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# Threshold fragmentation under dipole forces

## Abstract

The threshold law for $`N`$body fragmentation under dipole forces is formulated. It emerges from the energy dependence of the normalization of the correlated continuum wave function for $`N`$ fragments. It is shown that the dipole threshold law plays a key role in understanding all threshold fragmentation phenomena since it links the classical threshold law for long-range Coulomb interactions to the statistical law for short-range interactions. Furthermore, a tunnelling mechanism is identified as the common feature which occurs for all three classes of interactions, short-range, dipole and Coulomb.

In 1949 Wigner derived a threshold law for the break-up of two quantum particles under short-range and long-range (Coulomb) forces . Using exclusively classical mechanics Wannier formulated in 1953 a threshold law for the break-up of a two-electron atom into three charged particles . Corresponding threshold laws for four charged fragments have been published in the meantime . More than 15 years after Wigner’s paper O’Malley provided the two-body threshold law for dipole interactions  through the analysis of the normalization constant of the continuum final state wavefunction in a similar way as Wigner obtained his threshold laws. Wigner’s as well as Wannier’s threshold law have been confirmed by a number of experiments . This is also true for the statistical threshold law for break-up into multiple fragments under short-range forces: Derived from simply counting the available states of free motion in the continuum at the respective energy it has been used to successfully interprete experimental results and it has been shown to be compatible with Wigner’s law for short-range forces .

Summarizing the situation one can say that three types of threshold laws, Wigner’s, Wannier’s and the statistical one, have been derived by different means for different situations. Here, we will show that a connection between these threshold laws exists: It is the threshold law for N-body break-up under dipole forces. We will derive it in the following by generalizing O’Malley’s two-body approach to an arbitrary number of particles. This allows us to formulate the threshold law for $`N`$body break-up under dipole interactions. Moreover, for short-range interactions the statistical law is directly recovered from the general dipole threshold law. Finally, we discuss a semiclassical tunnelling interpretation which provides insight into the mechanism of threshold fragmentation on the one hand side and clarifies the connection with the (semi-)classical threshold law for long-range Coulomb forces.

Our starting point is the N-particle Schrödinger equation in hyperspherical coordinates $`(r,\stackrel{}{\omega })`$, where $`r`$ represents the hyperradius $`r=(_i\stackrel{}{r}_i^2)^{1/2}`$. The $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ are mass scaled Jacobi coordinates and the set of angles $`\stackrel{}{\omega }`$ denotes the usual geometric directions of the $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ in configuration space as well as the so called hyperangles which describe the relative lengths $`r_i=|\stackrel{}{r}_i|`$, e.g., $`\mathrm{tan}\omega _1=r_1/r_2\text{[7]}`$. Writing the total wavefunction as

$$\psi (r,\stackrel{}{\omega })=r^{(D1)/2}\mathrm{\Psi }(r,\stackrel{}{\omega })$$
(1)
with $`D=3N3`$, we obtain the Schrödinger equation

$$\left(\frac{^2}{r^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2J_D}{r^2}V_{LR}V_{SR}+k^2\right)\mathrm{\Psi }(r,\stackrel{}{\omega })=0,$$
(2)
where the energy has been expressed through the wavenumber $`k=(2mE)^{1/2}/\mathrm{}`$. The Jacobian factor $`J_D=\frac{1}{4}(D1)(D3)`$ is a consequence of the transformation Eq. (1) and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2`$ is the Laplace operator on the $`D`$-dimensional unit sphere . In Eq. (2) we have split the potential into the long-range part $`V_{LR}(r,\stackrel{}{\omega })=2C(\stackrel{}{\omega })/r^2`$ and the short-range part defined by the property

$$\underset{k0}{lim}k^2V_{SR}(r/k,\stackrel{}{\omega })=0$$
(3)
for all finite $`r`$. Since we are interested in the threshold region $`k0`$ we can scale $`r=R/k`$ and divide Eq. (2) by $`k^2`$. In the limit $`k0`$ the short-range potential vanishes due to Eq. (3). Hence, the angular problem in $`\stackrel{}{\omega }`$ becomes independent of $`r`$ and the wavefunction can be written as $`\mathrm{\Psi }(R,\stackrel{}{\omega })=_ju_j(R)\mathrm{\Phi }_j(\stackrel{}{\omega })`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_j`$ is an eigenfunction of

$$(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2+2C(\stackrel{}{\omega })\lambda _j)\mathrm{\Phi }_j(\stackrel{}{\omega })=0$$
(4)
with eigenvalue $`\lambda _j`$. The remaining radial problem represents the differential equation for a Bessel function if we insert the eigenvalue $`\lambda _j`$ (for reasons of clarity we continue using unscaled coordinates):

$$\left(\frac{^2}{r^2}\frac{\nu _j^2\frac{1}{4}}{r^2}+k^2\right)u_j(r).$$
(5)
From the effective radial potential

$$V_{eff}(r)=\frac{\frac{1}{4}(D1)(D3)+\lambda _j}{r^2}\frac{\nu _j^2\frac{1}{4}}{r^2}$$
(6)
follows

$$\nu _j=[\frac{1}{4}(D2)^2+\lambda _j]^{1/2}$$
(7)
for $`\nu _j>0`$. If $`(D2)^2<4\lambda _j`$ then $`\nu _j=i\overline{\nu }_j`$ becomes imaginary. In this case the dipole potential is so attractive due to the negative value of $`\lambda _j`$ that it overcomes the repulsive $`D`$dependent part.

With Eq. (5) we have reduced the problem of finding the threshold behavior of multi-particle break-up under dipole forces to the corresponding problem for two particles solved by O’Malley . The only difference is that the strength of the dipole potential Eq. (7) depends now on the dimension of the problem, D = (3N-3), i.e. the number of particles $`N`$, and on the dynamics in the other than radial degrees of freedom through the eigenvalue $`\lambda _j`$. The solution $`u_j(r)`$ to Eq. (5) is a linear combination of Bessel functions $`J_{\pm \nu _j}(kr)`$.

The energy dependence of the threshold cross section can be extracted from the energy dependence of the normalization constant of $`u_j(r)`$. According to  it is given by

$`\sigma _j`$ $`k^{2\nu _j},`$ $`\nu _j>0`$ (9)
$`\overline{\sigma }_j`$ $`[\mathrm{sinh}^2(\overline{\nu }_j\pi /2)+\mathrm{cos}^2(\overline{\nu }_j\mathrm{ln}k+\delta _j)]^1,`$ $`\nu _j=i\overline{\nu }_j`$ (10)
From Eq. (Threshold fragmentation under dipole forces) it is clear that the threshold cross section is dominated by the ‘partial wave’ with the lowest eigenvalue $`\lambda _0`$ if $`\nu _00`$. In the case of a net attractive dipole-potential $`\nu _j=i\overline{\nu }_j`$ the threshold cross section will be a superposition $`\sigma a_j\overline{\sigma }_j`$ where the $`a_j`$ as well as the $`\delta _j`$ in Eq. (10) are determined by the short-range part of the potential and all partial waves contribute for which the eigenvalue $`\lambda _j`$ is sufficiently negative to yield an imaginary $`\nu _j`$. For strong enough attractive dipole forces, the threshold cross section will approach a constant value. However, the latter case will be the exception for many-particle systems since the repulsive centrifugal barrier $`(D2)^2N^2`$ grows much faster with the number $`N`$ of particles than the eigenvalue $`\lambda _0N`$.

The dipole threshold law Eq. (9) contains also the behavior for short-range forces, $`C(\stackrel{}{\omega })=0`$. Then $`\nu _0=\frac{1}{2}(D2)`$ and therefore with $`D=3N3`$

$$\sigma _sk^{3N5}.$$
(11)
This is exactly the statistical threshold law, derived under the assumption that the fragmented particles are completely free and that they occupy a phase space volume $`𝒮_E`$ only restricted by total energy conservation,

$$𝒮_E=K^{3N4}\delta (EK^2/2)𝑑K_\stackrel{}{\omega }𝑑\stackrel{}{\omega }k^{3N5}.$$
(12)
Here, we have used again hyperspherical coordinates, this time in momentum space where the hypermomentum is given by $`K=(_i\stackrel{}{k}_i^2)^{1/2}`$ and the set of angles $`\stackrel{}{\omega }`$ refers to the Jacobi momenta $`\stackrel{}{k}_i`$ in the same way as for the coordinates, described above. The statistical threshold law states that the cross section close to threshold varies according to the available final states in the continuum given by their phase space volume $`\sigma _s𝒮_E`$ with the same energy dependence as Eq. (11). Of course, Wigner’s law $`\sigma \sqrt{E}`$ for $`N=2`$ is reproduced by Eq. (11).

It seems that the other extreme of interaction, namely charged fragments which exert mutual forces through the Coulomb potential $`V_{LR}=2C(r,\stackrel{}{\omega })/r`$ even at very large distances, is also compatible with the dipole law of Eq. (9) since Wannier’s threshold law for this case is again a power law $`\sigma k^\beta `$. The exponent for two escaping electrons and the remaining (charged) core of the atom, e.g., may be expressed in the form

$$\beta =\frac{1}{4}\left(\left(1+\frac{8}{C_{}}\frac{d^2C}{d\omega ^2}\right)^{1/2}1\right),$$
(13)
where $`\mathrm{tan}\omega =r_1/r_2`$, the ratio between the two electron-nucleus distances, $`\omega _{}=\pi /4`$ and $`C_{}=C(\omega _{})`$. However, this similarity is misleading for two reasons. Firstly, Wannier’s law is purely classical. It contains the stability properties of a single classical orbit (with $`\stackrel{}{r}_1=\stackrel{}{r}_2`$, denoted as ’\*’ in Eq. (13)). Secondly, the radial Coulomb potential for this orbit is attractive. However, the power law Eq. (9) belongs to an effectively repulsive dipole potential.

On the other hand, the threshold behavior of fragmentation under repulsive Coulomb forces is an exponential law rather than a power law, e.g. for electron detachment of negative ions by electron impact . There, as a result of the (semi)-classical tunnelling process under the repulsive barrier, the dominant energy variation near threshold is given by a Gamow factor

$$\sigma \mathrm{exp}[2\mathrm{\Gamma }(k)],$$
(14)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the imaginary tunnelling action,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }i\varphi =(p^2)^{1/2}𝑑r=_{r_i}^{r_t}(k^2+2C_{}/r)^{1/2}𝑑r.$$
(15)
This tunnelling process leads through the energy scaling of the homogeneous Coulomb potential to $`\sigma \mathrm{exp}(a/k)`$.

