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# Spontaneous decay in the presence of dispersing and absorbing bodies: general theory and application to a spherical cavity

## I Introduction

It is well known that the spontaneous decay of an excited atom can be strongly modified when it is placed inside a microcavity . There are typically two qualitatively different regimes: the weak-coupling regime and the strong-coupling regime. The weak-coupling regime is characterized by monotonous exponential decay, the decay rate being enhanced or reduced compared to the free-space value depending on whether the atomic transition frequency fits a cavity resonance or not. The strong-coupling regime, in contrast, is characterized by reversible Rabi oscillations where the energy of the initially atom is periodically exchanged between the atom and the field. This usually requires that the emission is in resonance with a high-quality cavity mode. Recent progress in constructing certain types of microcavities such as microspheres has rendered it possible to approach the ultimate quality level determined by intrinsic material losses , so that the question of the influence of absorbing material on spontaneous decay has been of increasing interest.

Effects of material losses on the lifetime of an excited atom have been studied within Fermi’s golden-rule approach . In  the mode structure of a microsphere without and with absorber dopant atoms, which is modeled by a constant and a Lorentzian dielectric function respectively, is considered. The spontaneous emission rate and the radiation intensity as a function of the atomic transition frequency is examined in  for an atom in a Fabry-Perot cavity filled with a Lorentz-type dielectric in the case of strong medium-cavity interaction but weak atom-field interaction.

In this paper we present a theory of the spontaneous decay of an excited two-level atom in the presence of arbitrary dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies. We apply the theory to the spontaneous decay of an atom in a spherical microcavity of given complex-valued refractive-index profile, as it is typically the case in experimental implementations. The formalism enables us to include in the theory absorption and dispersion in a consistent way and to give a unified treatment of spontaneous emission, without restriction to a particular coupling regime.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In Section II, a recently developed quantization scheme for the electromagnetic field in the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies  is extended in order to include in the theory the resonant interaction of the field with a two-level atom. From the Hamiltonian of the composed system, an integral equation governing the temporal evolution of the upper-level-probability amplitude of the atom is derived, the integral kernel being determined by the Green tensor of the classical, phenomenological Maxwell equations for the dielectric-assisted electromagnetic field. General expressions for the emission pattern and the power spectrum are derived in terms of the atomic parameters and, via the Green tensor, the cavity parameters of the dielectric-matter configuration.

In Section III, the theory is used to examine the spontaneous decay of an excited two-level atom inside a spherical cavity, with special emphasis on the intrinsic dispersion and absorption of the wall material. Spherical microcavities have been very attractive systems for both fundamental research in cavity quantum electrodynamics and applications in optoelectronics (see, e.g.,  and references therein). Changes in the level shifts and lifetimes of atoms inside or near the surfaces of spherical micro-structures have been studied theoretically , the latter also experimentally , and results on the strong-coupling regime have been reported . The theoretical results have been typically based on standard mode expansion, which fails for intrinsically dispersing and absorbing material. Here, we consider a spherical three-layered structure, where the middle layer is assumed to be a (single-resonance) band-gap dielectric of Lorentz type, whereas the outer and inner layers are vacuum. The strength of the atom-field coupling, which is essentially determined by the imaginary part of the Green tensor at the position of the atom, is analyzed and the positions, heights, and widths of the possible cavity resonances are calculated. In particular, the most pronounced resonances are observed within the band gap, the widths of which are proportional to the intrinsic damping constant of the medium. In a single-resonance approximation, conditions of the strong-coupling regime and closed expressions for the atomic upper-state-population probability are derived, which are in good agreement with the numerical solutions. Finally, a summary and conclusions are given in Section IV.

## II General formalism

### A Quantization scheme

Let us first consider the electromagnetic field in the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies without additional atomic sources. Following , we represent the electric-field operator $`\widehat{𝐄}`$ in the form

$`\widehat{𝐄}(𝐫)=\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫)+\widehat{𝐄}^{()}(𝐫),\widehat{𝐄}^{()}(𝐫)=\left[\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫)\right]^{}`$ (1)
$`\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫)={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (2)
and the magnetic-field operator $`\widehat{𝐁}`$ accordingly. The operators $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐁}}`$ then satisfy the Maxwell equations

$`\mathbf{}\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐁}}(𝐫,\omega )=0,`$ (3)
$`\mathbf{}\left[ϵ_0ϵ(𝐫,\omega )\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}(𝐫,\omega )\right]=\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{\rho }}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (4)
$`\mathbf{}\times \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}(𝐫,\omega )=i\omega \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐁}}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (5)
$`\mathbf{}\times \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐁}}(𝐫,\omega )=i{\displaystyle \frac{\omega }{c^2}}ϵ(𝐫,\omega )\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}(𝐫,\omega )+\mu _0\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐣}}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (6)
where the complex permittivity $`ϵ(𝐫,\omega )`$ is a function of frequency and space, the real part ($`ϵ_\mathrm{R}`$) and the imaginary part ($`ϵ_\mathrm{I}`$) of which satisfy (for any $`𝐫`$) the Kramers–Kronig relations. The operator noise charge and current densities $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{\rho }}(𝐫,\omega )`$ and $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐣}}(𝐫,\omega )`$ respectively, which are associated with absorption, are related to the operator noise polarization $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐏}}(𝐫,\omega )`$ as

$`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{\rho }}(𝐫,\omega )=\mathbf{}\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐏}}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (7)
$`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐣}}(𝐫,\omega )=i\omega \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐏}}(𝐫,\omega ),`$ (8)
where

$$\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐏}}(𝐫,\omega )=i\sqrt{\frac{\mathrm{}ϵ_0}{\pi }ϵ_\mathrm{I}(𝐫,\omega )}\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega )$$
(9)
with

$`[\widehat{f}_i(𝐫,\omega ),\widehat{f}_j^{}(𝐫^{},\omega ^{})]=\delta _{ij}\delta (𝐫𝐫^{})\delta (\omega \omega ^{}),`$ (10)
$`[\widehat{f}_i(𝐫,\omega ),\widehat{f}_j(𝐫^{},\omega ^{})]=0=[\widehat{f}_i^{}(𝐫,\omega ),\widehat{f}_j^{}(𝐫^{},\omega ^{})].`$ (11)
From Eqs. (3) – (9) it follows that $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}`$ can be written in the form

$`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}(𝐫,\omega )=i\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{\pi ϵ_0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}}`$ (13)
$`\times {\displaystyle }d^3𝐫^{}\sqrt{ϵ_\mathrm{I}(𝐫^{},\omega )}𝑮(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫^{},\omega ),`$
and $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐁}}`$ $`=`$ $`(i\omega )^1\mathbf{}\times \underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}`$ accordingly, where $`𝑮(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )`$ is the classical Green tensor satisfying the equation

$$[\frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}ϵ(𝐫,\omega )\mathbf{}\times \mathbf{}\times ]𝑮(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )=𝜹(𝐫𝐫^{})$$
(14)
together with the boundary condition at infinity \[$`𝜹(𝐫)`$ is the dyadic $`\delta `$-function\]. In this way, the electric- and magnetic-field strengths are expressed in terms of a continuum set of bosonic fields $`\widehat{𝐟}`$ and $`\widehat{𝐟}^{}`$, which play the role of the fundamental (dynamical) variables of the composed system (electromagnetic field and the medium including the dissipative system) whose Hamiltonian is

$$\widehat{H}=d^3𝐫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{}\omega \widehat{𝐟}^{}(𝐫,\omega )\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega ).$$
(15)
Using Eqs. (13) \[together with Eqs. (1) and (2)\], we can also express the scalar potential $`\widehat{\phi }`$ and the vector potential $`\widehat{𝐀}`$ of the electromagnetic field in terms of the fundamental bosonic fields. In particular, in the Coulomb gauge we obtain

$`\mathbf{}\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)=\widehat{𝐄}^{}(𝐫),`$ (16)
$`\widehat{𝐀}(𝐫)={\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega (i\omega )^1\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}^{}(𝐫,\omega )+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (17)
where

$$\widehat{𝐄}^{()}(𝐫)=d^3𝐫^{}𝜹^{()}(𝐫𝐫^{})\widehat{𝐄}(𝐫^{}),$$
(18)
with $`𝜹^{}(𝐫)`$ and $`𝜹^{}(𝐫)`$ being the transverse and longitudinal $`\delta `$-functions respectively.

We now consider the interaction of the medium-assisted electromagnetic field with additional point charges $`q_\alpha `$. Applying the minimal-coupling scheme, we may write the complete Hamiltonian in the form

$`\widehat{H}={\displaystyle d^3𝐫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{}\omega \widehat{𝐟}^{}(𝐫,\omega )\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega )}`$ (21)
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2m_\alpha }}\left[\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha q_\alpha \widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )\right]\left[\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha q_\alpha \widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)\widehat{\phi }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)}+{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)},`$
where $`\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha `$ is the position operator and $`\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha `$ is the canonical momentum operator of the $`\alpha `$th charged particle of mass $`m_\alpha `$. The Hamiltonian (21) consists of four terms. The first term is the energy (15) observed when the particles are absent. The second term is the kinetic energy of the particles, and the third term is their Coulomb energy, where the potential $`\widehat{\phi }_\mathrm{A}`$ can be given by

$$\widehat{\phi }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)=𝑑𝐫^{}\frac{\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫^{})}{4\pi ϵ_0|𝐫𝐫^{}|},$$
(22)
with

$$\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)=\underset{\alpha }{}q_\alpha \delta (𝐫\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha )$$
(23)
being the charge density. The last term is the Coulomb energy of interaction of the particles with the medium. Note that all terms are expressed in terms of the dynamical variables $`\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega ),\widehat{𝐟}^{}(𝐫,\omega ),\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha ,\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha `$.

### B Dynamics of an excited two-level atom

Let us consider a neutral two-level atom (position $`𝐫_\mathrm{A}`$, transition frequency $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$) that resonantly interacts with radiation via an electric-dipole transition (dipole moment $`𝝁`$). In this case, the electric-dipole approximation and the rotating wave approximation apply, and the minimal-coupling Hamiltonian (21) simplifies to (Appendix A)

$`\widehat{H}={\displaystyle d^3𝐫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{}\omega \widehat{𝐟}^{}(𝐫,\omega )\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega )}`$ (25)
$`+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{}\omega _\mathrm{A}\widehat{\sigma }_z[\widehat{\sigma }^{}\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})𝝁+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.],`$
where $`\widehat{\sigma }`$, $`\widehat{\sigma }^{}`$, and $`\widehat{\sigma }_z`$ are the Pauli operators of the two-level atom.

