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# Continuously Measured Systems, Path Integrals and InformationPublished in Intern. J. Theor. Phys. 37, 273-280 (1998)

## 1 Introduction

It is widely believed that quantum mechanics is not closed, and that only after adding some form of quantum theory of measurement does it become a complete and self-sufficient theory. We shall argue that the theory of continuous quantum measurements may in fact be considered as a natural part of quantum mechanics provided the latter is taken in the Feynman path-integral form  including the rules for summing up probability amplitudes. The main instruments of the resulting theory of continuous measurements are restricted path integrals (RPI) and non-Hermitian Hamiltonians . The RPI approach may be regarded as an information approach to continuous quantum measurements just as the von Neumann’s projection postulate presents an information approach to instantaneous quantum measurements.

So-called “instantaneous” measurements (which are in reality not instantaneous, but very short) may be obtained as a limiting case of continuous measurements. Therefore, the whole quantum theory of measurements may be derived, in the framework of the RPI approach, from quantum mechanics in the path-integral form. Hence, quantum mechanics may be considered as a closed theory. It looks nonclosed only if the overidealized concept of an instantaneous measurement is considered instead of realistic concept of a continuous measurement.

## 2 Continuous quantum measurements and restricted path integrals (RPI)

During recent decades the theory of continuous quantum measurements has been under thorough investigation -. The interest in this field significantly increased in connection with the quantum Zeno effect predicted in  and experimentally verified in . In most cases studying continuous quantum measurements was based on particular models of measuring devices. In contrast, the phenomenological and therefore model-independent restricted-path-integrals (RPI) approach to continuous measurements has been proposed in  (see also ) following the idea of R.Feynman .

The measured system is considered in the RPI theory of measurements as an open system. The back influence of the measuring device (environment) onto the measured system is taken into account by restricting the path integral. The restriction is determined by the information which the measurement supplies about the measured system. Let us consider the main points of this approach.

The evolution of a closed quantum system during a time interval $`T`$ is described by the evolution operator $`U_T`$. The matrix element of the operator $`U_T`$ between the states with definite positions is called the propagator and may be expressed in the form of the Feynman path integral:111It is convenient for our goals to use a phase-space representation of the path integral. The variables $`q`$ and $`p`$ may be multidimensional.

$$U_T(q^{\prime \prime },q^{})=q^{\prime \prime }|U_T|q^{}=d[p]d[q]e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}_0^T(p\dot{q}H(p,q,t))}.$$
(1)
If the system with the same dynamical properties (the same Hamiltonian) undergoes a continuous (prolonged in time) measurement (and therefore is considered as being open, interacting with a measuring device or environment), its evolution may be described  by the set of partial evolution operators $`U_T^\alpha `$ depending on the output (readout) $`\alpha `$ of the measurement222Physically the readout is recorded in some way or another in the state of the environment (measuring device).

$$|\psi _T^\alpha =U_T^\alpha |\psi _0,\rho _T^\alpha =U_T^\alpha \rho _0\left(U_T^\alpha \right)^{}.$$

The partial propagators are expressed by restricted path integrals. This means  that the path integral for $`U_T^\alpha `$ must be of the form (1), but restricted according to the information given by the measurement readout $`\alpha `$. The information given by $`\alpha `$ may be described by a weight functional $`w_\alpha [p,q]`$ (positive, with values between 0 and 1) so that the partial propagator has to be written as a weighted path integral

$$U_T^\alpha (q^{\prime \prime },q^{})=q^{\prime \prime }|U_T^\alpha |q^{}=d[p]d[q]w_\alpha [p,q]e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}_0^T(p\dot{q}H(p,q,t))}.$$
(2)
The probability density for each $`\alpha `$ to arise as a measurement readout is given  by the trace of the density matrix $`\rho _T^\alpha `$, so that the probability for $`\alpha `$ to belong to some set $`𝒜`$ of readouts is equal to

$$\mathrm{Prob}(\alpha 𝒜)=_𝒜𝑑\alpha \mathrm{Tr}\rho _T^\alpha $$
(3)
with an appropriate measure $`d\alpha `$ on the set of readouts.

All this concerns the situation when the measurement readout $`\alpha `$ is known (selective description of the measurement). If the readout is unknown (nonselective description), the evolution of the measured system may be presented by the density matrix

$$\rho _T=𝑑\alpha \rho _T^\alpha =𝑑\alpha U_T^\alpha \rho _0\left(U_T^\alpha \right)^{}.$$
(4)
The generalized unitarity condition

$$𝑑\alpha \left(U_T^\alpha \right)^{}U_T^\alpha =\mathrm{𝟏}$$

provides conservation of probabilities.

In the special case, when monitoring an observable $`A=A(p,q,t)`$ is considered as a continuous measurement, the measurement readout is given by the curve

$$[a]=\{a(t)|0tT\}$$

characterizing the values of this observable in different time moments. If the square average deflection

$$(Aa)^2_T=\frac{1}{T}_0^T[A(t)a(t)]^2𝑑t$$

is taken as a measure of deviation of the observable $`A(t)=A(p(t),q(t),t)`$ from the readout $`a(t)`$, then the weight functional describing the measurement may be taken333The choice of the weight functional determines the class of measurements under consideration. in the Gaussian form:

$$w_{[a]}[p,q]=e^{\kappa _0^T[A(t)a(t)]^2𝑑t}.$$

The constant $`\kappa `$ characterizes the resolution of the measurement and may be expressed in terms of the “measurement error” $`\mathrm{\Delta }a_T`$ which is achieved during the period $`T`$ of the measurement:

$$\kappa =\frac{1}{T\mathrm{\Delta }a_T^2}\text{ is constant, hence }\mathrm{\Delta }a_T^2\frac{1}{T}$$

The resulting path integral

$$U_T^{[a]}(q^{\prime \prime },q^{})=d[p]d[q]\mathrm{exp}\left\{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}_0^T\left(p\dot{q}H\right)𝑑t\kappa _0^T\left(A(p,q,t)a(t)\right)^2𝑑t\right\}$$

has the form of a conventional (nonrestricted) Feynman path integral (1) but with the effective Hamiltonian

$$H_{[a]}(p,q,t)=H(p,q,t)i\kappa \mathrm{}\left(A(p,q,t)a(t)\right)^2$$
(5)
instead of the original Hamiltonian $`H`$. Therefore, instead of calculating a restricted path integral one may solve the Schrödinger equation with a non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian:

$$\frac{}{t}|\psi _t=\left(\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}H\kappa \left(Aa(t)\right)^2\right)|\psi _t.$$
(6)
If we solve this equation with the initial wave function $`\psi _0`$ describing the initial state of the measured system, then the solution $`\psi _T`$ in the final time moment represents the state of the system after the measurement, under the condition that the measurement results in the readout $`[a]`$. The wave function $`\psi _T`$ obtained in this way has a non-unit norm. If the initial wave function is normalized, then the norm of the final wave function, according to Eq. (3), determines the probability density of the measurement output $`[a]`$:

$$P[a]=\psi _T^2.$$
(7)
We obtain the following scheme of calculation for the selective description of the continuous measurement (when the readout is known):

1. Choose an arbitrary readout $`[a]`$ and solve Eq. (6).

2. The probability density of $`[a]`$ is given by Eq. (7).

3. The state of the system after the measurement is $`|\psi _T`$.

The nonselective description of the measurement (if the readout is unknown) is given by the density matrix $`\rho _t`$ defined by (4)and satisfying  the equation

$$\dot{\rho }=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H,\rho ]\frac{\kappa }{2}[A,[A,\rho ]].$$
(8)
## 3 RPI as an information approach to continuous quantum measurements

The description of continuous quantum measurements by restricted path integrals (RPI) may be justified in different ways. The most direct way  is an analysis of a composite system containing both the measured system and its environment (measuring device). Alternatively, one can consider a series of instantaneous measurements with the help of von Neumann’s projection postulate and then go over to the continuous measurement as a limit of small time intervals between the instantaneous measurements .

It is very interesting, however, that in the framework of the Feynman version of quantum mechanics the RPI approach needs no justification at all. This approach is natural and self-consistent in this framework. This is why R.Feynman was able to formulate the idea of the RPI approach as a short remark in his paper . Moreover, the RPI approach, naturally following from Feynman quantum mechanics, is more general than what can be obtained in the limit of a series of instantaneous measurements. It describes a wider class of continuous and continual (protracted in time and space) measurements than those derivable as limits of some or other repeated measurements .

The reason why the RPI approach follows from the path-integral version of quantum mechanics is that the concept of probability amplitude is used in a much more comprehensive way in this version. In particular, the amplitude

$$A[p,q]=e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}_0^T(p\dot{q}H(p,q,t))}$$
(9)
is introduced and physically interpreted as a probability amplitude for the system to propagate along a definite path in the phase space. If this is accepted, then the usual quantum-mechanical rules for amplitudes determine the amplitudes for more complicated events, in particular, for propagation of the system between two points of the configuration space. If the system is closed and therefore nothing is known about the path along which it propagates, all amplitudes of the form (9) have to be summed up, leading to the conventional Feynman integral (1). If a continuous measurement takes place (so that the system is open), one has to keep in mind that the measurement supplies some information about the evolution of the system. In summing up the amplitudes Eq. (9) this information must be taken into account.

If the information given by the measurement can be expressed by a weight functional $`w_\alpha [p,q]`$, then summation of amplitudes takes the form of Eq. (2). Hence, instead of directly postulating partial propagators, we can derive them from the more basic postulates of the path-integral version of quantum mechanics.

