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# Light-Cone Wavefunctions and the Intrinsic Structure of Hadrons

## 1 Introduction

The most challenging nonperturbative problem in quantum chromodynamics is the solution of the bound state problem; i.e., to determine the spectrum and structure of hadrons in terms of their quark and gluon degrees of freedom. Ideally, one wants a frame-independent, quantum-mechanical description of hadrons at the amplitude level capable of encoding multi-quark and gluon momentum, helicity, and flavor correlations in the form of universal process-independent hadron wavefunctions. Remarkably, the light-cone Fock expansion allows just such a unifying representation.

In the light-cone Hamiltonian method, QCD is quantized at a fixed light-cone time $`\tau =t+z/c`$.  The generator of light-cone time translations $`P^{}=P^0P_z=i\frac{}{\tau }`$ defines the light cone Hamiltonian of QCD. The light-cone momenta $`P^+=P^0+P^z`$ and $`P_{}`$ are kinematical and commute with $`P^{}`$. It is very useful to define the invariant operator $`H_{LC}^{QCD}=P^+P^{}\stackrel{}{P}_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$ since its set of eigenvalues $`_n^2`$ in the color-singlet sector of QCD enumerates the bound state and continuum (scattering state) hadronic mass spectrum. The solutions of the light-cone eigenvalue problem $`H_{LC}^{QCD}|\psi _p=M_p^2|\psi _p`$ are independent of $`P^+`$ and $`\stackrel{}{P}_{}`$; thus given the eigensolution Fock projections $`n;x_i,\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda _i|\psi _p=\psi _n(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda _i),`$ the wavefunction of the proton is determined in any frame. For example, the projection of the proton eigensolution $`|\psi _p`$ on the color-singlet $`B=1`$, $`Q=1`$ eigenstates $`\{|n\}`$ of the free Hamiltonian $`H_{LC}^{QCD}(g=0)`$ gives the light-cone Fock expansion:

$$|\psi _p(P^+,\stackrel{}{P}_{})=\underset{n}{}\psi _n(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda _i)|n;x_iP^+,x_i\stackrel{}{P}_{}+\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda _i.$$

The light-cone momentum fractions $`x_i=k_i^+/P^+`$ with $`_{i=1}^nx_i=1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ with $`_{i=1}^n\stackrel{}{k}_i=\stackrel{}{0}_{}`$ represent the relative momentum coordinates of the QCD constituents independent of the total momentum of the state. The actual physical transverse momenta are $`\stackrel{}{p}_i=x_i\stackrel{}{P}_{}+\stackrel{}{k}_i.`$ The $`\lambda _i`$ label the light-cone spin $`S^z`$ projections of the quarks and gluons along the quantization $`z`$ direction. The physical gluon polarization vectors $`ϵ^\mu (k,\lambda =\pm 1)`$ are specified in light-cone gauge by the conditions $`kϵ=0,\eta ϵ=ϵ^+=0.`$ Although light-cone gauge $`A^+=0`$ is traditionally used in light-cone quantization, Srivastava and I have shown that one can also effectively quantize QCD in the covariant Feynman gauge.

Each light-cone Fock wavefunction satisfies conservation of the $`z`$ projection of angular momentum: $`J^z=_{i=1}^nS_i^z+_{j=1}^{n1}l_j^z.`$ The sum over $`s_i^z`$ represents the contribution of the intrinsic spins of the $`n`$ Fock state constituents. The sum over orbital angular momenta $`l_j^z=\mathrm{i}(k_j^1\frac{}{k_j^2}k_j^2\frac{}{k_j^1})`$ derives from the $`n1`$ relative momenta. This excludes the contribution to the orbital angular momentum due to the motion of the center of mass, which is not an intrinsic property of the hadron.

Recently Hwang, Ma, Schmidt, and I have shown that the light-cone wavefunctions generated by the radiative corrections to the electron in QED provides an ideal system for understanding the spin and angular momentum decomposition of relativistic systems. The model is patterned after the quantum structure which occurs in the one-loop Schwinger $`\alpha /2\pi `$ correction to the electron magnetic moment. In effect, we can represent a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ system as a composite of a spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ fermion and spin-one vector boson with arbitrary masses. A similar model has recently been used to illustrate the matrix elements and evolution of light-cone helicity and orbital angular momentum operators. This representation of a composite system is particularly useful because it is based on two constituents but yet is totally relativistic. We can then explicitly compute the form factors $`F_1(q^2)`$ and $`F_2(q^2)`$ of the electromagnetic current, and the various contributions to the form factors $`A(q^2)`$ and $`B(q^2)`$ of the energy-momentum tensor. The anomalous moment coupling $`B(0)`$ to a graviton is shown to vanish for any composite system. This remarkable result, first derived by Okun and Kobzarev,  is shown to follow directly from the Lorentz boost properties of the light-cone Fock representation.

The light-cone Fock state wavefunctions of an electron can be systematically evaluated in QED perturbation theory : The two-particle Fock state for an electron with $`J^z=+\frac{1}{2}`$ has four possible spin combinations:

$$\{\begin{array}{c}\psi _{+\frac{1}{2}+1}^{}(x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=\sqrt{2}\frac{(k^1+\mathrm{i}k^2)}{x(1x)}\phi ,[\mathrm{}^z=1]\hfill \\ \psi _{+\frac{1}{2}1}^{}(x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=\sqrt{2}\frac{(+k^1+\mathrm{i}k^2)}{1x}\phi ,[\mathrm{}^z=+1]\hfill \\ \psi _{\frac{1}{2}+1}^{}(x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=\sqrt{2}(M\frac{m}{x})\phi ,[\mathrm{}^z=0]\hfill \\ \psi _{\frac{1}{2}1}^{}(x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=0,\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where

$$\phi =\phi (x,\stackrel{}{k}_{})=\frac{e/\sqrt{1x}}{M^2(\stackrel{}{k}_{}^2+m^2)/x(\stackrel{}{k}_{}^2+\lambda ^2)/(1x)}.$$
(2)
Each configuration satisfies the spin sum rule: $`J^z=S_\mathrm{f}^z+s_\mathrm{b}^z+l^z=+\frac{1}{2}`$. The sign of the helicity of the electron is retained by the leading photon at $`x_\gamma =1x1`$. Note that in the non-relativistic limit, the transverse motion of the constituents can be neglected, and we have only the $`|+\frac{1}{2}|\frac{1}{2}+1`$ configuration which is the non-relativistic quantum state for the spin-half system composed of a fermion and a spin-1 boson constituents. The fermion constituent has spin projection in the opposite direction to the spin $`J^z`$ of the whole system. However, for ultra-relativistic binding in which the transversal motions of the constituents are large compared to the fermion masses, the $`|+\frac{1}{2}|+\frac{1}{2}+1`$ and $`|+\frac{1}{2}|+\frac{1}{2}1`$ configurations dominate over the $`|+\frac{1}{2}|\frac{1}{2}+1`$ configuration. In this case the fermion constituent has spin projection parallel to $`J^z`$.

The spin structure of perturbative theory provides a template for the numerator structure of the light-cone wavefunctions even for composite systems since the equations which couple different Fock components mimic the perturbative form. The structure of the electron’s Fock state in perturbative QED shows that it is natural to have a negative contribution from relative orbital angular momentum which balances the $`S_z`$ of its photon constituents. We can thus expect a large orbital contribution to the proton’s $`J_z`$ since gluons carry roughly half of the proton’s momentum, thus providing insight into the “spin crisis” in QCD.

The light-cone Fock representation of current matrix elements has a number of simplifying properties. Matrix elements of space-like local operators for the coupling of photons, gravitons and the deep inelastic structure functions can all be expressed as overlaps of light-cone wavefunctions with the same number of Fock constituents. This is possible since one can choose the special frame $`q^+=0`$  for space-like momentum transfer and take matrix elements of “plus” components of currents such as $`J^+`$ and $`T^{++}`$. Since the physical vacuum in light-cone quantization coincides with the perturbative vacuum, no contributions to matrix elements from vacuum fluctuations occur. Exclusive semi-leptonic $`B`$-decay amplitudes involving timelike currents such as $`BA\mathrm{}\overline{\nu }`$ can also be evaluated exactly. In this case, the timelike decay matrix elements require the computation of both the diagonal matrix element $`nn`$ where parton number is conserved and the off-diagonal $`n+1n1`$ convolution such that the current operator annihilates a $`q\overline{q^{}}`$ pair in the initial $`B`$ wavefunction. This term is a consequence of the fact that the time-like decay $`q^2=(p_{\mathrm{}}+p_{\overline{\nu }})^2>0`$ requires a positive light-cone momentum fraction $`q^+>0`$. A similar result holds for the light-cone wavefunction representation of the deeply virtual Compton amplitude.

Given the light-cone wavefunctions, one can compute the moments of the helicity and transversity distributions measurable in polarized deep inelastic experiments. For example, the polarized quark distributions at resolution $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ correspond to

$`q_{\lambda _q/\mathrm{\Lambda }_p}(x,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n,q_a}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}dx_jd^2k_j\underset{\lambda _i}{}|\psi _{n/H}^{(\mathrm{\Lambda })}(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda _i)|^2}`$
$`\times \delta \left(1{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{n}{}}}x_i\right)\delta ^{(2)}\left({\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{n}{}}}\stackrel{}{k}_i\right)\delta (xx_q)\delta _{\lambda _a,\lambda _q}\mathrm{\Theta }(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2_n^2),`$
where the sum is over all quarks $`q_a`$ which match the quantum numbers, light-cone momentum fraction $`x,`$ and helicity of the struck quark. Similarly, the distribution of spectator particles in the final state which could be measured in the proton fragmentation region in deep inelastic scattering at an electron-proton collider are in principle encoded in the light-cone wavefunctions.

The key non-perturbative input for exclusive processes is the gauge and frame independent hadron distribution amplitude  defined as the integral of the valence (lowest particle number) Fock wavefunction; e.g. for the pion

$$\varphi _\pi (x_i,\mathrm{\Lambda })d^2k_{}\psi _{q\overline{q}/\pi }^{(\mathrm{\Lambda })}(x_i,\stackrel{}{k}_i,\lambda )$$
(4)
where the global cutoff $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is identified with the resolution $`Q`$. The distribution amplitude controls leading-twist exclusive amplitudes at high momentum transfer, and it can be related to the gauge-invariant Bethe-Salpeter wavefunction at equal light-cone time. The logarithmic evolution of hadron distribution amplitudes $`\varphi _H(x_i,Q)`$ can be derived from the perturbatively-computable tail of the valence light-cone wavefunction in the high transverse momentum regime. The conformal basis for the evolution of the three-quark distribution amplitudes for the baryons  has recently been obtained by V. Braun et al..

