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# FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN BELT AND DUST

## Introduction

So far more than 400 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are known. Jewitt et al. (1996) estimated the total mass of the present Edgeworth-Kuiper belt (EKB) for objects with $`30a50`$ AU to be $`0.06m_{}`$ to $`0.25m_{}`$, where $`m_{}`$ is the mass of the Earth. For TNOs with $`a50`$ AU, the average values of eccentricity and inclination are evaluated to be $`e_{av}0.1`$ and $`i_{av}8^o`$, respectively. Objects moving in highly eccentric orbits (mainly with $`a>50`$ AU) are called ”scattered disk objects” (SDOs). For SDOs $`e_{av}0.5`$ and $`i_{av}16^o`$. The total mass of SDOs in eccentric orbits between 40 and 200 AU has been estimated by different authors in the range $`(0.050.5)m_{}`$. According to Duncan et al. (1995), about 10- 20% TNOs with $`a<50`$ AU left the EKB during the last 4 Gyr under the gravitational influence of planets, and about 1/3 of Neptune-crossing objects could reach Jupiter’s orbit during their lifetimes. For a detailed review of the formation and migration of celestial bodies in the Solar system, see Ipatov (2000).

The sources of the interplanetary dust (IPD) cloud cannot be entirely reduced to comets and asteroids alone. Several factors indicate that the overall dust production rate from TNOs may not be negligible compared to that of comets and hence a third important component of the IPD cloud (besides interstellar grains) might be the EKB, or ‘kuiperoidal’ dust. In our opinion, the EKB influences the formation of the IPD cloud in two ways: (i) as a source of small-size particles slowly drifting toward the Sun under a combined action of the Poynting–Robertson drag and perturbations from the planets; and (ii) as a source of millions of comets between Jupiter and Neptune (Levison & Duncan, 1997; Ozernoy, Gorkavyi, & Taidakova, 2000a), which, in turn, serve as additional sources of dust. The dust can be produced due to evaporation of the volatile material from the TNO surface as a result of a variety of processes, such as the Solar wind and the heating by the Sun, micrometeor bombardment, mutual collisions of kuiperoids, etc.

## Formation of the trans-Neptunian belt

Stern (1996), Stern and Colwell (1997), Davis and Farinella (1997), and Kenyon and Luu (1999), among others, investigated formation and collisional evolution of the EKB. In their models, the process of accumulation of TNOs in the massive EKB took place at small (usually about 0.001) eccentricities. Ipatov (2000) found that, due to the gravitational influence of the forming giant planets and the mutual gravitational influence of planetesimals, such small eccentricities could not exist during all the time needed for the accumulation of TNOs. In Ipatov’s runs the maximal eccentricities of TNOs always exceed 0.05 during 20 Myr due to the gravitational influence of the giant planets. Eneev (1980) hypothesised that large TNOs and the planets were formed by the accumulation of large rarefied dust-gas condensations, which later contracted to a solid body density. We do not think that all the planets could form in such a way; however, TNOs with diameter $`d100`$ km could be formed mainly by the contraction of large rarefied dust condensations, and not by the accretion of smaller solid planetesimals. Perhaps, the largest asteroids and planetesimals with $`d100`$ km in the zone of the giant planets could be formed in the same way, while a part of smaller objects could be mainly debris of larger objects and another part could formed directly by contraction of condensations. Even if the sizes of initial condensations, which had been formed, due to gravitational instability, from the circumsolar dust disk, were about the same at some time at the same distance from the Sun, it would be, due to mutual interactions, a distribution in masses of the final condensations, which then contracted into planetesimals. As in the case of accumulation of planetesimals, there could be a ”run-away” accretion of condensations. Possibly, during the time needed for contraction of condensations into planetesimals, some largest final condensations could reach such masses that they formed planetesimals as large as several hundred kilometers.

During accumulation of the giant planets, planetesimals of large eccentricities with the total mass of several tens $`m_{}`$ could move from the feeding zone of the giant planets to the trans-Neptunian region (Ipatov, 1987, 1993). These planetesimals increased eccentricities of orbits of ’local’ TNOs, which initial mass could exceed $`10m_{}`$, and swept most of them. A small portion of such planetesimals could survive in eccentrical orbits beyond Neptune’s orbit and become SDOs. The total mass of the planetesimals that came from behind Jupiter’s orbit during formation of the giant planets and then collided the Earth is about the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans (Ipatov, 1995). Dynamical lifetimes of most planetesimals located inside Neptune’s orbit were less than 100 Myr, while those for the objects beyond Neptune were much larger. Therefore, the objects that came from eccentric orbits located mainly beyond Neptune’s orbit, were dominating at the end of an intense bombardment of terrestrial planets, which finished 4 Gyr ago.

## Collisional evolution of the trans-Neptunian belt

Frequency of collisions of bodies in the EKB and in main asteroid belt (MAB) was evaluated by Stern (1996), Davis and Farinella (1997), Durda and Stern (2000), and Ipatov (1995, 2000). It is assumed that there are about 106 asteroids with $`d1`$ km in the MAB, and the number of asteroids with $`d>D_{}`$ is proportional to $`D_{}^\alpha `$, with $`\alpha `$ between 2 and 2.5 (Binzel et al., 1991). In the MAB for the ratio $`s`$ of masses of two colliding bodies, for which a collisional destruction of a larger body takes place, equal to $`10^4`$, a collisional lifetime $`T_c`$ of a body with $`d=1`$ km is about 1 Gyr (Ipatov, 1995). If $`\alpha =2`$ and $`s`$=const, then a value of $`T_c`$ does not depend on $`d`$. It is considered that for near-Earth objects (NEOs) $`\alpha >3`$ at $`d<40`$ m. If it so also for the MAB, then $`T_c<2`$ Myr for 1-m rocky asteroid (Ipatov, 1995). At $`\alpha =2`$, $`s=10^3`$, and the mass of the EKB $`0.1m_{}`$ for TNOs with $`d100`$ km, one gets $`T_c=30`$ Gyr. For $`s=10^4`$ (and $`\alpha =2`$) the values of $`T_c`$ are smaller by a factor of 4.6 than those for $`s=10^3`$. An 1-km TNO collides with one of $`10^{12}`$ 100-m objects on average once in 3 Gyr. Therefore, at $`s`$=const, the values of $`T_c`$ for 1-km TNOs are of the same order of magnitude as those for main-belt asteroids.

The total mass of SDOs moving in highly eccentric orbits between 40 and 200 AU is considered to be of the same order or greater than the total mass of the EKB, and the mean energy of a collision of a SDO with a TNO is greater (probably, by a factor of 4) than that for two colliding TNOs of the same masses. Therefore, though SDOs spend a smaller part of their lifetimes at distances $`R<50`$ AU, the probability of destruction of a TNO with $`30<a<50`$ AU by SDOs can be of the same order of magnitude (possibly, even larger) than that by TNOs.

Ipatov (1995, 2000) showed that during the last 4 Gyr several persents of TNOs could change their semimajor axes by more than 1 AU due to the gravitational interactions with other TNOs. First estimates of gravitational interactions between TNOs were made by Ipatov long before the first TNO was found in 1992. Even small variations in orbital elements of TNOs due to their gravitational influence and collisions could cause large variations in orbital elements of TNOs under the gravitational influence of planets (Ipatov and Henrard, 2000).

## Migration of bodies to the Earth

The orbital evolution of a hundred TNOs under the gravitational influence of planets is described by Ipatov (1999, 2000) and Ipatov and Henrard (2000). During the evolution, the perihelia of orbits of two test objects decreased by 1 AU during 25 and 64 Myr, respectively. Numerical integration of the average time interval, during which an object crosses Jupiter’s orbit during its lifetime, is 0.2 Myr; the fraction of Jupiter-crossing objects (JCOs), which reach the Earth’s orbit during their lifetimes amounts to 0.2; and the average time, during which an JCO crosses the orbit of Earth, is about 5000 yr. Using these results, Ipatov (1999, 2000) found that if the number of 1-km EKBOs is as large as $`10^{10}`$ (Jewit et al., 1996), then the number of present JCOs of $`d1`$ km that came from the trans-Neptunian belt amounts to $`310^4`$, and about 170 former TNOs cross both the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. These objects represent about 20% of ECOs, if the number of 1-km Earth-crossing objects is 750. A lot of former TNOs can move in Encke-type orbits with aphelia inside Jupiter’s orbit. If nongravitational forces are included into interactions (in impulse approximation), the rate at which objects could be decoupled from Jupiter and attain orbits like those of NEOs is increased by a factor of four or five (Asher et al., 2001).

## Modeling of the interplanetary dust

Until recently, the main stumbling block to implementing the comprehensive study of IPD has been the absence of a physical model for the IPD cloud. Such a model would establish a link between the observable characteristics of the zodiacal cloud and the dynamical and physical properties of the parent minor bodies of the Solar system. A preliminary physical model of the IPD cloud based on a new computational approach elaborated by Gorkavyi, Ozernoy, Mather, & Taidakova is described in detail by Ozernoy (2001). This approach permits with modest computational resources to integrate trajectories of hundreds of particles and to effectively store up to $`10^{10}10^{11}`$ particle positions as if they were real particles, which provides a high fidelity 3D distribution of the dust. An appreciable increase in statistics, compared to e.g. Liou & Zook (1999), brings a factor of $`10^4`$ improvement in the detail of a model and enables us to model the IPD cloud at a qualitatively new, 3-D level. Moreover, our approach makes it possible to study, besides stationary processes, certain non-stationary processes as well, e.g. evolution toward steady-state distributions, dust production from non-steady sources, decrease in particle size (due to evaporation and sputtering) and number (due to collisions), etc.

The numerical codes employed account for the major dynamical effects that govern the motion of IPD particles: the Poynting–Robertson drag and solar wind drag; the solar radiation pressure; particle evaporation; gravitational scattering by the planets; and the influence of mean-motion resonances.

