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# Cosmological Studies from Radio Source Samples

## 1. Redshift surveys of low-frequency radio sources

We were all excited at this meeting by the prospect of the GMRT pushing low-frequency astronomy to sensitivities significantly below those of the previous generation of surveys: e.g. the $`5\sigma `$ detection levels of 151 MHz flux density $`S_{151}100\mathrm{mJy}`$ reached by the Cambridge 7C survey (e.g. McGilchrist et al. 1990). Nevertheless, the next generation of low-frequency continuum surveys will continue to be dominated by extragalactic sources whose large radio luminosities come ultimately from energy-releasing processes associated with super-massive black holes. In this sense most of the sources in a GMRT survey will not be so different from those in the 3CRR survey and, as we have recently been reminded by Longair (1999), these sources have been studied for nearly forty years. So, what new things can we learn from low-frequency radio surveys deeper than 3CRR? As a partial answer to this question I will develop two themes illustrated by the increased coverage of the 151 MHz luminosity111Throughout this paper I take $`H_{}=50\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$; radio spectral index, $`\alpha `$, is defined by $`S_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$, where $`S_\nu `$ is the flux-density at frequency $`\nu `$; and radio and optical narrow-line/bolometric luminosities are measured in units of $`\mathrm{W}\mathrm{Hz}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$ and W respectively. $`L_{151}`$, redshift $`z`$ plane (Fig. 1) provided by recently completed redshift surveys of radio sources.

The first theme concerns the demography of the low-frequency radio population. The tight distribution of the 3CRR points on Fig. 1 results from the conspiracy of three features of the radio luminosity function (RLF) — the density $`\rho _\mathrm{R}[\mathrm{d}\rho (L_{151},z)/\mathrm{d}\mathrm{log}_{10}L_{151}]`$ of radio sources per unit co-moving volume and per unit logarithm of radio luminosity — namely: (i) the points hug the locus of the 3CRR $`S_{151}`$ limit because at any given $`z`$, the RLF is a steeply declining function of $`L_{151}`$; and (ii) the points are fairly uniformally distributed along this locus because out to $`z2`$ both the normalisation of the RLF and the observable co-moving volume are steeply increasing functions of $`z`$. A corollary of these features is that the RLF is well determined close to the locus of the $`S_{151}`$ limit but estimates elsewhere in the $`L_{151}`$$`z`$ plane require extrapolations of what is clearly a rapidly varying function (although data like the low-frequency radio source counts provide additional constraints). Constraining the RLF at regions of the $`L_{151}`$$`z`$ plane corresponding to higher aerial densities of radio sources (e.g. the 7C Redshift Survey, 7CRS, region of Fig. 1) is essential for many studies which utilise radio sources as cosmological probes: e.g. gravitational lensing studies which constrain cosmic geometry (e.g. Kochanek 1996) and clustering studies which map out large-scale structure (e.g. Magliocchetti et al. 1998).

Of more direct concern to us here is the ability to understand the RLF in terms of physical models for radio sources and their cosmic evolution. Ignoring for now any variations in radio source environment, what we would really like to measure is the density $`\rho _\mathrm{P}(Q,t,z)`$, where $`Q`$ is the jet power (Scheuer 1974; Rawlings & Saunders 1991), and $`t`$ is the source age, the time after the jet-triggering event. From $`\rho _\mathrm{P}(Q,t,z)`$ it is possible to calculate physically meaningful quantities like the birth function – the number of jets triggered per co-moving volume per unit cosmic time — and the total entropy injected into the intracluster medium (ICM) by the radio source population. Successful mapping between the ‘physical’ density $`\rho _\mathrm{P}(Q,t,z)`$ and the ‘observable’ density $`\rho _\mathrm{O}(L_{151},D,z)`$ (and hence, by marginalising the projected radio source size $`D`$, $`\rho _\mathrm{R}`$) requires both a good physical model and samples providing adequate coverage of Fig. 1. Inadequate coverage leads to unbreakable degeneracies between the key parameters: Blundell & Rawlings (1999) have recently emphasised one such effect which means that the known highest-$`z`$ radio galaxies are biased towards objects with extremely high $`Q`$ and relatively small $`t`$, some complicating effects of which will be discussed in Sec. 5.

This introduces the second important theme illustrated by Fig. 1 – the use of radio sources as probes of the very high redshift Universe. The highest redshift object in the 3CRR sample is at $`z2`$. The lack of higher-$`z`$ 3CRR objects is not due to an abrupt high-$`z`$ cut-off in the RLF, but due instead to the intrinsic rarity of radio sources with the extreme radio luminosities \[$`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})\stackrel{>}{}29`$\] required to exceed the $`S_{151}`$ limit of 3CRR at high redshift. At a given redshift the finite (co-moving) volume on our light cone depends only on the assumed cosmological model, and since the 3CRR survey covers a good fraction of the entire sky, the only way of finding significant numbers of higher-$`z`$ radio sources is by studying objects with luminosities similar to those of the 3CRR objects. This requires spectroscopic surveys of fainter radio-selected samples; the Oxford-led 6CE and 7CRS redshift surveys (see Fig. 1) have demonstrated that one can achieve close to $`100\%`$ redshift completenesses for such surveys using 4-m class optical telescopes. This has allowed the construction of sizeable and complete samples of $`z>2`$ radio sources from follow-up of fairly small sky areas.

## 2. Sub-populations of low-frequency radio sources

The traditional way of dividing the low-frequency radio population into two distinct sub-populations is via the Fanaroff & Riley (1974) scheme based on radio structure: crudely, FRII galaxies have jet-terminating compact hotspots at their outer extremities, whilst FRI galaxies do not. Fanaroff & Riley showed that this FRI/FRII structural division corresponds closely to a division in radio luminosity at $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})25.5`$ although more recent studies (Ledlow & Owen 1996) have suggested an additional dependence on host galaxy luminosity. However, following Hine & Longair (1979) and Laing et al. (1994), there is another, arguably more fundamental, way of dividing the population into two classes. I will adopt two underlying assumptions: (i) that all radio galaxies harbour super-massive ($`10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$) black holes with a low spread in black hole mass (see Willott et al. 1999), and (ii) that higher accretion rates onto the black hole boosts: (a) the quasar optical luminosity, and hence the narrow emission line luminosity; and (b) the jet power, and hence the radio luminosity (Rawlings & Saunders 1991; Serjeant et al. 1998). I will neglect the effects of scatter in correlations between $`L_{151}`$ and, for example, the \[OII\] emission line luminosity $`L_{[OII]}`$ (e.g. Baum & Heckman 1989; Willott et al. 1999).

Above $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{[OII]})35`$ \[or $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})26.5`$\], the ‘quasar fraction’ – the fraction of objects with observed broad emission lines – is $`0.4`$ regardless of luminosity or redshift, a result which is consistent with a simple unified scheme in which each object has an obscuring torus with a half-opening angle $`\theta _{\mathrm{trans}}53^{}`$ (Willott et al. 2000b). In other words this appears to be a homogeneous ‘Eddington-tuned’ sub-population comprising objects whose black holes are accreting at some sizeable and roughly fixed fraction of their Eddington-limited rates, and whose nuclei have well-developed obscuring tori.

Below $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{[OII]})35`$ \[or $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})26.5`$\], the quasar fraction drops abruptly, and a second sub-population dominates. The archetype of this sub-population is the nearby FRI radio galaxy M87 which seems certain to contain a super-massive black hole accreting at a tiny ($`<10^4`$) fraction of its Eddington-limited rate (e.g. Ford et al. 1994). Chiaberge, Capetti & Celotti (1999) discuss how the seemingly clear view of optical synchrotron from the base of the M87 jet argues against the existence of an obscuring torus in this radio galaxy.

