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# Contents

## 1 Introduction

In recent years there has been a growing interest in quantum field theory over noncommutative spaces , that is spaces where the space-time coordinates $`x_\mu `$, replaced by hermitian operators $`\widehat{x}_\mu `$, do not commute:

$$[\widehat{x}_\mu ,\widehat{x}_\nu ]=i\theta _{\mu \nu }$$
(1)
Here $`\theta `$ is a real and antisymmetric object with the dimensions of length-squared and corresponds to the smallest patch of area in physical space one may ’observe’, similar to the role $`\mathrm{}`$ plays in $`[\widehat{x_i},\widehat{p_j}]=i\mathrm{}\delta _{ij}`$, defining the corresponding smallest patch of phase space in quantum mechanics. In this paper we define the energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\theta }}`$ (where $`\theta `$ is the average magnitude of an element of $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$) which is a more convenient parameterization in constructing an effective theory at low energies. Many researchers set $`\theta _{0i}=0`$ to avoid problems with unitarity and causality, but since this is only an issue at energies above $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ , we do not use this constraint for the purposes of low-energy phenomenology. We may view $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ as a “background $`B`$-field” which has attained a vacuum expectation value, hence appearing in the Lagrangian as a Lorentz tensor of constants . Assuming that the components of $`\theta _{\mu \nu }`$ are constant over cosmological scales, in any given frame of reference there is a special “$`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ direction” given by the vector $`\theta ^iϵ^{ijk}\theta _{jk}`$. Experiments sensitive to $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ will therefore be measuring the components of $`\stackrel{}{\theta }`$, and it is necessary to take into account the motion of the lab frame in this measurement. Since $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ effects are measured in powers of $`p^\mu \theta _{\mu \nu }p^\nu `$, where $`p,p^{}`$ are some momenta involved in the measurement, it is possible that odd powers of $`\theta `$ will partially average to zero if the time scale of the measurement is long enough. Effects of first order in $`\theta `$ vanish at a symmetric $`e^+e^{}`$-collider, for example, if the measurement averages over the entire $`4\pi `$ solid angle of decay products. If the data is binned by angle then it is possible to restore the sensitivity to $`\theta `$. In addition to any other averaging process over short time scales, terrestrial experiments performed over several days will only be sensitive to the projection of $`\stackrel{}{\theta }`$ on the axis of the Earth’s rotation. Of course binning the data hourly or at least by day/night, taking into account the time of year, can partially mitigate this effect. This axis, as well as the motion of the solar system, galaxy, $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑡𝑐}.`$, does not vary over time scales relevant to terrestrial experiments.

The basic idea of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ is not new and has been known in the context of string theory for some time . We refer the reader to a few of the many excellent reviews of the mathematics of noncommutative space  for a more rigorous understanding of the present material. Noncommuting coordinates are expected on quite general grounds in any theory that seeks to incorporate gravity into a quantum field theory: the usual semi-classical argument is that a particle may only be localized to within a Planck length $`\lambda _P`$ without creating a black hole that swallows the particle, hence $`_{i<j}\mathrm{\Delta }x_i\mathrm{\Delta }x_j\lambda _{P}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}`$; alternatively, one is led to think of space as a noncommutative algebra upon trying to quantize the Einstein theory .

Much research has already gone into understanding noncommutative quantum field theory ; it is equivalent to working with ordinary (commutative) field theory and replacing the usual product by the $`\mathrm{product}`$ defined as follows:

$$(fg)(x)e^{i\theta _{\mu \nu }_\mu ^y_\nu ^z}f(y)g(z)_{y=z=x}$$
(2)
With this definition (1) holds in function space equipped with a $`\mathrm{product}`$:

$$[x_\mu ,x_\nu ]_{}=i\theta _{\mu \nu }$$
(3)
This $`\mathrm{product}`$ intuitively replaces the point-by-point multiplication of two fields by a sort of ’smeared’ product (see Fig. 1). Indeed the concept of ’smearing’ is borne out in more detailed analysis of 1- and 2- point functions : spacetime is only well defined down to distances of order $`\sqrt{\theta }`$ so functions of spacetime must be appropriately averaged over a neighborhood of points. In each $`(i,j)`$ plane, we must replace

$$\varphi (x_i,x_j)𝑑x_i^{}𝑑x_j^{}\varphi (x^{})e^{\frac{(x_ix_i^{})^2+(x_jx_j^{})^2}{\theta _{ij}}}(\pi \theta _{ij})^1$$
(4)
Examples of theories which have received attention include scalar field theory , NCQED (the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ analog of QED) , as well as noncommutative Yang-Mills ; perturbation theory in $`\theta `$ is applicable and the theories are renormalizable . For gauge theories, a suitably adjusted definition of the gauge transformations  permits the construction of $`SU(N)`$ theories. There has been no work explicitly proving that fermion representations are consistent with such theories, however we know that the proof must exist since $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ is derived from a string theory which of course is self-consistent for all gauge groups and representationsWe thank B. Zumino for useful discussion on this point.

A $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ modification of the Standard Model(SM) is possible as a working field theory, at least up to $`𝒪(\theta )`$. Replacing the ordinary product with the $`\mathrm{product}`$ in the Lagrangian, the appropriate Feynman rules for this $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ SM (ncSM) follow straightforwardly and are reproduced in the Appendix.

Whatever the physics at the Planck scale is like, we expect there to be some residual effect at low energies beyond that of classical gravity. If we parameterize this effect as in (1), then low energy physics will receive corrections in powers of the small parameter $`\theta `$. Several papers have addressed how these corrections may modify observations at an accelerator , precision tests of QED in hydrogen , and various dipole moments ; in general, if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }1TeV`$, there will be some observable effects in these systems at the next generation of colliders. This paper aims to investigate the $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ potential of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ in low energy phenomenology.

## 2 Computing in the Noncommutative Standard Model(ncSM)

The method of computing $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ field theory amplitudes is effected by replacing the ordinary function product with the $`\mathrm{product}`$ in the Lagrangian. The theory is otherwise identical to the commuting one (i.e. the Feynman path integral formulation provides the usual setting for doing QFT): for example a Yukawa theory with a scalar $`\varphi `$, Dirac fermion $`\psi `$, has the action

$$S=d^4x\left(\overline{\psi }i\text{ / }\psi +(\varphi )^2+\lambda \overline{\psi }\psi \varphi \right)$$
(5)
(Here we have used the fact that $`𝑑x\xi \xi =𝑑x\xi \xi `$, which follows straightforwardly from (2) ) Gauge interactions likewise generalize from the standard form; the action for NCQED for example is

$$S=d^4x\left(\frac{1}{4e^2}F^{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }+\overline{\psi }i\text{ / }\psi e\overline{\psi }\text{ / }A\psi m\overline{\psi }\psi \right)$$
(6)
where

$$F_{\mu \nu }_\mu A_\nu _\nu A_\mu i[A_\mu ,A_\nu ]_{}$$
(7)
Note the extra term in the field strength which is absent in ordinary QED; this nonlinearity gives NCQED a NonAbelian-like structure. There will be, for example, 3- and 4-point photon self-couplings at tree level (see Appendix).

In momentum space the $`\mathrm{product}`$ becomes a momentum-dependent phase factor which means that the theory effectively contains an infinite number of derivative interactions suppressed by powers of $`\theta `$. This directly exhibits the nonlocal character of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$. From (5) and (6) we can derive the action for the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ version of the Standard Model (ncSM). We present its content as the list of Feynman rules in the Appendix.

A central feature of computations in the SM is the presence of divergences and the need to absorb them into counterterms. The ncSM is similar in this respect, yet it is necessary to renormalize carefully: if one simply uses dimensional regularization and sums virtual energies to infinity, bizarre infrared singularities appear in the theory which are difficult to handle . To illustrate, consider the loop integral

$$d^dk\frac{e^{ik^\mu \theta _{\mu \nu }p^\nu }}{(k^2m^2)^2}$$
(8)
which is finite for $`\left|\theta p\right|0`$ but is logarithmically divergent if $`\left|\theta \right|=0`$. Explicitly, we Wick-rotate (8), introduce the Schwinger parameters , integrate over momenta, and obtain

$$𝑑SS^{1\frac{d}{2}}e^{\frac{1}{4}(\theta p)^2S^1m^2S}$$
(9)
If we take $`\left|\theta \right|=0`$ now, dimensional regularization gives the usual $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[1\frac{d}{2}]`$ which we would absorb into a counterterm of the theory. However for small finite values of $`\left|\theta p\right|`$ we get an approximation of the integral (9) in four dimensions:

$$d^4k\frac{e^{ik^\mu \theta _{\mu \nu }p^\nu }}{(k^2m^2)^2}ln(m^2\left|\theta p\right|^2)\left(1+m^2\left|\theta p\right|^2\right)$$
(10)
There is a $`ln(\left|\theta \right|)`$ divergence as $`\left|\theta \right|0`$ which is expected since in this limit the theory tends to the commutative one and reproduces the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }[1\frac{d}{2}]`$ divergence mentioned above. This is formally correct, however the theory in this limit is awkward to work with since some contributions will diverge as $`\left|\theta \right|0`$ and must produce final results such as scattering amplitudes which are finite. For the computational purposes of this paper, in which $`e.g.`$ $`m_{W}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\left|\theta \right|1`$, it is more convenient to regularize with a Pauli-Vilars regulator with mass $`M`$. Then (9) becomes

$$𝑑SS^{1\frac{d}{2}}e^{(M^2+\frac{1}{4}(\theta p)^2)S^1m^2S}$$
(11)
Taking the limit $`\left|\theta \right|0`$ now gives

$$d^dk\frac{e^{ik^\mu \theta _{\mu \nu }p^\nu }}{(k^2m^2)^2}ln(\frac{m^2}{M^2}+m^2\left|\theta p\right|^2)+m^2\left|\theta p\right|^2ln(\frac{m^2}{M^2}+m^2\left|\theta p\right|^2)$$
(12)
Note that in the limit $`\left|\theta \right|0`$ the second term vanishes while the first term reproduces the ordinary(commutative) loop integral divergence. We subtract this into a counterterm, while the remaining piece gives a small correction to the commutative theory of $`𝒪(xln(x))`$ where $`x\left|m\theta p\right|^2`$. Renormalizing in this manner guarantees sensible results.

## 3 CP Violation in the ncSM

In the SM, there are only two sources of $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$: the irremovable phases in the CKM matrix and the $`\mathrm{\Theta }F\stackrel{~}{F}`$ term in the strong interaction Lagrangian(the coefficient $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ has to be miniscule to avoid contradicting experiment ).