Nevertheless, the qualitatively different threshold laws for repulsive Coulomb and dipole/short-range interactions may be semiclassically interpreted with the same tunnelling mechanism Eq. (14). In the dipole case the tunnelling action is given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=_{r_i}^{r_t}[k^2+(\nu _j^2\frac{1}{4})/r^2]^{1/2}𝑑r\stackrel{k0}{}\nu _j\mathrm{ln}k,$$
(16)
which is logarithmically divergent for $`k0`$. Hence, despite the exponential form of the Gamow factor Eq. (14), inserting the action from Eq. (16) leads exactly to the power law of Eq. (9). We conclude that for most interactions, the threshold mechanism can be interpreted as a tunnelling process. For two fragments and higher angular momentum, the tunnelling mechanism has already been proposed by Rau . However, as shown here, it actually holds for all short-range forces, and for repulsive dipole and Coulomb forces. The only exception are attractive dipole forces with a relatively complicated threshold behavior Eq. (10) and attractive Coulomb forces with the well known, classically derived, power law behavior. A systematic classification of threshold laws according to the nature of the respective interaction is presented in Table I. However, one should keep in mind that within the enormous size of the parameter space covered by Table I, there are always exceptional cases .

In summary we have provided the threshold law for fragmentation of $`N`$ particles under dipole forces. Furthermore, it has been shown that this threshold law links the statistical law for short-range forces to the corresponding law for long-range repulsive Coulomb forces by a semiclassical tunnelling mechanism. Overlooking the threshold fragmentation for all types of interactions (Table I) a relatively simple principle emerges which governs this fragmentation: the balance between potential and kinetic energy for large interparticle distances, i.e. for large hyperradius $`r`$. The quantum mechanical kinetic energy scales as $`r^2`$ and has the corresponding, dipole-like, long-range characteristics. Hence, for short-range potentials the kinetic energy dominates the threshold behavior. Indeed, a statistical approach, counting simply available states of free particles, is sufficient to describe this situation, see Eq. (12). Although the $`r^2`$ behavior of the kinetic energy is intrinsically quantum mechanical, the $`\mathrm{}`$-dependence of the kinetic energy can be scaled out in the absence of a potential and the threshold problem can be solved semiclassically by a tunnelling trajectory (Eq. (16)). The other extreme is the Coulomb potential. With its $`r^1`$ range it reaches further than the kinetic energy. Hence, the threshold behavior is decided by properties of the potential only (essentially its relative curvature, see Eq. (13)). Finally, the subtle case of a dipole potential $`r^2`$ is left. Here, both parts, kinetic and potential energy, contribute on the same footing. Consequently, the threshold law for $`N`$body break-up as it has been derived in Eq. (Threshold fragmentation under dipole forces) exhibits a complicated behavior. However, since the dipole interaction ‘interpolates’, roughly speaking, between short-range and Coulomb potentials, understanding its threshold dynamics allows one to solve the general problem of $`N`$ body threshold fragmentation under arbitrary forces, originally formulated by Wigner for two particles .

It is a pleasure to dedicate this article to Martin Gutzwiller. His work on semiclassical theory has been a great inspiration, even more has he himself been inspiring for all of us who have been lucky enough to exchange ideas with him.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Many ultra high energy (UHE) cosmic ray air showers with energies in excess of $`5\times 10^{19}`$ eV have been observed in the past few decades . The nature and origin of the primary particles is not understood . The puzzle is that the sources have to be within the GZK limit of approximately 50 Mpc if these particles are protons or nuclei . However there are not enough powerful astrophysical sources within this distance to explain the events.

Among known particles, only neutrinos travel larger distances than protons in intergalactic space. This leaves neutrinos as the only established candidates that can travel the distances greater than 100 Mpc from known UHE sources. The GZK bound of 50 Mpc is not applicable to them. Yet neutrino interactions with matter are too weak in the Standard Model of particle physics to generate the observed air showers. Hence these events seem to demand a revision of our current understanding of nature. Either the determination of the number of sources of such ultrahigh energy particles in our astrophysical neighborhood is grossly low111For example if magnetic fields outside the galaxy have been underestimated, “line of sight” and “photon travel time” requirements on protons and nuclei can be relaxed and new source possibilities considered , or these observations are a signal of new physics.

Many speculative ideas have been proposed to explain the events above $`10^{19}10^{20}eV`$, including topological defects such as cosmic strings  and associated decays of heavy, relic particles , existence of neutral, stable, strongly interacting particles, such as a light gluino  or a monopole bound state , and violation of Lorentz invariance . Much of this work requires that the primary particle responsible for generating these air showers is an exotic new particle which does not exist within the Standard Model.

In a recent paper  we argued that the data is consistent with the general features of massive spin-2 exchange. Models where effects of gravity can be strong just above the weak scale  supply a natural and attractive framework. The interaction cross section of neutrinos with matter is greatly enhanced with massive spin-2 exchange at UHE and may reach values close to the hadronic cross sections. In the low scale gravity models, the cross section enhancement arises from t-channel exchange of the tower of gravitons. Our estimates of the neutrino-proton cross section at the highest energies relevant for these events are of the order of one to a few hundred millibarns. The highest energy cosmic ray events may therefore be initiated by neutrinos222Correlation between the positions of compact radio quasars and the track directions of UHE $`>100`$ EeV cosmic rays has been studied by several groups ..

A generic, robust prediction of massive spin-2 exchange, known for many decades, is that the total cross section should grow with a power of energy, typically $`\sigma _{tot}s^2`$. The property of power law growth with a power exceeding 1 (the result of 4-Fermi spin-1 exchange) is quite hard to evade and can be traced to dimensional analysis. We consider large cross sections at $`UHE`$ to be characteristic of extra-dimension, low scale gravity models. Interaction of $`UHE`$ neutrinos is a quite natural domain to seek the new effects of low scale gravity models: the very weakness of the Standard Model neutrino coupling minimizes this background, while the regime of of highest possible energy maximizes the effects of graviton-KK mode exchange.

The theory of low-scale gravity models is only partly developed, and questions of unitarity complicate the interpretation of perturbation theory . One can choose models of the cross section which are further from the calculations of perturbation theory in the sense that they grow at a slower rate with energy than $`s^2`$ (The perturbative, parton level cross section rises as $`\widehat{s}^3`$) , or which operate by a separate (s-channel) mechanism . Indeed it is possible to restrict models of low-scale gravity to the extent that nothing observable is predicted at the energies in question. For example, the astrophysical bound on the scale parameter $`M`$ for the n=2 case guarantees that the consequences of this model are unobservable ,.

There has been some confusion on this point. Let us compare the model we use here, taken from our previous cross section calculations , with subsequent work . The latter reports the result of assuming that a finite brane tension introduces an exponential damping of higher KK modes, providing an alternative cutoff mechanism . Like our calculation, when $`\sqrt{s}M`$, the cross section in  rises approximately quadratically with neutrino energy (See Fig. 1 in , where $`\sigma _{\nu N}`$ rises by two orders of magnitude for every order of magnitude rise in $`E_\nu `$). Unlike ours, the calculation there assumes n=2 only, for which SN1987a analysis makes the restriction $`M`$ $``$ 30-70 TeV .333Citing uncertainties in astrophysical parameters,  considers $`M`$ values as low as 6 TeV. If $`n3`$ were considered, the scale could be lowered to the 2-3 TeV range and cross section values in agreement with ours would result. This is clear from the trend with mass scale in Fig. 1 in . Conversely, we could suppress our cross section to their values by raising $`M`$ to values of 6 TeV and above. Specifically, we find that $`\beta =1`$ and $`M`$ = 6 TeV yields $`\sigma _{\nu N}`$ = 0.3 mb, compared to 0.1 mb at $`E_\nu `$ = $`10^{20}`$ TeV for $`M`$ = 6 TeV in , while the choice $`\beta `$ = 2 and $`M`$ = 6.6 TeV or $`\beta `$ = 1 and $`M`$ = 7.3 TeV reproduces their 0.1 mb value. Within modest parameter variations, the results clearly agree. This is not a surprise, since the parton level amplitudes and cross sections for small t are essentially identical, and are insensitive to the value of n in the two cutoff methods . The two calculations differ only in the details of the large t cutoffs, both of which produce $`s^2`$ behavior of the cross sections. The cutoff used in in  gives a cross section result in essential agreement with ours at a given set of $`E_\nu `$ and $`M`$ values. Their assertion to the contrary is an unfortunate consequence of presenting the results for a lower bound $`M6`$, justified only for n=2, and drawing sweeping, unjustified conclusions about the general situation. With this technical issue clarified about the particular model we employ, we reiterate that our goal is to explore the broad consequences of strongly interacting $`UHE`$ neutrinos.

The primary, general question that arises, defining our focus here, is the nature of air shower development. High-energy leptonic interactions do not have the same multiplicity or inelasticity as high energy hadronic interactions. To understand the potential relevance of neutrino interactions, one must address not only the total cross section, but also the way the interaction delivers energy into the air showers that are actually observed.

In the present paper we compare simulations of air showers generated by neutrino primaries with large cross sections to those generated by protons in the Standard Model. We ask whether there is anything about existing showers which might rule out neutrinos as primaries.444Alternatively one might ask whether one can “find evidence” for neutrinos as the primaries in some features of the showers. We do not pursue this, because the fluctuations of air showers and flexibility in simulation codes make it a very hard and ambiguous way to proceed. If so then the case is made that large cross sections alone are not enough to support the case for neutrinos, and speculative models of *new* particles might be indicated.

