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# The nature of ergodicity breaking in Ising spin glasses as revealed by correlation function spectral properties

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## Abstract

In this work we address the nature of broken ergodicity in the low temperature phase of Ising spin glasses by examining spectral properties of spin correlation functions $`C_{ij}S_iS_j`$. We argue that more than one extensive (i.e., $`O(N)`$) eigenvalue in this matrix signals replica symmetry breaking. Monte-Carlo simulations of the infinite-range Ising spin-glass model, above and below the Almeida-Thouless line, support this conclusion. Exchange Monte-Carlo simulations for the short-range model in four dimensions find a single extensive eigenvalue and a large subdominant eigenvalue consistent with droplet model expectations.

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Following Parisi’s demonstration of replica symmetry breaking in the low-temperature phase of the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model , there has been an ongoing debate concerning the nature of the low temperature phase of Ising spin glasses in finite dimensions, and of glassy states in quenched-disorder systems more generally. The Parisi solution breaks ergodicity through the segregation of phase space into many ergodic regions, separated by energy barriers which are infinite in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ (where $`N`$ is the number of spins). Each of these regions, in the case of a Hamiltonian invariant under global spin inversion, has an associated region related to it by global spin inversion, the pair forming together what we will refer to as a pure state pair (PSP) . In the low-temperature phase of the SK model, there are many PSP’s, unrelated by any symmetry of the Hamiltonian. In accord with common usage we will call this form of ergodicity breaking ‘replica symmetry breaking’ or RSB . While the Parisi solution shows every sign of being correct for the infinite-range (hence infinite-dimension) SK problem, there is still no consensus on the form of ergodicity breaking in models with finite range interactions. An alternative to the RSB scenario is the ‘droplet’ picture , which postulates a single PSP in the low temperature phase, whose excitations include rare large droplets of overturned spins with energy (at size $`L`$) scaling as $`L^\theta `$.

The principal numerical tool for detecting replica symmetry breaking has been finite size scaling of the probability distribution function $`P(q)`$ for the overlap $`q`$ between the local magnetizations in different pure states. Several numerical studies have suggested a behavior in finite dimensions similar to the one at the mean field level . Other studies using the Migdal-Kadanoff approximation  and still others at zero temperature  have suggested otherwise and favor the droplet model. None of these studies has conclusively resolved which type of broken ergodicity takes place in the low temperature phase in finite dimension, motivating a search for new approaches.

We suggest that the nature of the low temperature phase can be determined by studying the spectrum of the spin-spin correlation function $`S_iS_jC_{ij}`$. In the case of a single PSP we will argue that this correlation function has at most a single extensive eigenvalue. Thus, we take the existence of more than one extensive eigenvalue to be clear evidence for multiple PSPs, ie RSB. Our main results are shown in Fig. 1, where we illustrate this behavior using Exchange Monte Carlo  simulations for the SK model, both above (where there is a single pure state) and below the Almeida-Thouless (AT) line . We have also used Monte-Carlo simulations to study Ising spin glasses in four dimensions. Here we see no signs of RSB out to the largest size studied ($`N=6^4`$ spins) and instead find finite size behavior for the second largest eigenvalue which is consistent with droplet model expectations.

At a continuous symmetry-breaking phase transition, a suitably defined correlation function develops long-range order. In systems without quenched disorder, the eigenvalues $`C(\stackrel{}{k})`$ of the appropriate correlation function can typically be labelled by wavevector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$, and the long-range order is signalled by $`C(\stackrel{}{k})`$ becoming extensive below the transition temperature at a single value of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$. In systems with quenched disorder, the correlation function eigenfunctions are not plane waves, but long-range order is still signalled by an extensive eigenvalue. For Ising spin glasses, the correlation function matrix $`C_{ij}`$ is a real symmetric positive semi-definite matrix with trace equal to the number of sites $`N`$, and is analogous to the one-particle density matrix of a superfluid. In either system the order is off-diagonal in a position basis, and the fact that it is long-ranged is reflected in its spectrum: an extensive eigenvalue always signals long range order since the associated eigenfunction must be extended .

We now argue that there will be only one extensive eigenvalue in the case of broken ergodicity with a single PSP. We rewrite

$$C_{ij}=S_iS_j+V_{ij},$$
(1)
where $`V_{ij}=S_iS_jS_iS_j=S_iS_j_c`$ is the connected correlation function. If we ignore $`V`$, the matrix $`C_{ij}`$ is a pure projector $`C^0|vv|`$ onto the state $`|v`$ with $`v_i=S_i`$. $`C^0`$ has one large eigenvalue $`v|v=\mathrm{Tr}C^0=_iS_i^2`$, and the remaining eigenvalues are zero. The influence of $`V`$ on the spectrum of $`C_{ij}`$ depends on the typical value of its matrix elements. If we assume that $`V_{ij}N^\delta `$ with $`\delta >0`$, it follows from first order perturbation theory that the largest eigenvalue will still be extensive, and that the largest subdominant eigenvalue $`\lambda _2`$ $`N^{1\delta }`$ at most.

In some cases we can put a bound on $`\delta `$. For instance, if we simply assume that the spin-glass susceptibility $`\chi _{SG}`$ is of $`O(1)`$, then we get $`\delta 1/2`$. This should be the case above the AT line in the SK model. The calculations shown in Fig. 1(b) conform to this picture, with $`\delta `$ changing smoothly from $`1/2`$ in the figure to $`1`$ for larger $`h`$ (where the correlations approach those of a ferromagnet, and hence $`\delta 1`$).

While the above arguments make no direct reference to spatial dimension, they do rely on the notion of a ‘typical’ element of $`V`$. This idea is certainly appropriate for infinite-range models such as the SK problem. We are of course most interested in finite-dimensional problems with a spin glass phase above zero temperature. Here the outstanding alternative to the many-valley picture is the droplet picture . In this picture there are ‘typical’ elements of $`V`$ which are exponentially small, plus a set of elements of $`O(1)`$ in magnitude. The fraction of the latter is of $`O(1/L^\theta )`$ where $`L`$ is the system size and $`\theta `$ is a scaling exponent from the zero-temperature fixed point. Again we consider the ‘worst’ case: supposing that $`V`$ for a finite sample is dominated by one large active droplet of size of $`O(L)`$, then the big elements of $`V`$, appearing with probability $`1/L^\theta =1/N^{\theta /d}`$, are coherent, and so will give a large eigenvalue of order $`N\times N^{\theta /d}=N^{1\theta /d}`$. (We have verified this with simple numerical experiments.) If $`V`$ is incoherent then its eigenvalues should grow more slowly (or decay) with $`N`$. Hence, given the principal scaling assumption of the droplet picture, we expect the second eigenvalue $`\lambda _2`$ of $`C_{ij}`$ to grow as $`N^{1\theta /d}`$ or slower.

It follows from the above arguments that as long as there is one PSP (or one pure state), there can be no more than one eigenvalue of $`C`$ which is of order $`N`$. Thus the observation of more than one such eigenvalue directly implies multiple PSPs.

The SK model is a perfect candidate to test our ideas regarding multiple large eigenvalues of $`C_{ij}`$, since we can tune the nature of the broken ergodicity by simply varying the external magnetic field $`h`$. We have performed numerical calculations using Exchange Monte Carlo , which allows for faster jumps across large energy barriers. Our criteria for equilibration follow closely those used in Ref. . We check for agreement between two different ways of calculating $`\chi _{SG}`$; one method  uses the averaging of the overlap of two uncoupled replicas, and the other uses the standard thermal averaging in Monte Carlo simulations. We also check the symmetry of $`P(q)`$ and the variance of the eigenvalues of $`C_{ij}`$.

We find that the probability distributions of the eigenvalues of $`C`$ are broad (at least for the first two eigenvalues) below the AT line, and very sharp above it. We illustrate this in Fig. 2. The breadth of these distributions indicates the need to do disorder averaging over a large ensemble (300-2000), at least in the spin glass phase. In Fig. 1 we show the scaling of the disorder average of the ten largest eigenvalues as a function of system size, both below \[Fig. 1(a)\] and above \[Fig. 1(b)\] the AT line in the SK model. It is clear from Fig. 1(a) that at least two eigenvalues are of $`O(N)`$ for $`N100`$. We expect further $`O(N)`$ eigenvalues to emerge for larger $`N`$, as suggested by the behavior of $`[\lambda _3]_{av}`$ in the figure. In contrast, there is only one large eigenvalue in Fig. 1(b). We find further that, above the AT line, $`[\lambda _2]_{av}/NN^{0.52}`$, consistent with our previous arguments. MC results for larger $`h`$ show that $`[\lambda _2]_{av}/N`$ decays with a larger exponent (we have observed up to $`0.75`$), which we expect to approach 1 for large enough $`h`$.

Fig. 1(a) suggests that the spectrum of $`C_{ij}`$ for the SK problem is dominated by two large eigenvalues (for the sizes considered here). We can reproduce this behaviour with the following simple model. Suppose that phase space consists of only two spin configurations 1 and 2, and ignore all others. Take $`C(\alpha )=\alpha C^{(1)}+(1\alpha )C^{(2)}`$, with $`C^{(1)}`$ and $`C^{(2)}`$ corresponding to the $`C_{ij}`$ of the two different configurations $`S_i^{(1)}`$ and $`S_i^{(2)}`$ at zero $`T`$, and $`\alpha `$ (a thermodynamic weight) ranging from 0 to 1/2. The overlap between the two states is given by $`q_{12}=_iS_i^{(1)}S_i^{(2)}/N`$. It can be easily shown that this matrix has only two nonzero eigenvalues, corresponding to

$$\frac{\lambda _\pm (q_{12},\alpha )}{N}=\frac{1\pm \sqrt{q_{12}^2+(1q_{12}^2)(2\alpha 1)^2}}{2}.$$
(2)
Note that $`\lambda _\pm /N`$ range from $`1`$ and $`0`$ at $`\alpha =0`$ to $`(1\pm |q_{12}|)/2`$ at $`\alpha =1/2`$. It is clear from (2) that the two largest eigenvalues can vary over a wide range, while still in general remaining of $`O(N)`$ . Hence (as we saw numerically) it is important to study the probability distribution for each eigenvalue $`\stackrel{~}{P}(\lambda _i)`$, rather than the distribution of the eigenvalues for a single disorder realization. At this low level of approximation we already see that the probability distributions of the first two eigenvalues will be very broad in the frozen phase whenever the probability distribution of $`q_{12}`$, $`P_{12}(q)`$, is broad. This simple picture however lacks any finite temperature and correlation effects. To introduce temperature in the model we let $`S_i^{(1)}`$ and $`S_i^{(2)}`$ become gaussian random variables. We decompose $`P(q)`$ from our MC data as $`(1/2)(P_{11}(q)+P_{12}(q))`$, with $`P_{11}(q)`$ (the self-overlap) a Gaussian which determines the mean and variance of $`S_i^{(1)}`$ and $`S_i^{(2)}`$. We then adjust their relative distribution to match $`P_{12}(q)`$. This gives us a joint distribution for $`S_i^{(1)}`$ and $`S_i^{(2)}`$ which we use to generate a distribution of matrices $`C(\alpha =1/2)`$. The eigenvalues may then be obtained either by an analytical perturbation approach or by direct numerical diagonalization of the matrix $`C`$. Fig. 3 compares the resulting eigenvalue distributions for $`N=64`$, with those obtained directly from the MC results for the SK model. It is striking how closely they resemble one another in qualitative and quantitative behavior, given the simplicity of our two-state model.

