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# Multi-wavelength observations of the Soft Gamma Repeater SGR 1900+14 during its April 2001 activation

## 1 Introduction

Soft-gamma repeaters (SGRs) are neutron stars that can be found in a quiescent or in an active state. To date, only four SGRs are confirmed; a fifth SGR source may have been detected twice (Cline et al. (2000)) but its existence is not yet firmly established. It was recently found (Kouveliotou et al. (1998); Hurley et al. 1999b ) that SGRs are pulsars with periods ranging within $`5<P<8`$ s, and that these pulsations show rapid spindown of the order of $`10^{10}`$ s/s. As argued by Kouveliotou et al. (1998, 1999) this spindown is due to magnetic dipole radiation (and a relativistic particle wind); the corresponding dipolar component of their magnetic fields exceeds $`10^{14}`$ G, thus establishing SGRs as ‘magnetars’, objects initially conjectured in the early 1990s (Duncan & Thompson (1992); Thompson & Duncan (1995)).

What distinguishes these transient soft $`\gamma `$ray bursters from the ‘classic’ $`\gamma `$ray burst sources is the recurrence of their activity and the much softer spectra of their bursts. When active, SGRs emit bunches of up to hundreds of very short, low-energy bursts. The bursts vary in duration and temporal structure from simple, single pulses lasting less than 10 ms, to longer, and more complex events of $`100`$ ms; occasionally highly complex events have been recorded, that comprise over 40 very short subpulses each lasting tens of ms (Göğüş et al. (2001)).

Very rarely, SGRs emit flares, extremely energetic events (fluences are typically $`10^{44}`$ ergs) that are much longer (of the order of several minutes) and exhibit a very hard initial spike ($``$ 100 ms) and a long soft tail, strongly modulated by the spin of the neutron star. Only two such flares have been detected so far: the 5 March 1979 event from SGR 0526$``$66 (Mazets et al. (1979)) and the 27 August 1998 event from SGR $`1900+14`$ (Hurley et al. 1999a ; Feroci et al. 2001a ). It is becoming evident, however, that there is a continuum of burst intensities. This is especially clear for SGR $`1900+14`$ (where we have the largest sample) but is also observed in SGR 1627$``$41 (Mazets et al. (1999); Woods et al. 1999b ). The intermediate size events are roughly $`10100`$ times less energetic than SGR flares, but have a higher energy content ($`1050`$ times higher) and are longer than the average SGR burst and relatively uncommon.

We report here on gamma and X-ray observations obtained with Ulysses , Chandra and on radio observations obtained with MERLIN, soon after the recent reactivation of SGR $`1900+14`$ , heralded by an intermediate size burst (recorded with the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX ) on 18, April 2001 (Guidorzi et al. 2001a ). Sections 1, 2 and 3 focus on the observations: upper limits in radio wavelengths and spectral and timing results in X-rays. We have searched for evidence of extended emission associated with a dust halo; the source line of sight has a very large $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ and such a halo is more or less expected. Our results are discussed in Section 4, where we explore the implications of the current flux level, spectra, timing and halo results for the magnetar model of SGRs.

## 2 Ulysses and MERLIN Observations

On 18 April 2001 BeppoSAX was triggered by an intense X-ray burst from SGR $`1900+14`$ (Guidorzi et al. 2001a ; Hurley et al. (2001)). The same event was also recorded with Ulysses. Triangulation confirmed that its arrival direction was consistent with the position of SGR $`1900+14`$ . However, the duration and time history of this burst were quite different from typical SGR bursts. The event lasted $``$40 s, and its time history was modulated with the 5.16 s period of SGR $`1900+14`$ (Hurley et al. 1999b ). Because the Ulysses spacecraft was experiencing an intense solar proton flux, the GRB experiment did not trigger on this burst; it was therefore recorded with 0.5 s resolution, and no spectral data are available for it. Nevertheless, we can estimate the peak flux and fluence by assuming that the spectrum may be described by an optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung function with $`kT`$30 keV (Guidorzi et al. 2001b ). The $`25100`$ keV fluence is then $`2.6\times 10^4`$ erg/cm2, and the peak flux (integrated over 0.5 s) is $`1.7\times 10^5`$ erg/cm2 s. These values are several orders of magnitude greater than those corresponding to the more typical short SGR bursts but roughly 25 and 200 times smaller in fluence and peak flux, respectively, than the giant flare of 27 August 1998 (Hurley et al. 1999a ; Feroci et al. 2001a ). The energetics and the unusual time history of this burst qualify it as an “intermediate event.”

We obtained observations of SGR $`1900+14`$ with MERLIN starting $``$1.6 days after this reactivation. MERLIN is an array of 6 radio telescopes with maximum and minimum baselines of 217 and 10 km connected with 30-MHz bandwidth microwave links to a real-time correlator. SGR $`1900+14`$ was observed by MERLIN at 4994 MHz between 23:10 and 11:30 UT on 19/20 April 2001. A 20 arcsec square field was imaged centered on the given co-ordinates of SGR $`1900+14`$ , with an effective resolution of 75 mas. There were no obvious detected sources in this field. The map co-ordinates are aligned to within $``$20 mas of the International Celestial Reference Frame via the phase referencing technique. Given the extremely well known location of the source, (Frail et al (1999)), a reasonable (3$`\sigma `$) upper limit to the 5 GHz radio flux density of SGR $`1900+14`$ is 0.45 mJy.

## 3 Chandra Observations

Chandra observed SGR $`1900+14`$ on 22 and 30 April, 2001, starting at 04:39:18 UT and 23:09:50 UT, respectively. The two sets of 20 ks observations were both taken with ACIS-S3 in the Continuous Clocking (CC) mode. We detect a single burst of 14 photons in the first data set, which appears to be real. Due to the small number of detected photons, however, we will not discuss the event any further and we will restrict ourselves to pulse timing, spectral and spatial analysis of the persistent source as described below.

### 3.1 Timing Analysis

In CC mode data, the charge packet generated by a photon is clocked out of the detector at the rate of 2.85 msec per row. Thus for a photon that interacts near the center of a CCD, it will take $``$4.3 s until the time the charge is read out of the frame store and the timetag is applied. This is further complicated by the spacecraft dither which moves the image on the detector, causing the delay to vary accordingly. We have written a simple ftools script that corrects for this delay. The axBary program is then applied to correct the times to the solar system barycenter.

We have folded the data on the period derived with our RXTE observations of 5.17282 s (Woods et al. 2001b ). We used a spline fit to the data to define a pulse profile. This profile is then cross-correlated with 776 s subsets (i.e., 150 cycles each) of the data and the time offset defines a local measurement of the phase (Figure 1). The upward trend indicates that the best fit period for the Chandra data (5.17293(4) s) differs slightly but significantly from the RXTE value. The period measurement errors are given in parenthesis and represent the 1$`\sigma `$ uncertainty in the least significant digit. For the second Chandra observation, we find good agreement between our measurement ($`P=5.17293(5)`$ s) and the RXTE ephemeris.

We see in Figure 1 that there are systematic deviations suggestive of a sine wave. When we allow for a sine wave in our fitting we obtain an F statistic of 7.0, which for the 3 additional parameters is significant at about the 92% level. We do not feel that these residuals reflect a real orbital period; they are most likely due to phase noise (it is quite possible that the timing noise detected here is responsible for the disagreement between the periods derived with RXTE and Chandra ). However, since the period (5500 sec or about 92 min) would be extremely difficult for a satellite in low Earth orbit to detect, we feel that it is important to set here an upper limit; the 90% confidence upper limit on the period amplitude is 0.25 s.

We compared the pulse profile in different energy bands ($`0.51.7`$, $`1.73.0`$, and $`3.07.0`$ keV) to investigate shape-energy dependence. We do not see any significant differences in the pulse shape with energy, within statistics. We find that the 0.5$``$7 keV rms pulse fraction is 16.2(9), and 14(1)% during the first and second observation, respectively.

### 3.2 Spectral Analysis

We extracted a six pixel wide spectrum centered at the peak of the source image. Since in the continuous clocking (CC) mode, events anywhere in a CCD column will be read out at the same collapsed CC location, this region maps onto the sky as a rectangle 3′′ high and 8.3 long rotated by the spacecraft roll angle. To allow normal $`\chi ^2`$ fitting, we grouped the spectrum into bins, which contain a minimum of 40 counts each.

