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# Wide-field 𝐽- and 𝐾-band galaxy counts in the ELAIS fields

## 1. Introduction

Counting galaxies as a function of magnitude has established itself as a powerful way to study galaxy evolution. This is especially true in the near-infrared, where K-corrections are smaller and dust extinction of less importance than in the visible. There have been numerous $`K`$-band galaxy surveys for over a decade now. These have shown the pitfalls of deriving any definite evolutionary conclusions from a single wavelength: e.g. the excess of faint galaxies seen especially in blue bands (see Ellis 1997 for a comprehensive review) is not nearly as severe in $`K`$-band.

Another near-infrared waveband, the 1.25$`\mu `$m $`J`$-band, is now added to the available data. Bershady et al. (1998) and Saracco et al. (1999) have published deep $`J`$-counts, and there are preliminary wide field DENIS- (Mamon 1998) and 2MASS-counts (Skrutskie 1999) available at $`J<16`$. Ultra-deep HST NICMOS counts are also available in $`J`$ and $`H`$ bands (Thompson et al. 1999, Yan et al. 1998, Teplitz et al. 1998). The only intermediate magnitude $`J`$-counts to date are those of Teplitz et al. (1999); our survey covers a slightly shallower magnitude range but has a sky coverage 15 times as large.

The range of magnitudes, $`J`$=12.5–19.5, in the present survey is too bright to be of direct interest to cosmology and high redshift galaxy evolution studies. However, modeling of the faintest counts to study the evolution of distant galaxy populations heavily relies on accurate normalization of the models at brighter magnitudes. Indeed, the normalization is often left as a free parameter, signifying that the local galaxy population is still quite uncertain. The bright and medium counts are thus instrumental in the studies of both the local galaxy population and the evolving properties of galaxies with large look-back times.

Our survey fields are within the European Large Area ISO-Survey (ELAIS) regions (see Oliver et al. 2000). ELAIS fields will be heavily studied in wavelengths ranging from X-rays to radio bands, with much of the scientific interest lying in high-redshift, dust-obscured star formation, AGN, and ultraluminous infrared sources. Our observations were done as part of NIR followup for the ELAIS project. This paper presents our galaxy counts and compares them to some available data and models. We also address the question of whether this field, selected because of its low 100 $`\mu `$m emission, is a representative sample of the extragalactic sky. The discussion of individual objects relating to ISO-sources will be presented elsewhere.

## 2. Observations and data

All the observations were carried out using the STELIRCam instrument (Tollestrup & Willner 2000) mounted on the 1.2-m telescope of Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins. The camera contains two InSb detector arrays with 256x256 format, which view the same field simultaneously through different filters. Our $`J`$ and $`K`$-band images were taken during a total of 16 nights in 1997 April and June and 1998 April. During the 1997 June run the $`J`$-array was unavailable, resulting in larger coverage in $`K`$-band in our survey. The 1.2″ pixel scale was used for all observations, and the seeing varied between 1.8 and 2.3″.

Each frame was a 60-second integration, typically consisting of 6 co-adds. A 5 by 5 dither pattern was used resulting in a 25 minute integration time per pointing. Data reduction followed a commonly-used sequence of linearizing, sky-subtracting, flattening, and then co-adding the frames. Cosmic rays were also removed in the process. The partially overlapping 25 min pointings were then mosaiced together to produce the final images. Near-infrared standard stars used to calibrate the data were taken from Elias et al. (1982). We estimate the calibration on the instrumental system (Barr filters) to be accurate to 0.04 mag.

The survey consists of two areas located in the ELAIS N1 and N2 regions. The central coordinates are ($`\alpha ,\delta `$) = 16h 09m 00s, 54°40′00″ and 16h 36m 00s, 41°06′00″ (J2000), respectively. The galactic latitudes for N1 and N2 are $`b`$ = 45.0° and 42.3°. During the first run we mostly took data around ISO-detections. Later we filled in the gaps, but coverage of the N1 field remains fairly non-uniform. The total areas observed are 0.70 degrees2 in $`J`$ and 0.97 degrees2 in $`K`$-band, less than half of the ELAIS N1 and N2 areas, which comprise $`>2`$ degrees2.

We used the SExtractor v2.0.18 package (Bertin & Arnouts 1996) for the source detection and photometry. At the deepest regions of our maps (see Table 1 for the areas) the noise background level corresponds to $`J=23.0`$ mag/arcsec2 and $`K=21.3`$ mag/arcsec2 in $`J`$ and $`K`$, respectively.

SExtractor computed object magnitudes in several ways: isophotal, various fixed apertures, and a composite referred to as “BEST-magnitudes.” The BEST-magnitude is usually the Kron-magnitude (see Bertin & Arnouts 1996; Kron 1980), which is photometry in an elliptical aperture with shape determined by the shape of the detected object and size chosen to include almost all the object’s flux.111The prescription for computing Kron-magnitudes is, first, the second order moments of the object profile are used to define a bivariate Gaussian profile with mean standard deviation $`\sigma _{\mathrm{ISO}}`$. An elliptical aperture whose elongation $`ϵ`$ and position angle are defined by these moments is scaled to 6$`\sigma _{\mathrm{ISO}}`$. Next, within this aperture the first moment is computed:
$$r_1=\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }rI(r)}{\mathrm{\Sigma }I(r)}.$$
Finally, the elliptical aperture used in actual photometry is defined by the axes $`ϵkr_1`$ and $`kr_1/ϵ`$. Additionally, the smallest accessible aperture size is set to $`3\sigma _{\mathrm{ISO}}`$ to avoid erroneously small apertures in the lowest $`S/N`$ regions. To arrive at a balance of systematic and random errors, a value $`k2`$ is usually used. We used $`k=3`$ which we found for our undersampled data to minimize the fraction of lost flux while still not increasing errors significantly. However, in very crowded regions the BEST-magnitude is the isophotal magnitude instead. In our data, this happens with fewer than 5% of detections. Based on our simulations using different detection parameters, corrections, tests on sub-fields, etc., the BEST-magnitude is the most robust. It does not need aperture corrections, and thus there is no need to account for differences in flux measurements due to object profiles and sizes. Corrections for the differing seeing conditions during many observing nights are also rendered unimportant. (There is an input parameter in SExtractor for a Gaussian convolution used for detection of objects, but it does not affect photometry. Simulations showed that the range of seeing observed had $`<5`$% effects on numbers of detections even at the faintest levels.)

Fig. 1 shows the results of one of our simulations. At each magnitude bin, $`10^4`$ objects were placed individually on the real data frames and extracted in exactly the same way as the final source catalog. The simulations shown here are all for galaxies, both disk and elliptical, because they best show the complications in photometric measuring techniques. The aperture magnitudes lose a significant amount of flux when measuring bright, extended galaxies. Even large 17″ apertures typically underestimate the brightness of $`K13`$ galaxies by nearly 0.2 mag. Small apertures, while being more robust at faint levels, need very large (and often uncertain due to e.g. seeing effects) corrections to total magnitudes at the bright levels. The pure isophotal magnitudes underestimate the flux at all magnitudes, especially near the detection limit. The faint point sources are also a problem with large apertures. While generally point sources behave much better with all magnitude scales (typically flux losses of $`0.1`$ mag), the corrections to total are very different for them, complicating the task of placing the whole survey on a consistent magnitude scale. The BEST-magnitudes, in contrast, remain very robust over the whole range of magnitudes and object types, and no corrections are needed.

Fig. 1 also shows that all the magnitude systems used in the simulations significantly overestimate the flux at the faintest level. This upturn happens at $`3050`$% completeness limit and thus does not affect our final catalog. (In the case shown, the catalog cutoff would have been the $`K=17.25`$ bin, although the deepest parts go down to bins at $`J=19.25`$, $`K=17.75`$.) On the other hand, all commonly used magnitude measuring systems suffer biases against low surface brightness objects (Dalcanton 1997), and ours is no exception.

We have compared the BEST-magnitude number counts against all the mentioned measuring techniques (along with appropriate corrections). All the differences remain at less than 10% down to the catalog limit ($`J=19.5`$, $`K=18.0`$). The final uncertainties are larger than this, so though the BEST magnitude is adopted for all subsequent discussion, the results would be about the same for aperture or isophotal magnitudes.

## 3. Number counts

### 3.1. Completeness corrections

The noise of our mosaics is non-uniform owing to using frames from three different runs, with different sky conditions, and to varying exposure times from dithering and overlapping frames. We thus counted the objects in different bins according to the depth of regions in the final images. (See Bershady et al. 1998 for a similar approach.)

Completeness corrections were calculated using Monte Carlo simulations. As mentioned in the previous section, simulated sources were randomly placed onto our real data frames and extracted in the same way as the final catalog of sources. This gave the completeness levels as a function of magnitude for the depth reached in each region of the survey. Fig. 2 shows an example of completeness levels in the deep regions of the $`J`$-images using point sources and galaxy profiles. The simulation results gave a matrix of input/output magnitudes. This matrix contains not only incompleteness at a given magnitude level but also the amount of ’bin-jumping’, i.e., sources being found at another flux level than their intrinsic magnitude. The original counts can be calculated by inverting the matrix using the observed counts. (See e.g. Moustakas et al. 1997, Minezaki et al. 1998.) We also have a powerful internal check for the completeness corrections: the corrected counts from the shallow regions of our map should be consistent with the observed counts from the deepest depth bins. As an example, Fig. 3 shows a case where the N2 $`J`$-band counts from the deepest area of the map are plotted with counts from a shallower region. The completeness-corrected shallow counts do indeed match the deeper data.

Completeness simulations were done with real data frames, so the corrections include the effect of confusion, overlapping of sources. Depending on object morphology, the completeness limit would have been overestimated by 0.25 – 0.4 magnitudes if source-free noise frames had been used in the simulations.

### 3.2. Star/galaxy separation

Separation of stars and galaxies was done in different ways for different magnitude ranges. For the brightest objects, stars and galaxies were easily separated by eye with the SExtractor CLASS parameter used as a check.

At magnitudes $`J>15.5`$, $`K>14.0`$, the spatial resolution of our infrared images is not good enough for morphological separation of stars from galaxies to be secure. Down to 1.5 magnitudes fainter than these limits, we used a combination of visible classifications and visible and infrared colors to classify each object as star or galaxy. Visible data came from the APS-catalog222The Automated Plate Scanner (APS) databases are supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the University of Minnesota and are available at http://aps.umn.edu/. (Pennington et al. 1993), which lists magnitudes derived from Palomar Observatory Sky Survey images. Two sets of color-color plots were used for both $`J`$ and $`K`$ sources to decrease uncertainties: $`BR`$ vs. $`BK`$ and $`RK`$ and $`BR`$ vs. $`BJ`$ and $`RJ`$. Fig. 5 shows the resulting $`BR`$ vs. $`RK`$ plot for sources brighter than $`K=15.5`$, which is slightly worse than the other color-color separation for the $`K`$-band. We show this to compare to equivalent plots by Saracco et al. (1997; their Fig. 3) and McCracken et al. (2000). Saracco et al. found this classifier to fail – stars and galaxies completely overlap each other. It seems as if their galaxies are missing $`K`$-band flux. The reason remains unclear, since they use exactly the same aperture for optical and NIR bands. Their aperture is quite small, though, only 5″. Our plot, in contrast, shows ’total’ magnitudes, which can be criticized by claiming that they introduce different samplings of source profiles in different bands. However, we find consistent results whether using either of the two sets of color-color plots, the APS-classification (which is morphological in nature), or our eye-balling/SExtractor classification. In any case, we are not trying to produce exact color-color tracks for stars and galaxies here, only to separate them, and for that purpose our magnitudes and those of the APS-catalog seem to be very well suited.333When available, using $`BI`$ vs. $`IK`$ (eg. Huang et al. 1997) will do an even better job in separating stars and galaxies.

