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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Decays of $`B`$ mesons that include a charmed and an anti-charmed meson are expected to occur through the $`b`$ to $`c`$ quark transitions $`\overline{b}\overline{c}W^+`$, where the $`W^+`$ materializes as a $`c\overline{s}`$ pair. These transitions are responsible for most of the $`D_s`$ production in $`B`$ decays. $`D_s`$ production has been thoroughly studied in experiments running at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance . The inclusive rate for $`D_s`$ production in $`B`$ decays was recently measured by BABAR, where a preliminary branching fraction :

$$(BD_sX)=(10.93\pm 0.19_{stat}\pm 0.58_{syst}\pm 2.73_{\varphi \pi })\%$$

is reported.

Until 1994, it was believed that the $`c\overline{s}`$ quarks would hadronize dominantly as $`D_s^{+()}`$ mesons. Therefore, the branching fraction $`bc\overline{c}s`$ was computed from the inclusive $`BD_sX`$, $`B(c\overline{c})X`$ and $`B\mathrm{\Xi }_cX`$ branching fractions, leading to $`(bc\overline{c}s)=15.8\pm 2.8\%`$ . Theoretical calculations are unable to simultaneously describe this low branching fraction and the semileptonic branching fraction of the $`B`$ meson . It has been conjectured  that $`(bc\overline{c}s)`$ is in fact larger and that decays $`BD\overline{D}K(X)`$ (where D can be either a $`D^0`$ or a $`D^\pm `$) could contribute significantly. This might also include possible decays to orbitally-excited $`D_s`$ mesons, $`B\overline{D}^{()}D_s^{}`$, followed by $`D_s^{}D^{()}K`$.

Some experimental support for this picture has been published in the last few years. The most significant results are the evidence for wrong-sign $`D`$ production in $`B`$ decays (CLEO), yielding $`(BDX)=7.9\pm 2.2\%`$ , and the observation of a small number of completely reconstructed $`BD^{()}D^{()}K`$ decays, by both CLEO  and ALEPH .

$`BD^{()}D^{()}K`$ decays can occur through three different processes: pure external diagrams, pure internal (color-suppressed) diagrams and the sum of both. Fig. 1 shows the three possible types of decays for charged and neutral $`B`$’s.

In BABAR, the high statistics available allow comprehensive investigations to be made of the $`bc\overline{c}s`$ transitions. In the analysis described in this paper, we present evidence for the decays $`BD^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K_S^0`$ and $`BD^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K^\pm `$, using events in which both $`D`$’s are completely reconstructed. After describing the data sample and the event selection, we show the $`D^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K`$ signals for the sum of all $`B`$ submodes. The branching fractions for some of the cleanest modes, such as $`B^0D^{}D^{()0}K^+`$, are computed and the main systematic errors are discussed. Observation of several candidates in the color-suppressed decay mode $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$ is also reported.

## 2 The BABAR detector and dataset

The study reported here uses 20.7$`\text{ fb}^1`$ of data collected at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance with the BABAR detector, corresponding to $`(22.7\pm 0.4)\times 10^6`$ $`B\overline{B}`$ pairs.

The BABAR detector is a large-acceptance solenoidal spectrometer (1.5 T) described in detail elsewhere . The analysis described below makes use of charged track and $`\pi ^0`$ reconstruction and charged particle identification. Charged particle trajectories are measured by a 5 layer double-sided silicon vertex tracker (SVT) and a 40-layer drift chamber (DCH), which also provide ionisation measurements ($`dE/dx`$) used for particle identification. Photons and electrons are measured in the electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC), made of 6580 thallium-doped CsI crystals constructed in a non-projective barrel and forward endcap geometry. Charged $`K/\pi `$ separation up to 4$`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$ in momentum is provided by a detector of internally reflected Cherenkov light (DIRC), consisting of 12 sectors of quartz bars that carry the Cherenkov light to an expansion volume filled with water and equipped with 10752 photomultipliers.

## 3 Analysis strategy

The $`B^0`$ and $`B^+`$ mesons111Charge-conjugate reactions are implied throughout this note. are reconstructed in a sample of multihadron events for all possible $`D\overline{D}K`$ modes, namely $`B^0D^{()}D^{()0}K^+`$, $`D^{()}D^{()+}K^0`$, $`\overline{D}^{()0}D^{()0}K^0`$ and $`B^+\overline{D}^{()0}D^{()+}K^0`$, $`\overline{D}^{()0}D^{()0}K^+`$, $`\overline{D}^{()+}D^{()}K^+`$.

The $`K_S^0`$ candidates are reconstructed from two oppositely charged tracks coming from a common vertex displaced from the interaction point by at least 0.2 cm and having an invariant mass within $`\pm 9\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$ of the nominal $`K^0`$ mass. The $`\pi ^0`$ candidates are reconstructed from pairs of photons, each with an energy greater than 30$`\mathrm{MeV}`$, which are required to have a mass $`115<M_{\gamma \gamma }<150\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$. The $`\pi ^0`$ from $`D^0`$ must have a momentum $`70<p^{}(\gamma \gamma )<450\mathrm{MeV}/c`$ in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ frame, while the $`\pi ^0`$ from $`D^0K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^0`$ must have an energy $`E(\pi ^0)>200\mathrm{MeV}`$. Finally, a mass-constraint fit is applied to all the $`\pi ^0`$ candidates to improve the energy resolution.

The $`D^0`$ and $`D^+`$ mesons are reconstructed in the modes $`D^0K^{}\pi ^+`$, $`K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^0`$, $`K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^+`$ and $`D^+K^{}\pi ^+\pi ^+`$, by selecting track combinations within $`\pm 2\sigma `$ or $`\pm 3\sigma `$ of the nominal $`D`$ mass, where $`\sigma `$ is the mass resolution for the $`D`$ decay mode considered and the tighter $`2\sigma `$ mass interval is applied for $`B`$ modes with a larger combinatorial background. The $`K`$ and $`\pi `$ tracks are required to be well reconstructed in the tracking detectors and to originate from a common vertex. Charged kaon identification, with information from the Cherenkov angle in the DIRC and from $`dE/dx`$ measurements in the drift chamber and in the vertex detector, is required for most $`D`$ decay modes, as well as for the $`K^\pm `$ from $`B`$’s.

$`D^{}`$ candidates are reconstructed in the modes $`D^+D^0\pi ^+`$, $`D^0D^0\pi ^0`$ and $`D^0D^0\gamma `$, by combining a $`D^0`$ candidate with a $`\pi ^{}`$, $`\pi ^0`$, or photon. A $`\pm 3\sigma `$ interval around the nominal $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=M(D^{})M(D^0)`$ mass difference is used to select $`D^{}`$’s. Partial reconstruction of $`D^0`$’s (no $`\pi ^0`$ or $`\gamma `$ reconstruction) is also used in the $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ mode, as explained below.

$`B`$ candidates are reconstructed from the $`D^{()}`$, $`\overline{D}^{()}`$ and $`K`$ candidates. A mass constraint is applied to all the intermediate particles ($`D^0`$, $`D^{}`$, $`K_S^0`$). Since the $`B`$ mesons are produced via $`e^+e^{}`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)B\overline{B}`$, the energy of the $`B`$ in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ frame is given by the beam energy $`E_{beam}^{}`$, which is measured much more precisely than the energy of the $`B`$ candidate. Therefore, to isolate the $`B`$ meson signal, we use two kinematic variables: $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$, the difference between the reconstructed energy of the $`B`$ candidate and the beam energy in the center of mass frame, and $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$, the beam energy substituted mass, defined as

$$m_{\mathrm{ES}}=\sqrt{E_{beam}^2p_B^2}$$

where $`p_B^{}`$ is the momentum of the reconstructed $`B`$ in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ frame. Signal events will have $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ close to 0 and $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ close to the $`B`$ meson mass, 5.729$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$. When several candidates are selected per event in a specific $`B`$ submode (e.g. $`B^+D^0\overline{D}^0K^+`$), a $`\chi ^2`$ value, taking into account the difference between the measured and the PDG values of the $`D`$ masses and of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M`$ (for $`D^{}`$’s) is constructed and only the candidate with the lowest $`\chi ^2`$ value is kept for the given submode.

## 4 Evidence for signal in the sum of all $`B`$ submodes

We present here the distributions obtained by summing all possible $`BD^{()}D^{()}K`$ decay channels, for neutral and charged $`B`$ decays respectively.

Since multiple candidates are removed only submode by submode the same event can appear several times in distributions obtained by summing over all modes. In the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ distribution this manifests itself as three distinct peaks, as can be seen in Figs. 2 and 3. An event will appear in the peak near 0$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ when reconstructed correctly, in the peak around $`160`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ if it is a $`D^{}DK`$ ($`D^{}D^{}K`$) decay reconstructed as $`DDK`$ ($`D^{}DK`$), and near the peak around $`+160`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ if it is a $`DDK`$ ($`D^{}DK`$) decay reconstructed as $`D^{}DK`$ ($`D^{}D^{}K`$).

