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# Star Formation History and Stellar Metallicity Distribution in a Λ Cold Dark Matter Universe

## 1. Introduction

Over the last 15 years, cold dark matter (CDM) models have served as basic frameworks to study the formation of cosmic structure, and have been successful in delineating a scenario of galaxy formation (Davis et al., 1985; Blumenthal et al., 1984). We now understand the formation of large-scale structure reasonably well in terms of a CDM model dominated by a cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (Efstathiou, Sutherland, & Maddox, 1990; Ostriker and Steinhardt, 1995; Turner and White, 1997; Balbi et al., 2000; Lange et al., 2000; Hu, et al., 2000).

When and how galaxies formed, however, are a far more complicated problem due to non-gravitational physical processes operating on small scales. Many authors use semianalytic models to study galaxy formation, where dark matter halo formation under the hierarchical structure formation is supplemented heuristically with physical processes for baryons (White & Frenk, 1991; Baugh et al., 1998; Kauffmann et al., 1999a; Somerville and Primack, 1999; Cole et al., 2000). They have succeeded to give a picture of galaxy formation roughly consistent with observations, but have the disadvantage that one has to assume a set of simplified model equations, often associated with additional free parameters, for each physical process included in the model. The advantage of semianalytic models is, on the other hand, that they are computationally light, and therefore, one can search for a viable model with a small amount of cost.

An alternative but computationally much more expensive approach is direct cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. So far, intergalactic medium and overall galaxy formation processes have been well studied with hydrodynamic approach (e.g., Cen and Ostriker, 1992a, 1993, 2000; Katz, Weinberg, & Hernquist, 1996) (see Pearce et al., 1999, however). Much effort invested in improving the accuracy of simulations has brought the hydrodynamic mesh approaching to $`(1000)^3`$, with which we may hope that we obtain meaningful results on some aspects of galaxy properties. It is certainly impossible to resolve internal structure of galaxies with the present simulations. Nevertheless, we would expect that global properties such as global star formation rate (SFR) are described reasonably well with a few adjustable parameters, since they primarily depend on thermal balance of the bulk of clouds, such as how gas cools, or how surrounding gas is reheated by feedback by star formation. The fact that we obtain a reasonable amount of baryonic mass frozen into stars and a global metal abundance with reasonable input parameters justifies, at least in part, our expectation.

In this paper, we primarily discuss the star formation history of galaxies and the evolution of stellar metallicity, which are the direct output of the simulation. The aspects that require additional use of a stellar population synthesis model, such as luminosity function and colors of galaxies, will be discussed in a separate publication Nagamine, Fukugita, Cen, and Ostriker (2001, hereafter Paper II). Since the hydrodynamic approach is computationally demanding, we do not attempt to make a fine tuning of input parameters, but our aim here instead is to make qualitative predictions which can be used to either verify or falsify the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model by future observations with only a limited number of assumptions, treating the dynamics of baryons more accurately than in semianalytic models.

Our results would give insight on how galaxies are assembled from an early epoch to the present. Observationally interesting questions would include: (i) How old are stars in normal and dwarf galaxies, and what is their age distribution? A relevant question is whether star formation takes place continuously or intermittently; (ii) What is the stellar metallicity distribution in normal and dwarf galaxies? A relevant old problem is the paucity of metal poor stars in the solar neighborhood (G-dwarf problem: van den Bergh, 1962; Schmidt, 1963); (iii) Is there a unique age-metallicity relation for stars in normal galaxies, and (iv) Is there a relation between the mass of galaxies and average metallicity? How these aspects evolve with redshift is also an observationally relevant problem, although the observational studies could answer only for global properties for high-redshift objects. Our simulation yield unambiguous predictions to these problems, at least qualitatively.

In § 2, we describe our simulation. In § 3 we first present the global star formation history of the entire simulation box. We then discuss in § 4 the star formation history of individual galaxies. The mean age of the stars and the formation epoch of galaxies are discussed in § 5. We discuss the stellar metallicity distribution and the mean metallicity of galaxies in § 6, and conclude in § 7.

## 2. Simulation and Parameters

We use a recent Eulerian hydrodynamic cosmological simulation with a comoving box size of 25$`h^1`$ Mpc with $`768^3`$ grid cells and $`384^3`$ dark matter particles of mass $`2.03\times 10^7h^1M_{}`$. The comoving cell size is $`32.6h^1`$ kpc, and the mean baryonic mass per cell is $`3.35\times 10^5h^1M_{}`$ ($`h`$ is the Hubble constant in units of $`H_0=100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$). The cosmological parameters are chosen to be $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.016`$, $`h=0.67`$, $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, and the spectral index of the primordial mass power spectrum $`n=1.0`$. The present age of the universe is 14.1 Gyr. The structure of the code is similar to that of Cen and Ostriker (1992a, 1993), but significantly improved over the years.

The Eulerian scheme we use here has higher mass resolution than other hydrodynamic approaches, such as the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH; e.g., Katz, Weinberg, & Hernquist, 1996; Dave, Dubinski, & Hernquist, 1997) and the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR; e.g., Bryan & Norman, 1995; Kravtsov, Klypin, & Khokhlov, 1997), while SPH and AMR usually have higher spatial resolution than the Eulerian method. We remark that our code is specially designed to capture the shock region well, using the total variation diminishing method (Ryu et al., 1993). The higher mass resolution means more resolving power at higher wavenumbers for a given power spectrum, and hence a better treatment of early structure formation.

The baryons are turned into stars in a cell of overdensity $`\delta \rho /\rho >5.5`$ once the following three conditions are satisfied: (i) contracting flow $`𝐯<0`$, (ii) fast cooling $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}<t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$, and (iii) Jeans instability $`m_{\mathrm{gas}}>m_\mathrm{J}`$. Each stellar particle has a number of attributes at birth, including position, velocity, formation time, mass, and metallicity. Upon its formation, the mass of a stellar particle is determined by $`m_{}=c_{}m_{\mathrm{gas}}\mathrm{\Delta }t/t_{}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ is the current time-step in the simulation, and $`m_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ is the baryonic gas mass in the cell. We take $`t_{}=\mathrm{max}(t_{\mathrm{dyn}},10^7\mathrm{yrs})`$, where $`10^7\mathrm{yrs}`$ is the shortest time-scale of star formation for O stars. We assume the star formation efficiency to be $`c_{}=0.25`$. The fraction of baryonic mass that collapses into dense state is fairly well defined by our code, nearly independent of the detailed values of $`c_{}`$ and the minimum value of $`t_{}`$, as confirmed by a recent numerical experiment of Norman (2000, private communication).

The mass of the stellar particles ranges from $`10^{3.5}10^{10.3}h^1M_{}`$; with the mean $`m_{}=10^{6.9}h^1M_{}`$ at $`z=0`$. An aggregation of these particles is regarded as a galaxy. The stellar particle is placed at the center of the cell after its formation with a velocity equal to the mean velocity of the gas, and followed by the particle-mesh code thereafter as collisionless particles gravitationally coupled with dark matter and gas.

Feedback processes such as ultra-violet (UV) ionizing field, supernova (SN) energy, and metal ejection are also included self-consistently. The SN and the UV feedback from young stars are treated as follows: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{SN}}=m_{}c^2ϵ_{\mathrm{SN}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{UV}}=m_{}c^2ϵ_{\mathrm{UV}}g_\nu `$, where $`g_\nu `$ is the normalized spectrum of a young, Orion-like stellar association taken from Scalo (1986), and the efficiency parameters are taken as $`(ϵ_{\mathrm{SN}},ϵ_{\mathrm{UV}})=(10^5,3\times 10^6)`$ (cf. Cen and Ostriker, 1993). The $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{SN}}`$ is added locally in a cell, and the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{UV}}`$ is averaged over the box. Extra UV is coadded for quasars as $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{AGN}}=m_{}c^2ϵ_{\mathrm{AGN}}f_\nu `$, where $`f_\nu `$ is an AGN spectrum taken from Edelson and Malkan (1986), and $`ϵ_{\mathrm{AGN}}=5\times 10^6`$ is adopted. The proportionality between $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{AGN}}`$ and $`m_{}`$ is an assumption, and our ignorance is included in $`ϵ_{\mathrm{AGN}}`$ which is adjusted to fit the hard X-ray background observed by ASCA (see Phillips, Ostriker, & Cen, 2000). Metals are created according to $`m_Z=Ym_{}`$, where $`m_Z`$ is the mass of metals, and $`Y`$ is the yield. The fraction 25% ($`f_{ej}=0.25`$) of the initially collapsed baryons is ejected back into the intergalactic medium in the local grid cell. This ejected gas is polluted by metals, and 2% ($`Y=0.02`$; Arnett, 1996) of initially collapsed baryons are returned to intergalactic medium as metals, which are followed as a separate variable by the same hydro-code which follows the gas density. The value of the three parameters ($`ϵ_{\mathrm{SN}}`$, $`ϵ_{UV}`$, $`Y`$) are proportional to the amount of high-mass stars for a given amount of collapsed baryons. The results presented in this paper is insensitive to the assumed value of $`f_{ej}`$ provided that it is non zero. Thus, all our ignorance concerning star formation is parameterized into essentially one free parameter, the efficiency of cooling, i.e., collapsing matter that is transformed into high-mass stars, and this value is empirically calibrated so that one obtains a final cluster gas-metallicity of $`Z=\frac{1}{3}Z_{}`$, where $`Z_{}=0.02`$ is the solar metallicity.