In the faintest bin where the color method was used ($`J=16.75`$, $`K=15.25`$), the fraction of $`J`$ or $`K`$ sources that do not have APS-correspondents is $``$15%. The intrinsically reddest galaxies are the first to be missing from the APS-list, but with our data it is impossible to quantify exactly the proportions of non-matched stars and galaxies. As the correction is small, we simply divided the unidentified sources between stars and galaxies, taking 2/3 to be galaxies in this bin and half to be galaxies in brighter bins. Even if all the missing sources were classified as galaxies, the change in number counts would still be well within the uncertainties of the final galaxy counts.

Beyond $`J>17`$, $`K>15.5`$, the number of missing sources grows rapidly. Instead of attempting classification of individual objects, we subtracted a model (Cohen 1994) of the Galactic point source foreground from the total counts to give the galaxy counts. Fig. 4 shows the resulting $`J`$-band star counts in the N2 field. The scatter is small and is similar in the N1 field and in the $`K`$-band. The SKY model counts (Cohen 1994) used to derive galaxy counts for the faintest magnitudes ($`J>17`$, $`K>15.5`$) are also shown in Fig. 4. The model counts were computed specifically for our two fields but were scaled by a factor of 0.9 in order to better fit the star counts in the faintest bins where direct separation worked. The same model has previously been applied to galaxy counts by Minezaki et al. (1998) and by Hall et al. (1998). The latter authors found a precedent for one field (Q0736-063) with a chance under-density in foreground star counts compared with SKY. As is seen, the SKY model fits our star counts very well.

### 3.3. Count results and their uncertainties

Table 1 and Figures 6 and 7 show our final galaxy counts. The error bars are calculated from Poisson statistics (Gehrels 1986). In addition, an uncertainty derived from the different star/galaxy classifications and an assumed 10% uncertainty of the SKY model are included at bright and faint magnitudes, respectively. In the four faintest bins an estimated uncertainty of the completeness corrections is also included.

The uncertainty from galaxy-galaxy correlations is negligible. Calculating equation 5 of Huang et al. (1997) with our survey characteristics shows that at most (at the faintest magnitude), the contribution from galaxy-galaxy correlations starts to approach 50% of the Poisson uncertainties, which in turn are small compared to our completeness correction uncertainties at these magnitudes. As noted by Huang et al. (1997), uncertainties due to large scale structures such as rich clusters and voids are poorly known and hard to quantify. Indeed, these might well be a major reason for surprisingly varying results in galaxy counts (Section 4.1).

The effect of systematic magnitude errors ($`0.05`$ mag) on the final number counts can be estimated from equation 7 of Huang et al. (1997). The uncertainty remains below Poisson uncertainties in our counts until $`K=17`$ and after that well below completeness-related uncertainties. Photometric errors can change the counts only in the horizontal direction, but random errors can affect also the log N slope. As seen in Fig. 1, photometric uncertainties increase from 0.02 at $`K=12`$ to 0.5 mag at $`K=17.5`$. Using Huang’s equation 9 and a slope of 0.5 (Section 5) this translates to an error of $`0.01`$ in the slope, which is smaller than our derived 0.03 $`1\sigma `$ uncertainty in the slope fitting. In any case, this effect resulting from galaxies jumping from bin to bin (and preferentially to a brighter magnitude bin near the detection limit) is corrected for in our completeness correction method.

Even if all corrections and the uneven depth of our map were ignored, the derived counts would not change significantly until the faintest two or three bins. Treating the varying noise areas in detail and modeling the bin-jumping gives us confidence to present the corrected counts all the way to $`J`$=19.5 and $`K`$=18.

## 4. Comparison with other data

In $`K`$-band there have been numerous surveys for over a decade. Figure 8 shows a compilation of available $`K`$ surveys at magnitude ranges similar to ours. Our counts appear clearly and systematically higher than other surveys. The difference is approximately a factor of two at $`K<15`$. (At $`K<13`$ the statistical significance is small, but at $`13<K<15`$ the difference is $`>3\sigma `$.) There is a factor of $`1.4`$ difference at $`15<K<17`$; the most significant differences are with the Huang et al. (1997) and Gardner et al. (1996) surveys due to their large areas ($`10`$ degrees2). Non-uniform sky coverage is unlikely to explain the effect. N2 was covered very uniformly, while N1 was not, and $`K`$ more uniformly than $`J`$, yet we see similar counts in both regions and bands.

There are two classes of explanation for the systematic differences. The ELAIS fields may have galaxy populations that differ from those in other survey fields, or different surveys may have used different magnitude scales. The latter would imply a 0.2-0.3 mag difference in the fainter flux levels and 0.5 mag and more at $`K<15`$. The following sections discuss each possibility.

### 4.1. Galaxy Clusters and Local Overdensity

Known galaxy clusters have a modest effect on our number counts. The N2 region contains two galaxy clusters, Abell 2211 and 2213. Both are of richness 1, approximately 15′ in diameter, and lie at a redshift of $`z0.15`$. A ’typical’ cluster member is expected to have $`R18`$, $`J16`$, and $`K15`$. We estimated the effect of these clusters on the counts by excluding the areas around them (16′ diameter) and recalculating the galaxy counts in N2. Compared to the original counts, we find correction factors ranging from 0.77 to 0.97 between $`J`$=14.25 and 18.25, the largest correction being at $`J=15.25`$ as expected. In $`K`$, the corrections are somewhat smaller (the $`K`$ sky coverage being larger) averaging a factor of $`0.9`$ between $`K`$=13.75 to 16.75. The largest correction is 0.80 at $`K=14.75`$. The cluster-corrected counts are tabulated in Table 1 and shown in Figs. 6 and 7.

The N1 field has a cluster (Abell 2168) near the edge of the region. It lies at $`z0.06`$ and thus covers a larger area on the sky. Whether some of its members (expected brightnesses $`K<13`$) are part of our N1 field is impossible to determine with the available data. In any case the statistics are poor at $`J<15`$ and $`K<14`$, and we did not attempt corrections. The same holds for a nearby cluster (Abell 2197; $`z0.03`$) $`1^{}`$ west of N2. If there is contamination from this cluster, it would only be at $`J12`$, $`K11`$.

The effect of field selection on prior counts cannot be ignored either. Many surveys purposely avoid regions near clusters of galaxies. While this is understandable not to contaminate ‘field galaxy’ counts, it may bias the counts to voids and otherwise selectively underdense regions. Most significantly, the largest surveys to date, Gardner et al. (1996) and Huang et al. (1997; hereafter the Hawaii survey) both avoided clusters.

In order to try to quantify the effects of field selection, we extracted blue magnitudes of galaxies from the fields of selected $`K`$-surveys. Fig. 9 shows the blue (O plate) APS-galaxy counts in the fields of the Hawaii survey, Gardner et al. (1996), Szokoly et al. (1998), and Kümmel & Wagner (2000), along with APS-counts in the regions of the present survey. All these surveys have $`>0.6`$ degrees2 sky coverage. The APS counts are consistent with prior $`B`$-band counts in the fields of Gardner et al. (1996; using an approximate $`m_{pg}B=0.15`$ color taken from Humphreys et al. 1991).

In the range $`B`$=18–20, which roughly corresponds to $`K`$=14–16, the N2 region shows an excess by a factor of 1.1–1.3 compared to the other survey regions (including N1). This excess in N2 is explained by the clusters discussed above. The correction factors can be obtained from Table 1.

The fields of the Hawaii survey (Huang et al. 1997) show systematically lower blue counts compared to other survey regions by a factor of about 1.3. This survey contained numerous sub-fields (including the areas of Glazebrook et al. 1994 counts), of which we could examine 75%. (The SB area was not available in the APS-catalog.) There were large field-to-field variations, as pointed out by Huang et al. (1997). The lower amplitude of the Hawaii $`K`$-survey thus seems to be a result of a systematic underdensity at their survey regions, and we adopt a factor of 1.3 correction to the Hawaii $`K`$-counts. In fact, Huang et al. interpret their counts (mainly the slope) as pointing towards a large local void.

The blue counts of the other large survey region (Gardner et al. 1996) are at the same level as in our (corrected) fields. The authors have excluded a region around an unspecified cluster, and thus the extracted APS-counts from these fields are possibly slightly higher than the corresponding optical survey of Gardner et al. (1996). There is a difference between their two fields, NGP and NEP; the NEP-field showed higher counts than the NGP field, even though the cluster mentioned above is in the NGP field (Baugh et al. 1996). Thus the known cluster cannot explain the difference between fields.

The other two surveys (Kümmel & Wagner 2000, Szokoly et al. 1998), though smaller, show blue counts consistent with those in our regions and those of Gardner et al. (1996).

All the above evidence shows that it is practically impossible to define a pure ‘field galaxy’ population when sky coverage is of the order of a square degree. There always are clusters, bright or faint, rich or poor, in or just outside the field. One can avoid the bright clusters, but never all the fainter ones, so one necessarily expects a somewhat biased sample. A search using NED444The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. at the regions of the relatively uniform $`K`$-surveys in the literature produced rich Abell clusters within $`1^{}`$ of nearly every field center. More distant ($`z0.5`$) rich clusters are expected to be numerous inside a 1 sq.degree field (see eg. Lidman & Peterson 1996). For example, the SC field of Glazebrook et al. (1994) and Huang et al. (1997) has a rich Abell cluster just outside the field, but more than 10 fainter galaxy clusters closer to the field center (NED, Lidman & Peterson 1996). The best one can do is to estimate the magnitude of the effect of either having clusters in field, or the effect of avoiding them. Some surveys (Saracco et al. 1997, Ferreras et al. 1999) consist of tens of small, random sub-fields. In cases like these, it is easier to quantify the field-to-field variations and, in fact, Saracco et al. (1997) find their systematically low counts to be consistent with field-to-field count fluctuations. On the other hand, it is harder to accurately estimate the effective covered area due to large fraction of edges in the images.

In summary, there is a small ($`10`$%) overdensity due to rich galaxy clusters in our N2 field. There is likewise a systematic underdensity of galaxies in some of the Hawaii fields. Additionally, there are nearby clusters outside both of our fields, which might affect the brightest ($`J<14`$, $`K<13`$) counts.

