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# A measurement at the first acoustic peak of the CMB with the 33 GHz interferometer

## 1 Introduction

Observations of the angular power spectrum of the CMB temperature fluctuations are a powerful probe of the fundamental parameters of our universe. The amplitude and spatial distribution of these fluctuations can discriminate between competing cosmological models. Most inflationary models predict more power on scales of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 – 2, in the form of a series of peaks. These are due to acoustic oscillations in the photon-baryon fluid, which are frozen into the CMB at recombination, with the peaks corresponding to regions of maximum compression and troughs regions of maximum rarefaction. Hence, the position of the first acoustic peak is a strong test for the geometry of the universe, since it corresponds to a fixed physical scale at the time of recombination projected onto the sky.

The previous result from the Jodrell Bank – IAC 33 GHz interferometer of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{}}=43_{12}^{+13}\mu \mathrm{K}`$, reported in Dicker et al. (1999), corresponds to an angular spherical harmonic $`\mathrm{}110`$, equivalent to $``$ 2 structure. To investigate smaller angular scales the baseline was doubled; in this paper we analyze the data from this wide spacing configuration which corresponds to an angular spherical harmonic $`\mathrm{}210`$. The data presented here were taken at the Teide Observatory, Tenerife, between 27 May 1998 and 9 March 1999. The paper is organised as follows. The instrumental configuration is summarised in Section 2; a full description can be found in Melhuish et al. (1999). The basic data processing is outlined in Section 3; for a more complete discussion see Dicker et al. (1999). The calibration method is also discussed in Section 3 and the data analysis in Section 4. A derivation of the fluctuation amplitude, after an estimate of the contribution of possible foregrounds, is given in Section 5.

## 2 The 33 GHz Interferometer

The interferometer consists of two horn-reflector antennas positioned to form a single E–W baseline, which has two possible lengths depending on the separation of the horns. The narrow spacing configuration has a baseline of 152 mm while in its wide spacing configuration the horns are 304 mm apart. For the observations presented here, the baseline was 304 mm. Observations were made at a fixed declination of Dec=+41 , using the rotation of the Earth to “scan” 24h in RA each day. This “scan” runs through some of the lowest background levels of synchrotron, dust and free-free emission. The horn polarization is horizontal – parallel with the scan direction. There are two data outputs representing the cosine and the sine components of the complex interferometer visibility. The operating bandwidth covers 31 – 34 GHz, near a local minimum in the atmospheric emission spectrum; the antenna spacing corresponds to 32.9 wavelengths. The low level of precipitable water vapour, which is typically around 3 mm at Teide Observatory, permits the collection of high quality data. Only 16 per cent of the data have been rejected, due to bad weather and the daily Sun transit.

The measured response of the interferometer is well approximated by a Gaussian with sigmas of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{RA}}`$= 2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$25 $`\pm `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$03 (in RA) and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Dec}}`$= 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$00 $`\pm `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$02 (in Dec), modulated by fringes with a period of $`f`$ = 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$74 $`\pm `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$02 in RA. This defines the range of sensitivity to the different multipoles $`\mathrm{}`$ of the CMB power spectrum ($`C_{\mathrm{}}`$) in the range corresponding to a maximum sensitivity at $`\mathrm{}`$ = 208 (0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8) and half sensitivity at $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}=\pm `$18.

A known calibration signal (CAL) is periodically injected into the waveguide after the horns allowing a continuous calibration and concomitant corrections for drifts in the system gain and phase offset.

## 3 Basic Data Processing and Calibration

The first step in the analysis is the removal of any variable baseline offsets from the data and the correction of a small departure from quadrature between the cosine and sine data. The data are calibrated relative to the CAL signal and re-binned into 2 - minute bins to ensure alignment in RA between successive scans. The data affected by the Sun and bad weather are removed and individual scans are weighted, with respect to their RMS error, to form a “stack”. The total stack of all the data used for this analysis is shown in Fig. 1. The number of observations at each RA varies from 210 to 180 days due the removal of $`\pm 0.5^h`$ about the Sun transit each day.

The data are calibrated relative to CAL, although CAL itself needs to be calibrated by an astronomical source. The large size of the primary beam results in a reduced sensitivity to point sources and many days of observation are required to achieve a signal - to - noise ratio sufficient for calibration purposes. Consequently, the Moon is used as the primary calibrator as the power received from a single Moon transit is large enough to give signal - to - noise ratios of $`6000`$.

The Moon was modelled as a uniform disk of radius $`r_{\mathrm{Moon}}`$ and a 33 GHz brightness temperature, $`T_\mathrm{b}`$ given by:

$$T_\mathrm{b}=202+27\mathrm{cos}(\varphi ϵ)\text{K}$$
(1)
where $`\varphi `$ is the phase of the Moon (measured from full Moon) and $`ϵ`$ = 41 is a phase offset caused by the finite thermal conductivity of the Moon \[Gorenstein & Smoot 1981\]. It is sufficient to model the Moon as a uniform disk when correcting for its partial resolution by the interferometer. The effect of temperature variations across the Moon are negligible when compared to the error, 5.5 per cent, of the Gorenstein and Smoot model for the Moon’s brightness temperature. The expected antenna temperature, $`T_\mathrm{E}`$, can then be found by integrating over the disk of the Moon, multiplied by the normalized interferometer beam function:

$`T_\mathrm{E}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T_\mathrm{b}}{2\pi \sigma _{\mathrm{RA}}\sigma _{\mathrm{Dec}}}}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^{r_{\mathrm{Moon}}}}\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2\sigma _{\mathrm{RA}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{y^2}{2\sigma _{\mathrm{Dec}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}}\right)\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi x}{f}}\right)d\mathrm{\Omega }`$
where $`x=r\mathrm{cos}\psi `$ and $`y=r\mathrm{sin}\psi `$. $`\sigma _{\mathrm{RA}}`$ and $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Dec}}`$ are the RA and Dec beam sigmas (dispersion) and $`f`$ is the fringe spacing.

Regular observations of the Moon were made; for each observation, equation 3 was evaluated numerically and an amplitude for CAL found such that the amplitude of the Moon in the processed data was equal to the predicted value. Using 27 observations of the Moon, an average amplitude for CAL of 14.7 $`\pm `$ 0.8 K was found. The error consists of a 1.4 per cent error in the measurements and an estimated 5.5 per cent in the moon model \[Gorenstein & Smoot 1981\]. Fig. 2 shows our observations and how the measured brightness temperatures of the Moon change with phase.