This is both interesting and unexpected. It is commonly believed that quantum mechanics is not closed, since it does not include any theory of measurements. A theory of measurements (for example, von Neumann’s projection postulate) is customarily appended as a necessary counterpart forming, together with quantum mechanics, a closed theory. However, this proves to be unnecessary. As argued above, the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics includes also the RPI theory of continuous measurements. A theory of instantaneous measurements (including von Neumann’s postulate) may be then obtained as a limit .

We see therefore that the seeming necessity to postulate a theory of measurement independently of quantum mechanics is only a consequence of overidealization. The origin of this necessity is in treating a measurement as an instantaneous act. An instantaneous measurement appears to be external with respect to quantum mechanical (Schrödinger) evolution and to need special postulates. The situation however is radically different if the measurement is considered as a temporarilly extended process and quantum mechanics is accepted in the path-integral form. Then the measurement may be described in a nonseparably integral way with the quantum-mechanical evolution . The mathematical apparatus describing both counterparts of this unity is given by restricted path integrals.

Restricted path integrals describe the influence of the measuring environment on the open (measured) quantum system without an explicit model of the environment. Instead, the RPI approach needs only very general characteristics of the environment. Namely, it is necessary to know what information about the evolution of the system is recorded in the state of the environment (as a measurement readout). This information determines what weight functional has to be used in the path integral. Having a restricted path integral, we can describe correctly both the probability distribution of measurement readouts and the final state of the measured system.

Thus, the influence of the environment on the system of interest may be given in terms of information. Therefore, the RPI approach is in fact an information approach to the theory of continuous quantum measurements. This indicates the fundamental character of the approach.

The information approach in the quantum theory of measurement is not novel. The very first quantum theory of (instantaneous) measurements based on the von Neumann reduction postulate may be considered as an example of an information approach. In this theory both the probability distribution for measurement outputs and the final state of the system may be found if we know what information the measurement supplies. For example, for the measurement of an observable with a discrete spectrum we need to know what eigenvalue is obtained as the measurement output. Given this information, we can determine, with the help of the corresponding projector, both the probability of the measurement output and the final state of the system.

In the RPI theory of continuous quantum measurements the information principle obtains one more realization having a rich structure and wide range of applications. It has been shown above that the RPI theory is, in contrast to the von Neumann postulate, a natural part of (the path-integral version of) quantum mechanics.

## 4 Conclusion

The restricted-path-integral (RPI) approach to continuous quantum measurements enables one to describe the influence of the measurement on the measured system without explicitly considering any model of the measuring device (environment). Instead of the model, one needs to know the information supplied by the measurement.

It is remarkable that knowledge of this information is sufficient for correctly accounting for the influence of the measuring environment on the system. This feature enables one to derive the RPI theory of continuous measurements from the path-integral version of quantum mechanics without any additional postulates. Besides, this shows that the RPI approach is an information approach to continuous measurements just as the von Neumann projection theory is an information approach to instantaneous measurements.

The information character of the RPI theory indicates clearly that it reveals deep internal qualities of quantum mechanics. This theory may be used to investigate further the relations between quantum and classical physics, between the quantum world and its classical appearance.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.


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# Branes in external field or more about Randall-Sundrum scenario

## 1 Charged Branes

The word ”brane” in this talk will stand for a multidimensional relativistic massive film, possibly charged with respect to an $`n`$-form (gauge) field. The branes below can be viewed on as the fundamental ones or as effective ones, e.g. domain walls. Its action consists of two pieces, a tension term and a charge term.

Tension term reads

$$S_{tension}=T\sqrt{det(\widehat{g}_{ind})}$$
(1)
the integration is over the brane world-volume, $`g_{ind}`$ is the metric induced on the world-volume via its embedding into the target space and the coefficient $`T`$ is the tension of the brane. This term is an analog of the mass term for a particle, $`m\sqrt{det(\widehat{g}_{ind})}`$, where integration is over world-line of the particle.
Charge term reads

$$S_{charge}=eB,$$
(2)
where $`B`$ is a $`n`$-form gauge field field, corresponding curvature being $`H=dB`$. Branes are sources for this field and they are affected by this field. In what follows we assume $`H`$ to be a top degree form.

Everything I am going to talk about is related to the Schwinger type process - production of branes by homogeneous external field $`H`$.

## 2 A warm up example

Consider first a warm up example: production of particles by a homogeneous $`E`$ field.

For this case the effective action reads

$$S_{eff}=TLeEA$$
(3)
where $`L`$ is the length of the world-line of the particles produced, $`T`$ is a mass of the particle, (as usual, particle-antiparticle history looks like a closed world-line), and $`A`$ is the area surrounded by the world-line.

Notice, by the way, that upon appropriate identification of the parameters, the same effective action describes false vacuum decay in (1+1) scalar field theory. Particles are substituted by kinks, electric field - by energy difference between false and true vacuum.

Extremal world-line for the action Eq.(3) is a circle of the radius $`\overline{r}=\frac{T}{eE}`$.

Value of the effective action on this extremal curve (bounce) defines the probability P of the spontaneous process: follows

$$Pexp(\frac{\pi T^2}{eE}).$$
(4)
Notice that Minkowski evolution is obtained from the Euclidean bounce by analitical continuation.

## 3 Spontaneous production of branes

The above warm-up example is easily generalized to the case of spontaneous production of branes in a homogeneous $`H`$ field . The effective action in the assumption of homogeneouty of $`H`$ reads

$$S_{eff}=TAehV.$$
(5)
World-volume of the brane produced form a closed hypersurface (like the world-line of the particle produced in the above example). $`A`$ in Eq.(5) is the area of the world-volume, $`V`$ \- volume of the region inside the brane. The Euclidean bounce is a $`p+1`$-dimensional sphere of radius $`\overline{r}=\frac{(d1)T}{eh}`$. The value of the effective action on the bounce defines probability of the brane production:

$$Pexp(const\frac{T^d}{(eh)^{d1}}).$$
(6)
Analogously to the above example, The Minkowski evolution can be obtained from the Euclidean bounce via analytical continuation.

For branes it is important to include gravity, which also was done in  and which I’ll be back later on in my talk.

## 4 Induced brane production

Let us now consider the induced brane production . Before doing so, I need to introduce a new ingredient - brane junctions . Brane world-volumes can meet. The manifold along which the world-volumes meet is called the junction manifold. Angles at which the branes meet each other are fixed by the tension force balance condition. And, of course, charge of the branes is conserved. That was about junctions.

The setup for the induced brane production is as follows. There is external homogeneous field and there is external neutral brane which can have junctions with charged branes to be produced. The question is what is the probability.

Let us again begin with a warm up example - one particle induced decay in (1+1)d . The setup is as follows. On has a false vacuum and a massive particle in it such that the correspondig field has a zero mode on the wall which could separate false and true vacuum. Then, if a bubble of the true vacuum vacuum inside the false vacuum is produced, it is more profitable for the particle to ride a part of its way in the form of zero mode on the wall of the bubble. Th effective action describing this case,

$$S_{eff}=mLeEA+m\stackrel{~}{L},$$
(7)
differs from Eq.(3) only by the last term. $`m`$ is the mass of the extra particle, $`\stackrel{~}{L}`$ is the length of the extra particle world-line (only outside the bubble).

The bounce is now glued of two segments of a circle of the same radius as in the case of spontaneous decay. These two segments meet with the world-line of the particle (junction!) at the angle $`\alpha `$ which is defined by the force balance condition, $`m=2T\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$.

The ”charge conservation” in the present case is equivalent to a trivial fact that when one passes through the bubble crossing its wall twice, one gets back to false vacuum. One then straightforwardly compute the probability of the false vacuum decay . There are two clear limiting cases. When mass of the particle is small compared to the mass of the wall, bounce is not disturted and probability is the same in spontaneous case. When mass of the particle is close to $`2T`$, bounce shrinks to a point and there is no exponential suppression in the induced vacuum decay.

Generalization to the case of branes is more or less obvious .

The bounce now consists of two segments of (d-1) dimensional sphere of the same radius as in the case of spontaneous brane production, glued to the external brane along the junction manifold. The force balance condition reads $`\stackrel{~}{T}=2T\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$, where $`\stackrel{~}{T}`$ is the tension of the external neutral brane. Minkowski evolution is again obtained by analytical continuation of the bounce.

Calculation of the probability is straightforward, two clear limiting cases are as in the warm up example.

## 5 A sketch of Brane World

Now I would like to make a digression to sketch an idea of the Brane World. This is an alternative to the idea of compactification. In compactification extra dimensions are compact and small and thus cannot be seen at moderate energies. In the brane world, extra dimensions are infinite, but the matter , gauge fields  and gravity  are localized on a brane (domain wall or other topological defect in the extra dimensions).

The model considered in  included two branes localized at different points on a circle (the 5th dimension was taken $`S^1`$ of arbitrarily large radius). One of the branes was physical (RS-brane), the other was a so-called regulator brane (R-brane). The gravity was localized on the RS brane. The drawback of the model was that R-brane had a negative tension (see e.g. discussion in ).

Many modifications of the construction in  were studied (see e.g.  and other references to the original paper ), most of them included the negative tension brane.

Let us consider in more detail the construction in .

It included three branes localized on a line (5th dimension was taken $`R^1`$), two negative tension R-branes and one RS-brane between them. Cosmological constant outside R-branes was zero, cosmological constant between R-branes and RS-brane was negative. Notice that in this model cosmological constant is not really a constant, it jumps on the R-branes. So, in fact, there is a hidden external field in the model, and R-branes are charged with respect to it. This motivates the following construction in .

## 6 Spontaneous Brane World creation

I would now like to describe spontaneous creation of the Brane world in a homogeneous external field. The process considered is a sort of inverse to the induced brane production in the external field. The bounce now consists of two segments of the charged branes (R-branes) which are glued along the junction manifold with the neutral brane (RS-brane) which is inside the bubble.