In the ncSM, there is an additional source of $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$: the parameter $`\theta `$ itself is the $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ object, which is apparent from the NCQED action (6) considering the transformation of $`A_\mu `$ and $`_\mu `$ under $`C`$ and $`P`$ and assuming $`CPT`$ invariance . Physically speaking, an area of $`𝒪(\theta )`$ represents a “black box” in which some or all spacetime coordinates become ambiguous, which in turn leads to an ambiguity between particle and antiparticle. More detailed work reveals that $`\theta `$ is in fact proportional to the size of an effective particle dipole moment . Therefore $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ can actually explain the origin of $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$. At the field theory level, it is the momentum-dependent phase factor appearing in the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ theory which gives $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$. For example, the ncSM W-quark-quark $`SU(2)`$ vertex in the flavor basis is

$$_{Wqq}=\overline{u(p)}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)e^{ip\theta p^{}}d(p^{})W_\mu $$
(13)
Once we perform rotations on the quark fields to diagonalize the Yukawa interactions, $`i.e.`$ $`u_LUu_L`$ and $`d_LVd_L`$, the above becomes

$$_{Wqq}=\overline{u(p)}\gamma ^\mu (1\gamma _5)e^{ip\theta p^{}}U^{}Vd(p^{})W_\mu $$
(14)
Even if $`U^{}V`$ is purely real, there will be some nonzero phases $`e^{ip\theta p^{}}`$ in the Lagrangian whose magnitudes increase as the momentum flow in the process increases. Of course, the above phase factor has no effect at tree-level (suitably redefining all the fields) but will affect results at 1-loop and beyond.

Experimentally, the signal for $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ here is a momentum-dependent CKM matrix (ncCKM) which we define as follows:

$$\overline{V}(p,p^{})\left(\begin{array}{ccc}1\lambda ^2/2+ix_{ud}& \lambda +i\lambda x_{us}& A\lambda ^3(\rho i\eta )+iA\lambda ^3\rho x_{ub}\\ \lambda i\lambda x_{cd}& 1\lambda ^2/2+ix_{cs}& A\lambda ^2+iA\lambda ^2x_{cb}\\ A\lambda ^3(1\rho i\eta )+iA\lambda ^3\rho x_{td}& A\lambda ^2A\lambda ^2ix_{ts}& 1+ix_{tb}\end{array}\right)$$
(15)
where $`x_{ab}p_{a}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mu }\theta _{\mu \nu }p_{b}^{}{}_{}{}^{\nu }`$ for quarks $`a,b`$. This matrix is an approximation of the exact ncSM in the perturbative limit where we expand $`e^{ip\theta p^{}}1+ip\theta p^{}`$ We thank D.A. Demir for help in clarifying the notation. In the limit $`\theta 0`$, the $`x_{ab}`$ all go to zero and $`\overline{V}`$ becomes the CKM matrix $`V`$ in the Wolfenstein parameterization  in terms of the small number $`\lambda 0.22`$. Note that $`\overline{V}`$ is not guaranteed to be unitary, since, in contrast to the SM CKM matrix, $`\overline{V}`$ is not a collection of derived constants: a given matrix element will attain different values depending on the process it is describing. As an example, suppose we measure a non-zero $`\tau `$-polarization asymmetry in $`tb\tau ^+\nu `$ ; this puts a constraint on the value of $`\mathrm{}(\overline{V}_{tb})`$ at the energy scale $`\mu m_t`$§§§Actually, there is a lot of uncertainty in this measurement, including the values of the $`MNS`$ matrix , so measuring the phase in practice is not straightforward.. We can get another constraint on $`\mathrm{}(\overline{V}_{tb})`$ through a $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ oscillation experiment, but we must take into consideration that this is a measurement at the energy scale $`\mu m_b`$. In the former process we would find (for $`\eta =0`$) $`\mathrm{}(\overline{V}_{tb})𝒪(m_{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\left|\theta \right|)`$ whereas in the latter it would be $`𝒪(m_tm_b\left|\theta \right|)`$, so these phases differ by a factor of $`m_t/m_b30`$. Therefore we expect the phenomenology of $`\overline{V}`$ to be rather different from that of the SM. In addition to $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ from the weak interaction (in $`\overline{V}`$), there will also be $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ from the strong and electromagnetic interactions (since there are phases entering any vertex with three (or more) fields (see Appendix)). We now turn to the phenomenological implications of these.

### 3.1 CP Violating Observables

#### 3.1.1 $`ϵ_K`$

The $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observable of choice in the $`K^0`$-meson system is $`ϵ_K`$ which is directly proportional to the imaginary part $`\mathrm{}(M_{12})`$ of the box graph (see Fig. 2):

$$ϵ_K\frac{\mathrm{}(M_{12})}{\mathrm{\Delta }m}$$
(16)
The mass splitting $`\mathrm{\Delta }m`$ between the long- and short-lived $`K^0`$ eigenstates
is $`\mathrm{\Delta }m3.510^{15}GeV`$ . We can rewrite

$$\mathrm{}(M_{12})=\frac{G_{F}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}m_{W}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}f_{K}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}B_Km_K}{12\pi ^2}\mathrm{}(loop)$$
(17)
in terms of the decay constants $`f_K,B_K`$, and the loop factor. In the SM, the loop factor is

$$\mathrm{}(loop)\mathrm{}(\lambda _{c}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}f(m_c)+\lambda _{t}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}f(m_t)+\lambda _c\lambda _tf(m_c,m_t))$$
(18)
where $`\lambda _qV_{qd}V_{qs}^{}`$ and $`f(x)`$ is a loop function (see Appendix). In the SM, both charm and top quarks contribute roughly equally to the imaginary part of the loop, and the measured value for $`ϵ_K`$ puts a constraint on the parameters $`\rho ,\eta `$ of the CKM matrix. However, in the ncSM we must replace the entire loop since the momentum-dependent phases in $`\overline{V}`$ change how the loop integral behaves. Note the charm quark will dominate the imaginary part of the graph because the phase of the product $`(\overline{V}_{ts}^{}\overline{V}_{td})^2`$ is a factor of $`\lambda ^8`$ suppressed relative to the phase of $`(\overline{V}_{cs}^{}\overline{V}_{cd})^2`$ (see (15)). We record the evaluation of the loop integral in the Appendix.

If the kaons used in the measurement emerge from a beam with an average velocity $`\beta \frac{v}{c}`$ in the lab frame, we must average over the motion of the internal constituents of the kaon, since the entire $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ effect is proportional to $`p\theta p^{}`$, where $`p,p^{}`$ are the momenta of the constituents. We assume that these momenta have random orientation in the rest frame of the kaon, subject to $`p+p^{}=(m_K,0,0,0)`$. The average over these internal momenta produces a result which is proportional to the velocity of the kaon in the lab frame: $`p\theta p^{}\left|\theta \right|\beta \gamma m_K^2`$. Therefore it is important that the $`\beta \gamma `$ of the beam not be so small as to wash out the signal. Recent determinations of $`ϵ_K`$ use a reasonable $`\beta \gamma `$ , so we do not concern ourselves further with this caveat. Experiments at an $`e^+e^{}`$ collider ($`e.g.`$ ) where the center of mass is stationary in the lab frame should, however, see no signal for $`ϵ_K`$ since $`\stackrel{}{\beta }\gamma =0`$. As we mentioned in the Introduction, the data may be sensitive to the time of day. If there is a component of $`\stackrel{}{\theta }`$ along the axis of the Earth, then given enough statistics there should be a “day/night effect” for $`ϵ_K`$ which, as far as we know, no experiment has looked for.

In the case $`\eta =0`$ (so the phase from $`\overline{V}`$ is due entirely to $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$), we obtain

$$\begin{array}{c}ϵ_K\frac{G_{F}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}m_{W}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}f_{K}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}B_Km_K}{12\pi ^2\mathrm{\Delta }m}\lambda ^2\frac{m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2\hfill \\ \\ \xi \frac{m_W}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
Using $`G_F=1.16610^5GeV^2,m_W=80.4GeV,f_K=0.16GeV,m_K=0.498GeV,B_K=0.70\pm 0.2,\rho =0.3\pm 0.2`$, and the latest measurement of $`ϵ_K(2.280\pm 0.013)10^3`$ , this implies $`\xi (4\pm 2)10^2`$ (see Fig. 3); in this scenario spacetime becomes effectively $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ at energies above $`2TeV`$.

#### 3.1.2 $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$

Direct $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ is measurable in the neutral kaon system as a difference between the rates at which $`K_{L,S}`$ decay into $`I=0,2`$ states of pions:

$$ϵ^{}\frac{2TK_L0TK_S2TK_S0TK_L}{\sqrt{2}0TK_S^2}$$
(20)
Then the ratio of direct to indirect $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ is

$$\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\frac{2TK_L}{0TK_L}\frac{2TK_S}{0TK_S}\right)$$
(21)
The theoretical computation of this ratio is a challenge in the SM not only because the perturbative description of the strong interaction is not reliable at low energies but also because it is proportional to a difference between two nearly equal contributions, enhancing the theoretical error . The most naive way to estimate $`\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}`$ employs the so-called vacuum-saturation-approximation (VSA) which is based on the factorization of four-quark operators into products of currents and the use of the vacuum as an intermediate state (for more details see ). The estimate is

$$\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}(0.8\pm 0.5)10^3\left(\frac{\mathrm{}(\lambda _t)}{10^4}\right)$$
(22)
where in the SM $`\lambda _t`$ represents the $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ phases from the CKM matrix, $`\lambda _t=A^2\lambda ^5\eta 1.310^4`$. The experiments measure $`\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}=(1.92\pm 0.46)10^3`$ which does not closely match the VSA number, but it is possible to use more elaborate models that agree closely with the measured value .

In the ncSM it is no less difficult to compute $`\frac{ϵ^{}}{ϵ}`$; in particular, the extra phases from
$`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ will become involved in the complicated nonperturbative quark-gluon dynamics. The best estimate we can make here is (see Appendix C)

$$\mathrm{}(\lambda _t)2\frac{m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2ln(\frac{m_W}{\xi m_K})$$
(23)
For $`\xi 0.04`$, we get roughly the same VSA value as in the SM.

#### 3.1.3 $`sin2\beta `$ and the unitarity triangle

The only $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observation from the $`B`$-system to date, the asymmetry in the decay products of $`B^0J/\psi K_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}`$ , is a measurement in the SM of a combination of CKM elements called $`sin2\beta `$:

$$sin2\beta \mathrm{}\left(\left[\frac{V_{tb}^{}V_{td}}{V_{tb}V_{td}^{}}\right]\left[\frac{V_{cs}^{}V_{cb}}{V_{cs}V_{cb}^{}}\right]\left[\frac{V_{cd}^{}V_{cs}}{V_{cd}V_{cs}^{}}\right]\right)$$
(24)
where the first bracketed factor is from $`B_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B_d}^0`$ mixing, the second from the observed decay asymmetry, and the third from $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ mixing. In the Wolfenstein parameterization,

$$sin2\beta \frac{2\eta (1\rho )}{\eta ^2+(1\rho )^2}$$
(25)
which, for $`(\rho ,\eta )(0.2,0.3)`$, corresponding to a point in the center of the allowed region of the $`\rho \eta `$ plane  implies $`sin2\beta 0.7`$. The most recent experimental world average for this quantity is $`0.49\pm 0.23`$ .