The moon model used in this paper differs from the model given in Dicker et al. (1999). This data together with the addition data taken in the narrow spacing, section 6, will be the subject of a forthcoming paper, using the Moon model given in this paper.

## 4 Likelihood Analysis

### 4.1 Theory

The temperature anisotropies of the CMB fluctuations are described by a two dimensional random field on the sky, the properties of which can be determined from the two point correlation function $`C^{\mathrm{CMB}}(\theta _{ij})`$, where $`\theta _{ij}`$ is the angular separation of the two points.

$$C^{\mathrm{CMB}}\left(\theta _{ij}\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_i}{T}\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T_j}{T}\right)$$
(3)
which can be expanded in terms of spherical harmonics as:

$$C^{\mathrm{CMB}}(\theta _{ij})=\underset{2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{(2\mathrm{}+1)}{4\pi }C_{\mathrm{}}P_{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{cos}(\theta _{ij}))$$
(4)
In our analysis the form of the likelihood function is given by :

$$L\frac{1}{|C|^{\frac{1}{2}}}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{2}D^TC^1D\right)$$
(5)
where D is the data set and C is the covariance matrix, which represents the model of the CMB sky modulated by our observing strategy. The covariance matrix is composed of two terms, $`C=S+N`$ where S is the signal and N is the noise correlation matrix. The signal is the convolution of the two point correlation function and the auto – correlation function of the primary beam function of the interferometer.

$$S_{ij}=C^{\mathrm{CMB}}(\theta _{ij})S^{\mathrm{beam}}(\theta _{ij})$$
(6)
Using the band – power approximation where $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)C_{\mathrm{}}/2\pi }`$ 111There is a typographical error in Dicker et al. (1999), in the denominator the $`8\pi `$ should be $`2\pi `$ as written here. is assumed to be constant across the range of $`\mathrm{}`$ covered by the window function.

$$C^{\mathrm{CMB}}(\theta _{ij})=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Delta }T)^2\underset{2}{\overset{\mathrm{}_{max}}{}}\frac{(2\mathrm{}+1)}{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)}P_{\mathrm{}}(\mathrm{cos}(\theta _{ij}))$$
(7)
where $`\mathrm{}_{max}`$ is the limit of the summation.

The sensitivity at an individual value of $`\mathrm{}`$ is given by the window function of the interferometer in Fig. 3. The window function was computed using the method of Muciaccia, Natoli & Vittorio (1997) to decompose the beam into spherical harmonics. The resulting function can be modelled by:

$$W_{\mathrm{}}(0)=0.0377\times \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(\mathrm{}208)(\mathrm{}209)}{694}\right)$$
(8)
$`W_{\mathrm{}}(0)`$ falls to half power at $`\mathrm{}=208\pm 18`$.

The covariance matrix can now be calculated, by numerically evaluating equations (6) and (7). Equation (7) is evaluated to $`\mathrm{}_{max}=300`$, where the sensitivity of the interferometer, $`W_{\mathrm{}}(0)`$, is negligible. The result of equation (7), $`C^{\mathrm{CMB}}(\theta _{ij})`$, is used to calculated the required value of $`S_{ij}`$ using equation (6) . The covariance of two points with an angular separation of $`\theta _{ij}`$ is then given by $`C_{ij}=S_{ij}+N_{ij}`$.

### 4.2 The results and the Galactic Cut

Any analysis should take account of likely Galactic emission. At Dec +41 the ranges 21h48m– 3h48m RA and 6h12m– 19h30m RA are at Galactic latitude b $``$ 10 . To find regions free of significant Galactic emission, 48 intervals of 5 hours in RA were analysed as described above, stepping every 0.5 hours. It was found that the above cut was in general agreement with the higher latitude results, except the region 2h48m\- 3h48m which was excluded; this is due the Galactic plane emission and difficulties in subtracting the contribution of 3C84, see Section 5.1.

The likelihood analysis of the ranges 21h48m\- 2h48m RA and 6h12m\- 19h30m RA gives $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=78.5_{12.0}^{+12.5}\mu K`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=69.5_{12.0}^{+12.5}\mu K`$ for the cosine channel and the sine channel respectively. The likelihood analysis using both channels simultaneously gives $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=70.0_{6.5}^{+7.0}\mu K`$ at the 68 percent confidence level.

## 5 The effect of foregrounds on the results

### 5.1 Point Sources

The 5 strongest sources with S(33 GHz) $``$ 2 Jy within a 4 strip centred on Dec +41 , listed in table 1, are routinely monitored by the University of Michigan at 4.8, 8.0 and 14.5 GHz and in the Metsahovi programme at 22.0 and 37.0 GHz. Using these data over the period of our observations, it was possible to assess their mean flux densities at 33 GHz. These were then convolved with the two-dimensional interferometer beam pattern centred on Dec +41 and converted to antenna temperatures using the factor $`6.90\mu \mathrm{KJy}^1`$; in this form these sources may be subtracted from the data.

The data ranges 21h48m– 2h48m RA and 6h12m– 19h30m RA were analyzed together, subtracting the point sources as discussed above. Each channel was analyzed independently and then combined for a joint analysis. For the cosine channel $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=69.5_{11.5}^{+12.5}\mu \mathrm{K}`$, for the sine channel $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=62.5_{11.5}^{+13.0}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ and combining both channels gives $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=64.0_{6.0}^{+7.0}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ at the 68 per cent confidence level and $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=64.0_{13.0}^{+14.5}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ at the 95 per cent confidence level. The likehood curve of this anaylsis is shown in Figure 4.

The contribution of unresolved point sources was estimated according to the results of Franceschini et al. (1989), at 33 GHz resolution of 0.8 this is expected to be $`11\mu \mathrm{K}`$, which adds in quadrature to the CMB signal. The contribution of unresolved sources then accounts for approximately 1 $`\mu `$K of the total signal and accordingly the best estimate of the intrinsic CMB fluctuation amplitude is $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=63.0_{6.0}^{+7.0}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ at $`\mathrm{}=208`$.