Thus we find a clear confirmation of our ideas in the behavior of the SK model, for which we know the nature of the ergodicity breaking in the various equilibrium phases. We now use these ideas to study the four-dimensional Ising spin glass or Edward-Anderson (EA) model, with nearest-neighbor interactions and a Gaussian distribution of the $`J_{ij}`$’s with variance $`J`$. In Figure 1(c) we show the scaling of $`[\lambda _i]_{av}/N`$ for the first ten eigenvalues of $`C`$ at $`T/J=1.0`$ and $`h/J=0`$. These runs are rather deep into the frozen phase, since $`T_c1.75J`$. We choose this low temperature in order to work as far as possible from the critical region. This low temperature, plus the time involved in measuring $`C_{ij}`$, has limited us thus far to $`L6`$. (We note that, even at this low temperature, we are still not fully out of the critical region, according to Ref. .) In this region of size and temperature we find, as in the SK spin glass phase, a broad and asymmetric distribution of $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$, similar to that for the frozen phase illustrated in Fig. 2.

We have studied both $`[\lambda _i]_{av}`$ and $`(\lambda _i)_{typ}`$ for these distributions (the latter defined as $`\mathrm{exp}([\mathrm{ln}\lambda _i]_{av})`$). Fig. 1(c) shows $`[\lambda _2]_{av}/N`$ decaying with $`N`$. On a double-log scale we see a clear straight line with exponent $`0.11`$. The behavior for $`(\lambda _2)_{typ}`$ is similar, except the exponent is larger, $`0.15`$. This latter exponent is consistent with our lower bound for $`\delta `$, given that estimates of $`\theta `$ in 4D range  from 0.6 to 0.8. Hence these data appear to fit the droplet scenario, with a single PSP in the frozen phase. We cannot of course rule out the possibility that the $`[\lambda _2]_{av}/N`$ points (and others for $`i>2`$) may flatten out at larger $`N`$, as occurred for the SK case at about $`N=100`$. Only further work at larger $`N`$ can help with this question. Also, while it is consistent that $`(\lambda _2)_{typ}/N`$ decays as expected according to our arguments and the droplet picture, the slower decay of $`[\lambda _2]_{av}/N`$—which clearly results from the skew in the distribution—needs some understanding.

In summary, we have proposed, and numerically tested, a method for identifying the nature of ergodicity breaking in Ising spin glasses. We believe  that RSB occurs if and only if the spin correlation function has multiple large eigenvalues. Our MC results for the infinite-range SK problem show a clear qualitative difference in the long-range order above and below the AT line. Because of the generality of these ideas, we expect that they may be applied to other problems in statistical physics for which RSB is a possibility. We have also presented results for the EA model in four space dimensions. Because of the finite-size effects plaguing all spin-glass simulations, these results cannot be viewed as conclusive. However our results over the entire range for which we can reliably compute both thermal and disorder averages tend to support the droplet picture, with one pure-state pair: we see no sign of multiple large eigenvalues, and $`(\lambda _2)_{typ}/N`$ decays roughly in line with droplet model expectations. Future work based on this approach should shed significant further light on the nature of ergodicity breaking in finite-dimensional spin glasses.

The authors acknowledge helpful discussions with H. Castillo, J. Hu and E. Sorensen. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants DMR-9820816 and DMR-9714055.


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# The Cosmological Angular Momentum Problem of Low-Mass Disk Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Cosmological models of hierarchical clustering predict that galactic disks form as a result of gas infall into cold dark matter (CDM) halos. The disk scale lengths and rotation curves are determined by the gravitational potential and by the specific angular momentum distribution which the gas acquired from tidal interaction with the cosmological density field (Peebles 1969) and which was modified during the protogalactic collapse phase. As gas and dark matter were equally distributed initially, it is generally assumed that both components obtained similar amounts of specific angular momentum. Indeed, analytical calculations (e.g. Fall & Efstathiou 1980, Mo, Mao & White 1998, Mo & Mao 2000, Buchalter et al. 2000) have shown that this condition can explain the observed scale lengths and various other properties of galactic disks, provided that the disk material retained its initial specific angular momentum when settling into the galactic plane and that the dark matter halos are not too centrally condensed.

In the past couple of years detailed numerical calculations have however uncovered serious problems with the CDM scenario. In a seminal paper, Navarro, Frenk & White (1997) found that dark matter halos have universal density profiles that can be approximated by the empirical formula $`\rho (r)=\rho _0r_s^3/(r(r+r_s)^2)`$ (hereafter the NFW profile), where $`r_s=R_{200}/c`$ is the scale radius, $`c`$ is the concentration and $`R_{200}`$ is the virial radius of the dark matter halo, defined as the radius inside which the average dark matter density is 200 times the mean density of the universe. NFW found high concentrations of $`c1015`$. Recent higher resolved simulations give even larger values of $`c1520`$ (Moore et al. 1999, Navarro & Steinmetz 2000). Other simulations (e.g. by Fukushige & Makino (1997), Moore et al. 1998, Ghigna et al. 1999, Klypin et al. 2000) confirmed that DM halos are very centrally concentrated and found even steeper inner slopes of $`\rho r^{1.5}`$. These predictions provide strong constraints for the slopes of galactic rotation curves and it was noted by Flores & Primack (1994) and Moore (1994, see also Burkert 1995; Mc Gaugh & de Block 1998) that NFW halos with high concentrations disagree with the rotation curves of dark matter dominated dwarf galaxies which rise more slowly than theoretically expected.

High-resolution cosmological N-body/SPH simulations have also exposed the formation of galactic disks to another problem: the scale lengths and specific angular momenta of simulated disks are a factor of 10 smaller than observed (Weil, Eke & Efstathiou 1998, Navarro & Steinmetz 1997, Sommer-Larsen, Gelato & Vedel 1999). This so called angular momentum problem of galaxy formation arises from the fact that the gas cools efficiently during the protogalactic collapse phase, leading to dense clumps that loose a large fraction of their angular momentum to the dark halo by dynamical friction while sinking towards the center.

Both, the halo concentration and disk angular momentum problem seem to provide serious challenges for CDM and have encouraged the investigation of numerous alternative models, including exotic dark matter properties (e.g. Spergel & Steinhardt 2000, Goodman 2000, Cen 2000, Peebles 2000, see however Dalcanton & Hogan 2000) or the presence of a second dark baryonic spheroid (Burkert & Silk 1997). The situation has recently changed again due to new, high-resolution observations of rotation curves. Van den Bosch et al. (2000) and van den Bosch & Swaters (2000) showed that the inner HI rotation curves of low-surface brightness (LSB) galaxies become significantly steeper when observed with higher resolution and when the effects of beam smearing are properly taken into account. In contrast to previous claims, the LSB rotation curves seem to be consistent with NFW profiles, although $`r^{1.5}`$-cusps might still provide a problem. Swaters, Madore & Trewhella (2000) presented H$`\alpha `$ rotation curves of LSB galaxies which also rise more steeply than the previously derived HI profiles and which are consistent with the concept of a universal rotation curve (Persic, Salucci & Stel 1996). In summary, at least for lower-mass galaxies the cosmologically predicted halo profiles are not in serious conflict with the observations anymore and the angular momentum problem has become the main challenge for the CDM scenario.

One possibility to solve this problem is to assume energetic feedback processes which keep the gas in a diffuse state, preventing angular momentum loss by dynamical friction. These processes have however not proven to be very efficient. Sommer-Larsen, Gelato & Vedel (1999) demonstrated that the disks are still too small in simulations where 80% or more of the final disk mass is accreted from hot, dilute gas. The situation does only improve if the gas would be completely blown out of the galactic halos at high redshifts. Navarro & Steinmetz (2000) took into account realistic feedback processes and found a minor impact on the angular momentum problem.

The angular momentum problem has been investigated in the past preferentially for higher mass galaxies with rotational velocities $`v_{rot}>`$ 100 km/s which suffer from large uncertainties in the disk-halo decomposition (Syer, Mao & Mo 1999). Recently, van den Bosch & Swaters (2000) published accurate disk and halo parameters for a sample of late-type dwarf galaxies with $`v_{rot}`$ 100 km/s. Using their results, the rotational properties of the dark halo and the disk in dwarf spirals are investigated and compared with theoretical predictions in Section 2. Section 3 shows that there exists a strong correlation between the rotational parameter $`\lambda ^{}`$ and the disk mass fraction $`m_d`$. A simple model of gas infall and disk formation is presented which can explain this correlation. A discussion of the results and conclusions follow in Section 4.

## 2 The Rotational Properties of the Dark and Luminous Components in Dwarf Spiral Galaxies

Van den Bosch & Swaters (2000) presented a careful analysis of the rotation curves of 20 late-type dwarf galaxies studied by Swaters (1999). Taking into account the effects of beam smearing and adiabatic contraction they determined the concentration $`c`$ and the virial velocities $`v_{200}`$ of the dark matter halos which they found to be consistent with the predictions of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. In addition, the disk scale lengths $`R_d`$ and the disk halo mass fractions $`m_d`$ were determined. In the following we will analyse those galaxies for which a meaningful fit could be achieved (marked by ”+” in the paper by van den Bosch & Swaters 2000), adopting a stellar R-band mass-to-light ratio of $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}_R=1`$.