The relevant effective action reads

$`S={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2k}}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g}(R+2\mathrm{\Lambda })}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}}{\displaystyle \sqrt{g}_{ind}K}+`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^5x\sqrt{g}h^2}+T_R{\displaystyle _R}\sqrt{g}_{ind}+T_{RS}{\displaystyle _{RS}}\sqrt{g}_{ind}`$ (8)
Let us explain ingredients in Eq.(6). $`h`$ is Hodge dual scalar of the field strength $`H`$. Being a top form, this field does not propagate. Field equations say that in empty space $`h`$ is a constant, in our case it only jumps at the charged R-branes by its charge e, $`h_+h_{}=e`$, where $`h_+`$ is outside value of $`h`$, $`h_{}`$ is its inside value. In the effective action Eq.(6) it is assumed that field equations for $`h`$ are resolved, the charge of the R-branes enters effective action only via $`h^2`$-term.

Constant k in Eq.(6) is the five dimensional gravitational constant, $`R`$ \- scalar curvature, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ stands for cosmological constant, for which we assume that it is negative and exactly compensates energy density of the field $`h`$ outside, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }+\frac{kh_+^2}{2}=0`$ so that outside the metric is flat. Notice right away that effective cosmological constant inside is

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}=\mathrm{\Lambda }+\frac{kh_{}^2}{2}=\frac{kh_+^2}{2}+\frac{kh_{}^2}{2}.$$
(9)
and hence the scalar curvature $`R`$ of the AdS metric inside any of the two segments in figure reads $`R=\frac{2d}{d2}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}=\frac{10}{3}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}`$, and the corresponding AdS radius, $`R_{AdS}`$, reads $`R_{AdS}^2=\frac{2(d1)(d2)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}}=\frac{24}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{eff}}`$.

The origin of two of the three surface terms in Eq.(6) is obvious - these are tension terms for R- and RS-branes. The third term, $`\frac{1}{k}\sqrt{g}_{ind}K`$ is introduced to ensure that variation of the curvature term does not depend on normal derivatives of variation of the metric on the branes . Here $`K=g_{ind}^{ij}K_{ij}`$ stands for the trace of the external curvature $`K_{ij}`$ of the branes, the integral is over all branes, every brane contributing twice, with $`K`$ computed in metric on one or the other side of the brane.

So much about ingredients in the effective action Eq.(6). Let us now explain details of the bounce solution. The metric to the right of the RS-brane inside R-brane reads

$$ds^2=\frac{dz^2+d\rho ^2+\rho ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2}{(1\frac{(za)^2+\rho ^2}{R_{AdS}^2})^2}$$
(10)
while the metric to the left of the RS-brane inside R-brane reads

$$ds^2=\frac{dz^2+d\rho ^2+\rho ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2}{(1\frac{(z+a)^2+\rho ^2}{R_{AdS}^2})^2}$$
(11)
where $`z`$ is coordinate along the axes of symmetry orthogonal to RS-brane, $`\rho `$ is the radial coordinate in orthogonal to $`z`$ directions, $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2`$ is the metric of the corresponding 3-sphere, $`a`$ is a parameter.

The metrics Eq.(10),(11) are to be sewed on R-branes with flat metric and on RS-brane with each other, in the sence that metrics themselves are continues, while their normal derivatives jump according to the Israel condition, $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_{ij}=\frac{kT}{d1}g_{ij}=\frac{kT}{4}g_{ij}`$. On R-branes this condition fixes radius $`\overline{R}`$ of the spherical segments, $`\overline{R}=\frac{2T_R(d1)}{h_+^2h_{}^2}`$, which is of course the same as for bounce without RS-brane, and on RS-brane this condition fixes the parameter $`a`$, $`a=\frac{T_{RS}(d1)}{h_+^2h_{}^2}`$. Importantly, $`cos\alpha =\frac{a}{\overline{R}}=\frac{T_{RS}}{2T_R}`$, which is precisely the force balance condition at the junctions.

Substituting these data into the effective action Eq.(6) one straigtforwardly obtains exponential factor for the probability P of the process. It ranges between $`Pe^{S_{bt}}`$ for very light RS-brane, $`T_{RS}T_R`$, where $`S_{bt}`$ is the action for the bounce without RS-brane, which has been computed in , and $`Pe^{2S_{bt}}`$ for $`T_{RS}=2T_R`$. More heavy RS-brane cannot be produced in this way.

Since the internal brane is located at $`z=0`$ the induced metric of 4D world is immediately seen from Eq.(10). It appears to be the AdS space with the AdS radius $`R_{AdS4}^2=R_{AdS}^2a^2`$ and, correspondingly, the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_4=\frac{12}{(R_{AdS}^2a^2)}`$

After continuation into Minkowski space our Universe is a spacially finite, growing slice of AdS space. Spacial radius of R-brane is also growing, and we are eventually left with the picture of , or , type.

## 7 Some other related solution

I would also like to describe some other related solution obtained in.

Interestingly, one can have multiple RS branes in the final state. In that case we have additional pair of the R brane segments of the same radius $`\overline{R}`$ for each new RS brane. The metric between the n-th and n+1 -th RS branes reads

$$ds_n^2=\frac{dz^2+d\rho ^2+\rho ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_3^2}{(1\frac{(za_n)^2+\rho ^2}{R_{AdS}^2})^2}$$
(12)
where $`a_n=(2n1)a`$. We choose z=0 at the center of the left R brane segment.

The distance between branes in fifth dimension is $`\delta x_5=2a`$. Let us interpret the RS branes as D branes which are neutral with respect to the external NS field. The picture described would amount to the generic U(N) gauge group on their worldvolume. Let us note that since the distance between branes can be interpreted as the vacuum expectation values of the scalar field on the worldvolume of D branes we have no moduli associated to scalars in this solution.

## 8 Conclusion

My conclusions are as follows:
1. We have described induced brane production in external field;
2. We have described tunneling into the Brane World (a sort of Big Bang);
3. No negative tension branes;
4. 5d early Universe;
5. non-flat (AdS) 4d brane - curable (see ).

I am thankful to A.Gorsky for the fruitful collaboration.


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# Calculations with DLCQ1

## 1 Introduction

Nonperturbative solutions are of critical importance for the full understanding and application of quantum field theories. One method to obtain such solutions is discrete light-cone quantization (DLCQ) . A brief summary of this method, its applications, and some refinements are given below. The summary is much too brief to be tutorial; an expanded discussion can be found in Ref. . Also due to brevity, other promising light-cone methods, such as the transverse lattice  and similarity transformations , are not discussed.

DLCQ builds from the imposition of periodic or antiperiodic boundary conditions on a light-cone box $`L<x^{}<L`$, $`L_{}<x,y<L_{}`$. Usually couplings dictate that periodic boundary conditions be used for bosons. Either form can be chosen for fermions, with antiperiodic preferred in order to avoid zero modes. In momentum space there is then a discrete grid: $`p^+n\pi /L`$, $`𝐩_{}(n_x\pi /L_{},n_y\pi /L_{})`$, with $`n`$ even for periodic boundary conditions and odd for antiperiodic. The limit $`L\mathrm{}`$ is exchanged for a limit in terms of the integer harmonic resolution $`K\frac{L}{\pi }P^+`$ . It sets the resolution for the longitudinal momentum fractions $`x=p^+/P^+n/K`$. The light-cone Hamiltonian $`H_{\mathrm{LC}}P^+P^{}`$ is independent of $`L`$. Because $`p^+`$ is positive, the harmonic resolution limits the range of $`n`$ to be no more than $`K`$ and the number of constituents to be no more than roughly $`K/2`$. There is no corresponding limit for the transverse components, and an additional constraint must be imposed. One frequently used is the invariant mass cutoff $`m_i^2+p_i^2x_i\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$. The transverse integers then lie within some finite range, $`N_{}n_x,n_yN_{}`$.

The discretization, combined with Fock-state expansions for the eigenstates of $`H_{\mathrm{LC}}`$, produces a finite matrix approximation to the infinite set of coupled integral equations for the Fock-state wave functions. The integrals are replaced by trapezoidal approximations such as

$$_0^1𝑑xd^2p_{}f(x,𝐩_{})\frac{2}{K}\left(\frac{\pi }{L_{}}\right)^2\underset{n}{}\underset{n_x,n_y=N_{}}{\overset{N_{}}{}}f(n/K,𝐧_{}\pi /L_{}),$$
(1)
with nominal errors of order $`1/K^2`$ for nonsingular kernels. Additional truncation in particle number is frequently applied, to keep the matrix representation small.

For large matrices the diagonalization problem is best attacked with the Lanczos algorithm  which requires of the matrix only matrix-vector multiplications. This takes good advantage of the usually sparse structure of the matrix by allowing optimal storage or even computation of matrix elements as needed. An alternative to explicit diagonalization is reduction to an effective Hamiltonian in a single Fock sector .

## 2 Brief review of calculations

There have been a number of applications of this method. The earliest is a nonrelativistic test , but all the others are applications to field theories in two or more dimensions. The first field-theoretic application was by Pauli and Brodsky to two-dimensional Yukawa theory . Other two-dimensional applications include $`\varphi ^n`$ , QED  (including coherent states  and QED at finite temperature ), QCD , adjoint matter (including tube models and collinear models) , and the following models: Wick–Cutkosky , sine–Gordon , Gross–Neveu , and Abelian Higgs . The behavior of the Pauli-Jordan function $`\mathrm{\Delta }(x)=i\frac{d^2k}{2\pi }\delta (k^2m^2)ϵ(k^0)e^{ikx}`$, which should be zero for $`x^2<0`$, has been checked as a test of microcausality . Four-dimensional applications include QED  (including coherent states ), positronium , a perturbative calculation of the electron’s anomalous moment , QCD , the Wick–Cutkosky model , a dressed fermion model  (including a calculation of the $`F_1`$ form factor ), and Yukawa theory in a single-fermion truncation . The dressed fermion calculation  is the largest to date, having used basis sizes on the order of 10 million.