In the ncSM the corresponding quantity is (24) with each matrix element $`V_{ij}`$ replaced by $`\overline{V}_{ij}`$ extracted from the relevant process:

$$sin2\beta \mathrm{}\left(\left[\frac{\overline{V}_{tb}^{}\overline{V}_{td}}{\overline{V}_{tb}\overline{V}_{td}^{}}\right]\left[\frac{\overline{V}_{cs}^{}\overline{V}_{cb}}{\overline{V}_{cs}\overline{V}_{cb}^{}}\right]\left[\frac{\overline{V}_{cd}^{}\overline{V}_{cs}}{\overline{V}_{cd}\overline{V}_{cs}^{}}\right]\right)$$
(26)
Of course experiments don’t measure the precise value of a given $`\overline{V}_{ij}`$ but rather some combination of them integrated over internal momenta. If we again consider the scenario where $`\eta =0`$ then the imaginary parts of these quantities increase roughly proportionally to the momenta involved and we expect the first bracketed term in (26) to dominate since the size of the momenta involved in $`B_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B_d}^0`$ mixing exceeds that of $`B^0`$-decay or $`K^0\overline{K}^0`$ mixing, $`i.e.`$ $`m_bm_t\theta m_b^2\theta ,m_Km_t\theta `$. We therefore set the second and third brackets to unity, obtaining

$$sin2\beta \mathrm{}\left(\frac{1ix_{tb}}{1+ix_{tb}}\right)\frac{m_b}{m_W}\xi ^2$$
(27)
If we use the measurement of $`ϵ_K`$ to fix $`\xi 10^2`$, then the ncSM predicts $`sin2\beta 0`$ which is not excluded by experiment. The motion of the quarks inside the $`B`$-meson moreover partially washes out the signal (see previous discussion for kaons) as the asymmetry of the $`e^+e^{}`$ collider gives the $`B_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B_d}^0`$ center-of-mass only a modest boost of $`\beta \gamma 0.6`$ in the lab frame. We conclude that this model predicts that current $`B`$-physics experiments should see a value of $`sin2\beta `$ which is consistent with zero.

The other two $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observables commonly defined in $`B`$-physics are $`\alpha `$ and $`\gamma `$:

$$\alpha arg\left(\frac{V_{tb}^{}V_{td}}{V_{ud}V_{ub}^{}}\right)\gamma arg\left(\frac{V_{cd}^{}V_{cb}}{V_{ud}V_{ub}^{}}\right)$$
(28)
where $`V_{tb}^{}V_{td}`$ can be extracted from $`B_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B_d}^0`$ mixing and $`V_{ud}V_{ub}^{}`$, $`V_{cd}^{}V_{cb}`$ from neutral and charged $`B`$-decays such as $`B^0\pi \pi `$ and $`B^+\pi ^+K^0`$, for example. In the SM $`\alpha +\beta +\gamma =\pi `$ because the CKM matrix $`V`$ is unitary. The ncSM matrix $`\overline{V}`$ is not unitary (see Section 3), so we expect $`\alpha +\beta +\gamma \pi `$ as these “angles” are defined (by $`\overline{V}`$ replacing $`V`$ in (28) above). For $`\eta =0`$ the parameters $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma `$ in the ncSM assume the following form:

$$\begin{array}{c}\alpha tan^1\left(\frac{m_b}{m_W}\xi ^2\right)\hfill \\ \beta tan^1\left(\frac{m_b+m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2\right)\hfill \\ \gamma \pi tan^1\left(\frac{m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(29)
In Figure 4 we plot the sum $`\alpha +\beta +\gamma `$. The angles essentially add up to $`\pi `$ in the same range of $`\xi `$ which is required by the $`ϵ_K`$-constraint. If all the matrix elements of $`\overline{V}`$ could be measured at the same energy then the unitarity triangle would close exactly. The small deviation from exact closure is $`𝒪(\frac{m_b}{m_W}\xi ^2)`$ and represents the fact that the angles as defined in (26) and (28) are a combination of amplitudes measured at different energies: $`\mu m_t`$ (for $`B_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{0}\overline{B_d}^0`$ mixing) and and $`\mu m_b`$ (for $`B`$ decays).

#### 3.1.4 Electric Dipole Moments

Nonzero values of the electric dipole moments ($`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$s) of the elementary fermions necessarily violate $`T`$, and hence $`CP`$ (assuming the $`CPT`$ theorem). This follows from the observation that a dipole moment $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ is a directional quantity, so for an elementary particle it must transform like the spin $`\stackrel{}{J}`$, the only available directional quantum number. The interation with an external electric field $`\stackrel{}{E}`$ is $`\stackrel{}{J}\stackrel{}{E}`$ which is therefore $`CP`$-odd. The presence of an $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ for a particle $`\psi `$ implies an interaction with the electromagnetic field strength $`F^{\mu \nu }`$ in the Lagrangian of the form

$$O_{edm}=(i/2)\overline{\psi }\gamma _5\sigma _{\mu \nu }\psi F^{\mu \nu }$$

In the SM this operator is absent at tree level and even at one loop due to a cancellation of the CKM phases. For the electron, moreover, the $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ ($`d_e`$) vanishes at two loops and the three-loop prediction is miniscule, of order $`10^{50}ecm`$ . For the neutron $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ ($`d_n`$), gluon interactions can give rise to a two-loop contribution which is $`𝒪(10^{33})ecm`$. Upper limits from experiments exist: $`d_e4.310^{27}ecm`$ , $`d_n6.310^{26}ecm`$ .

Since the SM predictions of $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$s are almost zero, we might expect that new sources of $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ physics from $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ would be observable. The noncommutative geometry provides in addition a simple explanation for this type of $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$: the directional sense of $`\stackrel{}{D}`$ derives from the different amounts of noncommutivity in different directions ($`i.e.`$ $`D_iϵ_{ijk}\theta ^{jk}`$) and the size of the $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$, classically proportional to the spatial extent of a charge distribution, is likewise in $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ proportional to $`\left|\theta \right|`$, the inherent “uncertainty” of space. The effects of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ will be proportional to the typical momentum involved, which for an electron $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ observation is $`keV`$. A detailed analysis of the size of the $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ appears in , but a simple estimate of the expected dipole moment is

$$d_ee\left|p\theta \right|10^{20}(\frac{p_e}{1keV})\xi ^2ecm$$
(30)
which gives an apparently strong upper bound: $`\xi <10^3`$. Although the phenomenologically interesting values of $`\xi `$ from the $`K`$-sector is well above this bound, we cannot exclude the possibility that the actual $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ is much smaller than the above naive estimate, a situation which can arise in supersymmetric models .

## 4 Constraints from $`𝐠\mathrm{𝟐}`$ of the Muon

Since $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ effects are proportional to momentum, we might expect an even stronger constraint by considering the muon $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑑𝑚}`$ in an experiment using relativistic muons, however the experimental bound here is weaker: $`d_\mu <1.0510^{18}ecm`$ .

The recent measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon , $`a_\mu `$, although not a $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observable, does however provide an interesting constraint on the ncSM. Experiments dedicated to $`a_\mu `$ have undergone continual refinement (for history and experimental details, see ) to the point where $`a_\mu `$ is now very precisely known:

$$a_\mu ^{expt}=11659202(14)10^{10}$$
(31)
The experimental technique employs muons trapped in a storage ring. A uniform magnetic field $`B`$ is applied perpendicular to the orbit of the muons; hence the muon spin will precess. The signal is a discrepancy between the observed precession and cyclotron frequencies.

Precession of the muon spin is determined indirectly from the decay $`\mu e\overline{\nu }_e\nu _\mu `$. Electrons emerge from the decay vertex with a characteristic angular distribution which in the SM has the following form in the rest frame of the muon:

$$dP(y,\varphi )=n(y)(1+A(y)cos(\varphi ))dyd(cos(\varphi ))$$
(32)
where $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the momentum of the electron and the spin of the muon, $`y=2p_e/m_\mu `$ measures the fraction of the maximum available energy which the electron carries, and $`n(y),A(y)`$ are particular functions which peak at $`y=1`$. The detectors (positioned along the perimeter of the ring) accept the passage of only the highest energy electrons in order to maximize the angular asymmetry in (32). In this way, the electron count rate is modulated at the frequency $`a_\mu eB/(2\pi mc)`$.

Although $`a_\mu `$ does receive a sizable contribution from $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$, it is a constant contribution , $`i.e.`$ the interaction with the external magnetic field $`\mathrm{\Delta }EB_i\theta _{jk}ϵ^{ijk}`$ is independent of the muon spin, and therefore the experiment described above is not sensitive to this perturbation of $`a_\mu `$. The effect of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ on this measurement does however enter in the manner in which the muon spin is measured in its decay. Specifically, the electron decay distribution (32) has a slightly different angular dependence due to the departure of the ncSM from the standard V-A theory of the weak interactions (see Figure 5). The electron distribution $`dP^{}`$ in the ncSM differs from the SM (we reserve the details for a future publication):

$$\begin{array}{cc}dP^{}(y,\varphi )\hfill & n(y)\left(1+A(y)(\stackrel{}{p_e}\stackrel{}{s}_\mu )+f(y)(\widehat{p}_e\theta \stackrel{}{s}_\mu )(\stackrel{}{p_e}\stackrel{}{s}_e)+\mathrm{}\right)dyd\mathrm{\Omega }\hfill \\ & n(1)\left(1+A(1)cos(\varphi )+f(1)sin(2\varphi )\left|\theta \right|+\mathrm{}\right)dyd\mathrm{\Omega }\hfill \\ & \\ \mathrm{where}\hfill & \left|\frac{f(1)}{A(1)}\right|\frac{\alpha }{16\pi ^2}\frac{p_\mu }{m_W}\xi \hfill \end{array}$$
(33)
The effect of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ is greater than one would naively expect as, for reasons of efficiency, the muons are stored at highly relativistic energies: $`p_\mu 3GeV`$. Hence the ratio $`\left|\frac{f(1)}{A(1)}\right|10^6\xi `$. However, the frequency is measured over many cycles and a more conservative estimate of the effective size of the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ term is closer to $`(10^7to10^8)\xi `$ The angular distribution is therefore not a pure $`cos(\varphi )`$ and we expect the measurement of the precession frequency to differ from the SM prediction at the level of 1 part in $`10^8`$.

Currently, the discrepancy between the measured value of $`a_\mu `$ and the SM prediction is

$$a_\mu ^{expt}a_\mu ^{SM}=43(16)10^{10}$$
(34)
which imposes the constraint $`\xi 510^2`$. This bound accomodates the values of $`\xi `$ inferred from $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observables in section 3.1. We expect the value of $`\xi `$ determined from a $`g2`$ experiment to be smaller than that from a $`K`$ or $`B`$-physics experiment since the circulation of the muons at their cyclotron frequency introduces an additional averaging of the components of $`\stackrel{}{\theta }`$. For a storage ring located at an Earth lattitude of $`\psi `$ degrees, there will be a $`sin(\psi )`$ suppression factor.

## 5 Conclusions

The Standard Model(SM) is a highly successful effective theory for energies below the weak scale $`100GeV`$, but it must eventually give way to a description of nature that includes gravity. Noncommutative geometry is one candidate for such a description, exhibiting some features of gravity such as nonlocality and space-time uncertainty.

