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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In recent years, the Numeric implementation of Stochastic Perturbation Theory (NSPT) was introduced, which was able to reach unprecedented high orders in pertubative expansions in Lattice Gauge Theory (LGT). The historic success of NSPT was the computation of the Lattice $`SU(3)`$ basic plaquette to order $`\beta ^8`$. This led to the possibility of actually verifying the expected dominance of the leading InfraRed (IR) Renormalon  associated to a dimension four condensate. The computation was performed on a $`8^4`$ lattice. We are now in a position to quote results to a reasonable accuracy for the perturbative expansion of the same quantity to order $`\beta ^{10}`$ on both a $`8^4`$ and a $`24^4`$ lattice.
There are at least three main motivations for such a computation. First of all, it provides a clear consistency argument in support of the conclusions of our previous work. The results in  are actually the only ones from which one can recognize the presence of renormalons by direct inspection of the perturbative coefficients of a QCD quantity. Ironically, this is true in a scheme (the lattice) which one would never choose for a high order QCD calculation in a standard (as opposed to NSPT) approach. We will give strong evidences that a very good control has been taken over both the IR renormalon growth and the finite size effects on top of that. In particular, finite size effects have always been a matter of concern for the computation. They play a fundamental role since they impinge on the IR region which is responsible for the renormalon growth. Basically, the higher is the loop, the lower are the (IR) momenta which give the main contribution. In view of this one could be worried that one is missing important contributions on the $`8^4`$ lattice on which the NSPT perturbative computations were first performed on. In  evidences from the non linear sigma models were collected which suggested that renormalon growth was not substantially tamed at the eight loop level. We can now strengthen our confidence that the leading behaviour had been actually properly singled out in our previous work. On top of that we are now in a position to assess the finite size effects, which turn out to be of the order of a few percent at the order we got.
While the eight loop expansion in  was a major success, it actually opened more problems than it settled down and this sets the stage for the second motivation for our present computation. There was a longstanding problem concerning the possibility of determining the Gluon Condensate (GC) from LGT by a method which actually relied on the computation of high orders in the perturbative expansion of the plaquette. The latter is the lattice representation for the GC and its perturbative expansion is an additive renormalisation which is by far the leading contribution at the value of $`\beta `$ usually taken into account. This perturbative contribution can be seen as the contribution coming from the identity operator in the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) for the plaquette. The key point is that in this OPE there is no space for an order $`a^2`$ term, a gauge invariant operator of dimension two missing. Next term in OPE is expected to be an $`a^4`$ contribution associated with the genuine GC. The old approach to the problem was to subtract the first (perturbative) contribution from Monte Carlo measurements of the plaquette in order to single out the $`a^4`$ term (the GC) . The signature of such a term can be recognized by performing the subtraction at different values of $`\beta `$ and looking for the scaling dictated by Asymptotic Freedom. The actual problem is that the series for the plaquette “not only has to be subtracted, it has to be defined in first place”222This is a citation from Beneke’s review . Due to the presence of the IR renormalon, the series has an ambiguity in different prescriptions for resumming it which is just the same order as the GC, i.e. an $`a^4`$ contribution. Being aware of this, the most striking point is that by performing the subtraction, with any given prescription, one is left with an $`a^2`$ contribution, at least on the $`8^4`$ lattice the computation was first performed on . The problem challenges our understanding of potentially any short-distance expansion and so it needs to be cleared up. At the moment more than one explanation appear to be possible. The effect could either be a pure lattice artifact or a fundamental issue. With respect to the latter hypothesis,  suggested the effect of UltraViolet (UV) contributions to the running coupling. Since the time of  the phenomenology of non–standard $`Q^2`$ power effects has actually been reported growing. In particular, the work in  establishes a relation between a dual superconductor confinement mechanism and “OPE–violating” corrections. In this paper we do not want to enter at all the $`a^2`$–affair. Still, the reliability of our previous perturbative computations has to be assessed with this question in mind. Given the potential impact of the result in , we want to be sure that nothing was wrong with respect to the Renormalon contribution extraction, leaving for a subsequent publication  a refinement of the whole analysis concerning the subtraction procedure. We stress that such a refinement will in particular benefit by the study of finite size effects.
Finally something can be learned from the computation about the NSPT method itself. The present result establishes the highest order ever reached by NSPT in LGT. In  a word of caution was spent on uncritical application of the method, stressing the issue of a careful assessment of statistical errors. Ironically enough, it was pointed out that problems plague simple models much more than complex systems like Lattice $`SU(3)`$. We refer the reader to a future publication  for a more organic report on the application of the NSPT method to LGT. Still, it is reassuring (although of course admittedly not a proof of reliability of the method) to note that in the context of this work there is a fine agreement between the results obtained by our stochastic method and those inferred by a (maybe strong) theoretical prejudice.
The paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2 we recall the basics of IR Renormalon analysis applied to a $`dim=4`$ condensate and write the formulas relevant for a finite lattice, which are the foundations of our subsequent analysis. In Sect. 3 we present our results for the first ten coefficients in the expansion of the plaquette both on a $`8^4`$ and on a $`24^4`$ lattice, showing that they are consistent with the Renormalon factorial growth and with the expected finite size effects on top of that. Sect. 4 contains our conclusions and perspectives for future work. An appendix covers algebraic details.

## 2 The IR Renormalon on a finite lattice

We start by writing first of all the definition of our observable, that is the basic plaquette normalised as

$$W(M)=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\frac{1}{3}\text{Tr}U_p,$$
(1)
$`U_p`$ being the product of links around a $`1\times 1`$ Wilson Loop. We write an explicit dependence on the size ($`M`$) of the lattice on which the osbervable is computed. In Perturbation Theory

$$W(M)=\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{}c_{\mathrm{}}^{(M)}\beta ^{\mathrm{}}$$
(2)
Next we move to recall the main points of Renormalon analysis. Notations are slightly different from those of  and closer to those of . The aim of this section is anyway to be self–contained.

### 2.1 Basics on the factorial growth of perturbative coefficients

The expected form for a dimension $`4`$, Renormalisation Group invariant condensate is written as

$$W=_0^{Q^2}\frac{k^2dk^2}{Q^4}f(k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2).$$
(3)
$`Q`$ is in our case the UV cutoff fixed by the lattice spacing: $`Q=\pi /a`$. Given the above dimensional and R.G. arguments, $`f(k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)`$ is a dimensionless function independent on the scale $`Q`$, for large $`Q`$, and can thus be expressed in terms of a running coupling at the scale $`k^2`$. One obtains the Renormalon contribution by considering the high frequencies contribution to Eq. (3), that is

$$W^{\mathrm{ren}}=C_{r\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}^{Q^2}\frac{k^2dk^2}{Q^4}\alpha _𝗌(k^2),$$
(4)
in which $`f(k^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)`$ has been taken proportional to the perturbative running coupling (higher powers of the coupling simply result in subleading corrections to the formulas we will get this way). We now introduce the variable

$$zz_0\left(1\alpha _𝗌(Q^2)/\alpha _𝗌(k^2)\right),z_0\frac{1}{3b_0},$$
(5)
using which together with the two loop form for $`\alpha _𝗌(k^2)`$ results in

$$W^{\mathrm{ren}}=𝒩_0^{z_0_{}}𝑑ze^{\beta z}(z_0z)^{1\gamma }.$$
(6)
In the last equation we have traded $`\alpha _𝗌(k^2)`$ for the $`\beta `$ coupling one is more familiar with on the lattice and introduced a couple of new symbols according to

$$4\pi \alpha _𝗌(Q^2)6/\beta ,\gamma 2\frac{b_1}{b_0^2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.33em}0}<z<z_0_{}z_0(1\alpha _𝗌(Q^2)/\alpha _𝗌(r\mathrm{\Lambda }^2)).$$
(7)
In the equations above $`b_0`$ and $`b_1`$ are the first and second coefficients of the perturbative $`\beta `$–function (to fix normalisation: $`b_0=11/(4\pi )^4`$). $`z_0_{}`$ is clearly reminiscent of the IR cutoff $`r\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ imposed in Eq. (4) to avoid Landau pole once the perturbative coupling had to be plugged in. From Eq. (6) it is now easy to obtain a perturbative expansion

$$W^{\mathrm{ren}}=\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{}\beta ^{\mathrm{}}\{c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}+𝒪(e^{z_0\beta })\},c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}=𝒩^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}+\gamma )z_0^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(8)
The factorial growth of the series is the Renormalon contribution, while the $`𝒪(e^{z_0\beta })`$ is again coming from the IR cutoff $`r\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ in Eq. (4). Naively one could have not imposed any IR cutoff before going from the ill-defined (because of the Landau pole) integral to the series. The factorial growth would have anyway asked for the $`𝒪(e^{z_0\beta })`$ contribution in order to obtain a resummation of the series. Actually the reader familiar with the subject has most probably well recognized in Eq. (6) a Borel representation.

### 2.2 The factorial growth on a finite lattice

Apart from the explicit reference to the lattice spacing in the UV cutoff we have till now adhered to a continuum notation, implicitly assuming some continuum scheme in which for example Eq. (3) is defined. We now move to rewrite such a representation on a finite lattice. One can consider (notice that we now explicitly write the dependence on the number of lattice points $`M`$)

$$W^{\mathrm{ren}}(M)=C_{Q_0^2(M)}^{Q^2}\frac{k^2dk^2}{Q^4}\alpha _𝗌(sk^2).$$
(9)
The lower limit of integration is the explicit IR cutoff imposed by the finite extent of the lattice ($`Q_0(M)=2\pi /Ma`$), while the scale $`s`$ is in charge of matching from a continuum to a lattice scheme. In view of that and since rescaling $`k^2sk^2`$ amounts to rescaling $`\mathrm{\Lambda }s^{1/2}\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, it is likely to expect for $`s`$ a value $`s=K^2`$ consistent (up to an eventual further change of scale) with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cont}=K\mathrm{\Lambda }_{latt}`$ for some continuum scheme. By a change of variable in the integral it is easy to trade the rescaling of the argument of $`\alpha _𝗌`$ for a rescale of $`Q^2sQ^2`$ (and similarly for the lower limit of integration). Remember that in the previous section we obtained an expansion in the coupling defined at the scale $`Q`$: at one loop level a change of scale in the coupling is equivalent to a change of scheme, and this matches the present notation to the notation of 333For further details see later and the appendix.. Given Eq. (9), one can of course perform the same change of variable defined in Eq. (5) and obtain a new power expansion. In order not to have the main message of the procedure obscured by trivial algebra, we collect the details in an appendix. One is left with