An important, recurring issue is that of zero modes . These take several forms: ghost fields required for a consistent quantization, constrained fields associated with the periodic boundary conditions, and dynamical zero modes of periodic gauge fields. The zero modes are intimately tied with the representation of what in equal-time quantization is the structure of the vacuum. Even if this structure is trivial, zero modes represent corrections of order $`1/K`$ to DLCQ calculations that ignore them. These $`1/K`$ effects can be introduced through effective interactions .

To quickly see the potential importance of zero modes, consider the Wick–Cutkosky model in two dimensions, for which the interaction Lagrangian is $`g\varphi |\chi |^2`$. We impose periodic boundary conditions for $`\varphi `$ and extract the zero mode field $`\varphi _0=_L^L\varphi 𝑑x^{}/2L`$. Antiperiodic boundary conditions are used for the complex scalar $`\chi `$. By integrating the equation of motion, we obtain the constraint $`\mu ^2\varphi _0=g\frac{1}{2L}_L^L𝑑x^{}|\chi |^2`$. This implies that the interaction term of the Hamiltonian will include a term of the form $`\frac{g^2}{\mu ^2}\frac{1}{2L}\left(_L^L𝑑x^{}|\chi |^2\right)^2`$, which is unbounded from below, for any $`g`$, in the limit of infinite resolution. DLCQ calculations without zero modes can see this unbounded spectrum , but with some difficulty.

Recent work on zero modes includes chiral symmetry breaking , symmetry breaking in $`\varphi ^4`$  (including a treatment that does not require zero modes ), an additional effective interaction in the massive Schwinger model , and the chiral Yukawa model . For earlier work, see the review in Ref. .

## 3 Refinements of DLCQ

Since the original formulation of DLCQ  several refinements and variants of the method have appeared. Those described briefly here are corrections for end-point behavior , the use of unequal integration weights , an indefinite-metric Lanczos algorithm , supersymmetric DLCQ , and treatment of scattering amplitudes .

When a constituent mass is small, there can be significant end-point corrections to DLCQ wave functions. The introduction of an effective interaction to the DLCQ Hamiltonian can compensate for this . The effective interaction is constructed to include the leading end-point behavior exactly.

Alternative integration schemes introduce unequal weights at grid points near the boundaries  to compensate for the DLCQ grid being incommensurate with the invariant-mass cutoff. The weights can be obtained by iterating one-dimensional integration rules and by picking the one-dimensional rules to satisfy chosen constraints, such as exact integration of linear forms. Additional improvement can be obtained by taking into account the cylindrical symmetry of both the integration domain and the invariant mass constraint for two-body wave functions . The transverse integral is written in polar coordinates, and the radial integral is approximated by a discrete sum over the circles that intersect the points of the square grid.

The recent calculations of the dressed fermion model  and Yukawa theory  introduce negatively normed Pauli–Villars particles as regulators . The DLCQ matrix representation is then no longer Hermitian. Although there exists a Lanczos diagonalization technique for general matrices, an efficient special form has been developed for this indefinite-metric situation . It produces a tridiagonal representation $`T`$ which is real and self-adjoint with respect to an induced indefinite metric in the Lanczos basis $`\{\stackrel{}{q}_k\}`$. One can solve $`T\stackrel{}{c}_i=\lambda _i\stackrel{}{c}_i`$ for eigenvalues and right eigenvectors and have $`H_{\mathrm{LC}}\stackrel{}{\varphi }_i\lambda _i\stackrel{}{\varphi _i}`$, with $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }_i=_k(c_i)_k\stackrel{}{q}_k`$.

Efficient application of DLCQ to supersymmetric theories requires a variant, known as supersymmetric DLCQ (SDLCQ) . It is based on the observation  that discretization of the supercharge $`Q^{}`$ and computation of the Hamiltonian $`P^{}`$ from the superalgebra relation $`P^{}=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{2}}\{Q^{},Q^{}\}`$ yield a discrete Hamiltonian which is explicitly supersymmetric. The ordinary DLCQ Hamiltonian is not supersymmetric. The two agree only in the limit of infinite resolution. It is expected that zero modes decouple in these theories , another advantage of supersymmetry.

An extension of DLCQ to include the calculation of scattering amplitudes has been constructed . This generalizes earlier work on the special case of $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation into hadrons . The invariant amplitude $`_{fi}`$ is obtained from the light-cone $`T`$ matrix, which is built from individual composite-particle eigenstates and related operators, extending a formulation by Wick .

## 4 Summary

The future of DLCQ holds many exciting prospects, some of which can already be listed. The use of Pauli–Villars regularization can be extended to full Yukawa theory, QED, and perhaps QCD in the form given by Paston et al. . Cross sections can be calculated. Symmetry breaking and vacuum structure can be better understood. For those working in string theory, higher resolution SDLCQ calculations in relevant theories will be of considerable interest.

## Acknowledgments

The preparation of this review was supported in part by the Department of Energy, contract DE-FG02-98ER41087.


text:
# What Fraction of Gravitational Lens Galaxies Lie in Groups?

## 1 Introduction

Gravitational lensing of background sources by foreground galaxies offers a powerful probe of galaxy structure and evolution at intermediate redshifts ($`0.3z1`$; e.g., Keeton, Kochanek & Falco 1998; Kochanek et al. 2000a). Lenses are also used to constrain the cosmological parameters $`H_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (e.g., Falco, Kochanek & Muñoz 1998; Helbig et al. 1999; Koopmans & Fassnacht 1999; Witt, Mao & Keeton 2000; and references therein). These applications rely on accurate models of the mass distribution responsible for the lensing, but the models may be complicated by contributions of the lens galaxy’s environment to the lensing potential, especially when the lens galaxy lies in a poor group or rich cluster of galaxies.

A crucial step in understanding how environment may affect lensing constraints on dark matter halos and cosmological parameters is determining the fraction of lens galaxies in groups and in clusters. The environments of most lenses are not known. Three lens galaxies are confirmed group members (PG 1115+080, B 1422+231, and MG 0751+2716; Kundić et al. 1997ab; Tonry 1998; Tonry & Kochanek 1999), and another four lie in clusters (RXJ 0911+0551, RXJ 0921+4528, Q 0957+561, and HST 1411+5221; Young et al. 1981; Fischer, Schade & Barrientos 1998; Kneib, Cohen & Hjorth 2000; Muñoz et al. 2000). While environmental effects have been included in models of some of these lenses (e.g., Schechter et al. 1997; Keeton & Kochanek 1997; Barkana et al. 1999; Bernstein & Fischer 1999; Chae 1999; Keeton et al. 2000a; Lehár et al. 2000), lens environments have not been addressed statistically (see Keeton, Kochanek & Seljak 1997 for an initial analysis). In particular, previous predictions of the statistics of galaxy lenses could not examine environmental effects because they assumed an environment-independent galaxy luminosity function (e.g., Turner 1980; Turner, Ostriker & Gott 1984; Fukugita & Turner 1991; Kochanek 1993a, 1996ab; Maoz & Rix 1993; Wallington & Narayan 1993; Falco et al. 1998; Quast & Helbig 1999; Helbig et al. 1999).

The existence of lenses in groups and clusters is not surprising. Lensing selects galaxies by mass and thus preferentially selects early-type galaxies, which are most common in dense environments (e.g., the morphology–density relation; Dressler 1980). However, recent studies suggest that richer environments tend to have a higher ratio of dwarf to giant galaxies than the field (Bromley et al. 1998b; Christlein 2000; Zabludoff & Mulchaey 2000), and dwarf galaxies are much poorer lenses than giant galaxies. The morphology–density relation increases the chance of having a lens in a group or cluster while the dwarf-to-giant ratio decreases it, so the distribution of lens galaxy environments depends on how these two effects combine quantitatively.

In this paper, we examine how changes in the type and luminosity distribution of galaxies with environment (“population variations”) affect lens statistics. Using new results that quantify the type and environment dependence of the galaxy luminosity function (Bromley et al. 1998ab; Christlein 2000), we obtain the first predictions of the distribution of lens galaxy environments and of statistical differences in the properties of lenses in different environments. We neglect contributions to the lensing potential from other galaxies and the extended dark halo of the group or cluster (“potential perturbations”), which introduce a tidal shear that distorts image configurations and a gravitational focusing that increases image separations (e.g., Schneider, Ehlers & Falco 1992). This assumption not only simplifies the analysis, but also constitutes the null hypothesis as to whether potential perturbations contribute (statistically) to lensing.

The organization of the paper is as follows. In §2 we discuss the components of the statistical calculations, including galaxy luminosity functions and the gravitational lens model. In §3 we use simple analytic results to highlight the trends of environmental effects in lens statistics. In §4 we use empirical galaxy luminosity functions to obtain quantitative predictions of the environmental effects. Finally, in §5 we offer a summary and discussion.