Because the break between these ‘starved quasar’ sources and the Eddington-tuned population lies about one dex higher in $`L_{151}`$ than the FRI/FRII division, there are starved quasars with both FRI and FRII radio structure, whereas the Eddington-tuned sources are almost exclusively FRIIs. The existence of FRIIs lacking an intrinsically bright quasar nucleus is supported by cases in which narrow emission lines are either weak or absent (Laing et al. 1994), and, as for M87, the detection of optical synchrotron from some FRII nuclei rules out some types of obscuring tori in some FRII objects (Chiaberge, Capetti & Celotti 2000).

Being based on accretion rate, the division proposed here is much more intimately tied to physical processes near the black hole than the FRI/FRII divide which is likely to be a larger-scale magnetohydrodynamical effect driven by the dependence of the stability of jets on jet power and environment (e.g. Kaiser & Alexander 1997). Since Eddington-tuned radio sources always contain powerful, and hence stable, jets it is no surprise that they almost exclusively develop FRII radio structures. The less powerful jets in ‘starved quasars’ can produce either FRI or FRII radio sources depending on their precise jet power and environment.

The accretion rate based division proposed here is undoubtedly too simplistic: as suggested by Rawlings & Saunders (1991), variations in accretion rate from object-to-object might be a far smoother affair than a clean dichotomy. Indeed, the possibility that the low quasar fraction at low luminosities is due to lower values of $`\theta _{\mathrm{trans}}`$ for weaker quasar nuclei, rather than the intrinsic lack of such nuclei, has received support from the recent evidence for accretion-disc excited broad lines in the pole-on low-luminosity radio source BL Lacertae (Corbett et al. 2000). However, as as we shall see in Sec. 3, the two sub-population hypothesis proposed here provides a simple luminosity-dependent density evolution (LDDE) model on which to base our first stabs at mapping and understanding the cosmic evolution of the radio source population.

## 3. Cosmic evolution between $`z0`$ and $`z2.5`$

Willott et al. (2000c) have used the 3CRR, 6CE and 7CRS datasets illustrated in Fig. 1 (alongside other pertinent data like the low-frequency radio source counts) to constrain parametric models for the cosmic evolution of the RLF; these models were built on the assumption that the two sub-populations described in Sec. 2 undergo differential density evolution. They found that the integrated co-moving number density $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}=[\mathrm{d}\rho /d\mathrm{log}_{10}L_{151}]d\mathrm{log}_{10}L_{151}`$ of the Eddington-tuned sources rises by about 2.5 dex between $`z0`$ and $`z2.5`$, and that the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ of the starved quasar sub-population rises by about 1 dex between $`z0`$ and $`z1`$. The superposition of these sub-populations produces an overall steep-spectrum RLF in fair agreement with a previous determination based on high-frequency (2.7 GHz) selected samples (Dunlop & Peacock 1990). The ‘break luminosity’ in the overall RLF is the swap-over point between the two sub-populations. Because these sub-populations undergo differential density evolution, the break point moves with redshift in a way which is similar to the ‘pure luminosity evolution’ (PLE) model fitted by Dunlop & Peacock to their data. The Willott et al. LDDE model is more attractive than a PLE model because it is hard to see how the latter can provide a physical description of evolution given that the ages of FRII radio sources are known (e.g. Blundell & Rawlings 2000) to be a tiny fraction of the Hubble time.

I have chosen to illustrate these results in a way (Fig. 2) which emphasises some remarkable similarities between the evolution of the radio population, and quasars in general. First, the shapes of the radio and X-ray luminosity functions are almost identical, and it is interesting in this regard that the most recent estimates of the X-ray luminosity function (Miyaji, Hasinger & Schmidt 2000) prefer LDDE to PLE models. Second, the evolutions with redshift are very similar. We may soon become persuaded of a third similarity related to the luminosity-dependent obscuration of the quasar population. Studies of the RLF (Willott et al. 2000b) show that the fraction of objects with observed broad lines rises from $`\stackrel{<}{}0.1`$ at $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{bol})39`$ (the Eddington-limit of a $`10^8\mathrm{M}_{}`$ black hole) to $`0.4`$ at high luminosities. For the X-ray population at $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{bol})39`$, the fraction of naked quasars can only be $`\stackrel{<}{}0.2`$ since the hard X-ray background is dominated by a photoelectrically-absorbed, but Compton-thin population (e.g. Wilman & Fabian 1999). Follow-up of Chandra surveys should confirm whether or not the fraction of naked quasars rises with luminosity, as is the case for the radio population, and as is predicted by the popular ‘receding-torus’ model (Lawrence 1991). First results from Chandra (e.g. Mushotzky et al. 2000; Crawford et al. 2000) suggest that it may well prove just as difficult to measure redshifts for the X-ray selected ‘quasar IIs’ as has proved the case for their radio-loud counterparts in the 7CRS (Willott, Rawlings & Blundell 2000a): nuclear obscuration means that quasar IIs can masquerade as extremely-red galaxies with only weak observable narrow emission lines in the near-IR, especially in the key $`1.2z1.7`$ redshift range.

One open question concerns the size of any Compton-thick population of AGN. High-energy X-ray studies of local AGN (e.g. Maiolino et al. 1995) suggest that, at least at low values of $`L_{bol}`$, most nuclei are obscured by Compton-thick material, so the normalisation of the quasar luminosity function in Fig. 2 is still strictly only a lower limit. Chandra follow-up of AGN selected at low radio frequencies might prove vital here since the large radio emitting lobes should be unobscured, allowing direct measurement of the distribution in obscuring column densities for a randomly-oriented population of quasars.

Fig. 2 also illustrates the key remaining challenge for understanding the quasar population: why are there seemingly $`100`$times more radio-quiet quasars than radio-loud quasars222 This 100:1 ratio of radio-quiet to radio-loud objects is somewhat higher than most other estimates in the literature (e.g. Goldschmidt et al. 1999). The main reasons for this are associated with the effects of Doppler boosting. First, both the optical and (high-frequency) radio emissions from an intrinsically radio-loud object can be boosted such that more common (but intrinsically lower $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$) objects are preferentially promoted into an optically-selected sample of quasars if they have powerful relativistic jets. Second, low-power relativistic jets seem common amongst the radio-quiet population (e.g. Miller, Rawlings & Saunders 1993); when aligned with the line-of-sight, these jets produce sufficient radio emission that they can be designated as ‘radio-loud’ despite the absence of an intrinsically powerful jet. ? The most naïve explanation – that ‘radio-quiet’ phases of quasar activity last $`100`$times longer than ‘radio-loud’ phases – is not really tenable. Since jet-fed powerful radio sources persist alongside nuclear optical/X-ray quasar activity for timescales of $`10^8`$ years (e.g. Blundell, Rawlings & Willott 1999; Blundell & Rawlings 2000), then any such radio-quiet phase would need to last $`10`$ Gyr, leading to just one generation of quasars and a well-known problem explaining the mass density of super-massive black holes in the local Universe (e.g. Richstone et al. 1998). The cosmic evolutions of the radio-loud and radio-quiet populations (Fig. 2) seem to be driven by a common cosmic cause, presumably $`10^9`$-yr timescale variations in the trigger rate convolved with shorter-timescale ($`10^8`$ yr) effects due to finite quasar lifetimes.