If one assumes that the surface density distribution of the disks is exponential and that the dark matter halos initially followed an NFW profile and responded to the growth of the disk adiabatically, one can derive an expression for the product of the dimensionless dark matter spin parameter $`\lambda `$ and the specific disk angular momentum $`j_d/m_d`$ (Mo, Mao & White 1998)

$$\lambda ^{}=\lambda \left(\frac{j_d}{m_d}\right)\frac{\sqrt{2}R_dh}{f_Rv_{200}}\left(\frac{2}{3}+\left(\frac{c}{21.5}\right)^{0.7}\right)^{0.5}$$
(1)
where $`h=0.75`$ is the Hubble constant normalized to 100 km/s/Mpc, $`j_d`$ is the ratio of the total angular momentum of the disk with respect to that of the dark halo and

$$f_R(10\lambda ^{})^{0.06+2.71m_d+0.0047/\lambda ^{}}$$
(2)
The crosses in Figure 1a show the distribution of $`\lambda ^{}`$. Unfortunately only the product of $`\lambda `$ and $`j_d/m_d`$ can be determined directly. It is however generally assumed that the gas initially obtained the same specific angular momentum as the dark halo and that it conserved its angular momentum when settling into the equatorial plane. In this case, $`j_d/m_d=1`$ and Figure 1a shows directly the dark halo $`\lambda `$ distribution. The solid line in this figure indicates the theoretically predicted $`\lambda `$-distribution using the approximation (Mo, Mao & White 1998)

$$N(\mathrm{ln}(\lambda ))\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}^2(\lambda /\overline{\lambda })}{2\sigma _\lambda ^2}\right)$$
(3)
with $`\overline{\lambda }=0.04`$ and $`\sigma _\lambda =0.5`$. The observations are in excellent agreement with the predictions of cosmological models. This result indicates clearly that dwarf spiral galaxies have an angular momentum problem and that the gas could not loose a significant amount of its angular momentum during the protogalactic collapse phase, in contradiction to current cosmological N-body/SPH calculations (Navarro & Steinmetz 1997, Sommer-Larsen, Gelato & Vedel 1999).

## 3 The Correlation between $`\lambda ^{}`$ and the Disk Mass Fraction $`m_d`$

The data contains even more information. Figure 1b plots $`\lambda ^{}`$ versus $`m_d`$ which reveals a surprisingly strong correlation. A least squares fit leads to

$$\lambda ^{}=\lambda \left(\frac{j_d}{m_d}\right)=0.4m_d^{0.6}$$
(4)
which is shown by the dashed line in Figure 1b.

One can think of several possibilities to explain this relationship. The sample of dwarf galaxies studied by van den Bosch & Swaters (2000) could be subject to selection effects. Figure 1a demonstrates however that the data is not biased with respect to the dark halo spin parameter $`\lambda `$. If $`j_d/m_d1`$ selection effects cannot affect $`\lambda ^{}`$ and it is not clear how they could provide an explanation for equation 4.

For $`(j_d/m_d)1`$, equation 4 would indicate a correlation between the halo spin parameter $`\lambda `$ and the disk mass fraction $`m_d`$. Such a relationship is not predicted by cosmological models.

Another, maybe more promising solution is the assumption that equation 4 results from a strong correlation between the specific disk angular momentum $`(j_d/m_d)`$ and $`m_d`$, with the halo spin parameter $`\lambda `$ being independent of $`m_d`$. Then, the scatter around the dashed curve in Figure 1b reflects the cosmological scatter in $`\lambda `$ and the dashed curve represents its mean value of $`\overline{\lambda }0.04`$. With $`\lambda =0.04`$, equation 4 leads to

$$\frac{j_d}{m_d}=2.5\left(\frac{m_d}{0.1}\right)^{0.6}.$$
(5)
There exists a simple explanation for this relationship. Let us assume that the total gas-to-dark matter mass ratio $`f_g`$ in protogalaxies was universal $`f_g=M_g/M_{DM}0.1`$, that however only some fraction $`m_d/f_g`$ of the total gas mass, located initially inside some radius $`r_d`$ of the protogalaxy formed a visible disk component. If one adopts a standard top-hat model where the distribution of gas and dark matter at the onset of the protogalactic collapse phase can be approximated by a homogeneous, rigidly rotating sphere with total radius R, the specific angular momentum of the gas inside $`r_d`$ R is $`(J/M)_g=0.4\omega _gr_d^2`$ where $`\omega _g`$ is the angular velocity of the gas sphere. The specific angular momentum of the dark component is given by $`(J/M)_{DM}=0.4\omega _{DM}R^2`$ with $`\omega _{DM}`$ the specific angular velocity of the dark matter. As the mass fraction of gas inside $`r_d`$ is $`m_d/f_g=(r_d/R)^3`$ we find

$$\left(\frac{j_d}{m_d}\right)=\frac{(J/M)_g}{(J/M)_{DM}}=\frac{\omega _g}{\omega _{DM}}\left(\frac{m_d}{f_g}\right)^{2/3}$$
(6)
which has the same power-law dependence as equation 5.

## 4 Discussion of the Results and Conclusions

The previous analysis leads to some interesting conclusions which might be useful for further studies of the cosmological angular momentum problem.

The observed disk mass ratios are $`m_d0.1`$ which implies that this value is a lower limit for the universal primordial gas fraction in protogalaxies, i.e. $`f_g0.1`$. In many dwarf spiral galaxies $`m_d`$ is much smaller than 0.1. Most of their primordial gas might therefore not have contributed to the visible disk component. This gas could still be around in a diffuse state or it could have been blown out by galactic winds.

Adopting $`\lambda =0.04`$, a good fit to the observed correlation (Figure 1b) can be achieved if

$$\frac{\lambda ^{}}{0.04}=j_d/m_d=2.75(m_d/0.1)^{2/3}.$$
(7)
This relationship is shown by the dotted line in Fig. 1b. Comparing equation 7 with equation 6 leads to

$$\omega _g/\omega _{DM}2.75(f_g/0.1)^{2/3}.$$
(8)
As $`f_g0.1`$ the gas out of which the galactic disks formed either was rotating faster than the dark halos ($`\omega _g2.75\omega _{DM}`$) initially or it gained angular momentum lateron. Note that all galaxies in the present sample must have experienced the same spin-up event in order to explain the strong correlation observed.

Up to now, it is not clear which processes could have increased the specific angular momentum of the gaseous components beyond that of the dark halos. One possibility might be selective mass loss in galactic winds which might have ejected preferentially the low angular momentum gas, leaving behind disks with high specific angular momentum (van den Bosch, private communication). Although this scenario is interesting it is not clear how the angular momentum - mass relationship (equation 4) could be explained within the framework of this model. In addition, galaxies with large values of $`m_d=0.1f_g`$ probably did not loose a significant amount of gas. Yet they have the highest values of $`\lambda ^{}=0.1`$ and therefore the highest specific angular momenta of all dwarf spirals.

I thank the staff of Kyoto University for their hospitality during my visit on which this work was started, Frank van den Bosch for a careful reading of the manuscript and important suggestions and Houjun Mo for interesting discussions.


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# Formation of an Infalling Disklike Envelope around a Protostar

## 1 Introduction

Recent high-resolution interferometric observations have suggested that disklike envelopes are common structures around embedded young stars (e.g., Hayashi, Ohashi, & Miyama 1993; Ohashi et al. 1996). In the disklike envelopes, infall motions seem to dominate over the rotation around the young stars, indicating that the disklike envelopes are not rotationally-supported. Thus, embedded young stars are most likely to be undergoing dynamical accretion from their disklike envelopes onto quasi-static protostellar cores and rotationally-supported circumstellar disks. The typical infalling disklike envelope has a size of the order of $`10^3`$ AU, which is an order of magnitude larger in size than a rotationally-supported circumstellar disk observed in the dust emission. The infalling envelopes are expected to play a crucial role in the formation processes of stars as well as their surrounding rotationally-supported disks. It is thus important to understand the formation and evolution of the infalling disklike envelopes.

Several authors have proposed the formation mechanisms of such infalling disks around young stars by means of numerical hydrodynamics. Galli & Shu (1993) examined the gravitational contraction of magnetized spherical cloud cores \[see also Boss (1987) and Yorke & Bodenheimer (1999) for the evolution of non-magnetized rotating spherical cloud cores\]. They showed that the magnetic field impedes the contraction perpendicular to the field lines and thus the disklike structures develop in the infalling envelopes. In their model, the magnetic field is essential in the formation of the infalling disks. Hartmann et al. (1994) proposed another process for the formation of the infalling disks. They showed that even in the absence of the magnetic field, initially sheetlike cloud cores collapse to form highly disklike envelopes which have similar structures to Galli & Shu (1993)’s disks. Their calculations indicate that the cloud geometry plays an important role in the formation of the infalling envelopes.

Radio observations have shown that most molecular cloud cores are elongated, implying on statistical grounds that most of them are prolate (Myers et al. 1991). Bonnell, Bate, & Price (1996) thus examined the gravitational contraction of non-rotating prolate cloud cores. They found that in a prolate cloud core close to virial equilibrium, the pressure force retards the contraction preferentially along its minor axis. As a result, an extended disklike structure, qualitatively similar to Hartmann et al. (1994)’s sheet model, is formed.

Although these calculations have demonstrated the formation processes of the infalling disks in molecular cloud cores, it is still not clear how the infalling disks form and evolve subsequently and how rotationally-supported circumstellar disks form in the infalling disklike envelopes.

In this paper, we examine the gravitational collapse of prolate cloud cores with slow rotation. We show that both the infalling disklike envelope and rotationally-supported circumstellar disk are natural outcome of the gravitational contraction of a prolate cloud core. In §2, we describe our model and numerical method. Numerical results are given in §3. In §4, we discuss the evolution of the mass infall rate in the disklike envelope. Finally we discuss implications to observations.