## 2 Data and Methods

### 2.1 Galaxy populations

We must formally describe a population of galaxies that can act as gravitational lens galaxies in order to compute the set of lenses they can produce. Depending on details of the observational sample, galaxies may be binned by type, environment, and/or redshift. Within each discrete bin, the distribution of galaxy luminosities is described using a smooth galaxy luminosity function (GLF) $`\varphi (L)`$ such that $`\varphi (L)dL`$ is the comoving number density of galaxies with luminosity between $`L`$ and $`L+dL`$. The GLF is usually parameterized as a Schechter (1976) function with the form

$$\varphi _i(L)=\frac{n_i^{}}{L_i^{}}\left(\frac{L}{L_i^{}}\right)^{\alpha _i}e^{L/L_i^{}},$$
(1)
where $`i`$ labels the type, environment, and/or redshift bin. The GLF is described by a characteristic comoving number density $`n_i^{}`$, a characteristic luminosity $`L_i^{}`$, and a faint end slope $`\alpha _i`$. The differences between GLFs in different bins are characterized by differences in the Schechter parameters $`n_i^{}`$, $`L_i^{}`$, and $`\alpha _i`$.

Current surveys are not large enough to bin galaxies by type, environment, and redshift simultaneously; only recently has it become possible to examine even two of the three quantities. Because we are interested in the effects of environment, we adopt the sample of galaxies from the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS, Shectman et al. 1996). This survey provides a large-volume, R-band selected sample of the nearby universe that offers four benefits for our study. First, it samples down to an estimated completeness limit of $`M_R=17.5+5\mathrm{log}h`$, or nearly three magnitudes below $`M^{}`$. Second, its large volume offers a fair sample of environments from the field to groups and clusters. Third, its large number of galaxies means that galaxies can be binned by both type and environment with sufficient statistics to discriminate between GLFs in different bins.

The fourth benefit is that there are two independent and complementary analyses of type and environmental dependences in the LCRS GLFs. Bromley et al. (1998ab, hereafter B98) classify galaxies using six type and two environment classes. They define six spectral types (which they call “clans”) derived from a principal component analysis of important spectral features. The clans smoothly span the range from quiescent galaxies that have substantial absorption lines, 4000 Å breaks, and old stellar populations (Clans 1 and 2) to star forming galaxies with prominent emission lines and a significant fraction of young stars (Clans 5 and 6). B98 define two environment categories based on the local 3-d number density of galaxies: “high density” environments correspond roughly to groups and clusters of galaxies (identified using a friends-of-friends algorithm), while “low density” environments include only galaxies that lie outside groups. Table 1 gives the parameters for the GLFs derived by B98.

The study by Christlein (2000, hereafter C00) uses a different scheme for classifying type and environment, placing more emphasis on environment than type. C00 defines two galaxy types, using the equivalent width of \[Oii\] $`\lambda `$3727 Å to separate “emission line” ($``$5 Å; EL) from “non-emission line” ($`<`$5 Å; NEL) galaxies. He defines environments by identifying groups (using a friends-of-friends algorithm) and classifying galaxies by the velocity dispersion of the group in which they reside. Table 2 gives the parameters for the GLFs derived by C00.

B98 and C00 find similar trends in the type and environment dependence of the GLF. The characteristic density $`n^{}`$ varies with both type and environment, but there is no obvious trend. The faint end slope $`\alpha `$ systematically steepens from early-type to late-type galaxies and from the field to denser environments, leading to an increase in the dwarf-to-giant ratio with local galaxy density. The fact that both studies reveal similar trends using different galaxy classification techniques suggests that the trends are robust. Zabludoff & Mulchaey (2000) detect a similar variation in the dwarf-to-giant ratio with environment using a completely different sample of galaxies.

A drawback of the LCRS for our analysis is that the sample is drawn from the nearby universe ($`z0.1`$, Shectman et al. 1996), while most lens galaxies are found at redshifts between 0.3 and 1. There are, however, several independent studies of redshift evolution in the GLF (e.g., Lilly et al. 1995; Lin et al. 1999). We cannot use these studies directly because they are too small to permit environment classification, but we can apply the inferred redshift trends. We adopt as our main hypothesis that the only evolution is passive luminosity evolution, but we also examine how number density evolution would affect our conclusions.

### 2.2 Lens model

The gravitational lens model specifies what kind of lensed images can be produced by a galaxy of a given luminosity, type, and environment. We adopt the standard singular isothermal sphere (SIS) lens model because of its analytic simplicity, and because it is consistent with stellar dynamical models (e.g., Rix et al. 1997b), X-ray galaxies (e.g., Fabbiano 1989), models of individual lens systems (e.g., Kochanek 1995; Grogin & Narayan 1996), and lens statistics (e.g., Maoz & Rix 1993; Kochanek 1993a, 1996a). The image separation $`\theta `$ produced by an SIS lens is independent of the impact parameter of the source relative to the lens and is given by (e.g., Schneider et al. 1992)

$$\theta =8\pi \left(\frac{\sigma }{c}\right)^2\frac{D_{ls}}{D_{os}},$$
(2)
where $`\sigma `$ is the velocity dispersion of the lens galaxy, and $`D_{os}`$ and $`D_{ls}`$ are proper motion distances from the observer to the source and from the lens to the source, respectively. (The distance ratio is the same if the two distances are taken to be angular diameter distances.) The cross section for multiple imaging (in angular units) is

$$𝒜=\frac{\pi }{4}\theta ^2.$$
(3)
It is convenient to introduce a characteristic angular scale for lensing,

$$\theta ^{}=8\pi \left(\frac{\sigma ^{}}{c}\right)^2,$$
(4)
which is the image separation produced by an $`L^{}`$ lens galaxy (with velocity dispersion $`\sigma ^{}`$) for a source at infinity.

The SIS lens model omits three features that are known to affect lensing: ellipticity in the lens galaxy, tidal shear from objects near the lens galaxy, and gravitational focusing (or “convergence”) from the environment. Statistically, ellipticity and shear mainly affect the relative numbers of two- and four-image lenses (e.g., Keeton et al. 1997), which we do not differentiate. Convergence from the environment can increase image separations by a few percent up to $``$20% (e.g., Bernstein & Fischer 1999). Our use of the SIS lens model amounts to an assumption that environmental contributions to the lensing potential do not affect lens statistics; thus our results will serve as the null hypothesis when examining whether potential perturbations affect lens statistics.

To apply SIS lens models to galaxies classified by luminosity, we must convert from luminosity to velocity dispersion using empirical scaling relations like the Faber-Jackson relation for early-type galaxies and the Tully-Fisher relation for late-type galaxies. Both relations have the form

$$\frac{L}{L^{}}=\left(\frac{\sigma }{\sigma ^{}}\right)^\gamma .$$
(5)
For early-type galaxies, combining the Faber-Jackson relation with gravitational lens statistics yields (Kochanek 1993a)

$$\gamma 4,\sigma ^{}=220\pm 20\text{km s}\text{-1},\theta ^{}=2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}79,$$
(6)
which also agrees with dark matter models for the stellar dynamics of elliptical galaxies (Kochanek 1994). For spiral galaxies, we find that combining the R-band GLF (Tables 1 and 2) with the R-band Tully-Fisher relation of Sakai et al. (2000) yields

$$\gamma =3.6\pm 0.3,\sigma ^{}=100\pm 6\text{km s}\text{-1},\theta ^{}=0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}58.$$
(7)
This is an updated version of the normalization given by Fukugita & Turner (1991). The normalization differences between early-type and late-type galaxies are basically differences in mass. Early-type galaxies tend to have more mass for a given luminosity (a higher mass-to-light ratio) than late-type galaxies, at least within the optical radius, so they tend to have higher velocity dispersions and produce larger image separations.

We assume that $`\sigma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma `$ do not change with redshift. Under passive luminosity evolution, the mass scale given by $`\sigma ^{}`$ does not evolve. Also, high-redshift studies of the Tully-Fisher relation (e.g., Vogt et al. 1996; Rix et al. 1997a) and of the Fundamental Plane of elliptical galaxies (e.g., van Dokkum & Franx 1996; Kelson et al. 1997; van Dokkum et al. 1998; Kochanek et al. 2000a) suggest that $`\gamma `$ does not evolve. Even if the no-evolution assumption is not entirely justified, Mao (1991), Mao & Kochanek (1994), and Rix et al. (1994) have shown that lens statistics are affected by evolution only if there are dramatic changes in the population of early-type galaxies at redshifts $`z<1`$.

### 2.3 Statistics

We want to compute statistical properties of both non-lens and lens galaxies. For simplicity, in this discussion we refer to the set of galaxies in a particular type and environment bin $`i`$ as galaxy population $`i`$. The total number density $`n_i`$ and luminosity density $`\rho _{L,i}`$ for galaxy population $`i`$ are obtained by integrating over the luminosity function,

$`n_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{L_{\mathrm{cut}}}^{\mathrm{}}}\varphi _i(L)𝑑L=n_i^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{}),`$ (8)
$`\rho _{L,i}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{L_{\mathrm{cut}}}^{\mathrm{}}}L\varphi _i(L)𝑑L=n_i^{}L_i^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+\alpha _i;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{}),`$ (9)
where the integrals include only galaxies brighter than some completeness limit $`L_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, and they can be evaluated in terms of incomplete $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ functions.

For lens galaxies, the main statistical quantity is the optical depth for a source at redshift $`z_s`$ to be lensed by galaxy population $`i`$ (e.g., Turner et al. 1984; Fukugita & Turner 1991),

$$\tau _i(z_s)=\frac{1}{4\pi }𝑑V𝑑L𝒜_i(L,z_l,z_s)\varphi _i(L),$$
(10)
where $`\varphi _i`$ is the GLF for the galaxy population and $`𝒜_i(L,z_l,z_s)`$ is the cross section for multiple imaging by a lens of luminosity $`L`$ at redshift $`z_l`$. In order to compute the number of lenses expected in any real survey, the optical depth would have to be modified by a “magnification bias” factor to account for lenses where the source is intrinsically fainter than the flux limit but magnified above the threshold (e.g., Turner 1980; Turner et al. 1984). For the SIS lens model, magnification bias simply yields a coefficient multiplying the optical depth, and the coefficient is the same for all galaxy populations. Because we are mainly interested in the relative number of lenses produced by different galaxy populations, we can neglect magnification bias.

