jm}^{(0)}=\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^4+\nu \mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2](jm1)(jm)\delta _{n,m}+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2\nu \mathrm{sin}2\theta ](j^2m^2)\delta _{n,m}`$ (18)
$`+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2\mathrm{sin}\theta \nu \mathrm{cos}\theta (\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{2}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2](jm)\sqrt{(j+m)(jm+1)}\delta _{n,m1}`$ (19)
$`+\mathrm{}[{\displaystyle \frac{A}{4}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{4}}\mathrm{sin}2\theta ]\sqrt{(j+m)(j+m1)}\sqrt{(jm+1)(jm+2)}\delta _{n,m2}`$ (20)
$`+\mathrm{}[A\mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2\nu \mathrm{cos}\theta (\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{2}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2]\sqrt{(jm)(j+m+1)}(jm1)\delta _{n,m+1}`$ (21)
$`+\mathrm{}[A\mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2\nu \mathrm{cos}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{2}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2]\sqrt{(j+m)(jm+1)}(j+m1)\delta _{n,m1}`$ (22)
$`+\mathrm{}[A\mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2\nu \mathrm{cos}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{2}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2]\sqrt{(jm)(j+m+1)}(j+m)\delta _{n,m+1}`$ (23)
$`+\mathrm{}[{\displaystyle \frac{A}{4}}(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{4}}\mathrm{sin}2\theta ]\sqrt{(j+m+1)(j+m+2)}\sqrt{(jm)(jm1)}\delta _{n,m+2}`$ (24)
$`+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^4\nu \mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2](j+m)(j+m1)\delta _{n,m},`$ (25)
and then write the eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian (1)as:

$`E_{jm}=\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }𝒩+\mathrm{}Gm+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^2\nu \mathrm{sin}2\theta ](j^2m^2)`$ (26)
$`+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^4+\nu \mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2](jm1)(jm)`$ (27)
$`+\mathrm{}[A(\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^4\nu \mathrm{sin}\theta (\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{\theta }{2}})^2](j+m)(j+m1).`$ (28)
All the eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian (1) can be easily obtained using eq.(17) and eqs.(14,25). Then the time evolution operators of the system can be written as

$$U(t)=e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}Ht}=\underset{j=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{m=j}{\overset{j}{}}e^{it\frac{E_{jm}}{\mathrm{}}}|\psi _{jm}\psi _{jm}|.$$
(29)
Consequently, for any initial state $`|\psi (0)`$, the time-dependent wave function can be obtained as $`|\psi (t)=U(t)|\psi (0)`$.

## III radiation spectrum of exciton

Under the condition of ideal cavity, ideal quantum well, and extremely low temperature, both the excitons and the cavity field have zero linewidth. Assumption of ideal quantum well is important to eliminate the linewidth of excitons which may be caused by the fluctuations of the quantum well. So the only broadening mechanism comes from the detecting spectrometer for which the physical spectrum can be defined as

$$S(\omega )=2\gamma _0^tdt_1_0^tdt_2e^{(\gamma i\omega )(tt_2)}e^{(\gamma +i\omega )(tt_1)}G(t_1,t_2)$$
(30)
where $`\gamma `$ is the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer, and $`t`$ is the time length of the excitation in the cavity. $`G(t_1,t_2)`$ represents the dipole correlation function of the excitons and is defined as

$$G(t_1,t_2)=\psi (0)|B^{}(t_2)B(t_1)|\psi (0)$$
(31)
with the initial state $`|\psi (0)`$ of the system, and $`B^{}=b^{}\nu b^{}b^{}b`$ $`(B=b\nu b^{}bb)`$ where the second term comes from the correction of the phase space filling effect . Taking into account the fact that $`b(t)=U^{}(t)bU(t)`$, we can obtain the correlation $`G(t_1,t_2)`$ as