We used CIAO (Version 2.1.1) to compute a response matrix assuming a point source at the center of the CCD. It is also worth noting that the CC mode used on-orbit was never calibrated on the ground. Although the on-orbit version of continuous clocking better approximates Time Exposure (TE) mode data and therefore the CIAO computed matrix is a good approximation, minor differences between the data and model should be treated with a good deal of skepticism.

We used XSPEC (Arnaud (1996)) to fit the spectra. The measured spectral parameters and $`\chi ^2`$ values for all fits are listed in Table 1. For both data sets we find that the spectrum can be fit with an absorbed power law; the corresponding unabsorbed ($`210`$ keV) fluxes are 1.20(3) and 1.00(3) $`\times 10^{11}`$ ergs/cm2 s, for the first and the second observation, respectively. We find that in the second data set the flux decreases by 20% from the first observation, in agreement with what has been reported by Feroci et al. 2001b , and that the spectral index is slightly steeper (by 0.1).

To optimize the statistics we added the two data sets; Table 1 shows that a single power law model is a poor fit. To improve our fit we (i) ignore channels between 1.8 and 2.5 keV since most of the residuals occur from the Si K line (from the detector) to the Ir edge (from the mirror) and hence are probably instrumental, and (ii) we add a blackbody (BB). The BB addition gives an F statistic of 20.3; the probability that the $`\chi ^2`$ improvement is a chance coincidence is $`4\times 10^5`$. We find that 19% of the unabsorbed ($`210`$ keV) flux comes from the blackbody component, i.e., $`0.21(5)\times 10^{11}`$ erg/cm2s. The best fit parameters are in agreement with our earlier work (Woods et al. 1999a ; Woods et al. 2001a ).

Finally, we took the best fitting blackbody parameters from the summed spectrum and added it to our model for the first and second data sets. We did not allow the BB temperature nor the normalization to vary and refit for the power law parameters and $`N_\mathrm{H}`$. The PL $`+`$ BB fit fluxes are identical to their single PL values. Although the errors are relatively large, it is interesting that the entire difference between the two data sets can be modeled with the change of a single model parameter (i.e., the power law normalization).

Figure 2 shows the data of the first Chandra observation fit with a two-component (PL $`+`$ BB) spectral model (solid line). We do not observe any significant features in the spectrum; we have investigated, however, the significance of the small excess at 3.15 keV. The addition of a line in the model for the first data set (at 3.15 keV) decreases the F statistic by 6.7 which is less than 3$`\sigma `$. The significance is further reduced if one considers that the residuals are similar in amplitude to the Ir edge features near 2.1 keV, and that a 2$`\sigma `$ deviation is expected somewhere in the spectrum from chance alone. Further the feature is not seen in the second data set nor in the summed set. Therefore we do not feel that the line is real. However, we can use it to set an upper limit for a line detection. The 90% confidence upper limit on the line rate is $`2.0\times 10^5`$ photons/cm2 s, corresponding to an equivalent width of 38 eV.

### 3.3 Search for extended emission

Given the large column to SGR $`1900+14`$ we expect a dust scattering halo surrounding this X-ray source. To search for this as well as for the presence of any hypothetical X-ray nebula, we investigated the 1-dimensional CC image. We found no significant point sources other than the SGR; for each pointing we generated two images within the 0.5$``$7 keV energy band. The first image is simply the time-integrated image. We approximated the internal instrumental and diffuse Galactic plane background on chip S3 by using data from the other back-illuminated CCD S1. We measured the average rate on S1, corrected for the absolute normalization (between 0.5$``$7 keV) at the same focal plane temperature between the two chips S1 and S3 (Markevitch & Vikhlinin (2001)), and then subtracted the S1 average (DC) level from chip S3.

Next, we generated a “pulsed” image for each observation. We convolved the event list for S3 with the observed source pulse profile normalized to a mean of zero to generate a background-subtracted image. That is, events recorded near pulse maximum received a positive weight and those during pulse minimum, a negative weight. Applying this technique, we removed all emission components in our image that do not vary in phase (i.e., everything except the pulsar photons).

We compared the time-integrated images and found no significant difference between them. To improve our statistics, we then averaged first the time-integrated images and separately the pulsed images for the two observations and folded the 1-D images about each centroid to accumulate “quasi-radial” profiles (these are not true radial profiles because the CC mode data were first collapsed in one dimension). The time-integrated and pulsed profiles are shown in Figure 3 in addition to a MARX PSF model (dotted line) scaled to the normalization of each. As expected, the pulsed image is entirely consistent with the model PSF. However, due to the small pulse fraction of this source, the pulsed image has a relatively poor signal-to-noise ratio, which is reflected in the rather large error bars. We find a significant excess above the model PSF for the time-integrated image further than 3′′ away from the centroid. This excess contributes $`<0.5`$ % to the total flux and can be attributed to a dust halo. We discuss these results in the next section.

## 4 Discussion

We have observed in the past that SGR activity results in an increase of the persistent X-ray flux; the flux then decays following a power-law function with varying temporal indices for different sources. For SGR $`1900+14`$ , the ‘nominal’ (baseline) 2$``$10 keV flux is $``$1 $`\times `$ 10-11 ergs cm2 s-1 and the temporal decay index was found to be 0.6$``$0.7 during its previous activation in 1998 (Woods et al. 2001a ; Ibrahim et al. (2001)). The recent flaring activity of the source has decayed with a similar index of $`0.6`$ (Feroci et al. 2001b ). These results seem to indicate an intrinsic luminosity relaxation time constant per SGR source, that appears to be independent of the activity level.

We have shown earlier that the overall increase of the source intensity is entirely due to the power law component of the spectrum (Woods et al. 1999a ). At the peak of activity, the spectrum is best fit with a single power law model; the thermal component reemerges only when the power-law flux reduces to its ‘nominal’ level. Our Chandra results confirm the blackbody component in the spectrum of SGR $`1900+14`$ , which is the only SGR that shows clear evidence of thermal emission from the neutron star surface. With regards to its X-ray spectrum, therefore, SGR $`1900+14`$ seems to provide yet another link with the other class of objects identified as magnetars, namely the Anomalous X-Ray Pulsars (AXPs). There are so far 5 (maybe 6) AXPs, sources that are very similar to SGRs, with the main exception that they have never been observed to burst (Mereghetti (1999)).

The radio flux (3$`\sigma `$) upper limit we derived with MERLIN $``$1.6$``$2.1 days following this flare is both closer in time and slightly above the earlier reported detection level for SGR $`1900+14`$ during its 1998 reactivation. VLA measurements at the same wavelength detected a possible peak in the flux of $`0.3`$ mJy (Frail et al (1999)) $``$10 days after the huge flare that released $`10^{44}`$ ergs in $`\gamma `$-rays. Frail et al. (1999) estimate the minimum energy release in particles necessary to create the detected synchrotron nebula to be of the order of $`7\times 10^{37}`$ ergs; the intermediate burst that triggered the current activity released 25 times less energy in $`\gamma `$-rays. If we scale the particle energy accordingly, we derive an upper limit of $`4\times 10^{35}`$ ergs for any transient synchrotron nebula associated with this burst. Our observations show that a prompt and relatively high-intensity radio flare immediately following an SGR $`1900+14`$ outburst is unlikely. Unfortunately, there are no MERLIN or other radio data available for SGR $`1900+14`$ at $``$10 days after its recent outburst.

The observed profile of the extended emission is consistent with scattering of the X rays on the interstellar medium along the line of sight from the source, given the large value of the observed $`N_\mathrm{H}`$ (Predehl & Schmitt (1995)). This is the first detection of a dust scattering halo around a magnetar; unfortunately, due to the large distance of SGR $`1900+14`$ , any pulsed component is smeared out in the halo preventing the direct measurement of its distance using its X-ray scattering halo (Predehl et al. (2000)).

In conclusion, we have provided a constraining upper limit on the radio flux from a transient synchrotron bubble following the intermediate flare of 18 April 2001. We confirmed the thermal component in the spectrum of SGR $`1900+14`$ , and have placed a limit on line features in the X-ray spectrum. Utilizing the sensitivity and resolving power of Chandra , we have discovered a dust scattering halo surrounding SGR $`1900+14`$ . We expect that our upcoming Chandra observation (NRA2) will allow for a more detailed study of this halo.