A more likely explanation for the large fraction of radio-quiet to radio-loud objects follows from the invocation of a minimum black hole mass for the development of powerful jets. Consider a toy model in which quasars divide cleanly between radio-quiet quasars and radio-loud quasars at a critical black hole mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}10^{9.5}\mathrm{M}_{}`$: because of the steepness of the mass function for black holes (e.g. Salucci et al. 1999), for every radio-loud quasar there would be a factor $`\stackrel{>}{}100`$-times more radio-quiet quasars with black hole masses in the range $`8.5\mathrm{log}_{10}M_{\mathrm{BH}}<9.5`$. Thus, a spread of only $`1`$ dex in the ratio of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}/M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ would cause the radio-quiet quasars to swamp radio-loud quasars even at the highest values of $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}`$ (see also McLure et al. 1999). There is some indirect support for the central idea here – that, compared to radio-quiet quasars, the distribution in $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ for radio-loud quasars has a high mean and a low variance – from the normalisation and spread in the near-infrared Hubble diagram for radio galaxies (e.g. Eales et al. 1997). Although it seems hard to envisage a critical physical switch allowing powerful jet activity only at $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}\stackrel{>}{}10^{9.5}\mathrm{M}_{}`$, it may appear to be present because of the special formation history of the most massive black holes. As explored by Wilson & Corbett (1995), the major merger of two massive dark haloes containing central black holes could result in the formation of a single super-massive spinning black hole — the preferred origin for powerful jets via the Blandford-Znajek mechanism (1977) — as well as the formation of the core of a luminous elliptical galaxy via heating associated with the orbital decay of the binary black hole system (Faber et al. 1997).

Whatever the underlying physics, the evolutionary consequence of the normalisations of the luminosity functions of Fig. 2 and quasar lifetimes $`10^8\mathrm{yr}`$ is that every massive ($`\stackrel{>}{}L^{}`$) galaxy was plausibly a quasar at high redshift (e.g. Richstone et al. 1998), and that $`1`$ in 100 of such galaxies spent time as a powerful radio source. The present-day (co-moving) space density of the sites of past Eddington-tuned jet activity is given roughly by the density at $`z2.5`$ times the ratio of the duration of ‘the quasar epoch’ (see Sec. 4) to the duration of a radio source outburst, or $`10^7\times 4\times 10^9/10^84\times 10^6\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ which turns out to be precisely the space density of rich clusters (Dalton et al. 1994). Plausibly, therefore, every rich cluster of galaxies was once the site of extreme radio activity.

## 4. Cosmic evolution at $`z>2.5`$: the redshift cut-off

The results of Sec. 3 beg the question of constraints on the evolution of the radio source population at high redshift, i.e. at $`z>2.5`$. I will focus my attention on the Eddington-tuned population since, as is obvious from Fig. 1, the lower-luminosity population is not detectable at high redshifts in bright radio-selected samples. My contention here is that, even though many radio-luminous objects have now been observed in the $`z>2.5`$ Universe, constraints on their space density remain very loose. Since these points are discussed in detail elsewhere (Jarvis & Rawlings 2000; Jarvis et al. 2000; Willott et al. 2000c), I will simply summarise my view of the current situation.

* Direct studies of the steep-spectrum population at $`z>2.5`$ based on redshift surveys of complete samples (Willott et al. 2000c) do not allow us to discriminate between models in which the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ of radio sources declines at high redshift from those in which it stays constant. This is a subtly different conclusion to that reached by Dunlop & Peacock (1990), and the possible reasons for this difference are discussed by Willott et al. (2000c).
* Through finding steep-spectrum radio galaxies at $`z45`$ (e.g. Rawlings et al. 1996), direct studies of the $`z>2.5`$ population using ‘filtered’333 A filtered sample is one in which optical spectroscopic follow-up is confined to a small fraction of the radio sources in a flux-density limited sample, where the filters used by current surveys are a (steep) spectral index criterion and/or a (small) angular size criterion (e.g. Blundell et al. 1998). samples suggest roughly constant $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ from $`z2.5`$ to $`z5`$, although gradual declines or even inclines cannot be ruled out (Jarvis et al. 2000).
* Indirect444 Eddington-tuned jets pointed within a few degrees of the line-of-sight are Doppler-boosted to produce flat-spectrum radio quasars; these are thought to be the dominant flat-spectrum population in high-frequency selected radio samples \[although see Jarvis & Rawlings (2000) for a discussion of the importance of GHz-Peaked sources\]. The apparent space density of these flat-spectrum sources gives an indirect measure of the space density of the parent steep-spectrum population close to, but above, the break in the RLF (Jarvis & Rawlings 2000). evidence for a high-$`z`$ cut-off in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ from the study of luminous flat-spectrum radio quasars is more equivocal than received wisdom might suggest. Gradual declines in the space density of the most luminous flat-spectrum quasars, by a factor $`4`$ between $`z2.5`$ and $`z5`$ (Dunlop & Peacock 1990), are favoured by the data but the observable co-moving volume is too small to make definitive statements: both constant space density models and abrupt cut-offs, like those suggested by Shaver et al. (1996), are ruled out only at the $`2\sigma `$ level (Jarvis & Rawlings 2000).

This state of ignorance concerning the high-$`z`$ evolution of radio sources is illustrated in Fig. 3. It is worth noting that it is not clear that any other published measures of the high-$`z`$ evolution of quasars are any better constrained, largely because of the difficulty of correcting for obscuration in optical/soft X-ray selected samples. In fact the abrupt cut-off found by optical quasar surveys (e.g. Warren, Hewett & Osmer 1994) and the roughly constant space densities found by X-ray surveys (e.g. Miyaji et al. 2000) are together suggestive of obscuration: as a spectrum becomes increasingly redshifted, attenuation of optical light becomes more effective due to the increased efficiency of dust obscuration at UV wavelengths, whereas the opposite is true for the effects of redshifting on the opacity at X-ray wavelengths (e.g. Wilman & Fabian 1999).

A large number of programmes are compromised by ignorance concerning the redshift cut-off, including basic questions like: (i) whether or not the onset of quasar activity re-ionized the Universe (e.g. Haiman & Loeb 1997); (ii) understanding the nature of the sub-mm source counts (e.g. Almaini, Lawrence & Boyle 1999); and (iii) using the density of high-$`z`$ objects to constrain the power spectrum of density fluctuations on $``$Mpc scales (e.g. Efstathiou & Rees 1988).

I concentrate here, however, on an important physical parameter connected directly to the high-$`z`$ evolution in radio luminosity density — the contribution of Eddington-tuned radio sources to the entropy budget of the Universe. The results of a rough calculation are shown in Fig. 3. The key point is that although the radio source phenomenon is $`100`$times rarer than the quasar phenomenon, the relativistic jets feeding radio sources have bulk powers which are of the same order as the Eddington luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$ of a $`10^9\mathrm{M}_{}`$ black hole (Rawlings & Saunders 1991; Willott et al. 1999; Blundell & Rawlings 2000), and $`\stackrel{>}{}100`$times more powerful than the relativistic jets in luminous radio-quiet quasars (Miller, Rawlings & Saunders 1993). So, provided that the power in quasar winds is $`\stackrel{<}{}0.01L_{\mathrm{Ledd}}`$ (Silk & Rees 1998) and provided one can neglect photoionisation heating (Valageas & Silk 2000), it seems plausible that more power is available to heat the IGM as the result of radio source induced shocks, than is yielded by the more numerous radio-quiet quasar population. This heat, or entropy, input into the IGM will be concentrated in the clusters of galaxies which at one time hosted powerful radio sources. For the cut-off model in Fig. 3, the duration of the quasar epoch is $`4\mathrm{Gyr}(10^{17}\mathrm{s})`$ and a crude estimate of the heat input into each rich cluster by Eddington-tuned radio sources is $`10^{32}\times 10^{17}/4\times 10^62.5\times 10^{54}\mathrm{J}`$. This is a reasonable fraction of the total thermal energy ($`5\times 10^{55}\mathrm{J}`$) in a rich ($`10^{14}\mathrm{M}_{}`$ in baryons) cluster. For the no-cutoff model of Fig. 3, the quasar epoch lasts longer, and the heat input approaches $`10`$ per cent of the total thermal energy in rich clusters. Understanding Fig. 3 is therefore likely to be central to any understanding of the entropy budget of the Universe. At earlier cosmic times the heat input by radio sources was probably sufficient to overcome the gravitational binding energy of gas in the relatively shallow potential wells of forming clusters; this would provide an attractive alternative to supernova- and quasar-driven mechanisms invoked to explain the ‘excess’ entropy (over and above that due to shock heating during cluster collapse) identified by studies of the properties of rich clusters (e.g. Kaiser 1991). In essence I am suggesting a feedback mechanism similar to the quasar-driven wind model invoked for galaxy formation by Silk & Rees (1998) but applicable to more massive systems, i.e. rich clusters, and to more powerful outflows, i.e. radio source driven bow shocks.