$$W^{\mathrm{ren}}(M)=\underset{\mathrm{}=1}{}\beta ^{\mathrm{}}c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C)$$
(10)
The coefficients $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C)`$ can be expressed in terms of incomplete $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ functions (see the appendix). It is important to notice their dependences. They depend trivially (i.e. multiplicatively) on the overall constant $`C`$ which is present in Eq. (9) to account for everything which is subleading. They also depend on the scale $`s`$ which is in charge of the matching to the scheme in which Eq. (4) best describes the expansion (remember that one does not know that a priori). Finally, they depend parametrically on the lattice size $`M`$. The attitude to take with respect to Eq. (10) is now the same as in , that is: can one determine values $`C=\overline{C}`$ and $`s=\overline{s}`$ by fitting the $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C)`$ to the high orders $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(M)}`$ (i.e. the coefficients actually computed on a given lattice size $`M`$)? A positive answer states that the perturbative expansion of the plaquette is actually described by the asymptotic dominance of the leading IR Renormalon. Needless to say, once the fit has been done and values $`\overline{s}`$ and $`\overline{C}`$ have been obtained, the $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;\overline{s},\overline{C})`$ contain in a sense all the information needed to test the IR Renormalon dominance. Given the data at our hand (coefficients $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(M)}`$ for $`\mathrm{}\mathrm{}_{max}=10`$ and $`M=8,24`$), one can perform a variety of checks. For example, one can fit $`C=\overline{C}`$ and $`s=\overline{s}`$ from data up to $`\mathrm{}<\mathrm{}_{max}`$ and then compare results at higher loops. As for finite size effects, one can fit the relevant parameters on a given lattice size $`M`$ (remember that the dependence on $`M`$ is a parametric one) and then compare $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M^{}M;\overline{s},\overline{C})`$ with the actual $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(M^{})}`$. Such comparisons are what we actually proceed to do in the next section.
Before moving to the actual results, we think it is worthwhile to recall something about the crucial issue of finite size effects with respect to the dependence on both $`M`$ and $`s`$ of our formulae. The most straightforward way to obtain the IR Renormalon factorial growth goes through the most direct exploitation of Eq. (4): one simply insert for $`\alpha _𝗌(k^2)`$ the leading logs (one loop) formula. From this simple recipe one obtains the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ functions which are the signature of Renormalons. For a dimension $`4`$ condensate (as the observable at hand) order $`l`$ turns out to be proportional to (we write the explicit dependence on the IR cut–off)

$$_{Q_0^2}^{Q^2}\frac{dk^2}{k^2}\frac{k^4}{Q^4}\mathrm{ln}^\mathrm{}1(\frac{Q^2}{k^2})$$
(11)
At this point a simple steepest descent argument points out that momenta $`k^{}`$ that contribute the most to the $`\mathrm{}`$th order decrease exponentially with $`\mathrm{}`$

$$k^{}e^{(\mathrm{}1)/2}$$
(12)
and that’s the reason for being a priori worried for a substantial taming of the factorial growth on a finite lattice: starting from a certain order momenta $`k^{}`$ will fall outside the integration region. Now the point is that our formulae actually ask for the scale $`s`$ in front of the $`k^2`$ in the argument of the logarithm which results in

$$k^{}s^1e^{(\mathrm{}1)/2}.$$
(13)
Being $`s<<1`$ this changes quite a lot the estimate of the dependence on $`M`$ of relatively high orders in Perturbation Theory. We will see that finite size effects are well in accord with our formulas and under control at the order we got.

## 3 The Lattice $`SU(3)`$ plaquette to tenth order

In Table (1) we quote the coefficients of the expansion of the $`SU(3)`$ plaquette to tenth order on $`8^4`$ and $`24^4`$ lattices according to the notation of Eq. (2). The results were obtained on the APE–systems the Milan–Parma group were endowed with by INFN. Reaching ten order (up to the errors one can inspect from the table) required for the $`24^4`$ lattice about $`2000`$ hours on a qh1 system (128 nodes, delivering a peak performance of $`6.4`$ Gflops). We stress that this system has got an expanded–memory; the $`4`$ MWords on each node allow space enough for a fairly big lattice to such an high order (we recall that in NSPT each field is replicated a number of time which is twice the order in $`\alpha _s`$, i.e. the order in $`g`$). Results for the $`8^4`$ lattice came out of about $`4000`$ hours on a q4 system (32 nodes arranged in $`4`$ boards, on each of which a replica of the lattice was allocated; this system delivers a peak performance of $`1.6`$ Gflops). In considering these data and their statistical significance one should keep in mind that the signal to noise ratio is better for the bigger volume.

By inspecting the table one can make some first comments. First of all, we improved the errors with respect to . To improve errors on low loops would have been relatively easy, but since we were mainly interested in high loops, the simulation times (and therefore the statistical errors) were actually driven by the tenth order444The time spent on a single iteration basically scales as $`(O^2O)/2`$, $`O`$ being the order in $`\beta ^{1/2}`$. For more details on technical points concerning the application of NSPT to LGT see .. Having said that, we decided we had the statistic significance we needed when finite size effects were disentangled from statistical errors. By inspecting the coefficients one can see that finite size effects between $`8^4`$ and $`24^4`$ are less than $`1\%`$ for the first four orders, less than $`2\%`$ for the first six, less than $`3\%`$ for the first eight and less than $`4\%`$ up to the highest order we got, i.e. tenth order. A proper infinite volume extrapolation is out of reach at this level, since one would need better statistic and of course more lattice sizes. Still, we will see that within the IR Renormalon dominance approach it is easy to estimate the correct order of magnitude of such an extrapolation. As we will see, up to tenth order one can infer a correction of the $`24^4`$ results with respect to infinite volume of less than $`0.5\%`$.
Having in mind all the points we have already made in the previous sections, we now approach the two basic questions that set the stage for this work, that is: Was the IR Renormalon growth correctly singled out in ? Are finite size effects under control? We will show that there is a positive answer for both questions.

### 3.1 The leading Renormalon behaviour

In order to test the IR Renormalon dominance claimed in , we now proceed to perform some consistency checks, just of the type we have already referred to in Section (2.2). These come out of three different fits which we now proceed to describe and which are in a sense a summary of a variety of checks we performed on our results.

* First of all we try to understand to which extent the ninth and tenth order (new) results could be inferred from the first eight (already computed) coefficients. In order to do that, we fit the formula for $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C)`$ to the set $`\{c_7^{(8)},c_7^{(24)},c_8^{(8)},c_8^{(24)}\}`$ (notice that while we want to make contact with previous results, nevertheless we now take into account both lattice sizes). We will refer to this procedure as Fit 1. As the result of this fit (and later of the following fits) we quote $`s_1=\sqrt{s}`$ instead of $`s`$. This quantity is simply related to the matching between the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ parameters between the continuum and lattice scheme one is quite familiar with

$$s_1=\sqrt{s}=x\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{latt}}{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{cont}}.$$
(14)
In the previous formula the factor $`x`$ is a possible further change of scale (see later). We obtain a value for the the scale $`s_1=0.0074`$. In previous works by our group the fits were performed without referring to a change of scale in the integral. The matching from a continuum to the lattice scheme was obtained by a change of variable $`\beta _{cont}=\beta _{latt}r\frac{r^{}}{\beta _{latt}}`$. In terms of the notation of this work the result of the fit in  reads $`s_1=0.0078`$. The $`5\%`$ difference sets a rough order of magnitude for what one has to live with in this and the other comparisons that we make: one should always keep in mind that we are managing notations that differ by higher orders. Notice that this agreement is a first good message for our understanding of finite size effects based on our formula for $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C)`$: since we now fit results both on the $`8^4`$ and on the $`24^4`$ lattices (while the results in  were based on $`8^4`$ alone) the parametric dependence on the lattice size $`M`$ is supposed to work pretty well (anyway see later for more definite statements). With respect to Eq (14) Beneke  made the point that the result $`s_1=0.0078`$ in  could for example be interpreted by matching to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme and taking into account a further change of scale (the factor $`x`$ in Eq (14)). The latter amounts to computing the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ coupling at a scale $`0.706/a`$ instead of $`\pi /a`$. With the second (standard) choice of scale one obtains the standard result $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}=28.8\mathrm{\Lambda }_{latt}`$. $`s_1=0.0078`$ could in turn be interpreted as $`0.706/\pi \times 1/28.8=0.0078`$, while the result $`s_1=0.0074`$ could be read $`0.666/\pi \times 1/28.8=0.0074`$. One should not take all these considerations too seriously, e.g. there is no compelling commitment to the $`\overline{\mathrm{MS}}`$ scheme (once again, remember that one does not know which is the scheme in which our theoretical prejudice works the best). Still, it is reassuring that the numbers one gets are absolutely sensible as for their order of magnitude. Having made contact with our previous results, we now proceed to make contact with what we are mainly interested in, that is the new (ninth and tenth) orders. One can get a first glance at this by looking at Fig. (1) in which we compare the computed $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(24)}`$ with the $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(24;0.0074^2,C^{(1)})`$ (we will not quote the values obtained for the overall constant $`C`$ since they are not too enlightening). Notice that different symbols refer to different orders as far as the $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(24;0.0074^2,C^{(1)})`$ are concerned: we want to emphasize the difference between the orders that are actually included in the fit and those that are looked at as forecasts to assess how well the asymptotic behaviour has been singled out. A very good agreement is manifest, which is actually magnified by the logarithmic scale. A careful inspection of the numbers themselves can be got from Table (2) in which we quote the values of the last five coefficients as inferred from Fit 1 on both lattice sizes. A first point to be made has to do with finite size effects. As we have already mentioned, a fit to data on both sizes is absolutely sensible and the deviations of the inferred coefficients from the actual ones are much the same on $`8^4`$ and on $`24^4`$. Notice also that the residual finite size effects between $`24^4`$ and infinite volume turn out to be negligible. As for the crucial issue of how well Fit 1 can single out the asymptotic behaviour we notice that the ninth coefficient is forecast with a precision of $`1\%`$, while a $`6`$$`7\%`$ deviation is there for the tenth order. Notice also that, while orders seven and eight are kept into account in the fit, the agreement for orders less than seven results in a sensible shape for an asymptotic behaviour (by the way, the results are pretty stable to the inclusion of order six in the fit). This is the right time to make a point that specifies a statement that we have already made, i.e. that in inspecting the forecasts of our fits one should keep in mind that we are managing expressions that are there up to higher orders. This is of course not the end of the story. An equally important indetermination is coming from the fact that only a posteriori one can understand how asymptotic the expansion was at the highest order which has been taken into account in the fit. Roughly speaking, by fitting only the expansion for one quantity there is no obvious way to prevent the fit from pretending to have already reached the actual asymptotic regime.
* With respect to the last point we made there is a nice way to improve. We exploit it in what we call Fit 2. This time we make use of the fact that in  results for the first eight orders were computed not only for the $`1\times 1`$ Wilson loop (the basic plaquette), but also for the $`2\times 2`$.