Contrary to some expectations , we find that neutrinos with large cross sections can create showers that are much like proton-initiated showers and that in some cases are indistinguishable from them  . Two features of the low-scale gravity contribution to the neutrino-nucleon cross section come into play: first, the cross section is large enough to initiate air showers at high enough altitudes; second, its rapid $`s^2`$ dependence suppresses new effects among secondary products, which carry at most a few percent of the primary energy. Our methodology can evidently be extended to other models for hadronic size UHE neutrino cross sections provided the cross sections grow rapidly (as in spin-2 exchange). Other speculative primaries should be considered on a case-by- case basis. One cannot take the existence of one model that produces well simulated showers above $`10^{20}`$ eV to be conclusive evidence for a given hypothesis for the identity of the primary, neutrino or otherwise. The question of the mysterious primary, then, needs to be framed in view of everything that can be observed: cross sections, shower characteristics, and angular distributions and correlations, which may be informative about the charge of the primary.

## 2 Air Showers with Neutrino Primaries

The neutrino proton cross section is significantly modified at ultra high energies due to graviton exchange within low scale gravity models . Within these models the Feynman rules can be found in . These rules, derived for the case of a common compactification scale for all compact dimensions, are applicable only at energies smaller than the fundamental scale of quantum gravity $`M`$. We are not primarily concerned here with variations on the theory, which can raise and lower scales somewhat, 555Experimental bounds are generally restricted to the case where a common radius is assumed. This restriction is convenient, but not necessary, as remarked for example in . but we do assume that any new physics has a scale of about $`1`$ TeV. 666We are not considering models where gauge and matter fields propagate in the extra dimensions. Bounds that apply to such models and to the n=2, common radius model of low scale gravity are reviewed in , for example. Experimental limits on the effective scale in the theory depends on the number of extra dimensions in the Universe. If the number of extra dimensions is larger than 2, and a common compactification scale is assumed, then $`M`$ is constrained to be larger than about 4 TeV, 1 TeV and 0.5 TeV for n = 3, 4 and 6. . Given uncertainties in the estimates, these are all acceptable for our purposes. The energies involved in the ultra high energy cosmic ray events are much larger than these scales. In order to extend our calculations beyond the scale $`M`$ some modelling is required, since the calculational procedure beyond this scale within quantum gravity is unknown.

Our procedure is to make calculations with several different models. At the parton level above $`\sqrt{s}M`$, the cross sections rise with $`\widehat{s}`$ either as $`\widehat{s}^n`$, with $`n=1,2`$ or as $`(\mathrm{log}\widehat{s})^2`$. A natural feature of the perturbative $`\widehat{s}^3`$ growth of the spin-2 exchange below the scale $`M`$ is that the effects of new physics lie *well below* the sensitivity of accelerator experiments below this scale. The new cross section effects rise to become comparable to the Standard Model alone at about $`\sqrt{s}M`$, as expected. The total cross section then rises quickly above the Standard Model above $`\sqrt{s}M`$. Depending on the choice of $`M`$ and the model used we found that the cross sections range from 1 mb to several hundred mb at energies of the order of $`10^{20}`$ eV .

We developed a program that can generate air showers with a non standard neutrino primary using the AIRES and PYTHIA simulators. The steps in this Monte Carlo simulation are as follows: (1) The neutrino collides with an air nucleus at an altitude which is determined by the scattering cross section. The neutrino proton cross section is calculated by using the methods explained in Ref. . The neutrino-nuclei cross section can then be computed using the standard Glauber formalism . (2) The neutrino typically loses less than $`10\%`$ of its energy in any of these collisions, a point which has earlier been emphasized by . The neutrino typically undergoes collisions with several protons in the first nucleus as well as the subsequent ones it hits. The number of hits on target nucleus of weight A is given by

$$n_{\mathrm{hits}}=\frac{A\sigma _{\nu p}}{\sigma _{\nu A}}$$

In step (3), for each of the hits we determine the outgoing particles by using PYTHIA. (4) We stack all the final state particles produced by the PYTHIA simulation except those which originate from the decays of $`\pi ^0`$ and $`K^0`$. We inject $`\pi ^0`$ and $`K^0`$ directly since these can be processed by AIRES. These are stacked into AIRES at each point that the neutrino proton collision occurs. This sequence is then reproduced probabilistically over the course of the shower.

Let us emphasize again that our primary interest here is the development of showers initiated by a large cross section, low inelasticity, neutral- current-like primary interaction. Models where only the neutrino-hadron interaction feels the new physics can readily be treated with our analysis. In the particular class of models that we consider, the hadronic interactions of the secondaries are, in principle, also affected. In practice, these effects are not important. The energy transfer to the hadron system is less than $`10\%`$ of $`E_\nu `$ per collision. The multiplicity at $`10^{20}`$ is of order 100. We find that the nominal value of $`0.01\times E_\nu `$ per secondary can fluctuate up to as much as $`0.05\times E_\nu `$ for one or two secondaries. This still leaves the highest energy secondaries with less than $`10^{19}eV`$ “lab energy”. Even the largest cross sections we consider are $``$ 1 mb in this energy range, much smaller than the expected values of order 100 mb for the SM hadronic cross sections. It is clear that the showers will not be significantly affected by changes of $`1\%`$ in one or two particles in the shower. For this reason we do not include the KK graviton excitation corrections to the secondary hadron interactions.

In our simulations we study the quantum gravity parameter space such that the neutrino proton cross section ranges from about 10 mb to several hundred millibarns. This is a reasonable range, suggested by bounds based on experiments. There are two notable regimes:

\*If we lower the cross section below about 20 mb we find that the air showers generated are very different from those initiated by a proton. For instance, the showers are stretched out by $`50\%`$ or more, with the location of shower maximum delayed by a similar amount777These smaller cross section values are interesting from the point of view of horizontal shower searches .. This behavior is illustrated in Fig. 1, where the shower profile averaged over 50 showers for a proton primary with energy $`100`$ EeV is compared to the profiles for a neutrino primary with linearly rising cross section and energies of $`100`$, $`150`$ and $`200`$ EeV. The neutrino proton cross sections in this case are 9.4 mb, 15.3 mb and 21.5 mb for neutrino energy E=100, 150 and 200 EeV respectively. Though interesting in their own right, these cases will not be readily confused with the observed highest energy showers.

\*If the cross sections are much larger than about 20 mb, then a variety of things can occur. When the neutrino - proton cross section is about the same as the proton - proton cross section, we find that the showers generated by neutrinos *may or may not* differ in detail from those generated by protons. There is always a region of parameter space where the difference in showers is too small to detect. We therefore concentrate this study on the larger cross section values attainable with the characteristic $`s^2`$ “Regge” rise.

Compared to a proton, the neutrino loses a small amount of energy per collision. For this reason a neutrino undergoes collisions with many air nuclei. The interaction basically occurs along a line rather than at a single point888This effect, which explains the observed spread in arrival times of particles far from the core , is exaggerated in neutrino induced compared to proton induced showers.. A proton shower will arise primarily from the proton’s collision with a single air nucleus, since the energy loss per collision is large and the secondary showers generated by collision of the remnants of the incident proton with other air nuclei will be relatively weak. The shower-to-shower fluctuations can still be large, however, and detailed study is required.

## 3 Results and Discussion

We compare the structure of neutrino induced showers to proton induced showers using the “Regge model” cross section mentioned above . We also show in Fig. 1 a few selected cases of showers induced by the linear-in-s cross section case to illustrate that lower cross section, deeper and more extended events are rather distinct. The choice $`\beta =1`$ is sufficient for our study, and all of the plots from Fig. 2 onwards are made with this value999The momentum transfer has a cutoff $`1/(M^2\beta t)`$ in this model.. The injection energy of the neutrino and the value of $`M`$ are then chosen to create a shower to be compared with data or with a simulated proton shower of prescribed energy.

Of all the ultra high energy cosmic ray detectors, only the Fly’s Eye and its offspring HiRes track longitudinal development of the showers. To start our comparison of neutrino and proton initiated showers, we show in Fig. 2 the profile, or number of charged particles vs. depth, of the highest energy cosmic ray event ever observed. The data points are the best reconstruction of the event, as analysed and presented by the Fly’s Eye group . The energy is quoted as $`320`$ EeV, and we superpose the profiles averaged over 50 simulated neutrino-induced showers for the case $`M=2.7`$ TeV and energies $`E_\nu `$ = $`320`$ EeV and $`350`$ EeV. The corresponding neutrino-proton cross section with the quantum gravity scale $`M=2.7`$ TeV is shown in Fig. 3. As noted by Bird et al. , the best fit value of the depth of the shower maximum is consistent with the primary being a proton, midsize nucleus, heavy nucleus or even a gamma ray. Could it have been a neutrino? In Fig. 4 we show the same data and the profiles of 10 simulated individual neutrino showers with $`M=2.7`$ TeV and $`E_\nu `$ = $`350`$ EeV. The shower-to-shower fluctuations are vividly illustrated, with the envelope doing a good job of capturing the event. From this example, we would say a neutrino primary with a large cross section but a small energy transfer per collision like a neutral current interaction and an energy of about 350 EeV is not ruled out.

To develop the points of comparison suggested by Figs. 2 and 4, in Fig. 5 we show the scatter plot for 50 showers of the shower maximum ($`X_{max}`$) versus the number of particles at maximum ($`N_{max}`$) for both the proton and neutrino primaries for several assumed values of the incident neutrino primary energy and the scale $`M`$. The proton shower energy is fixed at $`E=10^{20}eV`$, while the initial neutrino energy is varied for each of the values M=2, 2.5 and 3 TeV chosen. We find that the neutrino showers show more scatter than do the proton showers. The scatter decreases as the value of $`M`$ decreases i.e. as the $`\sigma _{\nu p}`$ increases. Although the mean values for these two types of showers differ for most of the parameter space there exist many neutrino generated individual showers which are very similar to the proton shower with $`E=100`$ EeV. For $`M=2.0`$ TeV we find that there is somewhat more scatter but the same average $`N_{max}`$ and $`X_{max}`$ values for neutrino showers with primary energy $`125`$ EeV compared to proton showers with primary energy of $`100`$ EeV. Almost the same statement applies to the comparison of neutrino showers where $`M=2.5`$ TeV and $`E=150`$ EeV are compared to the proton sample, though the $`X_{max}`$ value is a bit higher in this case.