We use the HOP grouping algorithm (Eisenstein and Hut, 1998) to identify galaxies with threshold parameters $`(\delta _{\mathrm{outer}},\delta _{\mathrm{saddle}},\delta _{\mathrm{peak}})=(80,200,240)`$. We set the minimum number of grouping particles to 5; changing this to 2 does not modify the catalog. We identify 2097 galaxies in the entire box at $`z=0`$, the minimum galaxy stellar mass being $`10^{6.7}h^1M_{}`$. The total mass of stars corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}=0.0052`$, i.e., 15% of baryons are collapsed into stars (including the ejected gas). This is consistent with the upper limit of an empirical estimate of Fukugita, Hogan, and Peebles (1998). The average metal density is $`10^{7.1}M_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$, which is also close to the empirical estimate of $`10^{7.4}M_{}\mathrm{Mpc}^3`$ (Fukugita & Peebles, unpublished), justifying our choice of parameters.

We examine the merger history of galaxies, and find that 93% of the galaxies at $`z=0.5`$ preserve more than 80% of their stellar mass to $`z=0`$: i.e., most of the constituent stellar particles are not lost upon merging or tidal shredding. This tells us that the galaxies identified in our simulation are dynamically stable enough to obtain meaningful results for the evolution of individual galaxies.

## 3. Global Star Formation Rate

We first present in Figure 1a the global SFR as a function of time, going from right to left. The prediction of global SFR in the CDM model has been discussed in the literature (Baugh et al., 1998; Nagamine, Cen, and Ostriker, 2000; Somerville, Primack, & Faber, 2001) 111The simulation used by Nagamine et al. (2000) assumed a too high yield of metals ($`Y=0.06`$), which resulted in overproduction of stars compared to the empirical estimate. Also, the simulation mesh was coarser and one may suspect the effect of low resolution at above $`z4`$. We consider that the result presented in this paper supersedes that of Nagamine et al. (2000). This quantity is observationally known up to uncertainties associated with dust obscuration, and the agreement with observations can be used as a verification of the calculation. This quantity does not receive the effect of the grouping procedure, but gives a measure of the efficiency of gas cooling, which depends on the thermal balance.

We also indicate a boxcar smoothed histogram with 10 point running average with the dotted curve. The dashed line is a least-square fit to the exponential decay function, corresponding to a time-scale of $`\tau =5.9\mathrm{Gyr}`$.

The identical information is presented in Figure 1b, but using the logarithmic scale for SFR and redshift as a time-scale in accordance with the Madau plot. In this diagram the meaning of solid and dotted curves are reversed: the dotted curve follow the raw data, and the solid line is the smoothed data. The observation is corrected for dust extinction according to the prescription of Steidel et al. (1999): we assume highly uncertain extinction correction factors to be 1.3 ($`z<2`$) and 2.5 ($`z>2`$) to obtain a better fit, while Steidel et al. (1999) used higher values 2.7 ($`z<2`$) and 4.7 ($`z>2`$). With a rather large error in the empirical estimate of SFR, a global agreement is seen between our calculation and the observation. We do not observe a peak of SFR at low redshift, as often found by semianalytic modellers of galaxy formation (Baugh et al., 1998; Somerville, Primack, & Faber, 2001) 222In semianalytic models, one may suppress star formation at high-redshift by taking a larger SN energy feedback parameters. In general, they require a strong SN feedback to fit the faint-end of the galaxy luminosity funcition (see Cole et al., 2000). See Paper II for the luminosity function in our simulation.. The SFR is on average a smooth function of redshift, and nearly levels off at $`z>4`$. Note that this behavior is consistent with an exponential decay of the SFR in time. This means that the bulk of stars have formed at redshift higher than 2: 25% of stars formed at $`z>3.6`$, and another 25% were added between $`z=3.6`$ and 1.8 (By $`z=1`$, 68% of stars were formed). We consider that our result is reliable up to $`z=56`$ from a mesh effect consideration, whereas that at a yet higher redshift may receive an effect of poor resolutions. Observationally it is an unsettled problem whether SFR levels off at high-redshift (Steidel et al., 1999) or still increases beyond $`z>3`$ (Lanzetta et al., 1999). It is an interesting observational problem to find out how SFR behaves at high-redshifts, but this can be done only after proper knowledge of dust extinction or with the observations that do not receive effects of extinction. For now, it is sufficient for us to know that the calculation of global SFR is grossly consistent with the observation.

## 4. Star Formation History in Galaxies

In Figure 2, we present the star formation histories of galaxies in the simulation divided into three samples according to their stellar mass at $`z=0`$. Note that the starbursts at high-redshift may have taken place in smaller progenitors that later merged into a massive object that is classified in the largest mass bin. All galaxies which fall into each mass interval are co-added in the histogram. Most of the mass reside in large galaxies which are represented in the top panel. This histogram can also be interpreted as the age distribution of stars in galaxies. The dashed lines show the least-square fits to the exponential decay function with parameters given in Table 1. The time-scale $`\tau =6.1`$ Gyr for ‘normal galaxies’ (stellar mass $`M_{\mathrm{stellar}}>2\times 10^9h^1M_{}`$; top panel of Figure 2) agrees qualitatively with the star formation history inferred for present-day Sbc galaxies, which are about the median type of local galaxies (Sandage, 1986; Gallagher, Hunter, & Tutukov, 1984). We show in Paper II that the time-scale $`\tau =6.1\mathrm{Gyr}`$ gives the correct mean color of normal galaxies. For these galaxies, 36% of their total stellar mass formed below $`z=1`$, 23% from $`z=1`$ to 2, and 40% at $`z>2`$.

A feature dominant in the top panel is the strong spikes in the star formation history, indicating that the star formation takes place intermittently rather than continuously in normal galaxies. This feature is more manifest if we look at the star formation history of individual galaxies. Each galaxy experiences several conspicuous star formation episodes, while they are quiescent for most of the time. This agrees with the suggestive evidence from the study of stellar ages in the Milky Way that it has experienced enhanced episodes of star formation in the past (Majewsky, 1993; Rocha-Pinto et al., 2000b). A study of star forming galaxies also supports the view that star formation is episodic (Alonso-Herrero et al., 1996).

The figure (lower panels) also shows that star formation ceased at high-redshift in small galaxies. Only 7% of stars form below $`z=1`$ in galaxies with $`2\times 10^8<M_{\mathrm{stellar}}<2\times 10^9h^1M_{}`$, and no stars form below $`z=1`$ in galaxies with $`M_{\mathrm{stellar}}<2\times 10^8`$. This is consistent with the feature generic to the CDM structure formation, in which the formation of smaller structure ceases at higher redshift. Accretion of material stops, while most of residual gas is easily swept out by supernovae and photoionization from small systems (Dekel & Silk, 1986; Rees, 1986; Efstathiou, 1992; Quinn, Katz, & Efstathiou, 1996; Navarro & Steinmetz, 1997; Weinberg, Hernquist, & Katz, 1997; Gnedin, 2000b). Our prediction is that, in a CDM universe, small galaxies found today are dominated by old stars; dwarf galaxies consist dominantly of stars of 10 Gyr old and do not show star formation activity in the recent epoch. It is known that most of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group are dominated by old stellar population with occasional mixture of younger stars (Grebel, 1997; Mateo, 1998; van den Bergh, 1998; Gnedin, 2000a). A small admixture of young stars may not be excluded in the CDM model, since our calculation adopts a simplified treatment where only the evolution of the bulk of the material is followed, and it has no power to resolve minor components. The bulk star formation in small systems at late times, however, cannot be understood within the the scenario of hierarchical galaxy formation based on the CDM model. Major star formation activities in recent epochs, such as those in Leo I and Carina, do not fit the model 333We note in passing that, in the warm dark matter scenario, low mass galaxies form primarily by “top-down” fragmentation rather than “bottom-up” accumulation process and so are found later than in the standard CDM picture (Bode et al., 2000)..

## 5. Mean Age of Stars and Galaxies

The mean stellar age at each epoch in the history of the universe is also interesting. In Figure 3, we plot the median (solid square) and the mass-weighted mean age (open square) of all stars at each epoch. The median was calculated from the cumulative distribution of stellar mass at each epoch. The solid bars indicate the quartiles, which almost coincide with 1-$`\sigma `$ ranges shown with dotted bars. The average age of the extant stars decreases only slowly with increasing redshift. The mean stellar age today is $`45\mathrm{Gyr}`$ and the age becomes smaller than 1 Gyr only at $`z=3`$. The age $`45\mathrm{Gyr}`$ is slightly younger than the observed median stellar age of $`6\mathrm{Gyr}`$ in the Milky Way (Rocha-Pinto et al., 2000b). We show in Paper II that the distribution of $`BV`$ colors of simulated galaxies agrees with that of the local galaxy sample. The median age of 1 Gyr at $`z=3`$ means that the majority of galaxies at this redshift are dominated, in addition to star forming activities, by Balmer absorption features of A stars, which would be tested with near infrared spectroscopy for Lyman break galaxies.

Figure 4 gives the mean formation redshift of galaxies versus their stellar mass at $`z=0`$. The mean formation redshift was calculated by taking the mass-weighted mean of the formation epoch (in time unit) of constituent stellar particles, and then converting it to redshift. Each dot represents individual galaxy. The solid square symbols are the median, and the solid bars are the quartiles in each mass bin. This figure confirms the result we saw earlier that less massive galaxies found at $`z=0`$ are older than massive ones. Small systems formed at high and intermediate redshift merge into more massive systems at lower redshift. The mean formation redshift mostly decreases with increasing galaxy stellar mass, but it turns over slightly at the very massive end: this is due to the merging of oldest dwarfs into very massive galaxies.