Now, the IR Renormalon dominance is supposed to force a universal asymptotic behaviour. That’s why we now fit the formula for $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C^{(i)})`$ to the set $`\{c_6^{(8)},c_7^{(8)},c_8^{(8)},c_6^{(8,2\times 2)},c_7^{(8,2\times 2)},c_8^{(8,2\times 2)}\}`$. The $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(8,2\times 2)}`$ are taken from , while of course this time a couple of different overall constant $`C^{(i)}`$ have to be fitted, corresponding to $`i=1\times 1`$ and $`i=2\times 2`$. Notice that this time, as an extra test of the control on finite size effects, we make use only of $`8^4`$ results for the basic plaquette. The value fitted for the scale is now $`s_1=0.0065`$. While we are still stopping at eight order in what we take into account for the fit, the curvature in the growth of the $`2\times 2`$ coefficients is opposite to that of $`1\times 1`$ and this corrects a bit with respect to Fit 1. As for the $`12\%`$ change in the scale, much the same that has already been told holds: while there is in a sense extra information on what has to be understood as asymptotic, it is nevertheless reassuring that the change in the coefficients is quite smooth and absolutely sensible as we are managing asymptotic behaviours. Not surprisingly, one can inspect from Fig. (2) (this time we plot the comparison for coefficients on the $`8^4`$ lattice) and (even better) from Table (3) that we have fairly improved the asymptotic behaviour. In particular, deviations for the forecasts on order ten are reduced to $`1`$$`2\%`$, while other nice features like the consistency of finite size effects are still there. Also the residual finite size effects dependency turns out to be just the same (negligible) order.
* One can of course devise a fit in which all the information at hand is taken into account. This is what we proceed to do in what we refer to as Fit 3. This time we fit the formula for $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(M;s,C^{(i)})`$ to the set $`\{c_6^{(8)},c_7^{(8)},c_8^{(8)},c_9^{(8)},c_{10}^{(8)},c_6^{(24)},c_7^{(24)},c_8^{(24)},c_9^{(24)},c_{10}^{(24)},c_6^{(8,2\times 2)},c_7^{(8,2\times 2)},c_8^{(8,2\times 2)}\}`$.

We are again changing the players on the ground by including a wide range of orders on both lattice sizes, together with information from $`2\times 2`$ Wilson Loop as well. The resulting scale is now $`s_1=0.0056`$, with a change with respect to Fit 2 which is again the same order of magnitude as that obtained in going from Fit 1 to Fit 2. The result is remarkably stable with respect to keeping into account only the last three orders for the basic plaquette (as for the $`2\times 2`$ Wilson Loop one can at the same time keep into account only the last order available, that is order eight). Results of the fit are plotted in Fig. (3) for the $`24^4`$ lattice and summarized in Table (4). Of course, this time it does not make any sense to compare with Fit 1 and Fit 2 as for the accuracy with which high orders are described.

In the end, what one can state is that going from Fit 1 to Fit 3 one is not going to jeopardize the overall picture: the transition in describing the growth of the coefficients is quite smooth, consistent with the asymptotic behaviour being better and better described. Again, one is validating the finite size effects as embedded in our formulae.

### 3.2 Finite size effects

From all the previous arguments the impact of finite size effects has already been widely discussed. Still, we think it is worthwhile to present the tests of finite size effects also in a graphical format. In Fig. (4) we depict something that has to do with finite size effects as resulting from the results of Fit 2.

To be definite, we plot the ratios $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(8)}/c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(8;0.0065^2,C^{(1\times 1)})`$ and $`c_{\mathrm{}}^{(24)}/c_{\mathrm{}}^{ren}(24;0.0065^2,C^{(1\times 1)})`$. One can directly see the conclusion that has already been drawn in the main discussion of Fit 2. While only the $`8^4`$ lattice has been taken into account in the fit, the points for both lattices fall on top of each other, i.e. from a fit to $`8^4`$ and the dependence on $`M`$ embedded in our formulae we describe basically with the same accuracy the coefficients of the $`24^4`$ lattice as well. Something similar is shown in Fig. (5) which is the same plot for the equivalent of Fit 3 in which only the $`8^4`$ lattice has been taken into account.

## 4 Conclusions and perspectives

We computed the perturbative expansion of the basic $`SU(3)`$ plaquette on both a $`8^4`$ and a $`24^4`$ lattices to $`\beta ^{10}`$ order. We are now in a position to strengthen the claim in , i.e. the coefficients growth is consistent with both the leading IR Renormalon dominance and with finite size effects on top of that. The latter does not exceed $`4\%`$ at the order we got and the residual finite size effects on the $`24^4`$ results are no more than half a percent, again at tenth order. Having verified that our previous analysis in  had neither failed in the extraction of the leading asymptotic behaviour nor underestimated finite size effects on the perturbative coefficients, these results make even more important to refine the analysis contained in the same paper as for the extraction of a quadratic contribution to the lattice representative for the Gluon Condensate. This refinement will now benefit by a control on finite size effects. This is what we plan to do in a near future , maybe going even through a further refinement on errors in the perturbative coefficients.

## Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to G. Burgio for many interesting discussions and to E. Onofri and G. Marchesini for their constant interest and encouragement. F. D.R. acknowledges support from both Italian MURST under contract 9702213582 and from I.N.F.N. under i.s. PR11. L. S. acknowledges support from EU Grant EBR-FMRX-CT97-0122.

## Appendix

We now sketch the steps to go from Eq. (9) to Eq. (10). As we have already said in Sec. (2.2) one way to treat the dependence on $`s`$ is to rescale the integration variable (define $`t^2sk^2`$). In this way one ends up with the rescaling $`Q^2sQ^2`$. This in turns means $`\beta \beta (sQ^2)`$ which makes contact with the formulation of  (again, as already said): $`\beta \beta r`$ (at this level one obtains a one loop formula). We chose another way to proceed which manipulates the integrand in another way. By going through the change of variable of Eq. (5) one obtains (up to overall constants)

$`{\displaystyle _0^{z_{ir}(M)}}𝑑ze^{\beta z}(z_0z)^{1\gamma }{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1+6b_0\frac{z_0}{z_0z}\frac{1}{\beta }\mathrm{ln}s}},`$
$`z_{ir}(M)`$ being the value for $`z`$ pertaining to the IR cut–off $`Q_0(M)`$. The last factor is simply $`\frac{\alpha _𝗌(sk^2)}{\alpha _𝗌(k^2)}`$. By expanding the latter in a geometric series (we are aiming at an expansion in $`\beta ^1`$) and by performing a change of variable we end up with

$`\beta ^\gamma e^{\beta z_0}(1)^{1\gamma }{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}(6b_0z_0\mathrm{ln}s)^n{\displaystyle _{\beta z_0}^{\beta z_{ir}(M)\beta z_0}}e^zz^{1\gamma n}𝑑z`$
Note that the effect of the scale $`s`$ propagates to high orders much the same way the leading logs expansion for $`\alpha _𝗌`$ is responsable for the Renormalon growth, i.e. via a geometric series. The last input is now the asymptotic expansion for incomplete $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ functions (which is useful once one splits the previous integral in terms of a sum of incomplete $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ functions)

$`{\displaystyle _z^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑te^tt^{a1}z^{a1}e^z{\displaystyle \underset{k0}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(k+1a)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(1a)}}(z)^k`$
Once this expansion (valid for $`|z|\mathrm{}`$ in $`|\mathrm{arg}z|<3\pi /2`$) is plugged in, one proceeds to the final power expansion in $`\beta ^1`$ (which is easy to manage for example in $`Mathematica^\mathrm{\copyright }`$).


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# Tidal stirring and the origin of dwarf spheroidals in the Local Group

## 1. INTRODUCTION

Dwarf galaxies in the Local Group (LG) clearly obey a morphology-density relation. Close to the Milky Way and M31 we find early-type dwarf galaxies, namely faint ($`M_B>14`$) low surface brightness dwarf spheroidals (dSphs) and more luminous ($`M_B>17`$), higher surface brightness dwarf ellipticals (dEs). All these galaxies are nearly devoid of gas, contain dark matter and mainly old stars and are supported by velocity dispersion (Ferguson & Binggeli 1994, hereafter FB94; Mateo 1998, hereafter Ma98; Grebel 1999, hereafter Gr99; Van den Bergh 1999). Among them Draco and Ursa Minor have the highest dark matter densities ever measured (Lake 1990). On the outskirts of the LG we find similarly faint ($`M_B>`$ -18) and dark matter dominated dwarf irregular galaxies (dIrrs), that are gas rich, star-forming systems with disk-like kinematics (Ma98, Van den Bergh 1999, Gr99).

Previous attempts to explain the origin of dSphs in the LG have relied on gas dynamical processes to remove the gas in dIrrs. Gas stripping may result either because of the pressure exerted by an external hot gaseous medium in the halo of the Milky Way (“ram pressure”) (Einasto et al. 1974) or because of internal strong supernovae winds (Dekel & Silk 1986). However, ram pressure would require an external gas density that is several orders of magnitude higher than recently inferred for the Milky Way (Murali 2000) and supernovae winds cannot explain the existing morphology-density relation. Moreover, such dissipative mechanisms would remove the gas but would not directly alter the structure and kinematics of the pre-existing stellar component. However, the light follows an exponential profile in both dSphs and dIrrs (Faber & Lin 1983; Irwin & Hatzdimitriou 1995; Ma98) and a positive correlation between surface brightness and luminosity is shown by both types of dwarfs (FB94), suggesting an evolutionary link between them. Is there a mechanism that can transform dwarf galaxies between morphological classes or must we accept the idea that dSphs are fundamentally different from dIrrs ?