As mentioned above, the Fly’s Eye and HiRes, using the air flourescence technique, are the only experiments that directly reconstruct the profiles. The others, the Volcano Ranch array, the Haverah Park array, the Sydney University array (SUGAR), the Yakutsk array and the Akeno Giant Air-Shower Array (AGASA) all employed particle detection schemes to observe the lateral pattern of the shower particles at ground level. For example, AGASA deduces the energy of the primary by measuring the density of charged particles at 600 m from the shower core. Averaging over 50 showers, we compare this fundamentally important, lateral distribution of charged particles at ground level for the two types of showers in Fig. 6. We find that the two distributions are *very similar* for a number of neutrino shower $`M`$ and $`E_\nu `$ choices and $`E_p`$ = $`100`$ EeV.

We next compare the total number of charged particles at ground level for the proton and neutrino generated air showers. The results are shown in the scatter plot, Fig. 7. We find that the total number of particles at ground level is in general smaller for a neutrino in comparison to a proton primary if both the incident particles have the same energy. This difference disappears if the $`\sigma _{\nu p}`$ is very large (equivalently $`M`$ is small). For a given value of $`M`$, one can raise the neutrino energy and see the number of particles at ground level increase toward the value of the proton shower. For example, for $`M=2.0`$ TeV we find that the average number of charged particles at ground level for neutrino showers is the same as for proton showers if the incident neutrino has a $`25\%`$ higher energy. For larger values of $`M`$, of the order of $`3.0`$ TeV, we find that the number of charged particles at ground level is again the same as that of a proton induced shower with primary energy 100 EeV, if the neutrino primary has energy roughly equal to 180 EeV. Based on this diagnostic alone, these results suggest that AGASA might interpret a shower generated by a neutrino primary to be that generated by a proton of a somewhat smaller energy.

The identity of the primary particle (p, Nucleus or $`\gamma `$) is deduced by AGASA on the basis of the muon content of the shower. The lateral dependence of the number of muons observed at ground level, again averaged over 50 showers, is shown in Fig. 8. We find that the muon distribution for the two types of primaries is approximately the same for a number of $`E_\nu `$ and $`M`$ combinations. This diagnostic is evidently not a sensitive tool for discriminating between the proton-induced and neutrino-induced showers.

Coming back to the longitudinal development of the charged particles, we show a variety of cases, averaged over 50 showers, in Fig. 9. In this case we find significant difference between the showers generated by neutrino and proton primaries. The neutrino showers in general show maximum closer to the ground level. This difference, however, essentially disappears if the scale $`M`$ is roughly 2 TeV. However, as one can see in these plots and in the scatter plots of $`N_{max}`$ vs. $`X_{max}`$, Fig. 5, if $`M`$ is a bit above $`2.0`$ TeV at 2.5 or 3.0 TeV, then one cannot bring the average position of shower maximum, $`X_{max}`$ into line with the average profile of proton showers of a given energy.101010This insensitivity of the depth of shower maximum just reflects the weak $`ln(E)`$ dependence of the maximum . Since shower-to- shower fluctuations are large, as seen in Figs. 2 and 4, it requires

a significant sample such as the 50 - 100 shown in our study, to get good discrimination.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusions

The conjecture that UHE, super-GZK cosmic ray showers are caused by neutrinos with large UHE cross sections is almost as old as the field itself . Revisiting this idea in a new theoretical framework , we proposed models that achieve interestingly large cross sections . We speculated that the GZK “barrier” could be then broken by neutrinos. The next question to answer is whether the shower events predicted look like events observed. Or are the characteristics so different from observed showers, which are generally compared to those of the simulations of proton, nucleus and gamma initiated showers, that the neutrino can be eliminated as a candidate for the super GZK showers? Our conclusion based on this study is no, they cannot be eliminated as candidates. For a range of values of the fundamental scale $`M`$ in the neighborhood of $`23`$ TeV, there are neutrino energies 25% - 75% above that of the comparison proton model where the simulations match quite closely. As noted in the introduction, the same analysis applies to a variety of cases - different interactions and different identities of primary particle. Given that the same cross section input is not unique to the low scale gravity inspiration used here, this result is of quite general use.

Whether neutrinos follow the standard model extrapolations , are enhanced “modestly” by 3-5 orders of magnitude or “extravagantly” by more than 5 orders of magnitude, the search for UHE neutrino induced events at present and new facilities  will be an exciting one.

Note Added: As we were completing this paper, a closely related work appeared . The cross sections considered in their work are well below 10 mb, while we concentrate primarily on cross sections above this value. Where cross sections are roughly the same, results and conclusions qualitatively agree.

Acknowledgments: DM thanks Seif Randjbar-Daemi and the High Energy Group at Abdus Salam I.C.T.P. and Jack Gunion and the High Energy Group at the Department of Physics, U.C. Davis for sabbatical leave hospitality while this work was being completed. AJ and PJ thank S. J. Sciutto for help in using the AIRES air shower simulator. We also thank Jaime Alvarez for useful discussions. This work was supported in part by U.S. DOE Grant number DE-FG03-98ER41079, the Kansas Institute for Theoretical and Computational Science and DST (India) grant No. DST/PHY/19990184.


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# The Abundance and Emission of H2O and O2 in Clumpy Molecular Clouds

## 1 Introduction

In contrast with the major carbon-bearing species (CO, C, C+), the abundances of the major oxygen-containing atoms and molecules in general molecular clouds are still poorly understood. The best-known species is CO, which reaches large abundances of $`10^4`$ when the shielding column of gas exceeds $`A_V`$1 for a typical interstellar cloud of $`10^3`$ cm-3 illuminated by the average interstellar radiation field, locking up the bulk of the gas-phase carbon (e.g., Hollenbach & Tielens 1999, van Dishoeck & Black 1988). Theoretical models indicate that at the edge atomic O is abundant, but that further into the cloud, more and more of the ultraviolet radiation is attenuated so that at $`A_V4`$ mag, CO ceases to be the dominant oxygen-bearing species and O2 reaches its peak abundance of $`>10^4`$, with H2O present at the level of $`10^6`$ (e.g., Tielens & Hollenbach 1985, Lee et al. 1996). If true, then H2O and O2 could be major coolants in molecular clouds (Goldsmith & Langer 1978; Neufeld, Lepp & Melnick 1995).

The launch of the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) (Melnick et al. 2000) has made it possible to look for emission lines of H2O and O2 in cold molecular clouds. Although the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) observed many H2O lines, it was sensitive primarily to warm, $`100`$ K molecular gas near young stellar objects where the H2O abundance can be enhanced due to ice evaporation and high-temperature (shock) reactions (e.g., van Dishoeck et al. 1999, Nisini et al. 2000). Measurements of, or upper limits on, the abundances of H2O and O2 provide crucial tests of many aspects of the oxygen chemistry in normal molecular clouds and of the cloud structure, and hence of our theoretical understanding of such systems.

The initial SWAS results indicate that the abundances of H2O and O2 in dense molecular cloud cores are surprisingly low compared with the above model predictions, about $`6\times 10^{10}1\times 10^8`$ for H2O and $`<`$ a few $`\times 10^7`$ for O2 (Ashby et al. 2000, Snell et al. 2000a, Goldsmith et al. 2000). In contrast, ISO observations of the \[O I\] 63 and 145 $`\mu `$m lines suggest substantial abundances of atomic O in quiescent gas (e.g., Baluteau et al. 1997, Caux et al. 1999). Bergin et al. (2000) propose a model in which freeze-out of oxygen on dust grains in the form of molecular ices is significant, with the remaining oxygen in atomic form in the gas, along with CO. While freeze-out and gas-grain interactions undoubtedly play a role in dense cold clouds, we present here an alternative explanation based on clumpy molecular clouds which may be more appropriate for the general lower density molecular cloud material contained in the large SWAS beam of $`3.3^{}\times 4.5^{}`$. The inhomogeneous nature of molecular clouds is well established from observations of extended \[C I\] and \[C II\] (e.g., Keene et al. 1995, Stutzki et al. 1988, Plume et al. 1999), and has been modeled by various groups (e.g., Meixner & Tielens 1993, Spaans 1996, Störzer et al. 1996). It is therefore natural to also explore the H2O and O2 abundances and emission in such models.

## 2 Basic Model Description

The results presented here were obtained by application of the numerical code of Spaans (1996), described further in Spaans & van Dishoeck (1997). The interested reader is referred to these papers for a description of the underlying algorithms. The code has been specifically designed to solve large chemical networks with a self-consistent treatment of the thermal balance for all heating and cooling processes known to be of importance in the interstellar medium (Spaans & Ehrenfreund 1999). The radiative transfer in the cooling lines is solved by means of a Monte Carlo approach with checks provided by an escape probability method for large line optical depths. The thermal balance includes photo-electric heating by dust grains, heating by cosmic rays, absorption of infrared photons by H2O molecules and their subsequent collisional de-excitation, and gas-grain heating. The cooling includes the coupling between gas and dust grains (Hollenbach & McKee 1989), atomic lines of all metals, molecular lines, and all major isotopes, as described in Spaans et al. (1994) and in Neufeld et al. (1995) for the regime of very large line optical depth. All level populations are computed in statistical equilibrium at a relative accuracy of no less than $`10^3`$, an accuracy which is also imposed on the ambient line radiation field. The combined chemical and thermal balance is required to obey a convergence criterion between successive iterations of 0.5%.

The adopted chemical network is based on the UMIST compilation (Millar, Farquhar & Willacy 1997), and is well suited for low temperature ($`<`$200 K) dense molecular clouds. A value of 0.3 is chosen for the branching ratio leading to H2O in the dissociative recombination of H3O+, with a rate coefficient of $`3.3\times 10^7(T/300)^{0.3}`$ cm3 s-1. The branching ratio is consistent with the results of Vejby-Christensen et al. (1997) but higher than the value of 0.05 suggested by Williams et al. (1996). Observations and (homogeneous) models by Spaans et al. (1998) toward the translucent cloud HD 154368 favor a branching ratio of less than 0.3 (at $`3\sigma `$) so that the water abundance results presented here should be regarded as strict upper limits. The latest rate coefficients for important neutral-neutral reactions are adopted, in particular for $`\mathrm{C}+\mathrm{O}_2\mathrm{CO}+\mathrm{O}`$ and $`\mathrm{O}+\mathrm{OH}\mathrm{O}_2+\mathrm{H}`$ at $`2.48\times 10^{12}(T/300)^{1.54}\mathrm{e}^{613/T}`$ cm3 s-1 and $`1.77\times 10^{11}\mathrm{e}^{178/T}`$ cm3 s-1, respectively. The reaction of O2 with neutral sulfur is not found to be a major sink for molecular oxygen. No gas-grain interactions are taken into account. The carbon and oxygen gas-phase fractions are set to $`\delta _\mathrm{C}=0.33`$ and $`\delta _\mathrm{O}=0.35`$ (C/O=0.45), but the case of $`\delta _\mathrm{O}=0.17`$ is also considered. These fractions are defined with respect to the solar values of $`[\mathrm{C}]=4.0\times 10^4`$ and $`[\mathrm{O}]=8.3\times 10^4`$. Depletions of other elements are as in Spaans & van Dishoeck (1997).