About 120 $`B^0`$’s and 180 $`B^\pm `$ decays have been reconstructed. The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ distributions (Figs. 2 and 3) contain only events with $`|\mathrm{\Delta }E|<24\mathrm{MeV}`$. From Monte Carlo studies, the $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ resolutions of the different sub-modes are quite similar and the $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ spectrum of $`B^0`$ and $`B^\pm `$ events can be fitted by the sum of a background shape and a Gaussian function used to extract the number of signal events. The background is empirically described by the function

$$\frac{dN}{dm_{ES}}m_{ES}\times \sqrt{1\frac{m_{ES}^2}{E_{beam}^2}}\times \mathrm{exp}\left[\zeta \left(1\frac{m_{ES}^2}{E_{beam}^2}\right)\right],$$

where the only free parameters are $`\zeta `$ and the normalization factor. This function is referred to as the ARGUS function in the following. The $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ distributions (Figs. 2 and 3) contain only events with $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}>5.27\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$. They have been fitted by the sum of a polynomial background and three Gaussian functions for the three signal components described above. However, the fits to the $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ distributions are only indicative since they merge many $`B`$ and $`D`$ sub-decay modes, which have significantly different $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ resolutions depending on the number of $`\pi ^0`$’s or photons involved

## 5 Measurement of exclusive branching fractions

In this section, we present measurements of branching fraction for the three decay channels $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$, $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ and $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$. Several candidates are also observed in the $`CP`$ conjugate modes $`B^0D^{()}D^{()+}K_S^0`$ but without extracting branching fractions.

### 5.1 Monte Carlo samples and efficiencies

The selection efficiencies for each mode were obtained from detailed Monte Carlo simulation, in which the detector response is modeled with the GEANT3 program . In addition, data was used whenever possible to determine detector performance and the simulation adjusted accordingly. $`B`$ meson decays to $`DDK`$ were generated with a three-body phase space model. For each sub-decay mode, samples of 5000 signal events were produced. Typical efficiencies range from 10%, for $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ with both $`D^0`$’s decaying to $`K\pi `$, to less than 1%, for $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$ with $`D^0`$’s decaying to $`K\pi \pi ^0`$ or $`K3\pi `$.

### 5.2 Systematic uncertainties

Systematic errors account for the uncertainties on tracking and $`\pi ^0`$ reconstruction efficiencies, $`K`$ identification efficiency, $`D`$ and $`B`$ vertexing requirements, efficiency of the requirement on $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ used to define the signal box, efficiency of the $`D`$ mass requirement; uncertainty on the background shape; uncertainties on the $`D`$ and $`D^{}`$ branching fractions; uncertainties on the selection efficiencies arising from Monte Carlo statistics; and uncertainty on the number of produced $`B\overline{B}`$ events in the data sample. The breakdown of the different contributions to the systematic error for each mode is given in Table 1.

### 5.3 $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$

The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ distribution obtained for events with $`|\mathrm{\Delta }E|<24\mathrm{MeV}`$ is shown in Fig. 4 for the sum of all the six possible $`D^0\times \overline{D}^0`$ decay combinations. A fit to the data is performed with the sum of a Gaussian function for the signal and an ARGUS function for the background. The number of signal events is $`8.2\pm 3.5`$ and the number of background events given by the ARGUS function is 1.7. The probability that the signal arises from a background fluctuation is $`1.4\times 10^5`$ ($`>5\sigma `$). The corresponding preliminary branching fraction is measured to be

$$(B^+D^{}D^+K^+)=(3.4\pm 1.6\pm 0.9)\times 10^3$$

The first error quoted is statistical and the second is systematic. The different contributions to the systematic error are given in Table 1.

### 5.4 $`B^0D^{}D^{()0}K^+`$

In this analysis we require that either the $`D^0`$ or the $`\overline{D}^0`$ decays to $`K\pi `$ and we do not explicitly reconstruct the $`\pi ^0`$ or the photon from $`D^0D^0\pi ^0`$ or $`D^0\gamma `$. The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ versus $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ distribution of $`D^{}D^0K^+`$ combinations is shown in Fig. 5 for the sum of the three $`D^0\overline{D}^0`$ sub-modes considered. Despite the background level, two separate enhancements, due to the decay modes $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ and $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$, are clearly visible. The enhancement in the region $`\mathrm{\Delta }E0`$, $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}5.28`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ corresponds to decays $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$, while the second enhancement in the region $`\mathrm{\Delta }E154`$$`\mathrm{MeV}`$, $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}5.28`$$`\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$ corresponds to decays $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$.

Events containing $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ decays are selected by requiring $`|\mathrm{\Delta }E|<25\mathrm{MeV}`$. The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ spectrum for these events is shown in Fig. 6 along with a fit with the sum of a Gaussian function describing the signal and an ARGUS function describing the background. The number of signal events is found to be $`29.6\pm 7.2`$. After correcting for the selection efficiencies and for the intermediate $`D^0`$ and $`D^+`$ branching fractions , the preliminary branching fraction for $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ is found to be

$$(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(2.8\pm 0.7\pm 0.5)\times 10^3,$$

where the first error quoted is statistical and the second systematic. The breakdown of the various contributions to the systematic error is given in Table 1.

Events containing $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ decays are selected by requiring $`|\mathrm{\Delta }E+154|<60\mathrm{MeV}`$. The average position and width of $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ for $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ is found to be in good agreement with expectations from $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ signal Monte Carlo studies. The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ spectrum of the selected events is shown in Fig. 7 along with a fit with the sum of a Gaussian and an ARGUS background function. The number of signal events found is $`80.2\pm 15.3`$.

To extract the $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ branching fraction, the contamination from decays $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$, where the $`\pi ^+`$ from the $`D^+`$ is not reconstructed, needs to be subtracted. This contribution has been estimated by performing the $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$analysis on $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$ signal Monte Carlo, assuming the $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$ branching fraction presented in Section 5.3. The $`B^+D^{}D^+K^+`$ background contribution is shown in Fig. 7 as a small Gaussian on top of the combinatorial background shape; it is estimated to be $`20.6\pm 9.7`$ events. After subtracting this contribution, the preliminary $`B^0D^{}D^0K^+`$ branching fraction is determined to be:

$$(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(6.8\pm 1.7\pm 1.7)\times 10^3$$

where the last uncertainty is systematic. The breakdown of the various contributions to the systematic error is given in Table 1.

### 5.5 $`B^0D^{()}D^{()+}K_S^0`$

The $`m_{\mathrm{ES}}`$ distribution for events reconstructed in the channels $`B^0D^{()}D^{()+}K_S^0`$ is shown in Fig. 8. For modes involving $`D^0`$’s, at least one decay $`D^0K\pi `$ was required. The fitted number of signal events is $`10.1\pm 3.7`$ with an estimated background of 3.4 events. The probability that the signal is a fluctuation of the background is $`1.4\times 10^5`$ ($`>5\sigma `$). Most of the signal is due to the channels $`B^0D^+D^{}K_S^0`$ ($`4.7\pm 2.2`$ events with a background of 1 event) and $`B^0D^+D^{}K_S^0`$ ($`4.8\pm 2.2`$ events with a background of 0.3 event). As pointed out in , the channel $`B^0D^+D^{}K_S^0`$ is a $`CP`$ conjugate state that could be used for $`\mathrm{sin}2\beta `$ measurements. However, given the presently observed rate for reconstructing events, large improvements in the selection efficiencies are still needed before challenging the “golden” channels $`B^0D^+D^{}`$ as suggested in .

## 6 Summary

Using about 23M $`B\overline{B}`$ events, we have observed several hundred completely reconstructed $`BD^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K`$ decays. The following preliminary branching fractions have been measured:

$$(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(2.8\pm 0.7\pm 0.5)\times 10^3$$

$$(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(6.8\pm 1.7\pm 1.7)\times 10^3$$

in good agreement with the CLEO measurements $`(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(4.5_{1.9}^{+2.5}\pm 0.8)\times 10^3`$ and $`(B^0D^{}D^0K^+)=(13.0_{5.8}^{+7.8}\pm 3.6)\times 10^3`$ .

We have observed an excess of $`8.2\pm 3.5`$ events over a background of 1.7 events in the color-suppressed decay mode $`B^+D^+D^{}K^+`$, where no significant number of candidates has been previously seen. The corresponding preliminary branching fraction is measured to be

$$(B^+D^{}D^+K^+)=(3.4\pm 1.6\pm 0.9)\times 10^3$$

Finally, several candidates have also been observed in the $`CP`$ conjugate states $`B^0D^{()+}D^{()}K_S^0`$. This study confirms that the transitions $`bc\overline{c}s`$ can proceed through the decays $`BD^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K`$. To quantify more precisely this statement, we intend to measure all the individual $`BD^{()}\overline{D}^{()}K`$ branching fractions and study the decay kinematics of these decays in the near future.

## 7 Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the extraordinary contributions of our PEP-II colleagues in achieving the excellent luminosity and machine conditions that have made this work possible. The collaborating institutions wish to thank SLAC for its support and the kind hospitality extended to them. This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), Institute of High Energy Physics (China), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Russian Federation, and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation, the A. P. Sloan Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.