## 2 Models and Numerical Methods

Radio observations have revealed that most molecular clouds have more or less filamentary structures. Recent numerical simulations have also shown that such filaments are ubiquitous features in self-gravitating molecular clouds (e.g., Klessen, Burkert, & Bate 1998). According to a linear stability analysis, the linear perturbation grows fastest in time when its longitudinal wavelength is several times as long as the effective cloud diameter. It is worth noting that in the absence of the strong magnetic fields and fast rotation, the filamentary cloud is unstable to linear perturbations whose wavelengths are more than twice the effective cloud diameter (Matsumoto, Nakamura, & Hanawa 1994). Hence, the fragments tend to become prolate at the epoch of the fragmentation. We investigate the evolution of such prolate fragments formed through the fragmentation of filamentary clouds.

The model cloud is the same as that of Matsumoto, Hanawa, & Nakamura (1997). We consider an isothermal cylindrical cloud in which the density is uniform along the cylinder axis. We assume that the cloud is in hydrostatic equilibrium in the radial direction and that the cloud is rotating around the cylinder axis. The ratio of the centrifugal force to the pressure force, $`\beta `$, is assumed to be spatially uniform. The radial distributions of the density and velocity are then given by

$$\rho =\rho _0\left(1+\frac{r^2}{8H^2}\right)^2,$$
(1)
and

$$𝒗=(v_r,v_\phi ,v_z)=[0,r\mathrm{\Omega }_0\left(1+\frac{r^2}{8H^2}\right)^{1/2},0],$$
(2)
respectively, where $`H^2=(1+\beta )c_s^2/(4\pi G\rho _0)`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0^2=2\pi G\rho _0\beta /(1+\beta )`$, $`c_s`$ is the isothermal sound speed, $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, and $`\rho _0`$ is the initial central density. It should be noted that in this model, most of the matter rotates nearly uniformly ($`v_\phi r`$) and only the outer low-density region with a small mass rotates differentially ($`v_\phi =\mathrm{const}.`$).

The initial model of our simulation is obtained by adding a velocity perturbation onto the equilibrium model. The velocity perturbation changes sinusoidally with the wavelength of $`\lambda _z`$,

$$\delta v_z=v_0\mathrm{sin}(2\pi z/\lambda _z),$$
(3)
where $`v_0`$ is the amplitude of the perturbation and is set to 5% of the sound speed. In the following, we take $`\rho _0`$ and $`c_s`$ as the units of density and velocity, respectively. Then, the initial model is specified by the two parameters of $`\beta `$ and $`\lambda _z`$. For the typical models, the wavelength $`\lambda _z`$ is taken to be 15.5 $`c_s/\sqrt{2\pi G\rho _0}`$, which is almost equal to those of the fastest-growing linear modes for non-rotating or slowly-rotating clouds (Matsumoto et al. 1994). Observationally, most molecular cloud cores are likely to be rotating quite slowly (Goodman et al. 1993). Thus, we adopt the small values of $`\beta `$ ($`=00.1`$). In Table 1, we summarize the initial conditions of the models calculated in this paper.

We solved numerically the time evolution of the model cloud with the spatially and temporally second-order-accurate hydrodynamical code described by Matsumoto et al. (1997). Since our model keeps mirror symmetry at $`z=0`$ and $`\lambda _z/2`$ throughout the evolution, we restricted the computational domain in the interval of $`0z\lambda _z/2`$. We set the fixed boundary conditions at $`r=0,R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`z=0,Z_{\mathrm{max}}`$, where $`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`Z_{\mathrm{max}}`$ denote the lengths of the computational box in the $`r`$\- and $`z`$-directions, respectively. For all the models, we take $`R_{\mathrm{max}}=2Z_{\mathrm{max}}=\lambda _z`$. The effect of the fixed boundary is very small. We have calculated the evolution of the models with larger $`R_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and have confirmed that the numerical results are not changed.

Many numerical simulations have shown that the gravitational collapse of an isothermal cloud accelerates in the central high-density region. Thus, the characteristic length and time scales shorten as the collapse proceeds, this phase being referred to as runaway collapse phase. Therefore, it is difficult to resolve the central high-density region sufficiently at the late stages of the computation even if the cloud evolution is followed with very fine grids. In real evolution, as the collapse progresses, a protostellar core is formed at the center and thereafter the envelope gas begins to accrete onto the central core, this phase being referred to as the accretion phase.

To pursue the evolution of the infalling envelope gas, we adopted a sink-cell method when the central density reaches a reference density $`\rho _{\mathrm{sink}}`$ \[see, e.g., Boss & Black (1982) and Tomisaka (1996)\]. In this paper, we take $`\rho _{\mathrm{sink}}=10^4\rho _0`$ and the innermost region of $`0r5\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ and $`0z5\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ is assigned to the sink cells, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ denote the grid spacings in the $`r`$\- and $`z`$-directions, respectively. The excess density ($`\rho \rho _{\mathrm{sink}}`$) and the corresponding momentum are removed from the sink cells in every time step. The removed mass is added to a central point mass that affects the matter in the envelope only through gravitation.

As mentioned above, we take $`\rho _0=1`$, $`c_s=1`$, and $`2\pi G=1`$. Then, the units of time, length, and mass are given as

$`t_\mathrm{u}`$ $`=`$ $`(2\pi G\rho _0)^{0.5}`$ (4)
$`=`$ $`2.5\times 10^4\mathrm{yr}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{10^6\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^{0.5},`$
$`r_\mathrm{u}`$ $`=`$ $`c_s(2\pi G\rho _0)^{0.5}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`1.1\times 10^3\mathrm{AU}\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_s}{0.2\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{10^6\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^{0.5},`$
$`m_\mathrm{u}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _cr_\mathrm{u}^3`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`7.6\times 10^3M_{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_s}{0.2\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}}\right)^3\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_0}{10^6\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^{0.5},`$
respectively, where $`n_0\rho _0/(\mu m_\mathrm{H})`$ is the number density, $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight and taken to be 2.3, $`m_\mathrm{H}`$ is the mass of a hydrogen atom.

## 3 Numerical Results

### 3.1 Prolate Cloud Cores without Rotation

In this subsection, we explore the evolution of non-rotating models. In the following, we mainly show the numerical results of model B as a typical example. In this model, the wavelength $`\lambda _z`$ is almost equal to that of the fastest growing linear perturbation (e.g., Nakamura, Hanawa, & Nakano 1993). This model is essentially the same as model D of Nakamura, Hanawa, & Nakano (1995) who followed the cloud contraction during the runaway collapse phase. We extend their calculations to considerably later stages, i.e., the accretion phase, by applying the sink-cell method. We pursued the accretion phase evolution until most of the envelope gas accretes onto the central point mass.

Figure 1 shows the density and velocity distributions in the $`rz`$ plane at eight different stages. The first three panels show the cross sections of the cloud during the runaway collapse phase, while the others show those during the accretion phase. At the early stages, the cloud collapses preferentially towards the $`z=0`$ plane (Figs. 1b and 1c). As the collapse proceeds, the central high-density region becomes spherical, whereas the low-density region remains prolate. The central spherical region continues to contract towards the center. Such evolution is the same as that of model D by Nakamura et al. (1995).

When the central density reaches $`10^4\rho _0`$, the sink cell method is applied and the central point-like object forms. The mass of the central point-like object monotonously increases with time. Since the vertical flow is dominant near the center, the disklike envelope is formed around the central point-like object and grows in radial extent (Figs. 1d and 1e). A shock wave is also formed at the disk surface. By the stage at which the mass of the central point-like object reaches about $`0.7M_\mathrm{t}`$, the infalling disk extends radially up to $`r45r_\mathrm{u}`$, where $`M_\mathrm{t}`$ denotes the total cloud mass. In the disk, the gravitational force dominates the pressure force in the radial direction, while in the vertical direction, the pressure force becomes comparable to the gravitational force. Therefore, the gas flow progresses mainly in the radial direction inside the disk. Such an non-equilibrium disk resembles pseudo-disks found by Galli & Shu (1993), Hartmann et al. (1994), and Bonnell et al. (1996).

After the mass of the central point-like object reaches about $`0.7M_\mathrm{t}`$, the radius of the infalling disk becomes shorter because of dominant radial infall (Figs. 1f and 1g). The shock front lifts up vertically because of dominant pressure force in the vertical direction. Thereafter, the shock front reaches the $`z`$-axis and thus the matter in the infalling disk collapses to form a thin needle-like (prolate) object along the $`z`$-axis (Figs. 1h and 1i).

We also followed the evolution of models A and C to examine the effects of $`\lambda `$ on the formation and evolution of the disklike envelope. It is found that the evolution is qualitatively similar to that of model B. In both models, the disklike envelopes are formed and then they evolve into thin needle-like objects. For the model with larger $`\lambda `$, the vertical infall is more dominant and thus the disk is more extended in the radial direction.

### 3.2 Prolate Cloud Cores with Slow Rotation

In this subsection, we explore the evolution of slowly-rotating clouds. In the following, we mainly show the numerical results of model E as a typical example. In this model, the wavelength $`\lambda _z`$ is almost equal to that of the fastest growing linear perturbation. As shown below, the evolution of model E is qualitatively similar to that of model B except near the center, i.e., the cloud collapses to form an infalling disk in which the gas flows mainly in the radial direction.

Figure 2 is the same as Figure 1 but for model E. During the runaway collapse phase, the central high-density region becomes slightly oblate because of rotation, whereas the low-density region remains prolate. In the central region, the rotation is not important in the cloud support. Therefore, the central region continues to contract.

After the central core is formed, the disklike envelope is formed and then expands in radius (Figs. 2d and 2e). A shock wave is also formed at the disk surface and propagates towards the $`z`$-axis. Such evolution is essentially the same as that of model B. In the disk, the rotation is not important and therefore the gas flow progresses primarily in the radial direction. As the contraction proceeds, the centrifugal force becomes important at the innermost region and a rotationally-supported disk is formed there.

After the mass of the central region reaches about $`0.7M_\mathrm{t}`$, the radius of the infalling disk becomes shorter owing to dominant radial infall (Figs. 2f and 2g). Then, the matter in the infalling disk collapses to form a funnel in which the centrifugal force balances with the gravitational force in the radial direction (Figs. 2h and 2i). In Figure 3, we show the enlargements of the central region at the same stages as the last three panels of Figure 2. A new shock front is also formed there and propagates in the radial direction as the gas with higher specific angular momentum accretes. Such a structure resembles a bipolar cavity which is often thought to be formed by the outflow from the central young star. This structure might play a significant role in the guidance of outflow from the central star at the late stages of the evolution.