## 5. The sub-mm view of the cosmic evolution of radio sources

The strong cosmic evolution of the Eddington-tuned quasar population discussed in Sec. 3 is most likely the simple and direct consequence of the standard hierarchical model for galaxy formation in which major mergers of galaxy-sized sub-clumps are more prevalent in the younger Universe. A prediction of this hypothesis is that the Eddington-tuned radio population is associated with sites of intense star formation since, at high $`z`$, a large fraction of the baryons in the sub-clumps are likely to be in the form of gas rather than stars (e.g. Storrie-Lombardi, McMahon & Irwin 1996). The observed properties of high-$`z`$ radio sources should show signs of this. Although UV and optical observations have now provided at least one compelling example of a huge starburst associated with a high-$`z`$ radio galaxy (Dey et al. 1997), it has proved impossible to prove the ubiquity of the starburst phenomenon from UV/optical/near-IR, or indeed radio, observations because any starburst signature can be so easily swamped by emission intimately associated with the active nucleus, e.g. in the case of UV observations, scattered light from the quasar nucleus. A far cleaner diagnostic of large rates of star formation in radio galaxies is a huge rest-frame far-infrared luminosity555 Photometric measurements on the Rayleigh-Jeans side of a thermal spectrum can be used to confirm that the emission is due to dust (which for radio galaxies it almost always is) and provide good estimates of dust mass which, in well-studied objects, correlates closely with gas mass (e.g. Hughes, Dunlop & Rawlings 1997). Since it is often difficult to prove beyond doubt that the dust is heated by stars rather than an active nucleus (e.g. Willott, Rawlings & Jarvis 2000e), the correlation between dust/gas mass and star formation rate is more uncertain. , requiring a survey of high-$`z`$ radio galaxies in the sub-mm waveband. The advent of the SCUBA camera on the JCMT has recently made such a survey possible. Full details of this work are published elsewhere (Archibald et al. 2000), so I concentrate here on the major results and their implications.

Fig. 4 shows how the chances of making a sub-mm detection of a radio galaxy varies across the $`L_{151}`$$`z`$ plane. Considering $`z\stackrel{>}{}3`$ and $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})\stackrel{>}{}28.5`$, we see that all the radio galaxies are detected by SCUBA, whereas at lower redshifts and $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})`$ the fraction of detections falls abruptly to $`\stackrel{<}{}20`$ per cent. Archibald et al. make a detailed study of the underlying correlations between rest-frame far-IR luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}`$, $`L_{151}`$ and $`z`$. They conclude that the major effect at work is an $`(1+z)^3`$ rise in $`L_{\mathrm{FIR}}`$ for radio galaxies out to $`z\stackrel{>}{}4`$. The most straightforward interpretation of this result is that the characteristic star formation rate (SFR) of luminous radio galaxies rises from $`\stackrel{<}{}10\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ at $`z=0`$ to $`\stackrel{>}{}1000\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ at $`z4`$, an interpretation which seems to fit in naturally with the arguments made in Sec. 3. If the strong cosmic evolution in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$ for the Eddington-tuned radio population is indeed driven by systematic changes in the trigger rate with $`z`$ then the most viable trigger mechanisms, e.g. the formation of a rapidly spinning super-massive black hole in a major merger event, are likely to be far more prevalent at high $`z`$; provided, as seems likely, the progenitor galaxies are gas rich, intense associated starbursts seem inevitable.

In Fig.4 I take these arguments to their logical conclusion by deriving rough estimates of the star formation in the Universe associated directly with AGN. It seems that, as noted by Almaini et al. (1999), a large fraction ($`\stackrel{>}{}10`$ per cent) of the star formation in the high-$`z`$ Universe is probably occurring directly alongside quasar activity in the cores of forming galaxies (see also Boyle & Terlovich 1998). Indeed, if we hypothesise that galaxies form in a series of short (less than or of the order of a quasar lifetime666 One of many caveats to my interpretation of Fig. 4 concerns the question of the relative timescales of AGN and star-formation activity. Blundell & Rawlings (1999) have pointed out that selection effects ensure that the known $`z>3`$ radio galaxies, e.g. those in the SCUBA survey of Archibald et al. (2000), are viewed within $`10^7`$ yr of the jet-triggering event. If the characteristic timescale of the starburst activity is shorter than the $`10^8`$yr timescale of AGN activity, then the ‘youth-redshift degeneracy’ (Blundell & Rawlings 1999) may be an important contributor to the observed ‘cosmic evolution’ in the SFR of powerful radio galaxies (Fig. 4). It is interesting in this regard that one of the youngest 3CRR radio sources at $`z1.5`$, 3C318, is a SCUBA-detected quasar (Willott et al. 2000e). ), intense ($`\stackrel{>}{}100\mathrm{M}_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$) starbursts across the entire quasar epoch (a process which perhaps culminates in the quasar phase) then the important star formation at high redshift goes hand-in-hand with the formation of black holes, and the epoch of major quasar activity. Of course if Compton-thick objects turn out to be the dominant AGN population at high-$`z`$, then the link between AGN and star formation activity may prove closer still.

The results of this section concerning the history of star formation, and of Sec. 4 concerning the global entropy budget, should provide food for thought for the growing band of researchers using semi-analytic models to explain galaxy formation and evolution (e.g. Somerville & Primack 1999). At present these models take no account of feedback between quasars, their jets and their host galaxies. For observers of high-$`z`$ AGN it is obviously vital to tie down huge and basic uncertainties like the evolutionary behaviour of quasars at $`z>2.5`$.

## 6. Future prospects: bigger redshift surveys and better modelling

In previous sections we have seen how cosmological studies using low-frequency selected radio sources are compromised by the limitations of the current generation of redshift surveys. With these considerations partly in mind Gary Hill (Texas) and I (Oxford) have begun a programme of TexOx redshift surveys. One aspect of this programme — the TexOx-1000 (or TOOT) survey — is to measure $`1000`$ redshifts for a complete sample flux-limited at $`S_{151}=100\mathrm{mJy}`$. The optical/radio/near-IR imaging part of this survey is now almost complete and spectroscopic follow-up began in earnest in January 2000. This programme aims to exploit the complementary capabilities of UK facilities like the ISIS spectrometer on the WHT – the instrumental back-bone of the 6CE and 7CRS programmes – and the LRS spectrometer on the new 9.2-m Hobby-Eberly Telescope. We are already about a quarter-way through the required spectroscopic follow-up, and we anticipate completion of the TOOT survey in mid 2002. As illustrated by Fig. 1, the TOOT survey will be the first to directly measure the space density of $`\mathrm{log}_{10}(L_{151})\stackrel{>}{}26.5`$ objects, and hence the luminosity density of the steep-spectrum population, at $`z2.5`$.

Still larger redshift surveys may be needed to settle the question of evolution at $`z2.5`$. A major difficulty of making such surveys is the lack of any multiplex capability at relatively bright flux-density limits. At the $`S_{151}100\mathrm{mJy}`$ limit of the TOOT survey, the average separation of sources on the sky is $`20`$ arcmin so there is still no effective alternative to object-by-object spectroscopic follow-up, particularly as the largest field-of-view multi-object systems tend to compromise one or more of sensitivity and spectral coverage. In the medium-term future, progress can probably best be made by refining photometric-redshift techniques for the radio source population, although the requirement for wide-field capability at near-IR wavelengths means that substantial progress will probably require new initiatives like the planned surveys with VISTA (see Jarvis et al. 2000). In the long-term future, the hope is that redshifts will come for free as facilities like the Square Kilometre Array push radio sensitivities to the level where surveys can routinely detect HI and CO features superimposed on the radio continuum.