### 4.2. Aperture corrections

As mentioned above, the difference between our counts and the others could also be that magnitude scales are not directly comparable resulting in discrepancies in the horizontal scale of the $`\mathrm{log}`$ N - mag plot. We discuss this in the spirit that all magnitudes should be total, since ultimately we wish to compare data with models of galaxy populations which implicitly assume total luminosities for the galaxies. For the reverse train of thought we refer the reader to an enlightening work by Yoshii (1993), which models the photometric selection effects to enable comparison of galaxy models with raw counts acquired with a given magnitude measuring method.

The Glazebrook et al. (1994) counts have been measured for the most part with 4″ apertures. Such an aperture is very small for galaxies in $`13<K<16`$ range and results in large corrections. The authors present a correction to physical, redshift dependent, $`20h^1`$ kpc apertures (Glazebrook et al. 1995); the corrections range from $`1.0`$ mag to $`0.1`$ mag at $`z=1.0`$, typically being $`0.3`$ to $`0.5`$ mag around $`K=15`$. Based on our simulations, we brightened their counts by an additional $`0.4`$ mag at $`K`$=14–16, and by $`0.5`$ and $`0.3`$ at bins brighter and fainter than this range, respectively. Though the Glazebrook et al. counts still remain somewhat lower than ours, the correction brings them within $`2\sigma `$. Fig. 10 plots these and other counts discussed below in their ‘corrected’ form.

The Teplitz et al. (1999) counts are based on very small aperture magnitudes ($`2`$″), and we expect corrections of at least $`0.5`$ mag at $`K`$=14 decreasing to $`0.2`$ mag at $`K>16.5`$. These corrections make their counts somewhat brighter (or higher) than our counts, though still consistent. The data of Gardner et al. (1993), Ferreras et al. (1999), and the $`K>16.5`$ bins of Kümmel & Wagner (2000) are also fixed aperture magnitudes. The apertures range from 6″to 8″. Based on our simulations (see eg. Fig. 1) even the 10″ aperture underestimates the total flux of galaxies by $`0.40.2`$ mag between $`K=1417`$. We corrected the Gardner et al. (1993) data by $`0.4`$, $`0.3`$, $`0.2`$, and $`0.1`$ mag at bins $`K<14.5`$, $`14.5<K<16`$, $`16<K<17.5`$, and $`K>17.5`$. The Ferreras et al. (1999) bins at $`K=14.5`$, $`K`$=15–17, and $`K=17.5`$ were corrected by $`0.4`$, $`0.3`$, and $`0.2`$ mags, respectively. Finally, the $`K>16.5`$ data of Kümmel & Wagner (2000) were corrected by $`0.2`$ mag.

Gardner et al. (1996) used 10″ apertures, but the results were corrected to ’total’ magnitudes using $`I`$-band growth curves. However, the corrections and the equivalent aperture for the total magnitude are not available.

Saracco et al. (1997) and Minezaki et al. (1998), as well as Kümmel & Wagner (2000) in the brighter part of their magnitude range, use FOCAS ’total magnitudes’ (Jarvis & Tyson 1981). All these authors note that the FOCAS magnitudes tend to underestimate faint source fluxes (see also Thompson et al. 1999). The latter two groups thus apply additional corrections: $`0.06`$ to $`0.25`$ mag at $`17.5<K<19`$ (Saracco et al. 1997) and $`0.1`$ mag (Minezaki et al. 1998). The Saracco et al. (1997) counts lie below the bulk of other data, and the other two are also fainter than our data by $`0.3`$ mag. We have not explored FOCAS photometry and thus cannot quantify the exact differences involved here; simple isophotal photometry, which the FOCAS total magnitudes are based on, clearly underestimate the flux, as noted before (see Fig. 1 and also Saracco et al. 1999).

Huang et al. (1997) measure their magnitudes in 8″ apertures, but correct them to 20″ using curves of growth. The corrections for galaxies are fairly large, ranging from $`0.55`$ to $`0.2`$ mag, consistent with the results of our simulations. At $`K<13`$, Huang et al. use isophotal magnitudes for galaxies, which underestimate the total flux by 0.05 mag according to our simulations. Comparing the 20″ fixed apertures to our BEST-magnitude, we still find evidence of small 0.05–0.1 mag difference at $`14<K<17`$, part of which can also be due to a small overestimation of flux with BEST-magnitudes (Fig. 1). The cluster-corrected Hawaii counts are consistent with ours. (See Section 4.1; without the factor of 1.3 correction due to underdensity, their counts would lie below ours with $`3\sigma `$ significance).

The counts of Szokoly et al. (1998) are the only ones which use exactly the same magnitude scale as we do. Their counts also lie below ours with a difference of $`0.3`$ mag at $`K>15`$ (or a factor of about 1.3 in number), though they are not more than $`1.5\sigma `$ away from our counts.

Of the presently available counts the most consistent with ours without corrections over the whole measured magnitude range are those of Jenkins & Reid (1991). Considering the observational technique, these counts are quite different in nature from the other counts. They are a result of statistical evaluation of the $`K`$-band background fluctuations in random patches of sky. The method has been widely used in radio and x-ray source counts (e.g. Condon 1974, Scheuer 1974) and should in principle be free of all the uncertainties arising from incompleteness in detecting and measuring fluxes of individual sources. Moreover, Jenkins & Reid (1991) do not purposely avoid clusters of galaxies, while many of the other surveys do just that.

Fig. 10 compiles those counts which had directly comparable magnitude systems or for which we have adequate information to make a magnitude correction. Only those surveys using small apertures (Gardner et al. 1993, Glazebrook et al. 1994, Ferreras et al. 1999, Teplitz et al. 1999, and Kümmel & Wagner 2000 at $`K>16.5`$) were corrected. Jenkins & Reid (1991), the Hawaii counts, and Szokoly et al. (1998) do not need photometric corrections compared to our counts. Most of the other surveys used FOCAS ‘total’ magnitudes and we lack data to make a quantitative correction to the Kron-type magnitudes. Though not plotted here for consistency, Saracco et al. (1997) and Minezaki et al. (1998) made corrections using their own simulations. Also Gardner et al. (1996) applied unspecified corrections to their aperture magnitudes. After correction, all of the counts are consistent for $`K>15`$.

There is much less data to compare with in the $`J`$-band (Fig. 11). The bright galaxy overdensity in both N1 and N2 is clearly seen also in $`J`$-band compared to DENIS counts. At fainter $`J`$-magnitudes, our counts are in unison with the published Teplitz et al. (1999) counts and also connect very well with the deeper counts of Bershady et al. (1998). The most recent $`J`$-counts (Saracco et al. 1999) are consistent within the uncertainties, though they are clearly lower than e.g. the Teplitz et al. (1999) counts beyond our magnitude range. The counts of Teplitz et al. (1999) were measured with small ($`2\mathrm{}`$) apertures, and after magnitude correction we would expect them to be somewhat brighter than our data, as the corresponding $`K`$-data.

The Saracco et al. (1999) survey was measured with a 2.5″ aperture. Though the magnitude range is deeper than ours and small apertures are thus justified, the size of aperture still might result in some flux-loss even with the fixed $`0.25`$ mag aperture correction applied. Moreover, the field was centered on the NTT deep field, which possibly is biased against ’bright’ ($`J19`$ mag here) objects.

Bershady et al. (1998) also determined magnitudes using small $``$ 2″ apertures, but the measurements were dynamically corrected to total magnitudes using the size of the object, in much the same manner as the Kron magnitudes we used. Our counts thus lie in the middle of the available $`J>16`$ data.

In summary, the differences among different sets of $`K`$-counts at $`K>15`$ mag are partially due to differences in magnitude scales. After appropriate aperture and clustering corrections, our $`J>16`$, $`K>15`$ galaxy counts agree with those in the literature. Our bright ($`K<15`$, $`J<16`$) counts are still higher than most other data by a factor of up to 2. This is probably due to a real overdensity of bright field galaxies in our survey regions as compared to other regions. There are nearby clusters outside our fields, but it is hard to see how they could increase the counts by as much as a factor of two.

## 5. Comparison with models

Models incorporating cosmology and galaxy evolution should be able to explain both the number counts themselves and the slope of the number counts with magnitude. Though a rigorous modeling of galaxy evolution and galaxy populations requires knowledge of redshift distributions, it is nonetheless informative to calculate how predictions from standard parameterizations of the local luminosity function (LF) fit our final NIR counts.

In a non-evolving model, the slope and amplitude of the counts are dependant on the LF and the K-correction. The latter depends on galaxy type mixes and SEDs of galaxies, but these differences are small in the NIR. For a given LF, different cosmologies have negligible effect on the counts in the bright range we consider. Thus the only significant parameters are the local luminosity function and luminosity evolution, which steepens the slope, $`d\mathrm{log}N/dm`$, at our magnitude range.

To be sure we are not affected by the bright galaxy excess in our fields, we examine ranges $`J`$=16.5–19.5 and $`K`$=15.5–18.0. All slopes, unless otherwise stated, will refer to these magnitude ranges. Our $`J`$ counts show well determined slopes of 0.40$`\pm `$0.01 and 0.38$`\pm `$0.02 in N1 and N2, respectively (errors are $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties of the fitted gradient). In the $`K`$-band we measure slopes of 0.41$`\pm `$0.02 and 0.45$`\pm `$0.03. The cluster correction in N2 steepened the slope slightly: without the correction, the $`K`$-slope would have been 0.43$`\pm `$0.02. Other recent counts, eg. Szokoly et al. (1998), Minezaki et al. (1998), and Kümmel & Wagner (2000), give similar values for the slopes in $`K`$. These are significantly shallower than the steep 0.65–0.70 slopes at $`K<16`$ found in the Hawaii survey and by Gardner et al. (1996), even after taking into account the magnitude range difference. To explain the steep slope of the Hawaii survey, Huang et al. (1997) invoked a significant under-density of galaxies in the local universe at very large scales of over $`300h^1`$ Mpc. Our data do not show evidence for this local hole scenario.

To model the counts, we first adopt the largest to-date NIR LF determination, Gardner et al. (1997; hereafter Gardner LF), as the baseline model ($`M_K^{}=24.6`$ mag, $`\alpha =0.9,\phi =2.1\times 10^3`$ Mpc-3, with $`H_0=50`$ km/s/Mpc). We also make use of Gardner’s (1998) galaxy number counts software and use a basic parameter set found in the same paper, which includes six types of passively evolving galaxies with a galaxy mix from Gardner et al. (1997). The Gardner LF with pure luminosity evolution results in a slope of $``$0.46 in $`J`$-band and $``$0.48 in $`K`$-band. No-evolution models give shallower slopes of $``$0.41 and $``$0.44, respectively. For reference, this same non-evolving model gives a slope of 0.60 at $`K`$=10–15, and 0.53 at $`K`$=13–18.

The non-evolving Gardner LF model best fits both our $`J`$ and $`K`$ slopes, though the evolving slopes are within the $`3\sigma `$ confidence limits. To see how model dependent the slopes are, we calculated the relevant slopes for other observed LF’s. Mobasher et al. (1993), Cowie et al. (1996), Szokoly et al. (1998), and Loveday (2000) LF’s result in similar slopes as the Gardner LF, while the Glazebrook et al. (1995) LF gives slightly steeper slopes: 0.52 for the evolving model in $`K`$. Clearly, LF’s resulting in steeper slopes than this would be ruled out by more than $`3\sigma `$ level by our counts.