If there is no redshift evolution in the GLF other than passive luminosity evolution, the optical depth and other related quantities can be computed analytically. The following results were originally given by Gott, Park & Lee (1989), Fukugita & Turner (1991), Kaiser (1991), and Kochanek (1993b); we have modified them to introduce an explicit luminosity cut at the completeness limit $`L_{\mathrm{cut}}`$. The total optical depth is

$`\tau _i(z_s)`$ $`=`$ $`\tau _i^{}f(z_s)\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i+4\gamma _i^1;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{}),`$ (11)
$`\text{where}\tau _i^{}`$ $`=`$ $`16\pi ^3r_H^3n_i^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _i^{}}{c}}\right)^4,`$ (12)
$`f(z_s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_H^3}}{\displaystyle _0^{D_{os}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(D_{ol}D_{ls}/D_{os})^2}{(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_kD_{ol}^2/r_H^2)^{1/2}}}𝑑D_{ol},`$ (13)
where $`D_{ol}`$ is the proper motion distance from the observer to the lens, $`r_H=c/H_0`$ is the Hubble distance, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k=1\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the curvature density. Writing the optical depth as in eq. (11) emphasizes how the various dependences separate. The characteristic optical depth $`\tau _i^{}`$ contains the characteristic number density $`n_i^{}`$ and mass scale $`\sigma _i^{}`$ for the galaxy population. The $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ function contains the shape information from the GLF (the faint end slope $`\alpha _i`$) and the $`L`$$`\sigma `$ scaling relation (the Faber-Jackson or Tully-Fisher slope $`\gamma _i`$). Finally, the dimensionless factor $`f(z_s)`$ contains all of the dependence on cosmology and on the source redshift; for any flat universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_k=0`$), $`f(z_s)=D_{os}^3/(30r_H^3)`$ (Gott et al. 1989). When considering a population of sources, the cosmology factor $`f`$ would also include an integral over the source redshift distribution.

We characterize the distribution of lenses using the differential optical depth $`d\tau _i/d\theta `$, which is equivalent (up to a normalization factor that depends on the cosmology and the source redshift distribution) to a probability distribution for the image separation $`\theta `$. Hence we refer to $`d\tau _i/d\theta `$ as the image separation distribution. It can be evaluated analytically for any flat cosmology,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\tau _i}{d\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`30\tau _i^{}f(z_s){\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{\theta }^2}{\theta _i^{}}}\left(\mathrm{\Gamma }_22\widehat{\theta }\mathrm{\Gamma }_4+\widehat{\theta }^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_6\right),`$ (14)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[1+\alpha _in\gamma _i^1;\mathrm{max}(\widehat{\theta }^{\gamma _i/2},L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{})],`$ (15)
where $`\widehat{\theta }=\theta /\theta _i^{}`$. Moments of this distribution can also be evaluated analytically for any flat cosmology,

$`\theta _i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta _i^{}}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i+6\gamma _i^1;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i+4\gamma _i^1;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{})}},`$ (16)
$`\theta ^2_i`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\left(\theta _i^{}\right)^2}{7}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i+8\gamma _i^1;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha _i+4\gamma _i^1;L_{\mathrm{cut}}/L_i^{})}},`$ (17)
where $`\mathrm{}_i`$ denotes an average over galaxy population $`i`$. The mean image separation is simply $`\theta _i`$, while the standard deviation is $`[\theta ^2_i\theta _i^2]^{1/2}`$.

All of these results apply for a single galaxy population in a flat cosmology. For the generalization to arbitrary cosmologies, see Kochanek (1993b). For the generalization to multiple galaxy populations, the linearity of the optical depth means that we can simply sum over populations,

$`\tau _{\mathrm{tot}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}\tau _i,`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\tau _{\mathrm{tot}}}{d\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\tau _i}{d\theta }}.`$ (19)
When computing moments of the image separation distribution, we must be careful to weight the populations correctly,

$$\theta _{\mathrm{tot}}=\frac{\underset{i}{}\tau _i\theta _i}{_i\tau _i},$$
(20)
and similarly for $`\theta ^2_{\mathrm{tot}}`$.

Finally, all of these results apply to a galaxy population with no redshift evolution other than passive luminosity evolution. However, redshift surveys suggest that there is evolution in the comoving number density of late-type galaxies (Lilly et al. 1995; Lin et al. 1999). Adding number density evolution $`n_i^{}(z)`$ to the statistical results given above is straightforward: evaluate $`\tau _i^{}`$ using the local number density $`n_i^{}(0)`$ and replace the cosmology factor $`f(z_s)`$ with the cosmology/evolution factor

$$f_{\mathrm{evol}}(z_s)=\frac{1}{r_H^3}_0^{D_{os}}\frac{n_i^{}(z_l)}{n_i^{}(0)}\frac{(D_{ol}D_{ls}/D_{os})^2}{(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_kD_{ol}^2/r_H^2)^{1/2}}𝑑D_{ol}.$$
(21)
Note that making an explicit luminosity cut at the LCRS completeness limit $`M_R=17.5+5\mathrm{log}h`$ excludes some galaxies and therefore yields an underestimate of the lensing optical depth. The cut is necessary because the luminosity function for any survey is unreliable below the survey’s completeness limit. However, the cut does not significantly affect our results, because the faint galaxies below it are very poor lenses. To estimate the amount of optical depth excluded by the cut, consider a GLF that matches an observed GLF about the completeness limit, but is allowed to have an arbitrary slope $`\alpha _{\mathrm{faint}}`$ below the completeness limit. Let $`\tau _{\mathrm{bright}}`$ ($`\tau _{\mathrm{faint}}`$) be the lensing optical depth due to galaxies brighter (fainter) then the completeness limit. Using the C00 sample of NEL galaxies outside groups (see Table 2), we estimate $`\tau _{\mathrm{faint}}/\tau _{\mathrm{bright}}=(0.005,0.008,0.016)`$ when the slope below the completeness limit is $`\alpha _{\mathrm{faint}}=(0.5,1.0,1.5)`$. In other words, even if the GLF is much steeper below the completeness limit than above the limit, the excluded optical depth is a small fraction of the total.

## 3 Analytic Trends

Before making quantitative predictions about the effects of type and environment in lens statistics, it is instructive to use the analytic results from §2.3 to identify the general trends. There are two familiar effects related to galaxy type, and two new effects due to the environment.

Because lensing selects galaxies by mass and early-type galaxies tend to be more massive than late-type galaxies, lensing has a strong type selection in favor of early-type galaxies. Eq. (11) shows that the lensing optical depth is proportional to $`n^{}\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^4\mathrm{\Gamma }(1+\alpha +4\gamma ^1)`$, so the relative number of lenses is expected to be $`N(\text{early})/N(\text{late})20`$, using the data from §2. Moreover, early-type galaxies tend to produce lenses with larger image separations than late-type galaxies. Eq. (16) indicates that the mean image separation $`\theta `$ scales as $`\left(\sigma ^{}\right)^2`$, so $`\theta `$ for late-type lenses is only $``$20% of that for early-type lenses, although this simple estimate may be complicated by inclination effects due to the thin disk in spiral galaxies (see Maller, Flores & Primack 1997; Wang & Turner 1997; Keeton & Kochanek 1998). Both of these effects are known from previous calculations of lens statistics (e.g., Turner et al. 1984; Fukugita & Turner 1991). They are also consistent with the data, as most of the more than 50 known lenses are produced by early-type galaxies (e.g., Kochanek et al. 2000a), with only four likely cases of lensing by a spiral galaxy (B 0218+357, Browne et al. 1993; B 1600+434, Jaunsen & Hjorth 1997; PKS 1830$``$211, Wiklind & Combes 1996; 2237+0305, Huchra et al. 1985). Also, the smallest known image separation is produced by a face-on spiral galaxy ($`\theta =0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}33`$ for B 0218+357). The type dependence of the number density of lenses and the mean image separation leads to an environmental dependence because of the morphology–density relation, as we show in the next section.

The two new environmental effects arise from the environmental dependence of the faint end slope $`\alpha `$ of the GLF. First, because the faint end slope appears to systematically change with environment (see Tables 1 and 2, and Zabludoff & Mulchaey 2000), the distribution of image separations should vary with environment. Figure 1 shows the image separation distribution $`d\tau /d\theta `$ for different values of $`\alpha `$. As $`\alpha `$ decreases, the distribution becomes more skewed toward small separations, and $`\theta `$ decreases. Physically, when $`\alpha `$ is smaller the galaxy population has a higher ratio of dwarf galaxies to giant galaxies, which leads to a higher fraction of small-separation lenses.

Second, changes in $`\alpha `$ with environment affect the numbers of lens and non-lens galaxies differently. Consider Figure 2, which shows schematic representations of groups with $`\alpha =0.5`$ and $`1.5`$, normalized to have the same number of galaxies down to $`M^{}+3`$. If we pick a galaxy at random, it is equally likely to come from either group. However, if we pick a lens galaxy at random, it is far more likely to come from the $`\alpha =0.5`$ group than the $`\alpha =1.5`$ group, because the latter group is dominated by dwarf galaxies. Considering other toy models, such as groups normalized to have the same lensing optical depth, leads to a general conclusion: other things being equal (i.e., in the absence of a morphology–density relation), lens galaxies are less likely than non-lens galaxies to be found in environments with a large dwarf-to-giant ratio. The effect is probably weaker in observed galaxy populations than in our toy models with their rather extreme values of $`\alpha `$.