The main features of the heavy sea quark-pair contributions of the higher particle number Fock state states of light hadrons can be derived from perturbative QCD, One can identify two contributions to the heavy quark sea, the “extrinsic” contributions which correspond to ordinary gluon splitting, and the “intrinsic” sea which is multi-connected via gluons to the valence quarks. The leading $`1/m_Q^2`$ contributions to the intrinsic sea of the proton in the heavy quark expansion are proton matrix elements of the operator  $`\eta ^\mu \eta ^\nu G_{\alpha \mu }G_{\beta \nu }G^{\alpha \beta }`$ which in light-cone gauge $`\eta ^\mu A_\mu =A^+=0`$ corresponds to three or four gluon exchange between the heavy-quark loop and the proton constituents in the forward virtual Compton amplitude. The intrinsic sea is thus sensitive to the hadronic bound-state structure. The maximal contribution of the intrinsic heavy quark occurs at $`x_Qm_Q/_im_{}`$ where $`m_{}=\sqrt{m^2+k_{}^2}`$; i.e. at large $`x_Q`$, since this minimizes the invariant mass $`_n^2`$. The measurements of the charm structure function by the EMC experiment are consistent with intrinsic charm at large $`x`$ in the nucleon with a probability of order $`0.6\pm 0.3\%`$. which is consistent with recent estimates based on instanton fluctuations. Similarly, one can distinguish intrinsic gluons which are associated with multi-quark interactions and extrinsic gluon contributions associated with quark substructure. One can also use this framework to isolate the physics of the anomaly contribution to the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule. Thus neither gluons nor sea quarks are solely generated by DGLAP evolution, and one cannot define a resolution scale $`Q_0`$ where the sea or gluon degrees of freedom can be neglected.

It is usually assumed that a heavy quarkonium state such as the $`J/\psi `$ always decays to light hadrons via the annihilation of its heavy quark constituents to gluons. However, as Karliner and I  have shown, the transition $`J/\psi \rho \pi `$ can also occur by the rearrangement of the $`c\overline{c}`$ from the $`J/\psi `$ into the $`|q\overline{q}c\overline{c}`$ intrinsic charm Fock state of the $`\rho `$ or $`\pi `$. On the other hand, the overlap rearrangement integral in the decay $`\psi ^{}\rho \pi `$ will be suppressed since the intrinsic charm Fock state radial wavefunction of the light hadrons will evidently not have nodes in its radial wavefunction. This observation provides a natural explanation of the long-standing puzzle  why the $`J/\psi `$ decays prominently to two-body pseudoscalar-vector final states, breaking hadron helicity conservation,  whereas the $`\psi ^{}`$ does not.

## 2  Applications of Light-Cone Factorization to Hard QCD Processes

The light-cone formalism provides a physical factorization scheme which conveniently separates and factorizes soft non-perturbative physics from hard perturbative dynamics in both exclusive and inclusive reactions. In hard inclusive reactions all intermediate states are divided according to $`_n^2<\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ and $`_n^2>\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ domains. The lower mass regime is associated with the quark and gluon distributions defined from the absolute squares of the LC wavefunctions in the light cone factorization scheme. In the high invariant mass regime, intrinsic transverse momenta can be ignored, so that the structure of the process at leading power has the form of hard scattering on collinear quark and gluon constituents, as in the parton model. The attachment of gluons from the LC wavefunction to a propagator in a hard subprocess is power-law suppressed in LC gauge, so that the minimal quark-gluon particle-number subprocesses dominate.

There are many applications of this formalism: Exclusive Processes and Heavy Hadron Decays. At high transverse momentum an exclusive amplitudes factorize into a convolution of a hard quark-gluon subprocess amplitudes $`T_H`$ with the hadron distribution amplitudes $`\varphi (x_i,\mathrm{\Lambda })`$. Color Transparency. Each Fock state interacts distinctly; e.g. Fock states with small particle number and small impact separation have small color dipole moments and can traverse a nucleus with minimal interactions. This is the basis for the predictions for color transparency  in hard quasi-exclusive reactions. Diffractive vector meson photoproduction. The light-cone Fock wavefunction representation of hadronic amplitudes allows a simple eikonal analysis of diffractive high energy processes, such as $`\gamma ^{}(Q^2)p\rho p`$, in terms of the virtual photon and the vector meson Fock state light-cone wavefunctions convoluted with the $`gpgp`$ near-forward matrix element. Regge behavior of structure functions. The light-cone wavefunctions $`\psi _{n/H}`$ of a hadron are not independent of each other, but rather are coupled via the QCD equations of motion. The constraint of finite “mechanical” kinetic energy implies “ladder relations” which interrelate the light-cone wavefunctions of states differing by one or two gluons. This in turn implies BFKL Regge behavior of the polarized and unpolarized structure functions at $`x0`$. Structure functions at large $`x_{bj}`$. The behavior of structure functions at $`x1`$ is a highly off-shell light-cone wavefunction configuration leading to quark-counting and helicity-retention rules for the power-law behavior of the polarized and unpolarized quark and gluon distributions in the endpoint domain. The effective starting point for the PQCD evolution of the structure functions increases as $`x1`$. Thus evolution is quenched at $`x1`$. Hidden Color. The deuteron form factor at high $`Q^2`$ is sensitive to wavefunction configurations where all six quarks overlap within an impact separation $`b_i<𝒪(1/Q).`$ The dominant color configuration at large distances corresponds to the usual proton-neutron bound state. However, at small impact space separation, all five Fock color-singlet components eventually acquire equal weight, i.e., the deuteron wavefunction evolves to 80% “hidden color.” The relatively large normalization of the deuteron form factor observed at large $`Q^2`$ hints at sizable hidden-color contributions. Hidden color components can also play a predominant role in the reaction $`\gamma dJ/\psi pn`$ at threshold if it is dominated by the multi-fusion process $`\gamma ggJ/\psi `$.

## 3 Self-Resolved Diffractive Reactions and Light Cone Wavefunctions

Diffractive multi-jet production in heavy nuclei provides a novel way to measure the shape of the LC Fock state wavefunctions and test color transparency. For example, consider the reaction  $`\pi A\mathrm{Jet}_1+\mathrm{Jet}_2+A^{}`$ at high energy where the nucleus $`A^{}`$ is left intact in its ground state. The transverse momenta of the jets balance so that $`\stackrel{}{k}_i+\stackrel{}{k}_2=\stackrel{}{q}_{}<R_{}^{1}{}_{A}{}^{}.`$ The light-cone longitudinal momentum fractions also need to add to $`x_1+x_21`$ so that $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_L<R_A^1`$. The process can then occur coherently in the nucleus. Because of color transparency, the valence wavefunction of the pion with small impact separation, will penetrate the nucleus with minimal interactions, diffracting into jet pairs. The $`x_1=x`$, $`x_2=1x`$ dependence of the di-jet distributions will thus reflect the shape of the pion valence light-cone wavefunction in $`x`$; similarly, the $`\stackrel{}{k}_1\stackrel{}{k}_2`$ relative transverse momenta of the jets gives key information on the derivative of the underlying shape of the valence pion wavefunction. The diffractive nuclear amplitude extrapolated to $`t=0`$ should be linear in nuclear number $`A`$ if color transparency is correct. The integrated diffractive rate should then scale as $`A^2/R_A^2A^{4/3}`$. Preliminary results on a diffractive dissociation experiment of this type E791 at Fermilab using 500 GeV incident pions on nuclear targets. appear to be consistent with color transparency. The momentum fraction distribution of the jets is consistent with a valence light-cone wavefunction of the pion consistent with the shape of the asymptotic distribution amplitude, $`\varphi _\pi ^{\mathrm{asympt}}(x)=\sqrt{3}f_\pi x(1x)`$. Data from CLEO  for the $`\gamma \gamma ^{}\pi ^0`$ transition form factor also favor a form for the pion distribution amplitude close to the asymptotic solution  to the perturbative QCD evolution equation.

The diffractive dissociation of a hadron or nucleus can also occur via the Coulomb dissociation of a beam particle on an electron beam (e.g. at HERA or eRHIC) or on the strong Coulomb field of a heavy nucleus (e.g. at RHIC or nuclear collisions at the LHC). The amplitude for Coulomb exchange at small momentum transfer is proportional to the first derivative $`_ie_i\frac{}{\stackrel{}{k}_{Ti}}\psi `$ of the light-cone wavefunction, summed over the charged constituents. The Coulomb exchange reactions fall off less fast at high transverse momentum compared to pomeron exchange reactions since the light-cone wavefunction is effective differentiated twice in two-gluon exchange reactions.

It will also be interesting to study diffractive tri-jet production using proton beams $`pA\mathrm{Jet}_1+\mathrm{Jet}_2+\mathrm{Jet}_3+A^{}`$ to determine the fundamental shape of the 3-quark structure of the valence light-cone wavefunction of the nucleon at small transverse separation. For example, consider the Coulomb dissociation of a high energy proton at HERA. The proton can dissociate into three jets corresponding to the three-quark structure of the valence light-cone wavefunction. We can demand that the produced hadrons all fall outside an opening angle $`\theta `$ in the proton’s fragmentation region. Effectively all of the light-cone momentum $`_jx_j1`$ of the proton’s fragments will thus be produced outside an “exclusion cone”. This then limits the invariant mass of the contributing Fock state $`_n^2>\mathrm{\Lambda }^2=P^{+2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta /4`$ from below, so that perturbative QCD counting rules can predict the fall-off in the jet system invariant mass $``$. At large invariant mass one expects the three-quark valence Fock state of the proton to dominate. The segmentation of the forward detector in azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ can be used to identify structure and correlations associated with the three-quark light-cone wavefunction. An interesting possibility is that the distribution amplitude of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }(1232)`$ for $`J_z=1/2,3/2`$ is close to the asymptotic form $`x_1x_2x_3`$, but that the proton distribution amplitude is more complex. This ansatz can also be motivated by assuming a quark-diquark structure of the baryon wavefunctions. The differences in shapes of the distribution amplitudes could explain why the $`p\mathrm{\Delta }`$ transition form factor appears to fall faster at large $`Q^2`$ than the elastic $`pp`$ and the other $`pN^{}`$ transition form factors. One can use also measure the dijet structure of real and virtual photons beams $`\gamma ^{}A\mathrm{Jet}_1+\mathrm{Jet}_2+A^{}`$ to measure the shape of the light-cone wavefunction for transversely-polarized and longitudinally-polarized virtual photons. Such experiments will open up a direct window on the amplitude structure of hadrons at short distances. The light-cone formalism is also applicable to the description of nuclei in terms of their nucleonic and mesonic degrees of freedom. Self-resolving diffractive jet reactions in high energy electron-nucleus collisions and hadron-nucleus collisions at moderate momentum transfers can thus be used to resolve the light-cone wavefunctions of nuclei.