Examining both the slope and the amplitude of the counts (see Figs. 11 and 12), the baseline model underpredicts our $`J`$ and the $`K`$ counts by more than $`3\sigma `$ at $`13<K<17`$. This is easily understood, however, since the Gardner LF determination acquired the number density $`\phi `$ by fitting the counts of Gardner et al. (1996) and Huang et al. (1997). These counts were seen (Sections 4.1 and 4.2) to be lower than ours. A factor of 1.5 higher value for the normalization $`\phi `$ in the Gardner LF Schecter parameterization would give an excellent fit to our NIR counts.

In fact, the two most recent $`K`$-band LF determinations (Szokoly et al. 1998, Loveday 2000) give direct observational support for LF’s resulting in a higher amplitude of number counts. (Both determined $`\phi `$ by maximizing the likelihood of their Schecter parameters from their galaxy sample rather than fitting any given number count.) While the exact value of number density $`\phi `$ remains poorly constrained by all present surveys, the best-fit values of both Szokoly et al. (1998) and Loveday (2000) produce excellent fits to our counts and have the same factor of 1.5 higher amplitude at $`K<17`$ compared to the baseline model. Fig. 11 and 12 show predicted counts calculated from the Szokoly et al. (1998) LF ($`M_K^{}=25.1`$ mag, $`\alpha =1.3`$, and $`\phi =1.5\times 10^3`$ Mpc-3). This LF includes significantly more faint galaxies than the baseline model but also more $`>L^{}`$ galaxies. The predicted counts from this LF, as well as that of Loveday (2000), are consistent with the fainter counts in both NIR bands when evolution is included.

By giving more freedom to LF parameters, it is possible to construct a realistic counts model which produces the shallow slope ($`0.4`$) of our NIR counts even with evolution included, along with the correct amplitude, and a fit to the faintest counts. Bershady et al. (1998) show counts from their observationally based “$`1/V_{max}`$” simulations. We fitted a model to their $`q_0=0`$ curve ($`M_K^{}=26.1`$, $`\alpha =1.3`$, and $`\phi =5.0\times 10^4`$ Mpc-3 gave a good fit) and added luminosity evolution. This LF has greater numbers of luminous galaxies than previously discussed LF’s and also has more faint galaxies than the baseline model (though not as many as the Szokoly et al. 1998 LF). While the fit to our own counts is convincing, the LF seems to overpredict the preliminary DENIS counts.

As noted before, redshift distributions are essential in constraining the models more accurately, e.g. to separate particular evolutionary models and different LF’s producing similar number counts. There has been substantial progress in defining IR-selected $`N(z)`$-samples (e.g. Cowie et al. 1996). The ELAIS regions are currently being followed-up with redshift-surveys, as well as multi-color imaging surveys; there will thus be much improvement in the breadth of useful data in the near future. We are in the process of getting our $`J`$-coverage on par with the $`K`$ survey, and will also defer the discussion of $`JK`$ color distributions to a follow-up work.

In summary, non-evolving or passively evolving galaxy models best fit our NIR galaxy number count data. Models with stronger evolution or large local voids (which both result in steeper slopes) are ruled out by more than $`3\sigma `$ confidence. The data favor local luminosity functions with relatively large populations of faint galaxies and those that produce a high normalization of mid-range NIR counts.

## 6. Summary

Our $`J`$ and $`K`$-band galaxy counts in two ELAIS fields (N1,N2) represent the largest areas to date in the ranges $`15<J<19.5`$ and $`16<K<18`$. The $`J`$-band counts are the first wide field galaxy counts at this magnitude range. For $`J>16`$, $`K>15`$, the data are consistent with existing surveys provided significant magnitude scale corrections and large-scale structure effects are taken into account. In particular, the N2 region has a 10% overdensity of galaxies due to rich clusters. The fields of the large Hawaii survey (Huang et al. 1997) seem to have a systematic underdensity of about a factor of 1.3, which explains their counts without the need for a local void.

At $`J<16`$ and $`K<15`$, the counts in the ELAIS fields are higher than previous results by up to a factor of two. This is probably due to a real overdensity of field galaxies in the regions, although nearby large galaxy clusters outside the fields may affect the very brightest magnitude bins. This overdensity needs to be taken into account when interpreting results of surveys in other wavelengths in these regions.

Our galaxy counts favor a high normalization of the local LF. The slope of the counts, $`d\mathrm{log}N/dm0.400.45`$, together with the amplitude of the counts at $`K`$=15–18 and $`J`$=16–19 are best fit by minimally evolving galaxy models and luminosity functions having relatively large numbers of faint galaxies.

We thank Gary Mamon for providing DENIS counts and Matthew Bershady for providing his $`J`$-counts and models. We also wish to thank the referee and Kalevi Mattila for constructive criticism and useful suggestions. PV acknowledges support from the Smithsonian Institution, the Academy of Finland, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.


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# Incorporating Chiral Symmetry in Extrapolations of Octet Baryon Magnetic Moments

## I Introduction

One of the key goals of lattice QCD is to confront experimental data with the predictions of QCD. However, computational limitations mean that hadronic observables, such as masses and magnetic moments, are calculated at quark masses much larger than their physical values. Although improvements in algorithms and computer speed will allow lattice calculations of hadronic observables to be performed much closer to the physical regime, these improvements will proceed over many years. In the meantime it is imperative that one has an understanding of how to extrapolate lattice results, obtained at large quark masses, to the physical world.

A difficult problem encountered in calculating hadronic observables at heavy quark masses on the lattice is that chiral perturbation theory is not applicable in this heavy quark mass regime. However, chiral perturbation theory predicts that near the chiral limit there are important non-analytic terms as a function of the quark mass, $`m_q`$ (or equivalently of $`m_\pi ^2`$, as $`m_qm_\pi ^2`$ in this range), in the expansion of a physical observable. This non-analytic behaviour must be taken into account in any extrapolation to the physical regime.

Here we focus on linking lattice calculations of magnetic moments of the spin-$`1/2`$ baryon octet to the physical world. In particular, we follow an extrapolation procedure first introduced for the nucleon magnetic moments which builds in the non-analytic behaviour of the magnetic moments near the chiral limit, as well as the correct heavy quark behaviour . In the case of the nucleon, this extrapolation procedure predicts $`\mu _p=2.85(22)\mu _N`$ and $`\mu _n=1.90(15)\mu _N`$ (see Fig. 5 of Ref.). This agrees well with the experimental measurements of $`\mu _p=2.793\mu _N`$ and $`\mu _n=1.913\mu _N`$. Here we explore the application of this procedure to octet baryons in general.

The magnetic moment results used here are extracted from the lattice QCD calculations of Ref. . While the results are now quite old, they continue to be the only lattice estimates of the spin-$`1/2`$ baryon octet magnetic moments available at the moment. These results were all obtained at pion masses above $`600`$MeV. We extrapolate these results as functions of the pion mass, $`m_\pi `$, to the physical pion mass of $`140`$MeV, to obtain the physical magnetic moment predictions. Because the lattice calculations are quenched, we expect that there are errors in the lattice data which we have been unable to take into account. However, as explained in Ref. , these errors are expected to be on the scale of the statistical errors. Nevertheless, an ideal extrapolation of magnetic moments would use full QCD lattice results which are unavailable at the moment.

## II Extrapolations

To extrapolate the lattice calculations of the magnetic moments we use the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant:

$$\mu _i(m_\pi )=\frac{\mu _0}{1\frac{\chi _i}{\mu _0}m_\pi +cm_{\pi }^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}$$
(1)
where $`\chi _i`$, corresponding to the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ baryon, is fixed model-independently by chiral perturbation theory and $`\mu _0`$ and $`c`$ are allowed to vary to best fit the data . This formula builds in the chiral behaviour at small $`m_\pi `$, governed by $`\chi _i`$, as well as the correct heavy quark behaviour, as discussed in the following.

The Goldstone boson loops resulting from dynamical chiral symmetry breaking mean that the baryon magnetic moments exhibit certain model independent, non-analytic behaviour in the quark masses. Using an expansion about the chiral SU(3) limit, one finds that the magnetic moments of the octet baryons (in nuclear magnetons, $`\mu _N`$) are given by

$$\mu _i=\gamma _i+\underset{X=\pi ,K}{}\beta _i^{(X)}\frac{m_N}{8\pi f^2}m_X+\mathrm{}$$
(2)
where the ellipses represent higher order terms, including logarithms . Here $`f`$ is the pion decay constant in the chiral limit ($`93`$ MeV) and $`m_N`$ is the nucleon mass. For our purposes, namely extrapolating lattice data at fixed strange quark mass ($`m_s`$) as a function of the light quark mass ($`m_q`$), it is preferable to expand about the SU(2) chiral limit. The cloudy bag calculations in Ref. showed that Goldstone boson loops are suppressed like $`m_X^4`$ at large $`m_X`$ (comparable to $`m_K`$). Although this result is model dependent, the lattice simulations themselves do not show a rapid variation with $`m_X`$ at values of order $`m_K`$ or higher, thus supporting the general conclusion. One therefore expects that the kaon loops should be relatively small and slowly varying as a function of $`m_q`$ §§§Recall that $`m_K^2m_s+m_q`$ and $`m_s`$ is fixed and large.. They can therefore be absorbed in the fit parameters $`\mu _0`$ and $`c`$. On the other hand, the rapid variation of $`m_\pi `$ with $`m_q`$ means that the leading non-analytic behaviour in $`m_\pi `$ must be treated explicitly.

It is simple to see that the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant, Eq. (1), guarantees the correct behaviour of the magnetic moments in the chiral SU(2) limit. Expanding Eq. (1) about $`m_\pi =0`$ we find

$$\mu _i=\mu _0+\chi _im_\pi +\left(\frac{\chi _i^2}{\mu _0}\mu _0c\right)m_\pi ^2+\mathrm{}$$
(3)
In order to reproduce the leading non-analytic behaviour of the chiral expansion in our fit we fix $`\chi _i`$ to the value $`\beta _i^{(\pi )}\left(m_N/8\pi f^2\right)`$ for the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ octet baryon. The one-loop corrected estimates  of the coefficients $`\beta _i^{(\pi )}`$ and $`\chi _i`$ are given in Table I.

The Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant, Eq. (1), also builds in the expected behaviour at large $`m_\pi `$. At heavy quark masses we expect that the magnetic moment should fall off as the Dirac moment

$$\mu =\frac{e_q}{2m_q}\frac{1}{m_\pi ^2}$$
(4)
as $`m_\pi `$ becomes moderately large. This is clearly the case in the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant. Therefore, the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant has been chosen to reproduce physical phenomena at the small and large $`m_\pi `$ scales. It also succinctly describes the excellent phenomenology of the Cloudy Bag Model . The Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant has already been used successfully in the extrapolation of lattice results of magnetic moments of the nucleon, which we include here for completeness .