## 4 Quantitative Results

We now evaluate lens statistics using empirical GLFs to quantify the effects of the morphology–density relation and the dwarf-to-giant ratio on lens statistics. In §4.1 we present results using the full set of type and environment bins defined by B98 and C00, while in §4.2 we use coarser binning with only two types (early- and late-type galaxies) and three environments (the field, poor groups, and rich clusters). In §4.3 we compare our results to the data. In §§4.1–4.3 we assume no evolution in the comoving number density of galaxies with redshift, but in §4.4 we discuss how evolution would affect our results. Finally, in §4.5 we discuss the effects of possible incompletenesses in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey.

### 4.1 Fine binning

Figures 3 and 4 show the image separation distributions $`d\tau _i/d\theta `$ for the type and environment bins defined by B98 and C00, respectively. The distributions are computed assuming a source redshift $`z_s=2`$ and a cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$. If we were to change the cosmology or the source redshift, or even to allow a distribution of source redshifts, the only effect would be to change $`d\tau _i/d\theta `$ by a multiplicative factor that is identical for all type and environment bins (see eq. 11). The relative contributions of the different bins to the lensing optical depth are independent of the cosmology and source redshift distribution.

The results illustrate the trends identified in §3. First, for galaxies in a particular environment, both the amplitude and the peak location of the distributions are larger for early-type galaxies than for late-type galaxies; relative to early-type galaxies, late-type galaxies have a much smaller lensing optical depth and produce smaller image separations. Second, for galaxies of a particular type, the lens distributions in denser environments are more dominated by small image separations. This effect occurs because denser environments tend to have a steeper GLF and hence a higher dwarf-to-giant ratio (B98; C00; Zabludoff & Mulchaey 2000), which means a higher fraction of galaxies that produce small separation lenses. These trends are seen in both the B98 and C00 samples, which suggests that they are not overly sensitive to details of the type and environment classification schemes.

### 4.2 Coarse binning

The type classification of B98 and the environment classification of C00 both yield finer differentiation than we seek for characterizing the type and environment distributions of lens galaxies. We confine the B98 sample to two type bins by defining an early-type sample using Clans 1–3 and a late-type sample with Clans 4–6. We reclassify the C00 sample into three environment bins: the field, poor groups, and rich clusters. Studies of groups suggest that many systems with velocity dispersions $`\sigma 200`$ km s<sup>-1</sup> are either spurious or similar to the Local Group, which is bound but not yet virialized (Diaferio et al. 1993; Zaritsky 1994; Zabludoff & Mulchaey 1998). Hence, to be conservative, we define a “field” bin that contains both galaxies not in groups and galaxies in systems with $`\sigma <200`$ km s<sup>-1</sup>, a “group” bin that contains galaxies in systems with $`200<\sigma <500`$ km s<sup>-1</sup>, and a “cluster” bin that contains galaxies in systems with $`\sigma >500`$ km s<sup>-1</sup>. As we demonstrate below, our main conclusions are robust to the effects of changing the definitions of the coarse bins. Note that we compute statistical quantities for the full set of type and environment bins, and then combine the results into the coarse bins using eqs. (18)–(20); we do not try to define a GLF for each coarse bin.

Figure 5 shows the relative contributions of the coarse type and environment bins to the sets of non-lens and lens galaxies. We emphasize that the results for non-lens galaxies are empirical results from observed galaxy samples, while the results for lens galaxies are predictions based on the SIS lens model. The most dramatic result is the familiar type difference between non-lens and lens galaxies. Late-type or EL galaxies account for 66% and 68% of non-lens galaxies in the B98 and C00 samples (respectively), but only 4% of lens galaxies in either sample.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Changing the type classification of the B98 Clan 3 and 4 galaxies would of course change the type fractions. Reclassifying Clan 3 galaxies as late-type would increase the fraction of late-type non-lens galaxies to 85% and the fraction of late-type lens galaxies to 11%. Conversely, reclassifying Clan 4 galaxies as early-type would reduce the non-lens late-type fraction to 43% and the lens late-type fraction to 1%. The effects are smaller for lens galaxies than for non-lens galaxies because late-type galaxies contribute a small fraction of lenses to begin with. Again, these results reiterate the well-known fact that lensing selects galaxies by mass and overwhelmingly favors early-type galaxies.

The environment fractions are given in Table 3. The morphology–density relation is evident in the environment fractions for non-lens galaxies; it can also be seen in the NEL fraction, which for the C00 sample is $`(0.30,0.39,0.52)`$ in (the field, groups, clusters). Acting alone, the morphology–density relation would imply that lens galaxies should be more likely than non-lens galaxies to lie in dense environments. But lensing is also affected by changes in the dwarf-to-giant ratio with environment. It turns out that the two effects nearly cancel, and the environment fractions are very similar for non-lens and lens galaxies. In fact, the changing dwarf-to-giant ratio is the slightly stronger effect. Hence lens galaxies are slightly less likely than non-lens galaxies to lie in dense environments, although the differences are small and may be hard to detect. The similarity between the results computed with the B98 and C00 samples again suggests that systematic differences in classifying galaxy types and environments have little effect on the relative contributions of different environments to lens statistics.

Quantitatively, we predict that 22–27% of lens galaxies are in high density, bound systems like groups and clusters — and that the majority of these are in poor groups rather than rich clusters. These results are consistent with known lenses, where the sample of more than 50 lenses includes four lens galaxies in clusters and three in confirmed groups, but most lens galaxy environments remain undetermined. Our predictions yield a lower limit on the fraction of lens systems where the lensing potential is probably perturbed by elements other than the lens galaxy. If the lens galaxy lies in a bound group or cluster, it is very likely that other group galaxies and an extended dark matter halo contribute shear and/or convergence to the lensing potential. Even if the lens is not in a bound system, however, there may still be neighboring galaxies or structures along the line of sight that noticeably perturb the lensing potential.

The other trend identified in §3 is that the mean image separation depends on the faint end slope $`\alpha `$, which varies with environment. Table 4 gives the predicted mean and standard deviation of the image separations for lenses in different environments. We predict that the mean separation for lenses in groups is smaller than the mean for lenses in the field, under the assumption that the environment does not significantly affect the image separation (see §2.2). The difference in the means is considerably smaller than the standard deviation, so it would take 20–40 group lenses to detect the difference even at the $`1\sigma `$ level (assuming that for $`N`$ items with standard deviation $`\sigma `$ the uncertainty in the mean is $`\sigma /\sqrt{N}`$). Given good statistics, however, comparing the mean separations for group lenses and field lenses would provide an excellent test of environmental contributions to lensing. Specifically, an extended dark halo in a group containing a lens can provide extra gravitational focusing that increases the image separation beyond that produced by the lens galaxy alone (e.g., Falco et al. 1985). Thus if observed lenses reveal $`\theta (\text{groups})>\theta (\text{field})`$ contrary to our prediction, it would provide direct evidence that lenses in groups are significantly affected by group dark halos.

### 4.3 Comparison with data

Figure 6 shows our predictions for the total image separation distribution compared with the data for 49 known lenses from Kochanek et al. (2000b). Such comparisons are sensitive to the source redshift distribution and to cosmological parameters (e.g., Kochanek 1996ab; Falco et al. 1998; Helbig et al. 1999; and references therein). With the SIS lens model, these dependences appear only in a normalization factor that does not affect the shape of the separation distribution (see eq. 11), so we avoid complications by normalizing the theoretical curves to 49 total lenses.

Ideally, comparisons between theory and data include a careful account of selection biases, but that is impossible here because Figure 6 includes lenses from many different surveys as well as serendipitous discoveries. Thus it is somewhat surprising to find that the theoretical curves agree quite well with the data. A K–S test (e.g., Press et al. 1992) cannot distinguish between the data and any of the models. The agreement has little to do with the changes in galaxy populations with environment. Using the environment-independent LCRS GLFs given by Lin et al. (1986) yields a separation distribution very similar to the curves shown in Figure 6. The agreement is also insensitive to environmental perturbations of the lensing potential, which our models neglect. The largest known convergence from a group or cluster enclosing a lens increases the image separation by $``$20% (see Bernstein & Fischer 1999; Romanowsky & Kochanek 1999). Randomly choosing 25% of the lenses in Figure 6 and increasing their image separations by 20% produces a distribution that is statistically indistinguishable from the original distribution. In other words, examining the image separation distribution without knowing the environments of the lenses is a poor way to test whether environments affect the lensing potential (except in the tail of the distribution, as explained below). A better test is to determine the environments and then compare lenses in groups with lenses in the field, as discussed in §4.2.

Nevertheless, Figure 6 does offer three conclusions. First, regardless of the selection effects that are at work, it appears that no particular class of lenses is substantially missing. For example, even though finite resolution might bias surveys against finding small-separation lenses, it appears that these lenses are not significantly underrepresented. Second, Figure 6 provides a reassuring consistency check: our addition of population effects to lens statistics has not degraded the agreement between theory and data. It has not substantially improved the agreement, either, because the image separation distribution is not very sensitive to environmental effects for the reasons just cited.