When the atom is initially in the upper state and the rest of the system is in the vacuum, then the system wave function at time $`t`$ can be written as

$`|\psi (t)=C_u(t)e^{i(\omega _\mathrm{A}/2)t}|u|\{0\}`$ (27)
$`+{\displaystyle d^3𝐫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega C_{li}(𝐫,\omega ,t)e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A}/2)t}|l|\{1_i(𝐫,\omega )\}},`$
where $`|u`$ and $`|l`$ respectively are the upper and lower atomic states, $`|\{0\}`$ is the vacuum state of the rest of the system, and $`|\{1_i(𝐫,\omega )\}`$ is the state, where the latter is excited in a single-quantum Fock state. Here and in the following we adopt the convention of summation over repeated vector-component indices. The Schrödinger equation yields

$`\dot{C}_u(t)={\displaystyle \frac{\mu _j}{\sqrt{\pi ϵ_0\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}}{\displaystyle }d^3𝐫[\sqrt{ϵ_\mathrm{I}(𝐫,\omega )}`$ (29)
$`\times G_{ji}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫,\omega )C_{li}(𝐫,\omega ,t)e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})t}],`$
$`\dot{C}_{li}(𝐫,\omega ,t)={\displaystyle \frac{\mu _j}{\sqrt{\pi ϵ_0\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}}\sqrt{ϵ_\mathrm{I}(𝐫,\omega )}`$ (31)
$`\times G_{ji}^{}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫,\omega )C_u(t)e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})t}.`$
We now substitute the result of formal integration of Eq. (31) \[$`C_{li}(𝐫,\omega ,0)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$\] into Eq. (29). Making use of the relationship

$`\mathrm{Im}G_{kl}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )=`$ (33)
$`{\displaystyle d^3𝐬\frac{\omega ^2}{c^2}ϵ_\mathrm{I}(𝐬,\omega )G_{km}(𝐫,𝐬,\omega )G_{lm}^{}(𝐫^{},𝐬,\omega )},`$
we obtain the integro-differential equation

$$\dot{C}_u(t)=_0^t𝑑t^{}K(tt^{})C_u(t^{}),$$
(34)
with the kernel function

$`K(tt^{})={\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _i\mu _j}{\mathrm{}\pi ϵ_0}}`$ (36)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )`$
($`k_\mathrm{A}`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _\mathrm{A}/c`$). In the spirit of the rotating wave approximation used we have set $`\omega `$ $`=`$ $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ in the integral in Eq. (36).

Taking the time integral of both sides of Eq. (34), we easily derive, on changing the order of integrations on the right-hand side,

$$C_u(t)=_0^t𝑑t^{}\overline{K}(tt^{})C_u(t^{})+1$$
(37)
\[$`C_u(0)`$ $`=`$ $`1`$\], where

$`\overline{K}(tt^{})={\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _i\mu _j}{\mathrm{}\pi ϵ_0}}`$ (39)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )}{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})}}[e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}1].`$
The integral equation (37) is a well-known Volterra equation of the second kind. An algorithm for solving such an integral equation numerically can be found, e.g., in . It is worth noting that the integro-differential equation (34) and the equivalent integral equation (37) apply to the spontaneous decay of an atom in the presence of an arbitrary configuration of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies. All the matter parameters that are relevant for the atomic evolution are contained, via the Green tensor, in the kernel functions (36) and (39). In particular when absorption is disregarded and the permittivity is regarded as being a real frequency-independent quantity (which of course can change with space), then the formalism yields the results of standard mode decomposition (see, e.g. ).

When the Markov approximation applies, i.e., when in a coarse-grained description of the atomic motion memory effects are disregarded, then we may let

$$\frac{e^{i(\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega )(tt^{})}1}{i(\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega )}\zeta (\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega )$$
(40)
in Eq. (39) \[$`\zeta (x)`$ $`=`$ $`\pi \delta (x)`$ $`+`$ $`i𝒫/x`$; $`𝒫`$ denotes the principal value\], and thus

$$\overline{K}(tt^{})=\frac{1}{2}\left(Ai\delta \omega \right),$$
(41)
where

$$A=\frac{2k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _i\mu _j}{\mathrm{}ϵ_0}\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})$$
(42)
and

$$\delta \omega =\frac{2k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _i\mu _j}{\pi \mathrm{}ϵ_0}𝒫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \frac{\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )}{\omega \omega _\mathrm{A}}.$$
(43)
Substituting into Eq. (37) for the kernel function the expression (41), we obtain the familiar result that

$$C_u(t)=\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}(Ai\delta \omega )t\right].$$
(44)
Obviously, this result is also obtained if in the integral in Eq. (34) $`C_u(t^{})`$ is replaced by $`C_u(t)`$ and then the integral is approximated by $`\zeta (\omega _A`$ $``$ $`\omega )`$. Note that the expressions (42) and (43) for the decay rate and the line shift, respectively, are in full agreement with the results in .

It is well known that the Markov approximation is an excellent approximation for describing the radiative decay of an excited atom in free space. In order to study the case where the atom is surrounded by dielectric matter, we assume that the atom is localized in a more or less small free-space region, so that the Green tensor at the position of the atom reads

$$𝑮(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )=𝑮^\mathrm{V}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )+𝑮^\mathrm{R}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega ),$$
(45)
where $`𝑮^\mathrm{V}`$ is the vacuum Green tensor, with

$$\mathrm{Im}𝑮^\mathrm{V}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )=\frac{\omega }{6\pi c}𝑰$$
(46)
(for the vacuum Green tensor, see, e.g., ), and $`𝑮^\mathrm{R}`$ describes the effects of reflections at the (surfaces of discontinuity of the) surrounding medium. The contribution of $`𝑮^\mathrm{V}`$ to $`\overline{K}`$ can then be treated in the Markov approximation. Application of Eqs. (41) – (43) yields the well-known vacuum decay rate

$$A_0=\frac{k_\mathrm{A}^3\mu ^2}{3\mathrm{}\pi ϵ_0}$$
(47)
and a divergent contribution to the vacuum Lamb shift which may be omitted, since the (renormalized) vacuum Lamb shift may be thought of as being included in the atomic transition frequency $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$. In this way, Eq. (39) takes the form

$`\overline{K}(tt^{})=\frac{1}{2}A_0+{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _i\mu _j}{\mathrm{}\pi ϵ_0}}`$ (49)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}^\mathrm{R}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )}{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})}}[e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}1].`$
The integral equation (37) together with the kernel function (49) can be regarded as the basic equation for studying the influence of an arbitrary configuration of dispersing and absorbing dielectric matter on the spontaneous decay of an excited atom.

### C Emission pattern

The intensity of the light registered by a point-like photodetector at position $`𝐫`$ and time $`t`$ is given by

$$I(𝐫,t)\psi (t)|\widehat{𝐄}^{()}(𝐫)\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫)|\psi (t).$$
(50)
To obtain the emission pattern associated with the spontaneous decay of an excited atom in the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric matter, we combine Eqs. (1), (2), (13), and (27). After some algebra we derive, on using Eq. (33),

$`I(𝐫,t)={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}|{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _j}{\pi ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle _0^t}dt^{}[C_u(t^{})`$ (52)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}]|^2,`$
where we have again set $`\omega `$ $`=`$ $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ in the frequency integral. Again, all the relevant dielectric-matter parameters are contained in the Green tensor. In contrast to Eq. (37) together with the kernel function (49), Eq. (52) requires information about the Green tensor at different space points. In particular, its dependence on space and frequency essentially determines the retardation effects.

In the simplest case of the atom being in free space we have

$`\mu _j\mathrm{Im}G_{ij}^\mathrm{V}(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8i\pi \rho }}\left(𝝁{\displaystyle \frac{𝝆𝝆𝝁}{\rho ^2}}\right)_i`$ (54)
$`\times \left(e^{i\omega \rho /c}e^{i\omega \rho /c}\right)+𝒪\left(\rho ^2\right)`$
($`𝝆`$ $`=`$ $`𝐫`$ $``$ $`𝐫_\mathrm{A}`$). We substitute the expressions (44) (with $`A`$ $`=`$ $`A_0`$) and (54) into Eq. (52), calculate the time integral, and extend in the frequency integral the lower limit to $`\mathrm{}`$, which then can be calculated by contour integration,

$`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \left(e^{i\omega \rho /c}e^{i\omega \rho /c}\right){\displaystyle \frac{e^{(A_0/2+i\omega _\mathrm{A}^{})t}e^{i\omega t}}{i[\omega (\omega _\mathrm{A}^{}iA_0/2)]}}`$ (56)
$`=2\pi \mathrm{exp}\left[(\frac{1}{2}A_0i\omega _\mathrm{A}^{})(t\rho /c)\right]\mathrm{\Theta }(t\rho /c),`$
where

$`\omega _\mathrm{A}^{}=\omega _\mathrm{A}\frac{1}{2}\delta \omega `$ (57)
\[$`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$, unit step function\]. We thus derive the well-known (far-field) result that

$$I(𝐫,t)=\left(\frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi ϵ_0\rho }\right)^2e^{A_0(t\rho /c)}\mathrm{\Theta }(t\rho /c),$$
(58)
where $`\theta `$ is the angle between $`𝝆`$ and $`𝝁`$.

Let us return to the general expression (52). If retardation is ignored and the Markov approximation applies, then we can replace, for all $`𝐫`$, $`C_u(t^{})`$ by $`C_u(t)`$ in the time integral in Eq. (52) and approximate the time integral by $`\zeta (\omega _A`$ $``$ $`\omega )`$. We obtain

$$I(𝐫,t)=|𝐅(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})|^2e^{At},$$
(59)
where

$`F_i(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})={\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _j}{\pi ϵ_0}}`$ (61)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )\zeta (\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega ).`$
### D Emitted-light spectrum

Next, let us consider the time-dependent power spectrum of the emitted light, which for sufficiently small passband width of the spectral apparatus can be given by (see, e.g., )

$`S(𝐫,\omega _\mathrm{S},T)={\displaystyle _0^T}dt_2{\displaystyle _0^T}dt_1[e^{i\omega _\mathrm{S}(t_2t_1)}`$ (63)
$`\times \widehat{𝐄}^{()}(𝐫,t_2)\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫,t_1)],`$
where $`\omega _\mathrm{S}`$ is the setting frequency of the spectral apparatus and $`T`$ is the operating-time interval of the detector. In close analogy to the derivation of Eq. (52), we combine Eqs. (1), (2), (13), and (27) and use the relation (33) to obtain

$`S(𝐫,\omega _\mathrm{S},T)={\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}|{\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu _j}{\pi ϵ_0}}{\displaystyle _0^T}dt_1[e^{i(\omega _\mathrm{S}\omega _\mathrm{A})t_1}{\displaystyle _0^{t_1}}dt^{}C_u(t^{})`$ (65)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \mathrm{Im}G_{ij}(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )e^{i(\omega \omega _\mathrm{A})(t_1t^{})}]|^2.`$
Further calculation again requires knowledge of the Green tensor of the problem.

Let us apply Eq. (65) to the free-space case. Following the line that has led from Eq. (52) to Eq. (58), we find that

$`S(𝐫,\omega _\mathrm{S},T)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi ϵ_0\rho }}\right)^2`$ (67)
$`\times \left|{\displaystyle \frac{e^{[A_0/2+i(\omega _\mathrm{S}\omega _\mathrm{A}^{})](T\rho /c)}1}{\omega _\mathrm{S}\omega _\mathrm{A}^{}+iA_0/2}}\right|^2\mathrm{\Theta }(T\rho /c).`$
In particular for $`T`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{}`$, we recognize the well-known Lorentzian:

$`\underset{T\mathrm{}}{lim}S(𝐫,\omega _\mathrm{S},T)=\left({\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi ϵ_0\rho }}\right)^2`$ (69)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{[\omega _\mathrm{S}(\omega _\mathrm{A}\delta \omega /2)]^2+A_0^2/4}}.`$
When retardation is ignored and the Markov approximation applies, then Eq. (65) can be simplified in a similar way as Eq. (52). In close analogy to the derivation of Eq. (59) we may write

$`S(𝐫,\omega _\mathrm{S},T)=|𝐅(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})|^2`$ (71)
$`\times \left|{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\{A/2+i[\omega _\mathrm{S}(\omega _\mathrm{A}\delta \omega /2)]\}T}1}{\omega _\mathrm{S}(\omega _\mathrm{A}\delta \omega /2)+iA/2}}\right|^2,`$
with $`𝐅(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})`$ being defined by Eq. (61).