The rotationally-supported disk is encased in two accretion shock fronts, both of which are located several scale heights above the equatorial plane (Figs. 3b and 3c). Such structure seems to be similar to that of Yorke & Bodenheimer (1999). Shock formation is explained as follows. In the infalling disk, the accretion flow is dominant in the radial direction. The radial infall stops at the funnel owing to the centrifugal barrier and thus the outer shock front is formed. Thereafter, the matter in the rotationally-supported disk collapses in the vertical direction to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium. This infall produces the inner shock front. In the innermost disk, angular momentum transfer is expected to be important in the accretion flow onto the central core, although it is not included in the present calculations (see Yorke & Bodenheimer 1999).

We also pursued the evolution of models D and F to examine the effects of $`\beta `$. It is found that the evolution is qualitatively similar to that of model E, although the size of the rotationally-supported disk depends on $`\beta `$, i.e., when $`\beta `$ is larger, the rotatinally-supported disk is wider.

### 3.3 Effects of Cloud Geometry (Prolate vs. Oblate Cloud Cores)

As shown in §3.1 and §3.2, a prolate cloud core collapses to form an infalling disk in which the accreting gas flows mainly in the radial direction. In this subsection, to clarify the physics of the formation process of the infalling disk, we calculate the evolution of two representative models: (1) a prolate cloud and (2) an oblate cloud. In the following, we consider non-rotating prolate and oblate clouds which have Gaussian-like density profiles as

$$\rho =\rho _0\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{r^2}{R_0^2}+\frac{z^2}{Z_0^2}\right)\right].$$
(7)
At the initial state, the cloud is assumed to be static for simplicity. This model has the two parameters of $`R_0`$ and $`Z_0`$.

Figures 4 and 5 show the evolutions of the density distributions in the $`rz`$ plane for the prolate and oblate clouds, respectively. The prolate and oblate clouds have the model parameters of $`(R_0,Z_0)=(1.66r_\mathrm{u},2.49r_\mathrm{u})`$ and $`(2.40r_\mathrm{u},1.60r_\mathrm{u})`$, respectively. In both models, the ratio of the major to minor axes is set to 1.5 and the ratio of the thermal energy to the gravitational energy is equal to $`\alpha 0.33`$. The total cloud masses are equal to $`M_\mathrm{t}=1.44\times 10^2m_\mathrm{u}`$ and $`1.40\times 10^2m_\mathrm{u}`$ for the prolate and oblate clouds, respectively. The grid spacing is set to $`\mathrm{\Delta }r=\mathrm{\Delta }z=0.02r_u`$. The number of grid points is taken to be $`N_r\times N_z=512\times 1024`$ In Figures 4 and 5, the first two panels show the cross sections during the runaway collapse phase, while the rest are during the accretion phase. In both models, the contraction progresses preferentially along the major axis. Therefore, during the accretion phase, the initially prolate cloud collapses into an oblate core, whereas the initially oblate cloud collapses into a prolate core.

This evolution is explained as follows. At the initial state, the pressure force is less effective along the major axis because of shallower density gradient. In other words, the net attractive force is stronger along the major axis. Therefore, the cloud collapses preferentially along the major axis.

We also followed the evolution of the models with different axis ratios and $`\alpha `$. It is found that as long as the cloud is close to virial equilibrium, the evolution is qualitatively similar to those shown here (see also Bonnell et al. 1996).

As mentioned in §2, the fragments formed from filamentary clouds tend to become prolate at the epoch of fragmentation. Therefore, as shown in §3.1 and §3.2, such a prolate fragment collapses to form an oblate core which thereafter evolves into a prolate core. This evolution is consistent with those of Figures 4 and 5.

## 4 Time-Dependent Mass Infall Rate

In this section, we discuss the evolution of the mass infall rate onto the center.

Figure 6 shows the evolution of the mass infall rate for model B. The mass infall rate is time-dependent, in contrast to the prediction of similarity solutions (e.g., Shu 1977; Whitworth & Summers 1985). The mass infall rate takes its maximum at the very early stage and then monotonously decreases with time. This behavior is basically the same as that of Ogino, Tomisaka, Nakamura (1999)’s model with a small $`\alpha `$, where $`\alpha `$ is the ratio of the gravitational force to the pressure force. Such evolution is explained as follows. During the runaway collapse phase, the central region tends to approach the Larson-Penston similarity solution (Larson 1969; Penston 1969) whose mass infall rate is temporally constant at $`\dot{M}_{\mathrm{LP}}47c_s^3/G`$. However, only the central small region converges onto the Larson-Penston solution by the epoch of core formation. In the outer infalling envelope, the pressure effect is important and the infall is appreciably retarded. Thus, after the central small region accretes onto the central point mass, the mass infall rate declines in time.

Observed young stellar objects (YSOs) are often classified into several empirical evolutional stages from star-less dense cores to main-sequence stars (e.g., André, Ward-Thompson, & Barsony 1993). The youngest observed YSOs are called Class 0 sources which are interpreted to be in a phase at which the envelope gas still has more mass than the central hydrostatic protostellar core. More evolved YSOs are called Class I sources. Recently, Bontemps et al. (1996) suggested that if the CO outflow rates are proportional to the mass infall rates onto the embedded young stars, the mass infall rates of Class 0 sources are a factor of 10 larger on average than those of Class I sources. Applying a simplified pressure-free model, Henriksen, André, & Bontemps (1997) proposed that the observed dispersion of the mass infall rates for Class 0 sources is due to the time evolution of the mass infall rates. In our isothermal model, the evolution of the mass infall rate is qualitatively similar to that of Henriksen et al. (1997), although in our hydrodynamical model, the pressure force significantly retards the rapid change of the mass infall rate. As discussed by Ogino et al. (1999), the evolution of the mass infall rate also depends on the initial conditions of the clouds. We will discuss those effects in a separate paper.

## 5 Implications to Observations

Recent observations have revealed the detailed structures of the infalling envelopes around several embedded young stars (e.g., Hayashi et al. 1993; Ohashi et al. 1996; Saito et al. 1996; Momose et al. 1996). In this section, we discuss the physical structures of the disklike envelopes obtained by our calculations and make a comparison between our numerical results and observations.

Figure 7 shows the radial profiles of $`\rho `$, $`v_r`$, and $`v_\phi `$ in the equatorial plane during the accretion phase. Just after core formation, the density and velocity profiles are well approximated by $`\rho r^2`$, $`v_r\mathrm{const}.`$, and $`v_\phi \mathrm{const}.`$ near the center. This indicates that the central high-density region converges well onto a similarity solution by the epoch of core formation (Matsumoto et al. 1997). As the collapse progresses, both the infalling disk and the rotationally-supported disk grow in size. In the infalling disk, the density, radial velocity, and azimuthal velocity have the radial distributions of $`\rho r^{1.5}`$, $`v_rr^{0.5}`$, and $`v_\phi r^1`$, respectively. The radial velocity is reproduced by a free-fall velocity of $`\sqrt{2GM_0/r}`$. The azimuthal velocity means that the specific angular momentum is almost constant in the infalling envelope. Such dependence seems to be qualitatively similar to that of a similarity solution of an infalling rotating disk (Saigo & Hanawa 1998; see also Terebey, Shu, Cassen 1984). In the rotationally-supported disk, the radial and azimuthal velocities are well approximated by $`v_r0`$ and $`v_\phi r^{0.5}`$, respectively. At the boundary between the infalling disk and the rotationally-supported disk, a shock wave is formed and propagates outwardly.

Momose et al. (1996) have examined the physical structure of the infalling disk around the L1551 IRS5. From a comparison between the observed postion-velocity diagram and their simple analytic model, they suggested that the velocity field in the disklike envelope is explained in terms of infall with slow rotation. Their simple model indicates that the infall and azimuthal velocities have radial dependences of $`v_rr^{0.5}`$ with 0.5 km s<sup>-1</sup> at $`r=700`$ AU and $`v_\phi r^1`$ with 0.24 km s<sup>-1</sup> at $`r=700`$ AU, respectively. If we take $`\rho _010^6`$ cm<sup>-3</sup> and $`T=10`$ K, then the observed velocity field around the L1551 IRS5 is consistent with that of the model presented in §3.2 at the stage at which $`tt_{\mathrm{core}}1.5(2\pi G\rho _0)^{0.5}3.8\times 10^4`$ yr, where $`tt_{\mathrm{core}}`$ denotes the time measured from the epoch of core formation. The mass infall rate is evaluated as $`\dot{M}1\times 10^5M_{}`$ yr<sup>-1</sup>. The central mass (a point mass plus its surrounding rotationally-supported disk) is then estimated as 0.6 $`M_{}`$.

The detailed comparisons between the numerical results and observations will reveal the formation and evolution processes of the infalling envelopes as well as the young stars.

We are grateful to T. Hanawa, N. Hirano, M. Momose, Y. Nakamura, N. Ohashi, and K. Tomisaka for useful discussions. We also thank an anonymous referee for valuable comments which improve the paper. Numerical computations were carried out on VPP300/16R at the Astronomical Data Analysis Center of the National Astronomical Observatory, Japan. This work was financially supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas of the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (10147205, 11134203).


text:
# The Frequency of Polarized Broad Emission Lines in Type 2 Seyfert Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Seyfert galaxies have traditionally been classified into two spectroscopic groups based on the presence (type 1) or absence (type 2) of permitted optical emission lines that are broader than their forbidden lines. The discovery of polarized broad lines in NGC 1068 (Antonucci & Miller 1985) and a handful of other type 2 Seyfert galaxies (Miller & Goodrich 1990; Tran, Miller, & Kay 1992; Tran 1995a; Young et al. 1996; Heisler, Lumsden, & Bailey 1997; Kay & Moran 1998) has therefore had significant impact on our understanding of the relationship between the two types of objects and, more generally, of the parsec-scale geometry of Seyfert nuclei. The polarization, interpreted to be due to nuclear light that is scattered into our line of sight, establishes that some Seyfert 2s harbor normal Seyfert 1 nuclei whose innermost regions are obscured from our direct view, presumably by dense circumnuclear material. This material may be present in type 1 Seyferts as well, but oriented such that it does not lie between us and the central engine of the active nucleus.