Within rich galaxy clusters, fast fly-by encounters with the largest galaxies can transform a disk system into a spheroidal or S0 galaxy in just 3-4 Gyr (Moore et al. 1996, 1998). If the halos of bright galaxies were scaled down versions of galaxy clusters then this “galaxy harassment” would be equally important within them. However, whereas rich clusters contain over thirty large ($`L_{}`$) perturbing galaxies, the Milky Way and M31 have only a couple of satellites sufficiently massive to harass the other dwarf galaxies (Moore et al. 1999; Klypin et al. 1999) As a result, the rate for effective satellite-satellite fly-by encounters is less than one in every 10 Gyr (the LMC and the SMC being a notable exception).

Thus, we are left only with the repeated action of tidal forces from the primary galaxy as an evolutionary driver. These operate on the orbital timescale, which is of order of 3-4 Gyr in both clusters and galactic halos. However, given the relatively low age of large, virialized clusters, galaxies have typically approached the cluster center only once by the present time, while dSphs satellites have had sufficient time to complete several close tidal encounters with the Milky Way, as stellar ages imply that the latter was already in place 10 Gyr ago (Van den Bergh 1996).

In this paper we use very high resolution N-Body + SPH simulations performed with the parallel binary treecode GASOLINE (Dikaiakos & Stadel 1996; Wadsley et al. 2000) to follow the evolution of small galaxies resembling dIrrs as they move on bound orbits in the tidal field of the massive dark matter halo of the Milky Way.

## 2. Models of dwarf galaxies

The Milky Way halo is modeled as the fixed potential of a truncated isothermal sphere with a total mass $`4\times 10^{12}M_{}`$ inside a radius of $`400`$ kpc, consistent with both recent measures based on radial velocities of distant satellites (Wilkinson & Evans 1999) and with generic models of structure formation (Peebles et al. 1989). The core radius is $`4`$ kpc and the resulting circular velocity at the solar radius is $`220`$ km/s.

Our simulated galaxies are modeled as exponential disks of stars with a Toomre parameter $`Q=2`$ embedded in truncated isothermal dark matter halos (see Hernquist 1993). The number of particles in the disk is 50,000 while that in the halo ranges from 250,000 to $`3\times 10^6`$. Such high resolution in the halo reduces considerably numerical heating of the disk due to massive halo particles, as was tested by evolving our models in isolation for 5 Gyr. The scale-lengths and masses of the stellar disk and dark matter halo are chosen so that the satellites follow the observed B band Tully-Fisher relation (Hoffman et al. 1996; Zwaan et al. 1997) and have realistic rotation curves (de Blok & McGaugh 1997; Cote et al. 1997), as shown in Figure 1. The determination of general scaling properties of galaxies becomes more uncertain at the very faint end. Current structure formation models predict that the mass $`M`$ and scale radius $`R`$ of halos (and of their embedded disks) vary with redshift as $`(1+z)^{3/2}`$ for a fixed value of the circular velocity $`V_c`$, with $`V_cRM^{1/3}`$ (Mo et al. 1998).

The scaling with redshift reflects the fact that low mass halos form at early epochs and have higher characteristic densities because the average density of the Universe was higher. Galaxies with total masses $`<`$ 109 $`M_{}`$ should typically form at $`z2`$ (Lacey & Cole 1993) and should live in halos with a central dark matter density $``$ 0.3 $`M_{}\mathrm{pc}^3`$, comparable to what inferred for GR8, an extremely faint LG dIrr (Carignan et al. 1990). The model with the smallest mass (“GR8”) was built following these prescriptions.

The models cover the entire luminosity function of irregulars in the LG (Ma98) with stellar masses of $`1.2\times 10^6M_{}`$ ($`M_B`$ = -11.2, “GR8”), $`9\times 10^8M_{}`$ ($`M_B`$=-16.23, “M2” ) and $`2.5\times 10^9`$ ($`M_B`$=-18, “M1”). At fixed disk mass (either M1 or M2) we also vary the disk scale length, obtaining high surface brightness (HSBs, $`\mu _B=21.5`$ mag arcsec-2, M1H and M2H) or low surface brightness satellites (LSBs, $`\mu _B=24.5`$ or $`23.5`$ mag arcsec-2, M1La, M2La, M2Lb) for a total of six different models (we always assume $`M/L_B`$=2 for the stellar disk and set the halo core radius equal to the disk scale length; see de Blok & McGaugh 1997). The GR8 model was obtained by rescaling model M1La for $`z=2`$. The disk scale-length $`r_h`$ is only $`76`$ pc for GR8 , while those of the other models are, respectively, $`1.3`$ or $`2`$ kpc (HSBs) and $`1.5`$, $`3.2`$ or $`4.8`$ kpc (LSBs). The total mass-to-light ratios at $`3r_h`$ (close to the peak of the rotation curves) are, respectively, $`6`$ (HSBs), $`12`$ (LSBs) and $`32`$(GR8).

## 3. Evolution of dwarf galaxies

As the Milky Way halo is modeled as an external potential, dynamical friction is neglected, which is a good approximation for satellites $`100`$ times less massive than the primary halo (Colpi et al. 1999). Satellites start at the virial radius of the primary (their apocenter) as if they were infalling for the first time, moving on orbits whose ratio between apocenter and pericenter ranges from 4 to 10, in agreement with simulations of galaxy and cluster formation (Ghigna 1998). Orbital periods are typically of the order of $`34`$ Gyr, but are as short as $`12`$ Gyr in the run with GR8, because this model was evolved in a Milky Way potential scaled down in size and mass as expected at $`z=2`$. The inclination and spin of the disk relative to the orbital plane are randomly selected. In total 40 different runs were performed.

### 3.1. Dynamical Evolution

As the dwarfs approach pericenter (typically of 40-70 kpc) LSBs lose most of their dark matter halo and stars, due to their low density halos and large disks, and become weakly bar unstable. HSBs suffer modest stripping and their more self-gravitating disks develop a strong bar. The GR8 model is barely stripped owing to its very dense halo and its small disk radius. Minimal stripping keeps its disk more self gravitating compared to the structurally similar LSB and thus a fairly strong bar can develop after the second pericenter passage. Mass stripping for the various models is reflected in the evolution of their circular velocity profiles (Figure 1).

After completion of 2-3 orbits in 7 Gyr, our “tidally stirred” dwarf galaxies bear a striking resemblance to the real dSphs (right panel in Figure 2): direct tidal heating coupled with the buckling of the bar due to bending instabilities (Raha et al. 1991) transmute the small disks into spheroids supported by velocity dispersion instead of rotation (Figure 3). The GR8-like dwarf, falling into the Milky Way halo around redshift 2, suffers several (5) strong tidal shocks by the present time and is thus transformed despite being extremely compact.

On average the final $`v/\sigma `$ (i.e. the ratio of the rotational to random velocity) inside the half mass radius $`R_e`$ drops mean values $`0.5`$ and $`\sigma `$ varies in the range $`735`$ km s-1, as observed for dSphs and dEs in the LG (Ma98). The largest of these values are typical of HSB remnants and are comparable to the velocity dispersion measured for the dEs associated to M31 (Ma98; Kormendy 1987). Only when the satellite is initially in retrograde rotation with respect to its orbital motion we measure a final $`v/\sigma `$ still close to 1. The surface brightness profiles remain close to exponential (Figure 1), although with a smaller scale-length (typically by a factor of $`2`$). The remnants of HSBs exhibit a more pronounced steepening of the profile inside $`R_e`$ because stars more efficiently lose angular momentum due to the strong bar instability. A From this set of more than 40 runs a clear trend emerges: LSBs evolve into objects resembling dSphs while HSBs transmute into dEs.

### 3.2. Gasdynamics and star formation history

Dwarf irregular galaxies have in general extended gaseous disks with an average total HI-to-stellar mass ratio larger than one (Hoffman et al. 1996): however, within the optical radius ($``$ 3 $`r_h`$), the neutral hydrogen fraction often drops to only $`50\%`$ of the stellar mass (Jobin & Carignan 1990; Cote et al. 1990). In some of our model galaxies we include a gaseous disk of 20,000 particles which only extends out to the radius of the stellar disk (material lying outside this radius is entirely stripped according to the collisionless runs) and whose mass is 30% of the total baryonic mass (the gas density drops to zero at a radius $`R<0.5r_h`$ to mimic the “holes” found in many dIrrs). The dynamics of gas are implemented using an SPH scheme and radiative cooling for a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium (Wadsley et al. 2000). The initial temperature of the gas is set at 5000 K.

We place an LSB satellite (model M2La) on a 9:1 orbit: $`50\%`$ of the gas is stripped after two pericenter passages and is never reaccreted, while the rest is torqued by the weak bar and gradually flows to the center: the surface density profile of the gas bound to the system steepens remarkably at each pericenter passage due to tidal compression and torques. We then use the Kennicutt’s law (Kennicutt 1998) to determine the star formation rate from the gas surface density. We also take into account the reduction of the gas mass as it is converted into stars. The resulting star formation history has two main peaks roughly separated by the orbital time of the dwarf ($`3.5`$ Gyr) (Figure 4), as recently found for Leo I and Carina (Hernandez et al. 2000). After 10 Gyr the star formation is suppressed because of gas consumption. The stronger bar instability in an HSB (model M2H) placed on the same orbit funnels more than $`80\%`$ of the gas to the center at the first pericentric passage, giving rise to a starburst ten times stronger than the bursts in the LSB and using up all the gas in $`2`$ Gyr. As the strength of the bar instability seems to determine the type of star formation history, including gas in the GR8 model would lead to a result qualitatively similar to that of the HSB. Interestingly, in the LG both the dEs and the extreme dSphs like Draco and Ursa Minor formed the bulk of their stellar population during a single early episode (Ma98: Gr99).

Finally we convolve the star formation history with the passive luminosity evolution of the stellar component resulting from population synthesis models (Bruzual & Charlot 1993) for low-metallicity systems (1/4 of the solar value). The multiple bursts are modeled as decreasing exponential laws with amplitude and time constants constrained by the numerical results. The resulting total B band luminosities and stellar mass-to-light ratios of the final remnants are in good agreement with those of observed dSphs.

## 4. Discussion

Figure 5 summarizes the main observable properties of the simulated satellites projecting them on the Fundamental Plane (FB94). The remnants of LSB satellites resemble dSphs like Fornax or Sagittarius ($`14<M_B<11`$), while HSBs transform in the bright dEs ($`M_B>17`$), having a final central surface brightness higher than that of observed dIrrs with the same luminosities and therefore matching another observational constraint (FB94;Ma98). The total (including dark matter) final mass-to-light ratios are in the range $`620`$. Remarkably, our model can reproduce the properties of even the most extreme dSphs, Draco and Ursa Minor. In fact, as the dark matter halo of GR8 is barely affected by tides (Figure 1), the remnant ($`M_B=7.5`$) has a final mass-to-light ratio still $`50`$ and the central dark matter density is still around $`0.3M_{}`$ pc-3, matching the structural parameters inferred for Draco and Ursa Minor (Ma98).