## 3 Model Results

In order to investigate the dependence of O2 and H2O on density, radiation field and geometry, spherical and slab-like model clouds were computed for homogeneous and inhomogeneous density distributions (Spaans 1996). The clumpy models are defined by two parameters: the volume filling factor $`f`$, which fixes the fraction of the total volume that is occupied by the clumps in a two-phase density medium, and a characteristic clump size $`\mathrm{}_c`$, which fixes the extinction through an individual clump. The ratio between the high (h) density and low (l) density phase is chosen to be $`r=20`$. It then follows that the mean total hydrogen density $`n`$ obeys $`n=fn_\mathrm{h}+(1f)n_\mathrm{l}`$. We model two types of regions: a star-forming cloud where the radiation field is significantly enhanced due to a nearby O or B star (e.g., S 140) and a more quiescent region such as $`\rho `$ Oph. For the S 140 extended molecular cloud, Spaans & van Dishoeck (1997) have constrained $`f<`$50% and $`\mathrm{}_c>0.2`$ pc from observations of \[C I\] and 13CO (Plume et al. 1994), using an average density $`n10^3`$ cm-3. Recent ISO data of \[C II\] and \[O I\] confirm densities of order $`10^3`$ cm-3 in the extended cloud (Li et al. 2001). We adopt here $`f=30`$% and $`\mathrm{}_c=0.4`$ pc with $`n=2\times 10^3`$ cm-3. For models with a larger mean density the clump size $`\mathrm{}_c`$ is decreased by the same factor with which the mean density is increased. The enhancement of the radiation field is taken to be $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}`$=140 with respect to the Draine (1978) field, consistent with the enhancement at the edge of the cloud near the B0V star HD 211880. This enhancement factor decreases to $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}3050`$ further into the extended cloud due to geometric dilution. The average interstellar radiation field incident from other directions has been included as well. The $`\rho `$ Oph cloud has been studied by several groups (see Liseau et al. 1999) and is modeled with $`f=20`$% and $`r=30`$, more clumpy than S 140 but with an identical value for $`\mathrm{}_c`$. We adopt $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}10`$ and $`n=10^4`$ cm-3. It thus provides an interesting comparison.

Figures 1–2 present the basic results of this work. For the inhomogeneous models the shell/slice averaged abundances are shown for the sphere/slab as functions of $`A_V`$. It was found that the dispersion around the mean values by taking different cuts is not larger than about 50%, so that the systematics discussed below are robust. The following trends can be identified. First, for the same $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ and $`n`$, a strong decrease in the abundances of O2 and H2O is found in the inhomogeneous models, although less so for H2O. The reason is that the destruction of O2 remains dominated by photodissociation to large extinctions and that the clumpy structure allows ultraviolet photons to penetrate to larger depths. The effect spans a factor of 30 or more. Second, the central abundances of H2O and O2 are decreased by a factor of 2-4 as the geometry is changed from a plane-parallel slab to a sphere. The reason is simply that the shielding column is larger for some rays emanating from the center of a slab compared to a sphere. A clumpy density distribution is quite effective in redistributing the directed ultraviolet radiation field from a (point-like) source into a more isotropic distribution at a depth of a few magnitudes of visual extinction (Spaans 1996). Third, a systematic trend is observed with varying dissociation parameter $`U=I_{\mathrm{UV}}/n`$. When this number is small, $`<5\times 10^3`$, i.e., at low $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ and/or high $`n`$, H2O and O2 rise sharply at the edge of the cloud, and H2O quickly reaches the regime where its removal is dominated by chemistry rather than photodissociation. The total observed column of H2O and O2 varies greatly with total extinction along the line of sight and it would be difficult to distinguish between homogeneous large $`U`$ and inhomogeneous small $`U`$ situations based on H2O and O2 alone. Of course, large $`U`$ regions are bright in lines such as \[C II\] 158 $`\mu `$m, \[O I\] 63 and 145 $`\mu `$m and high-$`J`$ CO, whereas small $`U`$ regions tend to have more prominent \[C I\] 609 $`\mu `$m emission, in particular when they are clumpy.

## 4 Discussion and Comparison with Observations

### 4.1 H2O and O2 abundances

The observational results represent abundances integrated over depth. Thus, mass-weighted abundances for the spherical models have been computed for comparison with observations. Specifically, the mean abundance $`X(r)`$ enclosed within some fractional radius $`r`$ is given by integration of the abundance $`A(r)`$ through $`X(r)`$=$`_0^rA(r^{})r^2𝑑r^{}`$/$`_0^rr^2𝑑r^{}`$, where 0 is at the center and 1 at the edge of the model cloud. Note that only $`1/8`$ of the mass is contained inside the half radius of the spherical constant density model cloud, while this would be $`1/2`$ for a $`1/r^2`$ density profile.

For the clumpy, spherical model of Figure 1 (top and middle) the above approach leads to a predicted mean H2O abundance $`X(1)=3\times 10^8`$ and an O2 abundance of $`4\times 10^{10}`$ for a typical total depth of $`A_V=10`$ mag. Snell et al. (2000a) detected H2O emission from the S 140 dense star-forming core and PDR region with SWAS, but not from the surrounding extended molecular cloud. Their inferred abundances of $`10^8`$ (see also the detailed analysis by Ashby et al. 2000) for the core and $`<10^8`$ for the extended cloud are only a factor of three lower than our model results and consistent within the factor of three or more uncertainty in their assumed density (the inferred H2O abundance scales with the inverse of density). Figure 1c (bottom) shows the effect of increasing the density to $`5\times 10^4`$ cm-3 for the S 140 environment. The smaller value of $`U`$ causes photodissociation to play a lesser role in the removal of O2 and H2O, and hence clumpiness is of less importance. The model (mass weighted) abundances are $`3\times 10^7`$ and $`4\times 10^8`$ for H2O and O2, respectively.

The model for $`\rho `$ Oph appears less successful in reproducing the observed abundances of O2 and H2O. The mass weighted H2O abundance for Figure 2c (bottom) is $`3\times 10^7`$, a factor of $``$100 above the measured value. Panels 2a and b (top and middle), which are representative of larger values of $`U`$ and roughly consistent with the results of Liseau et al. (1999) who found $`n_\mathrm{H}=3\times 10^33\times 10^4`$ cm-3, yield mass-weighted H2O abundances of $`5\times 10^8`$ and $`2\times 10^8`$, respectively. From the discussion in §3, it follows that the S 140 case yields better agreement with the observations mainly because of its larger illumination (and $`U`$ parameter). The clumpy models enhance the importance of photodissociation of H2O and O2 deeper into the cloud, and therefore work best for a strong incident radiation field.

In all inhomogeneous models with $`n10^3`$ cm-3, the mass weighted abundance of O2 is below $`10^7`$, both for S 140 and $`\rho `$ Oph, consistent with the overall SWAS upper limits as well as the specific upper bounds for S 140, $`<7\times 10^7`$, and $`\rho `$ Oph, $`<3\times 10^7`$ (Goldsmith et al. 2000). Only the quiescent model of Figure 2c (bottom) with high density and low $`I_{\mathrm{UV}}`$, yields a mass weighted O2 abundance of $`10^6`$. This is a factor of a few above the observational limit (Goldsmith et al. 2000), but this is easily alleviated by a modest increase in the \[C\]/\[O\] ratio (Bergin et al. 2000). To test the latter possibility, we have run a model with an oxygen depletion of 0.17 and \[C\]/\[O\]=0.94. A decrease in the mass weighted H2O (O2) abundance of a factor of 5 (20) is found, bringing the model in agreement with the observations for S 140 and factors of 20, 4 and 2 too high for H2O toward $`\rho `$ Oph in models 2a, b and c, respectively, although a smaller value for the H3O+ branching ratio of 0.05 instead of 0.3 could further reduce these discrepancies.

### 4.2 H2O and O2 emission

In order to verify whether the low abundances of H2O and O2 found for the clumpy model clouds can also reproduce the bulk of the observed emission, radiative transfer computations have been performed using a Monte Carlo method (Spaans 1996). It was found that two effects dominate the emissivity of the H2O $`1_{10}1_{01}`$ line: temperature and geometry. The temperature is very important because it influences both the ortho-para ratio of the main collision partner H2, 0.1 at 30 K and 1.0 at 80 K (Neufeld & Sternberg 1999), as well as the collisional excitation rate. The H2 ortho-para ratio is a crucial parameter to compute rigorously from the thermal balance and FUV pumping since the o-H2 $`J`$=1 collision rates with H2O are more than an order of magnitude larger than the p-H2 $`J`$=0 rates (Phillips, Maluendes & Green 1996). The geometry is important because the $`1_{10}1_{01}`$ line is optically thick but effectively thin. This implies that line photons emitted by the warm edges of a spherical clump can interact with water molecules in the colder interior, and so constitute an excitation term that raises the level population in the $`1_{10}`$ state. Note in this that the curvature of the sphere causes the warm gas to cover $`4\pi `$ steridians, unlike the slab case. It is found that a spherical geometry, for the S 140 temperature profile given below, raises the $`1_{10}1_{01}`$ line strength with a factor of 2.4 compared to that from the plane-parallel slab. Furthermore, for identical physical conditions, a plane-parallel slab model yields a temperature profile that is systematically 20-30% cooler than for the corresponding spherical case, mainly because the latter possesses more lower extinction lines of sight.