As we await the results of bigger redshifts surveys, a high priority is to build better models for the cosmic evolution of the radio source population. This splits into two categories of problem. First, we need to develop robust models for the physical evolution of radio sources: i.e. once a source of a given jet power has been triggered, how does its radio properties (e.g. luminosity, size and spectral index) develop as a function of time, and as a function of the radio source environment? Second, we need to understand systematic changes in radio source environments with $`z`$, both because of their influence on radio properties, but more importantly so that we can understand how jet trigger rates reflect the build up of structure in the Universe. In the first area, the hiatus following the pioneering work of Scheuer (1974) is now well and truly over (e.g. Kaiser, Dennett-Thorpe & Alexander 1998; Blundell et al. 1999). In the second area, semi-analytic models could provide the way forward, so these must now be developed to incorporate the feedback between AGN, their jets and their environment.

## 7. Acknowledgments

The Pune meeting was excellent and I would like to thank all those involved in organising it. Much of the work discussed in this paper stems from collaborative research involving the following: Elese Archibald, Katherine Blundell, Steve Croft, Jim Dunlop, Steve Eales, Pamela Gay, Gary Hill, Dave Hughes, Rob Ivison, Matt Jarvis, Mark Lacy and last, but certainly not least, Chris Willott.

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# Loop Quantum Gravity and Asymptotically Flat Spaces

## 1 Motivating Asymptotic Flatness

Remarkable progress has been made in the field of non-perturbative (loop) quantum gravity in the last decade or so and it is now a rigorously defined kinematical theory. We are at the stage where physical applications of loop quantum gravity can be studied and used to provide checks for the consistency of the quantisation programme. Equally, old fundamental problems of canonical quantum gravity such as the problem of time or the interpretation of quantum cosmology need to be reevaluated seriously. The purpose of this report is to suggest that all these issues can be tackled most profitably in the asymptotically flat sector of quantum gravity and to discuss the extension of loop quantum gravity to this sector that was developed in .

### 1.1 Canonical quantum gravity

One of the defining features of general relativity is its active diffeomorphism invariance. This implies that we can take all fields on the space-time manifolds and reassign their values to different points without changing predictions. Hence, points in the space-time have no significance of there own, or in other words there is no fixed reference frame. This leads to the relational nature of observables as is exemplified in Einstein’s hole argument: values of fields are only physically meaningful (observable) if they are given with reference to points defined by the values of other fields.

Physics in this context is difficult in practice. But usually, to study concrete gravitational systems and make predictions we do not need such generality. One can break the diffeomorphism invariance and introduce reference frames or introduce extra symmetries. A very convenient way to do this is to study the asymptotically flat sector of general relativity, as is discussed below.

Another set of reasons to study asymptotically flat spaces, originates in the structure of quantum theory. General relativity deals naturally with the physics of the entire universe, which is the definitive closed system. Quantum mechanics on the other hand is plagued with interpretational difficulties when attempting to describe genuine closed systems. More specifically, we need an external observer to make sense of predictions made for a given physical system.

For these reasons it is unlikely that we will succeed in a complete and comprehensive theory of quantum gravity, without major changes to the ingredient theories viz. general relativity and quantum mechanics. This motivates us to study sectors of the theory, where we can make progress in addressing physical problems, while avoiding many of the foundational concerns.

### 1.2 Asymptotically flat spaces

Many physical applications of general relativity involve the study of asymptotically flat spaces. Here one restricts attention to the subset of the phase space in which the variables approach the flat configuration at spatial infinity. Physically, this means that we are breaking diffeomorphism invariance at infinity and introducing a reference frame there. We can interpret this as the idealised description of an isolated gravitational system viewed by an observer in the ambient environment. This brings several technical advantages:

1. Since space is no longer compact we need to add boundary terms to the Hamiltonian, which are integrals over a two sphere at infinity. It follows that the Hamiltonian no longer vanishes but has the value of the ADM-energy: the total energy of the isolated gravitational region.
2. In addition, we recover momentum and angular momentum observables at infinity. Together these functions generate the Poincaré group at infinity, which is the is the symmetry group of the isolated region.
3. In particular, we can also introduce a notion of asymptotic time translations generated by the energy observable. This now makes sense since we can interpret this time variable with respect to the fixed reference frame at infinity
4. The introduction of an external environment also allows a natural interpretation of a corresponding quantum theory in terms of observers at infinity. The setup essentially amounts to the study of a gravitational system in a box, which resembles the standard applications of quantum mechanics.

For these reasons the study of asymptotically flat spaces provides a very promising testing ground for any theory of quantum gravity. Indeed, it is likely that we should obtain a quantum theory for this special case even if it is not possible to quantise full general relativity. In addition, many of the physical applications of a quantum gravity theory fall into this sector.

1. The study of the weak field limit of quantum gravity is a crucial test for quantum gravity. In the absence of concrete experimental evidence consistency with results of perturbative quantum gravity is essential. This involves the investigation of perturbations of flat space and the calculation of scattering amplitudes of gravitons.
2. Black Holes and more general isolated gravitational systems provide another fascinating application for quantum gravity. Again we need to recover results from quantum theory of curved spaces, which are theoretically very robust.
3. A genuine experimental test for quantum general relativity might be possible with the study of $`\gamma `$-ray bursts. The idea is to detect any breaking of Poincaré invariance by exploiting the accumulation of tiny effects over very long distances.

### 1.3 Loop quantum gravity and the GNS construction

Loop quantum gravity is a quantum theory of the 3-geometry of a spatial manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. In contrast to the geometrodynamical approach to canonical quantum gravity, the phase space coordinates in loop quantum gravity are given by connection and triad fields defined on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. A well-defined kinematical quantum framework for this theory has been developed, and several proposals for incorporating dynamics or the Hamiltonian constraint into the theory are currently under study.

In this framework it turns out that fundamental excitations of geometry have 1-dimensional support. More precisely, excitations are concentrated on graphs embedded in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ providing a polymer like picture of space-time at the Planck scale.

The standard approach to loop quantum gravity is only applicable to the case where the 3-manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is compact. Roughly, this can be seen as follows. To describe a geometry on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with a quantum state we need excitations of geometry in every macroscopic region of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Since the excitations are concentrated on embedded graphs this entails that underlying the definition of our state should be a graph that spreads through all of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, i.e. every macroscopic region of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ should contain vertices and edges of the graph.

For non-compact $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ this implies that we need graphs with an infinite number of vertices and edges and it turns out that states based on such graphs are not included in the standard Hilbert space.

The solution we review in this report (c.f. ) is motivated by an analogy with thermal field theory (TFT). Here a similar problem arises when considering fields at a finite temperature. These are described by a condensate of an infinite number of photons, which cannot be described within the standard Fock space. The issue that needs to be addressed in both cases is how to describe an infinite number of excitations.

To do this we take an algebraic approach to quantum theory. This means that we regard algebras of observables as the primary objects, with states just arising as elements on the spaces on which we choose to represent the algebra. Evolution becomes an automorphism of the observable algebra and all physical questions then involve the calculation of expectation values of the relevant operators. This view point gives us the freedom to change between representations according to which sector of the quantum theory we are interested in.

We will show how the Gel’fand Naimark Segal (GNS) construction provides us with representations that can be interpreted naturally as describing the excitations of fiducial fixed background states. In particular, these background states can be chosen to describe asymptotically flat geometries on non-compact 3-manifolds.

This will be investigated in the last part of this report where we discuss three possible frameworks for the construction of suitable backgrounds. Specific choices of these backgrounds can be interpreted as semi-classical states, also referred to as vacua of loop quantum gravity, and their excitations should describe field theory on curved spaces.