“Tidal stirring” naturally leads to the spatial segregation of dIrrs versus dSph as its effectiveness depends strongly on the distance from the primary. How important is our assumption of a massive and extended dark matter halo surrounding the Milky Way ? When we adopt a “minimal” dark halo truncated at 50 kpc (with mass $`5\times 10^{11}M_{}`$; Little & Tremaine 1987), tides are too weak and the final remnants are still rotationally flattened ($`v/\sigma >1`$). Instead, within a halo as massive and extended as implied by theories of galaxy formation (Peebles 1989) , our dIrrs models transform into dSphs even on orbits with apocenters larger than 200 kpc, explaining the origin of even the farthest dSphs as Leo I and Leo II.

Though rather speculative at this stage, it is tempting to relate HSB satellites observed during the strong bursting phase to the population of blue compact dwarfs identified by Guzmán et al. (1997) at intermediate redshift. Redshift surveys will establish if bursting dwarfs have nearby massive companions.

Extended tidal streams of stars originate from our simulated dwarfs (Fig. 2) with a maximum surface brightness of just 30 mag arcsec-2 (B band). Spectroscopic evidence for stellar streams from the dSph Carina has been recently claimed (Majewski et al. 2000). Future astrometric missions, like SIM and GAIA (Gilmore et al. 1998; Helmi et should reveal such faint features and will also carry out high-quality measurements of proper motions for many satellites of the Milky Way, thus providing a test for the orbital configurations used in this model.

Our model successfully explains the origin of dSphs once all observational constraints are taken into account: they evolved from dIrrs that entered the halo of the Milky Way or M31 several Gyr ago moving on plunging orbits and suffered stirring by the tidal field of the large spirals.

The authors thank G.Bothun for stimulating discussions. Simulations were carried out at the CINECA (Bologna) and ARSC (Fairbanks) supercomputing centers.


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# The XMM-Newton Optical/UV Monitor Telescope

## 1 Introduction

The Optical/UV Monitor Telescope (XMM-OM) is a standalone instrument that is mounted on the mirror support platform of XMM-Newton (Jansen et al. 2001) alongside the X-ray mirror modules. It provides coverage between 170 nm and 650 nm of the central 17 arc minute square region of the X-ray field of view (FOV), permitting routine multiwavelength observations of XMM targets simultaneously in the X-ray and ultraviolet/optical bands. Because of the low sky background in space, XMM-OM is able to achieve impressive imaging sensitivity compared to a similar instrument on the ground, and can detect a $`B=23.5`$ magnitude A-type star in a 1000 s integration in “white” light (6 sigma). It is equipped with a set of broadband filters for colour discrimination. The instrument also has grisms for low-resolution spectroscopy, and an image expander (Magnifier) for improved spatial resolution of sources. Fast timing data can be obtained on sources of interest simultaneously with image data over a larger field.

In the following sections we give an overview of the instrument followed by an account of its operation in orbit and the instrument characteristics.

## 2 Instrument overview

The XMM-OM consists of a Telescope Module and a separate Digital Electronics Module, of which there are two identical units for redundancy (see Fig. 1). The Telescope Module contains the telescope optics and detectors, the detector processing electronics and power supply. There are two distinct detector chains, again for redundancy. The Digital Electronics Module houses the Instrument Control Unit, which handles communications with the spacecraft and commanding of the instrument, and the Data Processing Unit, which pre-processes the data from the instrument before it is telemetered to the ground.

### 2.1 Optics

The XMM-OM uses a Ritchey Chrétien telescope design modified by field flattening optics built into the detector window. The f/2 primary mirror has a 0.3 m diameter and feeds a hyperboloid secondary which modifies the f-ratio to 12.7. A $`45`$ flat mirror located behind the primary can be rotated to address one of the two redundant detector chains. In each chain there is a filter wheel and detector system. The filter wheel has 11 apertures, one of which is blanked off to serve as a shutter, preventing light from reaching the detector. Another seven filter locations house lenticular filters, six of which constitute a set of broad band filters for colour discrimination in the UV and optical between 180 nm and 580 nm (see Table 2 for a list of filters and their wavelength bands). The seventh is a “white light” filter which transmits light over the full range of the detector to give maximum sensitivity to point sources. The remaining filter positions contain two grisms, one optimised for the UV and the other for the optical range, and a $`\times `$4 field expander (or Magnifier) to provide high spatial resolution in a 380–650 nm band of the central portion of the (FOV).

### 2.2 Detector

The detector is a microchannelplate-intensified CCD (Fordham et al. 1992). Incoming photons are converted into photoelectrons in an S20 photocathode deposited on the inside of the detector window. The photoelectrons are proximity focussed onto a microchannelplate stack, which amplifies the signal by a factor of a million, before the resulting electrons are converted back into photons by a P46 phosphor screen. Light from the phosphor screen is passed through a fibre taper which compensates for the difference in physical size between the microchannelplate stack and the fast-scan CCD used to detect the photons. The resulting photon splash on the CCD covers several neighbouring CCD pixels (with a FWHM of approximately 1.1 CCD pixels, if fitted with a Gaussian). The splash is centroided, using a 3$`\times `$3 CCD pixel subarray to yield the position of the incoming photon to a fraction of a CCD pixel (Kawakami et al. 1994). An active area of 256$`\times `$256 CCD pixels is used, and incoming photon events are centroided to 1/8th of a CCD pixel to yield 2048$`\times `$2048 pixels on the sky, each 0.4765 arc seconds square. In this paper, to avoid confusion, while CCD pixels (256$`\times `$256 in FOV) will be referred to explicitly, a pixel refers to a centroided pixel (2048$`\times `$2048 in FOV). As described later, images are normally taken with pixels binned 2$`\times `$2 or at full sampling.

The CCD is read out rapidly (every 11 ms if the full CCD format is being used) to maximise the coincidence threshold (see sect. 5.2).

### 2.3 Telescope mechanical configuration

The XMM-OM telescope module consists of a stray light baffle and a primary and secondary mirror assembly, followed by the detector module, detector processing electronics and telescope module power supply unit. The separation of the primary and secondary mirrors is critical to achieving the image quality of the telescope. The separation is maintained to a level of 2 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ by invar support rods that connect the secondary spider to the primary mirror mount. Heat generated by the detector electronics is transferred to the baffle by heat pipes spaced azimuthally around the telescope, and radiated into space. In this way the telescope module is maintained in an isothermal condition, at a similar temperature to the mirror support platform. This minimizes changes in the primary/secondary mirror separation due to thermal stresses in the invar rods. Fine focussing of the telescope is achieved through two sets of commandable heaters. One set of heaters is mounted on the invar support rods. When these heaters are activated, they cause the rods to expand, separating the primary and secondary mirrors. A second set of heaters on the secondary mirror support brings the secondary mirror closer to the primary when activated. The total range of fine focus adjustment available is $`\pm 10\mu `$m.

The filter wheel is powered by stepper motor, which drives the wheel in one direction only. The filters are arranged taking into account the need to distribute the more massive elements (grisms, Magnifier) uniformly across the wheel.

### 2.4 Digital Electronics Module

There are two identical Digital Electronics Modules (DEM) serving respectively the two redundant detector chains. These units are mounted on the mirror support platform, separate from the telescope module. Each DEM contains an Instrument Control Unit (ICU) and a Digital Processing Unit (DPU). The ICU commands the XMM-OM and handles communications between the XMM-OM and the spacecraft.

The DPU is an image processing computer that digests the raw data from the instrument and applies a non-destructive compression algorithm before the data are telemetered to the ground via the ICU. The DPU supports two main science data collection modes, which can be used simultaneously. In Fast Mode, data from a small region of the detector are assembled into time bins. In Image Mode, data from a large region are extracted to create an image. These modes are described in more detail in the next sect. The DPU autonomously selects up to 10 guide stars from the full XMM-OM image and monitors their position in detector coordinates at intervals that are typically set in the range 10–20 seconds, referred to as a tracking frame. These data provide a record of the drift of the spacecraft during the observation accurate to $`0.1`$ arc second. The drift data are used within the DPU to correct Image Mode data for spacecraft drift (see sect. 5.5).

## 3 Observing with XMM-OM

### 3.1 Specifying windows

The full FOV of XMM-OM is a square 17$`\times `$17 arc minutes, covering the central portion of the X-ray FOV. Within this field the observer can define a number of data collection windows around targets or fields of interest. Up to five different Science Windows can be defined with the restriction that their boundaries may not overlap. However, one window can be completely contained within another.

Because of constraints on the telemetry rate available, it is not possible to transmit the full data on every photon that XMM-OM detects. Instead a choice has to be made between image coverage and time resolution. Thus two types of Science Window can be defined, referred to as Image Mode and Fast Mode. A maximum of two of the five available science windows can be Fast Mode.

Image Mode emphasizes spatial coverage at the expense of timing information. Images can be taken at the full sampling of the instrument or binned by a factor of 2 or 4, to yield a resolution element on the sky of approximately 0.5, 1.0 or 2.0 arc seconds (a factor of four finer for the Magnifier). The maximum total size of the Science Windows is determined by the memory available in the DPU. A single Image Mode window binned by a factor of 2$`\times `$2 can be up to 976$`\times `$960 detector pixels, which results in a 488$`\times `$480 binned pixel image being stored in the DPU. At full sampling (with no binning) the window can be up to 652$`\times `$652 pixels. Any drift in the pointing direction of the spacecraft is corrected in the image by tracking guide stars (section 5.5).

Fast Mode emphasizes timing information at the expense of spatial coverage. The maximum total number of pixels that can be specified for a Fast Mode window is 512. Thus the maximum size of an approximately square window would be 22$`\times `$23 pixels ( = 506 total). Note that there is no binning within a Fast Mode window. The pixel locations of individual photons within the window are recorded and assigned a time tag, which has a user-specified integration time of between 100 ms and the tracking frame duration (10–20 s). No tracking correction is applied to Fast Mode data. This can be applied on the ground, from the drift history supplied by XMM-OM.