## The simulated distribution of kuiperoidal dust

The efficiency and power of the employed codes mentioned in the previous section, has been demonstrated by performing the following simulations: (i) distribution of the scattered comets, which enables one to reveal the four ‘cometary belts’ associated with the orbits of four giant planets (Ozernoy et al., 2000a), which are expected to contain 20-30 million of cold comets; (ii) detailed analysis of a rich resonant structure found in these belts, which predicts the existence of gaps similar to the Kirkwood gaps; (iii) a 3-D physical model of the IPD cloud, which explains the available data of Pioneers and Voyagers dust detectors; (iv) zodiacal light distribution in the Solar system, which fits the COBE data with an average accuracy of 0.85%, and (v) resonant structure in dusty circumstellar disks of Vega and Epsilon Eridani (Ozernoy et al., 2000b) and a warp in dusty disk of Beta Pictoris considered to be a signature of embedded extrasolar planets.

Under a set of reasonable assumptions, it seems safe to conclude:

1. The kuiperoidal dust plays a role more important than previously recognized. It appears to account for the space dust observations beyond 6 AU, while near Earth it could possibly contribute as much as 1/3 of total number density (1/4 of surface density) and 1/3 of the zodiacal emission near ecliptic.

2. The two other components of the IPD cloud, the cometary and asteroidal dust contribute respectively 36% and 30% of the number density and the zodiacal emission (at ecliptic) near Earth. The cometary particles contribute 60% to the surface density of the IPD cloud near Earth. A solely two-component model (i.e. without the kuiperoidal dust) would give a worse fit of dust distribution at Earth and would fail entirely for the outer Solar system.

3. Further improvements in the IPD modeling will include, among others, particles of different sizes, account for evaporation and sputtering of dust as a function of heliocentric distance, and include short-term (days to months) variability and small-scale phenomena in the zodiacal cloud.

## Acknowledgements

We acknowledge support of this work by NASA grant NAG5-10776, the Russian Federal Program ”Astronomy” (section 1.9.4.1), Russian Foundation for Basic Research (01-02-17540), and INTAS (00-240).

## References

Asher, D.J., Bailey, M.E., and Steel, D.I., 2001, In ”Collisional processes in the solar system”. Ed. by M. Ya. Marov and H. Rickman, ASSL.

Binzel, R.P., Barucci, M.A., and Fulchignoni, M, 1991, Sci. American, 265, October, 66-72.

Jewitt, D., Luu., J. and Chen, J., 1996, Astron. J., 112, 1225-1238.

Davis, D. R. and P. Farinella, 1997, Icarus, 125, 50-60.

Duncan, M.J., Levison, H.F. and Budd, S.M., 1995, Astron. J., 110, 3073-3081.

Durda, D.D. and Stern, S.A., 2000, Icarus, 145, 220-229.

Eneev, T.M., 1980, Sov. Astron. Letters, 6, p. 295-300 in Russian edition.

Ipatov, S.I., 1987, Earth, Moon, and Planets, 39, 101-128.

Ipatov, S.I., 1993, Solar System Research, 27, 65-79.

Ipatov, S.I., 1995, Solar System Research, 29, 261-286.

Ipatov, S.I., 1999, Celest. Mech. Dyn. Astron., 73, 107-116.

Ipatov, S.I., 2000, ”Migration of celestial bodies in the Solar System”, Editorial URSS, Moscow, (in Russian), 320pp.

Ipatov, S.I. and Henrard, J., 2000, Solar System Research, 34, 61-74.

Kenyon, S. J., and Luu, J. X., 1999, Astron. J., 118, 1101-1119.

Levison, H.F. and Duncan, M.J., 1997, Icarus, 127, 13-23.

Liou, J.-C. and Zook, H.A., 1999, Astron. J., 118, 580.

Levison, H.F. and Duncan M.J. ,1997, Icarus, 127, 13-23

Liou, J.-C. and Zook, H.A., 1999, Astron. J., 118, 580

Ozernoy, L.M., Gorkavyi, N.N., and Taidakova, T., 2000a, Planetary Space Science, 48, 993

Ozernoy, L.M., Gorkavyi, N.N., Mather, J.C. and Taidakova, T., 2000b, Astrophys. J., 537, L14.

Ozernoy, L.M., 2001, in ”The Extragalactic Infrared Background and its Cosmological Implications” (IAU Symp. No.204).Eds. M. Harwit and M.G. Hauser. ASP Conference Series, p. 17.

Stern, S. A., 1996, Astron. J., 112, 1203-1211.

Stern, S. A. and Colwell, J. E., 1997, Astron. J., 114, 841-849.


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# Experimental hints of Gravity in Large Extra Dimensions? *footnote **footnote *This essay received an ”honorable mention” in the 2001 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

## I

Recent conjectures have postulated that the hierarchy problem in physics may be resolved if two (or more) of the extra dimensions postulated by extensions of the standard model of particle theory, are compactified on mesoscopic scales - with effective radii much larger than the Planck scale . A particularly interesting possibility is in the case of $`n=2`$ mesoscopic compactification, in which case the implied scale, $`R_c`$, for the extra dimensions is of the order of 0.1 mm. In the simplest theory, the standard model gauge fields are restricted to (or near) the 3–dimensional brane on which we normally live, and only gravity propagates into the bulk of the large extra dimensions (LEDs). The resulting theory has a number of interesting astrophysical implications .

An immediate implication of LEDs is that Newton’s law fails on small scales, and is replaced by an effective potential gradient

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=(n+1)\frac{m_1m_2}{M_{pln}^{n+2}}\frac{1}{r^{n+2}}rR_c$$
(1)
where $`n`$ is the number of large extra dimensions, and $`M_{pln}`$ is the higher dimensional Planck mass, implying an effective 4-D Planck mass $`M_{pl}M_{pln}^{1+n/2}R_c^{n/2}`$ . The laboratory experimental constraints on deviations from Newton’s law on scales less than 1 cm  are weak, so the conjecture is not directly excluded by direct experiments, although recent experiments have constrained $`R_c<218\mu m`$ , and future experiments should detect $`R_c`$. If correct, LEDs have many implications for physics on different scales, some of which will be tested in the near future.

It is generally accepted that planets form through an aggregation of smaller grains. The protoplanetary disk is expected to contain sub–micron sized dust (and ice) grains which segregate through sedimentation to the mid–plane of the disk. The disk may be turbulent on some scales, and in general there is drag on the grains due to the gas orbiting at slightly sub–Keplerian velocities. The basic picture for planet formation has planetesimals form by dust aggregation, with runaway accretion onto the largest planetesimals once they reach mesoscopic sizes and the gravitational field of the largest planetesimals dominates the local potential . The accretion of planetesimals builds masses up to several times the mass of the Earth, at which point direct accretion of gas is thought to runaway to produce the Jovian planets. A problem is presented, because observational evidence and indirect theoretical arguments require that the time scale for dust grains to assemble into large planetesimals must be very short, of order $`10^6`$ years or shorter.

A critical step in this process is the growth from sub–micron sized dust grains to $`1`$ cm (see eg review by Ruden ), at which point radial drag allows grains to effectively sweep up a large volume rapidly, and to grow to the point where the self–gravity of the largest planetesimals produces rapid coalescence. In order for small grains to grow rapidly enough, it is necessary to postulate that they form loose aggregates with fractal dimension $`D_f2`$ in order for the grains to effectively sweep up smaller grains . Yet if the grain–grain velocity is large enough for significant growth to occur, we expect compactification or fragmentation during grain collisions, which slows down growth, as the geometric cross–section of the grains is reduced.

Recently Blum et al (2000) experimentally measured aggregation of micron sized dust grains in microgravity, in the CODAG experiment on STS-95. Rather surprisingly, they found dust grain growth up to $`50\mu m`$ producing branched linear structures with $`D_f1.3`$, much lower than predicted. The implied grain-grain coalescence time scale is then almost independent of grain mass ($`\tau m^{0.06}`$), the dust mass function is dominated by large grains, and aggregation processes are dominated by large grains.

To explain this process, Blum et al impose an ad hoc cut-off on aggregration, where sticking is restricted to high impact parameter collisions ($`b/a>0.65`$, for impact parameter $`b`$ on grain radius $`a`$). They conjecture that thermal rotation biases grain impact to large impact parameters. An alternative conjecture is that non-Newtonian gravitational attraction biases collisions to large effective impact parameters for $`a<R_c`$.

The existence of large extra dimensions, in which gravity propagates, changes the dynamics of grain–grain interactions at scales smaller than $`R_c`$ . In the Newtonian regime, for grains size $`a`$ and density $`\rho 1`$, the surface escape velocity $`v_N2a\sqrt{G\rho }`$ and the self–gravity of a grain is irrelevant for plausible grain dispersions for sizes less than $`100`$ m. Grain coagulation requires high grain velocity dispersion so small grains can have large collision rates, implying large velocity gradients or small scale turbulence. Countering this is the problem that at relative velocities $`>100\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^1`$, experiments show that grains do not stick and growth is inhibited .

A lower bound on local dispersion is set by the Brownian motion induced dispersion, $`v_B10^5\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^1\sqrt{(T/100)}/\sqrt{m_3}`$, where $`m_3`$ is the grain mass in milligrams. A $`100\mu m`$ grain has a mass of about $`0.1m_3`$ if it is compact. The smallest grains have high dispersion due to Brownian motion, but intermediate sized grains, of order 100 microns, have low dispersion and low number densities.

The gas-grain response time is a few msec , so a dust grain approaching within $`R_c100\mu m`$ of an aggregate, will explore a range of relative velocities while it traverses the region of non-Newtonian attraction. This favours grain growth if there is no small scale turbulence and gas velocity gradients are small.