In this paper we have considered the potential effects at low eneriges of a noncommutative geometry which sets in at some high scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Remarkably, for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ in the $`TeV`$\- range, $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ contributions to $`CP\mathrm{violating}`$ observables such as $`ϵ_K`$ and $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$ are competitive with the SM contributions, whereas $`sin2\beta 0`$. If $`\mathrm{\Lambda }2TeV`$, the predictions of these observables from $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ is consistent with data. Moreover the recent $`2.6\sigma `$ deviation between the SM prediction of $`(g2)`$ of the muon and data is explained in the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ scenario for this same value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. These perturbative results in terms of the small parameter $`\xi m_W/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are encouraging, but more work is needed in the treatment of the full, nonperturbative theory. Nonetheless, noncommutativity of the space-time coordinates offers a more physical interpretation of $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ which, if correct, suggests interesting physics at $`TeV`$ energies.

## Acknowledgements

We thank Bruno Zumino and Sheikh-Jabbari for much useful discussion. This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Services, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC03-76SF0098.

## Appendix A Feynman Rules in the NCSM

## Appendix B Kaon System

The loop function in (18) is given by

$$\begin{array}{c}f(x)\frac{x}{(1x)^2}(1\frac{11x}{4}+\frac{x^2}{4}\frac{3x^2ln(x)}{2(1x)})\hfill \\ f(x,y)xy\left(\frac{3}{4(1x)(1y)}+\frac{ln(y)(12y+\frac{y^2}{4})}{(yx)(1y)^2}+\frac{ln(x)(12x+\frac{x^2}{4})}{(xy)(1x)^2}\right)\hfill \end{array}$$
(35)
Numerically,

$$\begin{array}{c}f((m_t/m_W)^2)2.5\hfill \\ f((m_c/m_W)^2)210^4\hfill \\ f((m_c/m_W)^2,(m_t/m_W)^2)210^3\hfill \end{array}$$
(36)
In the $`\mathrm{noncommutative}`$ case with $`\eta =0`$, the imaginary part of the loop integral for the box graph with a virtual quark $`q`$ becomes

$$\begin{array}{c}d^4k\overline{u}(p_1)\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)(\text{ / }p_1\text{ / }k+m_q)\gamma _\nu (1\gamma _5)d(p_1k)\hfill \\ \times \overline{u}(p_2)\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)(\text{ / }k\text{ / }p_2+m_q)\gamma _\nu (1\gamma _5)d(kp_2)\hfill \\ \times \frac{(\overline{V}_{qd}\overline{V^{}}_{qs})^2}{((p_2+k)^2m_q^2)((p_1k)^2m_q^2)(k^2m_{W}^{}{}_{}{}^{2})^2}\hfill \end{array}$$
(37)
which in the high loop momentum limit ($`kp_1,p_2`$) is approximately

$$i\lambda ^3\rho _{m_W}^Md^4k\frac{(\frac{k^2m_q^4}{4m_W^4}+k^2\frac{2m_q^4}{m_W^2})\left|k\right|\left|p_1\theta p_2\right|}{(k^2m_q^2)^2(k^2m_W^2)^2}$$
(38)
where we have introduced the cutoff $`M\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ explicitly since we don’t know the theory at higher energies (taking this limit to infinity doesn’t change the answer appreciably.) The imaginary part of the integral (38) for $`q=c`$ is approximately

$$\mathrm{}(ncloop)\frac{\lambda ^2}{m_W^2}\frac{m_K}{18m_W}\left(\frac{29\pi }{2}\xi ^2+\frac{134\xi ^3}{1+\xi ^2}\frac{20\xi ^3}{4+\xi ^2}\right)$$
(39)
where $`\xi \frac{m_W}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$. For small values of $`\xi 1`$, this is approximately

$$\mathrm{}(ncloop)\frac{\lambda ^2}{m_W^2}\frac{m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2$$
(40)
which is the simplified form we use in (19).

## Appendix C $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$

Direct $`CP\mathrm{violation}`$ in the SM implies that two or more diagrams contribute to the kaon decay with disparate weak and strong phases. In $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$, the vertex phases mimic a weak phase ($`i.e.`$ we use the ncCKM matrix). To give an estimate for the effects of $`\mathrm{noncommutative}\mathrm{geometry}`$ on $`ϵ^{}/ϵ`$, we consider a typical electroweak penguin loop integral. In the limit of high loop momentum, the penguin is characterized by the dimensionless number $`P_l`$

$$P_l_m^M\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{im_Ksin(q\theta k)}{k^5}$$
(41)
where $`m`$ is the mass of the heaviest particle in the loop and $`q`$ is the typical momentum of the process $`m_t`$ in a hadron machine. Switching to Euclidean space and performing the integral,

$$P_l\left|m_K\theta q\right|\left[Ci(\left|\theta q\mathrm{\Lambda }\right|)Ci(\left|\theta qm\right|)\right]+\frac{sin(\left|\theta qm\right|)}{m}\frac{sin(\left|\theta q\mathrm{\Lambda }\right|)}{\mathrm{\Lambda }}$$
(42)
where we take $`M\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. We use the cosine integral function which for small values of its argument is

$$Ci(x)const.+ln(x)\frac{x^2}{4}+\frac{x^4}{4!4}+\mathrm{}$$
(43)
Taking the average mass $`mm_K`$ for simplicity, we obtain in the limit of small $`\xi \theta m_W^2`$

$$P_l2\frac{m_K}{m_W}\xi ^2ln(\frac{m_W}{\xi m_K})$$
(44)
as quoted in (23).


format: text

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# 21-cm H I emission from the Damped Lyman-𝛼 absorber SBS 1543+593

## 1 Introduction

In a recent paper, Kanekar et al. (2001) reported an attempt to detect 21-cm emission from the candidate $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.101}`$ Damped Ly$`\alpha `$ (DLy$`\alpha `$) absorber towards PKS 0349$``$433. At these low redshifts, such a search is entirely warranted, since normal gas-rich late-type galaxies should be detectable from their 21-cm emission if responsible for the absorption. As the authors themselves pointed out, such observations are necessary to establish whether DLy$`\alpha `$ systems have anomalously high H I content, irrespective of their optical luminosity or physical morphology. Significantly, Kanekar et al. failed to detect any emission from the candidate DLy$`\alpha `$ system. Since their detection limits were sufficient to find any normal high-mass spiral galaxy, they concluded that a low-mass galaxy might well be responsible for the absorber.

Such a conclusion is consistent with results from ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope images of fields around QSOs known to show $`z<1`$ DLy$`\alpha `$ systems. A wide variety of galaxy types have been identified as possibly responsible for the absorption, including normal early- and late-type high surface brightness (HSB) spirals, and amorphous low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies (Steidel et al. 1991; Steidel et al. 1993; Lanzetta et al. 1997; Le Brun et al. 1997; Rao & Turnshek 1998; Pettini et al. 2000; Turnshek et al. 2001; Cohen 2001). This wide variety of absorber types has led to the suggestion that DLy$`\alpha `$ systems may not arise from normal gas-rich HSB spiral galaxies alone, as has been assumed since they were first detected (Wolfe et al. (1986)).

We recently discovered (Bowen et al. 2001, hereafter Paper I) that the nearby LSB galaxy SBS 1543+593 gives rise to a DLy$`\alpha `$ system in the spectrum of the background QSO HS 1543+5921 ($`z_e=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.807}`$). The line of sight to the QSO passes within 2.4′′ ($`\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.3}h_{75}^1`$ kpc) from the center of the galaxy111$`h_{75}=H_0/75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, where $`H_0`$ is the Hubble constant, and $`q_0=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.0}`$ is assumed throughout this paper, and an H I column density of $`N`$(H I)$`=20.35`$ dex is measured along the sightline to the quasar. The galaxy has a central surface brightness of $`\mu _B(0)=23.2`$ mag arcsec-2 and an absolute magnitude of $`M_R=16.5`$. The redshift of the galaxy, $`z=0.009`$, was measured by Reimers & Hagen (1998) (who discovered the pairing of QSO and galaxy) from an isolated H II region in a southern spiral arm; no other estimate of the galaxy’s systemic redshift is available.

In this paper, we present the detection of 21-cm emission from SBS 1543+593, allowing us to determine more accurately the systemic velocity of the galaxy, as well as its H I mass. We compare the latter quantity with that derived by Kanekar et al. (2001), as well as a limit obtained by Lane (2000) for a second low-$`z`$ DLy$`\alpha `$ absorber, and show that SBS 1543+593 would not have been detected in either survey. Hence LSB galaxies similar to SBS 1543+593 can be responsible for DLy$`\alpha `$ systems at even modest redshifts without being detectable from their 21-cm emission.

## 2 Observations & Results

We initially checked to see if HS 1543+5921 was radio-loud, in the hope of using the background source to search for 21-cm absorption from the foreground galaxy. Using the NVSS database (Condon et al. (1998)) we found no coinciding radio emission above a $`4\sigma `$ noise level of about 1.8 mJy. An unrelated 32 mJy flux density source, unresolved at the resolution of the NVSS survey (typically $`45^{\prime \prime }`$), lies $`2^{}`$ to the southeast of the expected position of the QSO.

21-cm line emission observations were made 22nd January 2001, using the 100 m radio telescope at Effelsberg, which has a half power beam width of 9.3. The ‘total power mode’ was applied, i.e., a reference field was observed 5 min earlier in Right Ascension and later subtracted from the on-source observation in order to reduce instrumental effects. 15 mins were spent on-source, and 15 mins off-source. The two channel 21-cm receiver (with a system noise of 30 K) was followed by a 1024 channel autocorrelator split into four banks of 256 channels each. A total bandwidth of 6.25 MHz yielded a channel separation of 5.2 km s-1 and a velocity resolution of 6.3 km s-1. A second order polynomial was applied as a baseline correction. The rms error was determined to be 2.1 mJy per channel.

The 21-cm emission detected from SBS 1543+539 is shown as a function of heliocentric velocity in Figure 1. The center of the emission measured from the FWHM of the profile is 2868$`\pm 2`$ km s-1 ($`cz=0.0096`$) and shows the classic double-horn peaks, with maxima at 2843.5 and 2884.0 km s-1. Such profile shapes are well understood to arise from the disks of spiral galaxies with flat rotation curves and exponential gas distributions (Giovanelli & Haynes (1988)). We also note though that the profile resembles those studied by Matthews et al. (1998) for a sample of extreme late-type spirals, whose single-dish emission line profiles are “filled in” between the rotation peaks, perhaps due to the rotation curves of the galaxies rising more slowly than those of typical spiral galaxies. SBS 1543+539 may have a similar characteristic, which can be tested with more extensive two-dimensional 21-cm H I mapping. The velocity of the 21-cm emission agrees reasonably well with the value of 2700 km s-1 (with no quoted error) measured by Reimers & Hagen (1998). Their value was derived, essentially, from measuring the velocity of H$`\alpha `$ and \[O III\] emission lines in low signal-to-noise data with a resolution of $`18`$ Å, or $`8001300`$ km s-1.