To simplify observation set-up, two standard observing sequences of five exposures have been created that together cover the whole XMM-OM FOV at one arc second sampling while at the same time monitoring a central target at full spatial sampling (0.5 arcsec). In the first variant, each of the five exposures contains an unbinned Image Mode window centred on the prime instrument’s boresight (the position of the main target), and a second Image Mode window, binned by 2$`\times `$2 pixels, that is defined in each of the set of five exposures so as to form a mosaic of the entire field (see Fig. 2). The second variant is exactly the same as the first except that a Fast Mode window is added around the prime instrument’s boresight position.

The length of an XMM-OM Image Mode only exposure can be set in the range 800–5000 s. However it should be noted that there is an approximately 300 second overhead associated with each individual exposure. The maximum length of an exposure that contains a single Fast Mode window is 4400 s, or 2200 s if there are two Fast Mode windows.

At the time of writing a further mode is being commissioned which allows the full field to be imaged at 1 arcsec sampling in one go, at the expense of tracking information and correction. This is made possible by the impressive stability of the XMM-Newton spacecraft compared to pre-launch expectation.

Window coordinates can be specified either in detector pixels, or in sky coordinates. To facilitate the latter, the XMM-OM performs a short V-band observation at the start of each pointing. The DPU compares the image with the positions of uploaded field stars to calibrate the absolute pointing of the OM.

### 3.2 Filter selection

The XMM-OM filter wheel rotates in one direction only and, to conserve the total number of wheel rotations over the expected lifetime of XMM-Newton, the number of filter wheel rotations per pointing is limited to one (unless there are very strong scientific arguments for more). Thus filter observations have to be executed in a particular order during a given target pointing. The filter elements are listed in the order they occur in the filter wheel in Table 2. The instrument is slewed with the blocked filter in place, and thereafter a field acquisition exposure is performed in V.

The same telescope focus setting is used for all the filters except for the Magnifier (see sect. 5.6.1), where the optimum focus is different (the image quality is the most sensitive to focus position when using the Magnifier).

The XMM-OM instrument is optimised for the detection of faint sources. If the source count-rate is too high the response of the detector is non-linear. This “coincidence loss” occurs when the probability of more than one photon splash being detected on a given CCD pixel within the same CCD readout frame becomes significant. Coincidence loss is discussed in more detail in sect. 5.2. If a source is predicted to exceed the coincidence threshold for a given filter, then a different filter with lower throughput can be selected. Alternatively a grism can be selected which disperses the available light over many pixels.

The XMM-OM detectors can also be permanently damaged by exposure to a source that is too bright, reducing both the quantum efficiency of the photocathode and the gain of the channelplates. This is a cumulative effect dependent on the total number of photons seen over the lifetime of the instrument at a particular location on the detector. The deterioration is therefore more severe for longer observations of a bright source. For this reason limits are imposed on the maximum brightness of stars in the FOV (see Table 1) and apply to any star in the FOV irrespective of whether it is within a science window or not. Even more stringent limits are applied to the central region of the detector that will usually contain the target of interest. In the event that there is a star in (or near to) the FOV that violates the brightness constraints, a different filter, which has lower photon throughput, can be selected. Also, if the bandpass is appropriate, the Magnifier can be used to exclude bright stars further than a few arc minutes from the field centre.

The grisms (one optimised for the UV, the other for the optical) form a dispersed first order image on the detector, together with a zeroth order image that is displaced in the dispersion direction. The counts in the zeroth order image of field stars determines the brightness limits used for observing with the grisms.

## 4 OM performance

The first light observation for XMM-OM took place on 2000 January 11. Since then the various engineering and science data taking modes of the instrument have been commissioned including full-field image engineering mode (not generally available for science observations because of the very large telemetry overhead required to transmit the data to the ground), and the Image and Fast science modes. The telescope focus has been optimised using the heater-based fine focus control, and the gain of the image intensifier has been optimised. The performance of the DPU in tracking image motion due to spacecraft drift has also been verified and distortion maps derived to relate XMM-OM detector coordinates to the sky. Photometric calibrations have been derived for all filter elements, but work continues on colour equations and to tie these more accurately into standard systems. Similarly, preliminary throughput and wavelength calibrations have been derived for the Grisms.

To illustrate the capabilities of XMM-OM, we show in Figure 3 images of part of the Lockman Hole field in the White Light filter, and in five of the six colour filters (the remaining filter, UVM2, was not used during this observation). The images contains an $`R=18.1`$ magnitude AGN identified in the ROSAT observation of the field, and referred to as R32 by Schmidt et al. (1998). The AGN is clearly UV bright. The XMM-OM detects approximately 12 count s-1 from the AGN in White Light, while the count rate in the colour filters ranges from a high of 2.9 count s-1 in U, down to about 0.25 count s-1 in the UV filter UVW2.

To illustrate the spectral capability of XMM-OM, we show in Figure 4 the extracted spectrum of the DA white dwarf standard BPM16274. The Balmer absorption lines can be clearly discerned.

## 5 Analysis issues

### 5.1 Throughput

An initial estimate of the zero points of the various XMM-OM broadband filters (i.e. the magnitude which yields 1 count per second; Table 2.) was derived from calibration observations of two white dwarfs.

* The OM response throughput was determined based on measurements of the spectrophotometric standards BPM16274 and LBB227.
* Using the OM throughput model an OM exposure of Vega was simulated.
* The zeropoints in U-, B-, V-filter were fixed in a way that the brightness of Vega matches the literature values.
* In the UV-filters the brightness of Vega was set to 0.025 mag; the average U magnitude of Vega in the literature being the most appropriate for the UV filters, and to 0.03 mag (the average Vega V magnitude) for the broadband Magnifier and the White Light filters.

The calculated OM zeropoints are written into the relevant XMM-CCF file, to be used by the XMM Science Analysis System (SAS) (Watson et al. 2001). Updates of the zeropoint definitions as well as more precise colour transformations (Royer et al. 2000) to the standard UBV system are expected once the results of a dedicated ground based photometric observation programme become available. In the framework of this programme several OM calibration fields are anchored to high quality secondary photometric standards deep fields established by ESO. Early results of this ground observations are expected in October 2000.

From analysis of the Lockman Hole field, avoiding the central 1 arc minute of the FOV where the background is enhanced (section 5.6.4) the limiting magnitude after 1000 s is calculated to be 21.0 in V, 22.0 in B and 21.5 in U (6 sigma). The limiting magnitude for the White Light filter is very dependant on the spectral type of the star, because the bandpass is so broad. However, for an A0 star we estimate that the 6 sigma limiting magnitude above background is $``$23.5.

### 5.2 Coincidence loss and deadtime

Coincidence loss is observed whenever the count rate is such that more than one photon arrives in the same place within a given readout frame. Losses become significant for a point source at a count rate of about $`10`$ count s-1 (for 10% coincidence) when the full CCD chip is being readout (i.e. about 2.5 magnitudes brighter than the zero points listed in Table 2). A factor of approximately two improvement can be achieved by restricting the area of the CCD used, since this reduces the time required to readout the chip.

The coincidence loss can be approximated by

$$ph_{\mathrm{in}}=\frac{\mathrm{log}(1cts_{\mathrm{detected}}T)}{T_{\mathrm{ft}}T}$$
(1)
where
$`ph_{\mathrm{in}}`$ infalling photon rate per second  $`cts_{\mathrm{detected}}`$ measured count rate per second  $`T`$ CCD frametime in units of seconds  $`T_{\mathrm{ft}}`$ frametransfer time in units of seconds

Equation 1 applies strictly in the case of a perfectly point-like source. In practice a real stellar profile has wings, and the formula will break down at very high rates when coincidence among photons in the wings of the profile becomes significant.

The CCD deadtime depends on the size and shape of the science window used but can be calculated accurately. The deadtime correction should be applied by the SAS after any coincidence loss corrections.

### 5.3 Flat fields

An LED can be used to illuminate the detector by backscatter of the photons from the blocked filter. These images are not completely flat due to the illumination pattern of the LED, the gross shape of which could be removed by comparing with sky flats. However, using the LED allows a large number of events to be collected in every pixel to give sufficiently high statistics for pixel to pixel sensitivity to be measured and the relative measurement of any variation of the detector response on a fine scale. The LED brightness is adjustable and is currently operated at a level that produces $`3.25\times 10^3`$ count s-1 per binned (2$`\times `$2) pixel. So far, flat fields have been obtained to the level of 400 counts per binned (2$`\times `$2) pixel allowing an accuracy of 5% in the sensitivity measurement. A CCF file in the SAS currently represents the accuracy of flat fields obtained before mid June, which is at the 10% level. Once sufficient flat fields have been obtained for a 2–3% sensitivity the relevant CCF file will be updated.

### 5.4 Background

The background count rate in the OM is dominated by the zodiacal light in the optical. In the far UV the intrinsic detector background becomes important. Images are regularly taken with the blocked filter and no LED illumination to measure the detector dark counts.

The mean OM dark count rate is $`2.56\times 10^4`$ count s-1 per pixel. The variation in dark count rate across the detector is $`\pm 9\%`$ and shows mainly a radial dependence, being highest in an annulus at about 8 arcmin radius and lowest in the centre. When the spacecraft is pointing at a very bright star, the dark rate is noticeably increased (e.g. up to 65% higher for the $`V=0`$ star Capella) despite the blocked filter. Excluding those dark frames taken during Capella ($`V=0`$) and Zeta Puppis ($`V=2`$) observations, the counts per dark frame vary by only $`\pm 7\%`$ and show no trend of change with time.

### 5.5 Tracking performance

The positions of selected guide stars in the XMM-OM FOV are measured each 10–20 second tracking frame, and an X-Y offset applied to image mode data obtained during the tracking frame before they are added to the master image in the DPU memory. The tracking offsets are computed in pixels irrespective of the binning parameter chosen. Using this “Shift and Add” technique, the final image is corrected on timescales greater than a few tens of seconds and on spatial scales down to $`0.5`$ pixels, for drift in the pointing direction of the spacecraft.

The performance of tracking can be verified by comparing the PSFs of stars taken during Fast Mode (at high time resolution and with no tracking) with those data taken using Image Mode when tracking is enabled. This analysis has shown that XMM-OM tracking is performing as expected.

Analysis of OM tracking histories show that the spacecraft drift is less than 0.5 pixels for approximately 75% of all frames taken, and therefore require no shift and add correction (a shift of one pixel will be made if the guide stars are calculated to have drifted more than $`\pm 0.5`$ pixels from their reference positions). Of the remaining, the corrections due to drift are rarely more than 2 pixels in any one direction.