## III Application to a spherical cavity

### A The model

We apply the formalism developed in Sec. II to the spontaneous decay of an excited two-level atom placed inside a spherical three-layered structure (Fig. 1). The outer layer ($`r`$ $`>`$ $`R_1`$) and the inner layer ($`0`$ $``$ $`r`$ $`<`$ $`R_2`$) are vacuum, while the middle layer ($`R_2`$ $``$ $`r`$ $``$ $`R_1`$) is a dispersing and absorbing dielectric. The Green tensor of the configuration is given in Appendix B.

We have performed the calculations assuming a Lorentz-type dielectric with a single resonance (in the relevant frequency region):

$$ϵ(\omega )=1+\frac{\omega _\mathrm{P}^2}{\omega _\mathrm{T}^2\omega ^2i\omega \gamma }.$$
(72)
Here, $`\omega _\mathrm{P}`$ is the plasma frequency, which is proportional to the square root of the number density of the Lorentz oscillators and plays the role of the coupling constant between the medium polarization and the electromagnetic field, and $`\omega _\mathrm{T}`$ and $`\gamma `$, respectively, are the position and the width of the medium resonance. The plots in Fig. 2 of the real and imaginary parts of the index of refraction

$$n(\omega )=\sqrt{ϵ(\omega )}=n_\mathrm{R}(\omega )+in_\mathrm{I}(\omega )$$
(73)
illustrate a typical band-gap behavior of the configuration.

### B Weak-coupling regime

In the weak-coupling regime, the excited atomic state decays exponentially \[Eq. (44)\]. For simplicity let us assume that the atom is positioned at the center of the cavity. From Eqs. (42), (45), (46), and (B31), the cavity-modified decay rate is then found to be

$$A=\overline{A}(\omega _A)A_0,$$
(74)
where $`A_0`$ is decay rate in free space, Eq. (47), and

$$\overline{A}(\omega )=1+\mathrm{Re}C_N^{33}(\omega ),$$
(75)
with $`C_N^{33}(\omega )`$ being given by Eqs. (B15) – (B28). Note that if mode expansion applies, $`\overline{A}(\omega )`$ would correspond to the change of the density of modes due to the presence of the cavity.

When far from the medium resonance absorption is disregarded and hence the (frequency-independent) refractive index is assumed to be real, then previous results obtained by mode decomposition can be recovered. In particular, for $`R_2`$ $``$ $`0`$ we recognize the decay rate obtained in  for microspheres and liquid droplets. However, it should be pointed out that even far from the medium resonance the imaginary part of the refractive index cannot be set equal to zero in general, since the contribution to the decay rate of the nonradiative decay associated with absorption increases $``$ $`R_2^3`$ for decreasing $`R_2`$ (and nonvanishing imaginary part of the refractive index) .

Let us restrict our attention to a true microcavity ($`R_2\omega _\mathrm{A}/c`$ $``$ $`1`$). From Fig. 3 it is seen that the rate of spontaneous decay sensitively depends on the transition frequency. Narrow-band enhancement of spontaneous decay ($`\overline{A}`$ $`>`$ $`1`$) alternates with broadband inhibition ($`\overline{A}`$ $`<`$ $`1`$). The frequencies where the maxima of enhancement are observed correspond to the resonance frequencies of the cavity. Within the band gap the heights and widths of the frequency intervals in which spontaneous decay is feasible are essentially determined by the material losses. Outside the band-gap zone the change of the decay rate is less pronounced because of the relatively large input–output coupling, the (small) material losses being of secondary importance.

When $`R_2\omega /c`$ $``$ $`1`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}[n_\mathrm{I}(R_1`$ $``$ $`R_2)\omega /c]`$ $``$ $`1`$, then Eqs. (B15) – (B28) drastically simplify and $`\overline{A}(\omega )`$ \[Eq. (75)\] reads

$$\overline{A}(\omega )\mathrm{Re}\left[\frac{n(\omega )i\mathrm{tan}(R_2\omega /c)}{1in(\omega )\mathrm{tan}(R_2\omega /c)}\right].$$
(76)
The positions $`\omega _m`$ of the maxima of $`\overline{A}(\omega )`$ can then be obtained from the equation $`d\overline{A}/d\omega `$ $`=`$ $`0`$. As long as $`n(\omega )`$ can be regarded as being slowly varying compared with $`\mathrm{tan}(\omega R_2/c)`$, we may neglect $`dn/d\omega `$ and thus determine the resonance frequencies from the equation

$`2n_\mathrm{I}(\omega _m)\mathrm{tan}(R_2\omega _m/c)`$ (78)
$`|n(\omega _m)|^21\sqrt{(|n(\omega _m)|^21)^2+4n_\mathrm{I}^2(\omega _m)}.`$
Note that Eq. (78) is exact when it is regarded as conditional equation of $`R_2`$ for a desired resonance frequency.

In the band-gap zone we may assume that $`n_\mathrm{I}`$ $``$ $`n_\mathrm{R}`$ (see Fig. 2). From Eqs. (76) and (78) it then follows that the maximum values $`\overline{A}(\omega _m)`$ and half widths at half maximum, $`\delta \omega _m`$, of the cavity resonance lines, i.e., the regions where enhanced spontaneous decay can be observed, are given by

$$\overline{A}(\omega _m)\frac{n_\mathrm{I}^2(\omega _m)+1}{n_\mathrm{R}(\omega _m)}\frac{2\sqrt{(\omega _\mathrm{L}^2\omega _m^2)(\omega _m^2\omega _\mathrm{T}^2)}}{\gamma \omega _m},$$
(79)
$$\delta \omega _m\frac{c}{R_2\overline{A}(\omega _m)},$$
(80)
where we have assumed that the material losses are small, i.e., $`\gamma `$ $``$ $`\omega _\mathrm{T},\omega _\mathrm{P},\omega _\mathrm{P}^2/\omega _\mathrm{T}`$. Equations (79) and (80) reveal that in the approximation made the heights (widths) of the resonance lines (Lorentzians) are proportional (inversely proportional) to $`\gamma `$, the highest and narrowest line being in the center of the band gap. Note that the product $`\overline{A}(\omega _m)\delta \omega _m`$ does not depend on $`\gamma `$.

Outside the band-gap zone the inequality $`n_\mathrm{R}`$ $``$ $`n_\mathrm{I}`$ is typically valid (see Fig. 2), and thus Eqs. (76) and (78) yield

$$\overline{A}(\omega _m)n_\mathrm{R}(\omega _m)\sqrt{\frac{\omega _\mathrm{L}^2\omega _m^2}{\omega _\mathrm{T}^2\omega _m^2}},$$
(81)
$$\delta \omega _m\frac{c}{R_2\overline{A}(\omega _m)}.$$
(82)
The heights and widths of the resonance lines are now seen to be (approximately) independent of $`\gamma `$. The lines become higher and narrower if $`\omega _m`$ becomes close to $`\omega _\mathrm{T}`$.

The widths of the resonance lines are responsible for the damping of intracavity fields. There are two damping mechanisms: photon leakage to the outside of the cavity and photon absorption by the cavity-wall material. From the analysis given above it is seen that the first mechanism is the dominant one outside the band gap where normal dispersion ($`dn_\mathrm{R}/d\omega `$ $`>`$ $`0`$) is observed, while the latter dominates inside the band gap where anomalous dispersion ($`dn_\mathrm{R}/d\omega `$ $`<`$ $`0`$) is observed. To illustrate this in more detail, we have calculated the amount of radiation energy observed outside the cavity,

$$W=2cϵ_0_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi _0^\pi 𝑑\theta \rho ^2\mathrm{sin}\theta I(𝐫,t)$$
(83)
($`\rho `$ $`>`$ $`R_1`$), and compared it with the emitted energy in free space $`W_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega _\mathrm{A}`$. Assuming without loss of generality that the atomic transition dipole is $`z`$-oriented and restricting our attention to the relevant far-field contribution, from Eqs. (59) and (61) together with Eq. (B1) and Eqs. (B35) – (B35) we derive (see Appendix C)

$$\frac{W}{W_0}\frac{|A_N^{13}(\omega _\mathrm{A})|^2}{1+\mathrm{Re}C_N^{33}(\omega _\mathrm{A})}.$$
(84)
Examples of the dependence on the atomic transition frequency of the amount of radiation energy observed outside the cavity are plotted in Fig. 4. It is seen that inside the gap most of the energy emitted by the atom is absorbed by the cavity wall in the course of time, while outside the gap the absorption is (for the chosen values of $`\gamma `$) much less significant. Note that with increasing value of $`\gamma `$ the band gap is smoothed a little bit, and thus the fraction of light that escapes from the cavity can increase.

### C Strong-coupling regime

The strength of the atom-field coupling increases when the atomic transition frequency $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ approaches a cavity-resonance frequency $`\omega _m`$. In order to gain insight into the strong-coupling regime, let us first consider the limiting case of one cavity-resonance line being involved in the atom-field interaction. Indeed, when $`\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ is close to $`\omega _m`$, then contributions from the other resonance lines become small. Using Eqs. (42), (74), and (75), and recalling that $`\overline{A}(\omega )`$ behaves like a Lorentzian in the vicinity of $`\omega _m`$, we may simplify Eq. (36) to

$`K(tt^{}){\displaystyle \frac{A_0}{2\pi }}\overline{A}(\omega _m)(\delta \omega _m)^2e^{i(\omega _m\omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}`$ (87)
$`\times {\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}}d\omega {\displaystyle \frac{e^{i(\omega \omega _m)(tt^{})}}{(\omega \omega _m)^2+(\delta \omega _m)^2}}`$
$`=\frac{1}{2}A_0\overline{A}(\omega _m)\delta \omega _me^{i(\omega _m\omega _\mathrm{A})(tt^{})}e^{\delta \omega _m|tt^{}|}.`$
Substituting this expression into Eq. (34) and differentiating both sides of the resulting equation with regard to time, we arrive at

$$\ddot{C}_u(t)+\left[i(\omega _m\omega _\mathrm{A})+\delta \omega _m\right]\dot{C}_u(t)+(\mathrm{\Omega }/2)^2C_u(t)=0$$
(88)
where

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\sqrt{2A_0\overline{A}(\omega _m)\delta \omega _m}.$$
(89)
Hence we are left, in the approximation made, with a damped-oscillator equation of motion for the upper-state probability amplitude, where $`\overline{A}(\omega _m)`$ and $`\delta \omega _m`$, respectively, are given by Eqs. (79) and (80) \[or Eqs. (81) and (82)\]. Obviously, when $`\omega _A`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _m`$ and

$$\mathrm{\Omega }\delta \omega _m$$
(90)
(i.e., strong coupling), then damped Rabi oscillations are observed:

$$\left|C_u(t)\right|^2=e^{\delta \omega _mt}\mathrm{cos}^2(\mathrm{\Omega }t/2).$$
(91)
Note that in the opposite case where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $``$ $`\delta \omega _m`$ the solution of Eq. (88) is $`|C_u(t)|^2`$ $`=`$ $`e^{At}`$ with $`A`$ from Eq. (74) for $`\omega _A`$ $`=`$ $`\omega _m`$, which is in agreement with Eq. (44). Equations (89) and (90) together with Eqs. (79) and (80) \[or Eqs. (81) and (82)\] provide us with an easy rule of thumb for deciding whether the strong-coupling regime is realized or not.