$`G(t_1,t_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\psi (0)|U^{}(t_2)B^{}U(t_2)U^{}(t_1)BU(t_1)|\psi (0)`$ (32)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,l,m,n}{}}\psi _{jl}|B^{}|\psi _{km}\psi _{km}|B|\psi _{jn}`$ (33)
$`\times `$ $`\psi (0)|\psi _{jl}\psi _{jn}|\psi (0)e^{i\omega _{jl,km}t_2}e^{i\omega _{jn,km}t_1}`$ (34)
with $`\omega _{jl,km}=(E_{jl}E_{km})/\mathrm{}`$ and $`\omega _{jn,km}=(E_{jn}E_{km})/\mathrm{}`$. It is evident that $`j`$ is determined only by the initial state $`|\psi (0)`$. Then the stationary physical spectrum can be written as

$`S(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,l,k,m}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma ^2+(\omega \omega _{jl,km})^2}}`$ (35)
$`\times `$ $`|\psi (0)|\psi _{jl}|^2|\psi _{jl}|B^{}|\psi _{km}|^2.`$ (36)
In order to fulfill the condition $`m^{}j^{}|B^{}|jm0`$, both $`j^{}=j+\frac{1}{2}`$ and $`m^{}=m\frac{1}{2}`$ must be satistied. According to the above selection rule, eq.(36) can be rewritten as

$`S(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,l,m}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma ^2+(\omega \omega _{jl,j\frac{1}{2}m})^2}}`$ (37)
$`\times `$ $`|\psi (0)|\psi _{jl}|^2|\psi _{jl}|B^{}|\psi _{j\frac{1}{2}m}|^2.`$ (38)
The eigenvalues determine the position of the spectral component and $`|\psi (0)|\psi _{jl}|^2|\psi _{jl}|B^{}|\psi _{j\frac{1}{2}m}|^2`$ determine the intensity of the spectral lines. The above spectral formula is similar to that of reference .

In the following, we will consider that the system is initially prepared in the bare exciton state using the resonant femtosecond pulse pumping method . For simplicity, we assume that $`\mathrm{}=1`$, so that all frequency quantities have a unit of energy. Moreover, we impose that initially there are no photons in the cavity. Then for a system, which is initially prepared in the single exciton state, the physical spectrum from $`𝒩=1`$ to $`𝒩=0`$ can be simplified into

$`S(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma (sin\frac{\theta }{2})^4}{\gamma ^2+(\omega \mathrm{\Omega }\frac{G}{2})^2}}`$ (39)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma (cos\frac{\theta }{2})^4}{\gamma ^2+(\omega \mathrm{\Omega }+\frac{G}{2})^2}}`$ (40)
which has double peaks located at $`\mathrm{\Omega }+\frac{G}{2}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{G}{2}`$. It is clear that the phase space filling factor and the interaction between the excitons, which are the results of the multi-exciton presence, don’t affect the physical spectrum of this system.

Figure $`1`$ depicts the effect of detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on the relative heights and the positions of the two peaks in the spectrum of the system described by eq. (40). The difference between the heights of the two peaks in the physical spectrum is zero when $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ (resonance case). This profile line is observed for two-level atomic systems, too. In the non-resonant case, peaks have different heights and the frequency difference between them become larger due to detuning effect. With the increase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the height of the peak locating at $`\mathrm{\Omega }+\frac{G}{2}`$ reduces gradually, whereas the height of the peak at $`\mathrm{\Omega }\frac{G}{2}`$ increases. From eq. (40) and the condition $`tg\theta =2g/\mathrm{\Delta }`$, it can be derived that if $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and the coupling constant $`g`$ satisfy the condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }2g`$, then $`\theta 0`$, which means the physical spectrum has approximately one peak. It is seen in Fig. $`1`$ that when $`\mathrm{\Delta }10g`$, the difference between the heights of the peaks becomes constant. A further analysis will reveal that at those values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, the height of the peak located at $`\mathrm{\Omega }+\frac{G}{2}`$ becomes very close to zero, therefore the spectrum can be interpreted as having a single peak.