### 5.2 Spinning Dust

de Oliveira-Costa et al. (1998) estimated the contribution of spinning dust in a 19 GHz map of 3 resolution by correlating it with the DIRBE sky maps, finding $`\mathrm{\Delta }T66\pm 22\mu \mathrm{K}`$. Using the IRAS 100 $`\mu \mathrm{K}`$ map, Gautier et al. (1992) investigated the spatial index of the dust, finding on scales between 8 and 4′ that $`\mathrm{\Delta }T\mathrm{}^{3/2}`$. This, combined with the expected spectral index of the spinning dust of $`3.3<\beta _{\mathrm{spin}}<4`$ (de Oliveira-Costa et al. 1998); allowed the estimation of the contribution of spinning dust at 33 GHz and 0.8 resolution. The expected signal in our data due to spinning dust was found to be $`\mathrm{\Delta }T^{\mathrm{dust}}1.5\pm 0.5\mu \mathrm{K}`$. This again adds in quadrature to the total signal, therefore the contribution from spinning dust is expected to be negligible.

### 5.3 Diffuse Galactic Emission

An estimate of the amplitude of the diffuse Galactic component in our data can be computed using the results obtained in the same region of the sky by the Tenerife CMB experiments (Gutiérrez et al. 2000). At 10.4 GHz and on angular scales centred on $`\mathrm{}=20`$ the maximum Galactic component was estimated to be $`28\mu \mathrm{K}`$. Assuming that this contribution is entirely due to free-free emission $`(\beta =2.1)`$ and a conservative Galactic spatial power spectrum of $`\mathrm{}^{2.5}`$, the predicted maximum Galactic contamination in the data presented here is $`0.8\mu \mathrm{K}`$, less than 2 per cent of our measured value. Any such contribution would add in quadrature to that from the CMB, and so is insignificant. The true make-up of the 10.4 - GHz Galactic foreground emission will have a steeper average spectral index since synchrotron radiation with $`\beta 3`$ will contribute to the measured value, therefore the contribution to our result will be even lower than stated.

## 6 Conclusions

In this paper we describe the results taken with the Jodrell Bank – IAC 33 GHz interferometer in its wide spacing configuration, which is sensitive to structure at $`\mathrm{}=208\pm 18`$. In the final result of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=63.0_{6.0}^{+7.0}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ possible foreground contributors have been considered, the most significant of which are point sources. In Section 5.1 the contribution of strong, monitored sources are removed from the data. To allow for the contribution of unresolved sources the lower limit on $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ has been increased. In Sections 5.2 and 5.3, the contributions from dust and diffuse Galactic emission are found to be negligible. We believe our result represents the intrinsic CMB fluctuation signal at $`\mathrm{}=208\pm 18`$. The quoted error in our result is dominated by sample variance, resulting from the finite number of beam areas observed.

Table 2 and Fig. 5 show our result alongside others published in the last year from experiments covering similar angular scales. These experiments have been made at a range of different frequencies and regions of the sky. Our result is in good agreement with the published data around $`\mathrm{}200`$. The results at $`\mathrm{}200`$ appear to be converging on a value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=6070\mu \mathrm{K}`$. However, over the wider-$`\mathrm{}`$ range of 50 – 300 discrepancies appear in the data sets significantly greater than the quoted errors. There appears to be evidence for unknown systematic effects and possible foreground contamination remaining in the data sets.

Our interferometer results show a rise in the amplitude of the power spectrum between $`\mathrm{}100`$ and $`\mathrm{}200`$. This is intrinsic to the CMB since the parameters of the interferometer system, particularly the calibration, remain the same except for the spacing. The data in Fig. 5, despite the discrepancies referred to above, are strongly indicative of a peak in the power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}200`$.

The interferometer is currently in its narrow spacing configuration ($`\mathrm{}110`$), observing declinations spaced by 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 from Dec +37.4 to +43.4; these data will significantly reduce the sample variance of the result published by Dicker et al. (1999) to the order of 5 per cent.

## 7 Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the European Community Science program contract SCI-ST920830, the Human Capital and Mobility contract CHRXCT920079 and the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish DGES projects PB95-1132-C02-01 and PB98-0531-C02-02. DLH and JFMP acknowledge the receipt of a PPARC Postgraduate Studentship. We thank Dr.H.Teräsranta for providing data on point sources at 22 and 37 GHz. This research has made use of data from the University of Michigan Radio Astronomy Observatory which is supported by funds from the University of Michigan.

Note added in proof
Our result of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=63.0_{6.0}^{+7.0}\mu \mathrm{K}`$ at $`\mathrm{}=208`$ is competitive with the latest published results from the Boomerang experiment, which found an amplitude for the first peak of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=69\pm 8\mu \mathrm{K}`$ at $`\mathrm{}=197\pm 6`$, \[de Bernardis et al. 2000\] and the Maxima experiment, which found a peak at $`\mathrm{}220`$ of amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=78\pm 6\mu \mathrm{K}`$, \[Hanany et al. 2000\].


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# REFERENCES

TMUP-HEL-0007

Answering the Sphinx’s Questions on Neutrinos

Hisakazu Minakata***Talk presented at Workshop on Neutrino Oscillations and Their Origin, Fujiyoshida, Japan, February 11-13, 2000, to appear in Proceedings published by Universal Academy Press, Tokyo.

Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University
1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan, and
Research Center for Cosmic Neutrinos, Institute for Cosmic Ray Research,
University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8582, JapanAddress correction requested

## Abstract

In answering the difficult questions on neutrinos asked by Sphinx I argue that search for proton decay is the most important experiment in coming 5-10 years. I also emphasize the crucial importance of the neutrinoless double beta decay with sensitivity of $`m_{\nu e}0.01`$ eV level as the unique feasible way of directly detecting neutrinos of atmospheric mass scale in laboratories. I point out that, if observed at this level, it means not only that neutrinos are Majorana particle but also that they must obey an inverted mass hierarchy.

As one of the panellers in this session, I was asked by Yoichiro Suzuki, the head of the Priority Area Project on Neutrino Oscillations and their Origins, to answer the questions

$`Q_1`$: ”What would be the most important neutrino oscillation experiment in coming five years?” and the other related ones. Clearly, he was so kind to raise such a difficult question to answer. Of course, his intention was quite right, aiming at triggering interesting discussions in the session. Therefore, let me try to answer it as far as I can do.