With LEDs, the escape velocity of grains smaller than $`R_c`$ is independent of the grain size and is just $`v_6v_N(R_c)10^4\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Further, orbits in $`1/r^3`$ potentials are unstable, so any grains approaching within $`R_c`$ of each other, with instantaneous relative velocities less than $`v_6`$ become bound and must coalesce. A non-circular orbit in a $`r^3`$ potential spirals into contact on a dynamical time, so any particle random walking in velocity so that it becomes bound to the aggregate cluster, immediately coalesces with the cluster. For sub-millimeter sized grains, this increases the collision cross–section by $`2`$ orders of magnitude, at low velocity dispersion, and makes the issue of sticking and compactification in collisions moot, if the grain–grain velocities are low. Thus in LED modified gravity, grains in lower density dust can coagulate rapidly, if the grain–grain velocity dispersion is small on scales $`<R_c`$. In disks, gas drag imposes a size dependent velocity gradient on dust grains, but the grain–grain dispersion is in general much smaller than the differential velocity between grains and gas, in the CODAG experiment the local grain–grain velocity dispersion is small and dominated by Brownian motion.

More importantly, the coalescing grains have much larger relative angular momentum than in the Newtonian case. A typical grain will have an orbital eccentricity of order $`0.7`$ when it becomes bound, and enters the non-Newtonian regime at apocenter $`r_aR_c`$. So the specific angular momentum of the grain is $`l\frac{1}{2}v_{cNewtonian}(R_c)\times R_cG\rho a^3\sqrt{R_c}`$. If the distribution of impact parameters is uniform in area, then the excess angular momentum observed by Blum et al, is consistent with $`R_c80\mu m`$.

Establishing the conditions necessary for rapid planet formation, as required by observations, has required some considerable fine tuning of the disk initial conditions in the models. With the modifications to Newtonian gravity that follow from theories of large extra dimensions, the problem of rapid coalescence at the smallest scales becomes simpler. The stronger gravitational force and resulting orbit instability on scales smaller than the effective compactification radius, allow non–Newtonian gravity to dominate the particle dynamics of this critical early stage of planet formation, allowing rapid grain growth precisely in those cases in which time scales for Newtonian particles to coalesce become prohibitively long. In principle the efficient coalescence of micron sized grains through non–Newtonian gravitational forces can be tested directly in microgravity experiments. The recent experiment of Blum et al is consistent with $`R_c80`$ microns, but it is of course quite possible other, Newtonian, effects are the cause of the anomalous dust grain aggregation observed.

IF the orbit instability inside $`R_c`$ is the cause of the anomalous grain growth, then first order estimates suggest $`R_c80`$ microns, the corresponding unification scale for $`n=2`$ extra dimensions is about $`10TeV`$. This should be testable, both through direct measurements of deviation from Newtonian gravity on small length scales; through saturation of grain aggregation at $`a>R_c`$, and a transition to grain fractal dimension $`D_f(a>R_c)2`$; and, of course, through direct observation of anomalous particle collisions cross-sections at $`10`$ TeV.

###### Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank Sterl Phinney, Neil Cornish and Craig Hogan for helpful conversations, and to the Aspen Center for Physics for hospitality.


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# Diagnostics of composite starburst+Seyfert 2 nuclei: Hints on the starburst-AGN connection

## 1. Introduction

The nowadays popular expression “starburst-AGN connection” was to our knowledge first coined by Tim Heckman in a 1991 conference paper which dealt primarily with the then hot debate over the starburst model for AGN of Roberto Terlevich and collaborators. Since then, several groups have gathered unambiguous evidence that vigorous star-formation occurs in the inner few hundred pc of many AGNs (see Cid Fernandes et al. 2001a and references therein), flooding AGN papers with considerations about the effects of starbursts. This very volume contains several new reports of nuclei exhibiting both starburst and AGN properties (e.g. Colina et al., Levenson et al.) and of ways of diagnosing such composite systems (e.g. Kohno et al.). While these discoveries undoubtedly strengthen the long held suspicion that these two phenomena are intertwined in some fundamental way, in all fairness, we still do not know what this connection actually means! In a way, the situation was perhaps clearer 5–10 years ago, when the discussion was polarized in terms of the pros and cons of the starburst model for AGN, a central theme of the La Palma meeting back in 1993 (Tenorio-Tagle 1994). Now that the focus has (ironically) drifted away from that debate (because of the overwhelming evidence that super-massive black-holes do exist, gathered since we last meet here in “la isla bonita”), there is not a well defined theoretical framework able to make good use of these new data. Now that we all recognize that the issue is not starburst or black-hole, the fundamental questions are (1) what role do starbursts play in defining the observed properties of AGN, and (2) what is the physics linking starbursts and AGN?

The kind of starburst-AGN connection which would do more justice to the term “connection” is one in which circum-nuclear star-formation somehow controls the accretion rate and/or vice-versa, via symbiotic/feedback processes, perhaps on the lines of the old models by Perry & Dyson (1985) and Norman & Scoville (1988). A more trivial and less causal connection would be one that links starbursts and AGNs by their common eating habits. Both starbursts and black-holes live on gas, so feeding the inner regions of galaxies (by the dynamical processes discussed in this meeting) may well lead to a simple genetic link between star-formation and nuclear activity, with either phenomenon proceeding essentially unaware of the concomitant occurrence of the other. These two extreme alternatives, which broadly outline “nurture or nature” perspectives on the starburst-AGN connection, respectively, are presently viable. By the time we next gather in La Palma we will surely have a clearer understanding of which of them is more relevant.

Observational clues on the nature of the starburst-AGN connection require the careful study of systems in which both phenomena co-exist. A critical first step is hence to devise ways of identifying such composite starburst+AGN nuclei. A second step is to characterize the basic parameters of both the starburst (e.g., its star-formation rate) and the AGN (say, its accretion rate), preferably for as large a number of systems as possible, so that one can address issues such as evolutionary effects, correlations between the starburst and AGN properties, the frequency of starbursts in AGNs and the role of the host galaxy (see Storchi-Bergmann’s contribution elsewhere in this volume). In these few pages we summarize some of our results concerning the first step, i.e., the diagnosis of compositeness. Our major “publicity” goal here is to convince the reader that we found relatively cheap ways of identifying composite systems and to encourage her/him to apply them to her/his data sets. We predict that such applications will substantially enlarge the current database of composite systems, thus providing plenty of raw material for more detailed studies, necessary to further our understanding of the starburst-AGN connection.

## 2. How to tell a starbursting from a “boring” Seyfert 2

AGNs are so complex and interesting by themselves that AGN-auts have traditionally been reluctant to meddle in the business of stellar populations. The sentence “removing the starlight contribution”, present in so many papers since the late 70’s, epitomizes the historical view of stellar populations as an annoying pollution of AGN spectra. Most of the recent advances in the topic of the starburst-AGN connection stem from works which break this barrier by daring to dissect this “pollution”, using it to characterize the stellar content within the central kpc of active galaxies. This lead to an outbreak of discoveries of starbursts around AGN, predominantly Seyfert 2’s, where the nuclear light-house is conveniently blocked from view, facilitating the study of circum-nuclear stellar populations. For instance, stellar wind lines in the UV, the WR bump and/or high order Balmer absorption lines, all signatures of recent or ongoing star-formation, were detected in 15 out of 35 Seyfert 2’s in our combined northern (Heckman et al. 1997; Gonzalez Delgado, Heckman, & Leitherer 2001) and southern (Cid Fernandes, Storchi-Bergmann, & Schmitt 1998; Storchi Bergmann, Cid Fernandes, & Schmitt 1998; Storchi-Bergmann et al. 2000) samples. Identifying these finger-prints of starbursts required high S/N data and years of hard work. But can we make it simpler? In other words, can we use these data to figure out a less expensive way of identifying composite starburst+Seyfert 2 systems?

The answer is yes! This answer was reached from an apparently hopeless method. We simply feed the population synthesis code of Cid Fernandes et al. (2001b; see also Schmitt, Storchi-Bergmann, & Cid Fernandes 1999 and Leão et al. in this volume) with the equivalent widths of Ca K, CN and the G-band absorption features, plus a couple of near-UV colors ($`F_{3660}/F_{4020}`$ and $`F_{4510}/F_{4020}`$). Very few observables to solve an acknowledgedly difficult problem (population synthesis), which, despite its “long and venerable history” (Worthey 1994), has something of a “bad reputation” (Searle 1986). Sure enough, we were not able to achieve a detailed description of the stellar populations in terms of all age and metallicity-related parameters in the code with so little information. However, we achieved excellent results by reducing the dimensionality of the problem to just 3 components: $`x_{OLD}`$, which is the total fraction of light due to stars of $`10^9`$ yr or more, $`x_{INT}`$, the fraction due to $`10^8`$ yr (post-starburst) populations, and $`x_{FC}`$, which congregates all stellar generations of age $`10^7`$ yr plus a power-law Featureless Continuum (FC), included to account for scattered light. While it is generally difficult to decide whether young stars or a genuine AGN FC dominate this last component (a historic problem which is still unsolved—see Storchi Bergmann et al. 2000), in practice the strongest FC’s are found in composites, for which young stars clearly dominate $`x_{FC}`$. The $`x`$-components, which we chose to normalize at the 4861 Å continuum, must add up to 100%, thus defining a plane in ($`x_{OLD}`$,$`x_{INT}`$,$`x_{FC}`$)-space, so in practice the method provides a bi-parametric semi-empirical description of the data.

The results of this exercise are shown in Fig. 1a, where the synthetic proportions are projected in the $`x_{FC}`$-$`x_{INT}`$ plane. Our 15 certified composite systems are plotted as filled circles, whereas “boring” Seyfert 2’s (those where we have not detected signatures of circum-nuclear starburst activity) are shown as empty circles. Regardless of the actual meaning of the synthesis analysis, even the most skeptical reader must agree that the method provides an excellent empirical tool to separate composite from boring Seyfert 2’s! All composites but only one “pure” Seyfert 2 (NGC 1068, affected by its uniquely strong scattered light component) have $`x_{OLD}<75\%`$ and thus $`x_{INT}+x_{FC}>25\%`$, a threshold which can be equally well expressed by $`W_{CaK}<10`$ Å. Also, all $`x_{FC}>30\%`$ sources are composites. A remarkable fact about this diagram is that it does not use any of the information which was used to classify systems as composite (UV lines, the WR bump and/or high order Balmer lines). The synthesis picks out the composites simply by their diluted metal absorption bands and blue colors. As these data are relatively easy to obtain (all you need is a S/N $`>10`$ optical spectrum), the method can be readily applied to large data sets, offering a cheap way to find many more composites. We have in fact verified that the method works for other samples, as illustrated in Fig. 1b (see Cid Fernandes et al. 2001a for details and for other handy properties of the synthesis parameters).