One hindrance to the extrapolation of this unified picture to all Seyfert galaxies is the fact that direct evidence for obscured type 1 nuclei in type 2 objects has been limited to relatively few examples. Thus, to explore the nature of the activity in Seyfert 2 galaxies as a class, we have initiated a multiwavelength survey of a distance-limited sample of 31 objects, beginning with spectropolarimetric observations. In this Letter, we announce the discovery of “new” hidden broad-line regions in five Seyfert 2 galaxies from this sample; full results of our survey will be presented in a forthcoming paper (Kay et al. 2000). Because of the unbiased nature of the survey, which is now complete, we are able to make the first reliable assessment of the frequency of polarized broad emission lines in type 2 Seyferts.

## 2 Observations and Results

Our survey is based on the distance-limited sample of Ulvestad & Wilson (1989, hereafter UW89), which, at the time of its definition, comprised all known Seyfert galaxies (31 of type 2)111UW89 considered 35 galaxies to be Seyfert 2s (see their Table 6), but recent spectroscopy has revealed that three of them (MS 0942.8+0950, NGC 1365, and Mrk 1126) are actually intermediate type 1 objects. Over the course of our survey, we have found that one other (Mrk 745) is a high-ionization H II galaxy rather than a Seyfert. with recession velocities $`cz<4600`$ km s-1 and declinations $`\delta >45^{}`$. Although some additional Seyfert 2s have been identified within the UW89 distance limit over the past decade, most of them are inconspicuous, low-luminosity objects that were classified either by inference, as in the instance of NGC 3147 (Moran, Halpern, & Helfand 1994; Ptak et al. 1996), or after careful starlight template subtraction of the optical spectrum (Ho, Filippenko, & Sargent 1997). Thus, the UW89 sample represents a reasonably complete, distance-limited set of classical Seyfert 2s. The sample was originally used to examine the radio properties of Seyfert galaxies; radio results obtained for the magnitude-limited CfA sample of Seyferts (Kukula et al. 1995) are consistent with those of UW89, suggesting that the UW89 sample is free of significant selection biases.

The spectropolarimetry component of our Seyfert 2 survey is now complete. Observations of the five UW89 objects in which we have discovered polarized broad emission lines were carried out at the Keck-II 10 m telescope on (UT) 7 March 1998 and 6 January 1999, and at the CTIO 4 m telescope on 23 June 1998 and 20 June 1999. Table 1 lists these galaxies and their recession velocities, as well as the observatory and exposure times employed. Reduction and analysis of the data were performed as described by Barth, Filippenko, & Moran (1999) and Kay et al. (1999). The observed continuum polarization $`P_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ and linear polarization position angle (P.A.) $`\theta `$ of each object in the 5400–5600 Å (rest) wavelength range are also listed in Table 1. For all of the galaxies, $`\theta `$ remains approximately constant across the Balmer-line profiles.

Spectropolarimetric results are shown for all five galaxies in Figures 1–5. As indicated in the upper panel in each of the Figures, only narrow emission lines are present in the total-flux spectra of the objects. The polarization spectra (middle panel) of the galaxies all display similar characteristics: low but nonzero continuum polarization, depressions in polarization at the locations of strong narrow emission lines (e.g., \[O III\] $`\lambda \lambda 4959,5007`$), and increases in polarization in the wings of the H$`\alpha `$ and (in most cases) H$`\beta `$ lines. The product of the polarization and total-flux specta (bottom panel) reveals broad permitted emission lines in the polarized flux of each galaxy.

NGC 424. As Figure 1 indicates, there is a distinct increase in the polarization of this object near H$`\alpha `$. The H$`\alpha `$ line in polarized flux is very broad, with a full-width near zero-intensity (FWZI) of at least 12,000 km s-1, which is much broader than the FWZI of the narrow \[N II\] + H$`\alpha `$ blend in the total-flux spectrum shown in the upper panel of Figure 1. There is clearly a broad component of H$`\beta `$ in the polarized flux spectrum as well.

NGC 591 (Mrk 1157). Enhancements in polarization near H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ are subtle in this object, but as Figure 2 shows, both lines exhibit broad components in polarized flux. The FWZI of the broad H$`\alpha `$ line is $`4000`$ km s-1. Following Barth et al. (1999), we have assessed the significance of our detection of H$`\alpha `$ polarization by comparing the mean values of the Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$ across the broad H$`\alpha `$ profile to those in adjacent line-free regions. We find that $`Q`$ and $`U`$ across H$`\alpha `$ deviate from the continuum levels by 1.9 $`\sigma `$ and 9.5 $`\sigma `$, respectively. Polarized broad H$`\alpha `$ emission was not detected by Miller & Goodrich (1990) in shallower observations with the Lick 3 m telescope.

NGC 2273 (Mrk 620). This is another weakly polarized object, but there is an obvious bump at H$`\alpha `$ in the polarization spectrum (Fig. 3), which is more prominent in polarized flux. The FWZI of the broad H$`\alpha `$ line is $`5000`$ km s-1. The significance of our detection of a broad H$`\alpha `$ feature is 8.0 $`\sigma `$ in Stokes $`Q`$, and 2.3 $`\sigma `$ in Stokes $`U`$.

NGC 3081. Very strong enhancements of the polarization near both H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ are observed in this object (Fig. 4), yielding a spectacular type 1 spectrum in polarized light. The broad component of H$`\alpha `$ has FWZI $`7000`$ km s-1. It appears that the He I $`\lambda 5876`$ line is polarized as well.

NGC 4507. Similar to NGC 3081, this galaxy exhibits significant polarization enhancements near the Balmer lines, particularly H$`\alpha `$ (Fig. 5). A bump near He I $`\lambda 5876`$ also appears in the polarization spectrum. In polarized flux, the broad H$`\alpha `$ line is strong and asymmetric, with FWZI $``$ 10,000 km s-1.

Many Seyfert 2s with polarized broad emission lines have morphologically “linear” radio sources in their nuclei. In such cases, the major axis of the radio emission is often orthogonal to the polarization position angle $`\theta `$ (Antonucci 1983, 1993). Only two objects studied here, NGC 591 and NGC 2273, have linear radio sources; in the others, the emission is unresolved or only marginally resolved on $`1^{\prime \prime }`$ scales (Ulvestad & Wilson 1984, 1989; Morganti et al. 1999). For NGC 591, the radio axis lies along P.A. = $`153^{}`$, which is almost perpendicular to $`\theta `$ (Table 1). The radio axis of NGC 2273 lies along P.A. = $`90^{}`$, whereas $`\theta =25^{}`$. Because of the weak overall polarization of this object, an interstellar component of polarization, which we have not corrected for, could be affecting both $`P_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ and $`\theta `$.

Unpolarized starlight from the host galaxies contributes a major, if not dominant, fraction of the observed continuum fluxes, diminishing the polarization of the nuclear emission. Thus, following the methods of Tran (1995a), we have attempted to correct for the effects of starlight dilution to obtain a better measurement of the true level of continuum polarization in each object. This involves decomposition of the observed spectrum into stellar and nonstellar components using spectra of elliptical galaxies and spiral galaxy bulges free of emission lines as starlight templates. Best results for our galaxies were generally obtained with spectra of NGC 224 (M31) or NGC 7457 as templates (a full description of the analysis will be presented by Kay et al. 2000). The derived fractions of galactic starlight $`F_\mathrm{g}`$ present in our Seyfert 2 spectra are listed in Table 1. Corrected values of the continuum polarization $`P_{\mathrm{cor}}`$ \[= $`P_{\mathrm{obs}}/(1F_\mathrm{g})`$\] are also listed in the Table.

## 3 Location and Geometry of the Obscuring Medium

The currently popular picture for the parsec-scale geometry of Seyfert nuclei, originally proposed by Antonucci & Miller (1985), contends that the broad-line region (BLR) and optical/UV continuum source are surrounded by dense material that has a roughly toroidal geometry; the orientation of this torus to our line of sight thus determines the optical spectroscopic classification of a given Seyfert galaxy. In some type 2 Seyferts, where the torus is presumably edge-on, free electrons or dust grains located above the opening of the torus scatter nonstellar continuum and broad-line photons into our line of sight. Because the scattered emission is polarized, spectropolarimetric observations can provide a periscopic view of the innermost regions of these objects. Unfortunately, selection effects have often confounded studies intended to test the general applicability of the torus model (Antonucci 1993), and it has been unclear what fraction of the Seyfert 2 population it describes. In fact, a recent imaging survey by Malkan, Gorijan, & Tam (1998) has revealed that type 2 Seyferts are more likely than Seyfert 1s to have dust lanes and patches close (in projection) to the nucleus, suggesting that interstellar dust hundreds of parsecs from the active nucleus, rather than a parsec-scale circumnuclear torus, may be the main source of extinction in the majority of Seyfert 2 galaxies.

Spectropolarimetry provides independent evidence regarding the location and geometry of the obscuring medium in Seyfert 2 galaxies. As Figures 1–5 and the results of Tran (1995b) indicate, the narrow emission lines of objects with hidden BLRs are less polarized than the continuum and broad Balmer lines. Thus, most of the scattering takes place interior to the narrow-line region, which, for reasonable values of the black-hole mass ($`10^8M_{}`$) and narrow emission-line velocity widths (500 km s-1 FWHM), has an inner dimension of order 10 pc. For us to detect polarized emission, the projected size of the obscuring material must be comparable to or smaller than the size of the scattering region, implying that the obscuration occurs close to the black hole. In principle, significant polarization could result from scattering of an isotropic radiation field by a patchy medium, but the relationship between the polarization and radio-source position angles in Seyfert 2s would then have to be a coincidence. The alternative is that the radiation field somehow becomes anisotropic prior to scattering (Antonucci 1984). In this scenario, the high (5–16%) starlight-corrected polarizations of NGC 3081, NGC 4507, and several galaxies in the Tran (1995a,b) study are possible if the obscuring material covers much of the nucleus in the equatorial plane. We conclude, therefore, that the material primarily responsible for the obscuration of those Seyfert 2s with hidden BLRs and high intrinsic polarizations is located close to the black hole and, qualitatively, is cylindrically symmetric—a torus, for all practical purposes. (Note that a highly warped, thin accretion disk might also be capable of providing the necessary scattering geometry; see Phinney 1989.) There is no reason to suspect that the hidden-BLR Seyfert 2s lacking high starlight-corrected polarizations are fundamentally different. As discussed by Miller & Goodrich (1990), the scattering medium may be located within the mouth of the torus, rather than above it; polarized emission would then only be detectable in objects where the torus is tipped toward us, and in such cases, polarization levels would be modest. Infrared and hard X-ray observations appear to support this picture (Heisler et al. 1997; Risaliti et al. 2000).