## 4 Non-Perturbative Solutions of Light-Cone Quantized QCD

Is there any hope of computing light-cone wavefunctions from first principles? In the discretized light-cone quantization method (DLCQ), periodic boundary conditions are introduced in $`b_{}`$ and $`x^{}`$ so that the momenta $`k_i=n_{}\pi /L_{}`$ and $`x_i^+=n_i/K`$ are discrete. A global cutoff in invariant mass of the partons in the Fock expansion is also introduced. Solving the quantum field theory then reduces to the problem of diagonalizing the finite-dimensional hermitian matrix $`H_{LC}`$ on a finite discrete Fock basis. The DLCQ method has now become a standard tool for solving both the spectrum and light-cone wavefunctions of one-space one-time theories – virtually any $`1+1`$ quantum field theory, including “reduced QCD” (which has both quark and gluonic degrees of freedom) can be completely solved using DLCQ. Hiller, McCartor, and I  have recently shown that the use of covariant Pauli-Villars regularization with DLCQ allows one to obtain the spectrum and light-cone wavefunctions of simplified theories in physical space-time dimensions, such as (3+1) Yukawa theory. Dalley et al. have also showed how one can use DLCQ with a transverse lattice to solve gluonic $`3+1`$ QCD. The spectrum obtained for gluonium states is in remarkable agreement with lattice gauge theory results, but with a huge reduction of numerical effort. Hiller and I  have shown how one can use DLCQ to compute the electron magnetic moment in QED without resort to perturbation theory. One can also formulate DLCQ so that supersymmetry is exactly preserved in the discrete approximation, thus combining the power of DLCQ with the beauty of supersymmetry. The “SDLCQ” method has been applied to several interesting supersymmetric theories, to the analysis of zero modes, vacuum degeneracy, massless states, mass gaps, and theories in higher dimensions, and even tests of the Maldacena conjecture. Broken supersymmetry is interesting in DLCQ, since it may serve as a method for regulating non-Abelian theories. Another remarkable advantage of light-cone quantization is that the vacuum state $`|\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0}`$ of the full QCD Hamiltonian coincides with the free vacuum. For example, as discussed by Bassetto, the computation of the spectrum of $`QCD(1+1)`$ in equal time quantization requires constructing the full spectrum of non perturbative contributions (instantons). However, light-cone methods with infrared regularization give the correct result without any need for vacuum-related contributions. The role of instantons and such phenomena in light-cone quantized $`QCD(3+1)`$ is presumably more complicated and may reside in zero modes; e.g., zero modes are evidently necessary to represent theories with spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Even without full non-perturbative solutions of QCD, one can envision a program to construct the light-cone wavefunctions using measured moments constraints from QCD sum rules, lattice gauge theory, hard exclusive and inclusive processes. One is guided by theoretical constraints from perturbation theory which dictates the asymptotic form of the wavefunctions at large invariant mass, $`x1`$, and high $`k_{}`$. One can also use constraints from ladder relations which connect Fock states of different particle number; perturbatively-motivated numerator spin structures; guidance from toy models such as “reduced” $`QCD(1+1)`$ ; and the correspondence to Abelian theory for $`N_C0`$  and the many-body Schrödinger theory in the nonrelativistic domain.

In this talk I have discussed how the universal, process-independent and frame-independent light-cone Fock-state wavefunctions encode the properties of a hadron in terms of its fundamental quark and gluon degrees of freedom. Given the proton’s light-cone wavefunctions, one can compute not only the moments of the quark and gluon distributions measured in deep inelastic lepton-proton scattering, but also the multi-parton correlations which control the distribution of particles in the proton fragmentation region and dynamical higher twist effects. Light-cone wavefunctions also provide a systematic framework for evaluating exclusive hadronic matrix elements, including time-like heavy hadron decay amplitudes and form factors. The formalism also provides a physical factorization scheme for separating hard and soft contributions in both exclusive and inclusive hard processes. A new type of jet production reaction, “self-resolving diffractive interactions” can provide direct information on the light-cone wavefunctions of hadrons in terms of their QCD degrees of freedom, as well as the composition of nuclei in terms of their nucleon and mesonic degrees of freedom.

## Acknowledgments

Work supported by the Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC03-76SF00515. I wish to thank Tony Kennedy, Andreas Schreiber, and Tony Thomas for their kind hospitality at the University of Adelaide.


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# Modelling of Stochastic Absorption in a Random Medium

## I Introduction

Wave propagation in an active random medium has attracted much attention during the past decade. Recently, many experiments have reported lasing action of light in optically active strongly scattering media. These systems exhibit interesting physical properties due to the combined effects of static disorder-induced multiple scattering and of coherent amplification/absorption. In the extensively studied case of an electron motion in a random medium it is well established that quantum interference effects arising from a serial disorder in one-dimensional systems lead to Anderson localization. Studies on different types of wave propagation such as quantum electron transport in disordered conductors and light propagation in random dielectric media or sound propagation in inhomogenous elastic media, etc. complement each inspite of the fact that treatment is quantum and classical respectively. These qualitatively different types of waves in an appropriate limit follow the same mathematical equation, namely the Helmholtz equation. It is basically the wave character leading to interference and diffraction which is the common operative feature. Light can be absorbed or amplified retaining the phase coherence. In most of the theoretical studies amplification or absorption is modeled phenomenologically by introducing an imaginary potential (optical potential) in the Hamiltonian. In the case of light (electro-magnetic waves) this corresponds to a medium with a complex dielectric constant. Several interesting effects have been predicted which include statistics of super-reflection and transmission and the dual symmetry between absorption and amplification. Media thus modeled are referred to as coherently absorbing or amplifying.

In the case of electron transport, inelastic scattering (due to phonons) leads to loss of phase memory of the wave function. Thus the motion of electrons becomes phase incoherent and sample to sample fluctuations become self-averaging in the high temperature limit leading to a classical behavior. There has been much interest in the effect of inelastic scattering on the coherent tunneling through potential barriers. To allow for the possibility of inelastic decay on the otherwise coherent tunneling through potential barriers, several studies invoke absorption. To study the above phenomenon, one resorts to the optical potential models (coherent absorption models).

In the optical potential model the potential is made complex $`V(x)=V_r(x)iV_i`$. The Hamiltonian becomes non-Hermitian resulting in absorption or amplification of probability current depending on the sign of $`V_i`$. The presence of imaginary potential (absorption/amplification) leads to many counter-intuitive features. In the scattering case, in the vicinity of the absorber, the particle experiences a mismatch in the potential (being complex) and therefore it tries to avoid this region by enhanced back reflection. Imaginary potential plays a dual role of an absorber and a reflector. In other words, in such models absorption without reflection is not possible. Naively one expects the absorption to increase monotonically as a function of $`V_i`$. However, the observed behavior is non-monotonic. At first absorption increases and after exhibiting a maximum decreases to zero as $`V_i\mathrm{}`$. The absorber, in this limit acts as a perfect reflector. During each scattering event an electron picks up an additional scattering phase shift due to $`V_i`$ which along with multiple interference leads to additional coherence or resonances in the system. Thus, due to the presence of imaginary potentials, we have additional reflection and resonances in the system. In the presence of coherent absorption and quenched disorder, the stationary distribution for reflection coefficient has been calculated. This has been done within random phase approximation (RPA) using the invariant imbedding method. The stationary distribution is given by:

$`P_s(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|D|exp(|D|)exp(\frac{|D|}{1r})}{(1r)^2}}\text{for}r1`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`0\text{for}r>1.`$ (2)
Here $`D`$ is proportional to $`V_i/W`$, $`W`$ being the strength of disorder. Notice that the distribution has a single peak which shifts towards $`r=0`$ with increasing absorption strength $`V_i`$. However, the exact distribution obtained numerically for strong disorder and strong absorption shows significant qualitative departure from this analytical distribution. For sufficiently strong absorption, the numerically obtained stationary distribution shows a double peak structure. In the limit $`V_i\mathrm{}`$ the distribution becomes a delta function at $`r=1`$. This corresponds to the limit where the absorber acts as a perfect reflector.

To this end we would like to develop a model where absorption does not lead to concomitant reflection and additional resonances as discussed above. Recently, such a stochastic absorption model was developed by Pradhan based on the work of Büttiker. In his treatment several absorptive side-channels are added to the purely elastic channels of interest. A particle that once enters the absorbing or the side-channel never returns back and is physically lost. He has obtained the Langevin equation for the reflection amplitude $`R(L)`$ for a random medium of length $`L`$ by enlarging the $`S`$-matrix to include side-channels. In continuum limit the equation for $`R(L)`$ is:

$$\frac{dR}{dL}=\alpha R(L)+2ikR(L)+ikV(L)[1+R(L)]^2,$$
(3)
where $`\alpha `$ is the absorption parameter and $`V(L)`$ is the random potential representing the static disorder. Interestingly, within the random phase approximation (RPA), the stationary probability distribution for the reflection coefficient $`P_s(r)`$ ( for $`L\mathrm{}`$ ) is again given by Eq.1. In our present work we develop another simple model for absorption which can be readily used to study the case of amplifying medium as well. The medium comprises of random strength delta function scatterers at regular spatial intervals $`a`$. To model absorption (leaking out) of electrons, an attenuation constant per unit length $`\alpha `$ is introduced. Every time the electron traverses the free region between the delta scatterers, we insert a factor $`exp(\alpha a)`$ in the free propagator following Ref. . We find that this method of modeling absorption does not lead to additional reflection and resonances as in the case of optical potential models. We obtain the localization length and study the statistics of reflection and transmission coefficients. The stationary distribution of reflection coefficient agrees with Eq.1 in a larger parameter space. Following earlier method, the continuum limit of our model leads to the same Langevin equation (Eq. 3) for $`R(L)`$ where $`\alpha `$ is replaced by $`2\alpha `$. Naturally, agreement of our result with Eq.1 follows. In Sec.II we give the details of our model and the numerical procedure. The section after that is devoted to results and discussion.

## II The Model

We carry out calculations on the wave propagation in an absorbing medium characterized by an attenuation constant $`\alpha `$ and interspersed by a chain of uniformly spaced independent delta-function scatterers of random strengths. The $`i^{th}`$ delta-function scattering center is described by a transfer matrix

$$𝖬_𝗂=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1iq_i/2k& iq_i/2k\\ iq_i/2k& 1+iq_i/2k\end{array}\right)$$

where $`q_i`$ is the strength of the $`i^{th}`$ delta-function. The $`q_i`$’s are uniformly distributed over the range $`W/2q_iW/2`$, i.e., $`P(q_i)=1/W`$. Here $`W`$ is the disorder strength. We set units of $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`2m`$ to be unity. The energy of the incident wave is $`E=k^2`$. For further analysis, $`W`$ and $`\alpha `$ are scaled with respect to $`a`$ and are made dimensionless. Propagation of the wave in-between two consecutive delta-function scatterers separated by a unit spacing ($`a=1`$) can be described by the matrix

$$𝖷=\left(\begin{array}{cc}e^{ik\alpha }& 0\\ 0& e^{ik+\alpha }\end{array}\right).$$

The total transfer matrix for the $`L`$-site system is constructed by repeated application of $`𝖬_𝗂`$ and $`𝖷`$:

$$M=𝖬_𝖫𝖷\mathrm{}.\mathrm{𝖷𝖬}_\mathrm{𝟤}\mathrm{𝖷𝖬}_\mathrm{𝟣}.$$

From $`M`$ the reflection and transmission amplitudes are calculated using

$$R=\frac{M(2,1)}{M(2,2)}$$

and

$$T=\frac{\mathrm{𝖽𝖾𝗍}M}{M(2,2)}.$$

The reflection and transmission coefficients are $`r=|R|^2`$ and $`t=|T|^2`$ respectively and the absorption is given by $`\sigma =1rt`$. Thus, due to absorption the total flux is not conserved and we have $`r+t1`$.