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge support from the following grants: MX-0101 (C.K.), NAG5-9350 (C.K., P.W. and S.P.), GO0-1018X (S.P.), JPL Contract 958056 (K.H.). We are grateful to Peter Thomasson for rapidly arranging the MERLIN scheduling at a very short notice and to Dr. C. Thompson, Dr. R. Duncan, Dr. P. Predehl and Dr. M.S. Briggs for critical discussions on our results.


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# Study of the photon flux from the night sky at La Palma and Namibia, in the wavelength region relevant for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes

## 1 Introduction

Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) have emerged as the most powerful instrument for gamma-ray astronomy in the TeV energy regime. IACTs image the Cherenkov light emitted by an air shower onto a photomultiplier (PMT) camera. The orientation of the image in the camera is related to the direction of the air shower, the intensity to the energy of the primary, and the shape of image can be employed to separate electromagnetic showers induced by high-energy gamma-rays from those generated by cosmic-ray nuclei interacting in the atmosphere.

The typical yield of Cherenkov photons is roughly 100 photons m-2TeV-1, which arrive with a time dispersion of a few ns. Given this modest light yield, the light of the night-sky background, with intensities of order $`10^{12}`$ photons m-2s-1sr-1, represents a significant limitation for the performance of IACTs. It defines the minimum Cherenkov light yield which can be reliably detected with the instrument, and hence its energy threshold. Noise in the Cherenkov image due to background light from the night sky results in additional uncertainties in the determination of image orientation, image intensity, and image shape. Finally, the background light generates a continuous DC current in the photon detectors, which may limit their lifetime and which in the case of photomultipliers may require the operation at modest gain, in order to limit the total charge accumulated on the last dynodes and the anode during the lifetime of the experiment. Variations of the night sky background light across the sky may also cause changes in the detection efficiencies, in particular once tight cuts are applied to select gamma-ray candidates, and may result in a systematic bias in ON-OFF measurements, where the rate from a background region of the sky is used to estimate the rate of background events in the signal region; care has to be taken to select signal and background regions with an identical sky brightness.

A number of different components contribute to the night sky background light and its variation with celestial and terrestrial coordinates, here given roughly in the order of their importance:

* Night airglow, which results from photochemical processes of ions in the upper atmosphere; its intensity increases with increasing zenith angle.
* The zodiacal light, which arises from the scattering of sun light by interplanetary dust near the ecliptic, and is most prominent shortly after sunset in the west, or before sunrise in the east.
* Starlight, which is partially resolved into discrete stars. The density of stars and star light varies by a large factor between the Milky Way and other regions of the sky.
* Diffuse galactic light, resulting from the scattering of star light by interstellar dust, in particular in the galactic plane.
* Extragalactic light, from unresolved galaxies and light scattered in intergalactic space represents only a very small contribution.
* Aurora, which is, however, negligible at low latitudes.

A detailed discussion of these various light sources is given in ; a more recent exhaustive compilation of data as well as further references can be found in . Specific results for La Palma – one of the sites investigated – are given in .

In addition to these natural light sources, artificial light scattered in the atmosphere contributes both a continuum as well as discrete lines (Na, Hg), see  for details.

Currently, a new stereoscopic IACT system - the High Energy Stereoscopic System, or H.E.S.S. () - is under construction in the Khomas Highland of Namibia. H.E.S.S. consists initially of four telescopes, with mirror areas of roughly 100 m2 each, 15 m focal length, and cameras consisting of 960 photomultiplier tubes covering a field of view of $`5^{}`$ diameter. The four telescopes provide multiple views of the same shower from different perspectives, significantly enhancing the ability to reconstruct the orientation of the shower axis in space, to determine the shower energy and to reject cosmic-ray background showers. To assist in the layout of the camera and its trigger system and in the planning of observations, knowledge of the level of night-sky background is desirable.

While the night-sky background light has been extensively investigated and documented (see, e.g., ), it is not straight-forward to use these results to estimate the background seen by the photomultipliers of a Cherenkov telescope; one reason is that typical measurements refer to the dark sky, with no detectable stars in CCD images of large astronomical telescopes. Cherenkov telescopes with their relatively large image pixels will almost always integrate over a number of faint stars. Also, while the visibility conditions in the Gamsberg region of Namibia – near the H.E.S.S. site – have been explored extensively in earlier campaigns , little information is available about the night-sky background, and in particular about the local light pollution.

Therefore, an instrument was developed to reliably measure the yield of night sky photons in the wavelength range relevant for Cherenkov telescopes, and measurement campaigns were conducted at La Palma – the location of the HEGRA telescopes  – and in the Khomas Highland of Namibia. Results are reported in this paper. The following sections introduce the instrument and its calibration, discuss the results obtained in the two campaigns, and conclude with the implications for the H.E.S.S. telescopes.

A caveat to be mentioned is that the various components of the night-sky background light depend in differing ways on celestial and terrestrial coordinates and on time – starlight and diffuse galactic light is a function of galactic coordinates; airglow is primarily a function of terrestrial coordinates, and shows short-term as well as seasonal and solar-cycle related time variations; the zodiacal light depends on ecliptic coordinates; the contribution from artificial light sources varies with terrestrial coordinates and atmospheric conditions. Light is attenuated and scattered along its path through the atmosphere, influenced by local and large-scale atmospheric conditions. With only ground-based measurements at a given location and during a short time interval, one cannot always identify these individual contributions; it is non-trivial to interpret the results, and to judge to which extent they can be generalized. We believe, however, that data were taken under rather typical conditions, and would not expect the main conclusions to change as a result of a more detailed and longer-term study.

## 2 The instrument and its calibration

In the design of an instrument to monitor the brightness of the night sky, two key choices concern the wavelength region covered, and the solid angle over which the instrument averages the photon flux.

The wavelength regime relevant for the detection of Cherenkov light is defined by the $`1/\lambda ^2`$ distribution of the Cherenkov photons, combined with the atmospheric transmission and the quantum efficiency of the photodetectors. At short wavelengths, atmospheric transmission introduces a cutoff at about 300 nm. At long wavelengths, beyond about 500 nm, the quantum efficiency of conventional photocathodes deteriorates rapidly, and the contributions from longer wavelengths to the photoelectron yield are small. In order to directly match the sensitivity of the photon detectors of the H.E.S.S. Cherenkov cameras , a photomultiplier with a bi-alkali photocathode was used for the night-sky measurements. In order to test and verify the wavelength dependence of the light yield, optional narrow-band filters of 360 nm, 400 nm, 450 nm and 500 nm could be introduced in the light path.

Concerning the solid angle coverage, the relevant scales are set by the field of view of the Cherenkov cameras, with around $`4^{}`$ to $`5^{}`$ diameter, and by the field of view of the individual image elements - photomultiplier “pixels” with characteristic diameters in the range of $`0.1^{}`$ to $`0.4^{}`$; the H.E.S.S. telescopes will use a $`0.16^{}`$ pixel size. The relevant level of the night-sky background is given by the average photoelectron rate induced in these pixels from dark regions of the sky; bright stars, which light up individual pixels can be handled separately. In case of the H.E.S.S. telescopes, stars between mag. 2 and 5, depending on the spectrum, will cause doubling of the typical PMT DC current, and will be clearly visible in the camera 111We note that since most Cherenkov cameras use AC-coupled readout electronics for the Cherenkov signals, the shift in the DC current due to a star imaged onto a pixel will not bias the measurement of the Cherenkov signal, as long as the PMT remains in the region of linear response; the starlight will, however, contribute increased fluctuations, i.e., noise.. For practical reasons, it was decided to enlarge the acceptance of the instrument somewhat compared to individual pixels, and a field of view of about $`0.8^{}`$ effective diameter was chosen.

Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 illustrate the design of the instrument. Basically, it consists of a baffled tube which defines the solid angle viewed by a photomultiplier. A remote-controlled filter wheel in front of the PMT allows to swap in the four narrow-band filters, and to cover the PMT to determine the rate of dark counts. The whole setup is mounted on a computer-controlled amateur telescope, to control the pointing (a VIXEN 222VIXEN Optical Industries LTD., 247 Hongo, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-0022, Japan, www.vixen.co.jp Newtonian with 800 mm focal length and f/d = 4 on a GP-DX mount interfaced via a Skysensor 2000 PC to a portable computer running Linux). The setup furthermore includes an IR radiometer, for the purpose to detect clouds resulting in a increased IR sky temperature .