In order to obtain the exact solution to the problem, we have also solved the basic integral equation (37) \[together with the kernel function (49)\] numerically. Typical examples of the temporal evolution of the occupation probability of the upper atomic state are shown in Fig. 5 for the case where the atomic transition is tuned to the resonance line in the center of the band gap. The figure reveals that with increasing value of the intrinsic damping constant $`\gamma `$ of the wall material the Rabi oscillations become less pronounced, in agreement with Eqs. (79), (80), (89), and the inequality (90). From Eqs. (79) and (80) it is seen that (in the approximation made there) the product $`\overline{A}(\omega _m)\delta \omega _m`$ $``$ $`c/R_2`$ does not vary with $`\gamma `$, whereas $`\delta \omega _m`$ linearly increases with $`\gamma `$. According to Eq. (89), $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{\gamma }`$ and thus $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\delta \omega _m`$ $``$ $`1/\sqrt{\gamma }`$, i.e., the condition of strong coupling (90) becomes violated with increasing $`\gamma `$. Physically, increasing $`\gamma `$ means increasing probability of (irreversible) absorption of the emitted photon by the wall material and therefore reduced probability of (reversible) atom-field energy exchange. It should be mentioned that with increasing $`\gamma `$ the (very small) probability that the photon (irreversibly) leaves the cavity also increases. Note that the variation of $`\gamma `$ in Fig. 5 leaves the imaginary part of the refractive index nearly unchanged, $`n_\mathrm{I}`$ $``$ $`1.2`$, while the (small) real part $`n_\mathrm{R}`$ slightly increases with $`\gamma `$ (see Fig. 2).

The examples of the temporal evolution of the occupation probability of the upper atomic state shown in Fig. 6 refer to the case where the atomic transition is tuned to a resonance line closest to $`\omega _\mathrm{T}`$ below the band gap. According to Eqs. (81), (82), (89), and the condition (90), the resonance frequencies close to $`\omega _\mathrm{T}`$ are most favorable for realizing the strong-coupling regime in the range of normal dispersion, because of the rising real part of the refractive index \[see Fig. 2(a)\]. As expected, the strength of the the Rabi oscillations now varies with the plasma frequency $`\omega _\mathrm{P}`$ such that they are less pronounced for small values of $`\omega _\mathrm{P}`$. Obviously, decreasing $`\omega _\mathrm{P}`$ means increasing input-output coupling, i.e., increasing probability that the emitted photon leaves the cavity instead of back-acting upon the atom.

Finally, Fig. 6 presents a comparison between the exact solution, and the approximate analytical solution \[solution of Eq. (88)\]. To compensate for the short-time inaccuracy of the analytical solution, it is somewhat shifted forward in time. The agreement between the exact solution and the (shifted) analytical solution is quite good. Obviously, Eq. (88) predicts an initial decay somewhat faster than the exact one. In fact, the spontaneous decay is accelerated only gradually under the back-action of the radiated field being multiply reflected at the boundaries , and the single-resonance coupling is established only after a certain interval of time. The sharper is the cavity resonance, the shorter is this interval, which is fully confirmed by the figure.

## IV Summary and Conclusions

We have developed a formalism for studying spontaneous decay of an excited atom in the presence of arbitrary dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies. The formalism is based on a source-quantity representation of the electromagnetic field in terms of the Green tensor of the classical problem and appropriately chosen bosonic quantum fields. It replaces the standard concept of mode decomposition which fails for complex permittivity. All relevant information about the bodies such as form and intrinsic dispersion and absorption properties are contained in the Green tensor. It is worth noting that the Green tensor has been available for a large variety of configurations such as planarly, spherically, and cylindrically multilayered media .

We have applied the theory to the spontaneous decay of a two-level atom placed at the center of a three-layered spherical microcavity, modeling the wall by a Lorentz dielectric. The formalism has enabled us to study both the range of normal dispersion and the anomalous-dispersion range within the band gap in a unified way. Whereas in the range of normal dispersion the cavity input–output coupling dominates the strength of the atom-field interaction, the dominating effect within the band gap is the photon absorption by the wall material.

In the study of the spherical-cavity problem, we have assumed that the atom is placed at the center of the cavity, which has drastically reduced the mathematical effort, because only the spherical Bessel function of order $`n`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ contributes to the Green tensor. The price we paid is that the interaction of the atom with cavity excitations of large $`n`$, which correspond to high-$`Q`$ whispering gallery modes and concentrate near the surface by repeated internal reflections has not been included in the analysis. Since the complete Green tensor is known, there is of course no obstacle to perform the calculations for an arbitrary position of the atom. In particular, when the atom is near the surface then nonradiative energy transfer from the atom to the absorbing medium can substantially contribute to the process of spontaneous decay. Further investigations are also necessary in order to give a more detailed analysis of the evolution of the emitted radiation, to answer the question of the ratio of photon emission to nonradiative decay, and to extend the theory to multilevel atom-field interactions.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Stefan Scheel for helpful discussions. H.T.D. is grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for a research fellowship. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

## A The Hamiltonian in the dipole and rotating wave approximations

The Hamiltonian (21) can be rewritten as

$`\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_\mathrm{F}+\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}+\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{AF}},`$ (A1)
$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{F}={\displaystyle d^3𝐫_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{}\omega \widehat{𝐟}^{}(𝐫,\omega )\widehat{𝐟}(𝐫,\omega )},`$ (A2)
$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha ^2}{2m_\alpha }}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)\widehat{\phi }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)},`$ (A3)
$`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{AF}}={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_\alpha }{m_\alpha }}\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha \widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )+{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)},`$ (A4)
where we have ignored the small $`\widehat{𝐀}^2`$ term. Note that in the Coulomb gauge $`[\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha ,\widehat{𝐀}]=0`$. For a neutral atom with the nucleus being positioned at $`𝐫_\mathrm{A}`$, the atomic dipole operator reads

$$\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}\underset{\alpha }{}q_\alpha (\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha 𝐫_\mathrm{A})=\underset{\alpha }{}q_\alpha \widehat{𝐫}_\alpha ,$$
(A5)
and the first term in the interaction part of the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{AF}}`$ takes the form

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_\alpha }{m_\alpha }}\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha \widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_\alpha }{i\mathrm{}}}[\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha ,\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}]\widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})`$ (A7)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{i\mathrm{}}}[\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A},\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}]\widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\mathrm{A}),`$
where the dipole approximation has been employed to replace $`\widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )`$ $``$ $`\widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})`$ and $`\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`(m_\alpha /(i\mathrm{}))[\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha ,\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}]`$ has been used.

Now we restrict ourselves to a two-state model of an atom with upper state $`|u`$ and lower state $`|l`$. These are eigenstates of the unperturbed part of the Hamiltonian $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}`$ with the eigenvalues $`\mathrm{}\omega _u`$ and $`\mathrm{}\omega _l`$, respectively. Then one can write

$`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}=\mathrm{}\omega _u|uu|+\mathrm{}\omega _l|ll|,`$ (A8)
$`|uu|+|ll|=\widehat{I}.`$ (A9)
In this atomic state space, the dipole operator $`\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}`$ has the matrix elements $`u|\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}|l=l|\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}|u𝝁`$ and $`u|\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}|u=l|\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}|l=0`$. Using them and Eqs. (17), (A7) – (A9), we arrive at

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q_\alpha }{m_\alpha }}\widehat{𝐩}_\alpha \widehat{𝐀}(𝐫_\alpha )`$ (A12)
$`(\widehat{\sigma }\widehat{\sigma }^{})[{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\omega _\mathrm{A}}{\omega }}\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{𝐄}}^{}(𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega )\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.]𝝁`$
$`[\widehat{\sigma }^{}\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})𝝁+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.],`$
where $`\widehat{\sigma }=|lu|,\widehat{\sigma }^{}=|ul|`$, $`\omega _\mathrm{A}=\omega _u\omega _l`$, and $`\omega =\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ is set in the integral, because of the rotating wave approximation.

In order to deal with the second term in $`\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{AF}}`$, we expand $`\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)`$ in a multi-polar form and retain only the first non-vanishing term

$`\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫){\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}q_\alpha \delta (𝐫𝐫_\mathrm{A})`$ (A15)
$`\mathbf{}\left[\delta (𝐫𝐫_\mathrm{A}){\displaystyle \underset{\alpha }{}}q_\alpha (\widehat{𝐫}_\alpha 𝐫_\mathrm{A})\right]`$
$`=\mathbf{}\delta (𝐫𝐫_\mathrm{A})\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}.`$
Then we have

$`{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\widehat{\rho }_\mathrm{A}(𝐫)\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)}{\displaystyle d^3𝐫\left\{\mathbf{}[\delta (𝐫𝐫_\mathrm{A})\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}]\right\}\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)}`$ (A19)
$`={\displaystyle d^3𝐫[\delta (𝐫𝐫_\mathrm{A})\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}]\mathbf{}\widehat{\phi }(𝐫)}`$
$`=\widehat{𝝁}_\mathrm{A}\widehat{𝐄}^{}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})`$
$`[\widehat{\sigma }^{}\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})𝝁+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.],`$
where integration by parts and Eq. (16) have been employed for deriving the second and the third equation, respectively, and the rotating wave approximation has been used in deriving the forth equation. Combining (A4), (A12), and (A19) gives

$$\widehat{H}_{\mathrm{AF}}[\widehat{\sigma }^{}\widehat{𝐄}^{(+)}(𝐫_\mathrm{A})𝝁+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.].$$
(A20)
Equations (A1), (A2), (A20), and a subtraction of $`(\mathrm{}/2)(\omega _u+\omega _l)\widehat{I}`$ from $`\widehat{H}_\mathrm{A}`$, Eq. (A8), lead to the Hamiltonian (25).

## B The Green tensor of the spherical cavity

Following, we write the Green tensor of the cavity in Fig. 1 in the form

$$𝑮(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )=𝑮^\mathrm{V}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )\delta _{fs}+𝑮^{(fs)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega ),$$
(B1)
where $`𝑮^\mathrm{V}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )`$ represents the contribution of the direct waves from the radiation sources in an unbounded medium, which is vacuum in our case, $`f`$ and $`s`$ denote the layers where the field point and source point locate, $`\delta _{fs}`$ is the usual Kronecker symbol, and the scattering Green tensor $`𝑮^{(fs)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )`$ describes the contribution of the multiple reflection ($`f=s`$) and transmission ($`fs`$) waves. In particular, $`𝑮^{(13)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )`$ and $`𝑮^{(33)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )`$ read as

$`𝑮^{(13)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{ik_3}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{e,o}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{n}{}}}`$ (B5)
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \frac{2n+1}{n(n+1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{(nm)!}{(n+m)!}}(2\delta _{0m})`$
$`\times [A_M^{13}(\omega )𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}^{(1)}(𝐫,k_1)𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫^{},k_3)`$
$`+A_N^{13}(\omega )𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}^{(1)}(𝐫,k_1)𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫^{},k_3)]\},`$
$`𝑮^{(33)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )={\displaystyle \frac{ik_3}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{e,o}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m=0}{\overset{n}{}}}`$ (B9)
$`\times \{{\displaystyle \frac{2n+1}{n(n+1)}}{\displaystyle \frac{(nm)!}{(n+m)!}}(2\delta _{0m})`$
$`\times [C_M^{33}(\omega )𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k_1)𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫^{},k_3)`$
$`+C_N^{33}(\omega )𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k_1)𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫^{},k_3)]\},`$
where

$$k_1=k_3=\frac{\omega }{c},k_2=\sqrt{ϵ(\omega )}\frac{\omega }{c}$$

and $`𝐌`$ and $`𝐍`$ represent TM- and TE-waves, respectively,

$`𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{m}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}j_n(kr)P_n^m(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{sin}}{\mathrm{cos}}}\right)(m\varphi )𝐞_\theta `$ (B11)
$`j_n(kr){\displaystyle \frac{dP_n^m(\mathrm{cos}\theta )}{d\theta }}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{cos}}{\mathrm{sin}}}\right)(m\varphi )𝐞_\varphi ,`$
$`𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{n(n+1)}{kr}}j_n(kr)P_n^m(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{cos}}{\mathrm{sin}}}\right)(m\varphi )𝐞_r`$ (B14)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{kr}}{\displaystyle \frac{d[rj_n(kr)]}{dr}}[{\displaystyle \frac{dP_n^m(\mathrm{cos}\theta )}{d\theta }}\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{cos}}{\mathrm{sin}}}\right)(m\varphi )𝐞_\theta `$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{m}{\mathrm{sin}\theta }}P_n^m(\mathrm{cos}\theta )\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{\mathrm{sin}}{\mathrm{cos}}}\right)(m\varphi )𝐞_\varphi ],`$
with $`j_n(x)`$ being the spherical Bessel function of the first kind and $`P_n^m(x)`$ being the associated Legendre function. The superscript $`(1)`$ in Eq. (B5) indicates that in Eqs. (B11) and (B14) the spherical Bessel function $`j_n(x)`$ has to be replaced by the first-type spherical Hankel function $`h_n^{(1)}(x)`$.