## III Results and Discussion

In our studies we consider at least 10,000 realizations for calculating various distributions and averages. In the case of stationary distributions, the length of the samples considered were about 5 to 10 times the localization length. We also verified that the corresponding distributions or averages do not evolve any further with increasing sample length $`L`$. All results are shown for incident energy $`E=k^2=1.0`$ unless specified otherwise.

We first consider the behavior of $`lnt`$. The angular bracket denotes the ensemble average. In Fig.1 we plot $`lnt`$ as a function of length $`L`$ for ordered absorptive medium ( $`W=0.0`$, $`\alpha =0.05`$ ), ensemble averaged disordered non-absorptive medium ( $`W=1.0`$, $`\alpha =0.0`$ ) and disordered absorptive medium ( $`W=1.0`$, $`\alpha =0.05,0.1,0.15`$ ). In all the cases transmission decays exponentially with the length. The absorption-induced length scale $`\xi `$ in random medium associated with the decay of transmission coefficient is always less than both $`\xi _a`$ and $`\xi _w`$. The localization length for disordered nonabsorptive medium scales as $`\xi _w=96k^2/W^2`$ and for ordered absorptive medium, as $`\xi _a=1/\alpha `$. In Fig.2 we show the plot of $`1/\xi `$ versus $`1/\xi _w+1/\xi _a`$ obtained by changing $`\alpha `$ for various values of disorder strength $`W`$. We have numerically calculated $`1/\xi `$ for the different cases. All the points fall on a straight line with unit slope indicating the relation $`1/\xi =1/\xi _w+1/\xi _a`$. Such a relation exists for the case of coherently absorbing and amplifying media . The decay of $`lnt`$ with sample length $`L`$ follows from the general theory of random matrices also . In our approach scattering properties are described in the framework of 2x2 transfer matrices. Total tranfer matrix of the medium is the product of individual transfer matrices $`𝖬_𝗂`$ of the individual scatterers. The limit $`L\mathrm{}`$ corresponds to multiplication of infinite number of such random matrices drawn independently from the same ensemble. In this limit the two random eigenvalues $`exp(\pm x)`$ of $`MM^{}`$ tend to the nonrandom values $`exp(\pm L/\xi )`$ with $`\xi `$ independent of $`L`$. This follows from both the Furstenberg’s theorem as well as the multiplicative ergodic theorem. The inverse localization length $`1/xi`$ is referred to as the Lyapunov exponent of the random matrix product in the literature. It should be noted that for large but finite $`L`$, the $`x`$ has a small gaussian fluctuation around the asymptotic value $`L/\xi `$. This fact has an important bearing on the nature of fluctuations in the finite size sample.

To study the nature of fluctuations in the transmission coefficient, in Fig.3 we plot, on log-scale, average $`t`$ ($`t`$), root-mean-squared variance $`t_v=\sqrt{t^2t^2}`$ and root-mean-squared relative variance $`t_{rv}=t_v/t`$ as a function of length $`L/\xi `$ for $`W=1.0`$ and $`\alpha =0.01`$. We see from the figure that $`t_v`$ is less than $`t`$ and $`t_{rv}`$ is less than unity upto $`L/\xi 3`$. But, beyond that $`t_v`$ becomes greater than $`t`$ and $`t_{rv}`$ crosses unity. We find that in the asymptotic limit $`ln(t_{rv})`$ is positive given by the numerical value $`0.18L/\xi `$. The value $`0.18/\xi `$ is the generalized Lyapunov exponent characterizing the relative variance of transmission coefficient. Whenever the root-mean-squared variance of a physical quantity exceeds the average value, i.e. when relative fluctuations become larger than unity, the physical quantity is said to be non-self-averaging. For example, it has been recognized long since that the resistance ( which is related to the transmission coefficient) of a one-dimensional random sample exhibits large statistical fluctuations when the sample size exceeds the localization length in absence of absorption or inelastic scattering. The resistance fluctuations over the ensemble of macroscopically identical samples dominate the ensemble average. As a consequence the relative variance of resistance grows exponentially with the sample length $`L`$. In our study we find that in spite of the presence of absorption the relative variance of transmission coefficient grows exponentially with the sample length as mentioned earlier. Thus the transmission coefficient is a non-self-averaging quantity for samples of length $`L\xi `$. The transmission coefficient becomes very sensitive to spatial realizations of the impurity configurations for finite size samples. This follows from the non-commutative nature of the $`𝖬_𝗂`$ transfer matrices.

In Fig.4 we show the distribution $`P(t)`$ at different sample lengths for $`\alpha =0.01`$ and $`W=1.0`$. For small lengths $`L`$, resonant transmission dominates and $`P(t)`$ peaks at a large value of $`t`$. In fact for $`L0`$, $`P(t)\delta (t1)`$. As the length becomes comparable to the localization length $`L\xi `$, multiple reflections start dominating. Consequently, the time spent inside the medium increases leading to more absorption. Thus, the peak of the distribution shifts to smaller values of $`t`$ and the distribution broadens due to randomization by disorder. In the long length limit $`L>>\xi `$, the distribution develops a long tail and its peak shifts towards $`t=0`$. The transmittance shows large sample-to-sample fluctuations and becomes a non-self-averaging quantity. Finally, as expected, for $`L\mathrm{}`$ , $`P(t)\delta (t)`$.

From the previous discussion it is clear that the transmission becomes non-self-averaging. The large fluctuations in the transmission coefficient of a non-absorbing random medium owe their existence to the presence of resonant realizations (Azbel resonances). For a strongly localized one-dimensional system in the absence of absorption at particular energies the transmission coefficient decays exponentially as a function of length $`L`$ with a well-defined localization length. However, for some rare realizations there exists a localized state close to the center of the sample for which incident electron can resonantly tunnel through the sample via this localized state with probablility approaching unity. Such rare realizations play an important role in determining the fluctuations. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate the nature of resonances and the effect of absorption on them. Specifically, we would like to understand if the presence of absorption would give rise to any new resonances. It is well known from the studies in passive disordered media that the ensemble fluctuation and the fluctuations for a given sample as a function of chemical potential or energy are expected to be related by some sort of ergodicity, i.e., the measured fluctuations as a function of the control parameter are identical to the fluctuations observable by changing the impurity configurations. In Fig.5(a) we show the plot of $`t`$ versus $`k`$ for $`W=1.0`$ and $`\alpha =0`$ at $`L=100`$ for a given realization of the random potential. Figure 5(b) shows a plot of $`t`$ versus $`k`$ for the same realization but with $`\alpha =0.01`$. By mere visual inspection one can see that the only effect of absorption, apart from reducing the value of transmission, is to increase the width of resonance peaks for the passive case. Thus the presence of absorption does not introduce any new resonances. This can be seen from Fig.5(c) and (d) which emphasize Fig.5(a) and (b) respectively by enlarging a narrow region between $`k=1.5`$ to $`k=2.0`$. We do not see any new peaks in the transmission spectrum for absorptive case. Similar effect is observed in case of reflection also.

We now turn our attention to the statistics of reflection coefficient. In Fig.6 we plot $`lnr`$ as a function of length $`L`$ for a fixed value of disorder strength $`W=1.0`$ and different values of absorption strength $`\alpha `$ as indicated in the figure. It increases with $`L`$ initially and for $`L\xi `$, it saturates. At any $`L`$, $`lnr|_{W,\alpha }<lnr|_{W,0}`$. This is in contrast to the behavior observed for the case of coherent absorption. As we know, in the case of coherent absorption, the reflection coefficient tends to unity for absorption strength becoming very large. In this regime, the predominantly reflecting nature of optical potential makes reflection larger than that in the corresponding passive case.

In Fig.7 we have shown $`P_s(r)`$ for various values of $`\alpha `$. In the small $`\alpha `$ range, i.e., for $`\alpha =0.001`$, the distribution has a peak at large $`r`$. As we increase $`\alpha `$ the peak shifts to smaller values of $`r`$. The thick line shows the fit obtained using the analytical expression given in Eq.1. In the limit of large $`\alpha `$, the distribution tends to become a delta function at $`r=0`$. This is in sharp contrast to the behavior observed for coherent absorption. The distribution is always single peaked. For all non-zero values of $`\alpha `$ the medium acts as an absorber only and there is no additional reflection due to absorption. Figure 8 shows a monotonic decrease of saturated value of average reflection coefficient $`r_s`$ as a function of $`\alpha `$. The average absorption, defined as $`\sigma =1rt`$, increases monotonically with increasing $`\alpha `$ and in the limit of $`\alpha \mathrm{}`$ saturates to unity in contrast to the optical model wherein it tends to zero. In the case of the optical model, the absorption coefficient is a non-monotonic function of absorption strength $`V_i`$ and for values of $`V_i`$ near the peak the stationary distribution of reflection coefficient displays a double peak. In fact our model exhibits the properties in agreement with physical expectations of an absorbing medium, i.e., stronger the absorption lesser are the reflection and transmission across the medium.

Finally, we discuss the phase distribution. Figure 9 shows the stationary distribution of phase of the reflected wave for a fixed disorder strength $`W=1.0`$ and various for values of $`\alpha `$. For small values of disorder one generally expects the phase distribution to be uniform if the system size is around the localization length. This is seen in Fig.9(a) for the case of weak absorption. As we increase $`\alpha `$ the phase distribution develops two distinct peaks – a feature observed for coherent absorption also. This is related to the fact that the localization length decreases with $`\alpha `$. We would like to point out that the stationary distribution $`P_s(r)`$ is same within the RPA for the case of coherently as well as stochastically absorbing media. Unlike in the case of coherently absorbing medium, Eq.1 seems to be valid in a larger parameter space for the stochastic absorbing medium where the RPA may not be valid. The parameters for validity of the RPA are determined by the observation of uniform phase distribution. However, beyond the RPA, $`P_s(r)`$ for the case of stochastic and coherent absorbing media are qualitatively distinct from each other.