As PMT, the Hamamatsu HC 135 module is used, which includes a PMT with a 21 mm bi-alkali photocathode, the high voltage supply, an amplifier, discriminator, counter, timer and a control microprocessor. The unit is interfaced via a RS232 port to the portable computer. The discriminator threshold and HV are factory-preset to count signals above the “valley” of the single-photon response. The built-in processor automatically corrects dead-time during high-rate measurements.

The unit was tested and calibrated in the laboratory. The setting of the threshold was verified. Illuminating the device through a calibrated optical attenuator, the linear relation between photon flux and corrected count rate was verified at the 1% level, for count rates up to 25 MHz; in the field, measurements rates varied between 50 Hz and 5000 Hz, depending on the region of the sky viewed and the filter settings. The photon counting efficiency of the unit was determined using monochromatic light, with calibrated Hamamatsu and Newport silicon photo diodes serving as a reference, see Fig. 3. In these measurements, the photocathode was illuminated over a 10 mm diameter, similar to the diameter of the final baffle in the collimating tube. The resulting counting efficiencies are in good agreement with the calibration data at 450, 550 and 650 nm, provided with the Hamamatsu HC 135. The laboratory measurements showed a temperature dependence of the detected rate between $`0.1\%`$ and $`0.4\%`$ per degree Centigrade, consistent with specifications. In order to eliminate influence of temperature in the field measurements, the PMT unit was surrounded by thermal insulation, and thermostat-controlled heating resistors were used to stabilize the temperature at $`22\pm 3`$ $`{}_{}{}^{}C`$. The PMT temperature was monitored during all measurements.

The baffled tube defining the solid angle viewed by the PMT has an entrance baffle of 6.40 mm diameter, an exit baffle of 12.00 mm, and a number of intermediate baffles to reduce the influence of stray light. Fig. 4 shows the calculated transmission $`ϵ(\vartheta )`$ as a function of the angle $`\vartheta `$ to the axis. For the calculation a point light source in the infinite is assumed and $`ϵ(\vartheta )`$ is normalized to the amount of light incident through the entrance aperture. Integrating the transmission curve over the solid angle,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=2\pi ϵ(\vartheta )\mathrm{sin}(\vartheta )\text{d}\vartheta $$

one finds an effective solid angle coverage $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ of $`(1.70\pm 0.02)10^4`$ sr, using the geometrical dimensions given above and their errors. The effective solid angle was measured by first illuminating the bare PMT using an Ulbricht sphere with apertures of defined size in front of the PMT and the Ulbricht sphere to provide a light source of well-defined solid angle; the counting rate was determined as a function of solid angle. By measuring the rate after adding the baffle system with the Ulbricht sphere positioned to illuminate the entire field of view, the effective solid angle was then determined. From these measurements, an effective solid angle of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}=(1.79\pm 0.05)10^4`$ sr was derived, in reasonable agreement with the geometrical estimate given above. In the following, the measured value is used; it is equivalent to an effective diameter of the field of view of $`0.87^{}`$. The influence of stray light was studied by illuminating the baffled tube from different angles, and by pointing the device at a large illuminated area, where only the central spot – corresponding to the nominal aperture of the baffled tube – was blackened. After a number of iterations concerning the placement of baffles, the transmission of stray light at angles of a few degrees from the optical axis was reduced to about $`10^5`$ of the on-axis response, corresponding to a contribution of around 1% of the signal after integration over solid angle, which should be completely uncritical. The baffled tube was aligned parallel to the telescope axis to better than $`0.5^{}`$.

The six-slot filter wheel (4 color filters, one open slot, one closed slot) is mounted at the end of the baffled tube, just before the final baffle in front of the PMT. The transmission as a function of wavelength was measured; the center wavelengths of the filters were determined to 360, 399, 448, and 498 nm. The transmission is well described by Gaussians of width 4.3, 4.1, 3.5, and 4.3 nm, respectively. To relate count rate and photon flux, the measured transmission curves were used.

In order to test the long-term stability of the instrument and its calibration, a stable laboratory light source was employed. Measurements proved reproducible within $`0.5\%`$, even after the instrument was completely disassembled and reassembled several times.

To monitor and detect cloud layers during the measurements, an IR radiometer (Heitronics KT15.82D) was integrated into the setup. The instrument senses IR radiation in the $`8\mu `$m to $`14\mu `$m window and converts the yield into an effective sky temperature, within the limits of $`60^{}`$C to $`500^{}`$C. The field of view of about $`2^{}`$ is defined by the size of the sensor combined with a germanium lens. The use of IR radiometers in sky monitoring for Cherenkov telescopes has been introduced and discussed by the Durham group .

In addition, the ambient temperature and the humidity were monitored during all measurements.

## 3 Determination of photon flux

A measurement results in a photon counting rate, usually averaged over 10 s. At count rates between 50 Hz and 5000 Hz, depending on the filter settings, statistical errors are small. Dark counts – typically at a level of 20 Hz – are subtracted, but usually represent only a minor correction.

For the measurements with a narrow-band filter with center wavelength $`\lambda `$, the measured rate $`R`$ can be directly converted into a photon flux

$$\varphi (\lambda )=\frac{\text{d}N}{\text{d}A\text{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\text{d}t\text{d}\lambda }=\frac{R}{A_{in}\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}T(\lambda ^{})ϵ_{PMT}(\lambda ^{})\text{d}\lambda ^{}}$$

using the measured counting efficiency $`ϵ_{PMT}(\lambda )`$, the filter transmission $`T(\lambda )`$, and the entrance area $`A_{in}`$ and effective solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}`$ of the baffled tube, under the assumption that the spectral distribution is approximately constant over the width of the filter response. Including the uncertainties in the measurements of quantum efficiencies and filter transmissions, the typical systematic errors of $`\varphi (\lambda )`$ vary between 6.4% at 360 nm and 4.5% at 500 nm.

The measurements without filter can be presented in two ways:

* In terms of the photoelectron rate $`\varphi _{pe}`$ per solid angle and area for bi-alkali photo cathodes,

$$\varphi _{pe}=\frac{\text{d}N_{pe}}{\text{d}A\text{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\text{d}t}=\frac{R}{A_{in}\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}}.$$

This rate can be directly used to calculate the rate of night-sky photoelectrons in the PMTs of Cherenkov telescopes, after small corrections to account for possible differences in the peak quantum efficiency, the collection efficiency and the fraction of photoelectrons cut below the trigger threshold of the HC 135 unit.
* In terms of the integral photon rate over a certain wavelength interval, typically 300 nm to 650 nm,

$$\varphi =\frac{\text{d}N}{\text{d}A\text{d}\mathrm{\Omega }\text{d}t}=\frac{R}{A_{in}\mathrm{\Omega }_{eff}<ϵ_{PMT}>}.$$

Here, $`<ϵ_{PMT}>`$ is the counting efficiency of the PMT, averaged over the shape of the spectrum $`S(\lambda )`$

$$<ϵ_{PMT}>=_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _2}S(\lambda )ϵ_{PMT}(\lambda )\text{d}\lambda $$

where

$$_{\lambda _1}^{\lambda _2}S(\lambda )\text{d}\lambda =1.$$

The limits $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ have to be chosen such that $`S(\lambda )ϵ_{PMT}(\lambda )`$ is negligible outside this range.

In the second case, the result obviously depends on the spectrum $`S(\lambda )`$ assumed for the night sky background when calculating $`<ϵ_{PMT}>`$. To determine $`<ϵ_{PMT}>`$, the spectrum given in  was used. Apart from a number of discrete lines, this spectrum is approximately flat between 300 nm to 450 nm, and rises towards longer wavelengths, see Fig. 5. The resulting average quantum efficiency is 9.8%.

Including a 10% uncertainty in the shape of the assumed (normalized) spectrum, we find a systematic error of 8.8% for the integral flux. The rather extreme assumption of a constant spectrum $`S(\lambda )=const`$ would result in a 30% difference in the derived integral photon flux.