Actually I will try to answer it by making it harder, I mean more general, not by making it more specific. (A famous mathematitian Kiyoshi Oka once claimed that one must let problem harder by making it more general to beautifully solve it.) So the question I try to answer is:

$`Q_2`$: ”What would be the most important experiment in coming five years which has anything to do with neutrino masses?

Since the questions are so heavy I had to ask myself about what we know with confidence and what we do not know for sure in particle physics. After some wondering I found that the answer is simple. The standard model of particle physics , and that is about it.

We do know that the standard model is a great theory which explains almost everything that we know; they mostly come from the experiments done at energies of less than 1 TeV. A bit of more thought, however, reveals that it has profound consequences on physics far beyond the electroweak scale. It stems from the nature of the standard model of being a renormalizable theory. It predicts that baryon and lepton number nonconserving processes are largely suppressed. It is because the gauge invariance and the renormalizablity do not allow us to have lepton and baryon number violating interactions in the standard model . These interactions are possible only as unrenormalizable, higher-dimensional operators, and hence are suppressed by powers of a large mass scale which signals the energy scale that characterizes opening of new physics. One of the simplest possible terms that violates lepton and baryon numbers is

$$\frac{1}{M^2}\overline{e}\overline{d}uu$$
(1)
which would mediate proton decay, $`p\pi ^0+e^+`$. This is the basic reason why the proton decay is so rare; The basic defining principle of the theory, the gauge invariance and the renormalizablity, themselves guarantee the stability of matter without recourse to any extra symmetries that can be fragile. The most stringent bound to date comes from Superkamiokande .

It should be stressed that the same reasoning in the standard model implies that the neutrino masses must be tiny. The lowest possible dimension 5 operator for the neutrino mass term is;

$$\frac{1}{M}\varphi \varphi \nu \nu $$
(2)
where $`\varphi `$ indicates the Higgs field. We know that $`\varphi `$ is about 250 GeV. If we take $`M10^{16}`$ GeV as is natural for grand unification , then it gives us for a neutrino mass, $`m_\nu 6\times 10^3`$ eV. Our prejudice in the hierarchy of lepton and quark masses then suggests that the largest $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ is given by $`m_\nu ^24\times 10^5`$ eV, which is not so far from the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$ scales implied by the atmospheric neutrino data and the MSW solar neutrino solutions. (Most probably it is in between them.)

Therefore, it appears to me that the most natural interpretation of the tiny neutrino mass which we observe by various neutrino experiments is the one expected by the most well-tested theory, the standard model. Its size naturally suggests the grand unification mass scale as the energy threshold for new physics. If this interpretation is correct, the next step is obvious; observation of proton decay.

Thus, guided by my conservatism in which I trust only the generic features of the standard model as a renormalizable theory based on gauge principle, I was led to an answer to the modified version of Yoichiro’s question $`Q_2`$; The most important experiment in coming 5-10 years is the search for proton decay. I have no reason not to suspect that it will be observed by Superkamiokande; I do not share the pessimism which apparently possessed by the experimentalists. I hope that they are patient enough to continue to believe in this generic ”prediction” of the standard model, albeit not in various GUT-model-dependent predictions on dominant modes.

Now, since this is the Neutrino Workshop I feel obliged to address at least one neutrino experiment which I believe to be of key importance in the near future. It is the neutrinoless double beta decay experiment . There are at least two impressive bold attempts to reach sensitivity of $``$ 0.01 eV . Because it is smaller than square root of the atmospheric $`\mathrm{\Delta }m^2`$, we have a good chance of observing real events, not just placing the bound, if the neutrinos are Majorana particles and if the experiments are feasible. It should be emphasized that it is the unique experiment, to my knowledge, that is capable of proving of Majorana nature of neutrinos. I note that the extra Majorana phases cannot be observable in any neutrino oscillation experiments in vacuum and in matter.

I would be very happy if I can stop here. But I must point out the following fact, though it might give a little harder time for experimentalists. What I told you a moment ago was not quite correct. To clarify what I mean by this we have to distinguish the normal ($`m_3m_1m_2`$) and the inverted ($`m_1m_2m_3`$) hierarchies of neutrino masses. If neutrinos have normal mass hierarchy then a suppression factor arises so that one must go down to 0.001 eV level to probe the neutrino mass scale of $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^2}`$.

In my notation I assume that the 3rd mass eigenstate is either heaviest or lightest. I call the former (latter) case as the normal (inverted) mass hierarchy. I use as a lepton mixing matrix, the Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix , the standard parametrization of the CKM matrix for quarks advertized by Partcle Data Group. Then, the observable in double beta decay experiment can be written as

$$m_{\nu e}=\left|c_{12}^2c_{13}^2m_1+s_{12}^2c_{13}^2m_2e^{i\varphi _1}+s_{13}^2m_3e^{i\varphi _2}\right|,$$
(3)
where $`\varphi _1`$ and $`\varphi _2`$ are undetermined phases, essentially the two extra Majorana phases. Since $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{23}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{13}^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{12}^2=\mathrm{\Delta }m_{solar}^2`$, $`m_{\nu e}`$ is dominated by the 3rd (1st and 2nd) term in (3) for the normal (inverted) mass hierarchy if I rely on the view represented in (2) with $`M=M_{GUT}`$. An opposite extreme is known as the almost degenerate neutrinos (ADN), $`m_j^2\mathrm{\Delta }m_{ij}^2`$, and I refer an early analysis  of the ADN scenario on how it can be constrained by the solar neutrino observation.

Now it is simple to observe that in the normal mass hierarchy $`m_{\nu e}`$ is given by

$$m_{\nu e}=s_{13}^2m_3s_{13}^2\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^2}.$$
(4)
The constraint by the CHOOZ experiment , $`\mathrm{sin}^22\theta _{13}<0.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^2=(25)\times 10^3\mathrm{eV}^2`$ gives $`m_{\nu e}<(1.11.8)\times 10^3`$ eV. On the other hand, if the inverted mass hierarchy is the case

$$m_{\nu e}\left|c_{12}^2m_1+s_{12}^2m_2e^{i\varphi _1}\right|,$$
(5)
which, barring the possibility of accidental cancellation, can be of the order of $`\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }m_{atm}^2}`$, as announced in the abstract.