In conclusion, we have studied a new phenomenological model of stochastic absorption to understand the statistics of quantum transport in random systems. The behavior observed for transmission and reflection coefficients is in accordance with physical expectations of an absorbing medium. This model can be extended to the case of stochastically amplifying medium. It exhibits duality between absorption and amplification which has received much attention recently. Results for this will be reported elsewhere. It is to be noted that the treatment is a phenomenological one. A better treatment based on first principles like density matrix involving system and its coupling with environment is called for.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One of us (DS) would like to thank Prof. S. N. Behera for extending hospitality at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar.


text:
# Tidal dwarf candidates in a sample of interacting galaxiesBased on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, La Silla, Chile (ESO No 058.A-0260).,Tables 5-14 are only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to 130.79.128.5 or via http://cds.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html

## 1 Introduction

Most investigations of interacting and merging galaxies have essentially focussed on the phenomena occuring in their inner regions. However, for a few spectacular cases like the Antennae (Mirabel et al. 1991), Arp 105 (Duc & Mirabel 1994; Duc et al. 1997) and NGC 7252 (Hibbard & Mihos 1995) the enormous tidal tails were investigated in some detail. Massive condensations of stars and H i were found in these tails, the so called Tidal Dwarf Galaxies (TDGs).

TDGs are characterized by a luminosity comparable with that of typical dwarf galaxies, but which span a range in oxygen abundance of $`8.312+\mathrm{log}(O/H)8.6`$ equivalent to metallicities of $`410^3Z_{\mathrm{TDG}}810^3`$ with a mean of $`Z710^3Z_{\mathrm{}}/2.6`$.111For metallicity we use the notation of $`Z`$ (as the proportion of heavy elements given in the Geneva stellar tracks which our models are based on) throughout this paper and give a comparison with the solar value $`Z_{\mathrm{}}=0.018`$ where appropriate. Metallicities of TDGs are therefore higher than those of other dwarf galaxies with comparable luminosity (Duc & Mirabel 1997, 1998). TDGs have blue colors as a result of an active starburst. Most known TDGs have high H i masses from which total masses of the order of 109 M have been estimated. They are gravitationally bound and in a few interacting systems evidence for their kinematical independence has been found (e.g. Duc et al. 1997; Duc & Mirabel 1998). These systems together with the strong increase of the galaxy merger rate with redshift gave rise to speculations about a possible contribution of TDGs to the faint blue galaxy excess at high redshift (Fritze-v.Alvensleben et al. 1998). Barnes & Hernquist (1992) observed the formation of TDGs in their numerical simulations. Their 3D N-body/SPH-code created several massive bound condensations along the tidal tails. At first, their mass is dominated by the stellar component. Later on, gas from the tail might fall into these condensations. Elmegreen et al. (1993) proposed a different scenario. They have used a 2D N-body code including dissipation for the gas component in which gaseous condensations form first.

Observations in most cases show both components, neutral gas and stars, along the tails as well as in their condensations. In an optically indentified condensation, determination of the relative fraction of young stars – born in situ from the collapse of tidally extracted H i – to old stars – pulled out from the progenitor disk(s) – might constrain the above mentioned numerical models. Because the systems studied here are too distant to be resolved into stars, estimating these relative stellar fractions can only be done from multi-band integrated photometric measurements in comparison with an evolutionary synthesis model. Photometric work on the tidal features of several classical interacting systems has been carried out by Schombert et al. (1990). Studies by Appleton & Marston (1997) and Bransford et al. (1998) concentrated on ring galaxies. Deeg et al. (1998) have systematically catalogued all faint non-stellar objects around disturbed galaxies. Part of them might be TDG candidates.

These previous investigations have focused on disk-disk interacting systems with a well-understood morphology, e.g. well defined tails. However locally the majority of disturbed galaxy systems, for instance in the Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies (Arp & Madore 1987), do not have long tails. In particular disk-spheroid collisions and 3-body systems leading to chaotic morphologies are quite common. HST deep surveys with the WFPC2 show that the percentage of disturbed (i.e. interacting, merging or peculiar) galaxies has been much higher in the early universe than today (van den Bergh et al. 1996). NICMOS observations in the near-infrared have shown that these disturbances are not only due to irregularities in the distribution of star forming regions, but reflect real morphological features of interactions (Conselice et al. 1998). These galaxies at high redshift often do not show long tidal tails either because they are absent or because they have too low a surface brightness. Examining a local sample which resembles these high redshift interacting galaxies is therefore important to learn about their evolution.

In this paper we extend previous investigations of a few individual systems to deep optical photometry of a sample of peculiar galaxies. The objects from our sample mostly do not possess prominent tidal tails, but definitely show signs of merging, as e.g. multiple nuclei or disturbed morphology and nearby companions. The sample is extracted from the Catalogue of Southern Peculiar Galaxies (Arp & Madore 1987). It includes disk-disk, disk-elliptical, dwarf-dwarf and 3-body systems observed at different stages of the interaction.

Spectrophotometric evolutionary synthesis models have been used for various applications of normal galaxy evolution. More recently starburst events were modeled as well. These models assume that the standard star-formation rate (SFR) of an underlying galaxy is increased to simulate a starburst (Fritze-v.Alvensleben & Gerhard 1994a; Leitherer & Heckman 1995). This technique has been applied to reproduce the star formation history of various classes of objects from merging galaxies (Fritze-v.Alvensleben & Gerhard 1994b) to blue compact galaxies (Krüger et al. 1995).

We take an approach similar to the latter and compute a grid of models specifically aimed to describe the properties found in previous investigations of TDGs. We do not use solar-abundance tracks in our models but instead two more realistic metallicities in the range expected for TDGs ($`Z=110^3,810^3`$). As a primary goal, these models are used to select candidate TDGs or TDG progenitors. Based on their colors only, background objects can be excluded not only with statistical methods but also one by one if they disagree with any kind of TDG model. Furthermore, this technique allows to derive the present ratios of old to young stellar mass in these TDG candidates, to predict its evolution and hence to constrain the above-mentioned formation scenarios of TDGs. Obviously spectrophotometric data is required to confirm the photometric results.

The structure of the paper is as follows. First we present our data reduction and analysis techniques (Sect. 2). We describe in Sect. 3 the evolutionary synthesis models and the parameters used to interpret the photometric data. In Sect. 4 we present our sample, compare with the model grid and comment on individual features of the interacting systems. In Sect. 5 we discuss more general results and in particular compare the tidal objects identified in our sample with those produced in numerical models and with the few typical TDGs studied so far.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

### 2.1 Data and Calibration

Optical $`B`$,$`V`$,$`R`$ images of 10 galaxies were obtained in visitor mode on April 10th, 1996 and in service mode from February to April 1997 using SUSI on the NTT. The SUSI camera has a field of view of 2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2$`\times `$2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 and a pixel scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$13. The objects of our sample with observing dates, seeing conditions and total exposure times are given in Table 1.

The data reduction was performed in IRAF using the ccdred package with the classical procedures of bias-subtraction and flat-fielding. In order to correct the sky background for some residuals we constructed illumination frames by modeling the background fitted at positions not contaminated by object light. Cosmic ray hits were removed using cosmicrays. The images in all filters were then registered and PSF-matched using several reference stars. Foreground stars were, when possible, deleted and replaced by a background fit using the imedit task.

Standard stars from the fields of Landolt (1992) have been used to derive the zeropoints and estimate the color terms. The extinction coefficients were taken from the La Silla extinction database provided by the Geneva group (e.g. Burki et al. 1995). With this data we could derive a photometric calibration accurate to about 0.04 mag for most targets. One should note that most of the observations were obtained during the refurbishment of the NTT and that the standard stars have not always been observed during the same night as the science targets. Therefore additional systematic calibration errors cannot be excluded; however, our zeropoints and color terms appear to be very stable from one night to the other. Their variations are smaller than 0.01 mag i.e. smaller than the given errors. Except for a few cases for which the extinction given by the Geneva group has large uncertainties, high calibration errors might be present (e.g. AM 0607-444). Figs. 3 to 23 in Sect. 4 show 1$`\sigma `$-errorbars for the systematic error for each field due to uncertain calibration and individual errors for each object due to photon statistics and background noise.

We also obtained longslit-spectra of AM 0529-565, AM 1325-292, and AM 1353-272 using EMMI at the NTT in May 1998. The reduction was performed in the standard way and the spectra were used to measure the redshift. Further details will be given in a forthcoming paper.

### 2.2 Aperture photometry

As the features of interest within the tidal debris are irregular in shape and located in regions with high and irregular background, traditional photometry with circular apertures was not appropriate since it would have included too much flux from the surrounding tidal features. We therefore developed a reproducible technique to analyze these knots using polygonal apertures and used circular apertures only for objects far away from the main body of the interacting system.

The $`V`$-band intensity scale of each image was transformed to calibrated surface brightness and contour plots were created of the interesting regions of each frame. The objects to measure were selected from the most prominent peaks in surface brightness. Polygonal apertures were then defined following the faintest contour which still allows separating the knot from surrounding tidal features. The surface brightness level $`\mu _V`$ of the aperture was therefore different for each knot and is given in Tables 5 to 14 222Tables 5 to 14 are available only in electronic form.. The sky flux was individually measured at several positions nearby each knot, carefully avoiding the tidal features, and averaged. We are interested in both the young and the old stellar population which the (stellar) tail consists of, because we explicitly model the old population in our evolutionary synthesis models. Hence we only subtract the sky background but not the tidal tail from the object flux. The photometry was finally performed using the IRAF polyphot task with the same polygonal aperture for all photometric bands. Tables 5 to 14 give the complete photometric results. Column 1 gives the identification, column 2 the surface brightness $`\mu _V`$ of the polygonal aperture. Columns 3 to 5 show the apparent magnitudes in $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`R`$, while columns 6 to 8 present the optical colors $`BV`$, $`VR`$ and $`BR`$. Columns 9 to 11 show the photometric errors of the measurements in $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`R`$. All given magnitudes and colors are corrected for galactic extinction, using the $`A_B`$ values of Burstein & Heiles (1982) and extrapolating to $`V`$ and $`R`$ with the ratios of Savage & Mathis (1979).

## 3 Model

### 3.1 Modelling the old population

Spectrophotometric and chemical evolutionary synthesis models are used to interpret the photometric data. Our code is based on the work of Krüger (1992) which was originally used to model BCDGs (Krüger et al. 1995). To include the underlying old component in our model, it starts with a gas cloud of primordial metallicity and follows the evolution of ISM abundances and spectrophotometric properties of the stellar population of an undisturbed galaxy until the starburst induced by the interaction occurs. The model includes the two basic parameters, star formation rate (SFR) $`\psi (t)`$ and initial mass function (IMF). We use SFRs proportional to the gas to total mass ratio for Sb and Sc models and a constant SFR for Sd with efficiencies appropriate for the respective galaxy types (see e.g. Fritze-v.Alvensleben & Gerhard 1994a).