The coefficients $`A_{M,N}^{13}`$ and $`C_{M,N}^{33}`$ in Eqs. (B5) and (B9) are defined by

$`A_{M,N}^{13}(\omega )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{T_{F1}^{M,N}T_{F2}^{M,N}T_{P1}^{M,N}}{T_{P1}^{M,N}+T_{F1}^{M,N}R_{P1}^{M,N}R_{F2}^{M,N}}},`$ (B15)
$`C_{M,N}^{33}(\omega )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{A_{M,N}^{13}}{T_{P2}^{M,N}}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{R_{P2}^{M,N}}{T_{F1}^{M,N}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{R_{P1}^{M,N}}{T_{P1}^{M,N}}}\right],`$ (B16)
where

$`R_{Pf}^M`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}H_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{ff}k_fH_{ff}^{}H_{(f+1)f}}{k_{f+1}J_{ff}H_{(f+1)f}^{}k_fJ_{ff}^{}H_{(f+1)f}}},`$ (B17)
$`R_{Ff}^M`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}^{}J_{ff}k_fJ_{ff}^{}J_{(f+1)f}}{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{ff}k_fJ_{(f+1)f}H_{ff}^{}}},`$ (B18)
$`R_{Pf}^N`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}H_{(f+1)f}H_{ff}^{}k_fH_{ff}H_{(f+1)f}^{}}{k_{f+1}J_{ff}^{}H_{(f+1)f}k_fJ_{ff}H_{(f+1)f}^{}}},`$ (B19)
$`R_{Ff}^N`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}J_{ff}^{}k_fJ_{ff}J_{(f+1)f}^{}}{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}H_{ff}^{}k_fJ_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{ff}}},`$ (B20)
$`T_{Pf}^M`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}\left(J_{(f+1)f}H_{(f+1)f}^{}J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{(f+1)f}\right)}{k_{f+1}J_{ff}H_{(f+1)f}^{}k_fJ_{ff}^{}H_{(f+1)f}}},`$ (B21)
$`T_{Ff}^M`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}\left(J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{(f+1)f}J_{(f+1)f}H_{(f+1)f}^{}\right)}{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{ff}k_fJ_{(f+1)f}H_{ff}^{}}},`$ (B22)
$`T_{Pf}^N`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}\left(J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{(f+1)f}J_{(f+1)f}H_{(f+1)f}^{}\right)}{k_{f+1}J_{ff}^{}H_{(f+1)f}k_fJ_{ff}H_{(f+1)f}^{}}},`$ (B23)
$`T_{Ff}^N`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{k_{f+1}\left(J_{(f+1)f}H_{(f+1)f}^{}J_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{(f+1)f}\right)}{k_{f+1}J_{(f+1)f}H_{ff}^{}k_fJ_{(f+1)f}^{}H_{ff}}}`$ (B24)
with

$`J_{il}`$ $`=j_n(k_iR_l),`$ (B25)
$`H_{il}`$ $`=h_n^{(1)}(k_iR_l),`$ (B26)
$`J_{il}^{}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{d[\rho j_n(\rho )]}{d\rho }}|_{\rho =k_iR_l},`$ (B27)
$`H_{il}^{}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{d[\rho h_n^{(1)}(\rho )]}{d\rho }}|_{\rho =k_iR_l}.`$ (B28)
Note that $`A_{M,N}^{13}`$ and $`C_{M,N}^{33}`$ are functions of $`n`$ but not of $`m`$. When the atom is positioned at the cavity center, we have

$`𝐌_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k)|_{kr0}(kr)^n,`$ (B29)
$`𝐍_{\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{e}{o}nm}(𝐫,k)|_{kr0}(kr)^{n1}.`$ (B30)
In this case, only TM-waves with $`n`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ contribute and the Eq. (B9) simplifies to

$$𝑮^\mathrm{R}𝑮^{(33)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )|_{r=r^{}0}=\frac{i\omega }{6\pi c}C_N^{33}(\omega )𝑰.$$
(B31)
Similarly, Eq. (B5) reduces to

$`G_{rz}^{(13)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )|_{r^{}0}={\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{cos}\theta }{2\pi r}}h_1^{(1)}(k_3r)A_N^{13}(\omega ),`$ (B35)
$`G_{\theta z}^{(13)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )|_{r^{}0}={\displaystyle \frac{i\mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi r}}{\displaystyle \frac{d[rh_1^{(1)}(k_3r)]}{dr}}A_N^{13}(\omega ),`$
$`G_{\varphi z}^{(13)}(𝐫,𝐫^{},\omega )|_{r^{}0}=0.`$
## C Derivation of Eq. (84)

For an atom at the cavity center and $`z`$-oriented dipole, from Eqs. (61) and (B35) – (B35) we derive

$$F_r(𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})=𝒪(\rho ^2),$$
(C1)
$`F_\theta (𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})={\displaystyle \frac{k_\mathrm{A}^2\mu \mathrm{sin}\theta }{4\pi ^2ϵ_0\rho }}`$ (C3)
$`\times {\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d\omega \mathrm{Im}\left[A_N^{13}(\omega )e^{i\omega \rho /c}\right]\zeta (\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega )+𝒪(\rho ^2),`$
$$F_\varphi (𝐫,𝐫_\mathrm{A},\omega _\mathrm{A})=0.$$
(C4)
Recalling the relation $`\zeta (x)`$ $`=`$ $`i/(x+i0)`$, we perform the $`\omega `$-integration in Eq. (C3) to obtain

$`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega \mathrm{Im}\left[A_N^{13}(\omega )e^{i\omega \rho /c}\right]\zeta (\omega _\mathrm{A}\omega )`$ (C7)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega {\displaystyle \frac{\{A_N^{13}(\omega )e^{i\omega \rho /c}\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{c}.\}}{\omega (\omega _\mathrm{A}+i0)}}`$
$`i\pi A_N^{13}(\omega _\mathrm{A})e^{i\omega _\mathrm{A}\rho /c},`$
where we have (approximately) replaced $`A_N^{13}(\omega )`$ by $`A_N^{13}(\omega _\mathrm{A})`$, extended the lower limit of the integral to $`\mathrm{}`$, and applied contour-integration techniques. Combining Eqs. (59), (61), (83), (C1), (C4), and (C7), it is not difficult to prove that

$$W\mathrm{}\omega _\mathrm{A}\frac{|A_N^{13}(\omega _\mathrm{A})|^2}{1+\mathrm{Re}C_N^{33}(\omega _\mathrm{A})}.$$
(C8)
Taking into account that the free-space value $`W_0`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{}\omega _\mathrm{A}`$ is obtained by setting $`A_N^{13}`$ $`=`$ $`1`$ and $`C_N^{33}`$ $`=`$ $`0`$, Eq. (C8) just yields Eq. (84).


text:
# Mini-review on Collider Signatures for Extra Dimensions

## 1 Introduction

Recent advances in string theory have revolutionized particle phenomenology. Namely, the previously unreachable Planck, string, and grand unification scales ($`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$, $`M_{\mathrm{st}}`$, and $`M_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$, respectively) can be brought down to a TeV range through the existence of extra dimensions. There have been a number of ideas that can bring either the Planck, GUT, or string scale down to TeV region. One expects the low energy phenomenology of these new ideas or models can be tested at current and future collider experiments.

In this talk, we review collider signatures for the following two models of extra dimensions: (i) the one proposed by Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos, and Dvali , in which the standard model (SM) particles live on a 3-brane while the gravity is free to propagate in extra dimensions of very large size ($`\stackrel{<}{}1`$ mm). This model was motivated by the fact that the effective Planck scale is brought down to TeV to solve the hierarchy problem. Collider signatures for this model can be divided into two types: (a) emission of real gravitons into extra dimensions and thus gives rise to missing energy signals, and (b) exchanges of virtual gravitons that frequently lead to enhancement of production of SM particles. (ii) The model proposed by Dienes et al.  and Pomarol et al.  that the SM gauge bosons are allowed to propagate in extra dimensions (whereas the gravity effect here is negligible.) This model has the merit of unifying the gauge couplings at a scale much lower than the usual GUT scale. Collider signatures for this model are due to the existence of the Kaluza-Klein (KK) states of $`\gamma `$, $`W`$, $`Z`$, and $`g`$ bosons.

## 2 Model of Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos, and Dvali

This model was first proposed to solve the hierarchy problem by requiring the compactified dimensions to be of very large size, $`\stackrel{<}{}1`$ mm. While the SM particles live on a D3-brane, the gravity is free to propagate in extra dimensions. Using Gauss law, the effective Planck scale $`M_S`$ is related to the four-dimensional Planck scale $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$ ($`10^{19}`$ GeV) by

$$M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2M_S^{n+2}R^n,$$

where $`n`$ is the number of extra (compactified) dimensions and $`R`$ is the size of the compactified dimensions. Assuming that the effective Planck scale $`M_S`$ is in the TeV range, it gives a very large $`R`$ of the size of a solar system for $`n=1`$, which is obviously ruled out by experiments. However, for all $`n2`$ the expected $`R`$ is less than $`1`$ mm, and therefore do not contradict existing gravitational experiments.

With the SM particles residing on the brane and the graviton freely propagating in extra dimensions, in the 4D-point of view a graviton in extra dimensions is equivalent to a tower of infinite number of KK states with masses $`M_k=2\pi k/R(k=0,1,2,\mathrm{},\mathrm{})`$. The couplings of SM particles to each of these KK states is still of order $`1/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}`$, but the overall coupling is, however, obtained by summing over all the KK states, and therefore scales as $`1/M_S`$. Since the $`M_S`$ is in the TeV range, the effective gravitational interaction is as strong as the electroweak interaction and thus gives rise to many testable consequences in both accelerator and non-accelerator experiments.

A large number of phenomenological studies  in this area have appeared. The collider signatures can be divided into two categories: (i) real emission of gravitons into extra dimensions, giving rise to missing energy signal, and (ii) virtual exchange of gravitons in addition to exchanges of SM gauge bosons, giving rise to enhancement or deviations from the SM predictions. We summarize these signals in the following. Note that a stringent constraint comes from astrophysical (SN1987A) and cosmological sources  and the lower bound on the effective Planck scale $`M_S`$ is 30–100 TeV for $`n=2`$.