## III Results

In the following graphs, Figs. 1–4, lattice calculations of the baryon magnetic moments are fitted as a function of $`m_\pi `$, according to the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant given in Eq. (1), with coefficients, $`\chi _i`$, from Table I. In each case the solid lines are Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant fits to the magnetic moment lattice results. Experimental measurements are indicated at the physical pion mass by an asterisk ($``$). The magnetic moment predictions of the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant are compared with experimental values in Table II. The fit parameters, $`\mu _0`$ and $`c`$, for the solid lines are also indicated.

In the case of the nucleon, the fits given here (Figs. 1 and 2) are slightly different from those given in Ref. , as we omit the second set of lattice results (these were extracted from Ref.  which dealt with the nucleon only) in order to produce a consistent set of graphs for the entire baryon octet. However, the nucleon fits shown here still give excellent agreement with experimental data. The physical magnetic moment predictions for the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ are also in good agreement with experiment.

Using magnetic moment values predicted by the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant we can calculate the ratio of the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ magnetic moments. The simple quark model predicts that this ratio is given by

$$\frac{\mu _\mathrm{\Xi }^{}}{\mu _\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\frac{1}{3}\left(4\frac{\mu _d}{\mu _s}\right)$$
(5)
which becomes

$$\frac{\mu _\mathrm{\Xi }^{}}{\mu _\mathrm{\Lambda }}=\frac{1}{3}\left(4\frac{m_s}{m_d}\right)$$
(6)
if we take each quark magnetic moment to be given by the Dirac moment of its constituent mass. In this case the ratio is less than 1 for $`m_s>m_d`$. This disagrees with the experimentally measured value of $`1.13(7)`$. However, using the predictions of the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant, we obtain a value of 1.15 for this ratio, which is in excellent agreement with the experimental data. This is a good indication that meson cloud effects must be included in an extrapolation of lattice results to the physical regime.

The lattice calculations of baryon magnetic moments used in this letter were made with a strange quark mass of approximately $`250`$ MeV . This is much heavier than the physical mass of the strange quark of $`115\pm 8`$ MeV at a scale 2 GeV, taken from a careful analysis of QCD sum rules for $`\tau `$ decay . The contribution of the strange quark to the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ baryon magnetic moments is very small. Lattice QCD calculations indicate that the contribution of a singly represented quark in a baryon is half that anticipated by SU(6) spin-flavour symmetry . Hence the heavy strange quark mass will have a subtle effect on the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ moments. By contrast, the strange quarks dominate the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ magnetic moments. Thus the heavy strange quark produces a large error in the lattice data for these baryons, which so far we have not taken into account. This is reflected in the predictions of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ magnetic moments which are smaller in magnitude than the experimental measurements in all cases.

In an attempt to correct for the effect of the large strange quark mass considered in the lattice calculations, we average the magnetic moment lattice results of each $`S0`$ baryon with magnetic moment results of a light-quark equivalent baryon Lattice calculations of a light-quark equivalent $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are not available.. This procedure interpolates between magnetic moment lattice results produced with heavy strange quarks and those produced with zero strange quark mass. These averaged results have an effective strange quark mass closer to the physical strange quark mass. We have also used the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant to extrapolate the averaged results. The effect on the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ moments is subtle (see Table II). However, in the case of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, this method is sufficient to reproduce the empirical $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$ moment (as shown by the dashed line in Fig. 4). There is a remaining discrepancy in the value predicted for the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0`$. Clearly the present estimate of the correction for the heavy strange quark mass is somewhat crude. We therefore regard it as very important to have new simulation data with a realistic strange quark mass. At that stage it may also be necessary to include kaon loop effects, because the transition $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0\mathrm{\Sigma }^++K^{}`$ is energetically favoured, and will make a negative contribution to the $`\mathrm{\Xi }^0`$ magnetic moment.

## IV Conclusion

We have shown that the Pad$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ approximant which was introduced to extrapolate lattice results for the magnetic moments of the nucleon, is also successful in predicting magnetic moments for the spin-$`1/2`$ baryon octet. The magnetic moment values predicted by the fits for the $`p`$, $`n`$, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$ compare well with experimental data. As a first estimate of the correction to be expected if a more realistic strange quark mass were used, we averaged lattice results for the $`S0`$ baryons with the magnetic moments of the corresponding light-quark baryons. This had a small effect on the predictions for the $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ baryon magnetic moments, but significantly improved the $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ baryon results. In the case of $`\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, the averaging procedure produced good agreement with the experimental results. In the future we hope to perform a similar extrapolation procedure using more precise magnetic moment lattice data, calculated with realistic strange quark masses. At that stage it may also be necessary to include the kaon loop corrections, especially for the doubly strange $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ hyperons.

## Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council and the University of Adelaide.


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# 1 𝜎²/𝑁 as a function of 𝑑: numerical data with 𝑆=2, 𝐷=64 and 𝑇=10 (∘) and analytic solution [4] (full line). Finite size effects occur close to the phase transition 𝑑≈𝑑_𝑐. Inset: relaxation of 𝜎²/𝑁 for 𝑑=0.1, 𝐷𝑇=10⁵ and 𝐷=25 (∙) 𝐷=50 (□) and 𝐷=100 (⋄). Data collapse implies that characteristic times are proportional to 𝐷 and 𝑇.

Comment on: Thermal model for Adaptive Competition in a Market: Cavagna et al.  introduced an interesting model – called TMG as in  – similar to the minority game  (MG), of $`N`$ agents interacting in a market. Strategies of agents are represented by $`D`$ dimensional vectors $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^a`$ with $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$ running through agents and $`a=1,\mathrm{},s`$ through $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ agent’s available choices. The strategy $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^{}`$ used by $`i`$ is selected drawing $`a=`$ from a Boltzmann distribution given by Eq. (4) of ref.  – or (4)- for short – with “temperature” $`T`$ and energies $`P(\stackrel{}{R}_i^a)`$ (see Eq. (3)-). Cavagna et al.  report numerical data showing an interesting collective behavior as a function of $`T`$ (figs. 2- and 3-) and arrive at Eqs. (5,6)- which are claimed to be the “exact dynamical equations for” the TMG. We show here that i) Eqs. (5,6)- are incorrect ii) the correct continuum time dynamics is the same as that of the MG . As a consequence the analytic solution of the MG of ref.  holds also for the TMG. Finally iii) the features found in  for $`T1`$ (figs. 2,3-) are due to small simulation times and disappears if the system is in a steady state.

Cavagna et al. fail to define properly the continuum time limit (CTL) prescription, which is essential for stochastic differential equations such as Eq. (5)-. It is crucial, in a proper derivation of the CTL, to observe that characteristic times in the TMG are proportional to $`D`$, as shown numerically in Fig. 1. This is natural because the adaptation of each agent’s strategy requires an optimization of all its $`D`$ components. This need sampling $`D`$ values of $`\stackrel{}{\eta }`$, i.e. a time of order $`D`$. In order to eliminate the dependence of times on system size $`N=D/d`$, one has to rescale time by a factor $`D`$. The dynamics in the rescaled time $`\tau =t/D`$ is obtained iterating Eq. (3)- from $`t=D\tau `$ to $`D\tau ^{}`$

$$\frac{P(\stackrel{}{R},\tau ^{})P(\stackrel{}{R},\tau )}{\tau ^{}\tau }=\frac{d}{D(\tau ^{}\tau )}\underset{t=D\tau }{\overset{D\tau ^{}1}{}}A(t)\stackrel{}{R}\stackrel{}{\eta }(t).$$
(1)
The law of large numbers implies that, when $`D=dN\mathrm{}`$, the r.h.s. converges to $`dA\stackrel{}{R}\stackrel{}{\eta }`$ where the average $`\mathrm{}`$ is both on the distribution $`\pi _i^a`$ of $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^{}`$ and on that of $`\stackrel{}{\eta }`$. If we then let $`\tau ^{}\tau `$ the l.h.s. converges to the derivative $`\dot{P}`$ of $`P`$ w.r.t. $`\tau `$. Hence, using Eq. (2)- for $`A(t)`$ and $`\eta _\alpha \eta _\beta =\delta _{\alpha ,\beta }/D`$, Eq. (1) becomes $`\dot{P}=\frac{1}{N}_i\stackrel{}{R}_i^{}\stackrel{}{R}`$ with $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^{}=_a\pi _i^a\stackrel{}{R}_i^a`$. The combination of Eq. (1) and Eq. (4)- yields a dynamic equation for $`\pi _i^a`$, which reads

$$\dot{\pi }_i^a=\frac{1}{NT}\pi _i^a\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\stackrel{}{R}_j^{}\left(\stackrel{}{R}_i^a\stackrel{}{R}_i^{}\right).$$
(2)
Eq. (2) coincides with the continuum time equation of ref.  which leads to the exact solution of the MG for $`N\mathrm{}`$. This depends only on the first two moments of the distribution of the components of $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^a`$, which plays the role of quenched disorder. Since, in the TMG, $`\stackrel{}{R}_i^a=0`$ and $`(\stackrel{}{R}_i^a)^2=D`$, these are the same as in the MG. Hence the two models have exactly the same collective behavior, as confirmed by Fig. 1.

Eq. (2) suggests that the dependence on $`T`$ disappears by time rescaling. This is true in the $`dd_c`$ phase: The $`T`$ dependence for $`T1`$ reported in Figs 2,3- is an artifact due to short simulation times (see also ref. ). For $`d<d_c`$ the CTL only holds for $`T`$ larger than a cross-over $`T_c(d)`$, as discussed elsewhere . Indeed for $`d=0.1<d_c`$ and $`T`$ large enough, data nicely collapses onto a single curve (see inset) once plotted against $`\tau /T`$. For $`T<T_c(d)`$ the solution of Eq. (2) becomes dynamically unstable and the system enters into a turbulent regime where the CTL breaks down .

D. Challet(1), M. Marsili(2), and R. Zecchina(3)
(1) Institut de Physique Théorique, Université de Fribourg, Pérolles, Fribourg, CH-1700, Switzerland.
(2) Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, SISSA unit, V. Beirut 4, I-34014 Trieste.
(3) Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera, 11, I-34100, Trieste.


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# Bubbles from Dark Energy ?

## 1 Introduction

Recent observations by the Supernovae Cosmology Project (SCP) and the High-Z Supernovae Search Team have revealed that there is an energy component in the universe which is dark and has negative pressure. This is confirmed if one combines observations of the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and clusters. The simplest way to achieve accelerated expansion of the universe is by introducing an ad hoc cosmological constant. The findings of the SCP are that the probability for a non-vanishing cosmological constant is 99%. If one assumes a flat universe, which seems to be confirmed by recent CMB observations, the universe consists of 30% matter and 70% cosmological constant or dark energy component. A more general way to obtain accelerated expansion of the universe is by introducing a scalar field $`\varphi `$ which either slowly rolls down a potential or is trapped in a local minimum. In this way the universe eventually becomes vacuum dominated and therefore the expansion accelerates. During recent years dark energy or quintessence models have been proposed, with some of these models needing tuning of the initial conditions to fulfill the observational constraints, but the majority requiring only a tuning of the parameters of the model. The novel feature of the model by Albrecht and Skordis is that the parameters involved are roughly of order one in Planck units ($`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}2.44\times 10^{18}\mathrm{GeV}`$) and only moderate tuning is required to be within the observational constraints. Throughout this paper we use natural units ($`\mathrm{}=c=1`$) and set the Planck mass $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}=\left(\mathrm{}c^5/8\pi G\right)^{1/2}=1`$.