## 3. Evolution: Do composites end up as “boring” Seyfert 2’s?

Another remarkable fact about Fig. 1 is that our seemingly crude synthesis yields a good description of the evolutionary status of the circum-nuclear starbursts in composites. The youngest composites (those which exhibit O and/or WR star features, such as Mrk 477) are located in the bottom-right part of the plot (large $`x_{FC}/x_{INT}`$) whereas systems in a post-starburst phase (with pronounced high order Balmer absorption lines, such as ESO 362-G8) populate the top-left region, and nuclei which exhibit both characteristics (e.g., NGC 5135, NGC 7130) are located in between (top-right). The bottom-line here is that, more than a necessary evil, betting on a simple population synthesis analysis of Seyfert 2’s was not a bad idea after all!

The evolutionary path of a starburst in Fig. 1 would roughly follow a $`x_{FC}x_{INT}x_{OLD}`$ sequence as the burst ages and fades, converging to bottom-left of the plot, i.e., the region populated by “boring” Seyfert 2’s. This naturally suggests that “boring” Seyfert 2’s are the end point of composites! It must be stressed, however, that (at least some) “boring” Seyfert 2’s may well have faint but not necessarily old starbursts, which are naturally harder to detect against the dominant background of old bulge stars (quantified by their large $`x_{OLD}`$). In fact, we came to recognize that we know much less about the “boring” Seyfert 2’s than about the composite ones, which, somewhat paradoxically, makes “boring” Seyfert 2’s more interesting! Despite such caveats, such an evolutionary scenario seems compelling.

## 4. Composites are more luminous than “boring” Seyfert 2’s

Among the many interesting systematic differences we found between composite and “boring” Seyfert 2’s is that the former are significantly more luminous than the latter. This is illustrated in Fig. 2, where we see that composites are typically $`5`$ times more luminous in terms of their far IR emission than “boring” Seyfert 2’s. A more dramatic way of putting it is that above $`L_{FIR}=2\times 10^{10}`$ L, $`80\%`$ of Seyfert 2’s in our sample are composites. Luminous Seyfert 2’s may therefore owe much of their luminosity output to circum-nuclear star-formation. Composites are also more luminous in the optical continuum and emission lines, a difference which is only exacerbated when reddening corrections are applied, since composites are also more optically extincted than “boring” Seyfert 2’s, consistent with the X-ray analysis of Levenson, Heckman & Weaver (2001). Intuitively, one expects younger things to be more luminous, so this tendency fits well in the evolutionary scenario outlined by the (luminosity-independent) synthesis analysis. We also find that “boring” Seyfert 2’s are weaker both in indices sensitive to starburst ($`L_{FIR}`$, $`L_{H\beta }`$) and AGN ($`L_{[\mathrm{O}\mathrm{III}]}`$) activity, indicating that more luminous AGN host correspondingly more luminous circum-nuclear starbursts! A more refined analysis may eventually translate this finding into something like a “star formation rate $``$ accretion rate” relation.

## 5. Final remarks: Starbursts are here to stay

In our full comparative study of the properties of composite and “boring” Seyfert 2’s (which includes the analysis of reference samples of Starburst, active, merging and normal galaxies), we further identify the effects of circum-nuclear starbursts upon emission line equivalent widths, gas excitation indices, line profiles, near-UV surface brightness and central morphology. Whilst we still lack a clear understanding of whether circum-nuclear starbursts are indeed an integral part of the AGN phenomenon, there remains no doubt that they exist and play a major role in defining observable properties traditionally attributed solely to AGN. Like it or not, theorists have to deal with this fact. For instance, we find that typically 50% (and up to 80%) of the nuclear H$`\beta `$ luminosity of composites is powered by massive stars! At the very least, this calls for a revision of classical photoionization models, which must mix a starburst and a harder ionizing source when modeling nuclear emission lines in Seyfert 2’s. Less starburst-phobic readers will see these results as further signals of a truly physical connection between star-formation and nuclear activity. Establishing how fundamental this connection is will require the extension of diagnostics such as the ones presented here to larger samples of Seyfert 2’s in order to derive statistically robust results, as well as a more panoramic view of starbursts in AGNs as a whole, from LINERs to QSOs. Slowly, but surely, we are putting together the pieces of this puzzle.

## References

Cid Fernandes, R., Storchi-Bergmann, T., Schmitt, H. 1998, MNRAS, 297, 579

Cid Fernandes, R., Heckman, T., Schmitt, H., González Delgado, R., Storchi-Bergmann, T. 2001a, ApJ, in press

Cid Fernandes, R., Sodré, L., Schmitt, H., Leão, J. R. 2001b, MNRAS, in press

González Delgado, R., Heckman, T., Leitherer, C., 2001, ApJ, 546, 845

Heckman, T. 1991, in “Massive Stars in Starbursts”, eds. C. Leitherer, N. Walborn, T. Heckman, and C. Norman, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), p. 289.

Heckman, T., González Delgado, R., Leitherer, C., Meurer, G., Krolik, J., Wilson, A., Koratkar, A., Kinney, A. 1997, ApJ, 482, 114

Levenson, N., Heckman, T., Weaver, K. 2001, ApJ, 550, 230

Norman, C., Scoville, N. 1988, ApJ, 332, 124

Perry, J., Dyson, J. 1985, MNRAS, 213, 665

Schmitt, H., Storchi-Bergmann, T., Cid Fernandes, R. 1999, MNRAS, 303, 173

Searle, L. 1986, in “Stellar Populations”, eds. C. Norman, A. Renzini, M. Tosi, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge), p. 3

Storchi-Bergmann, T., Cid Fernandes, R., Schmitt, H. 1998, ApJ, 501, 94

Storchi-Bergmann, T., Bica, E., Raimann, D., Fraquelli, H., 2000, ApJ, 544, 747

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Worthey, G. 1994, ApJS, 95, 107


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# The X-ray Globular Cluster Population in NGC 1399

## 1 Introduction

Early X-ray surveys in the 1970s revealed that the ratio of Low Mass X-ray Binaries (LMXBs) to stellar mass is more than two orders of magnitude higher for globular clusters (GCs) than it is for the rest of our Galaxy (Clark 1975). This was surprising because globular clusters contain only a small fraction, $`1\times 10^4`$, of the mass in our Galaxy. Yet, according to current estimates, they host 12 out of $`130`$ bright ($`10^{36}`$ ergs s-1) Galactic X-ray sources. This overabundance of binaries led Fabian, Pringle, & Rees (1975) to propose that the LMXBs in GCs are formed via tidal capture of neutron stars in close encounters with main-sequence or giant stars, a mechanism that operates preferentially at the higher stellar densities found in GCs. As X-ray observatories have improved it has become possible to study the X-ray properties of GCs associated with the nearby galaxies. ROSAT observations of M31 revealed that the X-ray properties of its GCs are similar to those observed in our Galaxy, with a comparable fraction and luminosity distribution (Supper et al. 1997).

Early X-ray observations of elliptical galaxies showed that the dominant source of X-rays is $`1`$ keV emission from hot interstellar medium (ISM) (e.g., Forman, Jones, & Tucker 1985). ASCA spectral analysis of elliptical galaxies revealed the presence of a hard component, which was identified with an ensemble of LMXBs (Matsumoto et al. 1997, Matsushita et al. 1994). The LMXB origin was confirmed by the $`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$ angular resolution Chandra images of two faint elliptical galaxies, NGC 1553 and NGC 4697, that resolved $`60\%`$ of the hard ($`>1`$ keV) X-ray emission into point sources (Sarazin, Irwin, & Bregman 2000; Blanton, Sarazin, & Irwin 2001). Further, in NGC 4697 at least $`20\%`$ of the X-ray point sources were found to be associated with globular clusters (Sarazin et al. 2001). The GC populations in elliptical galaxies, unlike our Galaxy and other late-type galaxies, show a bimodal distribution in optical colors and much higher number of GCs per galaxy luminosity (the specific frequency), with the highest number found in the central galaxies of clusters (Ashman & Zepf 1992). NGC 1399 is a giant elliptical galaxy in the center of the Fornax Cluster. It is particularly suitable for studying the X-ray properties of a GC population because it has four times the average elliptical galaxy GC specific frequency, and fifteen times that of a typical spiral galaxy. In this paper we present the X-ray properties of the GC population detected in the Chandra observations of NGC 1399.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

NGC 1399 was observed with the Chandra ACIS-S detector on January 18, 2000 for a total exposure of 55973 s. The galaxy was positioned at the center of the S3 chip, $`2.3^{}`$ from the aim point. We used the standard pipeline data processing, corrected the data for the gain and quantum efficiency maps, removed bad pixels, and applied a $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$ aspect shift (see below). Additional observations were obtained with the ACIS-I on October 18, 1999 ($``$ 3500 s) and January 19, 2000 (2000 s immediately following the ACIS-S observation). In this letter we concentrate on the S3 chip region that overlaps with observations taken with WFPC2 on HST (Grillmair et al. 1999), which was used to identify X-ray sources. The properties of the entire sample of X-ray sources detected in the Chandra images and the characteristics of the diffuse emission are given in Mushotzky et al. (2001, Paper II, in preparation).

The X-ray point sources were identified using a sliding cell detection algorithm, as implemented in XIMAGE, on the cleaned event file in the 0.3-10.0 keV energy band, with the detection threshold set at $`2\sigma `$. The central $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ is dominated in this energy band by the diffuse emission from the galaxy (see Fig 2 in Loewenstein et al. 2001) and is excluded from this analysis. A total of 214 sources were detected in the S3 chip of which 160 are above the $`3\sigma `$ level. These sources comprise a large fraction of the 2-10 keV diffuse X-ray emission (Paper II) previously detected with ASCA. The cosmic X-ray background is expected to contribute $``$ 20 objects across this region (Mushotzky et al. 2000). Each source was visually inspected to ensure that it is a solid detection. The 0.3–10 keV count rates were corrected for exposure, vignetting, and point spread function. The source background was evaluated in nearby regions. The faintest source detected is $`1.7\times 10^4`$ cts s-1 – corresponding to a luminosity of $`5\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1 for a distance to NGC 1399 of 20.5 Mpc (Merritt and Ferrarese 2001).