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# PPLN Waveguide for Quantum Communication

## 1 Introduction

Sources creating entangled photon-pairs are an essential tool for a variety of fundamental quantum optical experiments like tests of Bell-inequalities , quantum teleportation  and entanglement swapping , as well as for more applied fields of research such as quantum cryptography  and ”quantum” metrology .

To date, the creation of entangled photon-pairs is usually assured by spontaneous parametric down conversion (PDC) in non-linear bulk crystals. However, despite enormous success in the above-mentioned experiments, these sources suffer from low pair production efficiencies. This turns out to be an important limitation, especially if simultaneous creation of two pairs is required as in quantum teleportation , entanglement swapping , or in present schemes for the realization of GHZ states . Taking advantage of integrated optics, we recently built a new photon-pair source based on a quasi-phase-matched optical waveguide implemented on periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN)222See also related work by Sanaka . We previously demonstrated an improvement of the PDC efficiency by 4 orders of magnitude compared to the highest efficiencies reported for bulk crystals . Here, we investigate the quality of the created entanglement in terms of visibilities in two-photon interference experiments for two different PPLN waveguide based sources, the first one producing energy-time entangled photon-pairs, and the second one generating time-bin entanglement.

The article is structured along the following lines: in Section 2, we briefly discuss the advantage and the fabrication of PPLN waveguides. In Section 3, we characterize the efficiency of our source for photon-pair generation by means of coincidence counting experiments based both on a CW and a pulsed pump. The latter turns out to provide a simple means for estimating the probability of creating a photon-pair per pump pulse. Sections 4 and 5 then focus on two different sources creating energy-time entangled as well as time-bin entangled photon-pairs. We investigate the quality of the entanglement via two-photon interference experiments. Finally, we briefly conclude in Section 6.

## 2 The PPLN waveguide

The interaction of a pump field with a $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ non-linear medium leads, with a small probability, to the conversion of a pump photon into so-called signal and idler photons. Naturally, this process, known as spontaneous parametric down conversion, is subjected to conservation of energy

$$\omega _p=\omega _s+\omega _i$$
(1)
and momentum

$$\stackrel{}{k_p}=\stackrel{}{k_s}+\stackrel{}{k_i}$$
(2)
where the indices label the frequency and k-vector of the pump, signal and idler fields respectively. The latter equation is also known as phase-matching condition and can be achieved, despite chromatic dispersion, by employing different polarizations for the three fields (so-called birefringent phase-matching).

In bulk optical configurations, the pump field is often slightly focused into the non-linear crystal and the down-converted photons are then collected into optical fibers by appropriate optics, selecting photons created near the focal point of the first lens. In opposition, the use of a guiding structure permits the confinement of the pump, signal and idler beams over the entire length of the waveguide (a few cm in our case). Therefore, it clearly enables much higher down-conversion efficiencies. However, natural birefringent phase-matching (Eq. 2) is quite difficult to obtain in a waveguiding structure. A better solution is to employ so-called quasi-phase-matching (QPM) and to integrate the waveguide on a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) substrate, i.e. a substrate where the ferroelectric polarization of the material is periodically inverted (see Fig. 1).

The resulting phase-matching condition is then given by

$$\stackrel{}{k_p}=\stackrel{}{k_s}+\stackrel{}{k_i}+\stackrel{}{K}\stackrel{}{K}=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{\Lambda }}$$
(3)
where $`\stackrel{}{K}`$ represents the effective grating-type k-vector and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the poling period. By an appropriate choice of the poling period ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$), one can quasi-phase-match practically any desired non-linear interaction between the pump, signal and idler fields. In addition to an increased efficiency due to the long interaction length, this allows working with the highest non-linear coefficient of lithium niobate ($`d_{33}`$ 30 pm/V) which is approximately six times larger than that ($`d_{31}`$) commonly used in birefringent phase-matching in bulk crystals.

The inversion of the ferroelectric domains is done by applying a high electric field ($``$ 20 kV/mm) periodically on a 500 $`\mu `$m thick lithium niobate sample (see Fig. 1), inducing a periodic flip of the $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ sign.

Once the PPLN substrate is obtained, the waveguide integration can be done. We use a new one-step proton exchange procedure, called ”soft proton exchange” (SPE) , working with a low-acidity mixture of benzoic acid and lithium benzoate. During this process, some lithium atoms (a fraction $`x`$) are replaced by protons as described by the following reaction:

$$LiNbO_3+xH^+H_xLi_{1x}NbO_3+xLi^+$$
(4)
This replacement locally creates a positive index variation of about 0.03 along the aperture of a suitable mask (see Fig. 1). It is important to note that SPE preserves both the non-linear coefficient of the substrate as well as the orientation of the domains.

Our PPLN substrate features a length of 3.2 cm, and the waveguide employed in the experiments has a 1/e width of 6 $`\mu `$m, a 1/e depth of 2.1 $`\mu `$m and a poling period of 12.1 $`\mu `$m. Pumping the sample at a wavelength of 657 nm, degenerate collinear quasi-phase-matching is obtained for photons at a temperature of 100oC. The temperature is high enough to avoid photorefractive effects. Waveguide-losses at 1310 nm wavelength are smaller than 0.5 dB/cm. A typical spectrum of the parametric fluorescence in the case of a coherent pump is shown in Fig. 2. The degenerate down-converted twin-photons feature a bandwidth of about 40 nm FWHM.

## 3 Efficiency of the source

### 3.1 Coincidence Counting Experiment Using a CW Pump

As reported recently , our new source shows a very high conversion efficiency. In the following, we briefly present the experimental setup and review the major results.

As shown in Fig. 3, the waveguide is pumped by a CW laser. After absorption of the remaining pump photons by a filter, signal and idler are separated using a 50/50 single mode fiber optical beam-splitter. The photons are directed to passively quenched LN2 cooled germanium avalanche photodiodes (Ge-APDs), operated in Geiger mode and featuring quantum efficiencies of about 10%. Net single count rates are denoted by $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$, respectively. The output from the APDs provide the start and stop signals for a time to amplitude converter (TAC) that records a coincidence histogram. A single channel analyzer (SCA) enables counting the coincidence rate $`R_C`$ in a given time-window.

As shown in , the conversion efficiency $`\eta `$ can be expressed in terms of the experimental figures $`S_1`$, $`S_2`$ and $`R_C`$ (all are net count rates after subtraction of noise), the pump power $`P_P`$, the pump wavelength $`\lambda _P`$ and the usual constants h (Planck) and c (speed of light).

$$\eta =\frac{N}{N_P}=\frac{S_1S_2}{2R_C}\frac{hc}{P_P\lambda _P}$$
(5)
$`N`$ and $`N_P`$ denote the number of photon-pairs created and the number of pump photons injected per second in the waveguide, respectively. The factor of 2 in the denominator takes account of the fact that only 50% of the pairs are split at the beam-splitter. Note that the calculation of the conversion efficiency is based only on easily measurable quantities and does not rely on only roughly known coupling constants and quantum efficiencies of the detectors. With $`P_P1\mu `$W measured at the output of the waveguide, $`\lambda _P`$ = 657 nm, $`S_i`$ 150 kHz, and $`R_C`$ 1500 Hz, we find a conversion efficiency of about $`210^6`$. This is at least 4 orders of magnitude more than the efficiencies calculated for bulk sources recently developed in Geneva , in Los Alamos  or in Vienna . Note that $`\eta `$ is given for one spatial mode (defined by the single mode fibers) but is not normalized to the spectral bandwidth.

### 3.2 Coincidence Counting Experiment Using a Pulsed Pump

We now replace the continuous pump by a pulsed laser creating 400 ps pulses at a repetition rate of 80 MHz. Using a mean pump power of only a few $`\mu `$W, the number of pump photons injected per pulse in the waveguide is larger than $`10^6`$. Therefore, taking into account the efficiency of the PPLN waveguide, the probability to create two pairs within the same pump pulse is not negligible. Obviously, the same holds for two pairs originating from two subsequent pump pulses. Exact knowledge of this probability is very important - the creation of two pairs within the same pump pulse is at the heart of quantum teleportation , entanglement swapping  and generation of GHZ states  and threatens the security of quantum cryptography systems based on ”single photons” produced by PDC .

Fig. 4 shows typical coincidence histograms for different mean pump power. In opposition to the CW case where only one coincidence peak can be observed, we find a central peak surrounded by equally spaced satellite peaks. The time difference between neighboring peaks is 12.5 ns – corresponding to the 80 MHz repetition rate of the pump laser –, and the ratio of the respective magnitudes increases with the mean pump power.

Here we will give only an intuitive explication for the emergence of these satellite peaks. A complete characterization will be presented elsewhere. Since the probability to detect a down-converted photon is far from unity, we will for instance find cases where the photon providing the start signal was created by a pump photon arriving at time $`t_0`$, and where the stop-signal originates not from the simultaneously generated idler photon but from a photon generated by the subsequent pump pulse. This coincidence will be located in the first coincidence satellite peak next to the central peak. Since at least two photon-pairs have to be created in order to observe such an event, the ratio of the magnitude of a satellite peak to central peak (where the creation of only one pair is sufficient) depends, in addition to the detectors’ quantum efficiency, on the probability to create a photon pair. It is thus possible to infer this very important property from a simple coincidence measurement.