## 2 The dark energy potential and tunneling

The dark energy field in the Albrecht and Skordis model rolls down an exponential potential which is modified by a polynomial prefactor,

$$V(\varphi )=V_p(\varphi )\mathrm{e}^{\lambda \varphi },V_p(\varphi )=\left(\varphi \beta \right)^\alpha +\delta .$$
(1)
This prefactor leads to a local minimum in the potential in which the scalar field gets trapped after rolling down the exponential branch. The initial potential energy of the field is “redshifted away” due to the friction term in the field equations, caused by the expansion. Therefore the field gets trapped in the minimum and the expansion starts accelerating. The model was tested for a range of parameters. To illustrate our findings with numbers we took the parameters from Albrecht and Skordis with $`\alpha =2`$, $`\lambda =8`$ and $`\delta =0.01`$. The observational constraints are that the universe today consists of 30% matter, 70% dark energy and we choose the Hubble constant to be $`65\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$. To fulfill the observational constraints it is necessary to adjust the position of the local minimum by tuning $`\beta `$ to $`33.989`$. The potential shown in Fig. 1 is for $`\beta =34.8`$.

To calculate the transition rate from the false vacuum through the barrier we follow the prescription of Coleman and De Luccia . The tunneling rate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ per volume element $`V`$ in the semi-classical approximation is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/VA\mathrm{e}^B`$. In order to calculate $`B`$ in the vacuum decay amplitude we need to compute

$$B=S_\mathrm{E}\left(\varphi _{\mathrm{cl}}\right)S_\mathrm{E}\left(\varphi _+\right),$$
(2)
with $`S_\mathrm{E}`$ being the analytic continuation of the Minkowskian action

$$S=d^4x\sqrt{g}\left[\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi V(\varphi )\frac{R}{2}\right],$$
(3)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is the metric, $`R`$ the corresponding curvature scalar and $`\varphi _+`$ is the field in the local minimum of the potential. In order to obtain the non-trivial classical solution $`\varphi _{\mathrm{cl}}`$ to the Euclidean field equations we assume that an $`O(4)`$ symmetric ansatz minimizes the Euclidean action $`S_\mathrm{E}`$, with the corresponding Euclidean metric of the form $`ds^2=d\xi ^2+\rho (\xi )^2d\mathrm{\Omega }^2`$, $`\xi `$ the radial coordinate and $`\rho =\sqrt{t^2+|𝐱|^2}`$. The boundary conditions for the tunneling solution in this coordinates are $`\varphi (\mathrm{})=\varphi _+`$, $`\varphi ^{}(\mathrm{})=0`$, $`\varphi ^{}(0)=0`$ and $`\rho (0)=0`$. We solved the Euclidean field equations under these boundary conditions numerically and computed the tunneling suppression factor $`B`$. With the parameters above we got

$$B10^{123},$$

where the field reappearing after the barrier at $`\varphi 35.5`$ with $`\varphi ^{}=0`$, from where it rolls towards $`\varphi =\mathrm{}`$, the true vacuum state as sketched in Fig. 1. The probability for a tunneling event per unit time, per unit volume is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/V\mathrm{exp}\left(10^{123}\right)`$ which is negligible. Therefore no bubbles of true vacuum are formed. In the Coleman and De Luccia prescription the true vacuum state is reached for finite field values. One might wonder if their result is also true if the vacuum state is only reached asymptotically. However we are only interessted in the tunneling rate through the barrier and not actually when the field ends up in the true vacuum, so our calculation is valid. We cross checked this result by considering a double Mexican Hat potential, $`V(\varphi )\varphi ^2(\varphi ^2\alpha ^{})(\varphi ^2\beta ^{})`$, with the true vacuum state at a finite field value. If we choose the parameters $`\alpha ^{}`$ and $`\beta ^{}`$ to get a similar barrier width and height as we get for the polynomial exponential, the tunneling rate is of the same order of magnitude.

## 3 Discussion

The considerations above show that the Albrecht and Skordis model is a stable solution and the probability that the field decays to the true vacuum state is negligible. We also observed that if we move the feature in the potential to smaller field values $`\varphi 1`$ the tunneling rate is significant and $`B𝒪(1)`$ in Planck units. However a feature in the potential at such small field values could not fulfill the observational constraints and resolve the dark energy problem, since the field gets trapped in the local minimum too early. Since the false vacuum state does not decay for the relevant range of parameters, a classical description is sufficient and the field stays trapped in the local minimum. The dark energy model with a polynomial exponential is therefore a possible solution to the problem of the missing dark energy. One might wonder if it is possible to connect such a potential to fundamental physics. A potential with similar features to the one discussed above is an inverse polynomial exponential of the form $`V(\varphi )=\left[(\varphi \beta )^2+\delta \right]^1\mathrm{exp}(\lambda \varphi )`$. It may be possible to relate this potential to the massive bulk modes of interacting D3-branes, which involves similar contributions. In this case the false vacuum state is also very stable with $`B10^{120}`$. The question of how realistic a rational exponential potential which resolves the dark energy problem is remains open to this point but is under current investigation.
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank A. Albrecht for fruitful collaboration and acknowledge financial support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).


text:
# Ermakov-Lewis angles for one-parameter supersymmetric families of Newtonian free damping modes

## Acknowledgment

This work was partially supported by the CONACyT Project 458100-5-25844E.

Fig. 1a

The dynamical angle in the underdamped case for the following set of parameters: $`\omega _0=\sqrt{2}`$, $`\beta =1`$, $`\gamma =0.1`$.

Fig. 1b

The geometric angle in the underdamped case and the same parameters.

Fig. 1c

The total angle in the underdamped case and the same parameters.

Fig. 2a

The dynamical angle in the overdamped case for $`\omega _0=1`$, $`\beta =\sqrt{2}`$, $`\gamma =0.1`$.

Fig. 2b

The geometric angle in the overdamping case for the same parameters.

Fig. 2c

The total angle in the overdamping case for the same parameters.

Fig. 3a

The dynamical angle in the critical case for $`\omega _0=\beta =1`$ and $`\gamma =0.1`$.

Fig. 3b

The geometrical angle in the critical case for the same parameters.

Fig. 3c

The total angle in the critical case for the same parameters.

Fig. 1a’

The dynamical angle in the underdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters as in Fig. 1a and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 1b’

The geometrical angle in the underdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 1c’

The total angle in the underdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 2a’

The dynamical angle in the overdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters as in Fig. 2a and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 2b’

The geometrical angle in the overdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 2c’

The total angle in the overdamped case for the same $`\omega _0`$, $`\beta `$ parameters and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 3a’

The dynamical angle in the critical case for $`\omega _0=\beta =1`$ and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 3b’

The geometrical angle in the critical case for $`\omega _0=\beta =1`$ and $`\gamma =0`$.

Fig. 3c’

The total angle in the critical case for $`\omega _0=\beta =1`$ and $`\gamma =0`$.


text:
# Monte Carlo Study of the S=1/2 and S=1 Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on a Spatially Anisotropic Square Lattice

## I Introduction

Low-dimensional quantum magnetism is currently one of the most intensively studied fields in condensed matter physics. Through the synergistic efforts of theory, numerical simulation, and experiment, our understanding of the static and dynamic behavior of low dimensional quantum magnets has grown tremendously. The study of the one-dimensional (1D) quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet (QHA) has a long history dating back to the exact solution found by Bethe  for the $`S=1/2`$ nearest neighbor (NN) chain. He found the ground state eigenfunction for this system and showed that there is no long-range order at $`T=0`$, unlike its classical counterpart. The Bethe Ansatz solution, however, is peculiar to the $`S=1/2`$ chain and cannot be readily generalized. Recent theoretical advances in quantum magnetism have come primarily from applications of quantum field theory techniques. The low-energy, long-wavelength behavior of quantum antiferromagnets can be mapped onto an effective relativistic field theory.

In his pioneering work based on the large-spin, semi-classical mapping of the 1DQHA to the $`𝒪(3)`$ quantum nonlinear $`\sigma `$ model (QNL$`\sigma `$M) in (1+1) dimensions,  Haldane conjectured that all half-odd-integer spin chains should behave qualitatively like a $`S=1/2`$ chain, while for integer spin chains the zero-temperature spin correlations should decay exponentially with distance due to the presence of the so-called Haldane gap, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In two-dimensions, Chakravarty, Halperin, and Nelson  have mapped the long-wavelength, low-temperature behavior of the two-dimensional (2D) QHA onto the (2+1) dimensional QNL$`\sigma `$M. They obtain a phase diagram for the system with three regimes: quantum disordered (QD), quantum critical (QC), and renormalized classical (RC). In the QD regime, the spin correlation length $`\xi `$ remains finite even at $`T=0`$, as in the case of the $`S=1`$ spin chain. In the QC regime, temperature is the only relevant energy scale, and thus $`\xi `$ diverges like $`T^1`$ as $`T0`$: $`T=0`$ is the quantum critical point. In the RC regime, the correlation length diverges exponentially \[$`\mathrm{exp}(1/T)`$\], so that the ground state has long-range order.

Due to the peculiar role played by the spin quantum number in the ground state properties, the 1DQHA has been much studied since Haldane’s conjecture. The 2DQHA has also attracted considerable attention both for its intrinsic interest and also because the magnetism in the parent compounds of the high temperature superconductors is well described by the $`S=1/2`$ 2DQHA. Recently, attention has been given to the physics of magnetism in intermediate dimensions; namely, systems which exhibit a crossover from one to two dimensions. One can think of two different approaches to explore this problem. One method is to begin with spin ladders, which are obtained by coupling a small number of spin chains, and then to increase the number of chains in the spin ladder until 2D physics is obtained. Alternatively, one can begin with an infinite number of decoupled spin chains, and then increase the coupling between the spin chains gradually until the interchain coupling becomes comparable to the intrachain coupling; in other words, one studies a spatially anisotropic square lattice quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet (SASLQHA). Spin ladders have been studied much recently, and have revealed the initially surprising result that the ground state properties of the $`S=1/2`$ spin ladder depend on the number of chains in the ladder,  analogous to the 1DQHA. Specifically, when even numbers of chains (or legs) are coupled to form a ladder (even-$`n`$), they show the same universal behavior as integer spin chains, while odd-$`n`$ $`S=1/2`$ ladders behave essentially like a single $`S=1/2`$ chain at low temperatures and long wavelengths.