Tracking is turned off automatically when no suitable guide stars are found, which is usually due to poor statistics. This can occur in observations of very sparse fields (rare) or when using the UVM2 and UVW2 filters, where throughput is lower than in the optical bands. However, given the pointing stability of XMM-Newton and the intrinsically poorer resolution of the detector in the UV (section 5.6), this does not normally lead to any significant degradation in the PSF for non-magnified data.

### 5.6 Image quality

#### 5.6.1 Point Spread Function

After launch the measured PSFs in the V-filter had FWHM widths broader than expected from preflight measurements. The focus was therefore adjusted using the control heaters as discussed in section 2.3. Fig. 5 shows the gradual change in the PSF with the heater setting. As can be seen from the figure, the optimum setting for the Magnifier is clearly at $`100`$% i.e. at the minimum separation of the primary and secondary mirrors, whereas for the V-filter it is above 70%. A value of 100% (maximum separation of mirrors) was chosen for subsequent measurements in all filters, except for the Magnifier where $`100`$% is selected. To allow for the thermal settling time involved in a change of focus, twenty minutes of additional overhead time is inserted before and after a sequence of Magnifier exposures.

The PSFs contain a contribution from the telescope optics and from the detector. They can be assumed to be radially symmetric in shape, with an approximately gaussian central peak and extended wings. The width of the PSF increases with photon energy because of the detector component, from 3.1 pixels (1.5 arcsecs) FWHM in the V band to $`6`$ pixels (3 arcsecs) pixels in the UV filters (see Fig. 6).

#### 5.6.2 Distortion

The XMM-OM optics, filters and (primarily) the detector system result in a certain amount of image distortion. It is mainly in the form of barrel distortion, and if not corrected can result in shifts from the expected position of up to 20 arcsecs. By comparing the expected position with the measured position for a large number of stars in the FOV a distortion map has been derived. The preliminary V-filter analysis was performed on the LMC pointing and is based on 230 sources. A 3rd order polynomial was fitted to the deviations assuming that there is no error at the centre of the FOV (i.e. at address (1024.5,1024.5)). This polynomial can be used to correct source positions measured in other fields, and currently gives a positional RMS accuracy of 1.0 arcsec (1.9 pixels) in the V-filter (see Fig. 7; astrometry relative to stars of known position over restricted regions of the field can of course be more accurate than this). Using higher orders of the polynomial does not increase the accuracy and is detrimental particularly for sources at the edges of the FOV. Using functions other than polynomials has not yet been investigated, but may lead to an improvement to the correction for sources near the edges of the FOV. Distortion maps using the 3C273 field have been derived for the other filters, but are not yet to such high accuracy. Further work will either use fields with more sources in the FOV or combine data from several observations. The preliminary distortion maps have been entered into the appropriate CCF files and can be used in conjunction with the SAS. They are also used on board to automatically position windows on the detector that are specified in sky coordinates. This is important for small windows such as those used in Fast Mode.

#### 5.6.3 Modulo-8 pattern

As discussed earlier, the XMM-OM detector functions by centroiding a photon splash to within a fraction (1/8th) of a physical CCD pixel. This calculation is performed in real-time by the detector electronics, and therefore has to be fast. It is done by means of a lookup table whose parameters are computed onboard once per revolution, based on a short image taken with the internal flood LED lamp, and periodically updated. The lookup table parameters are the mean values derived from a selected part of the active area of the detector (usually the central region). They do not take into account small variations in the shape of the photon splash over the detector face and as such are an approximation to the optimum value at a given location on the detector.

The result of imperfections in the lookup table is that the size of the pixels is not equal on the sky. When displayed with a normal image display routine, therefore, uncorrected XMM-OM images can exhibit a faint modulation in the apparent background level repeating every eight pixels, corresponding to every physical CCD pixel (see Fig. 8). SAS tasks that, for example, search for sources in XMM-OM images take the variation in pixel size into account and compute the local 8$`\times `$8 pattern post facto based on the measured image. Similarly the raw image can be resampled for display purposes. The SAS routine does not lose or gain counts, but resamples them according to the true pixel sizes.

The detector centroiding process also breaks down if more than one photon splash overlaps on a given CCD frame. Thus an 8$`\times `$8 pattern is often seen around bright stars (see Fig. 8a), or when two bright stars occur close together on an image.

#### 5.6.4 Scattered light

Artifacts can appear in XMM-OM images due to light being scattered within the detector. These have two causes: internal reflection of light within the detector window and reflection of off-axis starlight and background light from part of the detector housing.

The first of these causes a faint, out of focus ghost image of a bright star displaced in the radial direction away from the primary image due the curvature of the detector window (Fig. 8a).

The second effect is due to light reflecting off a chamfer in the detector window housing. Bright stars that happen to fall in a narrow annulus 12.1 to 13 arc minutes off axis shine on the reflective ring and form extended loops of emission radiating from the centre of the detector (Fig. 8b). Similarly there is an enhanced “ring” of emission near the centre of the detector due to diffuse background light falling on the ring (Fig. 8b).

The reflectivity of the ring, and of the detector window, reduces with increasing photon energy. Therefore these features are less prominent when using the UV filters.

## 6 Conclusion

The first stage of commissioning and calibrating XMM-OM has been completed. The instrument is fulfilling its role of extending the spectral coverage of XMM-Newton into the ultraviolet and optical band, allowing routine observations of targets simultaneously with EPIC and RGS. Specifically, the instrument has successfully been demonstrated to provide wide field simultaneous imaging with the X-ray camera, simultaneous timing studies, and boresight information to arcsecond accuracy. A number of results illustrating the scientific potential of XMM-OM are contained within this volume.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank all the people who have contributed to the instrument; in its building, testing and operation in orbit, as well as those who have analysed the calibration data. The author list only contains a small fraction of those people involved. XMM-OM was built by a consortium led by the Principal Investigator, Prof. K.O.Mason, and comprising, in the UK, the Mullard Space Science Laboratory and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London; in the USA, University of California Santa Barbara, Los Alamos National Laboratory, & Sandia National Laboratory; and in Belgium, the Centre Spatial Liege & the University of Liege. JMV acknowledges support from the SSTC-Belgium under contract P4/05 and by the PRODEX XMM-OM Project. The U.S. investigators acknowledge support from NASA contract NAS5-97119. The UK contribution was supported by the PPARC. Based on observations obtained with XMM-Newton, an ESA science mission with instruments and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA (NASA)


text:
# Molecular hydrogen and the nature of damped Lyman-𝛼 systems Based on observations collected during ESO programmes 65.P-0038 and ESO 65.O-0063 at the European Southern Observatory with UVES on the 8.2m KUEYEN telescope operated on Cerro Paranal, Chile

## 1 Introduction

Damped Lyman-$`\alpha `$ systems observed in QSO spectra are characterized by large neutral hydrogen column densities. The systems at high redshift have been claimed to arise through large disks, progenitors of present-day galaxies (e.g. Wolfe 1995), but this is a matter of debate. Earlier searches for associated H2 molecules, though not systematic, have led to small values or upper limits on the molecular fraction (Black et al. 1987; Chaffee et al. 1988; Levshakov et al. 1992). This is intriguing as, in the disk of our Galaxy, all clouds with $`\mathrm{log}N`$(Hi) $`>21`$ have $`\mathrm{log}N`$(H2) $`>19`$ (e.g. Jenkins & Shaya 1979).

More recently, Ge & Bechtold (1999), have searched eight DLA systems for molecular hydrogen using the MMT moderate resolution spectrograph ($`FWHM`$ = 1 Å). They detect molecular hydrogen in two of them with surprisingly large molecular fractions ($`f`$ = 0.22 at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}=1.97`$ toward Q 0013$``$004, see also Ge & Bechtold 1997, Ge et al. 1997; and $`f`$ = 0.07 at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}=2.34`$ toward Q 1232$`+`$082). For other systems, they find upper limits on $`f`$ ranging between $`10^6`$ and 10-4. Reliable measurement of H2 column densities is achieved only from high spectral resolution data however. For the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}=2.8112`$ DLA system toward PKS 0528$``$250, Srianand & Petitjean (1998) have estimated, from high-resolution data, $`N`$(H2) $`6\times 10^{16}`$ cm-2 and $`f=5.4\times 10^5`$, which is a factor of fifteen smaller than what had been claimed from low-resolution data (Foltz et al. 1988; see however Levshakov & Varshalovitch 1985).

Formation of H2 is expected on the surface of dust grains if the gas is cool, dense and mostly neutral, and from the formation of negative hydrogen if the gas is warm and dust free (see e.g. Jenkins & Peimbert 1997). Destruction is mainly due to UV photons. The effective photo-dissociation of H2 takes place in the energy range $`11.113.6`$ eV through Lyman-Werner band line absorption. Constraints on the kinetic and rotational excitation temperatures, the particle density and the radiation field can be derived from H2 absorption. A direct determination of the local radiation field could have important implications for our understanding of the link between DLA systems and star formation activity at high redshift. We present here a high-resolution mini-survey of DLA systems focussed on the search for H2 molecules. Section 2 describes the data, Section 3 details the sample, while results are given and discussed in Sections 4 and 5.

## 2 Observations

The Ultra-violet and Visible Echelle Spectrograph (D’Odorico et al. 2000) mounted on the ESO Kueyen 8.2 m telescope at the Paranal observatory has been used on April 5 to 8 and 29, 2000 to obtain high-spectral resolution spectra of eight previously known DLA systems at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ $`>`$ 1.8. Settings have been adjusted in both arms to cover the H2 Werner and Lyman series absorption range together with several important metal absorption lines. The slit width was 1 arcsec (the seeing $`FWHM`$ was most of the time better than 0.8 arcsec) and the CCDs were binned 2$`\times `$2 resulting in a resolution of $``$45000. The exposure time $``$2 hours was split into two exposures. The data was reduced using the UVES pipeline, a set of procedures implemented in a dedicated context of MIDAS, the ESO data reduction package. The main characteristics of the pipeline is to perform a precise inter-order background subtraction for science frames and master flat-fields, and an optimal extraction of the object signal rejecting cosmic ray impacts and subtracting the sky at the same time. Wavelengths were corrected to vacuum-heliocentric values and individual 1D spectra were combined together. The resulting S/N ratio per pixel is of the order of 10 at $``$3500 Å and 20 at $``$6000 Å.