Alternative units used in the astronomical community to describe the level of the night sky background light are S10, the equivalent number of 10th magnitude stars per square degree, or the unit (magnitudes/arcsec2). The following relations apply for the conversion :

$$\varphi [1/\text{sr s m}\text{2}\text{ nm}]=4.8010^7\varphi [\text{S10 units}]$$

in the B band (440 nm), and

$$\varphi [1/\text{sr s m}\text{2}\text{ nm}]=3.2610^7\varphi [\text{S10 units}]$$

in the V band (550 nm). One S10 unit in turn corresponds to 27.28 mag/arcsec2.

## 4 Measurements of the night-sky photon flux at La Palma and Namibia

The field measurements were carried out in two campaigns at La Palma and in the Khomas Highland of Namibia. The La Palma site of the HEGRA Observatory, on the site of the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, is located 2200 m asl at $`17^{}53^{}24^{\prime \prime }`$ W, $`28^{}45^{}34^{\prime \prime }`$ N. The measurements were carried out between May 18 and May 30, 2000 under good weather conditions, at temperatures between $`5^{}`$ and $`15^{}`$, and humidities between 20% and 40%. The measurements in Namibia were carried out between June 23, 2000 and July 3, 2000 on the site of the farm Hakos, about 14 km from the future site of the H.E.S.S. installation, at 1800 m asl, $`16^{}21^{}28^{\prime \prime }`$ E, $`23^{}14^{}08^{\prime \prime }`$ S. The sky was clear, and temperatures and humidity were in the same range as for the La Palma measurements.

Before each sequence of measurements, the telescope was aligned, and the alignment calibrated using three reference stars. Typical pointing precision is in the range of a few arcmin. The pointing was checked moving the instrument across a bright star, see Fig. 6. The results confirmed both the pointing and the angular response of the instrument.

Unless otherwise mentioned, all integral measurements quoted in the following refer to the wavelength range 300 nm to 650 nm. The photoelectron count rate is obtained by multiplying the flux by 0.098.

To determine the stability of the measured night sky brightness, a set of dark regions of the sky near the zenith was measured in several nights, and the results were averaged for each night. Fig. 7 shows the photon flux determined for 8 nights of the La Palma measurements, and for 8 nights of the Namibia campaign. The results show a scatter of about $`\pm 10\%`$ between nights. Since the night-to-night variation is larger than the scatter of the different measurements of a given night, this points to a systematic variation of the sky brightness. Measurements of the identical location of the sky over several hours of the same night showed a 3% rms variation of the night-sky rate. The average flux in Namibia is slightly below the average La Palma flux. Fig. 8 compares the flux at the two locations as a function of wavelength. The data can be characterized by a $`\lambda ^{3.5}`$ dependence.

For comparison, two previous measurements of  and  specifically conducted in the framework of Cherenkov applications are summarized in Table 1; the La Palma measurement of  is in very good agreement with the values shown in Fig. 7; the Jammora value of  is higher, but consistent within errors.

The long-term median night sky brightness near the zenith at La Palma, determined from CCD images taken with the Isaac Newton and Jacobus Kapteyn telescopes, is given in  as 22.7 mag/arcsec2 in the B band, and 21.9 mag/arcsec2 in V. These values translate into $`5.210^9`$ and $`7.310^9`$ photons per sr s m2 nm, respectively, in excellent agreement with our data (Fig. 8).

The level of the night-sky background light is a function both of the terrestrial coordinates azimuth and altitude, and of the celestial coordinates $`b`$ and $`l`$, the galactic latitude and longitude. Fig. 9 illustrates, for the Namibia location, the variation in the light yield with azimuth and altitude. In particular at low altitude, one finds a distinct variation with azimuth. The structures correspond to stray light from the city of Windhoek, at a distance of slightly over 100 km, and to a contribution from zodiacal light. In addition, data points within the galactic plane (open symbols) show an enhanced flux. The flux varies by a factor 1.5 outside the galactic plane, and is increased significantly within the plane.

Of special interest was the variation of night sky brightness with altitude; the visual impression was that the sky in Namibia was very dark and clear down to the lowest altitudes. To separate in one specific case the dependence on terrestrial and celestial coordinates, two dark regions of the sky with fixed $`b,l`$ were measured both from Namibia and from La Palma, and were followed over a large range in altitude. The results are summarized in Fig. 10. Whereas at La Palma the night sky flux increases with decreasing altitude, the Namibia data show a constant flux down to relatively low altitude 333The altitude-dependence in the La Palma data for the two selected regions is somewhat steeper than observed on average in $`altaz`$ scans at La Palma; the scans, however, show qualitatively the same feature..

In order to explore the variation of night sky brightness across the Milky Way, the range $`70^{}<l<70^{}`$ and $`30^{}<b<30^{}`$ was scanned in several nights, with step sizes varying between $`5^{}`$ for the regions of large $`b`$ and $`l`$, to $`2^{}`$ for the region of the galactic center. Fig. 11 illustrates the flux variation across the central region of the Milky Way. Fig. 12 shows in more detail the dependence of the photon flux on $`b`$, for different ranges of $`l`$, and also indicates the scatter of data points in each region. The galactic center region shows a prominent enhancement of photon flux, up to a factor 4 above the values obtained for dark regions of the sky. The flux peaks at $`b5^{}`$; the center region at $`b=0,l=0`$ is shadowed by dark clouds. Most of the scan points were taken at larger altitudes – the median altitude is $`60^{}`$ – and the observed variation of the photon flux should largely reflect a genuine dependence on $`b`$ and $`l`$, as opposed to artefacts resulting from the variation with $`alt`$ and $`az`$ of the zodiacal light and the light pollution from Windhoek. In particular, data for the center region, $`|l|<20^{}`$ and small $`|b|`$, were taken avoiding the regions towards Windhoek and towards the zodiacal light. Selecting particularly ‘clean’ data sets, using only data at $`alt>60^{}`$ or taken in the hours around midnight, the pattern remains unchanged.

Averaging over scan points for altitude $`>60^{}`$ and outside the galactic plane, $`|b|>20^{}`$, and removing measurements with stars brighter than 6 mag. in the field of view, one finds a mean flux of

$$\varphi =(2.21\pm 0.22)10^{12}\text{photons/sr s m}\text{2}$$

for Namibia, and

$$\varphi =(2.60\pm 0.35)10^{12}\text{photons/sr s m}\text{2}$$

for La Palma, in the wavelength region from 300 nm to 650 nm. The errors quoted give the variation between different scan points, based on a Gaussian fit of the distribution. Statistical errors for the individual scan points are small. As mentioned earlier (Section 3), there is a 8.8% systematic error.

## 5 Measurement of the atmospheric transmission

In addition to the night-sky brightness, the atmospheric transmission was measured by following a star up to large zenith angles. Assuming constant absorption per unit airmass, the intensity to first order varies with the zenith angle $`\theta _z`$ as

$$\mathrm{ln}I(\theta _z)=\tau \mathrm{sec}\theta _z+\mathrm{ln}I_0$$

where $`\tau `$ is the optical depth of the (vertical) atmosphere. Within errors, the transmission was identical on La Palma and in Namibia, with typical values of 60% at 360 nm, 72% at 400 nm, 80% at 450 nm and 84% at 500 nm, with errors of 3% to 4%.

## 6 Photoelectron rate in the PMTs of the H.E.S.S. telescopes, including albedo

The results discussed above show that the observation conditions at the Namibia site are indeed very good, with the night-sky flux slightly below the La Palma values for small zenith angles, and a nearly altitude-independent flux. Observations within the galactic plane and in particular near the galactic center will have to deal with an increase by a factor 4 in background levels. For the mirror area of about 94 m2 of the H.E.S.S. telescopes (after accounting for the shadowing of the mirrors due to camera body and camera masts), and given the typical 80% mirror reflectivity, the 75% to 80% net transmission of the Winston cones in front of the PMTs, and the $`0.16^{}`$ pixel size of the H.E.S.S. cameras, one derives a background photoelectron rate per pixel of $`85\pm 13`$ MHz for the average (non-galactic-plane) flux. Additional contributions to the background rate come from light rescattered from the ground, and from the structure of the telescope, which is visible between the round mirror tiles.