Our study focuses on the SASLQHA, in which the dimensional parameter (interchain coupling) can be varied continuously. The Hamiltonian of the SASLQHA is essentially that of parallel spin chains forming a square lattice with interchain coupling $`J_x`$ ($`J_x>0`$):

$$=J_y\underset{i,j}{}𝐒_{i,j}𝐒_{i+1,j}+\underset{i,j}{}J_x𝐒_{i,j}𝐒_{i,j+1}.$$
(1)
Here $`i`$ and $`j`$ label lattice sites along the y-direction and the x-direction, respectively. We will set $`J_y=J`$ and use $`\alpha J_x/J_y`$ as an anisotropy parameter in this paper. We use units in which $`\mathrm{}=k_B=g\mu _B=1`$, and set the lattice constant $`a=1`$ along both the x and y directions. By varying $`0\alpha 1`$, the Hamiltonian Eq. (1) can interpolate between a single spin chain and an isotropic square lattice. The $`S=1/2`$ case has drawn special attention recently, due to its conjectured relevance to the physics of stripe structures in high temperature superconductors.

One of the most interesting questions in the physics of the SASLQHA is the nature of the ground state. Since the ground state of the 1DQHA ($`\alpha =0`$) is disordered while the QHA on an isotropic square lattice ($`\alpha =1`$) has a Néel ordered ground state, there should be an order-disorder quantum transition for a critical value of $`\alpha =\alpha _c`$. For $`S=1`$ this seems intuitively clear. As $`\alpha `$ is increased from zero, the Haldane gap will decrease smoothly, vanishing at a non-zero $`\alpha _c^{S=1}`$. However, it is not at all obvious what the behavior should be for $`S=1/2`$. Although it is widely believed that $`\alpha _c^{S=1/2}=0`$, there are a few studies claiming otherwise.  Sakai and Takahashi  first considered the Hamiltonian Eq. (1) by treating the interchain coupling in the small $`\alpha `$ limit via mean field theory. They also estimated that $`\alpha _c^{S=1/2}0`$ and $`\alpha _c^{S=1}0.025`$ by calculating the susceptibility via numerical Lanzcos diagonalization. Azzouz and coworkers obtained essentially the same results from their field theoretical study, albeit with smaller $`\alpha _c^{S=1}0.00186`$.  The renormalization-group argument by Affleck and coworkers  suggests that the answer is not universal but depends on the microscopic details of the model. For the nearest-neighbor model \[Eq. (1)\], $`\alpha _c^{S=1/2}=0`$ was shown by zero temperature series expansions.

In this paper we show that our quantum Monte Carlo study of the $`S=1/2`$ SASLQHA gives results which are consistent with the claim that Néel order sets in for infinitesimal $`\alpha `$ for $`S=1/2`$. . For the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA, we show that $`\alpha _c^{S=1}=0.040(5)`$ is the quantum critical point; we find that the thermodynamic properties at this point follow the $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M predictions remarkably well. We compare three quantities: the dimensionless ratio $`S_Q/T\chi _s`$ (defined below), the temperature dependences of the correlation length $`\xi `$, and the uniform susceptibility $`\chi _u`$. These quantities agree quantitatively with the QNL$`\sigma `$M values without any adjustable parameter.

We have carried out quantum Monte Carlo simulations on large lattices utilizing the loop cluster algorithm. The lattice size has been kept at least 10 times larger than the calculated correlation length. The lengths and Trotter numbers of the simulated lattices are chosen so as to minimize any finite-size and lattice-spacing effects. Spin states are updated about $`2^{14}`$ times to reach equilibrium and then measured $`2^{15}`$ times. The same algorithm has been applied sucessfully in studying spin chains and spin ladders.  We compute the temperature (T) and anisotropy ($`\alpha `$) dependence of the uniform susceptibility, $`\chi _u(\alpha ,T)`$; the correlation length, $`\xi (\alpha ,T)`$; the staggered susceptibility, $`\chi _s(\alpha ,T)`$; and the static structure factor at the antiferromagnetic wave vector $`Q=(\pi ,\pi )`$, $`S_Q(\alpha ,T)`$ for both the $`S=1/2`$ and $`S=1`$ SASLQHA.

The structure of this paper is as follows: Our Monte Carlo results for the $`S=1/2`$ SASLQHA are presented in Sec. II. The uniform susceptibility and the correlation length data are shown and discussed here. We present the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA Monte Carlo results in Sec. III. In Sec. IV, we determine and discuss the phase diagram of the $`S=1/2`$ and $`S=1`$ SASLQHA using QNL$`\sigma `$M language, especially focusing on the quantum critical behavior. In Sec. V, implications of this study in relation to experiments and other related low-dimensional quantum magnets are discussed.

## II Results for S=1/2

In Fig. 1, we show the uniform susceptibility per spin for $`S=1/2`$, as a function of $`T`$ for various $`\alpha `$ in semi-log scale. The results for the $`\alpha =1`$ square lattice are taken from the recent Monte Carlo study by Kim and Troyer.  The crossover from 1D to 2D behavior is clear in this figure. For small $`\alpha `$, the uniform susceptibility follows that of a single chain, but begins to deviate around $`T/J5\alpha `$. For larger $`\alpha `$, $`\chi _u`$ lies intermediate between those for a single chain and the square lattice, as expected.

In the small $`\alpha `$ limit, the Monte Carlo results can be compared with the results of experiments on weakly coupled spin chains. In particular, Sr2CuO3 has a structure where $`S=1/2`$ spin chains lie along the crystallographic $`b`$-direction. The interchain interaction along the $`a`$-direction is frustrated, thus making this system quasi two-dimensional. In the $`bc`$-plane, the interaction along the $`c`$-direction is much smaller than that in the $`b`$-direction, therefore, Sr2CuO3 is a very good realization of the $`S=1/2`$ SASLQHA in the small $`\alpha `$ limit. Specifically, the crystallographic $`b`$-direction corresponds to the y-direction in the notation of the Hamiltonian, Eq. (1), while the $`c`$-direction corresponds to the x-direction. Recently Motoyama and coworkers  measured the magnetic susceptibility of Sr2CuO3. They extracted a value for the intrachain exchange $`J=2200(200)K`$ by fitting the result to the theoretical expression proposed by Eggert et al..  Motoyama et al. also observed the logarithmic correction term predicted in the theory. However, a sudden drop in the susceptibility near $`20K`$ was observed, and this was attributed to the onset of three-dimensional (3D) Néel order. In Fig. 1, the Sr2CuO3 experimental results are shown as solid circles using $`J=J_b=2200K`$. As one can see from the figure, this drop can be naturally explained by a small but non-zero interchain coupling. From a comparison with our Monte Carlo results, one can estimate the interchain coupling in Sr2CuO3 as $`J_c=J_x0.002J0.4`$meV.

A couple of points need to be mentioned in estimating the interchain coupling in Sr2CuO3. First, since the analysis of the susceptibility data involves the subtraction of a Curie term due to impurities, subtle effects may be difficult to interpret unambiguously. However, recent nuclear magnetic resonance Knight shift measurements, in which the Knight shift is proportional to the uniform susceptibility, show complete agreement with the susceptibility data.  Second, Schulz  and Wang  have predicted the staggered magnetization of this system as a function of the interchain coupling, $`m_0=0.72(J_{}/J)^{1/2}`$ from their interchain mean-field theory.  With $`\alpha =0.002`$, we obtain $`m_0=0.0320.064\mu _B`$, which agrees with the experimentally  determined value of $`0.06(1)\mu _B`$, giving credence to our estimate of the interchain coupling in Sr2CuO3.

The spin-spin correlation length is deduced from fits of the calculated instantaneous spin-spin correlation function to the asymptotic Ornstein-Zernike (OZ) form. Only large distance numerical data are included in the fits to ensure that the asymptotic behavior is probed. As discussed in our previous Monte Carlo studies of quantum spin systems,  the 1D OZ form works best at high temperatures, while the 2D OZ form works better at low temperatures. However, for the S=1 SASLQHA we observe a crossover to the 3D OZ form at low temperatures. This crossover of the correlation function will be discussed in Sec. V.

The correlation lengths so-obtained for $`S=1/2`$ are plotted in Fig. 2 on a logarithmic scale as a function of inverse temperature. Therefore, linear behavior in this plot corresponds to an exponential dependence on $`T^1`$, and the slope corresponds to the spin stiffness. At low enough temperatures, all data show linear behavior except for $`\alpha =0`$, signaling that $`\alpha =0`$ is indeed a critical point. The solid lines are the results of fits to the crossover form suggested by Castro Neto and Hone,  which interpolates between the low-$`T`$ expression calculated by Hasenfratz and Niedermayer  for the (2+1) dimensional QNL$`\sigma `$M and $`\xi T^1`$ at high temperature:

$$\xi =A\mathrm{exp}(2\pi \rho _s(\alpha )/T)/\left[1+\frac{1}{2}\frac{T}{2\pi \rho _s(\alpha )}\right],$$
(2)
Two adjustable parameters are used in the fitting: A and $`\rho _s`$. The anisotropy dependence of $`\rho _s(\alpha )`$ is used to provide a crossover temperature scale between quantum critical and renormalized classical behavior in Sec. IV. We find that the $`\rho _s(\alpha )`$ values extracted from fitting $`\xi _x`$ and $`\xi _y`$ agree within the errors, as evidenced by the identical slopes in Fig. 2.

## III Results for S=1

The uniform susceptibility data for $`S=1`$ are shown in Fig. 3. The results for the square lattice ($`\alpha =1`$) are taken from recent QMC work by Harada and coworkers.  As in the $`S=1/2`$ case, for small $`\alpha `$ any deviation from the single chain data is only observed at very low temperatures. As is evident in Fig. 3, one observes distinctively different behavior for $`\alpha =0.02`$ compared with that for $`\alpha =0.05`$. Specifically, $`\chi _u(\alpha =0.02)`$ drops to zero at low temperatures, signaling the opening of a spin gap and concomitantly a spin liquid ground state. Indeed, one can fit the data with the asymptotic form $`\chi _u(T)\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{\Delta }/T)`$ at low temperatures. The result of the fit is shown as the solid line for $`\alpha =0.02`$ in Fig. 3. The spin gap values from these fits are as follows: $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha =0.01)/J=0.32(1)`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha =0.02)/J=0.25(1)`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\alpha =0.03)/J=0.17(1)`$. Note that the $`\alpha =0.01`$ and $`\alpha =0.03`$ data are not shown in Fig. 3 for graphical purposes.

In Fig. 4, the correlation length data in the y-direction are plotted for $`S=1`$. Since most correlation length data along the x-direction are smaller than one lattice constant, they are not plotted. Note the linear scale in this figure, unlike the logarithmic scale in Fig. 2 for $`S=1/2`$. This clearly shows the $`1/T`$ dependence of the correlation length for $`\alpha =0.04`$, which thus identifies $`\alpha =0.04`$ as a quantum critical point. For smaller values of $`\alpha `$ the correlation length saturates at low temperatures: $`\xi _0(\alpha =0.01)=7.0(2)`$, $`\xi _0(\alpha =0.02)=10.8(5)`$, $`\xi _0(\alpha =0.03)=19.0(5)`$. For $`\alpha >\alpha _c`$, the correlation length diverges exponentially in $`1/T`$. Therefore, one can fit the data to Eq. (2) to obtain the spin stiffness $`\rho _s(\alpha )`$.