## 3 Comments on individual objects and sample

Results are summarized in Table 1. In addition to the eight DLA systems observed during our mini-survey, we have used ESO public data on two QSOs: Q 0000$``$263 and Q 1101$``$264 have been observed during, respectively, UVES commissioning and science verification. We have included in our sample the system at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 1.839 toward Q 1101$``$264 although it does not qualify as a DLA system following the conventional definition, log $`N`$(H i$`>`$ 20.3. Indeed, the former definition has no physical grounds. For log $`N`$(H i$`>`$ 19.5, damped wings are conspicuous and although care should be exercized when discussing ionization corrections, in most cases, these corrections are small (e.g. Petitjean et al. 1992; Viegas 1995). We use the standard definition \[X/H\] = log $`Z`$(X) $``$ log $`Z`$(X) where $`Z`$ is the metallicity of species X relative to hydrogen. Solar metallicities are from Savage & Sembach (1996).

### 3.1 H2 at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.3377 towards PKS 1232+082

Our data confirms the presence of H2 absorption at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.3377 toward PKS 1232+082 (Fig. 1), previously detected by Ge & Bechtold (1999). We summarize and complement here the results presented elsewhere (Srianand et al. 2000). The metallicity in the corresponding log $`N`$(H i) = 20.9$`\pm `$0.1 DLA system, estimated from lines of Mg ii, S ii and Si ii is 6.3$`\pm `$0.7$`\times `$10-2 solar. Iron is depleted by a factor of $``$5 compared to this; the depletion factor is therefore reduced compared to previous measurements. The molecular fraction $`f`$ = 4$`\times `$10-4 is two orders of magnitude smaller than what has been claimed previously from low-resolution data.

Absorption profiles corresponding to transitions from $`J`$ $`>`$ 1 rotational levels are consistent with a single component at the same redshift as C i absorption. Lines from the $`J=0`$ and 1 levels are broader and are well fitted with four components at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.3372, 2.3374, 2.3377 and 2.3378. The respective excitation temperatures between the levels $`J`$ = 0 and $`J`$ = 1 are $`67_{+12}^{10}`$, 78$`{}_{+13}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{15}`$, 170$`{}_{}{}^{40}{}_{+130}{}^{}`$ and 67$`{}_{+4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}`$ K.

The physical conditions within the cloud at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.3377 can be constrained directly from the observation of H2, C i, C i, C i∗∗ and C ii. The kinetic temperature is defined by the $`J`$ = 0$``$1 H2 excitation temperature, 100 $`<`$ $`T`$ $`<`$ 300 K; the particle density is then constrained using the $`N`$(C ii)/$`N`$(C ii) column density ratio, 30 $`<`$ $`n_\mathrm{H}`$ $`<`$ 50 cm-3; and UV pumping is estimated, from the $`J`$ = 4 and 5 H2 populations, to be of the same order as in our Galaxy (see Srianand et al. 2000 and Srianand & Petitjean 1998 for the derivation of these numbers).

This shows that molecules are present even in gas with low metallicity and low depletion into dust grains. This is a consequence of moderately high local UV flux and low ($`T`$ $`<`$ 300 K) temperature.

### 3.2 Other systems

Two systems are at redshift close to the emission redshift of the quasar. They are real DLA systems (see Wolfe & Briggs 1981, Briggs et al. 1984 for Q 1157+014 and Leibundgut & Robertson 1999 for Q 2059$``$360). Note that when peculiar velocity is taken into account, the systems with $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ $``$ $`z_{\mathrm{em}}`$ can be located far away from the quasar. Moreover, out of the three systems where H2 is detected so far, one, toward Q 0528$``$250, has a redshift larger than the QSO emission redshift. It is included in our sample because the measurement has been obtained from high spectral resolution data (Srianand & Petitjean 1998).

We have searched the spectra for lines from the $`J`$ = 0 and $`J`$ = 1 rotational levels. We detect absorption from the $`J`$ = 1 level in none of the systems. We thus consider as an upper limit on the total H2 column density the sum of the (tentative) detection or upper limit for the $`J`$ = 0 level and the upper limit on the $`J`$ = 1 level. Although, for typical physical conditions prevailing in such gas, the first two levels are the most populated, in principle, the higher $`J`$ levels can be populated as well. This implies an uncertainty on the upper limits of about a factor of two.

Recently, Levshakov et al. (2000) have claimed the presence of H2 molecules in the $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 3.3901 DLA system toward Q 0000$``$263 from the detection of a weak feature they identified as H2 L(4-0)R(1). No other line is detected however and the probability that the feature be associated with another metal or Lyman-$`\alpha `$ line is high. We have therefore considered the measurement as an upper limit, $`N`$(H2$`<`$ 1014.2 cm-2 for T01 = 50 K.

We detect weak but consistent features at the redshifted positions of L(4-0)R0 and L(2-0)R0 at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.374 toward Q 0841+129. Other detectable lines are blended. We tentatively derive $`N`$(H2)(J=0) = 3.66$`\pm `$0.9$`\times `$1014 cm-2.

Due to incomplete wavelength coverage, we do not observe the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ line at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 3.171 toward Q 1451+123. Lyman-$`\alpha `$ damping wings are clearly seen in the intermediate resolution spectrum of Bechtold (1994). We use their equivalent width and derive log $`N`$(H i$``$ 19.7 which is consistent with other lines of the Lyman series present in our spectrum.

## 4 Results

Ge & Bechtold (1999) tentatively claimed a correlation between H2 abundance and relative heavy element depletion into dust grains as indicated by \[Zn/Cr\] (zinc and chromium are assumed, respectively, undepleted and heavily depleted into dust grains as in our Galaxy). The claim was based on two detections done at low-resolution. One of the latter at $`z_{\mathrm{abs}}`$ = 2.337 toward Q 1232+082 was overestimated by two orders of magnitude however (see Section 3.1). It can be seen on Fig. 2 that no correlation can be claimed. Conversely, it is apparent that the H2 fraction in DLA systems is fairly small. Note also that, even when H2 is detected, the depletion factor is small, $`>`$ $``$0.7, while metallicity relative to solar ranges between $``$2.0 and $``$0.9.

To investigate this further, we have plotted on Fig. 3 the molecular fraction versus the H i column density. Over-plotted are measurements in the Magellanic clouds (Richter 2000) and measurements along lines of sight perpendicular to the disk of the Galaxy (Shull et al. 2000; none of the measurements shown on this figure are from a line of sight in the plane of our Galaxy). Part of the $`f`$ measurements in DLA systems, and in particular the two detections, are consistent with what is seen in the Magellanic gas. But most of the DLA points are well below what is observed for the Magellanic clouds. It is interesting to note that these $`f`$ values are consistent with what is seen in the nearby metal-poor dwarf galaxy I Zw 18 (Vidal-Madjar et al. 2000). However, it would be hazardous to conclude from this that DLA systems are associated with dwarf galaxies. More likely this shows that the physical conditions must be similar in the gas associated to DLA systems and to I Zw 18.

The lack of H2 molecules seems to be related only partly to the lack of dust in these systems as shown by Fig. 4 where we have calculated an artificial color excess for the DLA systems by scaling the value for the SMC with metallicity: $`E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$(damp) = EB-V(SMC)$`\times `$$`Z`$(damp)/0.1 with $`N`$(H i)/EB-V(SMC) = 4.5$`\times `$1022 (Bouchet et al. 1985) and $`Z`$(damp) the metallicity of the DLA (see Table 1). Most of the upper limits are measured along lines of sight with $`E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$(damp) $`<`$ 0.01. However, the presence or absence of H2 is not strictly related to the presence or absence of dust. Indeed, H2 is present along one line of sight (toward PKS 1232+082) with log $`E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$(damp) as low as $``$2 and, for log $`E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$(damp) $`>`$ $``$2, two out of the three systems have no detection.

## 5 Discussion

The idea that high-redshift DLA systems arise in large rotating proto-galactic disks (e.g. Wolfe 1995, Prochaska & Wolfe 1997) is a matter of debate. Indeed, simulations have shown that high-redshift progenitors of present-day disks of galaxy could look like an aggregate of well-separated dense clumps. The kinematics could be explained by relative motions of the clumps with little rotation (Haehnelt et al. 1998; Ledoux et al. 1998).

The presence of heavy elements ($`Z1/13Z_{}`$; Pettini et al. 1997) suggests that the gas associated with DLA systems is located in over-dense regions close to sites where star formation is favored. However, at high redshift, emission counterparts of DLA systems are difficult to detect, implying low star-formation rates (e.g. Kulkarni et al. 2000). Moreover, the ambient UV flux derived from the analysis of the H2 lines in PKS 1232+082 is found to be similar to that in our Galaxy.

All this suggests that the lack of H2 detection in most DLA systems is not only a consequence of high ambient UV flux. The physical conditions in the gas probably prevent the formation of H2. However, H2 formation onto dust grains is efficient even in gas with low metallicity (and therefore low dust content) providing the dust temperature and the kinetic temperature are low enough ($`T_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ $`<`$ 300 K). Therefore, in order to prevent the formation of H2, the gas temperature must be high. To illustrate this, we used CLOUDY (Ferland 1993) to compute the molecular fraction through a plane parallel slab with log $`N`$(H i) = 21, metallicity 0.03 solar, dust-to-metal ratios 0.3, 0.1 and 0.03 that in our Galaxy, illuminated by a starburst-like spectrum. The results are plotted versus the ionization parameter ($`U`$ = $`n_{\mathrm{phot}}/n_\mathrm{H}`$) in Fig. 5. It can be seen that models with log $`f`$ $`<`$ $``$6 have log $`U`$ $`>`$ $``$3.2 and $`T`$ $`>`$ 3000 K. We therefore conjecture that most of the DLA systems arise in diffuse and warm gas, typically $`T`$ $`>`$ 3000 K, consistent with measurements of H i spin temperatures (Lane et al. 1999, Chengalur & Kanekar 2000). A picture where small (a few parsec), dense ($`n_\mathrm{H}`$ $``$ 20 cm-3) and cold ($`T`$ $``$ 100 K) clumps are embedded in a pervasive, lower density ($`n`$ $`<`$ 1 cm-3) and warm ($`T`$ $`>`$ 3000 K) medium is probably adequate to describe the structure of DLA systems (see Petitjean et al. 1992, Petitjean et al. 2000).

###### Acknowledgements.

We gratefully acknowledge support from the Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (Centre Franco-Indien pour la Promotion de la Recherche Avancée) under contract No. 1710-1. PPJ thanks IUCAA for hospitality during the time this work was completed.