## 2 An observable algebra for loop quantum gravity

In this section we review the standard kinematical framework of loop quantum gravity. In particular, we specify the algebra $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ of elementary classical observables that we wish to represent. We will take a brief look at how the standard representation of this algebra arises when space is compact before looking at new representations constructed via the GNS construction in the following sections.

The classical phase space for general relativity in the connection variables  is the co-tangent bundle of the configuration space, given by $`𝔰𝔲(2)`$ valued connection one-forms with co-ordinates111Here $`a`$ denotes a spatial index and $`i`$ a Lie-algebra index. $`A_a^i`$ on a spatial 3-manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. The conjugate variable is a desitised triad $`\stackrel{~}{E}_i^a`$, which takes values in the dual of the Lie algebra $`𝔰𝔲(2)`$. These triads can be considered as duals to two forms $`e_{abi}ϵ_{abc}\stackrel{~}{E}_i^c`$. The dynamics of general relativity on spatially compact manifolds is then completely described by the Gauss constraints which generate SU(2)-gauge transformations, the diffeomorphism constraints which generate spatial diffeomorphisms on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and the Hamiltonian constraint, which is the generator of coordinate time evolution.

Quantisation proceeds in two steps. First we seek a representation of the algebra of classical variables $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ on some auxiliary Hilbert space $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$. The second step is to obtain operator versions of the classical constraints and to then impose these on the Hilbert space to obtain a reduced space of physical states along with a representation of the subalgebra of observables that commute with the constraints. In this review we will restrict ourselves to the kinematical sector and focus on the first step of this procedure, more details can be found in .

To obtain the classical algebra of elementary functions which can be implemented in the quantum theory, we need to integrate the canonically conjugate variables, $`A_a^i`$ and $`e_{iab}`$, against suitable smearing fields. In usual quantum field theory, these test fields are three-dimensional. However, in canonical quantum general relativity, due to the absence of a background metric, it is more convenient to smear $`n`$-forms against $`n`$-dimensional surfaces .

Configuration observables (depending only on the connection) can be constructed through holonomies of connections. Given an embedded graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ which is a collection of paths $`\{\gamma _1,\mathrm{},\gamma _n\}\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, and a smooth function $`f`$ from $`\mathrm{SU}(2)^n`$ to $``$, we can construct cylindrical functions of the connection:

$$\psi _{f,\mathrm{\Gamma }}(A)=f(H(A,\gamma _1),\mathrm{},H(A,\gamma _n)).$$

$`H(A,\gamma _i)\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ is the holonomy assigned to the edge $`\gamma _i`$ of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by the connection $`A`$. We denote by $``$, the algebra generated by all the functions of this form. To obtain momentum variables, we smear the two-forms $`e_{abi}`$ against distributional test fields $`t^i`$ which take values in the dual of $`𝔰𝔲(2)`$ and have two dimensional support. This gives us

$$E_{t,S}_Se_{abi}t^i𝑑S^{ab},$$

where $`S`$ is a two-dimensional surface embedded in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. More precisely (c.f. ), we require that $`S=\overline{S}\overline{S}`$, where $`\overline{S}`$ is any *compact*, analytic, two dimensional submanifold of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

The elements of $``$ and the functions $`E_{t,S}`$ are the variables that we wish to promote to quantum operators. They form a large enough subset of all classical observables in the sense that they suffice to distinguish phase space points. The algebra of elementary observables, $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$, is the algebra generated by the cylindrical functions and vector fields on $``$ associated to the momentum variables, details can be found in .

### 2.1 The standard representation

We now describe briefly how $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ with its representation of $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ is constructed. The Hilbert space $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ is chosen to be the completion of the space of cylindrical functions $``$, first in the sup norm:

$$\psi _{f,\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{\mathrm{}}=sup|\psi (A)_{f,\mathrm{\Gamma }}|,$$

and then in the norm based on the (standard) inner product :

$`\psi _1,\psi _2_s`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle 𝑑\mu (A)\psi _1^{}(A)\psi _2(A)}`$ (1)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{SU}(2)^n}}f_1^{}(g_1,\mathrm{},g_n)f_2(g_1,\mathrm{},g_n)𝑑g_1\mathrm{}𝑑g_n,`$
where $`g_i\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ and $`dg`$ is the Haar measure on SU(2). Here, $`\psi _1`$ and $`\psi _2`$ are defined with respect to the same graph. This does not present a loss of generality since given two states supported on different graphs $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. we can view them as being both defined on $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$, with the states having trivial dependence on the edges that do not belong to their respective original graphs. $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ can also be regarded as space of square integrable functions defined with respect to a genuine measure on some completion $`\overline{𝔄}`$ of $`𝔄`$ as is done in .

This Hilbert space carries a multiplicative representation of the configuration variables $``$ and we are left with the task of representing the momentum variables. This done by constructing essentially self adjoint operators $`\widehat{E}_{t,S}`$ on $``$ which can be extended to $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$. These operators are derivations on $``$ i.e. linear maps satisfying the Leibnitz rule, which act on functions $`\psi _{f,\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ only at points where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ intersects the oriented surface $`S`$. The precise definition of these operators is not needed for our purposes, but it can be found, e.g., in . This choice of operators gives the correct representation of the classical algebra $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$, which provides us with a kinematical framework for canonical quantum gravity. In the following this representation will be referred to as the standard representation $`\pi _s`$.

### 2.2 Problems with describing non-compact geometries

Are main interest lies in studying the asymptotically flat sector of loop quantum gravity and hence we need to have states describing geometries on non-compact spatial manifolds. In the following we describe briefly why this is generically not possible in the standard framework. As mentioned in the introduction we need cylindrical functions based on graphs with an infinite number of edges and vertices to describe excitations everywhere on a non-compact space. Hence, one first needs to specify what one means by a cylindrical function based on such an infinite graph. A natural approach is to consider sequences of cylindrical functions based on larger and larger but finite graphs. One then finds that in general these sequences are not Cauchy in the available norms on the Hilbert space $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ and hence they do not lie in the standard state space.

## 3 Representations induced by background states

As the standard framework of loop quantum gravity is not applicable to the asymptotically flat sector we look at how we can construct new representations of the observable algebra of loop quantum gravity. The main aim will be to obtain quantum theories that describe excitations of asymptotically flat backgrounds. In this section we will look at how this can be done in general using the GNS construction before applying these techniques to loop quantum gravity.

When faced with an infinite dimensional algebra of observables that we wish to quantise, we can no longer rely on the Stone - Von Neumann theorem to guarantee us the existence of a unique irreducible representation. It is in fact well-known that in quantum field theory there are an infinite number of representations to choose from. The obvious questions that arise are how to construct these representations, how to select an appropriate representation for the physical situation at hand and how to interpret physically the sates that arise in this representation. As we will motivate in this section, there is a satisfactory answer to these questions if we are given a suitable background state as is defined more explicitly below.

To motivate the definition that follows in the next section, we imagine that we are given a representation $`\pi `$ of an algebra $`𝔄`$ on a Hilbert space $``$. In addition we require the existence of a preferred “vacuum” state $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ that is cyclical, which means that the set of states $`\{\pi (𝐚)\mathrm{\Psi }|𝐚𝔄\}`$ is dense in $``$. The first immediate observation is that essentially all states can be identified with an algebra element, i.e. $`𝐚\varphi `$ if $`\varphi =\pi (𝐚)\mathrm{\Psi }`$. We say that $`\varphi `$ is an excitation of the vacuum corresponding to $`𝐚`$. This should be seen in close analogy to the construction of the Fock space by repeated action of creation operators on the vacuum.

The next observation follows from the introduction of the positive linear from $`\omega `$ which assigns to every algebra element its vacuum expectation value (VEV): $`\omega (𝐚)=\mathrm{\Psi },\pi (𝐚)\mathrm{\Psi }`$. Once $`\omega `$ is specified we can express the inner product between essentially any two states $`\varphi _1`$, $`\varphi _2`$ as $`\varphi _1,\varphi _2=\omega (𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2)`$, where $`\pi (𝐚_{1/2})\mathrm{\Psi }=\varphi _{1/2}`$. So in summary, given $`\omega `$ we can answer any physical question about the system of interest.