## 3 Source Identification with GCs and Their Characteristics

To optically identify the Chandra X-ray sources we used the HST WFPC2 images from Forbes et al. (1998). The list of GCs (678 objects) derived from these images, along with their B and I band magnitudes, were provided by C. Grillmair. The HST image covers less than 30% of the $`8^{}\times 8^{}`$ S3 Chandra field of view and includes 45 of the 214 X-ray sources detected in the S3 chip (Fig 1). 39 of these X-ray sources have a signal to noise ratio (SNR) greater than $`3\sigma `$. One source is elongated in the X-ray image, inconsistent with a single point source, and is excluded from further analysis.

The X-ray contours overlaid on the HST image reveal a systematic offset in declination of about $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$. A similar displacement was seen comparing the October Chandra ACIS-I observation with the January ACIS-S observation. Applying a declination shift of $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$ to the Chandra data, the galaxy centroid measured in the HST image became consistent with that measured with Chandra, and the ACIS-I and ACIS-S images come into alignment. Following this correction, we assumed that the absolute X-ray positions are accurate to $`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$, the size of the Chandra point spread function. For 26 X-ray sources the closest HST object – all identified as GCs – is within $`0.4^{\prime \prime }`$ . An additional 7 X-ray sources are $`0.7^{\prime \prime }1^{\prime \prime }`$ from the nearest HST object, all GCs. The remaining 5 X-ray sources have positions more than $`1^{\prime \prime }`$ away from any HST object. We consider all 26 sources at distances $`<0.4^{\prime \prime }`$ from GCs as positive identifications. This corresponds to $`70\%`$ of the (38) $`3\sigma `$ sources. Among the $`2\sigma `$ sources there are 3 additional possible GC identifications; however, we discuss the source characteristics only of the 38 objects detected above $`3\sigma `$. If the $`1.5^{\prime \prime }`$ shift is not applied the number of matches within $`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$ is reduced to 1, demonstrating that chance coincidence is unlikely. The GC X-ray sources are homogeneously distributed within the HST FOV (Fig 1). The 38 objects have count rates that range from $`3\times 10^4`$ to $`1\times 10^2`$ cts s-1. The GC X-ray sources are on average brighter than the unidentified sources. Three of the sources, two of which are associated with GCs, are exceptionally bright by factors $`>5`$ above the average count rate.

We constructed a color-color diagram (Fig 2) by dividing the data into 3 energy bands: 0.3–1 keV, 1–2 keV and 2–10 keV. Only sources above $`5\sigma `$ ($`>42`$ counts) are included in the plot. There is a distinct cluster of sources with a “hard” color, consistent with low Nh and power-law photon indices ranging from 1–2. A few have softer (power-law index 2–3) spectra. GC and unidentified sources occupy identical regions in the color-color diagram. Two of the three brightest sources are very soft, with only one located in a GC. The other very bright (GC) source is harder, located in the densely populated region of the color-color diagram. To determine the conversion factor to flux, composite spectra were obtained for the globular and non-globular samples, excluding the 3 brightest sources that were individually fit. Absorbed power-law (with photon index $`1.5`$) and bremsstrahlung (with temperature $`7.5`$ keV) models fit both spectra with similar best-fit parameters and Nh consistent with the Galactic value of $`1.3\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2. Our adopted conversion factor is $`6\times 10^{12}`$ erg cm-2 ct-1, consistent within $`10\%`$ for both models. Two of the brightest source spectra are well fit by power-laws of indices 3.4 and 2.7 (the former is in a GC) and absorption higher ($`10^{21}`$ cm-2) than the Galactic value. The spectral parameters of the other brightest (GC) source are instead similar to those of the composite spectra.

Figure 3a compares the X-ray luminosity distribution for all 38 objects with that of the X-ray GC sources. Most of the unidentified sources are within the $`12\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 bin. Above $`2\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 the GC sources are clearly in excess compared to the few unidentified sources. Excluding the 3 brightest sources, the average luminosity of the globular cluster X-ray sources is $`3.2\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1, compared to $`2.1\times 10^{38}`$ for the unidentified sources. Including the brightest sources, the average increases by 2 and 1.5 for the globular and non-globular samples, respectively.

Only the 3 brightest sources have sufficient counts ($`>500`$) to search for short term variability. Light curves with 320 and 3200 second bins of the 3 sources are consistent with a constant at probability $`>1\times 10^2`$. Variability on a longer time scale, for the 3 brightest sources, was tested using the October 1999 observation. The predicted ACIS-I rate assuming the spectral parameters measured by ACIS-S are within $`1\sigma `$ of the observed count rate in ACIS-I.

The average B and B-I of all X-ray globular sources above $`3\sigma `$ are B$`=23.2\pm 1.0`$ and B-I=$`1.78\pm 0.28`$ with 17 of 26 sources having B-I larger than the average for the entire optical sample. The color (B-I) distribution for all clusters (see Fig 2 in Grillmair et al. 1999) is bimodal as seen in other elliptical galaxies. The GCs containing X-ray sources cover the full range of B-I, with a statistically marginal tendency to be redder than GCs in general. A weak correlation exists between the X-ray flux and B-I (redder GCs are fainter X-ray sources), that breaks down for the brightest sources. No correlation is seen between the X-ray flux and either B or I (Fig 3b), however there is a notable absence of X-ray detections in GCs fainter than 25th magnitude (Fig 3c). Overall, only a small percentage of optically luminous GCs contain luminous X-ray sources. The X-ray GC sources are on average $`1.5`$ magnitudes brighter in the optical than the average of all GCs in the HST FOV (Fig 3c). The KS test yields a low probability ($`3.6\times 10^6`$) that the X-ray globular magnitudes are drawn from the same distribution as the total globular sample. This increases to $`4.3\times 10^5`$ if the total sample is restricted to $`1<BI<2.5`$.

## 4 Discussion

The Chandra observations of NGC 1399 presented here show that $``$70% of the detected X-ray point sources, outside the central $`20^{\prime \prime }`$ of the galaxy, are associated with GCs. The average spectral properties of these sources are similar to those of LMXBs in our Galaxy. The X-ray sources in GCs have on average a higher luminosity compared to those not associated with GCs, with many above $`2\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1, the Eddington limit for spherical accretion onto a 1.4 M neutron star. Estimates of the distance to NGC 1399 range from $`1723`$ Mpc (20.5 Mpc is used here; Ferrarese et al. 2000). Even including a 30% uncertainty in the luminosity, the majority of sources remain above the Eddington luminosity. These findings suggest that luminous LMXBs in giant elliptical galaxies are preferentially located in GCs. This result is quite remarkable considering that in our Galaxy (and in M31) only 10% of LMXBs are in GCs – with a typical luminosity of $`10^{37}`$ ergs s-1, well below the threshold luminosity, $`5\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1, for detecting point sources in this Chandra exposure of NGC 1399. Moreover, there are no GC sources with $`L_X>10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 in our Galaxy, nor in any of the $`500`$ GCs in M31 reported by Supper et al. (1997). Super-Eddington luminosities in GC sources are also seen in the faint elliptical galaxy NGC 4697 (Sarazin et al. 2001).

The luminosity distribution (Fig 3a) of all sources in NGC 1399 seems to be divided into 3 groups. The 3 extremely bright sources detected at luminosities greater than $`10^{39}`$ ergs s-1 form one group. Of these, two are identified with GCs and two have ultra-soft spectra. A second, intermediate luminosity, group of sources have luminosities between 2 and 10 $`\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1. Of these, 15 out of 18 are identified with GCs. A third group, with about half of the sources in GCs, have luminosities $`<2\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1 , with an average of $`1.4\times 10^{38}`$ ergs s-1.

All the LMXBs found in GCs in our Galaxy have luminosities between $`10^{36}`$ ergs s-1 and $`7\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1 with many of them transient sources (Hut et al. 1992). The Galactic GCs tend to be, on average, less luminous than the Galactic bulge or burst sources. Verbunt, van Paradijs & Elson (1984) showed that this difference cannot be explained by the metallicity or mass of the secondary and concluded, given the small number of sources, that the GC and Galactic sources are probably still drawn from the same luminosity distribution. If the GC X-ray sources in NGC 1399 are formed by the tidal capture of a neutron star or the exchange collision mechanism (Fabian, Pringle, & Rees 1975; Hut, Murphy, & Verbunt 1991), then these models must account for the large number of super-Eddington luminosity sources. One possibility is that some of these GCs contain multiple LMXB systems. To explain the high-luminosity tail of the intermediate luminosity group, requires either a modest number of LMXBs ($`<5`$) per GC at the Eddington luminosity or a larger number of lower luminosity systems resulting from a higher collision rate compared to Galactic clusters.

The higher luminosity sources above $`10^{39}`$ ergs s-1, may form a distinct population. The ultra-soft spectra observed in two of the brightest systems, one of which is in a GC, are similar to those of high-state black holes seen in our Galaxy. The luminosities are then accounted for by fairly massive black holes ($`>7`$ M$``$) accreting close to the Eddington limit. The last of the brightest GC sources has a power-law index of $`1.5`$, similar to the brighter sources in the intermediate luminosity group that also show harder color in the color-color plot. This spectral characteristic is typical of low-state black hole systems (like GS 2000+251, GS 1124-68) and, although this seems inconsistent with their high luminosity, similar spectral behavior at high luminosities has been seen from the black-hole transient GS2030+338 (Tanaka & Lewin 1995) or from luminous X-ray sources in several nearby galaxies (Makishima et al. 2000). It is particularly notable that these sources may contain black holes, since no black hole candidates have previously been detected in GC sources in our Galaxy. It was suggested that this is because black holes formed in dense clusters are likely to be ejected from the cluster due to dynamical effects (Zwart & McMillan 2000). In an intermediate density cluster, if a black hole survives, it may be able to form a LMXB (Kulkarni, Hut, & McMillan 1993). In our Galaxy such systems are expected to be in quiescence most of the time – with occasional transient outbursts (White, Swank, & Holt 1983). If this is the case, we expect to observe flux variations on a time-scale of a month as the outburst decays. In our limited number of observations this has not yet been observed, but given the lack of monitoring to date, this is inconclusive.