## 4 Energy-Time Entanglement

Apart from featuring a high down-conversion-efficiency, a two-photon source for quantum communication must be able to create entangled photons. One possible way to infer the two photon quantum state would be to reconstruct its density matrix . Another possibility is to perform a Bell-type experiment and to infer the degree of entanglement via the measured two-photon interference visibility. The required setup for a test of Bell inequalities for energy-time entangled photon pairs has been proposed by Franson in 1989  and first experiments have been reported in 1992 . A schematics is shown in Fig. 5. The source S is composed of a CW laser diode with large coherence length ($`\lambda _P`$ = 657 nm), the PPLN waveguide to create photon-pairs and a fiber optical 50/50 beam-splitter used to separate the twins. The photons are then sent to two analyzers at Alice’s and Bob’s sides – equally unbalanced Mach-Zehnder type interferometers made from standard telecommunication optical fibers and Faraday mirrors (for a more complete characterization, see ). As in the coincidence counting experiment, the detection is made by LN2 cooled Ge-APDs D1 and D2. Note that two detectors are sufficient to record the two-photon fringe visibility.

As the arm length difference ($`D_L`$, about 20 cm of optical fiber) is several orders of magnitude larger than the coherence length of the single photons, no single photon interference is observed at the outputs of the interferometers. The single count rates $`S_1`$ and $`S_2`$, respectively, are independent of the phases $`\varphi _A`$ and $`\varphi _B`$. However, if the coherence length of the pump laser is larger than $`D_L`$, an ”optical-path” entangled state can be produced where either both down-converted photons pass through the short arms or both through the long arms of the interferometers. The non-interfering possibilities (the photons pass through different arms) can be discarded using a high resolution coincidence technique  (see Fig. 6), enabling thus to observe quantum correlation with a visibility of theoretically 100%.

Fig. 7 shows the coincidence count rates per 2 sec. while varying the temperature (hence phase) in Alice’s interferometer. Although the single count rates do not show any interference, the coincidence count rates are described by a sinusoidal function with a raw fringe visibility of (92$`\pm `$1)%, and a net visibility (after subtraction of accidental coincidences) of (97$`\pm `$1)%. Note that the latter are not due to a reduced purity of the created entanglement but to a combination of a high pair creation rate, losses, and small detector quantum efficiencies. Therefore, in order to characterize the performance of the source, it is necessary to refer to the visibility $`V_{net}`$ after subtraction of accidental coincidences. Since this visibility is close to the theoretical value of 100%, we can conclude that the created state is indeed not far from a pure, maximally entangled state. In addition, we can infer from $`V_{raw}`$ to a violation of Bell inequalities by 21 standard deviations. To do so, we have to assume that the other three (not-recorded) coincidence count rates show a similar behaviour and that all coincidence count rates depend only on the sum of the phases.

## 5 Time-Bin Entanglement

As already mentioned in the previous section, the coherence length of the pump photons has to be larger than the path-length difference of the Mach-Zehnder interferometers in order to create an entangled state. Obviously, if we want to pump our non-linear crystal with a pulsed laser, this coherence will be lost. The way to recreate the coherence to the system is to place a third interferometer in the optical path of the pump photons as shown in Fig. 8.

A short light pulse emitted at a time $`t_0`$ enters the pump interferometer having a path-length difference greater than the duration of the pulse. The pump pulse is then split into two pulses of smaller amplitudes following each other with a fixed phase relation. Pumping now the PPLN waveguide, we create time-bin entangled photons in a state of the form

$$|\psi _{s,i}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|s_s|s_i+e^{i\varphi }|l_s|l_i\right)$$
(6)
where $`|s`$ and $`|l`$ denote the short or long arm of the first interferometer . Depending on the phase $`\varphi `$, it is possible to obtain two out of the four so-called Bell states. The two remaining Bell states can in principle be created using optical switches and delay lines. Finally, choosing different amplitudes for the long and short components in the ”pump” interferometer leads to the creation of non-maximally entangled states.

The pulsed laser used in the experiment is the same as the one used in the coincidence counting experiment discussed in Section 3.2. However, a grating reduces the spectral width from 3 to 0.2 nm. Nevertheless, the pulse length remains 400 ps, still longer than the one expected from the Fourier transformation of the spectral width. The interferometer acting on the pump pulse is made from single mode optical fibers at 655 nm wavelength, and the transmission probabilities via the long and short arm are the same in order to create maximally entangled states. The energy per pump pulse is low enough to ensure that the creation of more than one photon-pair at a time can be neglected. Finally, the photons are analyzed in a way similar to the one described before. However, for simplicity, both photons are sent into the same interferometer and coincidences are recorded between the two different output ports.

If we look at the coincidence events registered by a TAC placed between $`D_A`$ and $`D_B`$, we find again three peaks denoting the different paths taken by the signal and idler photons. However, the $`s_As_B`$ and the $`l_Al_B`$ events registered in the central peak can now be due to photon-pairs created by a pump photon passed trough either the short or the long arm of the pump interferometer. Therefore the central peak includes four possibilities: $`s_Ps_As_B`$, $`l_Ps_As_B`$, $`s_Pl_Al_B`$ and $`l_Pl_Al_B`$. Since $`s_Ps_As_B`$ and $`l_Pl_Al_B`$ are distinguishable from the two other possibilities by the time between emission of a pump pulse to detection at $`D_A`$ or $`D_B`$, the coincidence visibility as observed with a SCA is limited to 50%.

To regain the maximum visibility, one has to take into account the emission time of the pump photon by recording three-fold coincidences between the detection of the two down-converted photons and the emission time of the pump pulse. In this way, only the indistinguishable paths $`l_Ps_As_B`$ and $`s_Pl_Al_B`$ remain, and the visibility can be increased to 100%.

Fig. 9 shows the triple coincidence count rates per 10 sec. obtained while changing the phase in one interferometer. The raw as well as the corrected net fringe visibilities are of around 84%333Thanks to the threefold coincidence required for each event, accidental coincidences can be neglected.. This is still higher than the limit of 71% given by Bell inequalities, however, much lower than the maximally achievable value of 100%. The reason for the missing 16% is not yet understood: it is not clear whether the reduced visibility is due to an alignment problem in one of the interferometers, chromatic dispersion effects in the optical fibers or to a phenomenon related to the PPLN waveguide.

## 6 Conclusion and Outlook

In this paper we investigated the performance of a quasi-phase-matched PPLN waveguide for quantum communication. In a CW coincidence counting experiment we first demonstrated a conversion efficiency of 2\*$`10^6`$, corresponding to an improvement of 4 orders of magnitude compared to bulk configurations. This high efficiency engenders a significant probability of generating more than one photon-pair at a time, even if working with low power laser diodes. We pointed out a simple means to deduce this probability from the magnitudes of different coincidence count rates as observed in the case of a pulsed pump. In addition to a high down-conversion efficiency, we observed a net visibility of 97% in a Franson-type test of energy-time entangled photon-pairs, demonstrating the high purity of entanglement. This result together with the high conversion efficiency demonstrates the huge potential of PPLN waveguides for future quantum communication sources. Finally, we observed a two-photon visibility of 84% in the case of time-bin entangled pairs. The reason for the limited visibility is not yet understood, but we hope to improve the performance of the source and to make it a key element for future experiments where high photon-pair production rates remain the critical point.

Efforts are underway to develop new PPLN waveguides enabling down-conversion from 710 nm to 1310 and 1550 nm, or generating signal and idler photons emitted in opposite directions. This requires different poling periods than the one used for the present work. Finally, a very interesting extension of the PPLN waveguide is to build all-pigtailed devices, or devices where the whole photon-pair source including interferometer and coupler to separate the entangled photons is integrated on a single chip. This could open the way to integrated quantum optics.

We acknowledge financial support by the Cost Action P2 ”Application of non-linear optical phenomena” and the ESF ”Quantum Information Theory and Communications” as well as the Swiss FNRS and the IST-FET “QuComm” project of the European Commission, partly financed by the Swiss OFES.


text:
# CHEMICAL EVOLUTION OF CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES

## Introduction

The popular galactic wind (GW) scenario, introduced by Larson (1974) to account for the photometric properties of elliptical galaxies, predicted as a side effect the pollution of the intra–cluster medium (ICM) with the chemical elements produced and expelled by individual galaxies (Larson & Dinerstein 1975). Metals in the hot ICM were in fact detected soon afterwards (Mitchell et al. 1976, Serlemitsos et al. 1977).

The amount of metals present in the ICM, as reported by Renzini (1997), is currently estimated as:

$$\frac{M_{ICM}^{Fe}}{M_{}^{Fe}}=\frac{Z_{ICM}^{Fe}M_{ICM}}{Z_{}^{Fe}M_{}}=1.65h^{3/2}$$

with obvious meaning of the symbols. Iron is generally used as tracer of the overall metallicity, being the best measured element in the hot ICM. With $`h0.65`$, three times more metals seem to be spread in the ICM than locked into the stellar component of the individual galaxies.