The third point is that there are two lenses with $`\theta >6\mathrm{}`$, RXJ 0921+4528 and Q 0957+561, that lie in the tail of the image separation distribution. The C00 model shown in Figure 6 predicts only 0.04 lenses with $`\theta >6\mathrm{}`$ and 1.39 lenses with $`\theta >4\mathrm{}`$. Part of the explanation for these two unlikely lenses is that we have neglected environmental contributions to the lensing potential. In Q 0957+561 the lens galaxy is the brightest galaxy in a $`\sigma 700`$ km s<sup>-1</sup> cluster, and the convergence from the cluster is thought to contribute $``$20% of the image separation (e.g., Bernstein & Fischer 1999; Romanowsky & Kochanek 1999). In RXJ 0921+4528, the lens galaxy appears to be in an X-ray cluster that may likewise contribute to the large separation (Muñoz et al. 2000). These lenses suggest another test of our null hypothesis that potential perturbations do not affect lens statistics. They already indicate that convergence from the environment can be important when the lens lies in a cluster. As the data improve, it will be possible to extend this result to lower mass environments like groups and determine the importance of including environmental contributions to the lens model in applications of lens statistics.

### 4.4 Evolution effects

Our results so far have been obtained under the assumption that the comoving number density of galaxies does not change with redshift. However, redshift surveys (e.g., Lilly et al. 1995; Lin et al. 1999) suggest that there is number density evolution, at least in the population of late-type galaxies. (The surveys also imply evolution in the luminosity density, but lensing is insensitive to the component of luminosity density evolution that is due to passive luminosity evolution; see §2.) To quantify number density evolution, Lin et al. (1999) introduce the parameter $`P`$ defined by

$$n(z)=n(0)\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{0.4Pz}.$$
(22)
In the redshift range $`0.12<z<0.55`$, Lin et al. (1999) find $`P3\pm 1`$ (1$`\sigma `$) for late-type galaxies and essentially no number evolution in early-type galaxies.

We can include the effects of number evolution in the lens statistics by replacing the cosmology factor $`f(z_s)`$ in eq. (11) with the cosmology/evolution factor $`f_{\mathrm{evol}}(z_s)`$ from eq. (21), which is equivalent to multiplying the optical depth by an evolution factor $`f_{\mathrm{evol}}(z_s)/f(z_s)`$. Table 5 shows that this factor increases strongly with both the number evolution parameter $`P`$ and the source redshift $`z_s`$. With higher $`P`$ the evolution is more rapid, and with higher $`z_s`$ the increase in number density between the observer and the source is larger. Strong number evolution ($`P3`$) can increase the optical depth for late-type galaxies to lens a distant source ($`z_s3`$) by more than an order of magnitude. The effect is unlikely to be this strong, however, for two reasons. First, fewer than 10% of lenses have sources beyond $`z_s=3`$. Second, the strong evolution found by Lin et al. (1999) was measured in the redshift range $`0.12<z<0.55`$; there are no current grounds for extrapolation to $`z1`$ or beyond, especially using an exponential function that may over-estimate the evolution at high redshifts.

Consider a rather dramatic number evolution factor of $`f_{\mathrm{evol}}(z_s)/f(z_s)=10`$ for late-type galaxies and no number evolution for early-type galaxies. Using the C00 luminosity functions, we then find that late-type galaxies account for 32% of lens galaxies — the rapid number evolution in late-type galaxies simply increases the number of late-type lens galaxies. The mean image separations correspondingly decrease: $`\theta =(1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}33,1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}29,1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}03)`$ for (field, group, cluster) lenses. Nevertheless, the environment fractions are largely unchanged: 79% of lens galaxies in the field, 17% in groups, and 3% in clusters. (Compare with Tables 3 and 4 for the results without number evolution.) The environment distributions for early- and late-type lens galaxies are simply not very different, so changing the relative fraction of lens galaxy types does not significantly change the net distribution of lens galaxy environments.

### 4.5 Incompleteness effects

All galaxy redshift surveys are incomplete with either explicit or implicit magnitude and surface brightness limits. Lin et al. (1996) estimate a completeness limit of $`M_R=17.5+5\mathrm{log}h`$ for the LCRS, and we have restricted our analysis to galaxies brighter than this limit. We now ask whether any remaining incompletenesses brighter than this limit could affect the lens statistics.

From a direct comparison of the R-band LCRS with the B-band CfA2 redshift survey, Huchra (1999) argues that the LCRS underestimates the number of galaxies with $`M_R16+5\mathrm{log}h`$ by a factor of $``$4 and that most of the “missing” galaxies are low surface brightness, late-type, emission line galaxies. Although most of the suggested incompleteness occurs at magnitudes fainter than we consider (and fainter than the LCRS completeness limit) and is derived from a perilous comparison of surveys in different bandpasses, we use it to estimate the effects of incompleteness on our analysis.

In §2.3 we argue that even if the GLF below the completeness limit is much steeper than above the limit, the optical depth from galaxies below the limit is a tiny fraction of the total. Hence the behavior of the GLF below the completeness limit has essentially no effect on our results. To check our results further, we consider the effects if the LCRS underestimates the number of galaxies even at magnitudes brighter than the completeness limit. We increase the number of galaxies in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }m=1`$ mag bin above the LCRS completeness limit by the factor of $``$4 estimated by Huchra (1999). Our approach is conservative, because we apply the changes at magnitudes significantly brighter than where Huchra (1999) proposes most of the incompleteness. If the incompleteness applies to late-type galaxies in all environments, we find that it changes the lens environment fractions by $`<`$0.001 compared with Table 3, and it decreases the mean image separations by $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$02 compared with Table 4. If the incompleteness applies only to late-type galaxies in the field (because of the morphology–density relation), it changes the lens environment fractions by $``$0.002 and the mean image separation in the field by $``$0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$02. In other words, because it mainly applies to faint galaxies that are poor lenses, incompleteness has a negligible effect on our results.

## 5 Conclusions

We have studied how changes in galaxy populations with environment affect gravitational lens statistics, quantifying the results with data from the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (Shectman et al. 1996). Two effects determine how the distribution of lens galaxy environments differs from the distribution of normal galaxy environments. First, the likelihood that lens galaxies lie in groups and clusters is enhanced by the morphology–density relation (e.g., Dressler 1980) and the fact that lensing tends to select massive early-type galaxies. Second, it is diminished by the systematic increase in the fraction of dwarf galaxies relative to giant galaxies in dense environments (e.g., Bromley et al. 1998b; Zabludoff & Mulchaey 2000; Christlein 2000). The two effects nearly cancel, and the fraction of gravitational lens galaxies in a particular environment is very similar to the fraction of non-lens galaxies found in that environment. As a second order effect, lens galaxies are slightly less likely than non-lens galaxies to be found in poor groups and rich clusters. Quantitatively, we expect $``$20% of lens galaxies to be found in poor groups (defined as systems with velocity dispersions in the range $`200<\sigma <500`$ km s<sup>-1</sup>), and another $``$3% of lens galaxies in rich clusters (defined as systems with $`\sigma >500`$ km s<sup>-1</sup>).

Thus we predict that for $``$25% of lenses the lensing potential may include significant contributions from objects other than the lens galaxy. This result is only a lower limit for three reasons. First, bound groups may exist below the velocity dispersion threshold of 200 km s<sup>-1</sup> that we have imposed. Second, a lens that does not lie in a group or cluster can still be perturbed by neighboring galaxies. Finally, lensed images may be perturbed by large-scale structure along the line of sight. External perturbations have been included in models of some individual lenses (e.g., Grogin & Narayan 1996; Schechter et al. 1997; Lehár et al. 2000), but they need to be added to applications of lens statistics such as limits on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (e.g., Kochanek 1996a; Falco et al. 1998; Helbig et al. 1999). To do so, the statistical analysis of environmental shear by Keeton et al. (1997) must be updated with knowledge of the spatial distribution of galaxies and dark matter in poor groups and rich clusters, not to mention correlations among member galaxies and between galaxies and the diffuse dark halos in groups and clusters. The improved analysis must also include lensing effects that arise from the non-linear interaction between ellipticity in the lens galaxy and shear from the environment (see Keeton, Mao & Witt 2000b).

Our calculation provides the starting point for the improved analysis in two ways. First, we have assumed that environmental perturbations of the lensing potential do not affect lens statistics. Subsequent analyses can take our results as the null hypothesis to test whether potential perturbations are important. Second, we have presented empirical tests to determine whether potential perturbations are important statistically. If they are not important, we predict that the mean image separation for lenses in groups is smaller than the mean separation for lenses in the field, although it may take 20–40 group lenses to test this prediction with significance. A contrary empirical result would indicate the presence of extra gravitational focusing, not included in our models, from matter in groups and clusters that is not associated with the lens galaxy. A more immediate version of this test comes from the existence of two large-separation lenses ($`\theta >6\mathrm{}`$, RXJ 0921+4528 and Q 0957+561), which is far more than predicted by our models. In fact, both lenses appear to lie in clusters, and in Q 0957+561 the cluster is thought to contribute $``$20% of the image separation (see Bernstein & Fischer 1999; Romanowsky & Kochanek 1999).

Out of the current sample of about 50 lenses, we expect about 10 lenses in groups and about two lenses in clusters. At present, the environments of most lenses have not been determined. Four lens galaxies appear to lie in clusters (RXJ 0911+0551, RXJ 0921+4528, Q 0957+561, and HST 1411+5221), and another three in spectroscopically confirmed groups (PG 1115+080, B 1422+231, and MG 0751+2716). Once more lensing groups are found, they will provide a sample of groups at redshifts $`0.3z1`$, which can be compared with existing samples of nearby groups (e.g., Zabludoff & Mulchaey 1998) and of distant clusters (e.g., Stanford, Eisenhardt & Dickinson 1998) to study galaxy evolution in different environments. The existence of lenses in the groups will also permit direct studies of the diffuse dark matter in poor groups of galaxies.

###### Acknowledgements.

Acknowledgements: We thank Ben Bromley for providing data in advance of publication, and Huan Lin for helpful discussions. We also thank Chris Kochanek for comments on the manuscript, and the anonymous referee for suggestions that improved the presentation.