## 6. The metallicity distribution and the age-mettalicity relation

The metallicity of stars as a function of their formation time (going from right to left) is plotted in Figure 5 for the same subsamples as in Figure 2. Each point in the figure corresponds to one stellar particle in the simulation. The contours of an equally spaced logarithmic scale in number density is used where the density of data points is large. The plot shows that the stars which formed at low-redshift ($`z1`$) do not show unique metallicity but distribute from $`0.1Z_{}`$ to $`1.0Z_{}`$. The width of the distribution slowly increases with redshift, while the upper envelope stays at 1.0$`Z_{}`$ up to $`z1`$. The widening trend of the age dispersion is conspicuous at redshift $`z>2`$. Note that the widening takes place dominantly towards lower metallicity, while the upper envelope slightly increases to super-solar values. At $`z3`$, the distribution ranges from $`10^6Z_{}`$ to $`3.0Z_{}`$. It is interesting to observe that the median of metallicity changes very little at $`z2`$. The mass-weighted mean metallicity varies also slowly as $`0.55,0.45,0.61,0.24`$, and 0.22$`Z_{}`$ for $`z=0,1,2,3`$, and 5, respectively. The decrease of mean metallicity above $`z=2`$ is clear, whereas we can not conclude the change of mean metallicity for $`z2`$ because of small statistics.

It is known that stars in the Milky Way do not obey a unique age-metallicity relation, but show a significantly wide distribution ranging from $`0.1Z_{}`$ to $`3Z_{}`$. Whether the dispersion increases with redshift, however, is still a matter of debate. Edvardsson et al. (1993, see also ()) argued that the dispersion increases as stellar age gets older, while the metal rich stars form an envelope that is about solar metallicity independent of stellar age. On the other hand, Rocha-Pinto et al. (2000a) argued that age and metallicity show a stronger correlation, earlier stars being metal poor. Our result agrees with Edvardsson’s, but not with Rocha-Pinto’s result.

The result we discussed above means that early galaxies are not necessarily metal deficient. Kobulnicky and Zaritsky (1999) show that emission line galaxies at $`z=0.10.4`$ have metallicity only slightly lower than solar, which is not uncommon in local galaxy samples. Pettini et al. (2000) show that Lyman break galaxies at $`z3`$ have $`0.25Z_{}`$, only modestly sub-solar. The strength of metal lines in the highest redshift quasar (Fan et al., 2000) is also suggestive of normal metallicity at $`z=5.8`$. These observations are all consistent with our simulation.

It is also our prediction that the Milky Way contains highly metal poor stars. We expect that 1% of stars have $`10^4Z_{}`$. Those stars are necessarily old. Another interesting result is that most super-metal rich stars are from high redshift epoch. This would be consistent with the fact that most of super-metal rich stars are in the bulge rather than in the disk (Frogel & Whitford, 1987; Rich, 1988) if the bulge contains more old stars than the disk as usually conceived444A contradictory view is presented by Rocha-Pinto et al. (2000a), who claim that super-metal rich stars are young. At the same time, our calculation predicts that the mean metallicity of the old population is lower than that of the younger population, which is also consistent with the observation (Edvardsson et al., 1993; McWilliam & Rich, 1994; Rocha-Pinto et al., 2000a).

We may ascribe the change of scatter in metallicity from high to low redshift to the following reason. Metallicity is a strong function of local overdensity, as shown by Gnedin (1998) and Cen and Ostriker (1999c). Both authors have shown that the metallicity distribution in high-density regions is narrower than that in low-density regions. As time progresses, the universe becomes more clumpy, and star formation takes place only in moderate to high overdensity regions where gas is already polluted by metals, resulting in a narrower scatter of metallicity at late times as seen in the top panel of Figure 5.

Let us now consider the G-dwarf problem; the fact that there are too few metal poor stars in the solar neighborhood compared to the closed box model (van den Bergh, 1962; Schmidt, 1963). In our model, a large fraction of stars formed in an early epoch, and such a population contains a significant fraction of metal poor stars. A histogram analysis of the metallicity distribution at $`z=0`$ shows that 50% of stars have $`Z<0.3Z_{}`$ in our simulation. This is roughly the same as the prediction of the closed box model, whereas the observation shows the fraction of these stars to be only a few percent (Pagel & Patchett, 1975; Sommer-Larsen, 1991). The qualitative trend of our prediction does not seem to be easily modified. We ascribe, however, the presence of large metal poor stars in our simulation to our inability of resolving the internal structure of galaxies (i.e.disk from bulge). If the disk is a later addition to the bulge as the observations suggest (Fukugita, Hogan, & Peebles, 1996), it would contain little metal poor stars, as is clear from Figure 5 above. The material accreted onto galaxies at low-redshift was already polluted by metals from bulge stars (Ostriker and Thuan, 1975). A high fraction of metal poor stars could occur in the CDM model, when we do not distinguish the disk and the bulge components. This view is consistent with the work by Kauffmann (1996), where she provides a natural explanation to the G-dwarf problem, using a semianalytic model, by pre-enrichment by early outflows from dwarf progenitors.

Finally in Figure 6, we show the mean metallicity of galaxies as a function of their stellar mass in the simulation. The mean metallicity of each galaxy is calculated by taking the mass-weighted average of constituent stellar particles. Solid square points are the median, and the solid bars are the quartiles in each mass bin. Massive galaxies ($`M_{\mathrm{stellar}}>10^{10}h^1M_{}`$) at $`z=0`$ have mean metallicity of $`0.11.0Z_{}`$, while less massive galaxies have a wide range of mean metallicity ranging from $`10^41.0Z_{}`$. There are a few dwarf galaxies which have even $`10^6Z_{}`$ outside of the figure. The star formation in less massive galaxies (identified at $`z=0`$) took place with a wide range of metallicity at high-redshift as we saw in the bottom panel of Figure 5, while larger galaxies at $`z=0`$ had star formation continuing up to the present epoch with normal metallicity of $`0.011.0Z_{}`$. The two solid lines in the figure are obtained from a fit to the observational data of spiral and irregular galaxies given in Figure 4 of Kobulnicky and Zaritsky (1999). We converted the absolute $`B`$-magnitude to the stellar mass using the relation $`\mathrm{log}M_{\mathrm{stellar}}=0.4M_B+(2.75\pm 0.20)`$, which the majority of galaxies in our simulation follow before dust extinction (see Paper II), and scaled the metallicity by $`\mathrm{log}(Z/Z_{})=12+\mathrm{log}(O/H)8.89`$. A good agreement is seen between the simulated result and the observation in the range of $`10^7<M_{\mathrm{stellar}}<10^{10}h^1M_{}`$. We remark that Kauffmann (1996) obtains a result similar to ours, which again suggests that the reason we are not seeing a similar cumulative distribution to her result and the solar neighborhood observation is simply because we cannot resolve the bulge and the disk into separate components.

## 7. Conclusions

We have studied predictions of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe with regard to the star formation history and the stellar metallicity distribution in galaxies. Our purpose has been to clarify what observations would test the validity of the model of galaxy formation based on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM. We have first shown that the global SFR averaged over all galaxies declines with a characteristic time-scale of $`\tau 6\mathrm{Gyr}`$. About a quarter of stars formed by $`z3.5`$ and another quarter by $`z2`$. This star formation history is consistent with the empirical Madau plot if modest dust obscuration is assumed.

Our calculation indicates that star formation in $`L^{}`$ galaxies continues intermittently to the present epoch as they accrete gas and merge with smaller systems with a decline rate corresponding to an e-folding time of $`\tau 6\mathrm{Gyr}`$. Star formation in less massive galaxies ceases earlier with an e-folding time of $`\tau 1\mathrm{Gyr}`$. In particular, dwarf galaxies cease their star formation by $`z=2`$. It is not excluded that minor star formation activity at low-redshift is missed in our calculation due to yet insufficient resolution, but it is unlikely that the global trend would be modified. We consider that this is a feature generic to the CDM structure formation scenario, and observational tests would provide a vital test.

Stars formed in the CDM galaxy formation scenario do not follow a unique age-metallicity relation, but show a considerable spread of metallicity for a given age of stars. Metallicity of very young stars spreads from $`0.11.0Z_{}`$. The spread gradually increases towards high redshift. It takes $`0.011.0Z_{}`$ at $`z=2`$. At $`z=3`$, the distribution spreads over from $`10^6Z_{}`$ to super-metal rich ($`3Z_{}`$). Young stars are necessarily metal rich, but old stars are not necessarily metal poor. The variation of the mean metallicity with cosmic time is only gradual. The average metallicity for galaxies at $`z1`$ differs little from that of local galaxies.

On the other hand, mean metallicity varies as a function of the mass of galaxies. Less massive galaxies are metal poor. Another interesting prediction is that mean metallicity of dwarf galaxies today ranges widely ($`10^41Z_{}`$), which reflects the large scatter of metallicity of stars formed at high-redshift.

The G-dwarf problem in the solar neighborhood offers an interesting insight for formation of galactic structure. If we apply the prediction of the metallicity distribution to solar neighborhood, we encounter the G-dwarf problem: the prediction of the metallicity distribution does not differ much from that of the closed-box model. In our case, however, the G-dwarf problem would be solved if bulges are early entities and disks are later additions.