As our observations cannot constrain the IMF, we use the IMF from Scalo (1986) in the mass range 0.15 to 120 M and, for simplicity, assume the same IMF for the progenitor spiral and the starburst. To cover a Hubble time of evolution for the undisturbed progenitor spiral and have a good time resolution during and after the burst, we use a variable timestep as outlined by Krüger (1992).

### 3.2 Input physics

The model uses Geneva stellar evolutionary tracks (Schaller et al. 1992; Charbonnel et al. 1993; Schaerer et al. 1993a, b; Charbonnel et al. 1996). We present models for two different metallicities $`Z_1=110^3Z_{\mathrm{}}/18`$ and $`Z_3=810^3Z_{\mathrm{}}/2.3`$.

As shown by Krüger et al. (1995) the broadband colors are dominated by nebular line and continuum emission in the early phases of a strong burst. We therefore include nebular emission in our models using the compilation from Schaerer & de Koter (1997) to calculate the number of Lyman continuum photons emitted per second $`N_{\mathrm{Lyc}}`$ of our stellar population as a function of time. With the standard formula

$$F(\mathrm{H}_\beta )=4.75710^{13}fN_{\mathrm{Lyc}}\text{ erg s}^1$$

we obtain the Hβ-flux. Fluxes of the other hydrogen lines are computed from their line ratios relative to Hβ. $`f`$ is the proportion of Lyman continuum photons not absorbed in dust. We take $`f=1.0`$ for $`Z_1`$ and $`f=0.7`$ for $`Z_3`$.

To include other typical lines of star-forming regions we use the observed line ratios of 27 lines in the wavelength range from 1335 to 10330 Å from Izotov et al. (1994) for low metallicity ($`Z_1`$) and theoretical line ratios from Stasińska (1984) for medium metallicity ($`Z_3`$) models.

We chose to use the metallicities $`Z_1`$ and $`Z_3`$ given above333Another possible metallicity given in the Geneva stellar tracks ($`Z_2=410^3`$) is not used in our models because no emission line ratios are available for it.. In the context of comparing our models to observed objects these metallicities should not be regarded as fixed values, but more as metallicity ranges, $`Z_1`$ as $`0.001<Z<0.006`$ and $`Z_3`$ as $`0.006<Z<0.012`$.

### 3.3 TDG models

To model both the star-forming young and the old component of a TDG with our 1-zone model, we let a typical part of a disk galaxy evolve with its appropriate SFR over 13 Gyrs. After 13 Gyrs a starburst is assumed to occur (triggered by an interaction) in this part of the model galaxy assumed to form a TDG. In the burst the SFR is set to a maximum value $`\psi _0`$ and decreases exponentially with a timescale $`\tau _\mathrm{B}`$.

The time of the starburst is inferred from a rough age of present-day galaxies of 14 Gyr in a reasonable cosmological model. We look back roughly 1 Gyr, the assumed epoch for the starburst following an interaction. The model is followed for another 3 Gyrs after the burst. The galaxy age at the onset of the burst does not significantly change the color evolution during or after the burst.

According to previous observations the model with metallicity of $`Z_3`$ should a priori best apply to TDGs. In the dynamical formation scenarios of Barnes & Hernquist (1992) and Elmegreen et al. (1993), TDGs are predicted to form out of material from the outer parts of the progenitor or from the progenitor galaxy disks. This material in nearby galaxies has a metallicity of $`Z710^3Z_3`$ (Zaritsky et al. 1994; Ferguson et al. 1998). Indeed, spectroscopy of TDGs confirms this mean metallicity (Duc & Mirabel 1997, 1998). However, the precise metallicity expected for a particular condensation depends on the type and luminosity of the progenitor galaxy – late type and low luminosity spirals being more metal poor on average than earlier type or higher luminosity spirals – and on the region of the parent galaxies where this particular material is torn out from, since galaxies tend to have negative abundance gradients in stars and the gas with increasing radius. Both at higher redshift in general and in the local universe in those cases where dwarf or very low metallicity galaxies are involved in the encounter, TDGs with lower metallicity might also form. However, the recycled nature of TDGs precludes metallicities lower than about 1/20 solar. Models with $`Z_1`$ predict that they should populate distinctly different regions in optical color-color diagrams, i.e. have very blue $`VR`$ at moderately blue $`BV`$. Models with $`Z_1`$ have been applied in those cases.

To produce the various proportions of old and young populations observed in TDGs, the maximum SFR and the timescale of the burst $`\tau _\mathrm{B}`$ are varied. The resulting burst strength $`b`$ is computed as the ratio of the mass of stars formed during the burst and the total mass of stars ever formed in the galaxy. Our model grid is presented in Table 2. Column 1 gives a code for each model, which is used in the plots in Sect. 4 together with the metallicity. Columns 2 and 3 give the max. SFR and decay time of the burst and column 4 the burst strength. Columns 5 and 6 give the relative contributions of the starburst component to the luminosities in the $`B`$ and $`R`$ bands.

### 3.4 Model application and limitations

We discuss here the application and limitations of our grid of models to derive the properties of the observed condensations in the tidal features. Fig. 1a details the track in a $`BV`$ vs. $`VR`$ two-color diagram for one given burst-model and various assumptions for the underlying parent galaxy. The color evolution is plotted from the start of the burst at 13 Gyrs (underlying galaxy Sd) when a subpopulation of the progenitor spiral is expelled into a tidal tail and begins to form a TDG. With the burst, the colors become bluer, at first most noticeable in $`VR`$ and then in $`BV`$ when the starburst begins to fade. In the two-color diagram this color evolution produces a loop which is followed counterclockwise. While the color evolution is very rapid at the beginning of the burst, it slows down considerably as the burst ages. The type of the underlying galaxy and hence its star formation history slightly affect the starting point of the loop but do not significantly change its shape. Due to lack of detailed knowledge of the spectral type of the undisturbed progenitor we choose to uniformly model the old population with a constant SFR.

Figs. 1b and c display the curves of all models that have been probed for the two metallicities $`Z_1`$ and $`Z_3`$, respectively. It can be seen that a higher initial burst SFR $`\psi _0`$ and hence a higher burst strength $`b`$ produces a larger loop. The different shapes of the loops for models with equal strength but different metallicities is mainly caused by the variing fluxes of the emission lines which strongly contribute to the optical broad band colors during the burst (Krüger 1992).

The dots plotted in Fig. 1 show five representative artificial data points chosen to demonstrate in howfar the various properties of a burst can be disentangled using two colors only. Data point “1” lies in a region in the two-color plane which can only be reached by a low metallicity model with high burst strength ($`b>0.1`$) and young burst age (about 2.5 Myrs). Data point “2” needs a high burst strength ($`b>0.1`$) and medium burst age (around 20 Myrs), whatever the metallicity, the medium metallicity model providing a better match. Data point “3” is more ambiguous with respect to the metallicity but clearly needs a much higher age (above 80 Myrs) and a medium to strong burst ($`b>0.05`$). Depending on the metallicity data point “4” can be either an intermediate strength burst (low $`Z`$, $`0.02<b<0.05`$, young age $`1`$ Myr) or strong burst (for medium $`Z`$, $`b>0.10`$, age $`7`$ Myrs). Additional colors or spectroscopy are needed to resolve the ambiguity. Data point “5” does not agree at all with any of our models. Its colors are indicative of a redshifted background galaxy (see Sect. 5.1 and Möller et al. in prep.).

In Sect. 4 we compare the photometry of the star-forming knots lying in or close to the tidal features of our interacting galaxies with predictions of various TDG models. The primary goal is to isolate objects consistent with a TDG scenario from background sources. A metallicity of $`Z_3`$ as observed for TDGs was a priori selected unless other indicators (a metallicity measurement from spectroscopic data, the lumosity class of the parent galaxy, or colors that clearly indicate a low metallicity model like data point “1”) favor a $`Z_1`$ model. The burst parameters were determined by visual comparison of the position of the data points to the model curves. The model with the smallest deviation from an observed data point was selected as “most likely” model from our grid. We can also assess which other models represent a reasonable match within the observational uncertainties and from that derive likely ranges for the burst age and strength of any tidal object (see Table 4). Given the individual and systematic photometric errors and the two-dimensional nature of the data, a numerical fitting routine did not seem to be warranted.

As the modelling of the undisturbed galaxy is created for an average late-type galaxy the colors of the nuclei or the parent galaxies plotted in Sect. 4 may have strongly differing colors (as in the case of AM 1325-292, see Fig. 20). This does not affect the validity of our models with respect to the TDG candidates.

It should be noted that the comparison of observation with models only relies on the two colors $`BV`$ and $`VR`$. To account for the effect of dust obscuration on the colors, a larger set of photometric data including the NIR regime or spectral information would be needed. In the following, we neglect any internal extinction. The effect of $`A_B=0.5`$ mag absorption is indicated by an arrow in the plots in Sect. 4. A significant extinction (of e.g. $`A_B=0.5`$ mag or more) would therefore result in underestimating the burst strength, but would not change the final conclusions drawn from the model.

## 4 Results

Figures 2 to 21 present surface brightness images of all the systems in our sample and the two-color diagrams for comparison with the evolutionary synthesis models. The objects of interest are identified on the charts and the plots. The principal objects – those that most probably pre-existed the interaction – have been labeled with capital letters, while the smaller features – those that are TDG candidates – have small letters. An overview of the properties of all parent galaxies is given in Table 3. The properties of the objects for which we have infered a tidal origin and are good candidates for TDGs or their progenitors are listed in Table 4. The model curves shown on the diagrams are those representing a maximum number of data points.

### 4.1 AM 0529-565

The image of this system at a redshift of $`V_\mathrm{A}=4420`$ km s-1 is shown in Fig. 2. The principal galaxy, “A”, has an integrated absolute blue magnitude typical of a Magellanic Irregular galaxy. However the presence of a double nucleus and of diffuse tidal tails are characteristics of mergers. The eastern nucleus “Ae” has redder colors than the western one “Aw” which is currently in a starburst phase (see Fig. 3). “B” is an elliptical galaxy. Given its colors, it is probably a background object with an estimated redshift of $`0.2`$ (Möller et al. in prep.). “C” is a peculiar low surface brightness (LSB) galaxy of unknown redshift. “D” is a blue dwarf galaxy associated with “A” at a relative velocity of $`V_{\mathrm{rel}}=220`$ km s-1. Several diffuse knots can be seen around “A”; they are designated with “a” to “l”. “a” seems to be detached from the eastern tidal tail.

From preliminary spectroscopic test observations of AM 0529-565 (Weilbacher et al. 2000, in prep.), we could estimate an oxygen abundance of $`12+\mathrm{log}(O/H)=8.1`$ (equivalent to $`Z=0.003`$) for “e” and “h” and a very low $`12+\mathrm{log}(O/H)=7.6`$ (equiv. to $`Z=0.0008`$) for object “D”. Because of its much smaller metallicity, “D” is most probably a pre-existing galaxy currently in interaction with “A”.