Some precautions are necessary in extracting the correlation length from the correlation function via fits to the OZ form. The OZ form for the correlation function in general is

$$C(r)\frac{e^{r/\xi }}{r^\lambda },\lambda =\frac{(d1)}{2},$$
(3)
where $`d`$ is the dimensionality. In quantum systems at low temperatures, $`d`$ should be replaced by the effective dimensionality $`(d+1)`$. Since the low-temperature and long-wavelength behavior of the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA with non-zero $`\alpha `$ is mapped onto the (2+1) dimensional $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M , the functional form of the correlation function at low temperatures and long distances should be the OZ form with $`\lambda =1`$. Similarly, the 1D $`S=1`$ spin chain (SASLQHA with $`\alpha =0`$) has a correlation function of the $`\lambda =0.5`$ OZ form.  We indeed observe a crossover in the functional form of $`C(r)`$ from $`\lambda =0.5`$ to $`\lambda =1`$ by increasing $`\alpha `$ from zero to a small but non-zero value in the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA. In Fig. 5, the correlation function at the low temperature $`T/J=0.04`$ is plotted to illustrate the difference in $`\lambda `$. In order to show the subtle $`\lambda `$ dependence, $`1/C(r)`$ is multiplied by the exponential factor, and only the $`e^{r/\xi }/\xi /C(r)r^\lambda `$ part is shown as a function of $`r/\xi `$. The $`\lambda =1`$ behavior is apparent for $`\alpha =0.025`$, while $`\lambda =0.5`$ describes the $`\alpha =0`$ data better. For comparison purposes, $`C(r)`$ for an $`S=1/2`$ chain ($`\alpha =0`$) is also plotted; in that case the $`\lambda =0`$ behavior is quite clear.

One should note that this crossover is observed only in the QD phase, since the finite correlation lengths in this phase allow the QMC technique to probe the low temperature behavior. On the other hand, in phases with a diverging correlation length, it is difficult to study the ground state properties with the QMC method. Considering that the SASLQHA behaves classically at high temperatures, it is possible that the $`S=1/2`$ data in Fig. 5 ($`T/J=0.04`$) have not reached low enough temperatures to show the true ground state behavior of $`\lambda =0.5`$. In deducing the correlation length data shown in Fig. 4, the $`\lambda =1`$ form was used for $`\alpha 0.02`$ at low temperatures, while $`\lambda =0.5`$ was used otherwise.

## IV Quantum critical point

The phase diagram of the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA is sketched in Fig. 6, where we use the energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and spin stiffness $`2\pi \rho _s`$, obtained from the fits discussed in previous sections as the crossover energy scales. We use the terminology of the $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M to identify the different phases in the figure.  The inverse anisotropy ratio $`1/\alpha `$ corresponds to the coupling constant $`g`$. The $`S=1/2`$ phase diagram is almost identical to that of Ref. , and hence is not shown here.

At the quantum phase transition in (2+1) dimensions, $`\rho _s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ obey the scaling laws

$`\rho _s`$ $``$ $`(g_cg)^\nu `$ (4)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ $``$ $`(gg_c)^\nu ,`$ (5)
with a critical exponent $`\nu 0.69`$ for the 2DQHA.  Since $`\alpha ^1`$ plays the role of the coupling constant $`g`$, we plot $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0(\alpha \alpha _c)^\nu `$ as a shaded line in Fig. 6. Note that $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is fixed from the $`S=1`$ chain value, so that there is no adjustable parameter. The power law scaling fits the gap data quite well, confirming that the low-temperature long-wavelength behavior of the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA is consistent with that of the $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M.

To illustrate that $`\alpha _c=0.04`$ is indeed the quantum critical point of the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA, the dimensionless ratio $`S_Q/T\chi _s`$ is plotted in Fig. 7(a). According to the QC scaling prediction for the $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M,  this ratio should exhibit universal behavior in the QC regime with the specific value $`S_Q/T\chi _s=1.10(2)`$. As shown in Fig. 7(a), the $`\alpha =0.04`$ data for $`S_Q/T\chi _s`$ are constant around 1.1 at low temperatures, in quantitative agreement with the QC scaling value. This ratio has been sucessfully used in identifying quantum critical behavior in different systems, for example, weakly coupled spin ladders.  We also show the correlation length $`\xi _y`$ multiplied by temperature in Fig. 7(b), to emphasize the $`1/T`$ dependence of $`\xi _y`$ at the quantum critical point, $`\alpha _c=0.04`$, at low temperatures. Using the QNL$`\sigma `$M prediction  $`\xi _yT=c/1.04`$, we obtain the spin wave velocity of $`c_y/J=2.6`$, which is slightly larger than the 1D value (2.49), but smaller than the 2D value (3.067).

Another quantitative prediction from the $`𝒪(3)`$ QNL$`\sigma `$M is the uniform susceptibility. In the QC regime the uniform susceptibility is given as

$$\chi _u(T)=\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\mathrm{})\frac{1}{c^2}T,$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\mathrm{})=0.26(1)`$ is a universal constant.  Since the spin wave velocity is anisotropic in this case, one should presumably use $`c_xc_y`$ instead of $`c^2`$ in Eq. (6). The inset of Fig. 3 clearly shows the linear dependence of $`\chi _u`$ on temperature. The fitted value of the slope is 0.34(1). Since we do not know the value of $`c_x`$, we use the fitted value of the slope and Eq. (6) to estimate $`c_x`$. If we take the spin wave velocity value $`c_y`$ determined above, the spin wave velocity in the x-direction is $`c_x/J0.3`$. This gives the ratio of the spin wave velocity $`c_x/c_y0.12`$, which is very close to the value given by the series expansion study  and spin-wave theory:  $`c_x/c_y0.14`$. One should note that the anisotropy in the spin-wave velocity is enhanced from the mean field value ($`c_x/c_y=\sqrt{\alpha }=0.2`$) due to quantum fluctuations.

## V Discussion

The most surprising result for the $`S=1`$ SASLQHA is the smallness of the value $`\alpha _c^{S=1}0.04`$, compared with the Haldane gap value of the $`S=1`$ spin chain ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_H/J0.41`$). One would naively think that the interchain coupling should be comparable to the Haldane gap to overcome the large energy gap and drive the system to long-range order. Indeed, such heuristic reasoning works well in the case of coupled even-legged spin ladders, where the value of the spin gap and the critical interladder coupling values are $`0.5J`$ and $`0.3J`$, respectively, for an array of two-leg ladders. Corresponding values for an array of four-leg ladders are $`0.1J`$ and $`0.07J`$.

Recently there has been a number of studies on the nature of the ground state of $`S=1/2`$ spin ladders. Specifically, much theoretical interest has focused on the question of whether or not the ground state of the $`S=1/2`$ antiferromagnetic two-leg ladder is the same as that of the $`S=1`$ chain. Since the $`S=1`$ chain is equivalent to the $`S=1/2`$ two-leg ladder with an infinite ferromagnetic coupling, the above question can be rephrased as whether the $`S=1/2`$ ladder goes through a phase transition when the inter-chain coupling is varied from a positive (antiferromagnetic) value to a negative (ferromagnetic) value. White  has shown that the antiferromagnetic ladder can be transformed continously to an $`S=1`$ chain by switching on an irrelevant next nearest neighbor coupling, thus claiming the equivalence of the two. Kim and coworkers  recently have studied a two-leg ladder with various model parameters by a bosonization method and have provided evidence that the antiferromagnetic ladder and $`S=1`$ chain belong to different universality classes, each having distinct topological string order. Our results appear to show the distinctively different nature of the ground state of the $`S=1`$ Haldane chain and that of the antiferromagnetic ladder. However, more theoretical and numerical studies are necessary to resolve this issue unambiguously.

Although both the SASLQHA and spin ladders show crossovers between 1D and 2D behavior, the intrinsic difference between the two approaches should be noted. At high temperatures, the SASLQHA behaves as an array of decoupled chains. The 2D behavior is only observed at low temperatures, as shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 5. However, the spin ladders at high temperatures show essentially 2D physics, since the spin-spin correlation length is shorter than the width of the spin ladder. Therefore, the crossover for the spin ladders (2D $``$ 1D as T $``$ 0) is complementary to that of the SASLQHA.

In Sec. II, we estimated the exchange interaction between chains in Sr2CuO3 as $`0.4`$ meV. Greven and Birgeneau have considered a similar exchange interaction for SrCu2O3.  Namely, they have noted that the the effective coupling between copper spins in different ladder planes is mediated by Sr2+ ions and they have argued that this interladder exchange should be about 10 meV. This value is also used to describe the behavior of the three leg ladder compound Sr2Cu3O5.  This represents quite a large discrepancy between values estimated for seemingly similar superexchange interactions. However, one should observe that the geometry of the inter-plane coupling in the spin ladder compound SrCu2O3 and that of the inter-chain coupling in the spin chain compound Sr2CuO3 are quite different. Specifically, in Sr2CuO3 , all Cu2+–Sr2+–Cu2+ bond angles are close to 90, while there exist linear Cu2+–Sr2+–Cu2+ bonds in SrCu2O3 and Sr2Cu3O5. If one assumes that the coupling between these Cu2+ ions is primarily due to the superexchange mediated by Sr2+ ions, one can infer that the effective inter-plane coupling in SrCu2O3 is mostly due to the 180 Cu2+–Sr2+–Cu2+ superexchange interaction. This leads us to speculate that the small value ($`0.4`$ meV) of the interchain coupling in Sr2CuO3 is due to the absence of linear Cu2+–Sr2+–Cu2+ superexchange paths.

This realization is important in understanding the spin fluctuations in superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+δ, since the bilayer coupling path in YBa2Cu3O6+δ is similar to the inter-plane coupling path in the spin ladder compound SrCu2O3.  Although the detailed nature of the hopping integral between bilayers is not known, Andersen et al. have shown that the hopping mediated by the yttrium ion contributes significantly to the bilayer exchange coupling . Obviously, more theoretical calculations of the bilayer exchange interaction are needed.

In summary, we have studied the $`S=1/2`$ and $`S=1`$ SASLQHA with the quantum Monte Carlo method. By varying the anisotropy $`\alpha `$ from 0 to 1, we go continuously from the one-dimensional chain to the two-dimensional isotropic square lattice. The temperature dependence of the uniform susceptibility and the spin-spin correlation length are presented for various values of $`\alpha `$. For $`S=1`$, we show that there exists a quantum critical point at $`\alpha _c^{S=1}=0.040(5)`$, in agreement with other analytic predictions. The power law behavior of the spin gap is also confirmed. In addition, universal quantities predicted from the QNL$`\sigma `$M, such as $`S_Q/T\chi _s1.1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1(\mathrm{})0.26`$, agree with our results at $`\alpha =0.04`$, without any adjustable parameter. The $`S=1/2`$ results are consistent with $`\alpha _c^{S=1/2}=0`$, as discussed by a number of previous theoretical studies. We also estimate the interchain coupling in the $`S=1/2`$ compound Sr2CuO3 by comparing the measured uniform susceptibility data with our QMC results.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank M. Greven for invaluable discussions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation–Low Temperature Physics Programs under award number DMR 97–15315.