Using the identical setup, and pointing the instrument to the ground, the flux of rescattered night-sky background light was measured, and is summarized in Table 2. Weighting the rescattered night-sky background light from the ground with a reduced transmission of the Winston cones at larger angles, one finds that ground albedo will contribute a background photoelectron rate of $`13\pm 4`$ MHz.

Concerning the telescope structure, the flux of backscattered light depends on the color of the telescope structure. Black color is obviously prefered, as far as night-sky background is concerned. On the other hand, white color reduces heating of the telescope structure during day time; in the sunshine, temperature differences of $`15^{}`$C were measured between metal painted black and white. For the Cherenkov application, the important quantity is the reflectivity at short wavelengths, below 500 nm to 600 nm, where the sensitivity of the PMTs is high. The peak intensity of solar radiation heating the telescope structure during day time, on the other hand, is at longer wavelengths. A good compromise is therefore a red color, which absorbs most blue light and which reflects red light. Table 2 shows that indeed a red color (RAL 3017) is closer to black than to white as far as the background photoelectron yield is concerned; on the other hand, the temperature increase was measured to only $`3^{}`$C, or 20% of the difference between black and white. The actual H.E.S.S. telescopes will be painted in a slightly darker red, RAL 3016, which should reduce the photoelectron yield by another factor 2. Weighted with the relevant solid angle, light scattered from the telescope structure is expected to contribute $`2.4\pm 1.2`$ MHz of photoelectron rate, resulting in a total estimated background rate of $`100\pm 13`$ MHz per pixel of the H.E.S.S. cameras.

## 7 Summary and conclusions

Using an instrument developed specially for this purpose, the level of the night sky background light was surveyed both at the La Palma site of the HEGRA Cherenkov telescope system, and near the site of the H.E.S.S. telescope system in Namibia. Measurements were carried out over typically 10 days at each location, under good weather conditions. For identical locations of the sky, measurements show a variation of 10% between nights. The average flux of dark regions of the night sky near the zenith in La Palma is $`2.610^{12}`$ photons/sr s m2, compared to $`2.210^{12}`$ photons/sr s m2 in Namibia, for a range between 300 and 650 nm. A remarkable feature of the Namibia data is that the flux from dark regions of the sky is independent of the zenith angle, for zenith angles up to at least $`70^{}`$. Since the measurements essentially represent a snapshot, as compared to an annual average, it is not a priori clear to which extent long-term or seasonal variations can account for these differences; on the basis of visual observations over longer periods, the observation periods were characterized as representing fairly typical conditions.

Integrated over the field of view of the instrument ($`0.87^{}`$), the night sky background varies significantly with galactic longitude and latitude. The region near the galactic center shows fluxes which are increased by a factor 4 compared to dark regions of the sky, with consequences for the trigger thresholds of Cherenkov telescopes observing in this region.

The instrument was also employed to study the effect of ground albedo and reflections from the structure of a Cherenkov telescope; for Cherenkov cameras where Winston cones properly limit the field of view of the individual pixels, the albedo contributions to the background photoelectron rate of pixel are below 20%.


text:
# Theoretical Conference Summary

## 1 Introduction

For those who have been in the field since its infancy, this Quark-Matter meeting has been one long waited for. And it will certainly remain as the one marking the beginning of a new era in the study of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. The first results obtained at RHIC were presented, and the variety and quality of the data confirm that the potential of the machine is truly fascinating.

It is clearly too early to draw definite conclusions, or to make firm statements about how new data fit theoretical expectations. To a large extent the results which have been shown at this conference do not change qualitatively the picture that has emerged from the analysis of nucleus-nucleus collisions performed until now. However there are a few instances where natural extrapolations do not seem to work. Furthermore, intriguing new features have been revealed, indicating that we are perhaps seeing first glimpses of non trivial QCD behavior in the bulk of nucleus-nucleus collisions.

Aside from the many discussions centered around the new data and their interpretation, exciting progress in theory have been reported, and there is no doubt that some of these will inspire further work. While there remains a significant gap between what theorists can calculate from “first principles” and the modeling of nucleus-nucleus collisions, several developments indicate that it is diminishing, which is very encouraging.

The outline of the talk is the following. I start by reviewing progress reported on first principle calculations of quark-gluon plasma properties. Then I proceed to a discussion of the “standard picture” of nucleus-nucleus collisions as it has been developed in the last years, and comment on several stages of the collisions: early phase, expansion, freeze-out. In particular it will be interesting to see to which extent the new RHIC data confirm this picture; this will be also the occasion to discuss interesting theoretical developments in the calculation of the “initial” distributions of partons playing an essential role in the collisions. Then I turn to a discussion of specific observables.

In order to save space, the various talks, and the corresponding authors, will just be quoted in the main text and not referred to in the final bibliography.

## 2 What is the quark-gluon plasma?

Part of the difficulty in identifying the formation of a quark-gluon plasma in nuclear collisions is linked to the difficulty to calculate its detailed properties from the first principles of QCD, and to have a good physical picture of confinement or deconfinement. Progress in this direction are constant though, and the gap between what can be calculated from QCD and what can be measured, although it is still large, is diminishing.

Much of our detailed qualitative and quantitative knowledge of the thermodynamics of QCD is coming from lattice calculations. These calculations, reviewed here by Karsch, have steadily improved over the years and the accuracy of the present results is truly impressive. For the first time, we were presented accurate results for the transition temperature for the full QCD, with dynamical quarks, and the predictions following various treatments of the fermions are now close to each other . The temperature depends on the number $`N_f`$ of light flavors and is $`T_c=(173\pm 8)`$ MeV for $`N_f=2`$ and $`T_c=(154\pm 8)`$ MeV for $`N_f=3`$ (statistical errors only); for the physically interesting situation of one heavy flavor and two light ones $`T_c`$ is close to its value for the $`N_f=2`$ case. It is also found that the dependence of the equation of state on $`N_f`$ is dominated by that of the ideal gas: the pressure divided by the ideal gas pressure when plotted as a function of $`T/T_c`$ appears to be an almost universal curve. Finally, the energy density of the quark-gluon plasma near $`T_c`$ is estimated to be $`ϵ700`$ MeV/fm3 with 40% uncertainty.

A quantitative understanding of the slow approach to the ideal gas limit that is seen in the lattice data is now emerging from continuum analytical calculations. Early suggestions  that the quark-gluon plasma behaves as a gas of weakly interacting quasiparticles have been put on firm theoretical grounds using weak coupling techniques and various resummations. The main effect of such ressummations is a renormalization of quasiparticle properties, after which quasiparticles remain weakly interacting degrees of freedom. As reported by Iancu, this picture is supported by a first principle calculation of the entropy of the quark-gluon plasma . This analytical approach, as well as that of screened perturbation theory developed in , is complemented by the techniques of dimensional reduction presented by Schröder .

While massive quasiparticles may be the relevant degrees of freedom at high temperature, what happens near the phase transition remains unclear. Pisarski suggested that degrees of freedom associated with the Polyakov loop could play an important role. Let us recall that the expectation value of the Polyakov loop:

$$l(𝐱)=(1/N)\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{P}\mathrm{exp}\left\{ig_0^{1/T}A_0(𝐱,\tau )d\tau \right\}$$

constitutes, in the absence of dynamical quarks, an order parameter for the deconfinement transition: at low temperature the system is invariant under $`Z_3`$ transformations and $`l=0`$, while $`Z_3`$ symmetry is spontaneously broken in the deconfined phase, which is signalled by a non vanishing $`l`$ . An effective potential can be constructed to control the variation of the order parameter. Pisarski argued that in the vicinity of the phase transition the variation of the pressure is dominated by that of this effective potential, and he suggested some observable consequences related to expected large event-by-event fluctuations in the average pion momentum . An alternative picture of confinement, involving a priori different degrees of freedom from those just discussed, is provided by the picture of a dual superconductor. In this picture, confinement is associated to a monopole condensate. Di Giacomo presented latest results of lattice calculations which provide evidence for this mechanism using various abelian projections.