I don’t know if I survived the Sphinx’s questions. But what I told you in my talk is in what I believe. So let us wait and see.

In completing this manuscript I noticed that the similar issues on double beta decay have been addressed in .

I thank Yoichiro Suzuki for asking such difficult questions and keep pressing us to answer. This work is supported partly by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research in Priority Areas No. 12047222 Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.


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# Formation of the Galactic stellar halo: Origin of the metallicity-eccentricity relation

## 1 Introduction

Structure and dynamics of the metal-deficient halo component in the Galaxy provide valuable information on the early evolution of the Galaxy (e.g., Freeman 1987; Majewski 1993). Accordingly, the origin of the Galactic stellar halo has been extensively discussed by many authors since Eggen, Lynden-Bell, & Sandage (1962, hereafter referred to as ELS) reported a strong correlation between metal abundances and space motions of the high-velocity stars in the solar neighborhood. ELS argued that the contraction of the Galaxy must have been monolithic and rapid within a free-fall time ($``$ $`10^8`$ yr). Several authors however pointed out that the collapse time scale estimated by ELS is greatly affected by their selection criterion against the halo stars having high angular momentum (e.g., Yoshii & Saio 1979; Norris, Bessell, & Pickles 1985; Chiba & Yoshii 1998, hereafter CY). Alternatively, Searle & Zinn (1978, hereafter SZ) proposed that the Galactic halo was formed slowly ($``$ $`10^9`$ yr) by chaotic merging/accretion of several subgalactic fragments. It is yet unsettled whether either ELS’s monolithic or SZ’s merging picture (or both, e.g., Norris 1994; Freeman 1996; Carney et al. 1996) is more plausible and realistic for describing the early evolution the Galaxy.

Kinematic aspects of the Galactic metal-poor stars have been greatly improved by the recently completed $`Hipparcos`$ Catalogue (ESA 1997) and various ground-based catalogs (e.g., Platais et al. 1998; Urban et al. 1998) which provide unprecedentedly accurate proper motion data for a wealth of metal-poor stars (Beers et al. 2000). Using the non-kinematically selected sample of stars having available proper motions, CY and Chiba & Beers (2000, hereafter CB) revisited the relation between metal abundances and orbital eccentricities of the halo stars and found no evidence for a strong correlation between these quantities, in contrast to ELS’s finding. CB also showed a clear evidence for internal structure of the halo: the outer halo shows no systematic rotation and nearly spherical density distribution, whereas the inner halo has a prograde rotation and a highly flattened density distribution. Also, Helmi et al. (1999) discovered a statistically significant clumpiness of the nearby halo stars in the angular momentum space, and argued that about 10 % of the halo come from a single small galaxy that was disrupted during or soon after the Galaxy formation. These new findings not only provide constraints on the formation of the Galactic stellar halo but also improve our understanding of how disk galaxies like our own form.

In this Letter, we address the question whether the above kinematic and chemical properties of the Galactic halo are understandable in the context of the currently favored theory of galaxy formation based on the hierarchical assembly of cold dark matter (CDM) halos (White & Rees 1978). Most of the CDM-based numerical models on disk galaxy formation have focused on only the fundamental properties of a disk, such as an exponential density profile (Katz 1992) and Tully-Fisher relation (Steinmetz & Navarro 1999). The spatial structure of the stellar halo has been examined by Steinmetz & Müller (1995), but the detailed internal kinematics of the halo stars in the simulated model remained unknown. Here we explore a numerical simulation for the formation of the Galactic halo, to investigate whether the CDM model can successfully explain the kinematic and chemical properties of the Galactic halo. We particularly focus on the evolution of hierarchically clustered subgalactic clumps seeded from the CDM density fluctuations and investigate their evolutionary effects on the orbital distribution of the stars in conjunction with the metal enrichment. More extensive analyses and results of the numerical simulations will be presented elsewhere (Bekki & Chiba 2000).

## 2 Model

The numerical method and technique for solving galactic chemodynamical evolution and models for describing star formation and dissipative gas dynamics are presented in Bekki & Shioya (1998), and here we briefly describe the initial conditions of protogalactic clouds, star formation law, and chemical evolution model. The way to set up initial conditions for numerical simulations of forming disk galaxy within a hierarchical clustering scenario is essentially the same as that adopted by Katz & Gunn (1991) and Steinmetz & Müller (1995). We here use the COSMICS (Cosmological Initial Conditions and Microwave Anisotropy Codes), which is a package of fortran programs for generating Gaussian random initial conditions for nonlinear structure formation simulations (Bertschinger 1995; Ma & Bertschinger 1995). We consider an isolated homogeneous, rigidly rotating sphere, on which small-scale fluctuations according to a CDM power spectrum are superimposed. The mass ratio of dark matter to baryons is 9.0 and both components have the same initial distribution. The initial total mass, radius, and spin parameter ($`\lambda `$) of the sphere in the present model are $`6.0\times 10^{11}\mathrm{M}_{}`$, 45 kpc, and 0.08, respectively. For cosmological parameters of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1.0`$, $`q_0=0.5`$, and $`H_0=50`$ km $`\mathrm{s}^1`$ $`\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ adopted in the present study, the initial overdensity $`\delta _i`$ of the sphere in the fiducial model is estimated to be 0.29 corresponding to a 2.5 $`\sigma `$ overdensity of a biased CDM spectrum on a mass-scale of 6.0 $`\times 10^{11}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ with a biasing parameter $`b=2`$. We start the simulation at the redshift $`z=25`$ and follow it till $`z=0`$ corresponding to the age of the universe equal to 13 Gyr. Initial conditions similar to those adopted in the present study are demonstrated to be plausible and realistic for the formation of the Galaxy (e.g., Steinmetz & Müller 1995).