## 4 Frequency of Polarized Broad Lines in Type 2 Seyferts

While previous spectropolarimetric observations have demonstrated that some type 2 Seyferts are type 1 objects obscured by dense circumnuclear material, it has been unclear what fraction of Seyfert 2s can be described this way. A determination of the frequency of polarized broad emission lines in Seyfert 2s, now possible with the completion of our survey of the UW89 sample, provides an important lower limit on this fraction.

Five of the 31 galaxies in the UW89 sample were known to possess hidden BLRs prior to the start of our survey: NGC 1068 (Antonucci & Miller 1985), Mrk 3 and Mrk 348 (Miller & Goodrich 1990), NGC 4388 (Shields & Filippenko 1988; Young et al. 1996), and IC 3639 (Heisler et al. 1997). As discussed by Kay et al. (2000), we have confirmed the presence of hidden BLRs in these last two objects. Combined with our discovery of polarized broad emission lines in NGC 788 (Kay & Moran 1998), the five detections presented here in NGC 424, NGC 591, NGC 2273, NGC 3081, and NGC 4507 have more than doubled the number of known hidden BLRs in this sample, bringing the total to 11. Higher quality observations could, of course, increase this number. Thus, at least 35% of nearby classical Seyfert 2s have polarized broad permitted emission lines, indicating that they are obscured primarily by material located a few parsecs from the nucleus, rather than by large-scale foreground dust lanes. The remainder, however, may be obscured mainly by interstellar matter, as suggested by Malkan et al. (1998), or they may simply lack BLRs.

Hard X-ray observations of Seyfert 2 galaxies complement spectropolarimetric data by providing a measure of the amount of absorbing material present. For example, recent hard X-ray observations have shown that $``$ 50% of Seyfert 2s (from a different sample) have absorption column densities too high ($`N_\mathrm{H}>10^{24}`$ atoms cm-2) to be associated with interstellar dust features (Risaliti, Maiolino, & Salvati 1999). This is consistent with the lower limit of 35% we have derived for the fraction of Seyfert 2s that are obscured by circumnuclear tori. Nearly all of the Seyfert 2s in the UW89 sample have been observed in the hard X-ray band, and in a future paper we will combine those observations with our spectropolarimetric results to explore further the nature of the obscuring material in type 2 Seyfert galaxies.

We are very grateful to Michael Eracleous for assistance with the starlight fraction measurements, and to A. M. Magalhães for supplying the polarimetry optics used at CTIO. The W. M. Keck Observatory is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA, and was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. E. C. M. is supported by NASA through Chandra Fellowship grant PF8-10004 awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS 8-39073. The work of A. J. B. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. L. E. K. acknowledges the support of the NSF through CAREER grant AST-9501835. We also acknowledge NASA grant NAG 5-3556.


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# Physical Processes at Cosmic Dawn

## 1. Introduction

The scientific core of this conference has undoubtedly been the physics of the interplay between galaxy formation and the intergalactic medium at relatively high redshifts, typically above 5. These epochs can still be compared to the Old Wild West territories which only brave pioneers have dared to explore. The goldy mines containing precious information about the dawn of the universe, when the first luminous sources brightened up and their light unveiled the already ongoing formation of large numbers of pregalactic systems, are still not at reach of the yet most powerful experimental devices currently available to us. This situation is going to change soon, but at the moment theorists’ predictions remain in the realm of sophisticated (and intellectually exciting) speculations. For how uncertain all this might be considered, there is a great deal of knowledge that can be gathered even under these unfavorable conditions, as witnessed by the impressive momentum gained by the field in the very recent years. Thus, as observations are slowly, but steadily filling the gap with theory, this conference has very suitably served the scope of setting a common framework among different, nevertheless connected areas in cosmology: (i) First luminous sources in the universe, (ii) Reionization, (iii) Intergalactic medium and (iv) Galaxy formation. In the following I summarize the main results presented and a few thoughts on future directions, open problems and ways to attack them.

## 2. First Sources

The first stars in the universe formed at redshifts of order of $`30`$. In spite of this generally accepted fact, many questions still remain.

### 2.1. How Massive where the First Stars ?

Star formation in the early universe is usually assumed to be understood more easily because several complicating effects can be neglected to a first approximation: among these are magnetic fields, dust grains and metal enrichment. Yet little consensus has been reached among various groups. It is clear that gravitational collapse induces fragmentation of the first pregalactic objects with initial baryonic mass $`10^5M_{}`$ into smaller clumps of typical mass of about $`10^{23}M_{}`$, which corresponds to the Jeans mass set by molecular hydrogen cooling. The occurrence of such fragmentation has been shown to require the following conditions $`\alpha `$(thermal/gravitational)$`<0.3`$ and $`\beta `$(rotational/ gravitational)$`<0.3`$ on the relevant energy parameters of the collapsing clouds, at least for the quasi-isothermal case ($`\gamma =1.1`$) derived from 1D simulations. Subsequent evolution, in some cases studied with the inclusion of cooling lines radiative transfer, shows that a quasi-hydrostatic central core is formed whose specific mass is somewhat dependent on the details of the problem, but typically in the range $`10^31M_{}`$. However, the precise value of the mass might be irrelevant as the accretion rate of the infalling gas is found to be rather high, around $`10^2M_{}`$ yr-1, which implies that, in the absence of any effect quenching accretion, a large fraction of the initial object can become part of the protostar. Pushing this conclusion a bit further, one might predict a top heavy IMF for this first generation of sources.

If the infall can instead be stopped, different scenarios can be envisaged. Standard ways proposed to stop the infall do not seem to work under primordial conditions: radiation pressure might be opacity limited; bipolar flows need some MDH acceleration process and therefore seem to be excluded. Angular momentum barrier related to disk formation and competitive accretion by companions are slightly more promising, but much more difficult to model accurately. In addition to these, there are a number of other effects that will deserve more extensive treatment. Among these are: i) the role of HD molecules. If the abundance of this molecule is higher than the value currently used by most studies less massive clumps are expected. However, this is at odd with current determinations of the baryon density parameter from CMB experiments as BOOMERANG; ii) the role of enrichment. What is the value of the critical metallicity above which metal cooling becomes important both in terms of cooling time and of contribution to the cloud continuum opacity ? iii) the role of FUV radiation. It is typically found that H2 is photodissociated in the collapsing cloud if a flux111$`J_{21}=J/10^{21}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 Hz-1 sr-1 above $`J_{21}>10^5`$ can be built up before the onset of nuclear reactions in the core. This can be seen as a viable mechanism for regulating star formation in primordial objects; iv) indications for angular momentum transfer in the core have been brought as possibly due to turbulence. Assessing in more detail the relevant physics would certainly constitute a considerable progress. Finally, v) interactions between clumps in the same halo, strongly depending on the synchronicity of their formation, is an important aspect for the global evolution of the object and of the possible feedback effects involved.

However, not all is clear even to a first approximation. For example, studies of cylindrical clouds (as opposed to the more commonly studied cases of spheroidal clouds) find that such configuration leads to the formation of fragments with separated mass scales: $`200M_{}`$ for clumps that formed during the optically thin phase and $`1M_{}`$ for clumps formed close to the transition to the optically thick case (essentially the Jeans masses at $`n=n_{crit}`$ and $`n_{\tau =1}`$). If formed stars are to reflect this distribution, a bimodal IMF is expected. Questions remain on the sensitivity of the results to the definition of initial conditions and on the degree of bimodality, but at face value this result might imply a low number of TypeII SNe per unit stellar mass formed, which in turn might jeopardize searches for high-$`z`$ SNe. The evolutionary properties of such very massive stars start to be derived with some confidence: stars larger than $`M=120M_{}`$ disappear in a tremendous explosion releasing about 25 times more energy than their low mass SN counterparts, leaving no compact remnant. However, the large \[Co/Fe\] ratios observed in halo stars seem to rule out the fact that the dominant formation mode in the universe was due to stellar masses larger than 150 $`M_{}`$, although considerable uncertainties remain on these results.

### 2.2. Feedback Effects on H2

FUV radiation, as already mentioned above, might be an efficient self-regulatory mechanism of primordial star formation. As rule of thumb, photoionizing radiation will tend to increase the molecular hydrogen abundance of a gas cloud due to the larger number of electrons available for the H- production channel; Lyman-Werner radiation will act in the opposite way because of the induced two-step (Solomon) process dissociation. These two mechanisms are usually jointly addressed as radiative feedback. Central to the problem of early star formation is to assess to which extent radiation may alter the collapse evolution. Studies not including the gravitational field of the dark matter halo have come to the conclusion that the cooling mass above which the collapse is insensitive to radiative feedback effects, due to self-shielding, is of the order of $`4\times 10^6J_{21}^{1/3}M_{}`$. However detailed, this results does not allow to appreciate the dependence on the virialization redshift of the object for which a proper cosmological context must be defined. A couple of groups have obtained result on this issue, both for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM and CDM models. The conclusion is that the threshold circular velocity for collapse is around 30 km s-1, insensitive to the details of radiation transfer. Ideally, a more global study coupling radiative transfer and hydrodynamics to yield the dependence of the self-shielding mass on $`J_{21}`$ at various epochs would be the final aim. This study is particularly important also in view of the fact that the radiation flux is probably dominated by proximity effects of sources at $`z>15`$ and by a more uniform background at later epochs.

## 3. Reionization

There are at least a few main features on which consensus is reached on how reionization of the intergalactic medium proceeded. First, individual HII regions developed around the ionizing sources. In the second phase, these ionized regions grow in number and size until they overlapped, producing a sudden increase of the photon mean free path. Finally, as the underdense regions (voids) were completely ionized, the ionization fronts started to penetrate into overdense regions (clumps and filaments), thus bringing the reionization process to completion. These general features constitute the minimal common model accepted by all the groups involved in this research area.