With the increase of the pumping power, the emission spectrum of the system becomes complex. The simplest non-trivial example, for which the non-linear terms play a role in the physical spectrum, is obtained when the quantum well has initially two excitons and there is no photon in the cavity. In that case, the physical spectrum from $`𝒩=2`$ to $`𝒩=1`$ becomes

$$S(\omega )=\underset{l,m}{}\frac{2\gamma }{\gamma ^2+(\omega \omega _{l,m})^2}|\psi (0)|\psi _{1l}|^2|\psi _{1l}|B^{}|\psi _{\frac{1}{2}m}|^2$$
(41)
with $`\omega _{lm}=\omega _{1l,\frac{1}{2}m}`$. We know that there are three and two dressed exciton states for $`𝒩=2`$ and $`𝒩=1`$, respectively. According to the selection rule, there should be six peaks in the physical spectrum (41).

Figure $`2`$, which is drawn using eq.(41), depicts the radiation spectrum $`S(\omega )`$ of the excitons as a function of the frequency difference $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ under the resonant condition with or without considering the phase space filling factor. In order to give a clear picture, the natural logarithm of the physical spectrum is plotted in Fig.$`2`$ (in Figs.$`3`$ and $`6`$, as well). It is understood that the phase filling factor does not affect the line profile of the spectrum, but changes the heights and the positions of the peaks. So in the following numerical results, we have neglected the phase space filling effect.

Figure 3 clarifies that the detuning between the cavity field and the excitons changes not only the positions of the peaks, but also reduces their heights. The larger the detuning is, the stronger its effect on the physical spectrum is. As it is seen in Fig.$`3`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2`$ meV only slightly changes the position and heights of the peaks keeping their number constant. However, with increasing detuning up to $`\mathrm{\Delta }=200`$ meV, the number of the peaks in the spectrum gradually decreases because (i) the heights of some peaks become so small when compared to main peak that they can be neglected, and (ii) some peaks are shifted so close to each other that they can not be resolved.

The variation of the positions of the six peaks (labeled as $`p_1`$, $`p_2\mathrm{}.p_6`$ in the spectrum of Fig.$`3a`$) of eq.(41) is plotted as a function of detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in Figure $`4`$. It is seen that with the increase in detuning, the difference between $`p_2`$ and $`p_3`$ becomes almost zero so that they can not be resolved. Peaks $`p_1`$ and $`p_6`$, respectively, shifts to more positive and negative sides of the spectrum. The positions of $`p_4`$ and $`p_5`$ are interchanged with increasing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, and after this interchange their relative positions are kept the same.

It is also observed that when the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer $`\gamma `$ and the coupling constant between the cavity field and the excitons are of the same order, the number of the peaks in the physical spectrum (41) becomes two. This is because the spectrometer can not resolve the position of some of the peaks. Figure $`5`$ shows that under the conditions of the weak interaction between the excitons, the heights of the peaks in spectrum are equal if the cavity field resonates with the excitons. However for the non-resonant case, the heights of the two peaks are not equal due to the detuning between the frequencies of the cavity field and that of the excitons even if there is weak interaction between the excitons.

Superposition of two different exciton states is yet another interesting case to investigate. If we consider the excitons are initially in the state $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|1+|2)`$ and the cavity field is in the vacuum state $`|0`$, then the physical spectrum can be written as

$`S(\omega )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=\frac{1}{2}}{\overset{1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{l,m}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{2\gamma }{\gamma ^2+(\omega \omega _{jl,j\frac{1}{2}m})^2}}`$ (42)
$`\times `$ $`|\psi (0)|\psi _{jl}|^2|\psi _{jl}|b^{}|\psi _{j\frac{1}{2}m}|^2,`$ (43)
from which it can be found that there are eight peaks in the emission spectrum of the excitons. Figure $`6`$ depicts the line profile of the physical spectrum $`S(\omega )`$ as a function of the frequency difference $`\omega \mathrm{\Omega }`$ under the resonant condition.

It is seen from Fig.$`6`$ that the physical spectrum is a simple sum of one and two exciton spectra. At first sight,it seems that it is a normal and expected result. However, if the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer gradually increases, the peaks of the physical spectrum given by eq.(43) reduces from eight to one.

## IV conclusions

In this study, the interaction between the high-density excitons in a quantum well and the cavity field is investigated under both the resonant and non-resonant conditions. The model and the discussions presented in this paper are valid only when the excitons and cavity field have zero linewidth.