### 2.1 Real Emission of Gravitons

Since gravitons interact weakly with detectors, they will escape detection and causing missing energies. Thus, the logical signal to search for would be the associated production of gravitons with other SM particles. At $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders, the best signals would be the associated production of graviton with a $`Z`$ boson, a photon, or a fermion pair.

The production of graviton and photon at LEPII has been studied . The striking signature would be a single photon with missing energy while the irreducible background comes from the process $`e^+e^{}\gamma \nu _{\mathrm{}}\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{}},(\mathrm{}=e,\mu ,\tau )`$. The cross section for the signal is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{d\mathrm{cos}\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha G_N}{4\left(1\frac{m^2}{s}\right)}}[(1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta )(1+({\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{s}})^4)`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{13\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +4\mathrm{cos}^4\theta }{1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta }}\right){\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{s}}(1+({\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{s}})^2)+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ({\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{s}})^2].`$
The signal cross section increases with the energy of collision while the background is gradually decreasing after the $`Z`$-peak. At LEPII, if the effective Planck scale $`M_S`$ is low enough deviations from the SM prediction should be seen. In a recent search by L3 , the limit $`M_S\stackrel{>}{}1`$ TeV for $`n=2`$.

The production of graviton with a $`Z`$ boson at LEPII  gives a signature of a $`Z`$ boson, which decays into a $`q\overline{q}`$ or $`\mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}}`$ pair, plus missing energy. This is an interesting process because LEPII already searched for the invisibly decaying Higgs boson in $`ZH`$ production, which has the same signature as the $`ZG`$ production. The formulas for the signal cross section can be found in Ref. . The irreducible background is $`e^+e^{}Z\nu \overline{\nu }`$. Based on the existing data on the search for invisibly decaying Higgs, the lower limit on $`M_S`$ is around 515 GeV. A refined search by L3  gives a limit $`M_S>600`$ GeV.

The associated production of graviton with a $`f\overline{f}`$ pair was studied at $`Z^0`$  because of a large number of hadronic $`Z`$ decays. The signature would be a fermion pair with missing energy. The background comes from $`Zf\overline{f}\nu \overline{\nu }`$, which has a small BR of $`210^7`$. The present data agrees with the SM prediction and is able to constrain $`M_S`$ to be at least 0.4 TeV for $`n=2`$ .

Another exciting opportunity is the monojet plus missing energy production  at hadronic colliders.

### 2.2 Virtual Exchanges of gravitons

There are numerous studies in collider signatures associated with virtual exchanges of KK-gravitons, including diphoton, diboson, and fermion-pair production. In the following, we highlight some of these studies.

One of the most prominent channels is photon-photon scattering. In the SM, photon-photon scattering only takes place via box diagrams of $`W`$ bosons and quarks so that it is loop-suppressed. On the other hand, in the ADD model photons can scatter via exchanges of gravitons in $`s,t,u`$-channels. The scattering amplitude-squared is symmetric in $`s,t,u`$ and given by  $`\overline{}||^2=\frac{\kappa ^4}{8}|D(s)|^2(s^4+t^4+u^4)`$. The differential cross section is given by

$$\frac{d\sigma (\gamma \gamma \gamma \gamma )}{d|\mathrm{cos}\theta |}=\frac{\pi s^3}{M_S^8}^2[1+\frac{1}{8}(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\mathrm{cos}^4\theta )],$$

where $`=2/(n2)`$ for $`n>2`$. The signal cross section easily surpasses the SM background at around $`\sqrt{s}=0.5`$ TeV for $`M_S=4`$ TeV . The polarized scattering has also been studied in Ref. . Another interesting channel is neutrino-photon scattering .

Diphoton production  and also $`WW,ZZ`$ production  at $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders have been studied. The effect of TeV scale gravity on the angular distribution of diphoton production  is

$$\frac{d\sigma (e^+e^{}\gamma \gamma )}{dz}=\frac{2\pi }{s}(\alpha \sqrt{\frac{1+z^2}{1z^2}}+\frac{s^2}{8}\frac{}{M_S^4}\sqrt{1z^4})^2$$
(2)
where $`z=|\mathrm{cos}\theta _\gamma |`$. This effect is very similar to the conventional deviation from QED, which is often parametrized by a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ as

$$\frac{d\sigma }{dz}=\frac{2\pi \alpha ^2}{s}\frac{1+z^2}{1z^2}\left(1\pm \frac{s^2}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }_\pm ^4}(1z^2)\right).$$

We can immediately equate the above two expressions and arrive at $`\frac{M_S^4}{}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_+^4}{2\alpha }`$. The present limits obtained by LEP Collaborations on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QED}}262345`$ GeV, which is equivalent to $`M_S0.71`$ TeV for $`n=4`$ .

Agashe and Deshpande  also studied $`e^+e^{}\gamma \gamma ,W^+W^{},ZZ`$ production and compared their sensitivities to TeV scale gravity. Interestingly, $`ZZ`$ production offers the highest fractional change of cross section among $`\gamma \gamma ,WW,ZZ`$ due to gravity effects. However, the $`ZZ`$ production rate is smaller than the other two. Overall, their sensitivities are similar. A recent experimental search performed by L3  found that the sensitivities of $`\gamma \gamma ,WW,ZZ`$ are very similar and the combined limit is $`M_S\stackrel{>}{}0.8`$ TeV.

Diphoton production  is one of the best probes of TeV scale gravity at hadron colliders. The angular distributions of the subprocesses are given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (q\overline{q}\gamma \gamma )}{d\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{48\pi \widehat{s}}}[e^2Q_q^2\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1+\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ^{}}{1\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ^{}}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \widehat{s}^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{M_S^4}}\sqrt{1\mathrm{cos}^4\theta ^{}}]^2,`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (gg\gamma \gamma )}{d\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi \widehat{s}^3}{512}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{M_S^4}}\right)^2(1+6\mathrm{cos}^2\theta ^{}+\mathrm{cos}^4\theta ^{}),`$ (4)
where $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}`$ is the scattering angle of the photon in the center-of-mass frame of the incoming partons, and here $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}`$ is from $`1`$ to 1. Based on the existing diphoton data from CDF  that in $`M_{\gamma \gamma }>150`$ GeV 5 events are observed where $`4.5\pm 0.6`$ are expected with a luminosity of 100 pb-1, a limit of $`M_S>0.9`$ TeV  for $`n=4`$ was obtained. The upcoming CDF and D0 searches will easily overshadow this limit.

The general vector-boson scattering $`VVVV`$, where $`V=\gamma ,W,Z`$ was studied by Atwood et al. . The conclusion is that the effect of TeV scale gravity shows up at large invariant mass region.

Extra dimensions also affect fermion-pair production at $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders and the corresponding crossing channels, such as Drell-Yan production at the Tevatron and neutral-current (NC) deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) at HERA. While they were individually studied in a number of publications , a comphrensive analysis of all these data sets was performed in Ref. . The combined limit on $`M_S`$ is $`M_S>0.94`$ TeV for $`n=4`$. Bourilkov , on the other hand, used the combined data of Bhabha scattering of the four LEP Collaborations and was able to obtain a limit of $`M_S>1.4`$ TeV. There are also a combined search in fermion-pair production, diphoton, $`WW`$ and $`ZZ`$ pair production by L3  that a limit of $`M_S\stackrel{>}{}1`$ TeV is established.

Dijet and top-pair production  at the Tevatron or other colliders should also be useful in obtaining information on $`M_S`$, but systematics will likely reduce the usefulness of these channels. Effects on precision variables  and effects on patterns of fermion or neutrino masses  have also been studied. Interactions with scalars or Higgs bosons have been investigated in Ref. .

In the following, we describe a few studies that test sensitivity to $`M_S`$ in future experiments at hadronic and $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders. Cheung and Landsberg  used double differential cross-sections, $`d^2\sigma /dMd\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}`$, of diphoton and Drell-Yan production to constrain the effective Planck scale $`M_S`$ in Run I and Run II at the Tevatron and at the LHC. The advantage of using double differential distributions is that the differences in invariant mass and scattering angle between the SM and the gravity model can be contrasted simultaneously. Furthermore, for a $`22`$ process the invariant mass $`M`$ and the central scattering angle $`\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}`$ already span the entire phase space. We, therefore, do not need further optimization of cuts or variables. The resulting sensitivities to $`M_S`$ are shown in Table 1(a).

The sensitivity reach at linear $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders was studied in a number of work . Here I present a work  that uses diphoton, Bhabha scattering, $`\mu ^+\mu ^{}`$, $`\tau ^+\tau ^{}`$, $`q\overline{q}`$ production and their angular distributions. The sensitivity limits on $`M_S`$ are obtained by a combined maximum likelihood approach by adding the likelihoods of all channels. The Bhabha scattering turns out to be the dominant channel. The angular distribution for diphoton production is given in Eq. (2) and for fermion-pair production it is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma (e^{}e^+f\overline{f})}{dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N_fs}{128\pi }}\{(1+z)^2(|M_{LL}(s)|^2+|M_{RR}(s)|^2)+(1z)^2`$
$`\times (|M_{RL}(s)|^2+|M_{LR}(s)|^2)+\pi ^2s^2(13z^2+4z^4)\eta ^2`$
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}8}\pi e^2Q_eQ_fz^3\eta +{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi e^2}{s_\theta ^2c_\theta ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{s}{sM_Z^2}}(g_a^eg_a^f{\displaystyle \frac{13z^2}{2}}g_v^eg_v^fz^3)\eta \}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _{ef}s}{128\pi }}\{(1+z)^2(|M_{LL}(t)|^2+|M_{RR}(t)|^2+2M_{LL}(s)M_{LL}(t)`$
$`+\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}M_{RR}(s)M_{RR}(t))+4(|M_{LR}(t)|^2+|M_{RL}(t)|^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2s^2}{8}}`$
$`\times (121+228z+198z^2+84z^3+9z^4)\eta ^2{\displaystyle \frac{\pi s}{2}}\eta (M_{LL}(t)+M_{RR}(t)`$
$`+M_{LL}(s)+M_{RR}(s))(1+z)^2(7+z)+\pi s\eta (M_{LL}(t)+M_{RR}(t))`$
$`\times (1+z)^2(12z)2\pi s\eta (M_{LR}(t)+M_{RL}(t))(5+3z)\}`$
where $`\eta =/M_S^4`$ and the reduced amplitudes are given by

$$M_{\alpha \beta }^{ef}(s)=\frac{e^2Q_eQ_f}{s}+\frac{e^2}{\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _\mathrm{w}\mathrm{cos}^2\theta _\mathrm{w}}\frac{g_\alpha ^eg_\beta ^f}{sM_Z^2},\alpha ,\beta =L,R.$$

The 95% C.L. sensitivity limits on $`M_S`$ for $`n=4`$ are shown in Table 1(b). The values for other $`n`$ can be easily obtained by scaling with $`=2/(n2)`$ for $`n>2`$. From the table we can see that a 0.5 TeV NLC has a reach at least double of that at RunIIa and still higher than that of RunIIb. The reach by the LHC is only slightly better than the 1 TeV NLC.

## 3 Kaluza-Klein States of SM Gauge Bosons

In another brane configuration, the SM particles reside on a $`p`$-brane ($`p=\delta +3>3`$) whereas the gravity is in the rest $`(6p)`$ dimensional bulk. Within this $`p`$-brane the effect of gravity is negligible compared to gauge interactions. Inside the $`p`$-brane the chiral fermions are restricted to a 3-brane and the gauge bosons can propagate in the extra $`\delta `$ dimensions internal to the $`p`$-brane.