Star formation is modeled by converting the collisional gas particles into collisionless new stellar particles according to the Schmidt law (Schmidt 1959) with the exponent of 2 and the coefficients in the law are taken from the work of Bekki (1998). The collisional and dissipative nature of the interstellar medium are modeled according to the sticky particle method (Schwarz 1981) with the cloud radius ($`r_{cl}`$) of 450 pc and we consider multiple collisions among clouds (see Bekki & Shioya 1998 for details). The total particle number used for modeling the initial sphere is 14147 both for dark matter and for baryons (gas and new stars), which means that the mass of each particle is 3.8 $`\times `$ $`10^7`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for dark matter and 4.2 $`\times `$ $`10^6`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for baryons. We assume the local mixing of metals, in such a way that those produced by a new star are instantaneously assigned to the gas particles located within $`2r_{cl}`$ from the star. The fraction of gas returned to interstellar medium in each stellar particle and the chemical yield are 0.3 and 0.02, respectively. All the calculations related to the above chemodynamical evolution have been carried out on the GRAPE board (Sugimoto et a. 1990) at Astronomical Institute of Tohoku University. The parameter of gravitational softening is set to be fixed at 0.053 in our units (2.4 kpc). The time integration of the equation of motion is performed by using the 2nd-order leap-flog method.

Using the above model, we derive the distribution of metal abundances (\[Fe/H\]) and orbital eccentricities ($`e`$) of the stars with \[Fe/H\]$`0.6`$ at the epoch $`z=0`$. Here $`e`$ for each stellar particle is defined as:

$$e=\frac{r_{apo}r_{peri}}{r_{apo}+r_{peri}}$$
(1)
where $`r_{apo}`$ and $`r_{peri}`$ are apo-galactic and peri-galactic distances from the center of the simulated Galaxy, respectively. For estimating $`e`$, we first select the stellar particles with \[Fe/H\]$`0.6`$ found at $`z=0`$. Then we calculate the time evolution of their orbits under the gravitational potential of the simulated disk Galaxy achieved at $`z=0`$ for ten dynamical time scale ($``$ 1.8 Gyr), and then estimate $`e`$. In order to avoid the contamination of metal-poor bulge stars in this estimation, we select only particles with their apo-galactic distances ranging from 8.5 to 17.5 kpc. In the followings, we use the symbol \[Fe/H\] as the total metal abundance instead of the symbol Z to avoid confusion with redshift, although the current model does not consider the evolution of each element separately.

## 3 Result

Figure 1 shows the dynamical evolution of the star-forming gas sphere of the Galaxy in the present CDM model. The largest density maxima within the initial gas sphere become first non-linear ($`z10`$) and then collapse to form subgalactic clumps consisting of gas and new stars. Firstly born stars with old ages ($`>`$ 10 Gyr) and low metallicities (\[Fe/H\]$`<3`$) are located within these clumps till they are disrupted by later mutual merging. The initial gas sphere reaches the turn-around point at $`z3.25`$ and then begins to collapse. Subgalactic clumps developed from local small-scale density perturbations within the gas sphere fall onto the inner region of the proto-Galaxy owing to dynamical friction ($`1.8<z<2.6`$) and then merge with each other ($`1.3<z<1.8`$), leaving a compact disk ($`z=1.3`$). Star formation rate is maximum ($``$ 30 $`M_{}`$ $`\mathrm{yr}^1`$) at the epoch of the dissipative merging between two massive clumps ($`z1.5`$). Gradual accretion of diffusely distributed gas onto the compact disk results in the growth of a thin disk between $`z=1.3`$ and $`z=0.4`$. These results are basically in agreement with earlier numerical results by Katz (1992) and Steinmetz & Müller (1995).

Figure 2 shows how the metal-poor halo with \[Fe/H\]$`1.6`$ is formed during the collapse of the Galaxy. Clearly, a significant fraction of the metal-poor stars ($``$ 50 %) have already been formed within local small-scale density maxima at early epoch $`z>2.6`$. These numerous clumps then merge with one another and the debris stars constitute the outer part of the halo. Later, the two massive subgalactic clumps are developed from the assembly of smaller clumps and subsequently merge with each other. The stars confined within the clumps are consequently disrupted and spread over the inner region of the proto-Galaxy ($`1.3<z<1.8`$). As a consequence of this last merging event, the flattened structure of the inner halo is formed. The radial density distribution of the halo at $`R20`$ kpc follows roughly $`\rho (R)R^{3.5}`$, where $`R`$ is the distance from the center of the disk (Bekki & Chiba 1999). These structural properties of the simulated halo are in good agreement with the corresponding observational results as reported by CB.

Figure 3 shows that there is no significant correlation between \[Fe/H\] and $`e`$ for the stars with \[Fe/H\]$`0.6`$, and that the existence of low eccentricity ($`e<0.4`$), low metallicity (\[Fe/H\]$`<1`$) stars is successfully reproduced in the present CDM model. This may be explained in a following manner.

First, as ELS argued, the rapid contraction of a gravitational potential within a dynamical time ($``$ $`10^8`$ yr) results in the transformation of initially nearly circular (smaller $`e`$) orbits to very eccentric (larger $`e`$) ones. On the other hand, the eccentricities of the orbits remain basically unchanged if the contraction is slow enough ($``$ $`10^9`$ yr). In the present CDM model, the time scale for the contraction of the Galaxy is lengthened by the expanding background universe (the time scale for which a proto-Galactic sphere with a turn-around radius of $`100`$ kpc is of the order of Gyr), so that the process of star formation mainly triggered by merging of small clumps is rather extended ($``$ 2 Gyr). Thus, the orbital eccentricities of the metal-poor stars, once formed, are not greatly influenced by the change of an overall gravitational potential of the Galaxy. Second, as we mentioned above, most of the metal-poor stars have been confined within the massive clumps, where their orbits are gradually circularized due to dissipative merging with smaller clumps and dynamical friction with the dark halo particles. Thus, a finite fraction of the debris stars after the last merging event preserve the orbital angular momentum of the clumps. Both of these processes may give rise to the existence of low-$`e`$, low-\[Fe/H\] stars in the simulated Galactic halo.