We have briefly discussed observational tests for each item of the predictions. In many aspects the predictions are supported by observational evidence, but for some aspects the predictions do not seem to agree with the current interpretation of the observations. The currently available observations, however, are sometimes controversial among authors or do not offer unique interpretations free from various working assumptions. We consider that decisive tests will be a task for the future.

We thank Simon White for suggesting that we check the stability of the galaxies in our simulation. We are grateful to the anonymous referee and Michael Strauss for useful comments on the draft. K.N. is supported in part by the Physics Department of Princeton University. M.F. is supported in part by the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Fellowship in Princeton and Grant-in-Aid of the Ministry of Education of Japan. R.C. and J.P.O. are partly supported by grants AST 98-03137 and ASC 97-40300.


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# 1 Transverse Energy distribution of a) the second E^{jet}_T(2) and b) third jet E^{jet}_T(3) for events with two SM top decays and for events with one SM and one SUSY top decay.

Search for the Supersymmetric
Partner of the Top-Quark
in $`p\overline{p}`$ Collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8\mathrm{TeV}`$

T. Affolder,23 H. Akimoto,45 A. Akopian,38 M. G. Albrow,11 P. Amaral,8 S. R. Amendolia,34 D. Amidei,26 K. Anikeev,24 J. Antos,1 G. Apollinari,11 T. Arisawa,45 T. Asakawa,43 W. Ashmanskas,8 F. Azfar,31 P. Azzi-Bacchetta,32 N. Bacchetta,32 M. W. Bailey,28 S. Bailey,16 P. de Barbaro,37 A. Barbaro-Galtieri,23 V. E. Barnes,36 B. A. Barnett,19 S. Baroiant,5 M. Barone,13 G. Bauer,24 F. Bedeschi,34 S. Belforte,42 W. H. Bell,15 G. Bellettini,34 J. Bellinger,46 D. Benjamin,10 J. Bensinger,4 A. Beretvas,11 J. P. Berge,11 J. Berryhill,8 B. Bevensee,33 A. Bhatti,38 M. Binkley,11 D. Bisello,32 M. Bishai,11 R. E. Blair,2 C. Blocker,4 K. Bloom,26 B. Blumenfeld,19 S. R. Blusk,37 A. Bocci,34 A. Bodek,37 W. Bokhari,33 G. Bolla,36 Y. Bonushkin,6 D. Bortoletto,36 J. Boudreau,35 A. Brandl,28 S. van den Brink,19 C. Bromberg,27 M. Brozovic,10 N. Bruner,28 E. Buckley-Geer,11 J. Budagov,9 H. S. Budd,37 K. Burkett,16 G. Busetto,32 A. Byon-Wagner,11 K. L. Byrum,2 P. Calafiura,23 M. Campbell,26 W. Carithers,23 J. Carlson,26 D. Carlsmith,46 W. Caskey,5 J. Cassada,37 A. Castro,32 D. Cauz,42 A. Cerri,34 A. W. Chan,1 P. S. Chang,1 P. T. Chang,1 J. Chapman,26 C. Chen,33 Y. C. Chen,1 M. -T. Cheng,1 M. Chertok,40 G. Chiarelli,34 I. Chirikov-Zorin,9 G. Chlachidze,9 F. Chlebana,11 L. Christofek,18 M. L. Chu,1 Y. S. Chung,37 C. I. Ciobanu,29 A. G. Clark,14 A. Connolly,23 J. Conway,39 M. Cordelli,13 J. Cranshaw,41 D. Cronin-Hennessy,10 R. Cropp,25 R. Culbertson,11 D. Dagenhart,44 S. D’Auria,15 F. DeJongh,11 S. Dell’Agnello,13 M. Dell’Orso,34 L. Demortier,38 M. Deninno,3 P. F. Derwent,11 T. Devlin,39 J. R. Dittmann,11 S. Donati,34 J. Done,40 T. Dorigo,16 N. Eddy,18 K. Einsweiler,23 J. E. Elias,11 E. Engels, Jr.,35 D. Errede,18 S. Errede,18 Q. Fan,37 R. G. Feild,47 J. P. Fernandez,11 C. Ferretti,34 R. D. Field,12 I. Fiori,3 B. Flaugher,11 G. W. Foster,11 M. Franklin,16 J. Freeman,11 J. Friedman,24 Y. Fukui,22 I. Furic,24 S. Galeotti,34 M. Gallinaro,38 T. Gao,33 M. Garcia-Sciveres,23 A. F. Garfinkel,36 P. Gatti,32 C. Gay,47 D. W. Gerdes,26 P. Giannetti,34 P. Giromini,13 V. Glagolev,9 M. Gold,28 J. Goldstein,11 A. Gordon,16 I. Gorelov,28 A. T. Goshaw,10 Y. Gotra,35 K. Goulianos,38 C. Green,36 G. Grim,5 P. Gris,11 L. Groer,39 C. Grosso-Pilcher,8 M. Guenther,36 G. Guillian,26 J. Guimaraes da Costa,16 R. M. Haas,12 C. Haber,23 E. Hafen,24 S. R. Hahn,11 C. Hall,16 T. Handa,17 R. Handler,46 W. Hao,41 F. Happacher,13 K. Hara,43 A. D. Hardman,36 R. M. Harris,11 F. Hartmann,20 K. Hatakeyama,38 J. Hauser,6 J. Heinrich,33 A. Heiss,20 M. Herndon,19 C. Hill,5 K. D. Hoffman,36 C. Holck,33 R. Hollebeek,33 L. Holloway,18 R. Hughes,29 J. Huston,27 J. Huth,16 H. Ikeda,43 J. Incandela,11 G. Introzzi,34 J. Iwai,45 Y. Iwata,17 E. James,26 H. Jensen,11 M. Jones,33 U. Joshi,11 H. Kambara,14 T. Kamon,40 T. Kaneko,43 K. Karr,44 H. Kasha,47 Y. Kato,30 T. A. Keaffaber,36 K. Kelley,24 M. Kelly,26 R. D. Kennedy,11 R. Kephart,11 D. Khazins,10 T. Kikuchi,43 B. Kilminster,37 B. J. Kim,21 D. H. Kim,21 H. S. Kim,18 M. J. Kim,21 S. H. Kim,43 Y. K. Kim,23 M. Kirby,10 M. Kirk,4 L. Kirsch,4 S. Klimenko,12 P. Koehn,29 A. Köngeter,20 K. Kondo,45 J. Konigsberg,12 K. Kordas,25 A. Korn,24 A. Korytov,12 E. Kovacs,2 J. Kroll,33 M. Kruse,37 S. E. Kuhlmann,2 K. Kurino,17 T. Kuwabara,43 A. T. Laasanen,36 N. Lai,8 S. Lami,38 S. Lammel,11 J. I. Lamoureux,4 J. Lancaster,10 M. Lancaster,23 R. Lander,5 G. Latino,34 T. LeCompte,2 A. M. Lee IV,10 K. Lee,41 S. Leone,34 J. D. Lewis,11 M. Lindgren,6 T. M. Liss,18 J. B. Liu,37 Y. C. Liu,1 N. Lockyer,33 J. Loken,31 M. Loreti,32 D. Lucchesi,32 P. Lukens,11 S. Lusin,46 L. Lyons,31 J. Lys,23 R. Madrak,16 K. Maeshima,11 P. Maksimovic,16 L. Malferrari,3 M. Mangano,34 M. Mariotti,32 G. Martignon,32 A. Martin,47 J. A. J. Matthews,28 J. Mayer,25 P. Mazzanti,3 K. S. McFarland,37 P. McIntyre,40 E. McKigney,33 M. Menguzzato,32 A. Menzione,34 C. Mesropian,38 A. Meyer,11 T. Miao,11 R. Miller,27 J. S. Miller,26 H. Minato,43 S. Miscetti,13 M. Mishina,22 G. Mitselmakher,12 N. Moggi,3 E. Moore,28 R. Moore,26 Y. Morita,22 T. Moulik,24 M. Mulhearn,24 A. Mukherjee,11 T. Muller,20 A. Munar,34 P. Murat,11 S. Murgia,27 J. Nachtman,6 S. Nahn,47 H. Nakada,43 T. Nakaya,8 I. Nakano,17 C. Nelson,11 T. Nelson,11 C. Neu,29 D. Neuberger,20 C. Newman-Holmes,11 C.-Y. P. Ngan,24 H. Niu,4 L. Nodulman,2 A. Nomerotski,12 S. H. Oh,10 T. Ohmoto,17 T. Ohsugi,17 R. Oishi,43 T. Okusawa,30 J. Olsen,46 W. Orejudos,23 C. Pagliarone,34 F. Palmonari,34 R. Paoletti,34 V. Papadimitriou,41 S. P. Pappas,47 D. Partos,4 J. Patrick,11 G. Pauletta,42 M. Paulini,(∗) 23 C. Paus,24 L. Pescara,32 T. J. Phillips,10 G. Piacentino,34 K. T. Pitts,18 A. Pompos,36 L. Pondrom,46 G. Pope,35 M. Popovic,25 F. Prokoshin,9 J. Proudfoot,2 F. Ptohos,13 O. Pukhov,9 G. Punzi,34 K. Ragan,25 A. Rakitine,24 D. Reher,23 A. Reichold,31 A. Ribon,32 W. Riegler,16 F. Rimondi,3 L. Ristori,34 M. Riveline,25 W. J. Robertson,10 A. Robinson,25 T. Rodrigo,7 S. Rolli,44 L. Rosenson,24 R. Roser,11 R. Rossin,32 A. Roy,24 A. Safonov,38 R. St. Denis,15 W. K. Sakumoto,37 D. Saltzberg,6 C. Sanchez,29 A. Sansoni,13 L. Santi,42 H. Sato,43 P. Savard,25 P. Schlabach,11 E. E. Schmidt,11 M. P. Schmidt,47 M. Schmitt,16 L. Scodellaro,32 A. Scott,6 A. Scribano,34 S. Segler,11 S. Seidel,28 Y. Seiya,43 A. Semenov,9 F. Semeria,3 T. Shah,24 M. D. Shapiro,23 P. F. Shepard,35 T. Shibayama,43 M. Shimojima,43 M. Shochet,8 J. Siegrist,23 G. Signorelli,34 A. Sill,41 P. Sinervo,25 P. Singh,18 A. J. Slaughter,47 K. Sliwa,44 C. Smith,19 F. D. Snider,11 A. Solodsky,38 J. Spalding,11 T. Speer,14 P. Sphicas,24 F. Spinella,34 M. Spiropulu,16 L. Spiegel,11 J. Steele,46 A. Stefanini,34 J. Strologas,18 F. Strumia, 14 D. Stuart,11 K. Sumorok,24 T. Suzuki,43 T. Takano,30 R. Takashima,17 K. Takikawa,43 P. Tamburello,10 M. Tanaka,43 B. Tannenbaum,6 W. Taylor,25 M. Tecchio,26 P. K. Teng,1 K. Terashi,38 S. Tether,24 A. S. Thompson,15 R. Thurman-Keup,2 P. Tipton,37 S. Tkaczyk,11 K. Tollefson,37 A. Tollestrup,11 H. Toyoda,30 W. Trischuk,25 J. F. de Troconiz,16 J. Tseng,24 N. Turini,34 F. Ukegawa,43 T. Vaiciulis,37 J. Valls,39 E. Vataga-Pagliarone,34 S. Vejcik III,11 G. Velev,11 R. Vidal,11 R. Vilar,7 I. Volobouev,23 D. Vucinic,24 R. G. Wagner,2 R. L. Wagner,11 J. Wahl,8 N. B. Wallace,39 A. M. Walsh,39 C. Wang,10 M. J. Wang,1 T. Watanabe,43 D. Waters,31 T. Watts,39 R. Webb,40 H. Wenzel,20 W. C. Wester III,11 A. B. Wicklund,2 E. Wicklund,11 T. Wilkes,5 H. H. Williams,33 P. Wilson,11 B. L. Winer,29 D. Winn,26 S. Wolbers,11 D. Wolinski,26 J. Wolinski,27 S. Wolinski,26 S. Worm,28 X. Wu,14 J. Wyss,34 A. Yagil,11 W. Yao,23 G. P. Yeh,11 P. Yeh,1 J. Yoh,11 C. Yosef,27 T. Yoshida,30 I. Yu,21 S. Yu,33 Z. Yu,47 A. Zanetti,42 F. Zetti,23 and S. Zucchelli3