An analytical expression of the physical spectrum of the excitons is obtained. A discussion of the physical spectrum of the excitons which are initially prepared in the number state or the superposed state of the two different number states is presented. It is observed that for a system having a single exciton state initially, the resonant interaction between the cavity field and the excitons gives the results similar to those of the two-level atomic system for which the two peaks in the physical spectrum have equal heights. However, non-resonant interaction results in the detuning which will change both the amplitudes of peaks and the frequency difference between them.

It is understood that the phase space filling effect does not affect the line profile of the physical spectrum, but it adjusts the heights and positions of the physical spectrum. It is also shown that the number of the peaks in the physical spectrum is reduced with increase in either the detuning quantity or the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer. Under the conditions of the low exciton density and the resonant interaction between the cavity field and the excitons, if the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer has the same order as the coupling constant between the cavity field and excitons, then spectrum has two peaks with equal heights. But in the case of higher exciton density or the non-resonant interaction, even if the the half-bandwidth of the spectrometer has the same order as the coupling constant between the cavity field and excitons, the two peaks have different heights due to the interaction between the excitons or the detuning effect. When the system is initially in the superposed state of a single exciton state and two exctions state, the resultant physical spectrum is a simple sum of the spectra of the components of the superposition states.

## V acknowledgments

The authors thank M. Koashi, A. Miranowicz and T. Yamamoto for helpful and simulating discussions. Yu-xi Liu is supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). C. P. Sun is supported by NSF of China. This work also is supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (Grant No. 12440111) by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.


text:
# B-decays at Large tan𝛽 as a Probe of SUSY Breaking 1footnote 11footnote 1talk by S. Baek

## Abstract

We consider $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ and the muon $`(g2)_\mu `$ in various SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms. If the decay $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is observed at Tevatron Run II with a branching ratio larger than $`2\times 10^8`$, the noscale supergravity (including the gaugino mediation), the gauge mediation scenario with small number of messenger fields and low messenger scale, and a class of anomaly mediation scenarios will be excluded, even if they can accommodate a large muon $`(g2)_\mu `$. On the other hand, the minimal supergravity scenario and similar mechanisms derived from string models can accommodate this observation.

preprint:     February, 2002 KAIST-TH 2002/12  hep-ph/0202xxx KIAS-P02008

The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) is one of the leading candidates for the physics beyond the standard model (SM). Its detailed phenomenology depends on soft SUSY breaking terms which contain 105 new parameters compared to the SM. There are some interesting suggestions that have been put forward over the last two decades: gravity mediation (SUGRA), gauge mediation (GMSB), anomaly mediation (AMSB), and gaugino mediation ($`\stackrel{~}{g}`$MSB), etc.. Each mechanism predicts specific forms of soft SUSY breaking parameters at some messenger scale. It is most important to determine the soft parameters from various different experiments, and compare the resulting soft SUSY breaking parameters with those predicted in the aforementioned SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms. This process will provide invaluable informations on the origin of SUSY breaking, which may be intrinsically rooted in very high energy regimes such as intermediate, GUT or Planck scales.

Direct productions of SUSY particles and measuring their properties are indispensable for this purpose. However, indirect searches such as FCNC and/or CP violating processes, can be complementary to the direct search.

We considered the low energy processes $`(g2)_\mu `$, $`BX_s\gamma `$ and $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ for theoretically well motivated SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms prl : no scale scenario noscale  including $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$MSB ginomsb , GMSB gmsb  and the minimal AMSB amsb  and some of variations gamsb ; damsb ; fi . It turns out there are qualitative differences among some correlations for different SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms prl ; tata . Especially the branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ turns out sensitive to the SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms, irrespective of the muon anomalous magnetic moment $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ as long as $`10\times 10^{10}a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}40\times 10^{10}`$. If $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is observed at Tevatron Run II with a branching ratio larger than $`2\times 10^8`$, the GMSB with a small number of messenger fields with low messenger scale and a class of AMSB scenarios will be excluded. Only supergravity or GMSB with high messenger scale and large number of messenger fields and the deflected AMSB would survive.