Comparing the redshift of SBS 1543+593 with the metal absorption lines detected in Paper I is not so straightforward. The HST spectra in which the lines were observed were recorded with the STIS G140L grating and the 52x0.5 aperture, for which there is considerable uncertainty in the zero point of the wavelength calibration. This can in principle be corrected by comparing the velocities of Galactic low-ionization metal lines with the velocity of H I emission along the line of sight. Unfortunately, the low resolution of the G140L (200$``$300 km s-1) and the low signal-to-noise of the data make the precise velocity of the Galactic absorption hard to determine. Further, inspection of the 21-cm emission along the sightline \[taken from the Leiden/Dwingeloo 21-cm survey (Hartmann & Burton (1997))\] shows that besides the bulk of the emission around 0 km s-1, there are strong peaks from Galactic High Velocity Clouds at $`v140`$ and $`70`$ km s-1. Our final estimate of the absorber’s velocity is $`3050`$ km s-1, apparently in poor agreement with the 21-cm emission. Nevertheless, the error in this number is large, $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}100}200`$ km s-1, and higher resolution UV observations are clearly needed to better tie down the redshift of the absorbing gas before considering a real discrepancy between the bulk of the 21-cm gas and the absorbing material.

We calculate the total mass of the H I gas in the usual manner:

$$M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2.36}\times 10^5D(\mathrm{Mpc})^2S(\mathrm{Jy})𝑑v(\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)M_{}.$$

where $`D`$ is the luminosity distance to the galaxy, taken to be 38 Mpc for the adopted cosmology, and $`S`$ is the 21-cm flux, which is integrated over the observed velocity range of the profile. For SBS 1543+593 we derive a flux of 3.9 Jy km s-1 over a velocity range of 2740$``$3000 km s-1, which gives

$$M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1.3}\times 10^9h_{75}^2M_{}.$$

The statistical error on the flux is 0.048 Jy km s-1, but this is likely an underestimate of the true error, since systematic errors also contribute. Experience with similar datasets suggests an error of $`10`$ % is more realistic, which would lead to an uncertainty of $`1\times 10^8M_{}`$ in the H I mass of SBS 1543+593.

The width of the H I profile displayed in Fig. 1 corresponds to a lower limit to the dynamical mass of

$$M_{\mathrm{dyn}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.76}\times 2.33\times 10^5(\delta V)^2RM_{}$$

where $`\delta V`$ is the half width at zero intensity and $`R`$ the radius of the galaxy (see, e.g., van Moorsel (1982)). In Paper I we were able to trace the $`R`$-band light of SBS 1543+593 out to a radius of $`30^{\prime \prime }`$, or 4.1 $`h_{75}^1`$ kpc. Taking this value to be $`R`$, and using $`\delta V=62`$ km s-1, we find:

$$M_{\mathrm{dyn}}2.8\times 10^9h_{75}^1M_{}.$$

This is a lower limit because the rotational velocity has not been corrected for the (unknown) inclination. Although measuring the inclination is difficult (see Paper I), the galaxy is clearly far from being edge-on, so $`M_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ is a conservative limit. Nevertheless, the dynamical mass is at least of order 50% higher than the gas mass.

In Paper I we estimated the $`R`$-band magnitude of the galaxy to be $`R=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}16.3}`$. We can correct to a $`B`$-band magnitude by adopting the correction found by de Blok et al. (1996) for their sample of LSB galaxies, and derive $`B=R+0.78=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}17.1}`$. This allows us to calculate the usual mass-to-light ratio of the galaxy, $`M/L`$, where $`L`$ is derived from the $`B`$-band luminosity. Since the absolute magnitude of SBS 1543+593 is $`M_B=15.8`$, then its total luminosity is $`L/L_{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}3}\times 10^8`$, which gives

$$M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}/L\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}4}.$$

In this case, the error in calculating $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}/L`$ is likely dominated by the value of $`L`$ rather than $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$, since contamination of the galaxy’s light from the QSO and close-by star may cause $`L`$ to be overestimated (see Paper I).

## 3 Conclusions

The H I mass derived for SBS 1543+593 is about 1/5 that of the Milky Way, and is close to the median value of $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$ found by de Blok et al. (1996) for a sample of 19 late-type LSB galaxies. Assuming $`RI\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0}`$, it appears that the LSB galaxy is gas-rich compared to other LSB galaxies studied by de Blok et al., although there are few galaxies at such low total luminosities in their sample. The value of $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}/L\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}4}`$ for SBS 1543+593 is correspondingly high, since the typical value for galaxies in de Blok et al.’s sample was $`1`$. On the other hand, the 38 LSB galaxies studied by Karachentsev et al. (2001, and refs. therein) in the magnitude range $`16.2<M_B<15.1`$ have an average value of $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}/L=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}2.6}`$ with a scatter between 0.3 and 11.8. The value for SBS 1543+593 is obviously well within this range.

With the derived $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$, we can consider how easily SBS 1543+593 would be identified as the origin of a DLy$`\alpha `$ system if at higher redshift. It is complicated to calculate precisely whether a particular set of optical observations would reveal SBS 1543+593 much beyond its redshift of 0.0096. For example, the success in adequately subtracting the QSO profile to reveal overlying galaxies depends on the signal-to-noise of the data, and the size and stability of the seeing during the observations. Similarly, an image’s ability to record LSB features depends on the detector’s physical characteristics (particularly its spatial scale), and the proximity of the galaxy to the QSO itself. Observing the 21-cm emission line however, does not suffer from these difficulties, particularly if the background QSO is not radio-loud, and in principle, picking out the emission at the redshift of the DLy$`\alpha `$ system should be a relatively ‘clean’ observation. The problem, of course, is that the flux from the low surface brightness of the H I emission can only be detected if the galaxy is at a low redshift. Hence searches for 21-cm emission from DLy$`\alpha `$ absorbers are confined to the very lowest redshift systems known.

Kanekar et al. (2001) failed to detect 21-cm emission from the $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.101}`$ candidate DLy$`\alpha `$ absorber towards PKS 0439$``$433. The absorber is a “candidate” because the Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption line has not yet been observed in the ultraviolet, although the strength of low-ionization lines in the system suggest the H I column density should be high, $`N`$(H I)$`10^{20}`$ cm-2 (Petitjean et al. (1996)). Kanekar et al. set a $`3\sigma `$ limit of $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1.8}\times 10^9h_{75}^2M_{}`$ for the system assuming a velocity spread equal to their resolution, 30 km s-1; such a limit would be insufficient to detect SBS 1543+593, and hence would not rule out such an LSB galaxy as being responsible for the $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.101}`$ system. Lane (2000) also searched for 21-cm emission from the 21-cm absorber at $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.0912}`$ towards B 0738+313, and again failed to detect any flux. Their observations were slightly more sensitive, reaching a $`3\sigma `$ limit of $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}6.5}\times 10^8h_{75}^2M_{}`$ assuming a velocity resolution of 22.5 km s-1. Even here, however, if we re-calculate $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$ by instead considering the velocity range over which we detect 21-cm emission from SBS 1543+593, some 124 km s-1, this limit would increase to $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}3.8}\times 10^9h_{75}^2M_{}`$. Again, this would be too high a limit to permit detection of SBS 1543+593 at $`z=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.0912}`$. Using this velocity range for Kanekar et al.’s observations would increase their limit to $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}`$ from the absorber towards PKS 0439$``$433 as well.

It is relatively straightforward to calculate the redshift out to which a galaxy like SBS 1543+593 could be detected given our observational set-up. We would measure a $`3\sigma `$ flux of 1 Jy km s-1 over 20 channels from a galaxy with $`M_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1.3}\times 10^9h_{75}^2M_{}`$ at a distance of 94 Mpc, or $`z=0.023`$ for $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. In actuality, we could extend this limit by observing at lower resolution: rebinning by a factor of 4 (20 km s-1 per channel) and assuming that the error in the flux would be reduced by a factor of two would enable us to detect SBS 1543+593 at the 3$`\sigma `$ level at a distance of 136 Mpc, or $`z=0.034`$.

As noted in Paper I, the detection of a DLy$`\alpha `$ system from SBS 1543+593 does not prove that all DLy$`\alpha `$ systems arise in LSB galaxies. Nevertheless, as evidence accumulates to show that at least some DLy$`\alpha `$ absorbers must be dwarf or LSB galaxies, our data demonstrates that the non-detection of 21-cm emission towards higher redshift systems is entirely consistent with the H I mass of one particular LSB galaxy—SBS 1543+593—known unequivocally to be a DLy$`\alpha `$ system.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee, Veronique Cayatte for helpful comments. Support for this work was provided in part from NASA through grant NAS5-30110.


text:
# Photoelectric effect on dust grains across the L1721 cloud in the 𝜌 Ophiuchi molecular complex Based on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) and with the participation of ISAS and NASA.

## 1 Introduction

The bulk of interstellar matter is found in regions of low to moderate opacity to UV and visible light where stellar radiation plays a dominant role in determining the chemical and thermal state of the gas. These photon-dominated or photo-dissociation regions have been the subject of many observations and theoretical studies over the past twenty years (Hollenbach & Tielens, 1999, for a review see ). In the classical theoretical paradigm, a PDR is characterized by its proton density, $`n_H`$, and a scaling factor, $`\chi `$, which normalises the incident radiation field to the Solar Neighbourhood radiation field in the far-ultraviolet. Comparison between observations and model calculations have concentrated on bright objects with high $`\chi >10^3`$ and gas density $`n_H>10^3`$ cm-3 which are the easiest to observe. The gain in sensitivity provided by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) for gas line observations now permits to extend these studies to less excited PDRs with lower $`n_H`$ and $`\chi `$ which are the most widespread in the interstellar medium (ISM). Models show that in such PDRs the gas heating is dominated by the photoelectric effect on dust grains Hollenbach et al. (1991); Le Bourlot et al. (1993); Kemper et al. (1999). Photoelectric heating has been the subject of recent theoretical investigations which provide an estimate of the photoelectric yield as a function of grain size where the small grains (radius $``$100 Å) dominate the overall photoelectric heating Bakes & Tielens (1994); Weingartner & Draine (2001). It is thus in low excitation PDRs including the diffuse interstellar medium that one can most directly validate this theoretical understanding of a key physical process for the ISM, independently of other heating processes. Recently, Wolfire et al. (1995) have used the work of Bakes and Tielens (1994, hereafter BT) to compute the equilibrium thermal states of the diffuse atomic medium. For the Solar Neighbourhood, their calculations give a net estimate of the $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m line emission per hydrogen atom in agreement with the value derived from the comparison of the FIRAS and H I data at high Galactic latitude Boulanger et al. (1996a). However, this validation of the BT work depends on the relative gas mass in the cold and warm phases of the ISM which is poorly constrained observationally.

In this paper, we investigate the photoelectric heating of the ISM through the study of a specific, low-excitation PDR. The comparison of the power radiated by gas and dust allows us to correlate the gas and dust emission and determine the photoelectric efficiency.