Dienes et al.  considered in this model of extra dimensions and showed that the gauge couplings can be unified at a scale lower than the usual GUT scale, due to the power running of the couplings. Therefore, the effective GUT scale is lowered, which is in contrast to the ADD model that the Planck scale is lowered.

For collider phenomenology a specific model of this type was proposed by Pomarol et al. . It is a five-dimensional model with the fifth dimension compactified on a $`S^1/Z_2`$. In the four-dimensional point of view, a gauge boson $`V`$ that propagates in the fifth dimension is equivalent to a tower of Kaluza-Klein states $`V^{(n)}`$ with mass $`M_n=nM_c`$, where $`M_c=1/R`$ is the compactification scale and $`R`$ is radius of the fifth dimension. The resulting 4-D Lagrangian for charged-current and neutral-current interactions are, respectively, given by

$`^{\mathrm{CC}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2v^2}{8}}[W_1^2+\mathrm{cos}^2\beta {\displaystyle }_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}(W_1^{(n)})^2+2\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\beta W_1{\displaystyle }_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}W_1^{(n)}+2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta `$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}W_1^{(n)}\right)^2]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle }_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}n^2M_c^2(W_1^{(n)})^2g(W_1^\mu +\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}W_1^{(n)\mu })J_\mu ^1`$
$`+`$ $`(12)`$
$`^{\mathrm{NC}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{gv^2}{8c_\theta ^2}}[Z^2+\mathrm{cos}^2\beta {\displaystyle }_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}(Z^{(n)})^2+2\sqrt{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\beta Z{\displaystyle }_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}Z^{(n)}+2\mathrm{sin}^2\beta `$ (6)
$`\times `$ $`\left({\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}Z^{(n)}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}n^2M_c^2[(Z^{(n)})^2+(A^{(n)})^2]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{e}{s_\theta c_\theta }}\left(Z^\mu +\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}Z^{(n)\mu }\right)J_\mu ^Ze\left(A^\mu +\sqrt{2}{\displaystyle \underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}A^{(n)\mu }\right)J_\mu ^{\mathrm{em}}`$
There are two important effects of these KK states on collider experiments. (i) Since the KK states have the same quantum numbers as their corresponding gauge bosons, it gives rise to mixing effects between the zeroth (the SM gauge boson) and the $`n`$th-modes of $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons. The zero mass of the photon is protected by the U(1)EM symmetry of the SM. (ii) If the energy is higher than the compactification scale $`M_c`$, real emissions or resonances of KK states of $`\gamma ,W,Z,g`$ bosons can be observed, otherwise enhancement of cross sections may be possible.

In Eqs. (5) and (6) the first few terms of each imply mixings among $`V,V^{(1)},V^{(2)},\mathrm{}`$ ($`V=W,Z`$). The mixing between the SM gauge bosons with its Kaluza-Klein states modifies electroweak observables (similar to the mixing between the $`Z`$ and a $`Z^{}`$) via a series of mixing angles, which depend on the masses of $`Z^{(n)},n=0,1,\mathrm{}`$ and the angle $`\beta `$. The neutral boson at LEP is then the first mass eigenstate after mixing. The couplings of the $`Z^{(0)}`$ to fermions are modified through the mixing angles. The observables at LEPI can place strong constraints on the mixing, and thus on the compactification scale $`M_c`$. Similarly, the properties of the $`W`$ boson are also modified. The effects on electroweak precision measurements have been studied . Overall, the limit on $`M_c`$ using the precision data measurements is $`M_c\stackrel{>}{}3.33.8`$ TeV.

The effects of Kaluza-Klein states of the SM gauge bosons also occur in high energy processes. If the available energy is higher than the compactification scale, real emissions or resonances of these Kaluza-Klein states can be observed. However, for the present collider energies and because the compactification scale is believed to be at least a few TeV, only indirect effects can be seen.

We summarize a study of high energy processes when $`M_c`$ is higher than the present energy scale. The reduced amplitude for $`q\overline{q}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ or $`\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}q\overline{q}`$ is given by

$$M_{\alpha \beta }^{eq}(s)=e^2\{\frac{Q_eQ_q}{s}+\frac{g_\alpha ^eg_\beta ^q}{s_\theta ^2c_\theta ^2}\frac{1}{sM_Z^2}(Q_eQ_q+\frac{g_\alpha ^eg_\beta ^q}{s_\theta ^2c_\theta ^2})\frac{\pi ^2}{3M_c^2}\}.$$
(7)
where $`M_c^2s,|t|,|u|`$. The above formula is applicable to hadronic and leptonic cross sections at $`e^+e^{}`$ colliders and to Drell-Yan production at the Tevatron, and with a crossing to DIS at HERA. Similar expressions can be found  for $`W`$ KK state exchanges and for dijet and $`t\overline{t}`$ production. In a global fit to $`\eta =\pi ^2/3M_c^2`$, Cheung and Landsberg  include the following data sets: (i) LEPII hadronic and all leptonic production cross sections and angular distributions, (ii) Drell-Yan production at the Tevatron, (iii) NC and CC DIS scattering cross sections at HERA, (iv) Tevatron dijet production, and (v) Tevatron $`t\overline{t}`$ production. The resulting 95% C.L. limit on $`M_c`$ is

$$M_c>4.4\mathrm{TeV}.$$

## 4 Conclusions

Physics in extra dimensions and phenomenology are extremely rich with advance in string theories because fundamental scales are now reachable within future collider experiments. We have briefly reviewed collider signatures of two interesting scenarios. The first model is due to the KK states of gravitons while the second one is due to KK states of gauge bosons. It turns out that diphoton, boson-pair, and fermion-pair production, as well as precision data measurements are useful in probing these two models.

## Acknowledgments

I thank Wai-yee Keung and Greg Landsberg for parts of the work presented here. This research was supported in part by the DOE Grants No. DE-FG03-91ER40674.


text:
# Computer simulations of interferometric imaging with the VLT interferometer and the AMBER instrument

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) with its four 8.2 m unit telescopes (UTs) and three 1.8 m auxiliary telecopes (ATs) will certainly establish a new era of optical and infrared interferometric imaging within the next few years. With a maximum baseline of up to more than 200 m, the VLTI will allow the study of astrophysical key objects with unprecendented resolution opening up new vistas to a better understanding of their physics.

The near-infrared focal plane instrument of the VLTI, the Astronomical MultiBEam Recombiner (AMBER), will operate between 1 and 2.5 $`\mu `$m and for up to three beams allowing the measurement of closure phases. In a second phase its wavelength coverage is planned to be extended to 0.6 $`\mu `$m. Objects as faint as $`K=20`$ mag are expected to be observable with AMBER when a bright reference star is available, and as faint as $`K=14`$ mag otherwise.

Among the astrophysical key issues are, for instance, young stellar objects, active galactic nuclei and stars in late phases of stellar evolution. The simulation of a stellar object consists in principle of two components:
(i)   the calculation of an astrophysical model of the object, typically based on radiative transfer calculations predicting, e.g., its intensity distribution. To obtain a robust and non-ambiguous model, it is of particular importance to take diverse observational constraints into account, for instance the spectral energy distribution and visibilities.
(ii)   the determination of the interferometer’s response to this intensity signal, i.e. the simulation of light propagation in the atmosphere and the interferometer.
Often, only one of the above parts is considered in full detail. The aim of this study is to combine both efforts and to present a computer simulation of the VLTI performance for observations of one object class, the dusty supergiants. For this purpose, we calculated a detailed radiative transfer model for one of its most outstanding representatives, the supergiant IRC +10 420, and carried out computer simulations of VLTI visibility measurements. The goal is to estimate how accurate visibilities can be measured with the VLTI in this particular but not untypical case, to discuss if the accuracy is sufficient to distinguish between different theoretical model predictions and to study on what the accuracy is dependent.

## 2 The supergiant IRC +10 420: Evolution on human timescales

The star IRC +10 420 (= V 1302 Aql = IRAS 19244+1115) is an outstanding object for the study of stellar evolution. Its spectral type changed from F8 I$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{\mathrm{a}}{}^{}`$ in 1973 to mid-A today corresponding to an effective temperature increase of 1000-2000 K within only 25 yr. It is one of the brightest IRAS objects due to its very strong infrared excess by circumstellar dust and one of the warmest stellar OH maser sources known. Large mass-loss rates, typically of the order of several $`10^4`$ M/yr were determined by CO observations. IRC +10 420 is believed to be a massive luminous star currently being observed in its rapid transition from the red supergiant stage to the Wolf-Rayet phase. Its massive nature (initially $`20`$ to 40 M) can be concluded from its distance ($`d`$ = 3–5 kpc) and large wind velocity (40 km/s) ruling out alternative scenarios. IRC +10 420 is the only object observed until now in its transition to the Wolf-Rayet phase. The structure of the circumstellar environment of IRC +10 420 appears to be very complex, and scenarios proposed to explain the observed spectral features of IRC +10 420 include a rotating equatorial disk, bipolar outflows, and the infall of circumstellar material onto the star’s photosphere .

Several infrared speckle and coronographic observations  were conducted to study the dust shell of IRC +10 420. The most recent study reports the first diffraction-limited 73 mas bispectrum speckle interferometry of IRC +10 420 and presents the first radiative transfer calculations that model both the spectral energy distribution and the visibility of this key object. In the following we will briefly describe the main results and conclusions of this study which will serve as astrophysical input for the VLTI computer simulations presented in the next section.

### 2.1 Visibility measurements and bispectrum speckle interferometry

Speckle interferograms of IRC +10 420 were obtained with the Russian 6 m telescope at the Special Astrophysical Observatory on June 13 and 14, 1998. The speckle data were recorded with our NICMOS-3 speckle camera through an interference filter with a centre wavelength of 2.11 $`\mu `$m and a bandwidth of 0.19 $`\mu `$m. The observational parameters were as follows: exposure time/frame 50 ms; number of frames 8400; 2.11 $`\mu `$m seeing (FWHM) $``$1$`.^{\prime \prime }`$0. A diffraction-limited image of IRC +10 420 with 73 mas resolution was reconstructed from the speckle interferograms using the bispectrum speckle interferometry method. The modulus of the object Fourier transform (visibility) was determined with the speckle interferometry method.

Figure 1 (left panel) shows the reconstructed 2.11 $`\mu `$m visibility function of IRC +10 420. There is only marginal evidence for an elliptical visibility shape (position angle of the long axis $`130{}_{}{}^{}\pm 20^{}`$, axis ratio $`1.0`$ to 1.1). The visibility 0.6 at frequencies $`>4`$ cycles/arcsec shows that the stellar contribution to the total flux is $``$ 60% and the dust shell contribution is $``$ 40%. The Gauß fit FWHM diameter of the dust shell was determined to be $`d_{\mathrm{FWHM}}=(219\pm 30)`$ mas. By comparison, previous 3.8 m telescope K-band observations found a dust-shell flux contribution of $``$50% and $`d_{\mathrm{FWHM}}=216`$ mas. However, as will be shown later, a ring-like intensity distribution appears to be much better suited than the assumption of a Gaussian distribution whose corresponding FWHM diameter fit may give misleading sizes (see Sect. 2.2). The right panel of Fig. 1 displays the azimuthally averaged diffraction-limited images of IRC +10 420 and the unresolved star HIP 95447. The $`K`$-band visibility will strongly constrain radiative transfer calculations as shown in the next section.