The SUSY contributions to $`a_\mu `$ come from the chargino-sneutrino and the neutralino-smuon loop, the former of which is dominant in most parameter space. In particular, $`\mu >0`$ implies $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}>0`$ in our convention. The deviation between the new BNL data g-2exp  and the most recently updated SM predictiong-2th  based on the $`\sigma (e^+e^{}`$ hadrons) data is $`(33.9\pm 11.2)\times 10^{10}`$.On the other hand, the deviation becomes smaller if the hadronic tau decays are used. Therefore, we do not use $`a_\mu `$ as a constraint except for $`a_\mu >0`$, and give predictions for it in this letter.

It has long been known that the $`BX_s\gamma `$ branching ratio puts a severe constraint on many new physics scenarios including weak scale SUSY models. The magnetic dipole coefficient $`C_{7\gamma }`$ for this decay gets contributions from SM, charged Higgs and SUSY particles in the loop. The charged Higgs contributions always add up to the SM contributions, thereby increasing the rate. On the other hand, the last (mainly by the stop \- chargino loop) can interfere with the SM and the charged Higgs contributions either in a constructive or destructive manner depending on the sign of $`\mu M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$. Note that the positive $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ picks up $`\mu >0`$ (for $`M_2>0`$) in our convention. Fortunately, this results in destructive interference of the stop-chargino loop with the SM and the charged Higgs contribution in $`BX_s\gamma `$ decay, in all the models considered except the AMSB scenario. In the AMSB scenario, the constructive interference between the stop-chargino loop and the SM contributions to $`BX_s\gamma `$, increases the rate even more. Therefore the AMSB scenario is strongly constrained if $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}>0`$.

Another important effect is the nonholomorphic SUSY QCD corrections to the $`hb\overline{b}`$ couplings in the large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ limit: the Hall-Rattazzi-Sarid (HRS) effect hall . Also, the stop - chargino loop could be quite important for large $`A_t`$ and $`y_t`$ couplings. One can summarize these effects as the following relation between the bottom quark mass and the bottom Yukawa coupling $`y_b`$:

$$m_b=y_b\frac{\sqrt{2}M_W\mathrm{cos}\beta }{g}(1+\mathrm{\Delta }_b)$$
(1)
where the explicit form of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ can be found in Ref. logan . In the large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ limit, the SUSY loop correction $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ which is proportional to $`\mu M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ can be large as well with either sign, depending on the signs of the $`\mu `$ parameter and the gluino mass parameter $`M_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$. In particular, the bottom Yukawa coupling $`y_b`$ becomes too large and nonperturbative, when $`\mu >0`$ in the AMSB scenario, since the sign of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b`$ would be negative. This puts additional constraint on $`\mathrm{tan}\beta 35`$ for the positive $`\mu `$ in the AMSB scenario.

The decay $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ has a very small branching ratio in the SM ($`(3.7\pm 1.2)\times 10^9`$)Buchalla:1995vs . But it can occur with much higher branching ratio in SUSY models when $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ is large, because the Higgs exchange contributions can be significant for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ Hamzaoui:1998nu dedes . The branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{tan}^6\beta `$ for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. Thus this decay may be observable at the Tevatron Run II down to the level of $`2\times 10^8`$, and could be complementary to the direct search for SUSY particles at the Tevatron Run II in the large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ region.

In the following, we consider three aforementioned SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms. Each scenario gives definite predictions for the soft terms at some messenger scale. We use renormalization group equations in order to get soft parameters at the electroweak scale, impose the radiative electroweak symmetry breaking (REWSB) condition and then obtain particle spectra and mixing angles. Then we impose the direct search limits on Higgs and SUSY particles prl . Also we impose the $`BX_s\gamma `$ branching ratio as a constraint with a conservative bound (at 95 % C.L.) considering theoretical uncertainties related with QCD corrections: $`2.0\times 10^4<B(BX_s\gamma )<4.5\times 10^4`$ bsg .