To carry out this study, we selected the Lynds Dark Nebula 1721 (Lynds, 1962, L1721, ), a nearby molecular cloud in the $`\rho `$ Ophiuchi region. This cloud as seen in the IRAS data has a roughly spherical geometry and a moderate opacity to stellar light ($`Av=3`$ at cloud center). It is heated on one side by the B2 star $`\nu `$ Sco and by a more isotropic interstellar radiation field created by the Upper Scorpius association. We present in this paper observations of the $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m and $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m lines obtained with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (Clegg et al., 1996, LWS, ) on board the Infrared Space Observatory (Kessler et al., 1996, ISO, ). These observations are combined with IRAS images and an extinction map (Sects. 2-3). Thanks to its proximity to the Sun and the moderate gas density, the L1721 PDR is spatially resolved by both the gas and dust observations. The data is interpreted within the framework of a model of the gas emission (Sect. 3). The data allows us to determine the photoelectric efficiency and to illustrate the dominant role of small dust grains in the photoelectic heating (Sect. 4). The paper conclusions are summarised in Sect. 5.

## 2 Observations

The L1721 cloud is centered at $`\alpha `$ = 16h 14mn 30.41s and $`\beta `$ = -18 58’ 7.9” (Epoch 2000), at the north of the $`\rho `$ Ophiuchi complex. The B2 star $`\nu `$ Sco is located at a distance of $``$134 pc. The projected distance between the center of the cloud and the star is approximately 1.7 pc. We discuss in detail the incident radiation field of L1721 in Sect. 3.2.

On the map of the 12/100 $`\mu `$m IRAS band ratio (see Fig. 1), the limb brightening of the cloud is clearly visible. Former studies have shown that ratios of the different IRAS bands mostly trace dust abundance variations Boulanger et al. (1990); Bernard et al. (1993). We discuss the abundance variations of small grains across L1721 in Sect. 3.5.

### 2.1 Gas cooling lines

The $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m and $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m lines have been observed by ISO with the LWS (TDT = 45401125, LWS02 grating mode, Clegg et al., 1996). At each sky position, the C+ and O0 lines have been observed 8 and 30 times respectively with 5 seconds-individual scans (the integration per grating point was 0.4 seconds). The resolution (FWHM) is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda `$ = 0.5 and 0.29 $`\mu `$m for the C+ and O0 lines respectively and each resolution element was sampled twice. We use the LWS pipeline version 7 for standard data reduction. To remove glitches (cosmic ray impacts on the detectors), we co-add all scans to obtain a first estimate of the mean line spectrum. Subtracting this mean spectrum from each individual scan, we obtain a (noise + glitch) - spectrum in which glitches are identified as 3$`\sigma `$\- and 5$`\sigma `$-outliers for C+ and O0 respectively. After rejection of glitches, all scans are again co-added to produce the final line spectrum. Line fluxes and error bars are obtained by fitting a Gaussian and a linear baseline to the profiles. The Fig. 2 shows the line intensity profiles.

To measure the line emission from L1721, we need to subtract the contribution of the diffuse ISM along the line of sight. We express the background contribution to the line emission as:

$$I_b=Y\times \nu I_\nu $$
(1)
where $`Y`$ is the line-to-continuum ratio and $`\nu I_\nu `$ the continuum brightness at the line wavelength. In the case of the C+ line, we take the line-to-continuum ratio measured in the Galaxy at high latitude, $`Y_{\mathrm{C}^+}`$ = 0.009$`\pm `$0.0015 from Boulanger et al. (1996a). This value agrees well with the Galactic plane mean value of 0.0082 reported by Wright et al. (1991) based on the FIRAS (Far-Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer) survey of the far-infrared emission from our Galaxy. Wright et al. (1991) observed, as expected theoretically, that the intensity of the C+ line scales linearly with the dust continuum emission. The variations of the C+ line-to-continuum ratio, due to differences in the dust properties, in the color of the ambient interstellar radiation field or the saturation of the C+ cooling rate when the level populations are in equilibrium with dense warm gas, are within 25% in the plane of Galaxy. In the following we consider that $`Y_{\mathrm{C}^+}`$ = 9$`\pm `$2.25 10-3 in the proximity of the L1721 cloud. For the O0 line, the combination of the observations of Caux & Gry (1997) in the diffuse ISM and the IRAS band at 60 $`\mu `$m provide a large range of $`Y_{\mathrm{O}^0}`$ values from 5 10-4 to 5 10-3. To derive the O0 background around the L1721 cloud we take the median of these values $`Y_{\mathrm{O}^0}`$ = 1.7 10-3. Note however that the large uncertainty on $`Y_{\mathrm{O}^0}`$ will not affect our estimate of the O0 line emission in the L1721 cloud because the contribution of the diffuse ISM to the O0 emission along the line of sight is much lower than the line intensity in the cloud. For the continuum brightness, we use the DIRBE (Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment) data corrected for zodiacal light. The continuum values are found from the average of DIRBE points in the diffuse ISM around the L1721 cloud. The variations of the DIRBE values are typically within 20% in the surrounding of the cloud. We find: $`\nu I_\nu `$(158 $`\mu `$m) = 9.2$`\pm `$1.9 10-4 ergs/s/cm2/sr and $`\nu I_\nu `$(60 $`\mu `$m) = 3.4$`\pm `$0.7 10-4 ergs/s/cm2/sr. The corresponding background emission values which have been subtracted from our LWS cut are 8.3$`\pm `$2.7 10-6 and 5.8$`\pm `$1.2 10-7 ergs/s/cm2/sr for C+ and O0 respectively.

### 2.2 Dust infrared emission

Fig. 3 shows the background subtracted surface brightness in the four IRAS bands. For each IRAS band, the background emission has been estimated along cuts extending the LWS cut at both ends of the cloud. The background emission is taken to be the average of the minimum values of these extended cuts: $`I_{12}^b=1.2\pm 0.2,I_{25}^b=1.8\pm 0.3,I_{60}^b=7\pm 1.6`$ and $`I_{100}^b=35\pm 3.9`$ MJy/sr.
The IRAS and COBE data are well explained with dust models comprising three components Désert et al. (1990); Dwek et al. (1997). We adopt the Désert et al. model: the three dust components are thus by order of increasing sizes (in terms of the grain radius, $`a`$):

1. large aromatic molecules or PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) which contribute most of the 12 $`\mu m`$ band ($`a`$ = 4 to 12 Å)
2. the Very Small Grains (VSGs) which dominate the 25 $`\mu m`$ and 60 $`\mu m`$ bands ($`a`$ = 12 to 150 Å)
3. the Big Grains (BGs) which make most of the 100 $`\mu m`$ band ($`a`$ = 1.5 10-2 to 0.11 $`\mu m`$).

In the following, we will often refer to PAHs and VSGs as the small dust grain populations. To derive the photoelectric efficiency for each grain component, we need to decompose the total infrared (IR) emission into individual dust contributions at each position in the cloud.

In the case of PAHs, we use the following relationship based on ISOCAM and DIRBE data Boulanger et al. (1996b); Bernard et al. (1994):
$`I_{PAH}`$ = 1.5$`\times `$$`\nu I_\nu `$(12 $`\mu `$m) erg cm-2 s-1 sr-1.
The emission of big grains is modelled with a modified blackbody of temperature $`T_{BG}`$ and an emissivity law proportional to $`\nu ^2`$. The value of $`T_{BG}`$ is estimated using the flux measured by all ten LWS detectors covering the range $`\lambda `$ = 42.5-176 $`\mu `$m. At each position, we fit the ten spectral points with the modified blackbody: a constant temperature of $`T_{BG}`$ = 20 K at all positions is found to provide a satisfactory fit. Finally, this modified blackbody is scaled to match the 100 $`\mu `$m IRAS band.

For the VSGs emission, we first obtain two spectral points at 25 and 60 $`\mu `$m from:
$`I_{25,60}(VSG)=I_{25,60}(IRAS)I_{25,60}(BG)`$
At each cloud position, we fit these two points with a modified blackbody of constant temperature $`T_{VSG}`$ = 70 K and an emissivity law proportional to $`\nu `$.

The bolometric intensity of each dust component is shown in Fig. 4: in fact, the VSGs and BGs emission profiles are quite similar to the 25+60 $`\mu m`$ and 100 $`\mu m`$ IRAS band profiles respectively. We note that BGs and VSGs temperatures are expected to decrease as one penetrates into the cloud. The constant temperature we find may be due to the spherical geometry of the cloud where warm and cold dust are mixed along a given line of sight.

## 3 Modelling the gas line cooling

To study the photoelectric effect on dust grains across this nearby PDR, we will compare the total gas cooling lines to the dust IR emission (see Sect. 4). In the case of low excitation PDRs, cooling by the pure rotational lines of H2 may be important. As this latter has not been observed, we resort to an updated version of the PDR model described in Le Bourlot et al. (1993) to estimate the cooling by H2. Moreover the comparison between the brightness profiles observed across the L1721 PDR in the $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m and $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m lines with model calculations provides a test for our understanding of gas heating/cooling in PDRs. The key ingredients of this model are the density profile across the PDR and the incident radiation field at the cloud surface. In the following, we describe how these quantities are constrained in order to produce a realistic model of the L1721 PDR.

### 3.1 The density distribution

To determine the density profile of L1721 we use a visual extinction map derived from star counts Cambrésy (1999). Fig. 5 displays the column density, $`N_H=Av/(0.54\times 10^{21})`$ cm-2 observed across L1721. The column density profile is well represented by a gas density distribution of the form (see Fig. 5):

$$n_H(r)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\hfill n_H^o\times (r/r_1)^{1.9}:& r_1<rr_m\hfill \\ \hfill n_H^o:& rr_1\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
with $`r`$ the radial distance to the cloud center, n$`{}_{H}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{o}`$ = 2915 cm-3 the constant density in the $`0rr_1`$ region with $`r_1`$ = 0.2 pc and $`r_m`$ = 2.2 pc. In this derivation, we assume that $`R_v`$ is constant and equal to 3.1 across the L1721 cloud. A higher value of $`R_v`$, 5.5, that is commonly observed in opaque cores, would multiply our extinction values by a small factor, about 1.12.

### 3.2 The radiation field

The ratio $`I_{100\mu m}/N_H`$ provides a good measure of the radiation field strength (Bernard et al., 1992, see Fig. 9 in ). In Fig. 6, we show the relationship between the IRAS 100 $`\mu `$m surface brightness and the observed column density. In the diffuse part of the cloud ($`A_v0.8`$), we observe a good linear correlation between the IRAS 100 $`\mu `$m surface brightness and the column density. The slope $`I_{100\mu m}/N_H`$ of this correlation provides an estimate of the radiation field intensity. For a set of clouds in Chamaleon with an opacity comparable to L1721 Boulanger et al. (1998) found a $`I_{100\mu m}/N_H`$ ratio of 7.5$`\pm `$2.5 MJy/sr/mag which corresponds to 4$`\pm `$1.3 MJy/sr/(1021 cm-2). This study provides the reference value for the mean Solar Neighbourhood ISRF (Interstellar Standard Radiation Field). In L1721 we find a slope of 15 $`\pm 4`$ for the cloud side opposite to $`\nu `$ Sco and 23 $`\pm 4`$ for the cloud side facing $`\nu `$ Sco (see Fig. 6) which corresponds to 4 and 6 times the ISRF respectively. We emphasize here that the IRAS 100 $`\mu `$m emission profile is relatively insensitive to abundance variations of the small grains (PAHs and VSGs) as shown in Bernard et al. (1992).