The source of such a large amount of metals in the ICM could be galactic (as in the original prediction by Larson) or reside in Population III pre-galactic objects (White & Rees 1978). The distinct correlation between the iron mass in the ICM and the luminosity of elliptical and S0 galaxies,

$$M_{ICM}^{Fe}L_V^{E+S0}$$

demonstrated by Arnaud et al. (1992), seems to favour galaxies as the sites of production of the metals in the ICM.

Accepting that the metals in the ICM originated in the E and S0 galaxies of the cluster, two mechanisms exist to extract the newly sinthesized elements from the individual galaxies: the above mentioned GW and ram pressure stripping. Arguments have been given by Renzini (1997) favouring the GW scenario, mostly based on the observation that the “iron mass–to–luminosity ratio” (IMLR) is roughly constant independently of cluster richness and temperature, while the ram pressure mechanism should be more efficient, extracting more metals for a given stellar content, in richer clusters.

Though the role of ram pressure stripping is still debated (e.g. Mori & Burkert 2000), from here on we will limit to the GW scenario for the pollution of the ICM, bearing in mind that the addition of other mechanisms (metal production in pre-galactic objects and/or ram pressure stripping) would allow to inject even more metals into the ICM, further favouring the enrichment.

## 1 The gas and metal content of the ICM

In this section we briefly summarize previous literature and current understanding of the gas and metal content in the ICM, from the point of view of theoretical models of galactic chemical evolution with GWs.

### 1.1 The metal content of the ICM

Various early studies investigated whether “standard” chemical models for galaxies can explain the amount of metals detected in the ICM (Vigroux 1977, Himmes & Biermann 1980, De Young 1978); by “standard” we mean a chemical model with the same physical ingredients (mainly, stellar Initial Mass Funstion and yields) suited to reproduce the Solar Neighbourhood. Amidst these early studies, we mention in particular the one by Matteucci & Vettolani (1988), as the first attempt to link directly the metallicity of the ICM with the properties of the corresponding galaxy population. To this aim, the authors developed a modelling technique that has been widely adopted afterwards. Basing on a grid of models of elliptical galaxies with GW, they assigned to any given galaxy of final stellar mass $`M_{}`$, or equivalently of final present–day luminosity $`L_{}`$, the corresponding masses of gas and iron ejected in the GW ($`M_{gas}^{ej}`$, $`M_{Fe}^{ej}`$). Integrating these quantities over the observed luminosity function (LF), they calculated the total masses of gas and iron globally ejected by the galactic population in the cluster. Their main conclusions were:
(1) the iron content of the ICM can be reproduced with a standard Salpeter Initial Mass Function (IMF) in the individual galaxies;
(2) the global amount of gas ejected as GW is much smaller than the observed mass of the ICM, hence the ICM must be mostly primordial gas which was never involved in galaxy formation.

This early successful reproduction of $`M_{Fe}^{ICM}`$ turned out afterwards to be favoured by the low gravitational potential wells of model galaxies, calculated only on the base of their luminous, baryonic component. Once the potential well of the much heavier dark matter halo is included, the ejecta of SN Ia hardly escape the galaxy and the metal pollution of the ICM by GWs is much reduced (David et al. 1991, Matteucci & Gibson 1995). In this case, standard chemical models fail to reproduce the metal content of the ICM. Some non–standard scenarios were thus invoked to solve the riddle, such as:

* a more top–heavy IMF than the Salpeter one, with logarithmic slope $`x1.0`$ rather than the standard value $`x=1.35`$ (Matteucci & Gibson 1995, Gibson & Matteucci 1997ab, Loewenstein & Mushotzky 1996);
* a bimodal IMF with an early generation of massive stars heavily polluting the ICM, followed by a more normal star formation phase producing the stars we see today (Arnaud et al. 1992, Elbaz et al. 1995).

These models, where SN II from massive stars play the main role in the metal pollution of the ICM, were further supported by the enhanced abundances of $`\alpha `$–elements with respect to iron detected with ASCA (e.g. Mushotzky et al. 1996; but see nowadays the revised, low oxygen abundances measured with XMM, Mushotzky, this conference).

In brief, a wealth of work in literature suggests that some non–standard scenario (or IMF) must be invoked to account for the metals in the ICM. We recall that a non–standard IMF has been suggested for elliptical galaxies also on the base of other, independent arguments:

* a top–heavy IMF ($`x1.0`$) is better suited to reproduce the photometric properties of ellipticals (Arimoto & Yoshii 1987);
* sistematic variations of the IMF in ellipticals of increasing mass might explain the increase of the $`M/L`$ ratio with galactic luminosity, that is the so–called “tilt of the Fundamental Plane” (Larson 1986, Renzini & Ciotti 1993, Zepf & Silk 1996).

### 1.2 The amount of intra-cluster gas

Just as in the early work by Matteucci & Vettolani (1988), most authors conclude that GWs cannot account for the huge amount of gas present in the ICM (2–5 times the mass in galaxies, Arnaud et al. 1992). The ICM must then consist, for a 50 to 90%, of primordial gas.

Trentham (1994), on the base of the steep slope of the LF at the low luminosity end observed in clusters, suggested that all the intra–cluster gas could have originated in dwarf galaxies, since these are numerous in clusters and they are expected to eject a large fraction of their initial mass as GW, due to their shallow potential wells. This suggestion was discarded by Nath & Chiba (1995) and by Gibson & Matteucci (1997a), who calculated detailed models of dwarf galaxies and related GW ejection to show that galaxies cannot be the only source for the whole intra–cluster gas, even in the case of the steepest observed LF (hence the largest contribution from dwarfs).

## 2 A non–standard IMF

As mentioned in § 1.1, many authors have suggested that some non-standard IMF must be invoked to explain the amount of metals in the ICM. What physical reason may justify a different IMF in different situations?

Larson (1998) suggested the following functional form of the IMF:

$$\frac{dN}{d\mathrm{log}M}M^xexp\left(\frac{M_s}{M}\right)$$

where $`M_s`$ is a typical mass scale related to the Jeans mass. In brief, this IMF is a (Salpeter–like) power law down to a typical peak mass

$$M_p\frac{M_s}{x}$$

below which there is an exponential cut-off. The peak mass varies with the temperature and density conditions of the parent gas as

$$M_pT^2\rho ^{\frac{1}{2}}$$

as expected from Jeans’ law. In warmer and/or less dense gas, therefore, the typical peak mass $`M_p`$ increases; namely, relatively more massive stars are formed while less mass remains locked into ever-living, very low–mass stars (lower locked-up fraction, e.g. Tinsley 1980).

A similar behaviour is predicted by the theoretical IMF by Padoan et al. (1997, hereinafter PNJ), which features a peak mass

$$M_p=0.2M_{}\left(\frac{T}{10K}\right)^2\left(\frac{n}{1000K}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }_g}{2.5kmsec^1}\right)^1$$

Although the physical derivation of the PNJ IMF has been sometimes questioned (e.g. Scalo et al. 1998), one can still adopt it in galactic models as a tentative recipe, yielding the behaviour naïvely expected for the typical Jeans mass; see Chiosi (2000) for further discussion.

### 2.1 Galactic models with the PNJ IMF

Chiosi et al. (1998) developed chemo–thermodynamical models following the thermodynamical evolution of the gas in an elliptical galaxy, and the corresponding variations in the IMF according to the PNJ recipe. The characteristics and behaviour of these models as a function of galactic mass and redshift of formation are discussed in full details in Chiosi et al. (1998) and Chiosi (2000). Here, we briefly underline the qualitative trends with respect to (a) mass and (b) redshift of formation.

At increasing galactic mass, the average density of the object $`\rho `$ decreases and the typical peak mass $`M_p`$ increases, yielding a lower locked-up fraction.

At increasing redshift $`z_{for}`$ of formation, the temperature of the object increases, since it can never fall below the corresponding temperature of the cosmic microwave background, $`TT_{CMB}(z_{for})`$, which increases with redshift; hence, the peak mass $`M_p`$ is higher and the locked–up fraction is lower.

We remark here that the above mentioned trends are by no means drastic: the peak mass $`M_p`$ never exceeds 1 $`M_{}`$, and the “high $`M_p`$” phase is limited to the early galactic ages; after the initial stage, in fact, the system reaches a sort of thermodynamical balance, with the peak mass and the IMF settling on quite standard values. The overall picture loosely resembles the bimodal behaviour suggested by Elbaz et al. (1995), with an early phase dominated by massive stars followed by a more normal star formation phase producing the low–mass stars we see today. However, in our models the IMF naturally and smoothly varies in time following a physical prescription.