(CDF Collaboration)

1 Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan 11529, Republic of China

2 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439

3 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University of Bologna, I-40127 Bologna, Italy

4 Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02254

5 University of California at Davis, Davis, California 95616

6 University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024

7 Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria, CSIC-University of Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain

8 Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

9 Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, RU-141980 Dubna, Russia

10 Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708

11 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, Illinois 60510

12 University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611

13 Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, I-00044 Frascati, Italy

14 University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland

15 Glasgow University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
16 Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

17 Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima 724, Japan

18 University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801

19 The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218

20 Institut für Experimentelle Kernphysik, Universität Karlsruhe, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany

21 Center for High Energy Physics: Kyungpook National University, Taegu 702-701; Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742; and SungKyunKwan University, Suwon 440-746; Korea

22 High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan

23 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720

24 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

25 Institute of Particle Physics: McGill University, Montreal H3A 2T8; and University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 1A7; Canada

26 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109

27 Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824

28 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

29 The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210

30 Osaka City University, Osaka 588, Japan

31 University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom

32 Universita di Padova, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova, I-35131 Padova, Italy

33 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

34 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University and Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, I-56100 Pisa, Italy

35 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

36 Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907

37 University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627

38 Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021

39 Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08855

40 Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843

41 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409

42 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, University of Trieste/ Udine, Italy

43 University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305, Japan

44 Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155

45 Waseda University, Tokyo 169, Japan

46 University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706

47 Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

(∗) Now at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213

We report on a search for the supersymmetric partner of the top quark (stop) produced in $`t\overline{t}`$ events using $`110\mathrm{pb}^1`$ of $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8\mathrm{TeV}`$ recorded with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. In the case of a light stop squark, the decay of the top quark into stop plus the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) could have a significant branching ratio. The observed events are consistent with Standard Model $`t\overline{t}`$ production and decay. Hence, we set limits on the branching ratio of the top quark decaying into stop plus LSP, excluding branching ratios above 45% for a LSP mass up to $`40`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}^2`$.

With the observation in 1995 of a heavy top quark , an important prerequisite was met for low energy supersymmetry (SUSY)  to explain electroweak symmetry breaking. In the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM), all known particles of the Standard Model (SM) acquire supersymmetric partners, or superpartners. For fermions the superpartners are bosons, while for bosons the superpartners are fermions. We assume conservation of a multiplicative quantum number $``$-parity, which requires these new particles to be produced in pairs and prevents decays of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). From cosmological considerations , the LSP is normally assumed to be the lightest neutralino.

The large Yukawa coupling of the top quark opens up the possibility of a large mass splitting in the third generation of fermionic superpartners (the squarks and sleptons). The superpartners of the right-handed and left-handed top quark (the stop squarks) combine to form the mass eigenstates. The lightest stop squark ($`\stackrel{~}{t}_1`$) could then be lighter than the superpartners of all other squarks. Most limits on squark masses  do not apply to the stop squark because they are usually based on a model of five degenerate squarks. Current stop squark mass limits are significantly lower  than these limits or based on the assumption of a very heavy chargino ($`\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$. The latter searches are complementary to the analysis presented here since the stop decay mode $`c+\text{LSP}`$ does not coexist with the decay mode $`b+\stackrel{~}{\chi }_1^\pm `$. If the stop squark is light, decays of the top quark into stop plus the lightest neutralino could be kinematically allowed. If this neutralino is the LSP it will be stable and only weakly interacting. Such a particle would pass through the detector without interaction, causing a considerable energy imbalance. For the stop squark we assume decays analogous to the Standard Model top quark decay, i.e. into chargino and $`b`$-quark. The chargino could then decay into a LSP plus either a quark-antiquark pair or a lepton and neutrino.

Branching ratios as large as $`40`$ to 50% for the top decay into stop have been suggested . In such scenarios about one half of $`t\overline{t}`$ events would have one SM and one supersymmetric top decay. If the SM top decay to a W and a $`b`$-quark is followed by the leptonic decay of the W, then the selection criteria of the online leptonic trigger, the offline dataset selection and the $`t\overline{t}`$ event identification  will all be satisfied. The decay of the second top quark can then be used to search for decays into stop.

The CDF detector  is well suited to search for supersymmetric top quark decays. The following components are relevant to this analysis: the central tracking chamber, which is inside a $`1.4\mathrm{T}`$ superconducting solenoidal magnet, measures the momentum of charged particles with a resolution of $`\delta p_\mathrm{T}/p_\mathrm{T}=0.001p_\mathrm{T}`$ ($`p_\mathrm{T}`$ in $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}`$. The silicon vertex detector, with an inner radius of $`3\mathrm{cm}`$ and an outer of $`8\mathrm{cm}`$, identifies secondary vertices with a resolution of $`130\mu \mathrm{m}`$ in the transverse plane. The electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters cover the pseudorapidity region $`|\eta |<4.2`$ and are used to identify jets and electrons, and to measure the missing transverse energy $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ . An outer layer of drift chambers provides muon identification in the region $`|\eta |<1.0`$.

The search reported here is based on $`110\mathrm{pb}^1`$ of $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8\mathrm{TeV}`$ recorded with the Collider Detector at Fermilab during the 1992-93 and 1994-95 collider periods. The analysis is a combination of a CDF single lepton plus jet top analysis  and a kinematic analysis . The analysis cuts are slightly revised to improve sensitivity.

The leptonic W decay from the SM top decay yields an energetic lepton. Events are selected as in the single lepton plus $`b`$-jet top analysis by requiring a central electron ($`|\eta |1.1`$) or central muon ($`|\eta |1.0`$) with transverse momentum $`p_\mathrm{T}20\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}`$.

The neutrino from the W decay, as well as any LSP’s, will escape the apparatus without detection, resulting in an energy imbalance. The $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ measured by the calorimeter is corrected if the lepton is a muon. We have increased the $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ requirement, from $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}25\mathrm{GeV}`$ in the single lepton plus $`b`$-jet top analysis to $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}45\mathrm{GeV}`$, as our signal is expected to have a harder $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ spectrum. To reject non-W background, we require the transverse mass $`M_\mathrm{T}`$ of the lepton and $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ system to be larger than $`40\mathrm{GeV}`$. While the top analyses are concerned with separating $`t\overline{t}`$ from W plus jet production, in this analysis we are interested in minimizing W plus multijet background and then focusing on separating SUSY top decays from SM top decays. In both SUSY and SM top decays the W has a substantial transverse momentum. An additional requirement that the lepton$`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$ system have $`p_\mathrm{T}50\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}`$ has therefore been made.