The problem faced in field theory is that we are not given a vacuum as a state in some Hilbert space. In general, all we have initially is the algebra $`𝔄`$ of observables. The question thus is whether we can reverse the above and construct a representation of $`𝔄`$ just given a positive linear form $`\omega `$ on $`𝔄`$, which should be interpreted as giving the VEV’s of all observables. States arising in this representation should be thought of as excitations of the vacuum corresponding to $`\omega `$. The answer is in the affirmative and the procedure is given by the GNS construction detailed below.

### 3.1 The GNS construction

The GNS construction (see, e.g.,  for more detailed expositions) allows us to construct a representation of any -algebra $`𝔄`$ for any given positive linear form (also called a state) $`\omega `$ on this algebra. This is done in three steps:

1. Using $`\omega `$, define a scalar product on $`𝔄`$, regarded as a linear space over $``$, by

$$𝐚_1,𝐚_2=\omega (𝐚_1^{}𝐚_2),$$

for $`𝐚_1,𝐚_2𝔄`$. The positivity of $`\omega `$ implies $`𝐚,𝐚0`$. Hence, we are interpreting the elements of the algebra directly as excitations of the vacuum, as motivated above.
2. To obtain a positive definite scalar product, we construct the quotient $`𝔄/`$ of $`𝔄`$ by the null space $`=\{𝐚𝔄|\omega (𝐚^{}𝐚)=0\}`$. We denote the equivalence classes in $`𝔄/`$ by $`[𝐚]`$ and we have:

$$[𝐚],[𝐚]𝐚^2>0$$

The completion of $`𝔄/`$ in the above norm is the carrier Hilbert space $`_\omega `$ for our representation.
3. Finally it can be shown that a representation $`\pi _\omega `$ of $`𝔄`$ on $`𝔄/`$ (which, if $`𝔄`$ is a Banach -algebra, can be extended continuously to $`_\omega `$) is given by:

$$\pi _\omega (𝐚)\mathrm{\Psi }=[\mathrm{𝐚𝐛}],$$

for $`\mathrm{\Psi }=𝐛_\omega `$ and $`𝐚𝔄`$.

Hence we have a procedure at our disposal that provides representations of observable algebras describing fluctuations around fiducial backgrounds. Note crucially that this “vacuum” is *not* defined via a state in some Hilbert space. Indeed, the background need not be realised at all as an element of $`_\omega `$. Although, if $`𝔄`$ has a unit $`𝕀`$ then the background corresponds to the cyclic state $`[𝕀]`$.

## 4 New representations for loop quantum gravity

We will now use this technique to construct new representations of loop quantum gravity. The main technical input will be to construct positive linear forms on the algebra of observables that can be interpreted as giving vacuum expectation values of some background.

### 4.1 Cylindrical function backgrounds

We consider first the most straightforward extension of the standard loop quantum gravity framework. As we have seen the problem there is that sequences of cylindrical functions based on increasingly large graphs are not physical states. The crucial point to this subsection is that these sequences can nevertheless be used to provide us with a definition of a positive linear form on the algebra of observables.

In the following we will look at this construction in more detail. Since this will depend on the precise choice of sequence that one is interested in, we will for simplicity restrict our attention to a specific class of states. Let us assume that we are given an infinite graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬`$, i.e. a graph that extends throughout a non-compact spatial manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ but that has (at most) a finite number of edges and vertices in any compact subregion of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. Associated to each edge $`e_i`$ of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬`$ there should be a normalised cylindrical function $`q_i`$ that is a function of the holonomy along $`e_i`$. This allows to define the states:

$$𝒬_n=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}q_i,$$

for any $`n`$. As described of above we are interested in the limit $`𝒬=𝒬_{\mathrm{}}`$ of this sequence as $`n`$ tends to infinity which in general is not an element on $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$. Nevertheless, we can define the action of an element of $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ on $`𝒬`$. The crucial point is that the elementary quantum observables — the elements of $``$ and the derivations on $``$ — have support on a compact spatial region, which is a direct consequence of the smearing needed to make sense of the classical expressions. Hence given an arbitrary element $`𝐚𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ we proceed as follows:

1. Denote the closure of the support of $`𝐚`$ by $`R\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.
2. Construct the graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬|_R`$ of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬`$ restricted to $`R`$:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬|_R\underset{e_iR\mathrm{}}{}e_i.$$

In other words, consider the union of all edges which have a non-zero intersection with the support of $`𝐚`$. This graph is finite, since $`R`$ is compact and we obtain the state $`𝒬|_R_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ which is given by restricting $`𝒬`$ to the graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬|_R`$:

$$𝒬|_R𝕀\underset{e_i\mathrm{\Gamma }_𝒬|_R}{}q_i,$$

where $`𝕀(A)=1`$ for all $`A`$ is the identity function. This state has unit norm in $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ since all the $`q_i`$’s are normalised.
3. Since $`𝒬|_R_{\mathrm{aux}}`$, the action of $`𝐚`$ on $`𝒬|_R`$ denoted by $`\pi (𝐚)_s𝒬|_R`$ is well-defined. It is understood that the region $`R`$ will depend on $`𝐚`$.

This allows us to define the positive linear form $`\omega _𝒬(𝐚)`$:

$$\omega _𝒬(𝐚)=𝒬|_R,\pi _s(𝐚)𝒬|_R_s.$$
(2)
This is well-defined since $`𝒬|_R`$ is an element of $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ for all $`𝐚`$. It follows from the fact that equation (1) defines a true inner product $`,_s`$ on $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$ that $`\omega `$ is indeed a positive (not necessarily strictly positive) linear form on $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$.

Given $`\omega _𝒬`$, we can proceed with steps 2 and 3 of the GNS construction outlined in section 3.1 to obtain a representation of the algebra $`𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$. It turns out, as described in detail in , that the representation is equivalent to a very intuitive representation $`\pi _𝒬`$ on $`_{\mathrm{aux}}`$:

$$\pi _𝒬(𝐚)\psi =𝒬|_R^1\pi _s(𝐚)(𝒬|_R\psi ),$$
(3)
where $`𝐚𝔅_{\mathrm{aux}}`$, $`\psi _{\mathrm{aux}}`$ and $`𝒬|_R^1`$ denotes the inverse function222At this point we note an additional requirement for the background state: $`𝒬(A)0`$ for all $`A`$. This invertability property is motivated physically since our background state is meant to represent an infinite ‘condensate of gravitons’. We should be able to annihilate as well as create these gravitons, which motivates invertability. of $`𝒬|_R`$ i.e., $`𝒬|_R^1𝒬|_R=𝕀`$.

Intuitively, the above representation has a clear interpretation. We can regard the algebra of cylindrical functions $``$ as creating and annihilating excitations on the background state. More general operators then act on this excited “vacuum”. Hence, we have constructed a Hilbert space and representation of observables on it that describes fluctuations restricted to essentially compact regions around some fixed infinite background state. Note that this representation is truly inequivalent to the standard one. Roughly, since $`𝒬|_R`$ depends on the algebra element $`𝐚`$, equation (3) does not define a unitary map.

The construction we have presented is very general and can be applied to a large class of background states. The advantages of this approach are that the final formalism is very simple. One can use the same (separable) Hilbert space as in the standard representation and in particular the reduction by the constraints can be carried out as in the standard approach. To study quantum gravity on semi-classical, asymptotically flat geometries one need states that approximate phase space points. There is now a variety of such cylindrical functions available that can be used in the above approach, c.f. .