The thermal balance yields a temperature of 150 (80) K at the edge of S 140 ($`\rho `$ Oph) and 20 (10) K at its center. The mass weighted H2O temperatures are $`80`$ K and $`30`$ K for S 140 and $`\rho `$ Oph, respectively. For S 140, these values refer to the model of Fig. $`1a/b`$, and for $`\rho `$ Oph to the model of Fig. $`2b`$. The S 140 value is significantly larger than the typical temperature in dense cores, $``$ 30 K. The resulting integrated line intensities convolved with the SWAS beam are 1.6 K km s-1 and 3.8 K km s-1 for S 140 and $`\rho `$ Oph, respectively. The clumpy S 140 model can thus reproduce the observed value (1.7 K km s-1) quite nicely, but the clumpy $`\rho `$ Oph H2O emission, just as the abundance, is too large compared to the observed value of 0.8 K km s-1. Use of a plane-parallel geometry would reduce the discrepancy for $`\rho `$ Oph significantly. In both instances, the bulk of the signal in the SWAS beam is associated with the PDR. In fact, the H2O emission arises mainly from the warm, $``$60-90 K, edges of irradiated clumps. Therefore, a strong correlation should exist between the SWAS H2O emission and high$`J`$ (e.g. 5-4, 6-5) CO emission. Such a correlation is in fact observed toward M 17SW (Snell et al. 2000b). It is the elevated temperatures at the surfaces of the clumps that makes the results so sensitive to the ortho-para ratio. For the case of S 140, the extended molecular cloud gives an emission that is a factor of 30 weaker at a position $`4^{}`$ north-east of the PDR, due to the lower ambient temperature, consistent with observations. The O2 $`N_J=3_31_2`$ line is truly optically thin and yields, due to its simpler excitation, more robust results. We find $`1.8\times 10^5`$ K km s-1 and $`2.3\times 10^3`$ K km s-1 for the S 140 and $`\rho `$ Oph case, respectively.

ISO H2O observations suggest that much of H2O toward star-forming cores such as S 140 is associated with a small region with enhanced H2O surrounding the young stellar object(s) (e.g., Wright et al. 1997, Ceccarelli et al. 1999). Since this emission is subsequently beam-diluted in the large SWAS beam, its contribution could be small and still be consistent with the fact that the lower density gas in the SWAS beam is capable of reproducing the bulk of the detected water emission by SWAS. We have verified this by adding a clumpy star-forming core with $`n=10^4`$ cm-3 and a size of $`0.5`$ pc (Zhou et al. 1994), and the same values for $`f`$ and $`r`$, to the S 140 extended molecular cloud as in Spaans & van Dishoeck (1997). Even though the mean water abundance goes up by a factor of 30, the lower kinetic temperature and smaller spatial extent yield a relative contribution of $`20`$% after convolution with the SWAS beam. Furthermore, the Zhou et al. CS observations can be well reproduced by this clumpy core that includes densities of up to $`10^5`$ cm-3 and temperatures that are still $`3040`$ K. 111At even higher densities ($`10^7`$ cm-3) and smaller scales ($`200400`$ AU), the H2O abundance becomes even larger and the region emits thermally at about 100 K. Strong beam-dilution limits this contribution to the SWAS signal to less than 2% at the distance of $`910`$ pc for S 140.

Bergin et al. (2000) have argued against the importance of photodissociation because it would affect the abundances of other species such as NH3 as well. The S 140 model, including the star-forming core as above, was checked for consistency with the observational NH3 values of $`29\times 10^{14}`$ cm-2 (Ungerechts, Winnewisser & Walmsley 1986). Our model value of $`4\times 10^{14}`$ cm-2 is not in conflict with observations. In addition, even a moderate enhancement in NH3 formation due to grain-surface chemistry is likely to resolve any mild discrepancy. For the extended molecular cloud outside the core there are no observational constraints for ammonia. Future observational and theoretical studies should investigate other species whose abundances are sensitive to photodissociation, such as the CN/HCN and C2H/HCO+ ratios (e.g., Jansen et al. 1995). This work has not addressed the effects of time-dependent chemistry and freeze-out on the O2 and H2O abundances (Bergin et al. 2000, Viti 2000, private communication). Our results suggest that clumpiness is a viable alternative explanation for extended lower-density molecular clouds in star-forming regions like S 140 with high radiation field, but they also strengthen the case for time-dependent chemistry and freeze-out for a more quiescent dense region like $`\rho `$ Oph. The freeze-out models may in fact benefit from adoption of a clumpy structure since the central dust temperature is enhanced by the higher internal ultraviolet field, thus providing a mechanism to moderate the very rapid freeze-out. Future observatories such as ODIN and the HIFI instrument on the Far Infrared and Submillimeter Telescope (FIRST) will have increased sensitivity, and, in the case of FIRST, a much smaller beam. Therefore, more definite tests of the various classes of models will be forthcoming in this decennium.

We are grateful to Ted Bergin, Gary Melnick, Matt Ashby and Serena Viti for stimulating discussions regarding the SWAS results, to Steven Doty for assistance with the chemistry, and to the referee, Ted Bergin, for his constructive comments that helped to improve this paper.


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# The ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey. III. Observations of the Northern Galactic Plane.

## 1 Introduction

We have surveyed a large section of the galactic plane in the OH 1612–MHz satellite line. The aim of the survey was to sample the stellar dynamics in the plane, cutting through the major components of the Galaxy. Very strong radiation is emitted in the observed OH line by, amongst others, OH/IR stars (for a review see Habing 1996). These are particularly suitable tracers of the stellar dynamics for a variety of reasons. Most important is that they are easily observable in any region of the Galaxy, their line–of–sight velocity can be determined very accurately and they represent a large fraction of the stellar population. This article is the sequel to previous articles discussing the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) “Bulge” ($`|\mathrm{}|`$$`<`$10, Sevenster et al. 1997a, Paper I) and “Disk” ($`\mathrm{}`$$`<`$$``$10, Sevenster et al. 1997b, Paper II) parts of the survey. Here we discuss the results of the northern plane region, between $`5^{}\mathrm{}45^{}`$ and $`|b|3^{}`$. This region was observed with the VLA in New Mexico.

We discuss the observations in Sect. 2 and the data reduction in Sect. 3. In Sect. 4 we give the results of this survey and in Sect. 5 a statistical analysis of the data, that, like Paper II, follows closely the analysis in Paper I. We summarize in Sect. 6.

## 2 Observations

The observations were taken with the VLA between 1993 February and 1995 June, in configurations ranging from A to CD (Table 1). The area of this northern part of the survey consisted of 13$`\times `$81=1053 pointing centres. Due to system failures and compact antenna configurations in combination with radio–frequency interference (RFI), useful data were obtained for only 965 (Fig. 1).

The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the primary beam (PB) of the VLA antennae at 1612.231 MHz is 27$`^{}`$ . The data were taken in circular RR polarization, using a total bandwidth of 3.3 MHz (614 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$) and 255 spectral channels (separation 2.27 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$). Doppler tracking was used during the observations, transforming the velocities to the frame of the local standard of rest (LSR), so the spectral band was centred at 0$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for each pointing.

We used mostly 0137+331, or if necessary 1331+305, as the primary calibrator and 1822$``$096, 1911$``$201, 1751$``$253 and 1751$`+`$096 as secondary calibrators. On each field, an integration time of 10$`\times `$30 sec was scheduled, with in general 300 baselines available for observing.

## 3 Data reduction

Data were reduced with the reduction package Miriad (Sault et al. 1995); five– and six–letter acronyms in capitals throughout this paper will indicate the Miriad programs we used. To make the data quality uniform across the whole survey area, only baselines with lengths between 5 k$`\lambda `$ and 55 k$`\lambda `$ were used (cf. Table 1). The primary and secondary calibrators were edited first with a custom–made RFI flagger WSRFI (see Sect. 3.1) and further by hand. After calibration (MFCAL), the data from all pointings were edited only with WSRFI.

The searching was performed largely as described in Paper I, with MPFND, a custom–made derivative of INVERT, aimed at searching large amounts of modest–quality data for point sources. This routine Fourier–transforms spectral channels one by one, retaining only the position and flux density of the brightest pixel for each image. Subsequently, the peaks are correlated in the spectral direction, looking for statistically significant (OH/IR–type) spectral features. If one has been found, an appropriate point–source model is subtracted from the visibilities and the same routine is performed at a lower detection level. All details are given in appendix A of Paper I.

The image size was always 16652, with square cells of $`1^{\prime \prime }.5`$ , searching all but 10 cells along each border. Four passes were performed, the last one well below 3$`\times `$ the theoretical noise (as given by MPFND).

A few changes were made to accommodate specific properties of VLA data. To save time, with the VLA cubes three times larger than the ATCA cubes due to higher resolution, an extra first pass through the data was performed in the visibility domain. Spectral peaks were identified in the scalar–averaged spectra and then only the peak channel was Fourier transformed to find the source position.

With the modest spectral resolution of the VLA correlator, a large fraction of the sources induced spectral aliassing; the narrowest, mostly brightest, sources creating responses in all 255 channels. Obviously, these reponses may be negative. To account for this, we adapted the subroutine UVSUB to allow for negative point source models. Input models for the new UVSUB were “log” output files from UVSPEC, containing the real part of the visibilities, offset to the source position, for the whole spectral range (215 channels in calibrated data). Hence, in all passes, once a source position was established, either directly as a real source or after shifting to the real position in the case of detecting a sidelobe (see Paper I), a full spectral point–source model was subtracted from the visibility data. This clearly took out the random noise at the source positions as well, but the data on the whole were not significantly influenced.

The visibility–based point–source subtraction was not as effective for the VLA data as for the ATCA, due to the non–negligible third dimension in the antenna–position coordinates (u,v,w) for the VLA. Sources at higher offsets were occasionally redetected in later passes. This was corrected for in the post–searching cross–identification process.

### 3.1 Radio–frequency–interference excission

Three kinds of RFI corrupted the data during most of the observing dates. One was the usual broad–band Glonass RFI (‘G’ in Table 1), often accompanied by a single–channel spike (‘S’, sub–/superscripts indicating channel of spike). The third was interference from a nearby military base (‘W’), depending in strength on u–v direction rather than baseline length, which saturated the correlator to give non–random noise characteristics (see Fig. 2).