The hard spectral component in elliptical galaxies seen with ASCA is resolved into (mostly luminous) LMXBs. Both the high ratio of hard-X-ray-to-optical luminosity and the high coincidence rate of X-ray sources in globulars, can be attributed to the high globular cluster specific frequency in NGC 1399. The GC bimodal B-I color distribution in NGC 1399 shows an unusually large fraction of red clusters. Whether the specific frequency or the abundance of red clusters are the determining factors in the total number of LMXBs in ellipticals and, indeed, in galaxies of all types (Sarazin et al. 2001), will be determined as more Chandra galaxy observations are analyzed and compared.

The luminosity threshold of this Chandra observation of $`5\times 10^{37}`$ ergs s-1 exceeds most of the luminosity range of the 12 GCs detected in our own Galaxy. The origin of the “super-Eddington” X-ray sources in the GCs in NGC 1399 may simply be explained as multiple LMXBs within a single GC, or they may be black holes. Clearly we are only sampling the tip of the distribution of a much larger LMXB population. Understanding the relative size of the GC and non-GC populations, how the GCs in NGC 1399 relates to that of our own Galaxy and models for their formation will require a factor of ten deeper exposure with Chandra to cover the entire luminosity range of LMXBs in GCs seen in our Galaxy.

Acknowledgements. We are very grateful to C. Grillmair for providing the list of the globular positions and magnitudes, and to Eliot Malumuth for assistance with HST images. We thank Frank Verbunt for useful discussion and Nicholas White for many helpful comments.


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# 1 The Preposterous Universe

## 1 The Preposterous Universe

Surprising experimental results are the most common driving force behind significant advances in scientific understanding. The recent discovery that the universe appears to be dominated by a component of “dark energy” qualifies as an extraordinarily surprising result; we have every reason to be optimistic that attempts to understand this phenomenon will lead to profound improvements in our pictures of gravitation, particle physics, and gravitation.

### 1.1 Dark energy

In general relativity, a homogeneous and isotropic universe is characterized by two quantities, the spatial curvature $`\kappa `$ and scale factor $`a(t)`$. These are related to the energy density $`\rho `$ by the Friedmann equation:

$$H^2\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2=\frac{8\pi G}{3}\rho \frac{\kappa }{a^2}.$$
(1)
For any value of the Hubble expansion parameter $`H`$, there is a critical density which solves this equation for zero spatial curvature: $`\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}=3H^2/8\pi G`$. The energy density is conveniently characterized by a density parameter constructed by normalizing with respect to the critical density: $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\rho /\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$.

Observations of the dynamics of galaxies and clusters have shown that the amount of “matter” (slowly-moving particles that can fall into local gravitational potential wells) is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3\pm 0.1`$, short of the critical density. At the same time, however, observations of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are consistent with nearly scale-free, gaussian, adiabatic primordial density perturbations (the kind predicted by the inflationary universe scenario) for a nearly spatially flat universe, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{total}}1`$. We therefore infer the existence of a dark energy component $`\rho _{\mathrm{dark}}`$ smoothly distributed through space (so that it does not influence the local motions of galaxies and clusters), with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{dark}}0.7`$. (See  for a recent overview and references.)

Meanwhile, measurements of the distance vs. redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae  have provided evidence that the universe is accelerating — that $`\ddot{a}>0`$. The significance of this discovery can be appreciated by rewriting the Friedmann equation (1) after multiplying by $`a^2`$:

$$\dot{a}^2=\frac{8\pi G}{3}a^2\rho \kappa .$$
(2)
The energy density in matter (non-relativistic particles) diminishes as the number density is diluted by expansion, so that $`\rho _\mathrm{M}a^3`$. If particles are relativistic, and thus classified as “radiation”, they are both diluted in number density and have their individual energies redshift as $`a^1`$, so that $`\rho _\mathrm{R}a^4`$. For either of these conventional sources of energy density, the right-hand side of (2) will be decreasing in an expanding universe (since $`a^2\rho `$ is decreasing, while $`\kappa `$ is a constant), so that $`\dot{a}`$ will be decreasing. The supernova data therefore imply that, to make the universe accelerate, the dark energy must be varying slowly with time (roughly speaking, redshifting away more slowly than $`a^2`$) as well as with space.

There is a straightforward candidate for a dark energy component that varies slowly in both space and time: vacuum energy, or the cosmological constant (for reviews see ). The distinguishing feature of vacuum energy is that it is a minimum amount of energy density in any region, strictly constant throughout spacetime. To match the data, we require a vacuum energy

$$\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}(10^3\mathrm{eV})^4=10^8\mathrm{ergs}/\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(3)
(In units where $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$, energy density has units of \[energy\]4.) The idea that the dark energy density is simply a constant inherent in the fabric of spacetime is in excellent agreement with the data, but raises two very difficult questions: first, why is the vacuum energy so much smaller than what we would think of as its natural value (the cosmological constant problem); and second, why are the matter and vacuum energy densities approximately equal today (the coincidence problem)? Of course the first question is important even if the dark energy is not a cosmological constant, although a nonzero value for the vacuum energy makes its smallness perhaps even more puzzling than if it were simply zero.

### 1.2 The cosmological constant problem

Let us turn first to the issue of why the vacuum energy is smaller than we might expect. Although the notion that empty space has a nonzero energy density can seem surprising at first, it is a very natural occurrence in any generic pairing of general relativity with field theory (quantum or classical). We can consider for definiteness a simple model of a single real scalar field $`\varphi `$ with a potential energy density $`V(\varphi )`$. The total energy density is

$$\rho _\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+\frac{1}{2}(\varphi )^2+V(\varphi ),$$
(4)
where $``$ represents the spatial gradient. It is immediately clear that any solution in which the field takes on a constant value $`\varphi _0`$ throughout spacetime will have an energy density which is constant throughout spacetime, $`\rho _\varphi =V(\varphi _0)`$. The crucial point is that there is no principle or symmetry in such a theory which would prefer that $`V(\varphi _0)`$ have the value zero rather than any other value. In richer theories there may be such principles, such as supersymmetry or conformal invariance; the observed world, however, shows no sign of such symmetries, so they must be severely broken if they exist at all. Hence, it requires fine-tuning to obtain a vanishing $`\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}`$.

We are unable to reliably calculate the expected vacuum energy in the real world, or even in some specific field theory such as the Standard Model of particle physics; at best we can offer order-of-magnitude estimates for the contributions from different sectors. In the Standard Model there are at least two important contributions, from nonvanishing condensates in the vacuum: the potential energy of the Higgs field, expected to be of the order $`(100\mathrm{GeV})^4=(10^{11}\mathrm{eV})^4`$, and a QCD energy density in the condensate of quark bilinears $`\overline{q}q`$ responsible for chiral symmetry breaking, expected to be of the order $`(100\mathrm{MeV})^4=(10^8\mathrm{eV})^4`$. There is also a contribution from the quantum-mechanical zero-point vacuum fluctuations of each field in the model. This contribution actually diverges due to effects of very high-frequency modes; it is necessary to introduce a cutoff and hope that a more complete theory will eventually provide a physical justification for doing so. If this cutoff is at the Planck scale $`M_{\mathrm{Planck}}=1/\sqrt{8\pi G}=10^{18}\mathrm{GeV}`$, we obtain a vacuum energy of order $`(10^{18}\mathrm{GeV})^4=(10^{27}\mathrm{eV})^4`$. Similarly, there is no reason to exclude a “bare” classical contribution to the cosmological constant at the Planck scale, $`\rho _{\mathrm{\Lambda }_0}(10^{18}\mathrm{GeV})^4`$. For any of these examples, we cannot even say with confidence whether the corresponding energy density is positive or negative; nevertheless, since there is no apparent relationship between the values of the disparate contributions, we expect the total vacuum energy to be of the same order as that of the largest components:

$$\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{theory})}(10^{27}\mathrm{eV})^4=10^{112}\mathrm{ergs}/\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(5)
There is clearly a mismatch between the theoretical prediction (5) and the observed value (3):

$$\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{theory})}10^{120}\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{obs})}.$$
(6)
This is the famous 120-orders-of-magnitude discrepancy that makes the cosmological constant problem such a glaring embarrassment. Of course, it is somewhat unfair to emphasize the factor of $`10^{120}`$, which depends on the fact that energy density has units of \[energy\]4. If we express the vacuum energy in terms of a mass scale, $`\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}=M_{\mathrm{vac}}^4`$, the discrepancy becomes $`M_{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{theory})}10^{30}M_{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{obs})}`$; it is more accurate to think of the cosmological constant problem as a discrepancy of 30 orders of magnitude in energy scale. In fact, this problem can be ameliorated in theories where supersymmetry is spontaneously broken at a low scale, since the vacuum energy will then be given by the scale at which supersymmetry is broken (above that energy, for example, the zero-point contributions from fermions are exactly canceled by equal and opposite contributions from bosonic superpartners). If supersymmetry is preserved down to just above the weak scale, so that $`M_{\mathrm{vac}}M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}10^3\mathrm{GeV}`$, we would have $`M_{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{SUSY})}=10^{15}M_{\mathrm{vac}}^{(\mathrm{obs})}`$. In the most optimistic reading, therefore, we are left with a discrepancy of a mere fifteen orders of magnitude that we have no idea how to resolve; still, this qualifies as a problem worthy of our attention.

There have been a large number of suggested resolutions to the cosmological constant problem; see  for reviews. To date none has seemed exceptionally compelling, and most researchers believe that the correct solution has yet to be found.