Though not long-lasting, the variations in the early phases are enough to differentiate the resulting galactic models, making them successful at reproducing many features of observed ellipticals, such as (Chiosi et al. 1998):

* the tilt of the Fundamental Plane (§ 1.1)
* the analogous of the “G–dwarf” problem, or the lack of a large population of low metallicity stars, detected in the spectral energy distribution of ellipticals (Bressan et al. 1994, Worthey et al. 1996);
* the high fraction of white dwarfs (Bica et al. 1996);
* both the colour–magnitude relation and the trends in $`\alpha `$–enhancement with mass at the same time, thereby overcoming the well-known dichotomy between the “classic” and “inverse” GW scenario (Matteucci 1992, 1994, 1997).

This last point is worth commenting further, as the GW modelling influences directly the predictions concerning the ICM. GW models of elliptical galaxies with a constant IMF (whether Salpeter or more top–heavy) face the following puzzle. The colour–magnitude relation suggests that GWs occur later in more massive ellipticals than in smaller ones, so that star formation and chemical enrichment proceed longer and the stellar population reaches redder colours in more luminous objects. On the other hand, metallicity indices, if interpreted as abundance indicators, suggest that the \[Mg/Fe\] ratio increases with galactic mass; this requires GWs to occur earlier in more massive galaxies, where only SN II should contribute to the chemical enrichment to make the resulting abundance ratios in stars $`\alpha `$–enhanced.

This dichotomy between the so–called “classic” and “inverse” GW scenario, hampers predictions of the metal pollution of the ICM, since two competing sets of GW models are to be considered. It is therefore quite appealing, when we address the chemical enrichment of the ICM, that the variable IMF scenario described above can reproduce both observational constraints, with a unique set of models.

### 2.2 Galactic ejecta: PNJ vs. Salpeter IMF

Chiosi (2000) first analyzed what are the predictions about the metal pollution of the ICM when galaxy models with the PNJ IMF are adopted. To this purpose, he calculated multi–zone chemical models of ellipticals with the PNJ IMF.

The adoption of radial multi–zone models, rather than simple one–zone models, has in fact noticeable consequences on the predicted enrichment of the ICM, as first underlined by Martinelli et al. (2000). When the radial structure of an elliptical galaxy is considered, with the corresponding gradients in density, colours etc., it turns out that the GW tends to develop not instantly over the whole galaxy, but earlier in the outskirts (where the potential well is shallower) and later in the central parts. This means that star formation and chemical enrichment proceed longer in the centre than in the outer regions (Tantalo et al. 1998, Martinelli et al. 1998), and the GW ejected from different galactic regions is metal enriched to different degrees.

The models calculated by Chiosi (2000) account for these effects by dividing the galaxy into three zones: a central sphere where star formation and metal production is most efficient and lasts longer; an intermediate shell where the GW sets in earlier and the metal production proceeds to a lesser extent, and an outer corona where the gas is expelled almost immediately, with virtually no star formation and chemical processing. This behaviour is the combined result of the shallower potential well when moving outward in the galaxy (as in standard models with a constant IMF) and of the varying $`M_p`$ in the PNJ IMF when moving to outer, less dense regions; see Chiosi (2000) for a detailed discussion.

For the sake of comparison, analogous models with the standard Salpeter IMF were also calculated. For a better understanding of the results concerning the chemical evolution of the ICM, let’s first inspect the predicted GW ejecta of the galactic models when the variable IMF or the Salpeter IMF are adopted in turn.

In Fig. 1 we compare the mass fraction of gas ejected in the GW, and the complementary mass fraction locked into stars, for galactic models with the variable PNJ IMF and for models with the Salpeter IMF (blue and red lines, respectively). Mass fractions refer to the total initial baryonic mass of the (proto)galaxy. The amount of ejected gas is larger in the case of the PNJ IMF, since less mass is locked into low-mass stars, thanks to the high $`M_p`$ in the early galactic phases. The difference with the Salpeter case gets sharper for larger (proto)galactic masses, and for higher redshifts of formation. (Notice that models with the Salpeter IMF bear no dependence on the redshift of formation, as there are no temperature effects on the IMF in this case).

It is worth underlining here the following “inverse” behaviour of the models with the PNJ IMF with respect to what is generally expected from models with a constant IMF. According to the general consensus, larger galaxies store a larger fraction of their mass into stars and eject a lower fraction of gas in the GW, while smaller galaxies are more efficient in wind ejection, due to their shallower potential wells. This behaviour is in fact found in the Salpeter galactic models of Fig. 1. The models with the PNJ IMF, on the other hand, show quite the opposite behaviour: larger galaxies eject a larger fraction of their initial mass in the wind and lock a lower fraction into stars, due to the higher peak mass that characterizes them in the early phases. This effect overwhelms their deeper potential wells, and the trend becomes stronger and stronger with the redshift of formation.

Fig. 2 shows the iron abundances in the gas ejected as GW, again comparing the Salpeter IMF (red lines) and the PNJ IMF case (blue lines). In most cases, the galactic ejecta in the PNJ models are more metal–rich than in the Salpeter case, up to a factor of 5 or more in the case of the more massive galaxies, and for high redshifts of formation. In the PNJ models, in fact, more gas in the galaxy gets recycled through massive stars, effective metal contributors, and less gets locked into low–mass stars, before the GW occurs.

From the trends described above, we expect that models of ellipticals with the PNJ IMF predict, for the ICM, a more efficient metal pollution and a higher fraction of the gas originating from GWs, with respect to “standard” models. The first results in this respect are discussed in Chiosi (2000).

## 3 The chemical evolution of the ICM: a toy model

As mentioned in § 1.1, the most popular way to calculate the expected properties of the ICM of a cluster, on the base of its population of elliptical galaxies, is to make use of a grid of galactic models and integrate their GW ejecta over the observed LF, a method first developed by Matteucci & Vettolani (1988). In this approach, all the ellipticals in the cluster are assumed to be coeval, of an age around 13-15 Gyrs.

If we are to adopt here galactic models with the PNJ IMF, however, results are expected to be very sensitive to the exact epoch (redshift) of formation of the individual galaxies. The usual integration over the present–day LF is not a viable method in our scenario: the present-day luminosity of a galaxy no longer provides enough information to identify it (in terms of its initial protogalactic mass) since the final properites of a galactic model depend not only on its initial mass, but also on its exact formation redshift. Hence, we need to follow in detail the epoch of formation of the individual galaxies in the cluster, and evolve the overall system down to the present–day, using then the LF as a constraint a posteriori. This approach also allows, in principle, a more self–consistent description of the chemical evolution of the cluster and of its galactic population as a whole.

An improved modelling of the evolution of the cluster, taking into account that its galaxies may form at different redshifts, has been introduced by Chiosi (2000), who replaced the usual integration over the LF with an integration over the Press-Schechter mass function at different redshifts. Suitable redshift–dependent mass limits for the galaxies forming at each epoch were taken into account (Tegmark et al. 1997).

On the same line, we developed a global, self-consistent chemical model for the cluster as a whole, which could follow the simultaneous evolution of all its components: the galaxies, the primordial gas, and the gas processed and re-ejected via GWs (Moretti et al. 2001). Our chemical model for clusters is developed in analogy with the usual chemical models for galaxies. These latter are schematically conceived as follows (e.g. Tinsley 1980, Pagel 1997):

1. the gas present in the system (usually starting from primordial composition) keeps transforming into stars according to some prescribed Star Formation Rate (SFR);
2. stars are thus formed, distributed according to the adopted IMF;
3. stars return part of their mass in the form of chemically enriched gas, according to the so–called stellar yields (prescriptions derived from stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis);
4. this chemically enriched gas mixes with the surrounding gas, causing the chemical evolution of the overall interstellar medium (ISM).

In a cluster, we are interested to model the chemical evolution of the ICM, and the objects responsible for its enrichment are the galaxies, via GWs. In analogy with the above scheme, therefore, our chemical model for the cluster is conceived as follows:

1. the primordial gas in the ICM gets consumed in time by galaxy formation according to some prescribed Galactic Formation Rate (GFR);
2. at each time (redshift) galaxies form distributed in mass according to a Galactic Initial Mass Function (GIMF), derived from the Press-Schechter mass function suited to that redshift;
3. galaxies restitute a fraction of their initial mass in the form of chemically enriched GWs, according to the adopted galactic models;
4. this enriched gas mixes with and causes the chemical evolution of the overall ICM, which includes the amount of primordial gas not yet consumed by galaxy formation (if any) and the gas re-ejected by galaxies in the GWs up to the present age.