In addition to the $`b`$-jet from the SM top decay, we have three additional jets from the other top decay when the W or the chargino decays hadronically. We require two jets  with transverse energy $`E_\mathrm{T}`$ $`20\mathrm{GeV}`$ and a third jet with $`E_\mathrm{T}`$ $`15\mathrm{GeV}`$ all within $`|\eta |2.0`$. Jet energy is corrected according to an average response function prior to event selection . We require one of the jets to be identified as a $`b`$-jet candidate. We use a secondary vertex tagging method , based on SVX information, that reconstructs secondary vertices from $`B`$ hadron decays. As in the kinematic top analysis , we require the three jets to have large polar angles in the rest frame of the lepton, $`\overline{)}E_\mathrm{T}`$, and jets: $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}(\text{jet}_i))|<0.9`$, $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}(\text{jet}_j))|<0.8`$, and $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}(\text{jet}_k))|<0.7`$, where the jets i,j,k are ordered according to $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{})|`$. These requirements were relaxed from the requirement of $`|\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}(\text{jet}_{i,j,k}))|<0.7`$ in  in order to obtain a good acceptance for the SM-SUSY top decays. For simplicity, these polar angles are calculated assuming a null longitudinal component for the neutrino. In order to insure that the three jets are well separated in $`\eta `$-$`\varphi `$ space, we require $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(\text{jet, jet})0.9`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }R(\text{jet, jet})=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }\eta ^2+\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi ^2}`$ is the minimum distance between the jets.

With these jet requirements our sample is defined. In the data $`9`$ events pass the above cuts. For the theoretical $`t\overline{t}`$ production cross section of $`5\mathrm{pb}`$  we expect $`9.5`$ events. Non-top Standard Model background contributes less than half an event.

Jets from a SUSY top decay are less energetic than jets from a SM top decay due to the presence of LSP’s and possible small chargino mass. In order to best distinguish between SM and SUSY top decays, we combine the transverse energy information of the second and third most energetic jet in a likelihood variable defined as: $`R_L=\frac{𝒫^{SMSM}(E_\mathrm{T}^{jet2})\times 𝒫^{SMSM}(E_\mathrm{T}^{jet3})}{𝒫^{SMSUSY}(E_\mathrm{T}^{jet2})\times 𝒫^{SMSUSY}(E_\mathrm{T}^{jet3})}`$, where $`𝒫`$ are the expected differential transverse energy distributions $`\frac{1}{\sigma }\frac{d\sigma }{dE_\mathrm{T}}`$ evaluated from the Monte Carlo.

Figure 1 shows those $`E_\mathrm{T}`$ distributions while Figure 2 shows the distribution of the likelihood variable for SM and SUSY top decays. Events with one top quark decaying into stop plus LSP are clustered in the region of negative values of $`\mathrm{ln}(R_L)`$, whereas events with two SM top decays are at positive values . The region $`\mathrm{ln}(R_L)<1`$ defines our SUSY search region. The region $`\mathrm{ln}(R_L)>1`$ is dominated by double SM top decays and will be used to normalize the expected number of these decays. Our search is then independent of the $`t\overline{t}`$ production cross section .

To study the distributions of the kinematic variables in the supersymmetric top decays, the signals are produced with the ISAJET Monte Carlo generator  and passed through detector simulation programs . We have fixed the top quark mass to $`175\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}^2`$ and varied stop, chargino, and LSP masses. Different branching ratios for top decaying into stop plus LSP are obtained by analyzing the three possible combinations of top decays (SM-SM, SM-SUSY, and SUSY-SUSY) individually and recombining them with appropriate weights.

Systematic uncertainties in the simulation of $`t\overline{t}`$ events can impact both the expected number of events and the shape of the two jet $`E_\mathrm{T}`$ distributions and thus the likelihood distribution.

We have evaluated the systematic uncertainties for multiple points in the parameter space of the stop and chargino masses. The systematic uncertainties are expected to become significant close to the kinematic bounds. In the region of small chargino mass the uncertainties due to gluon radiation and the calorimeter energy scale are important. The procedure used to evaluate these systematic uncertainties is the same as that of Ref. . The uncertainty due to the $`t\overline{t}`$ production cross section and to the integrated luminosity is negligible since we normalize the Monte Carlo predictions to the data in the SM dominated region of large likelihood. We note that this normalization has a large statistical uncertainty due to the small number of events in this region. The uncertainty in the mass of the top quark becomes important in the region of large stop mass, close to the kinematic limit. The effect of using parton distribution functions other than CTEQ-3 (LO)  is within the statistical uncertainty of the Monte Carlo samples. The total systematic uncertainty for both expected number of events and fraction of events with $`\mathrm{ln}(R_L)<1`$ from SM-SUSY top quark decays is typically around 40%. The major systematic uncertainty comes from the calorimeter energy scale and it varies between $`\pm `$15% and $`\pm `$25% in the region of the analyzed parameter space. The uncertainty on the top quark mass contributes about $`\pm `$15% for most of the parameter space. The uncertainty due to the gluon radiation, on both number of events and shape, is always less than $`\pm `$10%.

All nine events observed in the data cluster in the SM-like region of large $`\mathrm{ln}(R_L)`$. To set a limit on the branching ratio of top decaying into stop plus LSP, we calculate the branching ratios that would yield at least one event in the SUSY-like region 95% of the time as a function of stop, chargino and LSP mass. The method used is essentially a Bayesian-style integration over the systematic and statistical uncertainties in the SM-SM, SM-SUSY, and SUSY-SUSY contributions, where the uncertainties are assumed to be Gaussian distributed. Figure 3 shows the 95% confidence level top decaying into stop plus LSP branching ratio limit as a function of stop and chargino mass, for a LSP mass of $`20`$ and $`40\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}^2`$. For larger LSP masses the kinematically allowed region shrinks. The sensitivity of this analysis, however, stays rather constant.

In conclusion, we have looked for the top decay into stop plus the LSP. In the case of a light stop squark, the top is allowed to decay into stop plus a LSP. The number of events observed in the data is consistent with the Standard Model top decay expectation. We exclude branching ratios for top decaying into stop above 45% for an LSP mass up to $`40`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}/\mathrm{c}^2`$. The upcoming run at the Tevatron, which will feature an approximately 20-fold increase in the total integrated luminosity as well as a significantly improved CDF detector, should allow these results to be greatly extended.

Acknowledgements

We thank the Fermilab staff and the technical staff of the participating institutions for their vital contributions. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation; the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare; the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan; the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; the National Science Council of the Republic of China; and the A. P. Sloan Foundation.


text:
# Stereo imaging of the VHE 𝛾-rays with HEGRA & H.E.S.S.

## New Physics Frontiers

The recent achievements of the VHE $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy offer a great number of diverse and fundamental physics results which make further developments in the field highly physically motivated. Future $`\gamma `$-ray observations will deliver exhaustive knowledge to understanding the origin of the cosmic rays by observing the supernovae remnants (SNRs) and the physics of the relativistic jets in the active galactic nuclei (AGN), the measurements of the infrared (IR) absorption of $`\gamma `$-rays propagating in the interstellar medium, the necessary data to prove the mechanisms of a particle acceleration in the pulsars and plerions, clues to the enigma of the gamma-ray bursts etc. At the same time the significant advancement towards the new physics frontiers will be only possible after a significant improvement of the observational instrumentation. The efficient search and detailed study of the sites of the particle acceleration up to multi-TeV energies, which may brighten up in $`\gamma `$-rays, need lowering farther the energy threshold of the instruments down to 50-100 GeV, ability to localize the $`\gamma `$-ray emission with accuracy better than 1 arcmin, large telescopes’ field of view for the comprehensive studies of the extended $`\gamma `$-ray emission, large dynamic energy range (50 GeV - 50 TeV) and good energy resolution ($`10`$%) for precise measurements of the $`\gamma `$-ray energy spectra, larger $`\gamma `$-ray statistics at the time scale less than 1 hr for efficient search for the episodic or highly variable sources etc. The forthcoming stereoscopic arrays of the imaging air Čerenkov telescopes, like H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System), will exactly meet all those requirements. One can reach this conclusion using both the observational experience with the currently operating HEGRA (High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy) instrument (hereafter by HEGRA I denote the system of 5 IACTs operated by the HEGRA collaboration) as well as the specific Monte Carlo simulations. All that allows to predict reliably the performance of the H.E.S.S. which is briefly summarized below with the emphasize on the further advancements in the physics analysis of the observational data.

## Hardware parameters of IACTs arrays

Although a good number of hardware parameters is different for H.E.S.S. as compared with HEGRA one can pick out several of those which are of the utmost importance. They are – (i) the larger diameter of the reflector; (ii) better optics making use of a stable dish and better mirrors alignment; (iii) smaller angular size of the pixels.