### 4.2 Mixed backgrounds

Here we look at a possible improvement of the above approach. A difficulty in studying and interpreting the classical limit of loop quantum gravity is the fact that states are supported on graphs or more physically that we have a quantum picture of polymer like excitations of geometry. The familiar continuum picture has to be recovered from the study of coarse grained observables. In particular, we would like to approximate classical values of observable functions at a particular phase space point to increasing accuracy with the expectation values of corresponding observable operators in some semi-classical state as $`\mathrm{}0`$. These conditions are not enough to specify a unique state. In particular, the graph on which the semi-classical state is to be based is left largely undetermined. This is due to the fact that in studying the classical limit we are using operators that are too coarse grained to determine the micro structure of the quantum state completely.

This suggests naturally that we should really be considering a statistical mixture of states, which is in fact analogous to what is done in thermal field theory, where the vacuum state is only specified by the macroscopic temperature.

Hence, the “gravitational vacuum” is composed of many subsystems, each described by their own micro-state $`|\varphi _i`$. Given the set of macroscopic variables that characterise the vacuum let us denote the probability that a particular subsystem will be in the state $`|\varphi _i`$ by $`P(\varphi _i)`$. The gravitational vacuum is then given by the density matrix:

$$\rho =\underset{i}{}P(\varphi _i)|\varphi _i\varphi _i|,$$

where $`|\varphi _i\varphi _i|`$ denotes the projector onto the micro-state $`|\varphi _i`$. This can be used to define a positive linear functional on the algebra of observables:

$$\omega (𝐚)Tr[\rho 𝐚],$$

which gives rise to the desired quantum theory. Again we are especially interested in the case that the density matrix describes asymptotically flat geometries. In this case the micro-states $`\varphi _i`$ will be based on infinite graphs and we need to make use of the techniques of the preceding section to make sense of the above linear form.

In the case that the macroscopic observable characterising the gravitational background is the volume of regions of the spatial manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ there is a natural construction to implement the above based on random lattices, c.f. . This gives us a mixture of states based on a large class of graphs.

### 4.3 Chern Simons backgrounds

The preceding constructions depend on the ability to approximate classical phase space points with cylindrical function states. While, progress has been made in this direction a major unaddressed issue is still the dynamics. No semi-classical cylindrical function state has been proposed so far that solves all the constraints, which should be a necessary criterion for any true physical state.

The power of the GNS construction proposed here is that one is not tied to using cylindrical functions to define suitable approximations of 3-geometries. As we have seen all that is needed is the definition of a positive linear form on the observable algebra, which can be interpreted as giving the vacuum expectation values in some preferred state. This section will be devoted to the study of one such alternative based on the Chern Simons state. While more heuristic at present we believe that the following approach has many promising features.

The Chern Simons state was discovered early on  as an exact solution to all the constraints of quantum general relativity. The term “state” here is used here in a heuristic sense, as it is not an element of a known Hilbert space. Rather, it is defined as a function on the classical configuration space, the space of connections:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{CS}(A)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{6}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_\mathrm{\Sigma }Tr[AdA+\frac{2}{3}AAA]\right),$$

where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cosmological constant. This state has generated a lot of interest as it has a well-defined classical limit corresponding to anti-DeSitter space .

Study of this state has been mainly within the loop representation of loop quantum gravity, which is in a precise sense dual to the one described in this report. Here states are functions of loops or, more generally, graphs embedded in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ instead of connections. Given a cylindrical function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{f,\gamma }`$ based (for simplicity, generalisations to graphs are straightforward) on a loop $`\gamma `$ we can transform to the following state in the loop representation:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}(\gamma )=Tr[H(\gamma ,A)]\mathrm{\Psi }_{f,\gamma }(A)𝑑\mu (A),$$

using the cylindrical function measure defined in eq. (1). One can attempt to do the same with the Chern-Simons state and define:

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}_{CS}(\gamma )=Tr[H(\gamma ,A)]\mathrm{\Psi }_{CS}(A)𝑑A$$
(4)
Since no appropriate measure on the space of connections is known the above is only heuristic. But crucially, one can nevertheless define the integral by using Witten’s celebrated result that the above transformation defines knot invariants of *any* embedded loop in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ (see e.g.  for an overview). This implies that if we want to interpret the Chern-Simons state as a cylindrical function then it would have support on all possible loops and graphs in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$.

This is appealing but also leads directly to the fact that the Chern Simons state is not a physical state of loop quantum gravity as it cannot be normalised with respect to any known inner product. The key to the remainder of this section will again be the fact that we can still use the Chern-Simons state to define a positive linear function on the algebra of observables and thus define a quantum theory describing fluctuations of the Chern-Simons state, which following arguments in  should correspond to field theory on Anti-DeSitter space in the semi-classical limit.

So to proceed we propose to define $`\omega `$ via:

$$\omega (𝐚)𝑑A\mathrm{\Psi }_{CS}^{}(A)\widehat{𝐚}\mathrm{\Psi }_{CS}(A)$$

and we make the following comments:

1. The above integral should be interpreted as giving the expectation value of the algebra element $`𝐚`$ in the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{CS}`$. Note that this differs from eq. (4) by the inclusion of the complex conjugate term. This should not be confused with the calculation of vacuum expectation values evaluated in Chern-Simons *theory*, which is 3-dimensional and where eq. (4) is interpreted as a path integral.
2. Because we need to include the complex conjugate term it is crucial that the exponent in the Chern-Simons state is real. This implies that we use the original complex, $`SL(2,)`$, connection formulation of general relativity and also that this approach is only likely to be interesting in the Lorentzian framework.
3. The above integral is of course only heuristic as we have no suitable measure on the space of connections. Again we want to make contact with the fact that if the algebra element $`𝐚`$ is a cylindrical function, i.e. corresponds to a configuration variable then the above should define a diffeomorphism invariant of the graph underlying the definition of the cylindrical function.
4. When attempting to define the above integral in this way we need to take care that we are dealing with the non-compact gauge group $`SL(2,)`$, which has to our knowledge not been studied in the context of Chern-Simons knot invariants. A possible way to avoid this difficulty by splitting the connection into real and complex parts is suggested in . Note also that a rigorous treatment of the above integrals requires both framings of the manifold $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and of the graphs supporting the cylindrical functions. Progress in this direction has been made in .
5. To complete this approach we also need to define the integral when $`𝐚`$ is a momentum variable, i.e. a triad smeared over a two surface. To our knowledge this has not been investigated in the literature so far. Intuitively, one expects to get a diffeomorphism invariant of the two surfaces on which the momentum variables are defined.

These techniques provide a possible approach to study the Chern-Simons state as a physical state of a well-defined theory of quantum gravity. The intimate relation between loop quantum gravity, knot theory and Chern-Simons theory gives strong support for the study of this state.

## 5 Conclusions

In this report we have focussed on three main themes. Firstly, we have motivated why the study of the asymptotically flat sector of quantum general relativity is important and should be pursued actively at the present stage in the non-perturbative quantum gravity programme. Restricting our attention to asymptotically flat space allows us to avoid many conceptual problems facing quantum gravity while at the same time enabling the study of a large number of physical applications. In short, the quantisation of general relativity is most likely to succeed and produce meaningful results in the asymptotically flat sector.

We then looked at how the standard framework of loop quantum gravity can be extended to the asymptotically flat sector or more generally, to the case where the spatial slice $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is non-compact. Here we followed an analogy with thermal field theory and used the GNS construction to provide us with new representations of the observable algebra of loop quantum gravity. This gave rise to quantum theories that can be interpreted as describing excitations of fiducial fixed background states — vacua of loop quantum gravity.

In the last part of this report we discussed three possible approaches in constructing such background states. In particular this addresses the issue of how classical phase space data or classical 3-geometries can be approximated quantum mechanically. Together with the GNS construction these backgrounds give us a very natural approach to study physical applications of loop quantum gravity, especially the semi-classical limit. Hopefully, this will enable us to make essential progress in uncovering the quantum picture of space and time that loop quantum gravity provides us.