Fig. 3 shows that the colors of most of the knots in the tidal debris are consistent with TDG burst models with low metallicity ($`Z_1`$) and burst strength in the range $`0.02<b<0.18`$.

### 4.2 AM 0537-292

The image of this system also known as MCG-5-14-9 is shown in Fig. 4. “A” is a strongly disturbed galaxy with tidal tails and a central bar. “B” has the morphology of an E5 galaxy in the central part, but the contours get distorted further out. The overall color of both galaxies is strongly dominated by the light of the nuclei. “C” and all other unnamed visible extended objects in the field are found to be background galaxies from their colors.

Several large blue knots probably associated with star-forming regions can be seen in the tails. They are labeled “a” to “i”. Fig. 5 shows that all knots are well described by the $`Z_3`$ model with a burst strength of the order of 10%. They have similar burst ages of around 3 Myrs.

### 4.3 AM 0547-244

This system (Fig. 6) consists of a peculiar galaxy “A” ($`V_\mathrm{A}=13164`$ km s-1), from which three tidal tails emanate, and a companion “B”, the redshift of which is unknown. The colors of the nuclei of “A” and “B” are very red (see Fig. 7). This could indicate an ‘old’ burst age or strong reddening due to large amounts of dust.

At the ends of the tails of galaxy “A” two large condensations are visible, denoted by “a” and “b”. With absolute magnitudes of $`M_{B_\mathrm{a}}=16.94`$ and $`M_{B_\mathrm{b}}=17.05`$, “a” and “b” are good candidates for luminous TDGs. Around “A” four more knots with unknown redshift can be seen (“c” to “f”). All other objects have very red colors and are therefore most probably background objects.

Fig. 7 shows that the objects “a” to “d” agree well with the models with metallicity $`Z_1`$ and intermediate to high burst strengths while “f” is not matched by any model. The interpretation of “a” to “f” is severely limited by the large systematic errors of this field. A $`Z_3`$ metallicity model can therefore not be excluded.

### 4.4 AM 0607-444

This system consists of a spiral galaxy (“A”) which is severely disturbed in its outer parts (Fig. 8). The object labeled “B” has red colors and may be a background galaxy. Two objects are seen towards the northern tail. The very blue knot at its tip, “a”, hosts a star-forming region. In contrast, “b” is much redder, has elliptical contours in its center and may either be the remnant core of the interacting companion of “A” or a background galaxy superimposed on the tail. The colors of the TDG candidate “a” are best matched with a $`Z_1`$ model with a weak burst (Fig. 9), note, however, the large systematic errors of this field.

### 4.5 AM 0642-645

The peculiar system “A” (Fig.. 10) exhibits two red nuclei (“a”,“b”) and a bluer central knot,“c”, and may well be a merger. A plume to the southeast is designated with “d” and nine other extended objects in the field of view that have colors in the range of our models have been labeled. Fig. 11 shows that all of these objects would be consistent with TDG models having weak to intermediate burst strengths with the exception of object “f”, which has colors similar to an elliptical galaxy at $`z1.3`$ (Möller et al. in prep.). However, without a spectroscopic redshift and in the absence of tidal structures linking them with the parent galaxy, the tidal origin of the objects surrounding “A” is very speculative.

### 4.6 AM 0748-665

This interacting system is composed of two galaxies (“A” and “B”) which are connected by a long narrow bridge (Fig. 12). Their morphology indicates that the progenitors of “A” and “B” may have been a spiral and an elliptical, respectively. Several condensations labeled “a” to “e” can be seen in the associated tidal features. The brightest condensation “d” is blended with a bright star. The latter has been subtracted with a scaled PSF before carrying out the photometry. Fig. 13 shows that all data points agree with $`Z_3`$ models that provide burst strengths up to 0.10.

### 4.7 AM 1054-325

This presumably interacting system (Fig. 14) is composed of an irregular H ii-galaxy, “A”, at a redshift of $`V_\mathrm{A}=3795`$ km s-1 (Sekiguchi & Wolstencroft 1993) and a spiral-like object “B”, which has however colors that are redder and more homogeneous than typical spiral galaxies. Its redshift is not known. Object “C” is a LSB galaxy at an unknown redshift.

The enlarged image of “A” (Fig. 15) indicates that this galaxy seems to have two nuclei, one marked as “Anucl”, the other as “e” (blended by a foreground star). Like in AM 0529-565 A the two nuclei have different colors. The former is redder ($`BV=0.52`$) while the latter has the blue colors of a strong starburst ($`BV=0.21`$). Peña et al. (1991) derived for “A” an oxygen abundance of $`12+\mathrm{log}(O/H)=8.14`$ equivalent to $`Z=0.003`$. We therefore use our $`Z_1`$ model for this galaxy.

In the western tail of “A” several large star-forming regions are visible (“g” to “m”) with luminosities of fainter dwarf galaxies. A few other features of special interest are marked as “a” to “d” and “f”. Fig. 16 shows that their colors are well matched with $`Z_1`$ models with $`0.02<b<0.09`$. However “a”, “b” and “p” that have discrepant reddish colors are likely background objects. Note that the outlier “l” has a very uncertain photometry due to the vicinity of a bright saturated star.

### 4.8 AM 1208-273

This system, also known as MCG-5-29-28, has three apparent members (Fig. 17). The main galaxy, “A”, is a disturbed Sc spiral with a small bar visible at the center ($`V_\mathrm{A}=14780`$ km s-1). “B” is a foreground object with an active starburst ($`V_\mathrm{B}=12433`$ km s-1, Donzelli & Pastoriza 1997). The redshift of the disk galaxy “C” is not known.

Along the extended spiral arms of “A” several knots are visible, marked as “a” to “q”. Two detached diffuse objects “r” and “s” are visible northeast and north of the main galaxy, but their association with the other galaxies is uncertain. Fig. 18 shows that all knots in the arms are matched by a $`Z_3`$ model with a high burst strength. They have roughly the same burst age.

### 4.9 AM 1325-292

AM 1325-292 (Fig. 19) is a close interacting system between a spiral, NGC 5152 (“A”) and an elliptical, NGC 5153 (“B”). Their redshifts are $`V_\mathrm{A}=4598`$ km s-1 and $`V_\mathrm{B}=4431`$ km s-1, respectively.

The spiral has three visible spiral arms/tidal tails, a long one to the north and two apparently shorter ones to the southwest, at the end of which two bigger knots of dwarf galaxy size are seen (“a” and “b”). These knots have the bluest colors of the entire system and do well agree with $`Z_1`$ models and small or intermediate burst strength shown in Fig. 20. The small photometric errors preclude $`Z_3`$ models although due to the nature of the parent galaxy a higher metallicity would have been expected.

### 4.10 AM 1353-272

Four galaxies are seen in the field of AM 1353-272 (Fig. 21). The two brightest are at the same redshift. “A” is an integral-sign spiral ($`V_\mathrm{A}=12145`$ km s-1) interacting with a disturbed disk galaxy “B” ($`V_\mathrm{B}=11791`$ km s-1). “C” is most probably a background elliptical, as judged from its red colors. “D”, to the southeast, is a LSB galaxy. Its color is highly uncertain due to the contamination by a bright foreground star.

The long tidal tails of “A” host a number of blue knots (“a” to “n”). Three detached small knots (“o” to “q”) are visible east of the northeast tail. Given their colors, these knots could be physically linked with “A” but without redshift information available this remains speculative. The knots have absolute magnitudes in the range of $`12.1<M_B<15.7`$ mag. Their colors do agree with the $`Z_3`$ models and intermediate strength burst. Condensations “d” and “m” have however deviant colors that seem more consistent with $`Z_1`$ models.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Background contamination

In each field a number of faint extended objects are visible (see e.g. Figs. 4 and 6) that have red colors. They lie outside the color range of our models that are valid for $`z=0`$ only. Most of them should hence be background objects. This was tested using the chemically consistent evolutionary synthesis models of Möller et al. (1998) and Möller et al. (in prep.), which include cosmological parameters and give colors of all galaxy types as a function of $`z`$. A rough photometric redshift could be determined from the $`B`$,$`V`$,$`R`$ measurements. The few faint objects with colors that strongly deviate from our TDG models and that are inconsistent with those of distant galaxies could be red dwarf galaxies pre-existing the collisions. They have been excluded from our analysis. One SUSI field with an area of $`1.310^3\mathit{}\mathrm{°}`$ contains on average 7.0$`\pm `$0.7 and 13.0$`\pm `$4.0 objects with deviant colors in the respective magnitude ranges $`B=22\mathrm{}23`$ and $`B=23\mathrm{}24`$. After correction for the occlusion of background objects due to the interacting system (typically $`210^4\mathit{}\mathrm{°}`$), these values are compatible with those of Metcalfe et al. (1991). They imaged 12 fields with an area of $`6.810^3\mathit{}\mathrm{°}`$ and counted $`5000\pm 800`$ and $`15000\pm 1000`$ galaxies, respectively, for the magnitude ranges in question. For our field of view, the numbers would be 6.8$`\pm `$1.1 and 20.2$`\pm `$1.3. Therefore we do not see an overdensity of background galaxies in our fields contrary to what Deeg et al. (1998) found in their sample of interacting systems. Their field of view is much larger (about $`3.310^3\mathit{}\mathrm{°}`$) than ours and they have better statistics. But they mostly imaged interacting systems with lower $`z`$ which hence occlude a larger portion of the image. Neither did they use color information to preselect possible nearby objects. Moreover, they mainly found an overdensity in the brightness range $`R=18\mathrm{}19.5`$ mag, where we do not have enough background objects for statistical analysis.

### 5.2 Properties of the TDG candidates

As seen before, several knots turn out to be background objects as judged from their colors. One should hence be cautious when physically linking faint objects with apparently nearby large galaxies. This is especially true for the detached objects lying far away from the tidal tails of the parent galaxies. In the absence of a redshift measurement, the color information and its comparison with the model predictions is useful to disentangle between possible objects in or close to tidal features from background galaxies. Using this technique, we have compiled a catalog of candidates for TDGs or their progenitors, i.e. knots associated with or close to tidal features that – within the observational errors – agree with one or more of our evolutionary synthesis models. They are listed in Table 4.

Column 1 shows the designation of the candidate. Column 2 gives, when its distance is known, the absolute blue magnitude of the TDG candidate. Columns 3 and 4 resp. give its $`BV`$ color and the difference in $`BV`$ between the knot and the surrounding tail (values in parentheses indicate detached knots). The last three columns list the results from the comparison with the models. Column 5 gives the ID of the best matching model(s), column 6 the most probable burst age(s), and column 7 a range of possible burst strengths. Note that the best-fit models shown here for every individual TDG candidate are not necessarily those shown in the plots in Sect. 4, where models were chosen to represent a maximum number of data points.