To be more quantitative, we plot, in Figure 4, the cumulative $`e`$ distributions of the metal-poor stars with \[Fe/H\]$`1.6`$ (solid line) and $`1.6<`$\[Fe/H\]$`1.0`$ (dotted line). For the halo component with \[Fe/H\]$`1.6`$, the fraction of the simulated low-$`e`$ stars with $`e<0.4`$ is about 0.17, which is in good agreement with the observational result of about 0.2 (CY; CB). Also, as is consistent with the observational result, the cumulative $`e`$ distribution in the intermediate abundance range $`1.6<`$\[Fe/H\]$`1.0`$ is systematically larger than that for \[Fe/H\]$`1.6`$. The fraction of the simulated low-$`e`$ stars with $`e<0.4`$ in this abundance range ($`0.45`$) is somewhat larger than the observation ($`0.35`$), suggesting that the metal-weak thick disk component, which is emerged in this intermediate abundance range, is somewhat over-produced. Besides this small deviation from the observation, we conclude that the reported kinematic and chemical properties of the Galactic halo are basically understandable in the context of the CDM-based model for the Galaxy contraction.

## 4 Discussion and conclusion

Although both the ELS monolithic and SZ merger scenarios have offered the basic ingredients for describing the early evolution of the Galaxy, either model alone does not comprehensively explain the currently improved knowledge on the fundamental properties of the halo (e.g., Freeman 1996; CB). For example, the lack of the abundance gradient in the halo stars (Carney et al. 1990; CY) and no significant correlation between \[Fe/H\] and $`e`$ (CY; CB) are difficult to interpret in the context of the ELS scenario. The SZ scenario seems unlikely to explain a large vertical gradient of the mean rotational velocity $`<V_\varphi >`$ in the halo component (CB). It is also unclear how the rapidly rotating disk component subsequently formed after the totally chaotic merging of “Searle & Zinn” fragments. In contrast, to explain the dual nature of the observed halo in its density, kinematics, and age (Norris 1994; Carney et al. 1996; CB), one requires the sort of hybrid picture, combining aspects of both the ELS and SZ scenarios.

As a possible candidate model to achieve the above hybrid picture, we have considered the CDM model, which invokes both the hierarchical assembly of subgalactic clumps and the dissipative process of gas inside the clumpy protogalactic system. As a first step toward understanding the formation of the Galactic halo in this context, we have investigated the orbital properties of the stars in the simulated Galactic halo, and have shown that the hierarchical merging of CDM clumps in the course of the expansion and contraction of the overall protogalactic sphere plays a vital role in determining the observed \[Fe/H\]-$`e`$ relation of the metal-poor stars. It is also found that the dissipative merging of the clumps is important for the development of the characteristic structure of the halo and also for the subsequently formed disk component (Bekki & Chiba 2000).

While we have reproduced the most basic relation between metal abundances and orbital eccentricities of the halo stars based on the currently favored picture of galaxy formation, there are still a couple of points to be clarified for the comprehensive understanding of the halo formation. For example, Sommer-Larsen et al. (1997) reported that the velocity ellipsoid of the metal-poor stars changes from radial anisotropy near the Sun to tangential anisotropy in the outer part of the Galactic halo. This may be explained via the anisotropic, dissipative merging between protogalactic gas clouds in a collapsing galaxy (Theis 1997), but it is yet unsettled as to whether the similar process is equally applied in the case of the CDM clumps consisting of both dissipationless particles (dark matter and stars) and dissipative gas. Also, the non-kinematically selected sample of the nearby stars shows a remarkable discontinuity of the mean rotational velocity, $`V_{rot}`$, at \[Fe/H\]$`1.7`$: the stars at \[Fe/H\]$`<1.7`$ shows an approximately constant rotation, whereas those at \[Fe/H\]$`>1.7`$ show the linear increase of $`V_{rot}`$ with increasing \[Fe/H\] (e.g., CB). We will further discuss in the forthcoming paper whether these other kinematic properties of the Galactic halo are also explained by the dynamical evolution of the system of subgalactic clumps seeded from the CDM density fluctuations.

We are grateful to Edmund Bertschinger for allowing us to use the COSMICS (Cosmological Initial Conditions and Microwave Anisotropy Codes), which is a package of fortran programs for generating Gaussian random initial conditions for nonlinear structure formation simulations.


text:
# On the Λ to Σ⁰ ratio from proton-proton collisionsSupported in part by the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Australian Research Council.

## Abstract

We compare the recent COSY data on the total $`ppp\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$ and $`ppp\mathrm{\Sigma }^0K^+`$ cross sections with the predictions from two boson exchange models that either are based solely on $`\pi `$ and $`K`$ exchange or include $`\pi `$, $`\eta `$ and $`\rho `$ exchange as well as the virtual excitation of intermediate baryon resonances. Both models are found to reproduce the data after the inclusion of final state hyperon-nucleon interactions. Thus, within the experimental uncertainties, both models also roughly reproduce the strong dependence of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ ratio as a function of the excess energy near threshold, as well as at higher energies.

PACS: 13.30.-a; 13.75.Ev, 13.75.Cs
Keywords: Nucleon-nucleon interactions; Strangeness production; Boson exchange model

Recently the total $`ppp\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$ and $`ppp\mathrm{\Sigma }^0K^+`$ cross sections have been measured  at the COoler SYnchrotron (COSY) at invariant collision energies $`\sqrt{s}`$ near the production threshold. It was observed  that the ratio, $`R`$, of the cross sections for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ production at the same excess energies, $`ϵ=\sqrt{s}m_pm_Ym_K<13`$ MeV, varies from about 20 – 30 at threshold to $`R`$2.5 at high energies, $`ϵ1`$ GeV . As a possible explanation it has been suggested that this large ratio close to threshold might arise from a strong $`\mathrm{\Sigma }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ conversion by the final state interaction.

Very recently the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ ratio from $`pp`$ collisions was studied in Ref. . It was found  that the experimentally observed suppression of the ratio of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ hyperon production may be explained, at least in the region up to 15 MeV above threshold, by a destructive interference between the pion and kaon exchange.

To make a further investigation of these remarkable features  we consider here two types of boson exchange models , that have both been used quite often  in the analysis of strangeness production in nucleon-nucleon interactions. To get more insight into the dynamics we compare the model calculations simultaneously with the $`ppp\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$ and $`ppp\mathrm{\Sigma }^0K^+`$ cross sections as a function of the excess energy, $`ϵ`$. Furthermore, to obtain a more decisive conclusion we perform the calculations with the model parameters as they were fixed some years ago in Refs. , prior to the COSY data in Refs. , rather than adjusting these parameters again. This also provides a crucial test of the predictive power of these models.