Due to the large reflector and better efficiency of the photon-to-photoelectron conversion the H.E.S.S. telescopes will detect by a factor of $``$10 more Čerenkov light from the same shower comparing with HEGRA. Such an advantage in the effective reflecting area of the telescopes enables to reduce the energy threshold of the observed air showers from 500 GeV, as for the HEGRA, to the energy threshold within 50-100 GeV for H.E.S.S. For such low energy threshold the observed air showers will place effectively at the higher height above the observation level and in addition will have more narrow lateral divergence of the charges particles emitting Čerenkov light. All that gives effect to the angular size of the Čerenkov light images which become relatively small. In order to measure effectively the angular shape of such images the future telescopes need to have a better optics and fainter camera pixellation. Note that the high quality stereoscopic observations with the arrays like H.E.S.S. need relatively large separation of the telescopes of about $``$120 m.

## Energy Threshold & Rates

The effective collection areas of the $`\gamma `$-ray air showers for the arrays of IACTs may be well represented by the following fit:

$$A(E)=a_0E^{a_1}/(1+(E/a_2)^{a_3})$$
(1)
where $`a_2`$-parameter defines the energy threshold, which is of 500 GeV for HEGRA and $``$80 GeV for H.E.S.S. (see Figure 1). HEGRA counts of about 120 $`\gamma `$-ray events per one hr of the Crab Nebula observations close to the zenith and before applying the analysis cuts. Assuming the energy spectrum of the Crab Nebula as measured by HEGRA

$$dJ_\gamma (E)/dE=2.810^{11}E^{2.6}[\mathrm{photon}\mathrm{m}^2\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{TeV}^1]$$
(2)
one can calculate the corresponding rate for H.E.S.S. which could be about 150 $`\gamma `$-rays per min ! Such enormous statistics will allow the measurements of the spectral shape for the Crab like $`\gamma `$-ray sources after less then 1 hr of observations. The maximum $`\gamma `$-ray detection rate for H.E.S.S. corresponds to the $`\gamma `$-ray energy within $``$50-100 GeV (see Figure 1). The uncertainty in the position of the peak is caused by the current uncertainties of the efficiencies along the over-all photon-to-photoelectron propagation chain. One can break the entire dynamic energy range (extending up to $`10`$ TeV and $`50`$ TeV for the observations at high and low elevations, respectively) into two parts (see Figure 1). As for the high performance region (above 100 GeV) H.E.S.S. will enable the high quality stereoscopic observations with the ability of high precision spectroscopy based on the images of a large size as well as high trigger multiplicity. At such energies the conventional data analysis developed for HEGRA could be of general use. It is important to note that the effective collection area of H.E.S.S. is larger then HEGRA, by a factor of $`5`$, above 1 TeV. It provides very high sensitivity of the H.E.S.S. in the multi-TeV energy region. In the sub-threshold region (see Figure 1) the Čerenkov light images are substantially affected by the telescope’s trigger, have rather small angular size and poorly defined shape due to the large fluctuations. In addition for these images the night sky light contamination might be a severe problem. Nevertheless, the search for the periodic $`\gamma `$-ray signals (e.g., from the Pulsars) in the energy range below 50 GeV could well be physically expedient, eventhough it may need to develop a specific analysis algorithms in particular for these observations.

## Stereo imaging

For a system of IACTs the stereoscopic (geometrical) reconstruction of the air showers means the direct measurement of the orientation of the shower axis in space; determination of the position of the shower core in the observation plane; measurement of the angular dimensions of a shower, and height of its maximum (the details of such reconstruction could be found elsewhere). The major parameters of the H.E.S.S. performance (phase I), comprising 4 IACTs in a system, are summarized in Table 2.

The important issue of the H.E.S.S. performance is a sensitivity to the diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays over the field of view (FoV) (see Figure 2). The analysis of the Monte Carlo events for H.E.S.S. doesn’t show a significant decrease in the angular resolution for the OFF-axis events whereas the detection rate drops down rather fast beyond $`2^{}`$ (see Figure 2).

Although a numerous attempts have been undertaken in past in order to improve the conventional stereoscopic algorithms, neither of those could gain much. The HEGRA, with its ability of the individual event time sampling, did not reveal a dominant use of the time profiles of the Čerenkov light flashes from the air shower (at least for the minimum time bins of 8 ns). On the contrary, applied after imaging analysis, the timing technique does not help at all. However, one could hope for a 0.5$`÷`$1 GHz signal processing devices the advantage of the event time sampling might be of great importance (e.g., for the night sky noise reduction etc).

## H.E.S.S. Sensitivity

Provided with a 50 hrs observational time looking at a point source, H.E.S.S. could see the $`\gamma `$-rays of the flux as low as

$$\mathrm{F}_\gamma ^{\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{s}.}(>100\mathrm{GeV})10^{11}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1$$
(3)
at the 5$`\sigma `$ confidence level with the $`\gamma `$-ray statistics exceeding 10 $`\gamma `$’s. The minimum detectable flux for an extended $`\gamma `$-ray source was estimated as

$$\mathrm{F}_\gamma \mathrm{ext}(\mathrm{\Theta }_0/0.1\mathrm{deg})\mathrm{F}_\gamma ^{\mathrm{p}.\mathrm{s}.}$$
(4)
No doubt such impressive sensitivity of future advanced ground based $`\gamma `$-ray instrument allow to explore very effectively the sources of “non-thermal emission in the Universe”.


text:
# Signatures of Precocious Unification in Orbiting Detectors

## 1 Introduction

The existence of trans-GZK cosmic rays is now reasonably well established: various detectors such as Fly’s Eye, Agasa, and HiRes have collected over 20 events with primary energy exceeding $`10^{20}`$eV. Based on present flux estimates, new experiments such as OWL, AIRWATCH, and the Pierre Auger observatory are expected to collect a total of over $`10^3`$ events/year in this energy range.

The existence of trans-GZK events is a major puzzle since no source of such energetic particles has been plausibly identified within a distance of about 50 Mpc from the solar system. A brief summary of attempts to identify sources of trans-GZK events can be found in a recent review of Sigl.

In previous work we have conjectured that neutrinos of energy $`E_010^{20}`$ eV may acquire a strong interaction at the CM energies of the collision with an air nucleus while penetrating the CMBR essentially uninhibited . Here, we summarize the essential features of this scenario. Consistency of string models requires that the strings “live” in a spacetime of dimension higher than the observed macroscopic spacetime (typically, $`d10`$). It has been observed that in such a situation the characteristic string scale $`M_s`$ and the (macroscopic) Planck scale need not be the same, see 111Due to to the large body of literature on the subject, we cite only the first works of the relevant authors on this topic.. In fact, the string scale can be considerably lower than the macroscopic Planck scale, perhaps of the order of 10 TeV or so. The exact relationship between the fundamental string scale and the macroscopic Planck scale depends on how one hides the extra dimensions. For example, one can think of compactified extra dimensions (as in ref. ) or of a Randall-Sundrum mechanism .

The transition from the Standard Model regime to the regime governed by string physics is likely to be fast due to the rapidly rising level density in a string model . There is a large degree of uncertainty in the details of such models. In particular, the characteristic energy scale (the string scale) can lie anywhere between a few TeV to perhaps a few hundred TeV. Hence, an analysis of experimental/observational data exploring these ideas has to satisfy the following criteria:

* It should concentrate on identifying the most robust features of models incorporating new (“stringy”) physics; details vary from model to model, and it is difficult to foresee how a future more complete theory will appear. Nevertheless, abstracting the important features of presently existing models provides guidance for future observations.
* Due to the uncertainty in establishing the characteristic energy scale, and recalling that the CM energy is in the range of a few hundred TeV for the trans-GZK events, it is necessary to investigate ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) data in addition to data from accelerator experiments. In developing new experiments for collecting UHECR data, the currently preferred detection system is an orbiting detector such as OWL or Airwatch because of the large target area available for observation as well as the capability to track the complete evolution of an atmospheric shower.

The approach adopted for this study was based on the following two main assumptions.

* The string and unification scales are close to each other or are equal. We denote the characteristic energy scale governing the onset of the string regime by $`\sqrt{S}`$. Due to uncertainties in model building at present, we set $`SM_s^21/\alpha ^{^{}}`$, thus ignoring a string coupling constant of order 1, and where $`1/\alpha ^{^{}}`$ is the inverse Regge slope of the string model related to the string tension in the usual manner.
* Due to the excitation of the string degrees of freedom, there is a rapid transition between the regime where physics is described by the Standard Model and the string regime with unified interaction strength.

A detailed investigation of the sensitivity of MC simulations to particle physics uncertainties was carried out by Mikulski . He found that for the case discussed here, the shower profiles and the fluctuation pattern are insensitive to the precise form of the transition between the Standard Model and string regimes, as well as to the precise form of the level density in the transition regimes, as long as the latter was a rapidly (typically, exponentially) rising function of $`\sqrt{s}`$.

In what follows, we provide an overview of the ALPS Monte Carlo simulation and the theoretical modeling used to obtain the results. The last section summarizes the key points of the work with an emphasis on the relevance to future orbiting detector experiments.

## 2 The simulation and its results

### 2.1 The ALPS simulation

A detailed description of the ALPS (Adaptive Longitudinal Profile Simulation) Monte Carlo program created by Mikulski is contained in ref. . ALPS simulates the longitudinal development of a shower, and this is adequate for the high energies used in this study. A particularly useful feature of ALPS is its relatively fast execution time to generate air shower histories. It is easily modified to accept user-defined input physics beyond the Standard Model, and is adaptable as a front end generator to detector Monte Carlo simulations. ALPS is already being used by members of the OWL collaboration for cosmic ray signal and detector characterization.