The studies of the heavy quark free energy, most commonly referred to as the heavy quark potential, are of direct relevance for heavy ion physics since they condition our understanding of heavy quark bound states in a quark gluon plasma. The heavy quark free energy can be obtained from an analysis of the correlator of Polyakov loops: $`L(\stackrel{}{x})L^{}(\stackrel{}{y})\mathrm{exp}\{V(r,T)/T\}`$ with $`r=|\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y}|`$. The potential has been studied below and above $`T_c`$ and as a function of the quark mass. Below $`T_c`$, and for infinite quark mass, the potential is confining. When dynamical quarks are included, string breaking occurs and beyond a certain distance the force between heavy quark vanishes; in other words, the potential goes to a constant at large $`r`$. Systematic studies were presented by Karsch and further discussed by Petrecky. It was reported that close to $`T_c`$, string breaking and screening occurs already for distances as small as $`r0.3`$fm.

Some progress has been reported in two domains where it has been slow because the problems are notoriously difficult. One concerns the relation between Euclidean or imaginary time quantities that one evaluates on the lattice and the real time information that one needs to describe various physical phenomena. Hatsuda suggested the use of the method of maximal entropy to this goal , and he presented model examples showing how the method works. Ultimately one would like to use such methods to study how hadronic spectral densities vary with temperature, but one is still far from that goal. The other progress concerns calculations at finite baryonic chemical potential. Miyamura presented studies of the response of physical observables, such as meson masses, to small variations of the chemical potential $`\mu `$ around $`\mu =0`$. Such calculations are possible because they involve the evaluation of response functions for vanishing chemical potentials, and this can be done on the lattice.

Latest developments in the study of the phase structure of cold dense matter where reported by Rajagopal who argued that if quark matter exists in the core of neutron stars then this matter should be a color superconductor. He discussed the possible existence of a crystalline phase of such matter , and its possible role in neutron star glitches. The influence of specific features of the equation of state on neutron star properties were reviewed in more generality by Prakash.

## 3 NUCLEUS-NUCLEUS COLLISIONS. THE STANDARD PICTURE

The vast body of data accumulated over the last 15 years draw a picture of ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions that may now be referred to as the “standard picture”. The main qualitative changes that are commonly expected as one moves up from SPS to RHIC energy are the following: a smaller crossing times of the two nuclei (about a tenth of a fermi at RHIC), a larger initial energy density (by about 70% at present energy), larger freeze-out volumes and longer lifetimes (these expectations however do not seem to be supported by the preliminary RHIC data), a slightly larger freeze-out temperature and a smaller baryonic chemical potential $`\mu _B`$ (in central rapidity region); finally quark and gluon degrees of freedom should play an increasingly important role.

I shall now make a few remarks related to the various stages of the collision. I start from the last stages, namely the freeze-out, and finish with the initial conditions.

### 3.1 Freeze-out and hadronization

The data indicate that matter at freeze-out can be described by equilibrium distributions: particle ratios are well fitted with two parameters, a temperature $`T`$ and a baryon chemical potential $`\mu _B`$. As Rischke reminded us, this simple feature of chemical freeze-out is supported by many analyses, covering a wide range of data, from SIS to CERN. Redlich pointed out that the variation of the freeze-out parameters with the beam energy is such that the energy per particle remains approximately constant, $`E/N1`$GeV . This picture seems to work equally well at RHIC. An interesting question addressed by Rischke and Brown in their talks is how the in-medium modifications of hadron properties (mass, width) change the freeze-out parameters.

Some understanding on how the apparent equilibrium state is reached is provided by detailed microscopic calculations which show that there may be enough final state interactions to drive indeed the system towards equilibrium (see the talks by Bass and Bravina). Calculations combining hydrodynamics with quantum molecular dynamics exhibit clearly the collective flow of matter at the thermal freeze-out; these calculations show that particles with small cross sections (such as the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$) are not much affected by this collective flow, and have accordingly a lower apparent temperature (in agreement with what is seen in the data). Whereas such evidence for collective flow persists at RHIC (there are indications that the radial velocity is larger at RHIC than at the SPS, see for instance the summary by Nu Xu), the data on HBT radii presented at the meeting lead to a puzzling situation: radii are not as big as expected, and more surprisingly, the ratio $`R_{out}/R_{side}`$ seems to be smaller than 1, contradicting the common interpretation of $`\sqrt{R_{out}^2R_{side}^2}`$ as the lifetime of the emitting source (this issue is further discussed in the summary by Panitkin).

In spite of the success of some detailed microscopic calculations, the fact that particles ratios can be described by equilibrium distributions remains rather puzzling. Since similar analysis apply equally well to particle production in $`e^+e^{}`$ collisions  the apparent equilibrium observed at chemical freeze-out may have nothing to do with final state interactions. It could point to some universality of the statistical properties of hadronization. But even if it is not fully understood, the picture is so successful that it has been extended to the production of rare particles, such as the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$  to which I come back at the end.

### 3.2 Models and degrees of freedom

As emphasized by Bass, there is no single space-time model describing the entire collision process. This is because different degrees of freedom enter different stages of the reactions, each stage requiring therefore a specific treatment. An exception is hydrodynamics where changes of microscopic degrees of freedom are not treated explicitly but only collectively through changes in the equation of state. Models which use hadronic degrees of freedom, such as those based on molecular dynamics, are designed for the late stages of the collisions. They can be combined with hydrodynamics to get a better description of the freeze-out (see the talks by Bass, Bravina, Teaney). The models for the initial stages focus on partonic degrees of freedom (see the talks by Eskola, Wang). Finally, aside from models which aim at providing a complete space-time picture of the collisions, there are models, such as those based on Gribov-Regge phenomenology like the dual parton model, which set up calculations in momentum space (see the talk by Werner).

K. Eskola showed that, when suitably extrapolated to the present RHIC energies, most models tend to overpredict the multiplicities. There are large theoretical uncertainties in each of the models, which means that they can be adjusted. But further measurements will provide more stringent constraints. This is the case for instance of the measurement of the transverse energy $`dE_T/d\eta `$, as emphasized by Eskola and Dumitru. It is not the place here to go into a detailed comparison between models, but I find it interesting to observe that some discrepancies between predictions could be traced back by Eskola to differences in the structure functions used as inputs. That such a detailed microscopic information could now matter for predicting the value of a global quantity such as the multiplicity density is revealing of a profound change in the field.

It has been expected that at RHIC energies, the effect of hard or semi-hard interactions should become important, with a substantial fraction of particle production involving minijets at an early stage of the reactions. Much progress has been made in using perturbative QCD to estimate such minijet production (see e.g. ) and model predictions have been reviewed by Eskola and Wang. While the role of minijets in the bulk of the reaction dynamics is still unclear, it has been argued that the data provide evidence for hard scattering. One argument which was presented relies on the following formula for the total multiplicity:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}N}{\mathrm{d}\eta }=aN_{part}+bN_{coll},$$

where $`N_{part}`$ is the number of participants and $`N_{coll}`$ the number of binary collisions. There is evidence at RHIC for a sizeable value of $`b`$ (see for instance the talk by Milov). One is used to associate the term proportional to $`N_{part}`$ to soft physics, as suggested by the “wounded nucleon” model : once a nucleon has collided it becomes ineffective in producing particles in a subsequent collision, so that the multiplicity is just proportional to the number of participants. However, it should be emphasized that while a term proportional to $`N_{coll}`$ emerges naturally from hard scatterings, there is also a soft contribution proportional to $`N_{coll}`$, whose magnitude increases with energy . Therefore more detailed studies are needed to properly quantify the importance of hard scattering in global observables. I shall end this discussion by noting an interesting attempt to relate the growth of the multiplicity from peripheral to central collisions to that of the saturation scale characterizing the parton distributions .

### 3.3 Initial conditions

This brings me to discuss exciting theoretical advances which may lead to a complete determination of that part of the nuclear wave functions which is relevant in collisions at high energy. As a particular outcome, one may be able to relate global observables such as the total transverse energy and the multiplicity to “initial conditions” which can be calculated from first principles. The developments that I am referring to exploit a simplicity which emerges at high energy and for large nuclei. As recalled nicely by Son at the beginning of his talk, these are conditions which bring the system into a weak coupling regime where one can reliably calculate. Of course, in actual collisions, one may not quite be in this ideal regime. But the ideal case provides nevertheless an extremely valuable reference which is worth studying in detail.