We recall that the $`\pi +K`$-exchange model leads to strangeness production through $`\pi `$ and $`K`$-meson exchanges, with the $`\pi NYK`$ and $`KNKN`$ scattering amplitudes (cf. Fig. 1a) evaluated from the data . The coupling constant and the form factor (FF) at the $`NN\pi `$ vertex were taken from the Bonn-Jülich model , while the parameters at the $`NYK`$ vertex were fitted  to $`ppNYK`$ data at $`ϵ1`$ GeV. Because of the lack of data, the interference between the $`\pi `$ and $`K`$-meson could not be unambiguously fixed and for simplicity was neglected. For further details of the model and its explicit expressions we refer the reader to Ref. .

The predictions of this model for the $`ppp\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$ and $`ppp\mathrm{\Sigma }^0K^+`$ cross sections are shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 2 together with the data from Ref. (squares) and the recent data (circles) from COSY . The calculations describe the experimental results reasonably well at high energies but substantially underestimate the data at $`ϵ`$100 MeV, because the final state interaction (FSI) between the proton and the hyperon has been neglected .

Among the different semi-phenomenological corrections to the FSI  we employ here the Jost approximation  and convolute the production amplitude with the function

$$J_s=\frac{qi\alpha }{q+i\beta },\mathrm{where}\alpha +\beta =\frac{2}{r_s}\mathrm{and}\alpha \times \beta =\frac{2}{r_sa_s},$$
(1)
where $`a_s`$ and $`r_s`$ are the scattering length and the effective range for the S-wave hyperon-proton interaction, respectively, which were taken for the singlet and triplet states from Ref. . The function (1) is almost identical  to the FSI correction used in the experimental analysis of Refs.  at low $`ϵ`$, where the FSI dominates. The solid lines in Fig. 2 show the $`\pi +K`$-model calculations including FSI. Clearly the calculation describes the $`pK^+\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ channel remarkably well, while the $`pK^+\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ cross section is slightly overestimated very close to threshold. This might also be attributed to an uncertainty in the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0p`$ s-wave scattering parameters, $`a_s`$ and $`r_s`$.

On the other hand, the resonance model  generates strangeness production by $`\pi `$, $`\eta `$ and $`\rho `$-meson exchange with the excitation of intermediate baryon resonances, $`R`$ ($`N(1650)`$, $`N(1710)`$, $`N(1710)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1920)`$) (cf. Fig. 1b), which can couple to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }K`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }K`$ states .

The parameters of the $`RYK`$ and $`RN\pi `$ vertices in Fig. 1b were fixed  using the $`\pi N\mathrm{\Lambda }K`$ and $`\pi N\mathrm{\Sigma }K`$ data from Ref. , which were available prior to the COSY data. The couplings and formfactors at the $`NN\pi `$, $`NN\eta `$, $`NN\rho `$, $`RN\eta `$ and $`RN\rho `$ vertices were either taken from Ref.  or fitted  to the $`ppNYK`$ data at high energies, $`ϵ1`$ GeV. Note again, that the baryonic resonance couplings are well controlled by the presently available resonance properties .

The resonance model calculations for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^0`$ channel without FSI are shown by the dashed lines in Fig. 3, while the solid lines show the resonance model results obtained with the same FSI (1) as in Fig. 2.

Keeping in mind that the parameters for both versions of the boson exchange models were not adjusted to the recent data 111The parameters of the $`\pi +K`$-exchange model were fixed in 1995 , while the resonance model parameters were fixed in 1997  – i.e., before the appearance of any near threshold COSY data . we conclude that the agreement between the model predictions  and the experimental results  is quite reasonable. It is important to note that both calculations reproduce simultaneously the data at low and high energies. Since both models were originally fixed at high energy, one might conclude that the cross sections at low energy are a strict consequence of the underlying reaction mechanism.

Finally, the data  on the $`ϵ`$-dependence of the ratio of $`ppp\mathrm{\Lambda }K^+`$ to $`ppp\mathrm{\Sigma }^0K^+`$ cross sections are shown in Fig. 4 together with the results from the $`\pi +K`$-exchange (upper part) and the resonance model (lower part). The dashed lines show the results obtained without FSI while the solid lines indicate the calculations with FSI. The comparison in Fig. 4 is given using a linear scale for $`R`$ and within about two experimental errors bars the agreement between data and calculations is reasonable. Apparently, by adjusting the coupling constants and cut-off parameters of the formfactors one can obtain a much better description of the data  which, however, is not the aim of our present investigation.

Our results indicate that the strong variation of the ratio $`R`$ with the excess energy $`ϵ`$ should not be considered as an extraordinary feature of the strangeness production process since the two different approaches, fixed some years ago at high energy, are obviously able to reproduce the data to better than a factor of 2. This finding also shows that the present data on the total cross sections are not sensitive to the details of the model and that it is still not possible to fix the explicit contribution from the kaon exchange channel, which is of fundamental interest.

We point out that a fully self-consistent model should include all available $`\pi `$, $`\eta `$, $`\sigma `$, $`\rho `$, $`K`$ and possibly $`K^{}`$ and higher mass mesonic exchanges as well as the excitation of all available intermediate baryonic resonances and the direct kaon emission processes. The large number of parameters involved in such a model might be fixed using the $`NNNYK`$ data. However, this would require a larger number of experimental points than presently available .

In spite of these comments, the theoretical progress resulting from the new COSY data  is significant. The role of FSI, as well as a direct experimental evaluation of the hyperon-nucleon interaction parameters from the data , can now be well understood phenomenologically. This is an important step for further theoretical and experimental analysis of differential cross section data on strangeness production in nucleon-nucleon collisions.

More detailed constraints on the theory can be obtained from differential cross section data at higher excess energies. It is crucial that the contribution from $`K`$-meson exchange may be directly investigated from polarization measurements as argued in Ref. , or by a partial wave decomposition of the Dalitz representation as advocated in Ref. . The separation of the kaon exchange contribution would provide information on the $`NYK`$ coupling constants, which could be compared with the $`SU(N)`$ symmetry predictions and other experimental determinations .

The authors like to acknowledge discussions with W. Eyrich and K. Kilian that stimulated this study. A.S. would also like to acknowledge the warm hospitality at the CSSM during his visit. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council and the Forschungszentrum Jülich.