### 1.3 The coincidence problem

The second issue mentioned above is the coincidence between the observed vacuum energy (3) and the current matter density. The “best-fit universe” model has $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}=0.7`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{M0}}=0.3`$, but the relative balance of vacuum and matter changes rapidly as the universe expands:

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}}=\frac{\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }}{\rho _\mathrm{M}}a^3.$$
(7)
As a consequence,

at early times the vacuum energy was negligible in comparison to matter and radiation, while at late times matter and radiation are negligible. There is only a brief epoch of the universe’s history during which it would be possible to witness the transition from domination by one type of component to another. This is illustrated in Figure 1, in which the rate of change of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is plotted as a function of the scale factor. At early times $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is close to zero and changing very slowly, while at late times it is close to unity and changing very slowly. It seems remarkable that we live during the short transitional period between these two eras.

The approximate coincidence between matter and vacuum energies in the current universe is one of several puzzling features of the composition of the total energy density. Another great surprise is the comparable magnitudes of the baryon density ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}0.04`$) and the density of cold non-baryonic dark matter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CDM}}0.25`$), and perhaps also that in massive neutrinos ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.01`$). In our current understanding, these components are relics of completely unrelated processes in the very early universe, and there seems to be no good reason why they should be of the same order of magnitude (although some specific models have been proposed). The real world seems to be a more rich and complex place than Occam’s razor might have predicted. It is important to keep in mind, however, the crucial distinction between the coincidences relating the various matter components and that relating the matter and vacuum energy: the former are set once and for all by primordial processes and remain unchanged as the universe evolves, while the latter holds true only during a certain era. It is fruitless to try to explain the matter/vacuum coincidence by invoking mechanisms which make the dark energy density time-dependent in such a way as to always be proportional to that in matter; such a scenario would either imply that the dark energy would redshift away as $`\rho _{\mathrm{dark}}a^3`$, which from (2) would lead to a non-accelerating universe, or require dramatic departures from conventional general relativity, which would in turn make it difficult to recover the successes of conventional cosmology (Big Bang nucleosynthesis, CMB anisotropy, growth of structure, and the age of the universe, to name a few). Recent observations provide some evidence that the universe has only recently entered an era of acceleration out of a previous era of deceleration ; although the observational case is not airtight, the conclusion seems inescapable.

## 2 What might be going on?

It may seem misguided to put a great deal of energy into exploring models of a small nonzero dark energy density when we have very little idea why the vacuum energy is not as large as the Planck scale. On the other hand, the discovery of dark energy may provide an invaluable clue in our attempts to solve this long-lasting puzzle, giving us reason to redouble our efforts. Explanations of the current acceleration of the universe can be categorized into one of three types:

1. The dark energy is a true cosmological constant, strictly unchanging throughout space and time. The minimum-energy configuration of the universe may have a small but nonvanishing energy density, or we may live in a false vacuum, almost degenerate with the true one but with a small nonzero additional energy.
2. The cosmological constant is zero, but a slowly-varying dynamical component is mimicking a nonzero vacuum energy.
3. Einstein was wrong, and the Friedmann equation does not describe the expansion of the universe.

We briefly examine each of these possibilities in turn.

### 2.1 An honest cosmological constant

The simplest interpretation of the dark energy is that we have discovered that the cosmological constant is not quite zero: we are in the lowest energy state possible (or, more properly, that the particles we observe are excitations of such a state) but that energy does not vanish. Although simple, this scenario is perhaps the hardest to analyze without an understanding of the complete cosmological constant problem, and there is correspondingly little to say about such a possibility. As targets to shoot for, various numerological coincidences have been pointed out, which may some day find homes as predictions of an actual theory. For example, the observed vacuum energy scale $`M_{\mathrm{vac}}=10^3`$ eV is related to the 1 TeV scale of low-energy supersymmetry breaking models by a “supergravity suppression factor”:

$$M_{\mathrm{vac}}=\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}}{M_{\mathrm{Planck}}}\right)M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}.$$
(8)
In other words, $`M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}`$ is the geometric mean of $`M_{\mathrm{vac}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{Planck}}`$. Unfortunately, nobody knows why this should be the case. In a similar spirit, the vacuum energy density is related to the Planck energy density by the kind of suppression factor familiar from instanton calculations in gauge theories:

$$M_{\mathrm{vac}}^4=e^{2/\alpha }M_{\mathrm{Planck}}^4.$$
(9)
In other words, the natural log of $`10^{120}`$ is twice 137. Again, this is not a relation we have any right to expect to hold (although it has been suggested that nonperturbative effects in non-supersymmetric string theories could lead to such an answer ).

Theorists attempting to build models of a small nonzero vacuum energy must keep in mind the requirement of remaining compatible with some as-yet-undiscovered solution to the cosmological constant problem. In particular, it is certainly insufficient to describe a specific contribution to the vacuum energy which by itself is of the right magnitude; it is necessary at the same time for there to be some plausible reason why the well-known and large contributions from the Standard Model could be suppressed, while the new contribution is not. One way to avoid this problem is to imagine that an unknown mechanism sets the vacuum energy to zero in the state of lowest energy, but that we actually live in a distinct false vacuum state, almost but not quite degenerate in energy with the true vacuum . From an observational point of view, false vacuum energy and true vacuum energy are utterly indistinguishable — they both appear as a strictly constant dark energy density. The issue with such models is why the splitting in energies between the true and false vacua should be so much smaller than all of the characteristic scales of the problem; model-building approaches generally invoke symmetries to suppress some but not all of the effects that could split these levels.

The only theory (if one can call it that) which leads a vacuum energy density of approximately the right order of magnitude without suspicious fine-tuning is the anthropic principle — the notion that intelligent observers will not witness the full range of conditions in the universe, but only those conditions which are compatible with the existence of such observers. Thus, we do not consider it unnatural that human beings evolved on the surface of the Earth rather than on that of the Sun, even though the surface area of the Sun is much larger, since the conditions are rather less hospitable there. If, then, there exist distinct parts of the universe (whether they be separate spatial regions or branches of a quantum wavefunction) in which the vacuum energy takes on different values, we would expect to observe a value which favored the appearance of life. Although most humans don’t think of the vacuum energy as playing any role in their lives, a substantially larger value than we presently observe would either have led to a rapid recollapse of the universe (if $`\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}`$ were negative) or an inability to form galaxies (if $`\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}`$ were positive). Depending on the distribution of possible values of $`\rho _{\mathrm{vac}}`$, one can argue that the recently observed value is in excellent agreement with what we should expect . Many physicists find it unappealing to think that an apparent constant of nature would turn out to simply be a feature of our local environment that was chosen from an ensemble of possibilities, although we should perhaps not expect that the universe takes our feelings into account on these matters. More importantly, relying on the anthropic principle involves the invocation of a large collection of alternative possibilities for the vacuum energy, closely spaced in energy but not continuously connected to each other (unless the light scalar fields implied by such connected vacua is very weakly coupled, as it must also be in the quintessence models discussed below). It is by no means an economical solution to the vacuum energy puzzle.

As an interesting sidelight to this issue, it has been claimed that a positive vacuum energy would be incompatible with our current understanding of string theory . At issue is the fact that such a universe eventually approaches a de Sitter solution (exponentially expanding), which implies future horizons which make it impossible to derive a gauge-invariant S-matrix. One possible resolution might involve a dynamical dark energy component such as those discussed in the next section. While few string theorists would be willing to concede that a definitive measurement that the vacuum energy is constant with time would rule out string theory as a description of nature, the possibility of saying something important about fundamental theory from cosmological observations presents an extremely exciting opportunity.

### 2.2 Dynamical dark energy

Although the observational evidence for dark energy implies a component which is unclustered in space as well as slowly-varying in time, we may still imagine that it is not perfectly constant. The simplest possibility along these lines involves the same kind of source typically invoked in models of inflation in the very early universe: a scalar field rolling slowly in a potential, sometimes known as “quintessence” . There are also a number of more exotic possibilities, including tangled topological defects and variable-mass particles (see  for references and discussion).

There are good reasons to consider dynamical dark energy as an alternative to an honest cosmological constant. First, a dynamical energy density can be evolving slowly to zero, allowing for a solution to the cosmological constant problem which makes the ultimate vacuum energy vanish exactly. Second, it poses an interesting and challenging observational problem to study the evolution of the dark energy, from which we might learn something about the underlying physical mechanism. Perhaps most intriguingly, allowing the dark energy to evolve opens the possibility of finding a dynamical solution to the coincidence problem, if the dynamics are such as to trigger a recent takeover by the dark energy (independently of, or at least for a wide range of, the parameters in the theory).

At the same time, introducing dynamics opens up the possibility of introducing new problems, the form and severity of which will depend on the specific kind of model being considered. The most popular quintessence models feature scalar fields $`\varphi `$ with masses of order the current Hubble scale,

$$m_\varphi H_010^{33}\mathrm{eV}.$$
(10)
(Fields with larger masses would typically have already rolled to the minimum of their potentials.) In quantum field theory, light scalar fields are unnatural; renormalization effects tend to drive scalar masses up to the scale of new physics. The well-known hierarchy problem of particle physics amounts to asking why the Higgs mass, thought to be of order $`10^{11}`$ eV, should be so much smaller than the grand unification/Planck scale, $`10^{25}`$-$`10^{27}`$ eV. Masses of $`10^{33}`$ eV are correspondingly harder to understand. At the same time, such a low mass implies that $`\varphi `$ gives rise to a long-range force; even if $`\varphi `$ interacts with ordinary matter only through indirect gravitational-strength couplings, searches for fifth forces and time-dependence of coupling constants should have already enabled us to detect the quintessence field .