The radiation field heating L1721 is the sum of two contributions. The first contribution is from the $`\nu `$ Sco star, which has a luminosity of 6300 $`L_{}`$ and an effective temperature of 20,000 K. The contribution of $`\nu `$ Sco depends on the position of the star along the line of sight: we reference this position with an angle $`\theta `$ between the sky plane and the line connecting the cloud center to $`\nu `$ Sco (see Fig. 7). Next, the ISRF at this position is likely to be enhanced relative to the mean Solar Neighbourhood ISRF because L1721 is heated by the B and A stars cluster of Upper Scorpius. The Upper Scorpius complex contains a large proportion of stars with effective temperature of less than 20,000 K de Geus et al. (1989). We use the Mathis et al. (1983) radiation field to represent the mean Upper Scorpius radiation field. This last radiation field is assumed to be isotropic and in the following we call this contribution the isotropic radiation field. The radiation field exciting L1721 thus only depends on the distance of $`\nu `$ Sco to the cloud center and on the strength of the Upper Scorpius contribution. The slope of the 100 $`\mu `$m-$`N_H`$ correlation measures the power absorbed by Big Grains per Hydrogen atom. This power depends on the intensity but also on the spectral distribution of the radiation field. In practice, for a given radiation field intensity at 1000 Å, the emission of BGs per H atom is 2.5 times larger for the Mathis et al. (1983) radiation field than for a 20,000 K blackbody. We have taken into account this dependence to translate the 100 $`\mu `$m/$`N_H`$ slopes into $`\chi `$-values which represent the strength of a radiation field at $`\lambda `$ = 1000 Å in units of 1.6 $`10^3`$ ergs/cm2/sr Habing (1968). The radiation field intensity is described in this way because the far-UV photons are more efficient to heat the gas. The strength of the $`\nu `$ Sco radiation field is represented by $`\chi _{sco}`$ and the strength of the isotropic radiation field by the factor $`\chi _I`$. We have considered two cases:

1. $`\chi _I=1`$ for the isotropic radiation field and $`\chi _{sco}=12.5`$. In that case most of the radiation field strength on both cloud sides is due to $`\nu `$ Sco.
2. The Upper Scorpius isotropic radiation field on L1721 is the dominant radiation field on the cloud side opposite to $`\nu `$ Sco and then $`\chi _I=4`$ and $`\chi _{sco}=5`$.

A detailed modelling of the dust IR emission in L1721, based on the model of Bernard et al. (1992), is currently underway in our group to discriminate between these two cases. We expect that the case 2 radiation field will propagate more efficiently than the UV light towards the cloud center because of the strong visible component of the radiation field. Also, note that the effects of clumpiness can affect the penetration of star light inside the cloud. For the line modelling, we select the case 2 to describe the exciting radiation field of L1721. In Sect. 3.4, we will discuss the sensitivity of the gas cooling lines emission to the incident radiation field. In the case 2, the contribution of $`\nu `$ Sco amounts to a mean value of $`\chi _{sco}`$ = 5 for the cloud side facing $`\nu `$ Sco, which corresponds to $`\theta =70^{}`$ for the position of the star. As the far-infrared extinction is small, a very similar 100 $`\mu m`$ emission band profile is expected for $`\theta =70^{}`$. We will see in Sect. 3.4 that $`\theta =+70^{}`$ is favoured.

### 3.3 PDR model

To interpret the gas line emission we make use of the model described in Le Bourlot et al. (1993). In this model a PDR is represented by a semi-infinite plane-parallel slab with an isotropic radiation field incident on the interface. The inputs parameters are (i) $`\chi `$, the scaling factor for the radiation field, and (ii) the density profile. With these inputs the model solves the chemical and thermal balances starting from the slab edge. The scattering of the radiation by dust grains is treated with the formalism of Flannery et al. (1980) in the plane-parallel case and assumes a mostly forward scattering ($`g=<cos\alpha >`$=0.6, where $`\alpha `$ is the scattering angle). For extinction properties, we use the analytical fit of Fitzpatrick & Massa (1988) to the Galactic average extinction curve. The radiative transfer in the absorption lines of H2 and CO is treated in detail and the individual line profiles are treated with the prescription of Federman et al. (1979). We use recent gas phase elemental abundances measured in the diffuse interstellar medium: He/H = 0.1, C/H = 1.4 10-4 Cardelli et al. (1996), and O/H = 3.19 10-4 Meyer et al. (1998).
For the photoelectric effect on small dust grains, we adopt the formalism of BT. In particular, our model takes into account the actual spectral distribution of the radiation field to compute the heating rate (Eqs. 1 and 14 of BT). The exponent of the power law size distribution of small grains is -3.5 while the lower and upper limits of the grain radius are 4 and 100 Å respectively. Larger grains are not included in the computation of the photoelectric heating rate. They have a low photoelectric efficiency due to the large number of collisions the electron must undergo before escaping the grain Verstraete et al. (1990). The computation of the photoelectric heating assumes that the small grains are graphitic and spherical. Grains with less than 50 C atoms are likely to be planar: these species (PAHs) are less charged and consequently have a higher photoelectric efficiency (BT). However, for a given radiation field, the gain does not exceed 25% Wolfire et al. (1995): such variations fall within our error bars on the gas cooling lines.

### 3.4 Spatial distribution of line emission

We now present results of the PDR model for the parameters described in the last three sections. The total strength, $`\chi _t=\chi _I+\chi _{sco}`$, of the radiation field on the cloud surface ranges from 4 (opposite to $`\nu `$ Sco) to 11 (facing $`\nu `$ Sco). Figs. 8 & 9 describe the chemical stratification and the thermal budget of the plane-parallel model as a function of depth into the cloud. In these figures we have used $`\chi =\chi _t`$ = 5, which corresponds to the mean radiation field received by a particle located on the cloud surface facing $`\nu `$ Sco. We note that the photoelectric effect dominates by far the gas heat budget.

We now use the PDR model to compute profiles of line fluxes across the cloud which can be compared to the observations. To do this, we approximate the spherical shape of the cloud by a combination of plane-parallel models. This allows us to take into account the variation of the radiation field at the cloud surface and the fact that each line of sight crosses diffuse, warm, interface gas as well as more deeply embedded, colder regions. We thus divide the cloud into angular sectors. The first sector takes up all the cloud side opposite to $`\nu `$ Sco (the area noted $`A`$ in Fig. 7). In addition, six equal sectors are defined on the side facing $`\nu `$ Sco (the area noted $`B`$ in Fig. 7): these sectors are symmetrically distributed with respect to the line connecting $`\nu `$ Sco to the cloud center. To each angular sector is associated one value of $`\chi _t`$. The three sectors facing $`\nu `$ Sco on one side of the $`\nu `$ Sco-cloud center line have $`\chi _t`$ = 11, 10 and 9 (going away from the $`\nu `$ Sco-cloud center line). The large sector $`A`$ opposite to $`\nu `$ Sco receives $`\chi _t`$ = $`\chi _I`$ = 4. We then run a PDR model for each sector with the density distribution of Sect. 3.1 and the corresponding value of $`\chi _t`$. The model output is a local line emission rate ($`J_\nu `$) which only depends on the optical depth measured along a radius from the cloud edge.

The line intensity integrated along a given line of sight is written as (see Fig. 10):

$$I_\nu =\underset{k,i}{}\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_\nu (k,i)}{4\pi }\times l(k,i)$$
(3)
In this expression, $`k`$ labels the angular sectors and $`i`$ the various layers (defined by the radial $`A_v`$ taken from the cloud edge) crossed by the line of sight within an angular sector; $`l(k,i)`$ is the length in cm of the layer $`i`$ in the $`k`$ angular sector on the line of sight. The line cooling rate in erg/s/cm3 $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_\nu (k,i)`$ is equal to $`J_\nu (k,i)\times \beta (i)`$ where $`J_\nu (k,i)`$ is the line emissivity extracted from the PDR model and $`\beta (i)`$ the escape probability from layer $`i`$ to the cloud edge along the line of sight. For $`\beta `$, we use the formalism of Tielens & Hollenbach (1985) in their Appendix $`B`$ with a turbulent Doppler width $`\delta v_d=1`$ km/s. We find that the $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m and $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m lines reach an optical depth of 1 at $`A_v`$=0.5 and 0.3 respectively. The H2 rotational lines are optically thin.

The model line intensity profiles results are compared to the data in Fig. 11. We have put the star at $`\theta =+70^{}`$ (Fig. 7). Actually, for $`\theta =70^{}`$ the model line emission is significantly lower due to line opacity. With a dust-to-gas mass ratio of the small grain populations (PAHs and VSGs) constant throughout the cloud and equal to 8.6 $`10^4`$, the observed C+ and O0 line intensity profiles are not reproduced by the PDR model. Indeed, the $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu `$m and $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m line intensities are underestimated by a factor of about 2 and 3 respectively. The uncertainty on the radiation field, mentionned in Sect. 3.2, amounts to relative error of 40% for C+ and 70% for O0. Such error bars cannot explain the discrepancy between the observed and predicted profiles. Also a higher C and O abundances cannot accommodated this difference, because the fine structure line intensities are practically linearly dependant on the gas phase elemental abundances. Such discrepancies may arise from transfer effects on the emerging cooling lines and/or an underestimated heating rate.

In the PDR model, the non-thermal velocity fields are represented by the turbulent Doppler width $`\delta v_d`$ which is added to the thermal width Tielens & Hollenbach (1985). This parameter affects the transfer of resonant UV photons through the absorption lines of H2 and CO and the opacity of the emerging IR cooling lines. We show the result of varying $`\delta v_d`$ in Fig. 11: for a reasonable range of $`\delta v_d`$-values, we see that decreasing the opacity of the emerging cooling lies does not account for the observed intensities, in particular $`[\mathrm{O}^0]`$.

Alternatively, the low intensity of the gas cooling lines in the model may tell us that the gas temperature is too low (see Fig. 8). Indeed, the predicted $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu `$m line emission is very sensitive to the gas temperature because the energy of the transition corresponds to a temperature of 228 K. Thus, another solution to match the data is to increase the heating rate. This latter scales with the UV radiation field intensity ($`\chi `$), the small grains abundance and the photoelectric efficiency (BT). The band ratios shown in Fig. 12 suggest that the PAHs and VSGs abundance vary across the cloud. In the next subsection we estimate these variations and show that they have an important impact on the emerging gas cooling. We have not attempted to change the abundance of BGs, because as mentioned in the Sect. 3.3, these large grains have a low photoelectric efficiency.