We can schematically plot the analogy between the two types of models as follows:

|  |  | primordial gas | primordial gas |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  |  | $``$ | $``$ |  |  |
|  | $``$ | SFR, IMF | GFR, GIMF | $``$ |  |
|  |  | $``$ | $``$ |  |  |
| ISM |  | stars | galaxies |  | ICM |
|  |  | $``$ | $``$ |  |  |
|  | $``$ | stellar yields | GW yields | $``$ |  |
|  |  | $``$ | $``$ |  |  |
|  |  | enriched gas | enriched gas |  |  |

Model equation parallel those of galactic chemical models, with the substitutions SFR $``$ GFR, IMF $``$ Press-Schechter GIMF, stellar yields $``$ GW yields. For further details on the model and its equations, see Moretti et al. (2001). Here we only point out a few main assumptions at the base of the model:

* The model is one–zone, namely the cluster is treated as a single uniform compound of gas and galaxies, where the metal abundance of the gas evolves in time but is otherwise homogeneous in space.
* The model is calculated assuming the Instantaneous Recycling Approximation (IRA), that is assuming that galaxies eject the corresponding GWs instantly, as soon as they are formed; this is a reasonable approximation as the timescales for the onset of the GW are generally short, less than 1 Gyr. The IRA could affect predictions at high redshifts, where a time–span of a few $`10^8`$ yr corresponds to a sizeable gap in redshift; but up to redshift $`z1`$, where observational data on ICM abundances are available, the effect is minor.
Later on, the model might be improved in this respect, by taking into account the actual delay between the formation of a galaxy and the time when its GW is expelled; but as it is always preferable to start with the simplest possible assumptions, we adopt IRA for the time being.
Notice however that the galactic models for the individual ellipticals, and the related GW yields, are not calculated under the IRA approximation, but with a detailed chemical network taking into account the different, finite stellar lifetimes for the different stellar masses (Chiosi et al. 1998 and references therein).
* We adopt the closed–box description for the chemical model of the cluster, as suggested by Renzini (1997) on the base of the homogeneity of the chemical properties of clusters: open models with a variety of infall histories would lead to a large scatter of features (metal abundances in the ICM, etc.), at odds with observations. Besides, the closed–box assumption is the simplest case to consider, when starting up a new model.
It is worth commenting further on how realistic it is to apply a closed box (i.e. constant mass) model to structures that are supposed to form by hierarchical accretion of subunits, according to current cosmological theories. We remind here that a one-zone chemical model contains no information on the spatial distribution of its components. Therefore, at high redshifts our “model cluster” can be considered simply as the sum of the subunits that will later merge and form it, irrespectively of whether the cluster has in fact formed or not, as a bound gravitational structure. The chemical model at high redshifts simply describes the average properties of the sum of the parent subunits of the cluster.

As mentioned above, in this new approach the observed LF becomes a constraint to compare the models with a posteriori. It turns out in fact to be the main constraint to calibrate the model parameters, especially the GFR.

## 4 The “best case” models

In this section we present our case of “best match” with the observed LF in the B–band (Trentham 1998). This is obtained with a GFR with the following characteristics:

* the GFR linearly increases in time from $`z=20`$ down to $`z0.5`$,
* for $`z<0.5`$ galaxy formation stops due to the exhaustion of the primordial gas out of which galaxies are assumed to form;
* a burst of formation of dwarf galaxies at high redshift ($`z1020`$) is added on top of the smoothly increasing GFR to reproduce the steepening of the LF at low luminosities.

Here we do not address further details on the parameters of the model and their calibration, to be found in Moretti et al. (2001). Fig. 3 shows the predicted LF compared to the observed one, in the “best case” when galactic models with the PNJ IMF are adopted (left panel). As a comparison, the corresponding LF predicted with the same cluster evolution parameters, but with the Salpeter galactic models, is shown in the right panel. For otherwise equal parameters, the Salpeter case predicts more galaxies in the high–luminosity bins, due to the fact that for massive (proto)galaxies more mass remains locked into stars in the Salpeter case than with the PNJ IMF (cf. Fig. 1). Anyways, the LF is still in agreement with the observed one within errors. The dotted lines represent the extension of the LF to the range of galaxies fainter than the observational limit. Although these galaxies largely dominate in number, their contribution in terms of luminosity or stellar mass is a negligible fraction of the total; in the cluster these objects might also have been disrupted and be nowadays dispersed as a diffuse intra–cluster stellar component.

Although the predicted LF is virtually the same in the two models, strong differences are found in the predicted gas and metallicity content in the ICM. Fig. 4 shows the predicted abundances in the ICM in the PNJ and Salpeter case (left and right panel, respectively). In the plot, lines of unit slope represent iso-metallicity loci. Observational data roughly fall onto the same abundance level, around 0.3 $`Z_{}`$. It is evident how adopting galactic models with the PNJ IMF improves predictions about the metallicity of the ICM.

Fig. 5 shows the evolution of the mass fraction of the various components of the cluster: the primordial gas, which gets consumed by galaxy formation; the processed gas, namely the gas that has been processed inside galaxies and then re-ejected as GW; the total gas, sum of the primordial and of the processed gas; the mass in galaxies, that is in the stellar component we see today, “left over” after the GW. While in the Salpeter case (right panel) the overall mass that remains locked into galaxies (red line) is larger that the mass ejected in the GWs (dark blue line), the opposite is true in the cluster model with the PNJ galaxies (left panel), as qualitatively expected from the comparison of the different galactic models in § 2.2. In the latter case, the mass of the re-ejected gas is $`1.5`$ times larger than that locked into galaxies. Although this is not enough to account for the whole of the observed intra-cluster gas (whith a mass 2–5 times larger than that in galaxies, Arnaud et al. 1992), the amount of gas re-ejected by galaxies is expected to make up for a remarkable fraction of the overall ICM.

## 5 A Madau–like GFR

In the previous “best case” model the GFR was calibrated so as to reproduce the observed LF, being otherwise arbitrary. An alternative recipe for the GFR is a functional form resembling the cosmic SFR of the Madau–plot (Fig. 6). The burst of dwarf galaxy formation at $`z1020`$ is always needed to reproduce the faint end of the LF, but this is not in constrast with the Madau–plot.

Fig. 7 shows the corresponding predictions for metallicity, metallicity evolution and mass fraction evolution of the various components. Only results for galactic models with the PNJ IMF are shown; the comparison with the corresponding Salpeter case would lead to considerations similar to those in § 4. Once more, the average metallicity of the observed clusters is quite well reproduced, and a large amount of gas ($``$1.5 times the mass in galaxies) is predicted to be re-ejected by GWs. With this Madau–like form of the GFR, however, it is hard to reproduce the observed LF in detail.

## 6 Summary and conclusions

Galactic winds from elliptical galaxies are the most likely source of the chemical enrichment of the ICM. In this scenario, various studies in literature suggests that a non–standard IMF must be invoked for elliptical galaxies, if we are to account for the metal pollution of the ICM (§ 1).

We considered GW models for ellipticals adopting a variable, physically grounded IMF whose behaviour in time and space follows common expectations for the Jeans mass. This IMF (by PNJ) naturally predicts a lower locked–up fraction in the early galactic stages, especially for massive ellipticals and/or for high redshifts of formation. Galactic models calculated with this IMF have been shown to reproduce successfully a variety of observational properties of ellipticals (Chiosi et al. 1998). In this paper we discussed the resulting GW ejecta for these model ellipticals with respect to models adopting the standard Salpeter IMF. Our new models predict galaxies to eject both more metals and more gas than standard chemical models do (§ 2).

Then we have developed a toy–model for the chemical evolution of the ICM, following the formation history of cluster galaxies and the corresponding chemical evolution of the ICM in a self–consistent fashion. The model can adopt different sets of galactic models in turn, so as to explore the corresponding variation of the predicted metal pollution history of the ICM (§ 3).

The galaxy formation history can be calibrated so as to reproduce the observed present–day LF of cluster galaxies. A good match with the LF can be obtained both using model ellipticals with the PNJ IMF, and using more standard galactic models with the Salpeter IMF. However, when the PNJ galactic models (also favoured on the base of their spectro–photometric properties) are adopted, predictions on the metal abundances of the ICM are remarkably improved. With these models, the mass of gas re-ejected in the GWs exceeds the mass stored in stars by a factor of 1.5, and becomes an important fraction of the total intra-cluster gas (§ 4).

We also explored an alternative cluster model, where the galactic formation history follows the trend suggested by the Madau plot (at the expence of a less successful prediction on the LF). Conclusions about the chemical evolution of the ICM, with the PNJ IMF, do not substantially change: the model predicts the correct metal abundance of the ICM, and suggests that an important fraction of the intracluster gas may be of galactic origin (§ 5).

## Acknowledgments

LP acknowledges financial support from a EU grant for young European scientists to attend the conference.

## References


text:
# Observing the first galaxies — a case for an intermediate resolution multi-object IR spectrograph

## 1 Introduction

Important advances have been made in recent years on the modeling of the first stars and galaxies forming out of pristine matter — so called Pop III objects — in the early Universe (cf. review of Loeb & Barkana 2001, proceedings of Weiss et al. 2000 and Umemura & Susa 2001). With no doubt these efforts are motivated by the approaching possibility of direct observations of such objects at very high redshift with NGST and large ground-based telescopes.

What are the expected observational signatures of Pop III galaxies ? Tumlinson & Shull (2000, hereafter TS00) have recently pointed out the exceptionally strong He+ ionising flux of massive ($`M\stackrel{>}{}`$ 40 M) Pop III stars, which must be a natural consequence of their compactness, i.e. high effective temperatures, and non-LTE effects in their atmospheres increasing the flux in the ionising continua. As a consequence strong He ii recombination lines such as He ii $`\lambda `$1640 or He ii $`\lambda `$4686 are expected; together with AGN a rather unique feature of metal-free stellar populations, as discussed by TS00 and Tumlinson et al. (2001, hereafter TGS01). Instead of assuming a “standard” Population I like Salpeter IMF up to 100 M as TS00, Bromm et al. (2001, hereafter BKL01) have considered stars with masses larger than 300 M, which may form according to some recent hydrodynamical models. An even stronger ionising flux and stronger H and He ii emission lines were found.