Before we discuss more specific results, it is instructive to describe the type of sources that have been considered up to now in reionization calculations. By far the most popular models assume stellar type objects, typically PopIIIs and mini-galaxies with Salpeter IMF (with exceptions represented by more top-heavy IMFs following the new proposal by Larson). Radiative feedback of the type mentioned above and/or stellar feedback, i.e. due to SN energy deposition, have been included only by a very limited number of studies, the same statement holding for the consideration of Spectral Energy Distributions of the sources more consistent with their (extremely) low or zero metallicity. Reionization by QSOs has been much less explored, partly because of technical problems of simulations in dealing with the large dynamic range required, and also because of the uncertainties on the contribution (and the existence!) of accretion-fueled radiation beyond redshifts of 6. A third proposal involves production of X-ray radiation from Compton up-scattering of CMB photons by electron accelerated at the shock produced by the explosion of the first SNe. This last model would predict sensibly different features of the reionization (for example in terms of CMB secondary anisotropies) and therefore should be readily testable as soon as the necessary data become available.

With this background we can now turn to the discussion of some general, but often debated, results. The epoch of reionization seems to have occurred some time in the redshift range $`7<z_i<15`$: although the precise value of $`z_i`$ depends on the parameters/cosmology the range appears to be rather robust. Typically, 5-10 ionizing photons per baryon are available from the ionizing sources, and the reionization can be completed by forming no more than a few percent of the stars that we see today. The intensity of the UV background jumps by a factor 10 to 100 (according to the results presented) at overlap, reaching a value of $`J_{21}=0.1`$ afterwards. Associated with the inhomogeneous ionization field produced by a non uniform distribution of sources and IGM density are the CMB secondary anisotropies whose angular power spectrum peaks at sub-arcminute scales with amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T10^6`$. Magnetic field seeds are produced via the Biermann battery as the ionization fronts blow out of the ISM of the galaxies and during the final ionization of overdense regions, reaching magnitudes of order $`10^{19}`$ G before redshift of 10, a values high enough to become of interest for subsequent turbulent/dynamo amplification. Finally, after reionization both the Jeans and the filtering (i.e. the smoothing length of perturbations on small scales due to finite gas pressure) scales increase abruptly by several orders of magnitude.

As usually, large uncertainties remain and what follows is only an incomplete list. First, we would like to determine the baryon-to-star conversion factor in early galaxies and if this quantity is a function of the object mass. For example, it is possible that this factor is much smaller for halos cooling via the rather unefficient molecular cooling than for larger, hydrogen line cooling dominated protogalaxies. The second uncertain parameter is the escape fraction of ionizing photons from the overdense regions in which they are produced. Current detailed models generally put upper limits of about 10% on $`f_{esc}`$, and are in agreement with observations of the local universe. The situation might be different for low mass objects, in which a few OB stars may ionize the entire ISM of the galaxy in a time scale shorter than the lifetime of the stars themselves. A related question concerns the IGM clumping factor (some ambiguity indeed exists in the definition of this quantity and the escape fraction above): as some halos will be too small or sensitive to radiative feedback to collapse, they will float around as dark objects (or sterile halos) until they are photoionized. Their relative high density will pose stronger requirements on the photon-to-baryon budget ratio required to reionize the IGM.

### 3.1. Observational Probes of the End of Dark Ages

A remarkable number of possible observational tests of the epochs close to $`z_i`$ have been proposed and to discuss them all in detail would be outside the purpose of the present review. Therefore, in the following I just list the proposed experiments.

CMB secondary anisotropies and polarization exploiting shortly available instrumentations (as for example ALMA) remain the prime tool to investigate reionization. More along the direction of detecting the ionizing sources are the number counts of faint objects and Ly$`\alpha `$ emitters with NGST, and H2 FIR/sub-mm line emission from PopIII objects with SIRTF. In the radio, HI 21-cm line tomography of the neutral IGM excited by Ly$`\alpha `$ pumping should be possible with the Square Kilometer Array. High$`z`$ SNe (NGST) represent clean probes of the cosmic star formation rate and can be used to trace very low mass objects which would be otherwise too faint to be seen. Pair production opacity of $`\gamma `$-ray BLacs can be used to test the UV background by using EGRET satellite. Finally, proposals have been made to search for the H$`\alpha `$ forest if a H level inversion can be maintained by some means.

### 3.2. A Challenge to Theorists: the TsuCube

The ongoing efforts to include radiative transfer into numerical simulations of reionization deserve a few lines on its own due to their difficulty and beauty. At least four groups are attacking the problem by using different numerical schemes: i) Time dependent ray-tracing; ii) Time-independent ray-tracing; iii) Monte Carlo method and iv) Local Depth Approximation.

At this stage it appears worth to make a comparison between these different approaches. Therefore the challenge here is to apply the available codes to a commonly defined, well posed radiative transfer problem. For example, one could predict the ionization patterns produced by a (many) source(s) with a given luminosity/spectrum in a given (complex) density field. This will be defined as the TsuCube (in honor of Tsukuba, guest city of the conference), and it will allow to compare the codes in term of accuracy and speed of the scheme, so to guide future work. The details of the initial condition must be part of an agreement and discussion among the interested groups and I have offered myself to act as a coordinator of such comparison. Therefore, interested groups can contact me at ferrara@arcetri.astro.it to be part of the challenge.

## 4. The Intergalactic Medium

Naturally, this section complements nicely the previous one and it is partly included into that. However, there are at least two issues on which is it useful to spend some lines.

### 4.1. IGM Metal Enrichment

One of the results that have become clear recently, is that low mass galaxies (the ones that are excellent candidates to start the metal enrichment process) lose gas and metals in a differential way. Whereas typically 90% of the metals are lost following a blowout event, at most 10% of the gas is expelled from the potential well of the parent galaxy. The escape fraction of energy and metals decreases with galactic mass, and, when averaged over the entire galaxy population, one finds that at redshifts below 3 about 50% of the metals produced are ejected into the IGM. In spite of this large amount of heavy elements in the intergalactic reservoir, still unclear remains the nature of the mechanisms eventually responsible for the spread of such metals. Supernovae might be doing the job provided that explosions occur at high enough ($`z10`$) redshift. This occurrence might explain the apparent ubiquity of enriched gas suggested by some absorption experiments in the very low column density Ly$`\alpha `$ forest.

### 4.2. IGM Thermal History

Recent re-analysis of available absorption spectra of QSOs seems to indicate that the temperature of the IGM increases up to a maximum at $`z3`$ and that the equation of state becomes close to isothermal. Although based on the uncertain assumption of Voigt line profiles, these results can be interpreted as due to the extra heating provided to the gas by the late HeII reionization. Indeed several recent observations imply that HeII reionization is still patchy around $`z3`$, thus lending support to the previous speculation. Also, UV background fluctuations would be expected at epochs close to overlap, the amplitude of the fluctuations being inversely correlated with the mean flux intensity. Up to now, there is no clear evidence of such trend up to $`z5`$, the most distant epoch at which the experiment can be done. This implies that by that redshift hydrogen was already completely ionized, as expected from the theoretical models summarized above.

## 5. Galaxy Formation

The hierarchical paradigm providing the theoretical framework to galaxy formation studies is based on initial conditions (i.e. cosmological models) which seem to be relatively settled, at least judging from the relatively small variety of cosmologies adopted by the groups. A revolution in the field might be reasonably expected if future experiments like the measurement of kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect in clusters would reveal a non-Gaussian nature of the initial density field. The rest of the (dark matter) story is rather well established with Press-Schechter theory validity being tested down to very low mass scale, and the merging reasonably well understood from numerical simulations.

The magic comes in with the baryons, concerning which our knowledge of many physical mechanisms is either too limited or too complex to be implemented in current models, depending on processes. Both semi-analytical models (SAM) and numerical simulations (NS) have to rely on essentially the same recipes when they boil down to the star formation and feedback processes, dust and – to a lesser extent – stellar populations. The reward for this unsatisfactory approach is a wealth of predictions (Tully-Fisher relation, luminosity functions and density, SEDs, disk sizes, cosmic star formation history and backgrounds, clustering properties, number counts) with which one hopes to cure the anemyc physics included.

Apparently, scalings among different properties of galaxies are the long-searched-for relations, as today. For example, an important law as the Tully-Fisher relation connecting the luminosity with the circular velocity, can only be partly reproduced: the slope obtained from the simulations agrees with the experimental one but an offset is still present which might not be accounted for by changing the stellar feedback prescription (even in its more modern ”kinetic” formulation). In principle the nature of the problem is clear: the CDM halos appear to be too concentrated; for the solution new ideas are desperately searched for, unless this discrepancy is telling us something more fundamental. Another unsolved problem of galaxy formation models, at least of those based on NS, is the failure to reproduce the angular momentum of disks (similar to the situation with the first sources described above). However, new scaling relations are proposed by identifying planes in the 3D space \[radius, luminosity, circular velocity\] which only depend on the mass and spin parameter of galaxies.

Chemo-dynamical models seem to have reached an important success in reproducing the color-magnitude diagrams of dwarf ellipticals from simple quasi-monolithic collapse models. This is more surprising as these objects should be expected to be photoevaporated by the metagalactic UVB, of which no account has been attempted in most simulations of this type. The gas, according to what said above, is ejected outside the virial radius from dwarfs, but not from large ellipticals. However, models with initial conditions consistent with CDM fluctuations perform slightly well in reproducing a variety of physical properties of dElls.

A final note on two more specific topics: dynamics and the starburst-AGN connection. Concerning the former there is evidence that galaxies in clusters become less massive in time due to stripping/merging. Also, coupled SAM+Nbody models predict too few S0s in these environment, a problem that might require a direct S$``$S0 transformation. The dynamics of the merging of galaxies with central black holes might left traces as the cusps seen in ellipticals. Starburst still remain poorly understood phenomena and trying to make the connection to the AGN activity might come out to be a good strategy to improve our scenarios. It has to be kept in mind that it is predicted that only $`<10`$% of the cosmic star formation occurs in bursts. The physics of accretion is rather well established and might help making the connection. The most recent advances in this field including the stellar feedback recognize that this addition tends to increase the effective viscosity of the gas, thus favoring higher (very likely fluctuating) accretion rates. Finally, the interesting suggestion that differences between Sy2 and Sy1 galaxies might be nicely explained by the presence of two radiatively supported, obscuring walls must be taken seriously and deserves to be fully developed.