### 3.5 Abundance variations of the small grains

In this section, we first use the dust brightness profile to quantify the abundance variations of small dust grains. We then include these abundance variations in the PDR model and estimate the corresponding line intensity profiles as in the last section. Here we test the idea that the discrepancy between the observed and the predicted profiles is due to abundance variations of the small dust grains. Ratios of the brightness profiles of Fig. 4 are presented in Fig. 12.

We have estimated the abundance variations of small grains from the ratio of PAHs and VSGs emission to that of BGs. A coherent modelling of the dust emission from a spherical cloud (e.g. Bernard et al., 1992, 1993) which includes consistent dust abundance variations is beyond the scope of the present paper. We estimate the model IR emission of dust grains $`I_{PAH}^{mod}`$, $`I_{VSG}^{mod}`$ and $`I_{BG}^{mod}`$ as follows. The power in the IR emission of the different dust components, $`X=[PAH,VSG,BG]`$, is equal to the power absorbed, i.e.:

$$I_X^{mod}=[\frac{X}{H}]\times \underset{k}{}\underset{i}{}P_{abs}^X(k,i)\times \frac{n_H(k,i)}{4\pi }\times l(k,i)$$
(4)
where

$$P_{abs}^X(k,i)=_0^{13.6\mathrm{eV}}\sigma _X(E)F_{k,i}(E)𝑑E$$
(5)
is the power absorbed in erg s-1 H-1 with $`\sigma _X`$, the absorption cross-section per grain for PAHs, VSGs and BGs. $`F_{k,i}(E)`$ is the radiation field (in erg s-1 cm-2 eV-1), found from the transfer prescriptions described in Sect. 3.3, and $`n_H(k,i)`$ the density in each cloud zone characterised by the index $`k`$ and $`i`$ (see Fig. 10). For the BGs we take the cross section of Désert et al. (1990), for PAHs we use Verstraete & Léger (1992) and Draine & Lee (1984) for VSGs. In the ISRF, PAHs absorb 2.3 $`10^{27}`$ Watt/C whereas graphitic VSGs only absorb 1.7 $`10^{27}`$ Watt/C. Formula (4) can then be inverted to infer the dust abundance (C/H in PAHs and VSGs) as a function of cloud radius. The resulting abundance profiles are presented in Figs. 11, 12 and 13. The abundance of PAHs has to be multiplied by $``$ 5 in the $`[0.25<A_v0.45]`$-layer to account for the observed $`I_{PAH}/I_{BG}`$ ratio. Similarly, the VSGs abundance must be multiplied by $``$ 2 in the $`[A_v0.75]`$-layer in order to reproduce the observed $`I_{VSG}/I_{BG}`$ emission ratio.

Including these abundance variations in the PDR modelling, we obtain the result displayed in Fig. 11. The corresponding line intensities are higher: the C+ and O0 lines emission are increased by a factor about 1.5 and 3 respectively. The discrepancy at the center of the cloud between the observed and predicted line profiles may result from uncertainties in the radiation field, the radiation transfer, or the photoelectric efficiency and from our rough estimate of the small dust grain abundance profiles. In the present PDR modelling we have not attempted to include changes in the UV extinction curve associated with the small dust grain abundance variations because recent observations Boulanger et al. (1994) have questioned the contribution of small dust grains to the extinction curve adopted in the current dust models (Désert et al., 1990; Dwek et al., 1997, e.g. ). In any case, exploring a range of far-UV to visible extinction ratio (from 5 to 10 at 1000 Å) we find the cooling lines to vary by less than 50 %. We therefore conclude, that the observed intensity profile of the main gas cooling lines can only be reproduced if the abundance of PAHs is significantly increased. This result illustrates the dominant role of the smallest dust grains in the gas heating. It also shows that the model photoelectric efficiency is close to its actual value. In Table 1, the values of the power radiated by gas coolants and small dust grains as observed and modelled are listed.

## 4 Dust photoelectric efficiency

Using our model estimate of the H2 cooling, we can now estimate the photoelectric efficiency by comparing the observed dust and gas emissions. A relationship is theoretically expected between the main cooling rates and the dust emission. Indeed, a dust grain exposed to a stellar radiation field dissipates the energy it absorbs mostly as IR emission. A small fraction, $`ϵ`$, of the energy absorbed is channelled to the gas by the photoelectric effect. The heating efficiency of this latter process is defined as

$$ϵ=\frac{P_{PE}}{P_{abs}}$$
(6)
where $`P_{abs}`$ is the total power absorbed by the dust grains and $`P_{PE}`$ is the power given to the gas through the photoelectric effect. For a gas in thermal balance, the gas heating and cooling rates are equal. In the L1721 PDR, the gas heating is dominated by the photoelectric effect. Assuming thermal balance the photoelectric heating is thus roughly equal to the total cooling rate. As long as the opacity of the emerging cooling lines is small, we can replace $`P_{PE}`$ by the total gas cooling line emissions $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Moreover, as the power conveyed by the photoelectric effect is much smaller than the absorbed power ($`ϵ`$ a few 10-2), the latter power is well approximated by the dust IR emission. Finally, $`ϵ`$ can be observationally defined as:

$$ϵ\frac{I_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{I_{dust}}$$
(7)
where $`I_{dust}`$ is the total dust IR emission.

As the photoelectric heating rate is expected to be dominated by the small grain populations, it is interesting to determine the photoelectric efficiency for each grain population. Along the LWS cut, we define:

$$I_\mathrm{\Lambda }^d=ϵ_{PAH}I_{PAH}+ϵ_{VSG}I_{VSG}+ϵ_{BG}I_{BG}$$
(8)
with $`ϵ_{PAH}`$, $`ϵ_{VSG}`$ and $`ϵ_{BG}`$ the photoelectric efficiencies of the PAHs, VSGs and BGs respectively and $`I_{PAH}`$, $`I_{VSG}`$ and $`I_{BG}`$ the corresponding dust emission. The photoelectric efficiencies can then be found from a least-square fit of $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }^d`$ to $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. In this derivation, we assume a constant photoelectric efficiency for each dust component across the cloud: as we show below (see Fig. 15), this is a reasonable approximation. From our best fit, we find that the small grain populations have a high photoelectric efficiency, namely $`ϵ_{PAH}`$ = 3%, $`ϵ_{VSG}`$ = 1% and $`ϵ_{BG}`$ = 0.1% (see Fig. 14).

This combination reproduces well the observed gas emission in the outer parts of the cloud, but there is a significant deviation in the central region of the cloud. In fact, as discussed in Sect. 3.4, the gas cooling lines become optically thick towards the cloud center whereas the dust emission remains optically thin throughout the cloud: this is probably why $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }^d`$ clearly overestimates $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ at $`r`$ 0.2 pc. We also show on Fig. 14 the opposite case where the BGs dominate the photoelectric heating rate: the corresponding cooling emission $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }^{BG}`$ is not a good representation of $`I_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ along the whole LWS cut. Our results clearly show that the dust photoelectric heating is dominated by the smaller grains, and not by the BGs. However, the spatial correlation between dust and gas emission does not allow us to tightly constrain the photoelectric efficiency of the various grain components because of the spherical geometry where outer and inner regions contribute to the emergent intensity at all sky positions.

We can estimate the observational photoelectric efficiency profile of small grains across the cloud as $`ϵ_{obs}=I_\mathrm{\Lambda }/(I_{PAH}+I_{VSG})`$. This efficiency is compared in Fig. 15 to the theoretical curve, $`ϵ_{mod}`$ which has been derived from our PDR modelling with the dust abundance variations discussed in Sect. 3.5. For consistency with the observations, we define $`ϵ_{mod}`$ as the ratio between the emergent gas cooling lines and the power absorbed by small grains as computed in Sect. 3.5. We see on Fig. 15 that $`ϵ_{mod}`$ reproduces the main features of $`ϵ_{obs}`$ across the cloud and that the $`ϵ_{mod}`$-values are within 30% of those of $`ϵ_{obs}`$. The shape of the $`ϵ_{mod}`$-profile can be understood as follows. While penetrating into the cloud ($`r`$0.3 pc), the UV radiation is attenuated and the average grain charge (positive) decreases; consequently, $`ϵ_{mod}`$ increases because of the weaker Coulomb barrier for the ejection of electrons from the grain (BT). Towards the center of the cloud ($`r`$0.3 pc), the photoelectric efficiency decreases. This trend is the combination of two effects. On the one hand, the opacity of the cloud center to UV photons is larger than for visible photons: since the photoelectric effect is produced mostly by UV photons, $`ϵ_{mod}`$ diminishes towards the cloud center. On the other hand, the $`ϵ_{mod}`$-drop at $`r`$0.3 pc also reflects the behaviour of the $`n_{PAH}/n_{VSG}`$ ratio (see Fig. 12). Comparing $`ϵ_{mod}`$ and $`ϵ_{obs}`$ in detail, we see that the efficiency values at the cloud boundary are quite comparable. Moving into the cloud, $`ϵ_{obs}`$ is systematically lower than $`ϵ_{mod}`$. Also, the ridge and trough of the $`ϵ_{mod}`$-profile are somewhat shifted with respect to $`ϵ_{obs}`$. These discrepancies probably result from the simplified geometry and radiation transfer we adopted for the L1721 cloud, as well as the uncertainty in the spectral distribution of the exciting radiation field (see Sect. 3.2). In this latter case, a detailed modelling of the dust infrared emission is warranted in order to consistently derive the exciting radiation field and the dust abundance profiles in the L1721 cloud.

## 5 Conclusion

We study the gas thermal balance and the dust IR emission across L1721 a nearby, isolated molecular cloud heated by the $`\nu `$ Sco star and by the BA star association of Upper Scorpius. The cooling of the gas is obtained with ISO-LWS measurements of the major cooling lines, $`[\mathrm{C}^+]158\mu m`$ and $`[\mathrm{O}^0]63\mu m`$ . The dust IR emission is traced with IRAS data.
We model the gas cooling lines with an updated version of the photodissociation region model of Le Bourlot et al. (1993). The input physical conditions in this modelling are the density profile and the exciting radiation field. The density profile of the L1721 cloud is deduced from visual extinction data ($`A_v`$ at the center is $``$3). The exciting radiation field is estimated to be $`\chi `$ = 5 to 10 times the radiation field of the Solar Neighbourhood from the ratio of dust emission to gas column density.
The spatial correlation between the gas cooling lines and the IR emission of small grains (PAHs and VSGs of radii $`100`$ Å) confirms the theoretical expectation that the gas heat budget, in the less excited PDRs, is dominated by the photoelectric effect on small grains. The photoelectric efficiency measured from the ratio of the total gas cooling to the dust IR emission is in the range 2 to 3% in good agreement with current theoretical models Bakes & Tielens (1994); Weingartner & Draine (2001).
Moreover, we find that the gas cooling lines of the L1721 cloud cannot be explained if the abundance of small grains is kept constant across the cloud, equal to the abundance of the diffuse ISM. Rather, as indicated by the IRAS band ratios, our PDR model results matches the gas cooling line observations when the abundance of PAHs is enhanced by a factor of 5 towards the cloud center.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to L. Cambrésy for providing us the extinction map of L1721. We also thank E. Caux and W.T. Reach for their help with the LWS data reduction.