### 2.2 Dust-shell models

The spectral energy distrubion (SED) of IRC +10 420 with 9.7 and 18 $`\mu `$m silicate emission features is shown in Fig. 2. It corresponds to the ’1992’ data set used by Oudmaijer et al.) and combines VRI (October 1991), near-infrared (March and April 1992) and Kuiper Airborne Observatory (June 1991) photometry with the IRAS measurements and 1.3 mm data. Additionally, we included data for $`\lambda <0.55\mu `$m. In contrast to the near-infrared, the optical magnitudes have remained constant during the last twenty years within a tolerance of $`0.^\mathrm{m}1`$.

IRC +10 420 is highly reddened due to an extinction of $`A_\mathrm{V}^{\mathrm{total}}7^\mathrm{m}`$ by the interstellar medium and the circumstellar shell. From polarization studies an interstellar extinction of $`A_\mathrm{V}6^\mathrm{m}`$ to $`7^\mathrm{m}`$ was estimated . Based on the strength of the diffuse interstellar bands, $`E(BV)=1.^\mathrm{m}4\pm 0.^\mathrm{m}5`$ can be inferred for the interstellar contribution compared to a total of $`E(BV)=2.^\mathrm{m}4`$. We will use an interstellar $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ of $`5^\mathrm{m}`$ adopting the method of Savage & Mathis  with $`A_\mathrm{V}=3.1E(BV)`$.

In order to model both the observed SED and $`2.11\mu `$m visibility, we performed radiative transfer calculations for dust shells assuming spherical symmetry. We used the code DUSTY which solves the spherical radiative transfer problem utilizing the self-similarity and scaling behaviour of IR emission from radiatively heated dust. To solve the radiative transfer problem including absorption, emission and scattering several properties of the central source and its surrounding envelope are required, viz. (i) the spectral shape of the central source’s radiation; (ii) the dust properties, i.e. the envelope’s chemical composition and grain size distribution as well as the dust temperature at the inner boundary; (iii) the relative thickness of the envelope, i.e. the ratio of outer to inner shell radius, and the density distribution; and (iv) the total optical depth at a given reference wavelength. The code has been expanded for the calculation of synthetic visibilities.

We calculated various models of the dust shell of IRC +10 420 considering black bodies and model atmospheres as central sources of radiation, different silicates, grain-size and density distributions. We refer to Blöcker et al.  for a full description of the model grid. The remaining fit parameters are the dust temperature, $`T_1`$, which determines the radius of the shell’s inner boundary, $`r_1`$, and the optical depth, $`\tau `$, at a given reference wavelength, $`\lambda _{\mathrm{ref}}`$. We refer to $`\lambda _{\mathrm{ref}}=0.55\mu `$m. Models were calculated for dust temperatures between 400 and 1000 K and optical depths between 1 and 12. Significantly larger values for $`\tau `$ lead to silicate features in absorption.

The near-infrared visibility strongly constrains dust shell models since it is, e.g., a sensitive indicator of the grain size. Accordingly, high-resolution interferometry results provide essential ingredients for models of circumstellar dust-shells. In the instance of IRC +10 420 (assuming the central star to be a black body of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=7000`$ K), the silicate grain sizes, $`a`$, were found to be in accordance with a standard distribution function, $`n(a)`$$``$$`a^{3.5}`$, with $`a`$ ranging between $`a_{\mathrm{min}}`$ = 0.005 $`\mu `$m and $`a_{\mathrm{max}}`$ = 0.45 $`\mu `$m.

However, the observed dust shell properties cannot be fitted by single-shell models but seem to require multiple components. At a certain distance we considered an enhancement over the assumed $`1/r^x`$ density distribution. The best model for both SED and visibility was found for a dust shell with a dust temperature of 1000 K at its inner radius of $`r_1=69R_{}`$. At a distance of $`r=308R_{}`$ ($`Y=r/r_1=4.5`$) the density was enhanced by a factor of $`A=40`$ and and its density exponent was changed from $`x=2`$ to $`x=1.7`$. These fits for SED and 2.11 $`\mu `$m visibility are shown in Fig. 2. The various flux contributions at 2.11 $`\mu `$m are 62.2% stellar light, 26.1% scattered radiation and 10.7% dust emission (see Fig. 3), i.e. the radiation emitted by the circumstellar shell itself consists of 71% scattered radiation and 29% direct dust emission. The shell’s model intensity distribution is shown in Fig. 3 and was found to be ring-like. This appears to be typical for optically thin shells (here $`\tau _{0.55\mu \mathrm{m}}=7`$, $`\tau _{2.11\mu \mathrm{m}}=0.55`$) showing limb-brightened dust-condensation zones. Accordingly, the interpretation of the observational data by FWHM Gauß diameters may give misleading results. The ring diameter is equal to the inner diameter of the hot shell ($`69`$ mas), and the diameter of the central star amounts to $`1`$ mas. The bolometric flux, $`F_{\mathrm{bol}}`$, is $`8.1710^{10}`$ Wm<sup>-2</sup> corresponding to a central-star luminosity of $`L/L_{}=\mathrm{25\hspace{0.17em}462}(d/\mathrm{kpc})^2`$.

This two-component model can be interpreted in terms of a termination of an enhanced mass-loss phase roughly 90 yr (for $`d=5`$ kpc) ago. The assumption that IRC +10 420 had passed through a superwind phase in its recent history is in line with its evolutionary status of an object in transition from the Red-Supergiant to the Wolf-Rayet phase. The mass-loss rates of the components can be determined to be $`\dot{M}_1=\mathrm{7.0\; 10}^5`$$`M_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$ and $`\dot{M}_2=\mathrm{1.1\; 10}^3`$$`M_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$.

## 3 Interferometry with the VLTI and the AMBER instrument

In the previous section, the spatial intensity profile of the dusty supergiant IRC +10 420 (see Fig. 3) was derived by means of radiative transfer models and their comparison with photometric and interferometric observations. This $`2.11\mu `$m intensity profile will serve as object intensity profile in the simulation of monochromatic VLTI observations. The next steps are the simulation of light propagation from the object to the detector (through atmosphere, telescopes, and the AMBER wide-field mode instrument), simulation of photon noise and detector read-out noise, and finally data processing of the interferograms. A schematic view of Michelson interferometry with the VLTI and the AMBER camera is given in Fig. 4.

### 3.1 Computer simulation of interferometric imaging

Fig. 5 shows a flow chart of our simulation of interferometric imaging with the VLTI (ATs, or UTs with adaptive optics) and the AMBER camera in the wide-field mode (i.e. without fiber optics spatial filtering). In a first step, an array of Gaussian distributed random numbers is generated and convolved with the correlation function of the atmospheric refraction index variations in order to generate wavefronts degraded by atmospheric turbulence. The typical size of the atmospheric turbulence cells is given by the Fried parameter $`r_0`$. After the simulation of the entrance pupil, the next step incorporates the tip-tilt correction but we allow for a residual tip-tilt error $`\delta _{\mathrm{tt}}`$. In the next step a typical Michelson output pupil is simulated (pupil reconfiguration). The output pupil is chosen such that (i) in the optical transfer function the off-axis peaks are separated from the central peak, and (ii) the interferograms are sampled with the smallest number of pixels to assure the lowest influence of detector noise. The following step includes light propagation through the beam combiner lens to the focal plane. The squared modulus of the Fourier transform of the complex amplitude in front of the beam combiner lens yields the intensity distribution of a Michelson interferogram of a point source. In the next step the required object intensity distribution is simulated (given here by the intensity distribution of IRC +10 420) to obtain the Michelson interferogram of the object: The Fourier transformation of the object intensity distribution, calculated at those spatial frequencies covered by the the simulated interferometer baseline vector, is multiplied with the off-axis peaks of the transfer function of the generated Michelson interferogram. Finally, Poisson photon-noise and detector read-out noise is injected to the interferograms. The noise level depends, among other parameters, on the number of detectable photons, the total optical throughput of the interferometer and the quantum efficiency of the detector. Details are shown in Table 1.

### 3.2 Visibility data for IRC +10 420

We performed simulations of IRC +10 420 AT visibility observations in the AMBER wide-field mode and studied the influence of various observational parameters on the visibility accuracy. Visibility error bars were, for example, obtained for the following observational parameters: different seeing during the observation of object and reference star (Fried parameters $`r_{0,\mathrm{object}}`$=2.4 m, $`r_{0,\mathrm{ref}.}`$=2.5 m), different residual tip-tilt error ($`\delta _{\mathrm{tt},\mathrm{object}}`$=2% of the Airy disk diameter, $`\delta _{\mathrm{tt},\mathrm{ref}.}`$=0.1%), and object brightness ($`K_{\mathrm{object}}`$=3.5 mag and 11 mag, $`K_{\mathrm{ref}.}`$=3.5 mag). In the computer experiments (a)-(c), object and reference star were assumed to have the same brightness ($`K`$=3.5 mag, see Table 1), in experiment (d) fainter objects ($`K`$=11 mag) were simulated as well. Fig. 6 shows the results of the simulations (a) to (c) based on the $`A=40`$ intensity profile (see Fig. 3) for baselines of 50 and 100 m together with the model predictions for IRC +10 420. To obtain error bars each simulation was repeated three times. The insetted table lists the parameters of the simulations.

Simulation (a) based on 2400 interferograms represents the ideal case of excellent seeing conditions ($`r_{0,\mathrm{object}}`$=2.5 m, $`r_{0,\mathrm{ref}.}`$=2.5 m) and an almost perfect tip-tilt correction (residual tip-tilt error $`\delta _{\mathrm{tt}}=0.1`$%). The visibility error $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ amounts to $`\pm 0.0029`$. Simulation (b) illustrates the influence of a larger residual object tip-tilt error ($`\delta _{\mathrm{tt}}`$=2%) leading to $`\mathrm{\Delta }V\pm 0.0036`$. Simulation (c) shows the impact of different seeing conditions for object and reference star. In the last simulation (d) of this series (shown only in the insetted table of Fig. 6) an IRC +10 420-like intensity distribution is assumed but the simulated $`K`$-magnitude is 11 mag (instead of 3.5 mag). Although the photon number decreases to $`N=4.4110^3`$ (i.e. by a factor of 1000, see Table 1), the visibility accuracy is still high, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }V\pm 0.0036`$.

## 4 Conclusions

We have presented computer simulations of interferometric imaging with the VLT interferometer and the AMBER instrument in the wide-field mode. These simulations include both the astrophysical modelling of a stellar object by radiative transfer calculations and the simulation of light propagation from the object to the detector and simulation of photon noise and detector read-out noise. We focussed on stars in late stages of stellar evolution and examplarily studied one of its most outstanding representatives, the dusty supergiant IRC +10 420. The model intensity distribution of this key object, obtained by radiative transfer calculations, served as astrophyiscal input for the VLTI/AMBER simulations.

The results of these simulations show the dependence of the visibility error bar on various observational parameters. With these simulations at hand one can immediately see under which conditions the visibility data quality would allow us to discriminate between different model assumptions (e.g. the size of the superwind amplitude). Inspection of Fig. 6 shows that in all studied cases the observations will give clear preference to one particular model. Therefore, observations with VLTI will certainly be well suited to gain deeper insight into the physics of dusty supergiants.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The bispectrum speckle observations were made with the SAO 6 m telescope operated by the Special Astrophysical Observatory, Russia. The radiative-transfer calculations are based on the code DUSTY developed by Ž. Ivezić, M. Nenkova and M. Elitzur.