More specifically, the starting point for the hadronic cascades is Approximation A, i.e., the interaction length is independent of energy, and the inclusive cross section is dependent only on the ratio of outgoing particle energy to incident particle energy (Feynman scaling). In general, particles created in an air shower are simulated and tracked until their energy falls below a user-defined threshold (set to $`1/1000`$ of the incident primary energy for this study) after which subshower parameterizations are introduced. The distribution of particles produced in the cascade below the above mentioned threshold is represented by a modified Gaisser-Hillas distribution. Corrections due to nuclear target effects and scaling violations are introduced both in the simulation and in the parameterized subshowers. The fitting parameters in the profile are dynamically adjusted by the program to satisfy goodness-of-fit criteria based on tracking selected subshowers. The electromagnetic cascades are implemented using a modified Greisen parameterization algorithm. Finally, there is a correction for the reduction of the bremsstrahlung and pair creation cross sections due to multiple scattering in the atmosphere (the Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal or LPM effect).

### 2.2 Theoretical considerations and modeling

For the purpose of exploring the conjectured “new physics” described in ref. , it was assumed that as long as $`\sqrt{s}\sqrt{S}M_s`$, an interaction produces an equal number of leptons and quarks. Once the primary energy falls below the string scale, $`\sqrt{S}`$, the shower evolves according to Standard Model physics. It was found that a step function-like onset of the precociously unified physics gives a description indistinguishable from an exponentially rising level density which for $`\sqrt{s}M_s`$ levels off due to unitarity corrections222Strictly speaking, a $`\theta `$-function step in the cross section violates unitarity, since the real part of the forward elastic amplitude develops a logarithmic singularity. However, any smoothing of the $`\theta `$-function removes the singularity and unitarity can be restored. There is no harm done if a step function is used in the total cross section: the latter depends on the imaginary part of the amplitude only.. Hadronization of the quarks both in the string and Standard Model regimes is assumed to be consistent with a conventional splitting algorithm. Due to uncertainties in the models, at present no predictions can be made about how fast the various coupling constants are running with energy, but it is expected that they change faster than in the Standard Model . The exact functional forms of the $`\beta `$ functions in the renormalization group (RNG) equations that determine the energy scaling of the coupling constants depends on the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein excitations and on the specific string theory. For this reason, we extrapolated the strong cross sections into the energy range of $`\sqrt{s}500`$TeV using the fit of Block et al. , and set the cross section in the string regime to half of that value, due to uncertainties in the extrapolation. We prefer to err on the conservative side. Again, the results do not depend critically on the precise magnitude of the cross section in the string regime.

Relative multiplicities follow from the above assumption that any particle produced has a $`50\%`$ probability of being a lepton or quark as long as the energy is larger than $`\sqrt{S}`$. Once energies fall below the characteristic scale, lepton interaction produces a multiplicity of 2 (counting leptons and photons on an equal footing), whereas a quark, after hadronization, produces high multiplicities in each interaction. At the energies considered here, a muon emits a bremsstrahlung photon almost at the same rate as an electron. Consequently, there is an excess of the low multiplicity component in the “anomalous” shower (i.e., generated by a neutrino with precociously unified interactions). This contrasts with proton induced showers where the source of the leptonic component is the decay, $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$. At the present level of accuracy, photoproduction of pions and other mesons can be neglected.

### 2.3 Average shower properties

The average profiles used for this study were derived such that shower development could be characterized independently of the relative position with respect to the detector. Thus, the impact parameter $`b`$ is selected to parameterize the geometry of the shower. Recalling that $`b`$ is the distance of closest approach of the shower axis measured from the center of the Earth, we present results only for $`b>R_{}`$. Then, writing $`b=R_{}+h`$, the altitude $`h`$ is the distance of closest approach measured from the surface of the Earth. Horizontal distances parameterizing the longitudinal shower development are defined to be measured along the shower axis, taking the point of closest approach as zero distance. Since all relevant showers take place in the upper atmosphere, an exponential atmosphere was used with a scale height of $`h_0=6.4`$ km yielding an adequate approximation to Shibata’s parameterization .

The average shower profiles shown in Figure 1 are for $`E_0=10^{20}`$ eV proton and neutrino primaries incident on air nuclei (corresponding to $`\sqrt{s}400`$ TeV). The neutrino primaries are then “strongly interacting neutrinos” for precocious unification thresholds below $`\sqrt{S}400`$ TeV. As an example, the neutrino induced anomalous showers shown here were generated for $`\sqrt{S}=30`$ TeV and $`\sigma _\nu =\sigma _p/2`$. Figure 1(a) shows the two profiles as a function of column density while Figures 1(b-d) present the profiles as a function of altitude above sea level to explicitly exhibit atmospheric effects. There is considerable broadening in the shower development at higher altitudes due to the low density of air as is evident in the profiles at $`h=28`$ km. As shown in Figure 2, the number of electrons at the shower maximum, $`N_{max}3\times 10^{10}`$, is only weakly dependent on the precise value of the string scale.

### 2.4 Fluctuations in shower development

The average shower profiles displayed in Figure 1 for neutrino induced showers reveal an interesting feature when compared with the proton induced events. The multiplicity around $`X_{max}`$ is about half of the value for the proton induced shower due to the unified forces allowing a substantial portion of the primary energy to be channelled into prompt lepton production with the lepton interaction cross sections and multiplicities being smaller than those for hadronic channels. Consistent with this picture is the result that the electron deficiency increases with decreasing $`\sqrt{S}`$: for a lower characteristic energy scale, the prompt lepton production due to unification occurs over a longer interval of the shower development after the first interaction.

Although the average profile of a neutrino induced shower is different from a Standard Model proton induced shower, it is hard to distinguish between the two types on an event-by-event basis. While it is true that on average $`N_{\mathrm{max}}`$ in a proton induced shower is roughly 2-3 times as large as for a neutrino induced event, and the development of the neutrino induced showers is somewhat slower compared to those induced by protons, fluctuations are likely to smear out such differences in any given shower.

However, a statistical analysis of a sample of showers should reveal a significant difference between neutrino and proton induced showers. Qualitatively, an important shower property is that smaller cross sections and smaller average multiplicities in individual interactions lead to larger fluctuations in the shower development. This qualitative expectation is borne out by the simulation results.

Figure 3 displays the distribution of the position of the shower maximum, $`X_{max}`$, for various values of the characteristic scale, $`\sqrt{S}`$. For comparison, the same distribution is shown for normal showers generated by protons in the absence of new physics. Clearly, the width of the distribution in $`X_{max}`$ for all the showers containing precociously unified interactions is considerably larger than those induced by protons. This is more evident if one plots the second central moments of the distributions versus the mean $`X_{max}`$ as in Figure 4: there are clearly two distinct regions for proton and neutrino induced showers in this parameter space. One also observes that given sufficient statistics, the distribution in $`X_{max}`$ gives a hint about the magnitude of $`\sqrt{S}`$: lower characteristic energies give rise to longer tails in the distribution.

Preliminary calculations also indicate that variations of the cross section at unification do not greatly affect the qualitative features of the results presented here. For example, if the cross section at unification is assumed to be equal to the extrapolated hadronic value used in this paper, $`X_{max}`$ gets somewhat closer to the value for proton induced showers, and the rms fluctuations about $`X_{max}`$ also decrease. However, the shower does not become statistically equivalent to the proton case. The difference arises because after the first few interactions in the neutrino showers, aproximately half the energy is distributed among leptons, and when the energy drops below the string threshold, the leptons contribute to shower development through lower multiplicity interactions compared to the hadronic channels.

## 3 Discussion

We find that orbiting detectors (and to some extent, any detector of the Fly’s Eye type) can yield information about the presence or absence of certain types of new physics in trans-GZK showers. Two features are important from this point of view:

* The detector has to collect a substantial sample of trans-GZK events, since the difference between proton and neutrino induced showers is not sufficiently large for a distinction on an event-by event basis. This is primarily due to the fact that at any reasonable value of $`\sqrt{S}`$, the physics of the shower eventually becomes dominated by “low energy” Standard Model phenomena, and, hence, the largest number of particles is generated in the latter regime of shower development. A particular advantage of orbiting detectors is the capability for observing showers at a broad range of impact parameters, thus allowing an estimate of the magnitude of the cross sections.
* It appears that the shower development is rather insensitive to finer details of the models discussed in this paper. This is actually fortunate given the theoretical uncertainties at the present stage of model building. It is not yet clear how the analysis of data can be refined until more detailed and experimentally constrained models become available. However, the analysis proposed here is apparently robust. Once a sample size of greater than $``$100 events with well-determined profiles becomes available, a statistical analysis will reveal the presence or absence of the new physics proposed here.

This is illustrated in Figure 5 where an event size of about 100 already gives a clear distinction between proton and neutrino induced showers. The result does not vary dramatically with a further increase of the number of events measured. Although the mean $`X_{max}`$ values for the neutrino events change by only about $`1\%`$ between the 100 and 50,000 run sample sizes, the standard deviations, as expected, settle more slowly changing by about 10$`\%`$ from 100 to 50,000 runs. Thus, very large sample sizes are required to bracket final values of the standard deviations to better than $`1\%`$.

Acknowledgements
We thank John Krizmanic for several useful discussions regarding the design of OWL. In particular, our choice of the significant impact parameters was based on his estimate of the intensity of air fluorescence as a function of the height above the surface of the Earth. We are also indebted to Paul Mikulski for sharing his insight into the ALPS program he authored.