The need for delicate fine-tunings of masses and couplings in quintessence models is certainly a strike against them, but is not a sufficiently serious one that the idea is not worth pursuing; until we understand much more about the dark energy, it would be premature to rule out any idea on the basis of simple naturalness arguments. One promising route to gaining more understanding is to observationally characterize the time evolution of the dark energy density. In principle any behavior is possible, but it is sensible to choose a simple parameterization which would characterize dark energy evolution in the measurable regime of relatively nearby redshifts (order unity or less). For this purpose it is common to imagine that the dark energy evolves as a power law with the scale factor:

$$\rho _{\mathrm{dark}}a^n.$$
(11)
Even if $`\rho _{\mathrm{dark}}`$ is not strictly a power law, this ansatz can be a useful characterization of its effective behavior at low redshifts. It is common to define an equation-of-state parameter relating the energy density to the pressure,

$$p=w\rho .$$
(12)
Using the equation of energy-momentum conservation,

$$\dot{\rho }=3(\rho +p)\frac{\dot{a}}{a},$$
(13)
a constant exponent $`n`$ of (11) implies a constant $`w`$ with

$$n=3(1+w).$$
(14)
As $`n`$ varies from 3 (matter) to 0 (cosmological constant), $`w`$ varies from $`0`$ to $`1`$. (Imposing mild energy conditions implies that $`|w|1`$ ; however, models with $`w<1`$ are still worth considering .)

Some limits from supernovae and large-scale structure from  are shown in Figure (2). These constraints apply to the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}`$-$`w`$ plane, under the assumption that the universe is flat ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}+\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{dark}}=1`$). We see that the observationally favored region features $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}0.35`$ and an honest cosmological constant, $`w=1`$. However, there is plenty of room for alternatives; one of the most important tasks of observational cosmology will be to reduce the error regions on plots such of these to pin down precise values of these parameters.

To date, many investigations have considered scalar fields with potentials that asymptote gradually to zero, of the form $`e^{1/\varphi }`$ or $`1/\varphi `$. These can have cosmologically interesting properties, including “tracking” behavior that makes the current energy density largely independent of the initial conditions ; they can also be derived from particle-physics models, such as the dilaton or moduli of string theory. They do not, however, provide a solution to the coincidence problem, as the era in which the scalar field begins to dominate is still set by finely-tuned parameters in the theory. There have been two scalar-field models which come closer to being solutions: “$`k`$-essence”, and oscillating dark energy. The $`k`$-essence idea  does not put the field in a shallow potential, but rather modifies the form of the kinetic energy. We imagine that the Lagrange density is of the form

$$=f(\varphi )g(X),$$
(15)
where $`X=\frac{1}{2}(_\mu \varphi )^2`$ is the conventional kinetic term. For certain choices of the functions $`f(\varphi )`$ and $`g(X)`$, the $`k`$-essence field naturally tracks the evolution of the total radiation energy density during radiation domination, but switches to being almost constant once matter begins to dominate. In such a model the coincidence problem is explained by the fact that matter/radiation equality was a relatively recent occurrence (at least on a logarithmic scale). The oscillating models  involve ordinary kinetic terms and potentials, but the potentials take the form of a decaying exponential with small perturbations superimposed:

$$V(\varphi )=e^\varphi [1+\alpha \mathrm{cos}(\varphi )].$$
(16)
On average, the dark energy in such a model will track that of the dominant matter/radiation component; however, there will be gradual oscillations from a negligible density to a dominant density and back, on a timescale set by the Hubble parameter. Consequently, in such models the acceleration of the universe is just something that happens from time to time. Unfortunately, in neither the $`k`$-essence models nor the oscillating models do we have a compelling particle-physics motivation for the chosen dynamics, and in both cases the behavior still depends sensitively on the precise form of parameters and interactions chosen. Nevertheless, these theories stand as interesting attempts to address the coincidence problem by dynamical means.

Rather than constructing models on the basis of cosmologically interesting dynamical properties, we may take the complementary route of considering which models would appear most sensible from a particle-physics point of view, and then exploring what cosmological properties they exhibit. An acceptable particle physics model of quintessence would be one in which the scalar mass was naturally small and its coupling to ordinary matter was naturally suppressed. These requirements are met by Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (PNGB’s) , which arise in models with approximate global symmetries of the form

$$\varphi \varphi +\mathrm{constant}.$$
(17)
Clearly such a symmetry should not be exact, or the potential would be precisely flat; however, even an approximate symmetry can naturally suppress masses and couplings. PNGB’s typically arise as the angular degrees of freedom in Mexican-hat potentials that are “tilted” by a small explicitly symmetry breaking, and the PNGB potential takes on a sinusoidal form:

$$V(\varphi )=\mu ^4[1+\mathrm{cos}(\varphi )].$$
(18)
As a consequence, there is no easily characterized tracking or attractor behavior; the equation of state parameter $`w`$ will depend on both the potential and the initial conditions, and can take on any value from $`1`$ to $`0`$ (and in fact will change with time). We therefore find that the properties of models which are constructed by taking particle-physics requirements as our primary concern appear quite different from those motivated by cosmology alone. The lesson to observational cosmologists is that a wide variety of possible behaviors should be taken seriously, with data providing the ultimate guidance.

### 2.3 Was Einstein wrong?

Given the uncomfortable tension between observational evidence for dark energy on one hand and our intuition for what seems natural in the context of the standard cosmological model on the other, there is an irresistible temptation to contemplate the possibility that we are witnessing a breakdown of the Friedmann equation of conventional general relativity (GR) rather than merely a novel source of energy. Alternatives to GR are highly constrained by tests in the solar system and in binary pulsars; however, if we are contemplating the space of all conceivable alternatives rather than examining one specific proposal, we are free to imagine theories which deviate on cosmological scales while being indistinguishable from GR in small stellar systems. Speculations along these lines are also constrained by observations: any alternative must predict the right abundances of light elements from Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), the correct evolution of a sensible spectrum of primordial density fluctuations into the observed spectrum of temperature anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background and the power spectrum of large-scale structure, and that the age of the universe is approximately twelve billion years. Of these phenomena, the sharpest test of Friedmann behavior comes from BBN, since perturbation growth depends both on the scale factor and on the local gravitational interactions of the perturbations, while a large number of alternative expansion histories could in principle give the same age of the universe. As an example, Figure (3)

provides a graphical representation of alternative expansion histories in the vicinity of BBN ($`H_{\mathrm{BBN}}0.1\mathrm{sec}^1`$) which predict the same light element abundances as the standard picture . The point of this figure is that expansion histories which are not among the family portrayed, due to differences either in the slope or the overall normalization, will not give the right abundances. So it is possible to find interesting nonstandard cosmologies which are consistent with the data, but they describe a small set in the space of all such alternatives.

Rather than imagining that gravity follows the predictions of standard GR in localized systems but deviates in cosmology, another approach would be to imagine that GR breaks down whenever the gravitational field becomes (in some sense) sufficiently weak. This would be unusual behavior, as we are used to thinking of effective field theories as breaking down at high energies and small length scales, but being completely reliable in the opposite regime. On the other hand, we might be ambitious enough to hope that an alternative theory of gravity could explain away not only the need for dark energy but also that for dark matter. It has been famously pointed out by Milgrom  that the observed dynamics of galaxies only requires the introduction of dark matter in regimes where the acceleration due to gravity (in the Newtonian sense) falls below a certain fixed value,

$$a/c10^{18}\mathrm{sec}^1.$$
(19)
Meanwhile, we seem to need to invoke dark energy when the Hubble parameter drops approximately to its current value,

$$H_010^{18}\mathrm{sec}^1.$$
(20)
A priori, there seems to be little reason to expect that these two phenomena should be characterized by timescales of the same order of magnitude; one involves the local dynamics of baryons and non-baryonic dark matter, while the other involves dark energy and the overall matter density (although see  for a suggested explanation). It is natural to wonder whether this is simply a numerical coincidence, or the reflection of some new underlying theory characterized by a single dimensionful parameter. To date, nobody has succeeded in inventing a theory which comes anything close to explaining away both the dark matter and dark energy in terms of modified gravitational dynamics. Given the manifold successes of the dark matter paradigm, from gravitational lensing to structure formation to CMB anisotropy, is seems a good bet to think that this numerical coincidence is simply an accident. Of course, given the incredible importance of finding a successful alternative theory, there seems to be little harm in keeping an open mind.

It was mentioned above, and bears repeating, that modified-gravity models do not hold any unique promise for solving the coincidence problem. At first glance we might hope that an alternative to the conventional Friedmann equation might lead to a naturally occurring acceleration at all times; but a moment’s reflection reveals that perpetual acceleration is not consistent with the data, so we still require an explanation for why the acceleration began recently. In other words, the observations seem to be indicating the importance of a fixed scale at which the universe departs from ordinary matter domination; if we are fortunate we will explain this scale either in terms of combinations of other scales in our particle-physics model or as an outcome of dynamical processes, while if we are unfortunate it will have to be a new input parameter to our theory. In either case, finding the origin of this new scale is the task for theorists and experimenters in the near future.

## 3 Discussion

The discovery of dark energy has presented both observational and theoretical cosmologists with a win-win scenario. On the observational side, we will either verify to high precision the existence of a truly constant vacuum energy representing a new fundamental constant of nature and a potentially crucial clue to the reconciliation of gravity with quantum field theory, or we will detect variations in the dark energy density which indicate either a new dynamical component or an alteration of general relativity itself. On the theoretical side, we have been given invaluable insight into one of the most perplexing issues in theoretical physics (the cosmological constant problem), and we are now faced with a brand new issue (the coincidence problem) whose resolution will necessarily involve exciting new theoretical developments.

Nobody who took arguments of naturalness and fine-tuning seriously would have expected to discover a small but nonzero dark energy density111This is a rhetorical exaggeration. It has been pointed out to me, quite correctly, that people who took naturalness arguments seriously might have expected a nonzero cosmological constant if they also took the anthropic principle seriously.. We should not conclude from this that such arguments have no value, but that we should always be prepared for surprises. One way of characterizing our current inventory of the universe is to divide it into ordinary baryonic matter, comprising $`5\%`$ of the energy density of the universe, and a “dark sector” comprising the remaining $`95\%`$. In this classification, the role of the recent discoveries has been to reveal that the dark sector includes at least two distinct components, the dark matter and the dark energy. Who is to say that future experiments will not reveal further structure within this sector, perhaps including interesting interactions between components? It is safe to say that the future of dark physics looks very bright.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.