Some strong simplifying assumptions are, however, made in the calculations of TS00, TGS01, and BKL01.

* All stars are assumed to be on the zero age main sequence, i.e. stellar evolution proceeding generally to cooler temperatures is neglected (but cf. TGS01 for a simple estimate of this effect).
* BKL01 take the hardness of the stellar spectrum of the hottest (1000 M) star as representative for all stars with masses down to 300 M. This leads in particular to an overestimate of the He ii recombination line luminosities.
* None of the studies include nebular continuous emission, which cannot be neglected for metal-poor objects with such strong ionising fluxes. This process increases significantly the total continuum flux at wavelengths redward of Lyman-$`\alpha `$ and leads in turn to reduced emission line equivalent widths.
* A single, fixed, IMF is considered only by both groups. In view of the uncertainties on this quantity it appears useful to explore a wider range of IMFs.

We here present results from new calculations which relax all the above assumptions and allow the exploration of a wide parameter space in terms of stellar tracks (including also alternate tracks with strong mass loss), IMF, and star formation history (instantaneous bursts or constant SFR). A more detailed account is given in Schaerer (2001). The models are then used to simulate observations with a medium resolution cryogenic IR spectrograph for the VLT.

## 2 Input physics and results for individual stars

To account for non-LTE effects, which are crucial for a proper description of the spectra of hot stars considered here we use the TLUSTY code of Hubeny & Lanz (1995). Several additional models were calculated with the CMFGEN code of Hillier & Miller (1998) to explore the possible importance of mass loss (as well known for Pop I stars, Schaerer & de Koter 1997) on the ionising spectra of Pop III stars. For the hottest stars ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$$`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 80 kK) dominating especially the ionising spectrum in the He ii continuum, no significant differences with plane parallel models are found as their continua are formed deep in the quasi static part of the atmosphere.

We use stellar tracks from 1 to 500 M calculated with the Geneva stellar evolution code (Desjacques 2000) or tracks from Marigo et al. (2001). Although probably unrealistic, we also explore the impact of high mass loss tracks from Klapp (1983) and El Eid et al. (1983). The atmosphere models and tracks are included in the synthesis code of Schaerer & Vacca (1998), which also calculates nebular line and continuous emission (adapted here to include additional lines and for an appropriate electron temperature $`T_e=30000`$ K).

Based on these models we have calculated the ionising properties of ZAMS stars and their time averaged properties taking into account their evolution. The quantities are tabulated and given as fit formulae of use for various calculations (see Schaerer 2001).

## 3 Properties of Pop III “galaxies”

Integrated spectra have been calculated for a variety of IMFs. SEDs of integrated zero metallicity stellar populations are shown in Fig. 1 for the case of a Salpeter IMF from 1 to 500 M and instantaneous bursts of ages 0 (ZAMS), 2, and 4 Myr. Overplotted on the continuum (including stellar $`+`$ nebular emission: solid lines) are the strongest emission lines for illustration purpose. The striking differences when compared with non-zero metallicity, most importantly in the ionising flux above the He ii edge ($`>`$ 54 eV), have already been discussed by TS00. The comparison of the total spectrum (solid line) with the pure stellar emission (dashed) illustrates the importance of nebular continuous emission neglected in earlier studies (TS00, BKL01), which dominates the ZAMS spectrum at $`\lambda \stackrel{>}{}`$ 1400 Å. The nebular contribution, whose emission is proportional to $`Q(\mathrm{H})`$, depends rather strongly on the age, IMF, and star formation history. For the parameter space explored (see Schaerer 2001), we find that nebular continuous emission is not negligible for bursts with ages $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ 2 Myr and for constant star formation models.

The spectra in Fig. 1 show in addition to the H and He i recombination lines the presence of the strong He ii $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1640, 3203, and 4686 recombination lines, which — due to the exceptional hardness of the ionising spectrum — represent a unique feature of Pop III starbursts compared to metal enriched populations (cf. TGS01, Oh et al. 2001, BKL01). Another effect highlighted by this Figure is the rapid temporal evolution of the recombination line spectrum. Indeed, already $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ 3 Myr after the burst, the high excitation lines are absent, for the reasons discussed before.

The detailed behaviour of the relative line intensities and equivalent widths and their dependence on the IMF and the star formation history are discussed in Schaerer (2001). For the case of constant star formation, the He ii or H recombination lines can be used as a measure of the star formation rate (SFR). For obvious reasons, strong variations of the various SFR indicators on the poorly known IMF are obtained.

## 4 Simulations for a 2nd generation multi-object IR spectrograph on the VLT

We have used the above synthetic spectra to calculate the photometric properties and to simulate spectroscopic observations. The following assumptions are made: A popular cosmology ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`H_0=75`$ km/s/Mpc-1) is adopted. Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest blanketing at redshift $`z<6`$ is included following the prescription of Madau (1995). Sources are unresolved on a 0.3” scale, and the seeing adopted is 0.8”. We take typical SOFI and ISAAC near-IR filter responses to calculate magnitudes in the Vega system. Telescope parameters correspond to the VLT. The characteristics of the near-IR spectrograph are set similar to EMIR (Balcells et al. 2000), with 0.3”/pixel, 1” slit-width, and a mean total efficiency of 40%. All simulations shown here are calculated for a ZAMS population of 107 M with a Salpeter IMF from 1 to 500 M (somewhat more “favourable” than a constant star formation case), a total exposure time of 105 sec, and resolutions $`R`$ 1000 to 5000.

As shown in Fig. 2 the predicted magnitude in the K band is $``$ 24 – 25 for a 107 M burst. This Fig. shows also the strong contribution of the nebular continuum, and the signatures of the strong emission lines on this broad band filter, which both need to be taken into account. Similar effects are observed in the other filter bands, the most relevant emission lines being Lyman-$`\alpha `$ and He ii $`\lambda `$1640. Simulations for various cases of the IMF show that standard broad-band colors do not allow a distinction between upper mass cut-offs of 100 to 1000 M and are also insensitive to changes of Mlow.

The expected S/N in Lyman-$`\alpha `$ and He ii $`\lambda `$1640 as a function of redshift of the source (observed in the JHK bands) for a spectral resolution of 1000 is plotted in Fig. 3. The calculations illustrate the following:

* Lyman-$`\alpha `$ can easily be detected with a good S/N over a redshift ranges ($`z`$ 8–10.5, 11.5–14, and 15.5–18). A joint detection with He ii $`\lambda `$1640 is possible for $`z`$ 5.5–7.5 (Lyman-$`\alpha `$ in optical domain) and $`z`$ 8–10; at larger redshift the S/N of He ii $`\lambda `$1640 becomes very low.

A detection of both He ii $`\lambda `$1640 and Lyman-$`\alpha `$ is obviously important to secure the redshift, and to obtain a measure of the hardness of the ionising flux. This allows potentially the distinction between different IMFs.
* Higher spectral resolution ($`R`$ 5000) considerably increases the chances of detection between the sky lines. For unresolved lines the resulting decrease of S/N is modest. The medium spectral resolution is also required to attempt to measure the emission line profiles, in order to distinguish Pop III source from AGN (cf. TGS01). Once this is obtained, the data can be rebinned to increase the S/N.

How many such Pop III galaxies are expected ? The number of metal-free objects depends of course on the galaxy formation scenario, the star formation efficiency, and the hydrodynamical enrichment process of the ISM, among other factors. The comprehensive study of Ciardi et al. (2000) shows that at $`z\stackrel{>}{}`$ 8 naked stellar clusters, i.e. objects which have complete blown out their ISM dominate the population of luminous objects. One may expect that all metals are ejected in this way into the IGM, thereby avoiding largely local pollution, i.e. leaving these objects as Pop III “galaxies”. Based on such an assumption and using the ionising fluxes from TS00, Oh et al. (2001) have recently calculated the predicted number of Pop III starbursts detectable in He ii lines with NGST for a one day integration. Their estimate yields between $``$ 40 and 3000 sources in a 8’x8’ field of view envisaged for the proposed IR multi object spectrograph. Although pilot studies have recently started to explore the formation of dust in Pop III objects (Todini & Ferrara 2001), the effect is neglected here.

In conclusion, a medium resolution ($`R`$ up to $``$ 5000) IR multi-object spectrograph on the VLT covering the J, H, and K band would not only be of great interest to numerous studies of intermediate and high-redshift galaxies (cf. contributions of Cuby, Genzel, Lefèvre, this meeting). It should also allow observations of the first so called Pop III objects — certainly one the great remaining challenges of observational astronomy. If realised on a reasonable time scale, such ground-based observations with the VLT at ESO should be able to achieve an important breakthrough before the launch of NGST.