The correlation between $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ and $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ were recently studied in the minimal SUGRA scenario dedes arnowitt . The result is that the positive large $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ implies that $`B(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ can be enhanced by a few orders of magnitude compared to the SM prediction, and can be reached at the Tevatron Run II. The $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$MSB scenario, which finds a natural setting in the brane world scenarios, leads to the no-scale SUGRA type boundary condition for soft parameters, in which scalar mass and trilinear scalar terms all vanish at GUT scale, $`B=m_{ij}^2=A_{ijk}=0`$ and only gaugino masses are non-vanishing. The result is shown in Fig. 1(a). Assuming the gaugino mass unification at GUT scale, we find that overall phenomenology of $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$MSB scenario (and the noscale scenario) in the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ and $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is similar to the mSUGRA scenario (see Ref. bks  for details including $`BX_sl^+l^{}`$). In the allowed parameter space, the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ can easily become upto $`60\times 10^{10}`$. But the branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is always smaller than $`2\times 10^8`$ and becomes unobservable at the Tevatron Run II. The reason is that the large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ region, where the branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ can be much enhanced, is significantly constrained by stau or smuon mass bounds and the lower bound of $`BX_s\gamma `$. Therefore if the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ turns out to be positive and the decay $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is observed at the Tevatron Run II, the $`\stackrel{~}{g}`$MSB scenario would be excluded.

The ‘pure’ AMSB model has the tachyonic slepton problem. For phenomenological study we take the ‘minimal’ AMSB model which has additional universal scalar mass $`m_0^2`$ at the GUT scale Feng:1999hg . It is specified by the following four parameters : $`\mathrm{tan}\beta ,\mathrm{sign}(\mu ),m_0,M_{aux}`$.

In Fig. 1, we show the contour plots for the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ and $`B(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ in the $`(m_0,\mathrm{tan}\beta )`$ plane for $`M_{\mathrm{aux}}=50`$ TeV. In the case of the AMSB scenario with $`\mu >0`$, the $`BX_s\gamma `$ constraint is even stronger compared to other scenarios and almost all the parameter space with large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta >30`$ is excluded. Therefore the branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is smaller than $`4\times 10^9`$, and this process becomes unobservable at the Tevatron Run II. If the decay $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ is observed at the Tevatron Run II, the minimal AMSB scenario would be excluded.

GMSB scenarios are specified by the following set of parameters: $`M`$, $`N`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ and sign($`\mu `$), where $`N`$ is the number of messenger superfields, $`M`$ is the messenger scale, and the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is SUSY breaking scale, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }F_X/X`$. In Fig. 2, we show the contour plots for the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$, $`m_{h^0}`$, and $`B(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ with $`N=1`$ and $`M=10^6`$ GeV. For low messenger scale, the charged Higgs and stops are heavy and their effects on the $`BX_s\gamma `$ and $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ are small. And the $`A_t`$ is small since it can generated by only RG running, so that the stop mixing angle becomes small. These effects lead to very small branching ratio for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ ($`10^8`$), making this decay unobservable at the Tevatron Run II. On the other hand, the $`a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ can be as large as $`60\times 10^{10}`$. For a given $`N`$, $`B(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ increases as $`M`$ due to RG effect (see Fig. 2). Also for larger $`N`$, $`B(B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{})`$ is enhanced because the scalar masses are suppressed relative to the gaugino masses.

In conclusion, we showed that there are qualitative differences in correlations among $`(g2)_\mu `$, $`BX_s\gamma `$, and $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ in various models for SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms, even if all of them can accommodate the muon $`a_\mu `$: $`10\times 10^{10}a_\mu ^{\mathrm{SUSY}}40\times 10^{10}`$. Especially, if the $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ decay is observed at Tevatron Run II with the branching ratio greater than $`2\times 10^8`$, the GMSB with low number of messenger fields $`N`$ and certain class of AMSB scenarios would be excluded. On the other hand, the minimal supergravity scenario and similar mechanisms derived from string models and the deflected AMSB scenario can accommodate this observation bks  without difficulty for large $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$. Therefore search for $`B_s\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$ decay at the Tevatron Run II would provide us with important informations on the SUSY breaking mediation mechanisms, independent of informations from direct search for SUSY particles at high energy colliders.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by BK21 Haeksim program and also by KOSEF SRC program through CHEP at Kyungpook National University.