#### 5.2.1 Number and luminosity

In our sample of ten, 8 interacting systems contain promising TDG candidates. On average 3.6 were identified per system. The luminosities of the candidates for which the distance of their parent galaxies is known range from faint ($`M_B=10.4`$ mag) to brighter dwarf galaxies ($`M_B=17.1`$ mag) with a mean of $`M_B=13.6`$ mag. It should be noted that even though we have some faint TDG candidates in our sample, they are still more luminous than normal H ii regions in spiral galaxies by about 4 mag (Bresolin & Kennicutt 1997). The luminosity function of the TDG candidates is shown in Fig. 24.

#### 5.2.2 Colors and star formation

In Fig. 25 we compare the colors of these knots with the overall colors of their parent galaxy. Note that the measurement of the parent galaxy includes the light of the knots, but this does not have a strong effect as the knots only give a neglegible contribution (up to 1% of the flux) to the brightness of the galaxy.

On average the TDG candidates have bluer colors than their parent galaxies, which could be due to a number of effects:

* Fading effect: only the bluest clumps are visible. As we have selected the candidates from their surface brightness in the $`V`$-band images and all candidates have a young burst age, it is possible that after a longer burst the objects become redder and fade in luminosity and are no longer visible as surface brightness peaks in $`V`$.
* High relative gas content: the knots may experience stronger starbursts than the parent galaxies. A prerequisite for this could be a high gas content in the tidal features as observed in other systems (e.g. Duc & Mirabel 1998).
* Time difference: The burst in the parent galaxies may take place before the star formation in the tidal features starts. The color of the parent galaxy would then be dominated by the color of the red central part, especially after a strong nuclear starburst has faded.
* Smaller dust content: If the knots have a smaller dust extinction than the parent galaxies, their colors would appear redder.
* The colors of the parent galaxies are largely dominated by the colors of their nuclei which are usually redder than the disk from which a TDG may form.

In order to tackle the last bias, we have compared the colors of the knots with the color of their immediate surroundings, i.e. in the tails. For knots already detached from the visible tail, the nearest part of the tail was taken for the measurement. The results are shown in Table 4, column 4 and in Fig. 26. Nearly all knots have a $`BV`$ color bluer than their surrounding tidal features. We therefore conclude that the knots are actively forming stars while their surrounding material is more quiescient.
As already noticed by Schombert et al. (1990), the tidal features and especially the surface brightness peaks which we identify as TDG candidates often show the bluest $`BV`$ colors of the entire interacting system.

Some examples of interacting galaxies show star formation in the tails but already have postburst characteristics in the central part of the merger (e.g. Hibbard et al. 1994). One could therefore conclude that star formation propagates from the central part to the outer regions along the tails and look for such an effect in interacting systems with several condensations along the tails. We do not find, however, any clear trends in the properties of the knots along the tails in the two systems which have longer tails (AM 1054-325A and AM 1353-272A) neither in luminosity or color, nor in burst strength or burst age.

#### 5.2.3 Burst properties

The model bursts developed in this study that best fit the TDG candidates require intermediate to strong burst strength ($`0.01<b<0.18`$). Taking into account possible internal extinction would favor even stronger bursts. These burst strengths therefore seem to be higher than for BCDGs, which have typical strengths of $`b0.01`$ or less (Krüger 1992). The burst strengths of our TDG candidates also indicate that the mass is still governed by the old stars ($`b<0.20`$), but the luminosities in $`B`$ and $`R`$ are already dominated by the young component (see Table 2).

The mean burst age of the tidal objects is about 8 Myrs. Their dynamical timescale may be determined assuming a typical distance of the knots from the nucleus of the parent galaxy of 15 kpc – about half of the length of the tails of AM 1353-272 – and a typical rotation velocity in a spiral galaxy of 150 km s-1. With these values, disk material is expelled to the present positions of the knots in about 100 Myrs. Only very few objects in our sample show comparable high burst ages. This suggests that the star formation episode in the TDG candidates has started in situ in the tidally expelled material.

### 5.3 Nature of the TDG candidates

The condensations in the tidal tails which we call “Tidal Dwarf Galaxy candidates” show properties in the range expected for TDGs. We call them candidates, because they still lack spectroscopic confirmation and especially the proof that they are bound objects.

The TDG candidates identified in the systems presented here are on average less luminous but more numerous than the TDGs found in other interacting systems studied up to now. These other TDGs have an absolute blue magnitude of -15.5 mag on average, part of them have been found to be kinematically decoupled from their tails (Duc et al. 1997; Duc & Mirabel 1998), and one or two of them are produced per collision. Moreover, the TDGs known to be gravitationally bound are found at the tip of the optical tails whereas our TDG candidates are distributed all along the tidal features without any trend in luminosity in agreement with one of the models discussed above. One reason for these differences may lie in the morphologies of the parent galaxies. TDGs have so far essentially been observed in merging systems involving massive spirals. Some of the interacting systems presented here are composed of late type galaxies, some of which have luminosities low enough to be classified as dwarf galaxies (e.g. AM 0529-565). It thus does not seem surprising that they form less massive condensations.

#### 5.3.1 Formation of bound objects

Numerical models of galaxy collisions show the presence of bound objects in tidal debris that have luminosities and distributions quite similar to the TDG candidates studied in our sample (e.g. Barnes & Hernquist 1992). The physical process for their formation is still largely unknown. They might either form from growing instabilities in the stellar component of tidal debris that may or may not attract surrounding gas (Barnes & Hernquist 1992), or alternatively from expelled gas that collapses and forms stars as proposed by Elmegreen et al. (1993). The blue colors of our TDG candidates favor the second scenario. Indeed we did not find any evidence for the presence for pure stellar condensations in the tidal features of our interacting systems. Our models show that recent star formation with a minimum strength of $`b0.01`$, i.e. forming 1% of young stars is necessary to account for the colors of our TDG candidates. In most cases, however, a much stronger burst is required. Note however, that we cannot distinguish between a stellar condensation into which gas falls later to cause the starburst and an initially gaseous condensation that forms stars on an underlying population of old stars.

#### 5.3.2 Future evolution

The spectrophotometric models are also used to extrapolate the evolution of the knots, i.e. to predict how luminosities and colors will change with time. The latter is already visible on the two-color diagrams in Sect. 4, where the evolution is marked in steps of 100 Myr along the model curves. Typically one Gyr after the burst, the optical colors of the condensations will become indistinguishable from the pre-burst colors unless further star formation episodes take place. The luminosity evolution is shown in Fig. 27, where models for one of the most luminous TDG candidates, AM 0547-244a, and one of the least luminous candidates, AM 0529-565a, are displayed. Without secondary bursts, the $`B`$-luminosity will decrease by about 2.5 mag within 200 Myr from the present age. AM 0529-565a, with a present day absolute magnitude of $`M_B=11.48`$, will fade to $`M_B8.0`$ mag within 2 Gyrs. It will then have a luminosity similar to those of the faintest known galaxies of the local group (Mateo 1998). It would become invisible in our images at the distance of AM 0529-565. On a similar timescale, the more luminous TDG candidate AM 0547-244a ($`M_B=16.94`$) will fade to $`M_B13.4`$ mag. It would be among the brighter dwarfs in the local group and could still be observed at its actual distance ($`m_B22.8`$ mag).

The formation of objects as massive as TDGs in tidal debris is still puzzling. One may wonder whether the numerous knots that we observe here and that are produced in numerical simulations of galaxy collisions could be the progenitors of the more massive TDGs identified before. As the photometric models indicate a rapid fading of the TDGs after the burst, the evolution of a TDG progenitor into a TDG would require that star formation in these condensations is sustained for at least 100 Myrs, supposing that the progenitors initially have a large enough gas reservoir. TDG progenitors could grow that way and reach masses and luminosities of the well known TDGs. On the other hand, by that time, some of the less active TDG progenitors might have faded and those initially situated close to their parent galaxies might have fallen back, explaining why classical TDGs are found preferentially at the end of tidal tails. Observations of a larger sample of systems and more detailed simulations would be necessary to confirm the link between our TDG candidates and more luminous TDGs.

Another possibility is that the TDG candidates in this paper do not evolve into larger TDGs. Instead some of our TDG candidates may not grow much and eventually form more fragile TDGs of lower luminosity. Even if fading after the burst is taken into account, our faintest TDG candidates still have luminosities comparable to those of faint local group dwarf galaxies. The question if they will be able to survive as bound and dynamically independent objects can only be answered by observations of the kinematics in combination with detailed dynamical models.

To be able to do more than speculate about the dynamical fate of the TDG candidates, kinematical data of the system and the mass of the gaseous component of each knot is required. To further restrict the mass of the underlying old component NIR observations will be needed.

## 6 Conclusions

We have presented imaging data of 10 southern interacting systems from the Arp & Madore Catalog selected for their resemblance to disturbed distant galaxies. Our high quality images reveal a heterogeneous set of morphologies from loosely interacting dwarf galaxies to disk-disk mergers. Through detailed photometry based on polygonal apertures in the three optical bands $`B`$,$`V`$,$`R`$ we were able to measure the colors of about one hundred condensations in or near the tidal features of the interacting galaxies.

We have computed a grid of evolutionary synthesis models simulating starbursts of various strengths in an underlying stellar population of mixed ages typical of spiral galaxies. Such models reproduce well the situation of TDGs and their progenitors that are composed of an old population pulled out from the parent galaxy and young stars formed in situ. Our models take into account the emission lines and the continuum from the photoionized gas with appropriate metallicities. Comparing our photometric data with these models, we selected 36 blue condensations as possible TDGs. Follow-up spectroscopy is required in some cases to assess their physical association with the interacting system.

We discussed the overall properties of the 36 TDG candidates, noting that they have luminosities brighter than H ii regions in spiral galaxies and more typical for that of dwarf galaxies. Their color is much bluer than those of their parent galaxies and mostly bluer than the surrounding material in the tidal features. The contribution of young stars to their mass is at least 1% and may reach 20% or more for the most active condensations. In any case their $`B`$-band luminosity is dominated by this young population. The models also indicate that after the starburst when the young stars cease to be the dominating source the condensations may fade by up to 2.5 mag in $`B`$ within 200 Myrs after the burst. Although the TDG candidates seem to have young burst ages, we did not find any case of condensations solely made of old stars from the parent galaxies although the formation of such objects is also predicted in numerical simulations.

Finally the TDG candidates studied here have properties different from those of the more massive TDGs typically found at the tip of giant tidal tails of nearby interacting systems. We discuss whether our TDG candidates could be progenitors of TDGs or a class of less luminous objects.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to thank the team at the NTT who made most of the observations under difficult conditions. We also thank our referee, E. Brinks, for careful reading of the manuscript and useful comments, which improved the paper. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. PMW acknowledges partial support from DFG grant FR 916/6-2.