The routine UVLIN, used for the ATCA data (Paper I,II), had no positive effect when applied to these data with the required high order of polynomial, probably again due to the non–negligible third dimension of the VLA array. However, with a custom–made visibility–flagging algorithm WSRFI, written for use within Miriad, we managed to excise the worst of all three types of RFI. In Fig. 2, we show the spectrum of one of the primary calibrators before and after running WSRFI on the data.

With the combined losses due to antenna downtime, data flagging to delete interference and retaining only baselines between 5 k$`\lambda `$ and 55 k$`\lambda `$, the resulting net ‘visibility time’ (all visibilities used divided by the number of baselines used, times 30 sec) is of the order of 1–3 min (Fig. 3).

## 4 Results

The source tables and spectra (Table 2 and Fig. 10 can be downloaded from http://msowww.anu.edu.au/ msevenst/pubs.html

In Table 2 all narrow–line OH sources found are listed. In total there are 286 sources, 125 of which have been identified with known OH–1612–MHz masers. Ten sources have only one spectral peak. A reliable (see Sect. 5.5 for definition) IRAS identification is found for 207 sources. The median ‘residual’ rms–noise level is 25 mJy (Fig. 3, Sect. 5.1.1).

For each source the table gives an entry number (column 1), the OH$`\mathrm{}b`$ name (column 2), observing date (column 3, see Table 1), position in J2000 coordinates (columns 4,5), the formal positional error (column 6) – much smaller than the actual error (Sect. 5.2) –, the distance from the source to the pointing centre (column 7), the peak, stellar and outflow velocities (columns 8 to 11), the peak fluxes (column 12,13), calibration flag (see Sect. 5.3) and error in the peak flux density (column 14; see Sect. 5.3), the empirical residual noise in the field where the source was detected (column 15), presence of previous OH detection and the name of the nearest IRAS point source (column 16) and the distance to this nearest IRAS point source expressed as a fraction of the corresponding IRAS error ellipse (column 17).

The spectra for all sources are shown in Fig. 10. They are displayed with 50 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ on either side of the velocity range of each object. The spectra were extracted from cleaned (1282 1′′ pixels around the source position) and restored cubes, summing over 3$`\times `$3 pixels around the peak pixel. Only spectra #237 and #280 were extracted from raw cubes, as cleaning was impossible due to the awkward beam shape. No ‘continuum fitting’ other than the described RFI excision (Sect. 3.1) was applied (cf. spectra #097,104,253,275,280).

Dots over peaks in the spectra give an indication of the velocity range of the detections; note eg. the sidelobe from spectrum #223 in spectrum #219. Sidelobes are still present in the spectra, as most confusing sources would be outside the cleaned area. Negative sidelobes are obvious in eg. spectra #127 (from #132), #150 (from #149) and in an unfortunate way in #222 (from #223). Note the extreme velocity coincidence of #159 and #172, as well as #242 and #244.

In Fig. 4 the longitude–latitude diagram and longitude–velocity diagram are shown and in Fig. 5 the histograms of central– and outflow velocity.

## 5 Data analysis

In this section we analyse the global completeness of the survey and discuss the statistical accuracy of the quantities given in Table 2. The discussion and figures follow closely that of the corresponding section in Paper I, but is adapted to treat some VLA–specific details. We will assume errors are normally distributed, unless stated otherwise.

### 5.1 Survey completeness

#### 5.1.1 Noise levels

The empirical noise levels (defined as the rms in the of 215$`\times `$1645$`\times `$1645 cubes after the last pass of source subtraction) for all 965 fields are shown in Fig. 3. The median noise is 25 mJy (mean 32 mJy: the same as the ATCA Bulge region); 90% of the fields have noise levels below 50 mJy.

#### 5.1.2 Detection levels

In this section we treat the global completeness of the sample. There was no absolute lower detection limit set in the searching routines (opposed to the strategy for the ATCA survey). The half–power beam width (HPBW) of the VLA antennae at 1612 MHz is $`13^{}\mathrm{.\hspace{0.17em}5}`$ . Approximately 55% of the total area of the VLA survey would be covered within the HPBW (this includes the fact that 8% of pointings are missing). For fields that are not on the boundary of the surveyed region, the largest possible offset from the nearest pointing for any source is $`21^{}\mathrm{.\hspace{0.17em}2}`$ , which corresponds to a primary–beam response (PBR) of 0.16 (Fig. 7a). In Fig. 6 we see that this typically guarantees that the main lobe of a detected source is measured to be stronger than any of its sidelobes, even in other fields, provided we cover the entire survey region with our image sizes (square in $`\alpha ,\delta `$ ), which is the case where there are no gaps (Fig. 1). Note that the field separation is the absolute maximum, given the primary–beam response, to still guarantee proper identification of the main lobes of all sources. In fields at the perimeter of the survey region (cf. Fig. 1), sources could be found in principle at offsets up to 29$`^{}`$ . In practice, the largest offset was $`21^{}\mathrm{.\hspace{0.17em}3}`$ (Table 2); only four sources were found more than 20$`^{}`$ away from the nearest pointing centre.

In Fig. 7b we plot the PBR of each source against its peak flux density. The solid line connects stars with the lowest detected OH flux densities, determined in bins of PBR. The dashed curve indicates the expected relation between PBR and flux–density cut–off for an absolute detection limit of 120 mJy (cf. 160 mJy, 140 mJy for the ATCA survey regions). Note that the empirical detection level is clearly not as constant across the VLA region as across the ATCA regions. The global limit is closer to 150 mJy, but there are a few detections that clearly are outliers (limit 90 mJy). This is due to the gaps in the coverage, that increase the area covered by large offsets from what it would normally be, combined with a larger spread in the noise levels (see above; Fig. 3).

In Fig. 7c we plot the cumulative flux–density distributions for all detected sources with PBR $`>`$ 0.8 (solid) and, for comparison, with PBR $`<`$ 0.6 (dashed). We postulate that the survey is essentially complete for PBR $`>`$ 0.8, for flux densities above the sensitivity limit, and take the solid curve in Fig. 7c as the intrinsic cumulative flux–density distribution for the present sample. We use this distribution to determine the fraction of the ‘flux–density function’ seen at a given offset (Fig. 7d), with the absolute limit of 120 mJy to determine the cut–off in flux density at the offset. In short, the curve in Fig. 7d shows what fraction of the flux–density distribution we see if we select sources with a certain offset from Table 2.222 Note that the text of Paper I describes this plot incorrectly; the area covered by points of that given offset is not taken into account. The actual plots in Paper I,II are the same as in the present paper.

The solid curve in Fig. 7e shows what fraction of the searched area we cover if we select all sources with a certain flux density from Table 2. The dashed curve in Fig. 7e shows the same distribution, but this time properly corrected for the gaps in the coverage and the corresponding redistribution of area from small offsets to large offsets. The dashed curve reaches 99% completeness for 2 Jy, the solid curve for 0.5 Jy. The latter is virtually the same as the 99% completeness of the ATCA surveys. The survey is 80% complete for sources of 320 mJy or 285 mJy, respectively, again similar to the ATCA surveys. This should be interpreted as follows. If we select all sources brighter than 2 Jy (after correction for PBR), the distribution on the sky will be entirely uninfluenced by our observations and only reflect the real surface–density distribution. If we select all sources brighter than 0.5 Jy, the distribution will show holes at the missing pointings, but will not be influenced by the variable sensitivity within fields. If one selects even fainter sources, the distribution will be a complicated function of both intrinsic surface density and survey sensitivity.

Finally, in Fig. 7f, we plot the signal–to–noise ratio for all detected sources against offset. The limiting signal–to–noise ratio is 7 (the corresponding ratios for the ATCA surveys are 4 and 6, respectively) at low offsets.

Summarizing, the lower sensitivity limit is 120 mJy $`\pm `$ 30 mJy, with the most sensitive detections made at 7$`\sigma `$. The survey is 99% complete for flux densities higher than 0.5 Jy (or 2 Jy, when taking into account holes in the survey area) and 90% complete in flux density for offsets lower than $`13^{}\mathrm{.\hspace{0.17em}2}`$ .

### 5.2 Positions

The positions given in Table 2 (columns 4,5) are determined by fitting a parabola over 3$`\times `$3 1′′ cells around the peak pixel in the cleaned and restored map of the peak channel (MAXFIT), made around the position of the object found by the searching routine. This ensures that the inaccurate handling by Miriad of the third coordinate of the visibility domain does not influence our final positions. The errors in Table 2 (column 6) are the formal errors determined by fitting a point–source object (IMFIT) to the centre of the above–mentioned map. They are typically negligible with respect to the errors introduced by the low resolution of some of the observations.

Firstly, the positional accuracy varies dramatically from source to source, as the maximum baseline length varies from 7 k$`\lambda `$ (see Table 1) to 55 k$`\lambda `$ , corresponding to a resolution of 29′′ and 4′′ , respectively. With 1′′ cells for the imaging of all fields, the positional errors for sources observed with the lowest resolution would go to infinity (see Fig. 5 in Paper I). As an example, for a maximum baseline length of 25k$`\lambda `$ the half width of the synthesized beam at half maximum would be $``$8′′ , or 5.5 cells, giving an error of $`<`$2 cells or 2′′ , following Fig. 5 in Paper I.

Secondly, since we discard baselines below 5 k$`\lambda `$ (Sect. 3), for observations with compact array configurations (Aug,Sep 1993) the synthesized–beam shape was severely compromised, given the minimal hour–angle coverage (cf. #237,280 with infinite beam size). However, our position for #280 differs only 11′′ of that given in the literature (Braz & Epchtein 1983), which is entirely within their errors.

In short, the typical error in the positions is of the order of 2′′ , in agreement with our findings in Sect. 5.7.

### 5.3 Flux densities

The flux densities in Table 2 (columns 12,13) were determined from the same cubes as described in Sect. 5.2 . The data were summed over 3$`\times `$3 1′′ cells around the maximum cell and divided by the corresponding sum of the synthesized beam (IMSPEC). The formal errors (column 14) were determined by IMFIT, in the peak channel. Errors marked with $``$ (mostly 0.0 mJy) indicate that the absolute flux–density calibration was not carried out properly in the corresponding field. We applied a fudge factor of 16 to all flux densities measured in those fields, which introduces an error of 25% for those sources (in properly calibrated fields this factor ranges from 12 to 20). In all other fields, the error from the absolute calibration is of the order of 1% , except for those observed on 260594 where it is 20% . From the time–dependent calibration solutions, we expect errors of 10% – 20% in the flux densities.

An addional error is introduced by random noise and binning. In Fig. 8c we show that this amounts to 35% (binning) $`\pm `$ 5% (noise). The corresponding errors in the peak–flux–density ratio (Fig. 8d) is $``$20% (0.7/0.6 instead of 1/1, Fig. 8c).

Summarizing, the relevant errors are on average 15% (calibration) plus 5% (noise) plus for some sources 25% (fudging). Multiplying, we find a typical accuracy for the flux densities in Table 2 of 20% , which is in agreement our findings in Sect. 5.7 , or 40% for fudged sources.

### 5.4 Velocities

As the VLA has on–line Doppler tracking, the velocity band is always centered on 0 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (LSR), but the bandpass calibration, in frequency space, changes the velocity range slightly with position and date. However, all detections are within the range that was covered on all dates ($``$200 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`+`$210 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$), so sensitivity and errors are independent of the value of the velocity.

In Fig. 8a we show the difference between measured stellar velocity, combining the effects of binning, noise and aliassing, and the true stellar velocity of a perfect spectrum, as a function of true stellar velocity with respect to the centre of the channel of detection. The typical errors are less than 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, in agreement with our finding in Sect. 5.7 .

The same arguments as given in Paper I apply, that for double–peaked sources the outflow velocity will be systematically slightly underestimated (see also Fig. 8b) due to undersampling of the spectra. For single–peaked sources there is an uncertainty in the stellar velocity of typically 14 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The fraction of such single–peak sources in this VLA set is low (3%) compared to the ATCA sets in Paper I,II (9%,18%). Due to the variable data quality and remnant RFI, fewer single–peaked detections were significant according to our criteria. For instance, a detection in three separate channels at the same spatial position was more readily accepted if it was in two neighbouring channels plus one at a certain velocity interval than if it was in three neighbouring channels, even if statistically those two scenarios may have the same probability. Empirically, the single–peaked configuration is more likely to turn out not to be a source, but remnant RFI.

### 5.5 IRAS identifications

In column 17, the distance from the OH source to the position of the IRAS point source (column 16) is given in fractional radii of the IRAS error ellipse in the direction of the OH position (see Paper I). $`N=1`$ means the position of the OH source can be identified with the position of the IRAS source with 95% confidence. The IRAS PS in column 16 is in fact the one that is most likely to be connected to the OH source, ie. with the smallest value of $`N`$ .

Of the 286 sources, 207 (72%) have an IRAS PS counterpart within the IRAS error ellipse ($`N<1`$). This fraction is comparable to those found in Paper I,II (65%,75%), as well as to the 68% found by Blommaert et al. (1994). In Fig. 9 we show the IRAS two–colour diagram (van der Veen & Habing 1988) for sources with an IRAS identification with $`N<1`$ and reliable IRAS colours.

Note that this two–colour diagram is very similar to that of the ATCA Bulge OH/IR stars (Paper I), rather than of the ATCA Disk stars, in terms of the population of region V and the scatter on the evolutionary track (regions III). This similarity remains the same when leaving out the source with longitude below 10. It could be due to the orientation of the Bar, that causes it to extend to higher longitudes in the northern galactic plane. However, it should be realized that by plotting only those sources that have well–determined IRAS flux densities in three bands, a selection effect is introduced. The distribution is influenced by the levels of background confusion.

### 5.6 OH identifications

We searched the SIMBAD data base for previous OH detections within 1$`^{}`$ from each position in Table 2. In column 16, as well as in Fig. 10, an ‘$``$’ indicates a reference to Paper I; if not in that catalogue, an ‘x’ indicates a reference to te Lintel et al. (1989); if not in that catalogue, a ‘$`+`$’ indicates another OH reference and a ‘$``$’ no OH reference at all. In total, there are 26 ‘$``$’ references, which is one less than determined from the actual Paper I source list (see next section) since entries in SIMBAD are not always entirely correct. Note that we did not check for coincidence in velocity. By this definition, 161 sources in Table 2, or 56% (cf. 47,55% for the ATCA survey regions), are new detections; see Paper I for a more elaborate discussion.

### 5.7 Overlap with the ATCA survey

The strip of $`4^{}.8<\mathrm{}<10^{}.2`$ was observed in both the VLA– and the ATCA parts of the survey, to allow direct comparison between the two resulting data sets. In that region, there are 47 stars detected in the ATCA survey and 36 in the VLA survey, of which 27 stars are actually in common. With another two sources in common between the two parts of the ATCA survey (Paper I,II), the total number of sources in the combined survey is 766.

Taking into account the intrinsic variability of the sources and the varying primary–beam responses in systematic observations, even two surveys with exactly the same flux–density limits would not yield the same detections unless they were carried out simultaneously and with the same pointing pattern. The redetection rate of the VLA is 27/47=57% and of the ATCA 27/36=75% . The difference between those numbers is a direct measure of the relative “efficiency” ( (number of detected sources)/(number of detectable sources within limits)) of the two surveys, provided the overlap region is representative of the whole area. The ATCA survey is 30% more “efficient” than the VLA survey. This is entirely in agreement with the ratio of FWHM coverages : the ATCA Bulge survey covers 73% of the survey area within a PBR of 0.5, the VLA 55% , including the missing pointings.

If we compare this VLA data set to the ATCA Disk data set, there are 250 and 202 stars, respectively, in the strips from $`\pm `$ 10 to $`\pm `$45 in longitude, even though VLA survey is less efficient. This could again be interpreted as a sign of the Bar extending to much higher longitudes on the northern side of the galactic Centre (see Sect. 5.5).

For the 27 sources in common, the average difference in position is $`1^{\prime \prime }.66`$ ($`0^{\prime \prime }.04`$ – $`2^{\prime \prime }.91`$ ) and in velocity 0.68$`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The latter value excludes two sources (#010=SCHB268, #021=SCHB286) for which one of the two peaks was not detected in the ATCA survey and source #020 (SCHB285) which is known to have a very variable velocity profile (Sevenster & Chapman in preparation).

For 8 sources, the observing date (200293) was relatively close to that of the ATCA, so that a flux–density comparison could be made. Taking into account the differences in velocity resolution and the typical variability of sources, the flux densities are the same to about 20% (cf. Sect. 5.3).

## 6 Summary

We have given the results of a survey of the region $`5^{}\mathrm{}45^{}`$ and $`|b|3^{}`$ in the OH 1612.231 MHz maser line. The survey is 99% complete for sources brighter than 500 mJy and 90% complete for positional offsets from the pointing centres smaller than 13$`^{}`$ . The absolute flux density limit is $``$120 mJy. We have found 286 compact OH–maser sources, 161 of which are new detections. The sources are mainly OH/IR stars, with a few related sources, like planetary nebulae. The positions are accurate to 2′′ , the velocities to 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and the flux densities to 20% . For 207 sources, an associated IRAS point source is found. The total number of sources in the combined ATCA/VLA survey is 766.

The VLA survey is similar to the ATCA surveys in terms of global completeness statistics, but considerably less homogeneous in quality. The efficiency is approximately 75% that of the ATCA Bulge survey. The biggest differences are the considerably worse accuracy in the flux densities and the very low fraction of single–peaked sources. Signatures of a higher fraction of bar–like stars in this part of the survey than in the ATCA Disk survey are found in the surface number density of detected sources and arguably in the IRAS two–colour diagram.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research has made use of the Simbad database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.

Table 2 Compact OH–maser sources in the northern galactic Disk region (obtain from http://msowww.anu.edu.au/ msevenst/pubs.html)

The columns of Table 2 contain the following information :

* 1 Sequence number (coincident with spectra in Fig. 10)
* 2 Name in the OH$`\mathrm{}b`$ convention
* 3 Date of observation. Date ‘000000’ means data were taken during more than one observing run (see Table 1 for parameters)
* 4 Right ascension of the brightest peak for epoch J2000 (typical error 2′′ , Sect. 5.2)
* 5 Declination of the brightest peak for epoch J2000 (typical error 2′′ , Sect. 5.2)
* 6 Formal measurement error in position from IMFIT (determined in the channel of the brightest peak) in arcsec (Sect. 5.2)
* 7 Radial offset of the source from pointing centre in arcmin
* 8 Line–of–sight velocity with respect to the LSR of the blue–shifted (L) peak. For single–peaked spectra the velocity of the peak is always given as blue–shifted for reasons of tabulation (typical error 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, Sect. 5.4).
* 9 Same for the red–shifted (H) peak (typical error 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, Sect. 5.4).
* 10 Stellar velocity (typical error 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$/ 14 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, Sect. 5.4).

$`v_\mathrm{c}=0.5\left(v_\mathrm{H}+v_\mathrm{L}\right)`$
* 11 Outflow velocity; zero for single–peaked sources (typical error 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, Sect. 5.4).

$`V_{\mathrm{exp}}`$ $`=0.5\left(v_\mathrm{H}v_\mathrm{L}\right)`$
* 12 Flux density in image domain at peak pixel of cleaned, restored image (IMSPEC), corrected for primary–beam attenuation, but not for any ‘continuum’ of the blue–shifted (L) peak (typical error 20% , Sect. 5.3).
* 13 Same for the red–shifted (H) peak (typical error 20% , Sect. 5.3).
* 14 Formal measurement error in flux density, determined in the channel of the brightest peak (IMFIT). An asterisk indicates that the corresponding field was not calibrated properly (Sect. 5.3)
* 15 Empirical noise in ‘empty’ cube for the present field (Sect. 5.1.1, channel width 2.27 km/s)
* 16 A ‘$`+`$’,‘$``$’ or ‘x’ for a, or ‘$``$’ for no, OH identification within 1$`^{}`$ in the Simbad database (Sect. 5.6), and the IRAS PSC position with highest identification probability (ie. smallest $`N`$, see column 17, Sect. 5.5)
* 17 Ratio between the size of the error ellipse of, and and the distance to, the IRAS PS of column 16, in the direction of the OH position (Sect. 5.5)