The picture being actively discussed involves the notion of a “saturation” scale $`Q_s`$ . Leaving aside many subtleties, let me just mention that $`Q_s`$ is the scale at which QCD non linear effects become important. It may be determined by an argument similar to that used in high temperature QCD to determine the scale ($`g^2T`$) at which perturbation theory breaks down (see for instance ). At that point the two terms in covariant derivatives become of the same order of magnitude. Equivalently, we expect non linear effects to become important when $`^2\alpha _sA^2`$. Since the relevant dynamics is in the transverse plane, the magnitude of the gradient is fixed by the transverse momentum $`p_T`$. As for the magnitude of the gauge field fluctuations they can be estimated from the particle number density in the transverse plane, i.e. $`A^2N_g(p_T)/R^2`$, where $`N_g(p_T)`$ is the total number of gluons with transverse momentum of order $`p_T`$ and $`R`$ is the radius of the nucleus. One then obtains the saturation scale $`Q_s`$ as the value of $`p_T`$ which obeys:

$$p_T^2\alpha _s\frac{N_g(p_T)}{R^2}.$$

This scale has been obtained in various other ways. For instance in  it was determined by looking at the apparition of non linear effects in the evolution equation for the structure functions .

We note from the expression above that the number of partons occupying a small disk of radius $`1/Q_s`$ in the transverse plane is $`1/\alpha _s`$. Such a large occupation number also characterizes the place where unscreened longwavelength (magnetic) fluctuations cause perturbation theory to break down at high temperature. In such conditions of large number of quanta, classical field approximations may become relevant to describe the nuclear wavefunctions. Such an approach, initiated by Mc Lerran and Venugopalan , has led recently to very interesting developments which have been discussed in the talks by Venugopalan and Kovchegov.

Of course our ability to calculate relies ultimately on $`Q_s`$ being small. It is interesting in this respect to note that the formula above indicates that $`Q_s^2\alpha _sA^{1/3}`$, where $`A`$ is the number of nucleons in the nucleus (this follows from the fact that ($`N_g(p_T)A`$ and $`RA^{1/3}`$). Thus $`Q_s`$ is large for (asymptotically) large nuclei. Furthermore, because the number of gluons increases with energy, $`Q_s`$ increases with energy. However, the condition $`Q_s\mathrm{\Lambda }_{QCD}`$ is only marginally realized at present, various estimates giving $`Q_s^22`$ GeV2.

Until now we have been discussing properties of the nuclear wavefunctions. It may be argued that the partons which get freed in a nucleus-nucleus collisions have typical transverse momenta of the order of $`Q_s`$, and originate from collisions of gluons which, in the initial wave functions, have also transverse momenta of order $`Q_s`$ . Those partons get freed in a short time, of order $`1/Q_s`$ and can collide with partners with comparable rapidity. The subsequent evolution of this system of partons was discussed by Son, who identified several characteristic regimes in this evolution, controlled by well defined powers of the strong coupling constant . Son also pointed out the essential role of inelastic processes in the approach of the system towards equilibrium.

## 4 SPECIFIC SIGNALS

I come now to the discussion of specific signals, that is, of observables which are believed to carry information about the state of matter produced at various stages of the collisions, and reveal some of its characteristic properties. It is by combining information coming from all these different signals that one can reconstruct the history of a collision and possibly get evidence for the production of a quark-gluon plasma. Most of these signals have been well studied at lower energy. But, as we shall see, the first RHIC results already provide new perspectives on some of these “old subjects”; furthermore new signals, such as jet quenching, are emerging.

### 4.1 Fluctuations

The many particles produced in high energy collisions allow for event-by-event analyses, and the theory to exploit this information is developing. There are many sources of “interesting” fluctuations that have been discussed, in particular those occurring near a phase transition (see the talk by Gavin), or close to a critical point, or those due to the formation of a “disoriented chiral condensate”. Much studied recently are the fluctuations in conserved quantities , related to correlators of conserved currents (see the talks by Koch, Asakawa, Stephanov; see also the related talk by Pratt on “balance functions”). Relevant conserved quantities are the electric charge, the baryon number or strangeness. The motivation for focusing on such fluctuations is that some of the “primordial” fluctuations in conserved quantities may survive hadronization, and may therefore reveal interesting properties of matter produced in the early stages of nuclear collisions.

### 4.2 Elliptic flow

The azimuthal anisotropy of the distributions of produced particles is now commonly characterized by the Fourier coefficient

$$v_2=\mathrm{cos}2\phi ,$$

where $`\phi `$ is the azimuthal angle measured with respect to the collision plane. A positive $`v_2`$ indicates that the particles are emitted preferentially in the collision plane, as was predicted almost 10 years ago . The effect is now beautifully verified and is among the results much discussed at this conference. The fact that the flow decreases linearly with increasing centrality constitutes perhaps the first instance where hydrodynamics is seen to work quantitatively.

The main reason why the distributions are not isotropic, is that elastic collisions change the directions of the particles. If these collisions are sufficiently frequent, pressure builds up and a collective flow occurs preferentially along the direction of the largest pressure gradient. Thus the elliptic flow carries information about the pressure and hence on the equation of state. Detailed calculations show however that the dependence on the equation of state is rather weak (see e.g. the talk by Teaney). It has been argued that it is necessary for the pressure to build up at early times to have a maximal effect . What is meant by “early” time however is not immediately obvious. One should keep in mind that the flow takes time to develop, a time typically of the order of the size of the system. Furthermore, it is easy to see that as one decreases the time at which the hydrodynamical motion starts, the pressure increases but that does not lead necessarily to an increase of the flow; indeed the inertia in the hydrodynamical equation increases proportionally to the pressure: $`wd𝐯/dt=\mathbf{}P`$ with $`w=ϵ+P`$. In fact detailed calculations show that no visible variation of $`v_2`$ follows when the initial time is changed from 1 to 2 fm/c .

Hydrodynamics appears to explain nicely the variation of $`v_2`$ with $`p_T`$ at small $`p_T`$ ($`p_T<1`$ GeV), as well as the mass dependence of the effect . It is interesting to observe that this effect of the mass results from an interplay between radial flow and elliptic flow, so that the existence of elliptic flow may be taken as evidence for a strong radial flow, as emphasized by Huovinen. Of course at sufficiently large $`p_T`$ the effect should disappear, because the elastic cross-section drop and the high $`p_T`$ particles stop to behave hydrodynamically. However the apparent saturation seen in the data around $`p_T`$ 2 GeV remains to be understood.

A distinct mechanism for azimuthal anisotropy was proposed by X.-N. Wang . High $`p_T`$ particles lose energy when traversing a quark gluon plasma because of induced radiation. Since the energy loss increases with the length of traversed material, one expects this effect to soften the $`p_T`$ distribution in the direction perpendicular to the collision plane. This mechanism probes therefore directly the anisotropy of the spatial distribution. In this picture, $`v_2`$ is sensitive to jet quenching, and X.-N. Wang presented indeed calculations from which he argued that the amount of quenching needed to explain the observed magnitude of $`v_2`$ at large $`p_T`$ is comparable to that needed to explain the $`\pi _0`$ spectra (see below the discussion of jet quenching).

### 4.3 Strangeness suppression (?)

We have evidence that strangeness is to a large degree “equilibrated” in nuclear collisions. Because the time scales for equilibration are a priori much smaller in a quark-gluon plasma than in a hadron gas, this is sometimes taken as evidence for quark-gluon plasma formation. However, it was shown by Greiner, following arguments presented by Rapp to explain antibaryon yields, that multi-mesonic reactions could produce antihyperons on very short time scales. Another mechanism for strangeness equilibration (at lower energy), involving the in-medium modifications of hadron properties, was proposed by G.E Brown .

Redlich emphasized that some form of strangeness enhancement already appears in p-A collisions, and argued that the connection of strangeness enhancement to the formation of a quark-gluon plasma remains unclear. Statistical models which describe so well the freeze-out transition involve constraints on the volume over which matter can be equilibrated. This, added to the need to implement conservation laws exactly in small systems, leads to a change of perspective: what is usually regarded as strangeness enhancement in nucleus-nucleus collisions should perhaps better be viewed as strangeness suppression in proton-proton collisions. Redlich showed that this picture accounts well for the data on multistrange hadrons obtained by WA97 . However, it does not seem to be compatible with the abrupt onset of strangeness enhancement reported by the NA57 collaboration (see the talk by Carrer).

### 4.4 Dileptons and photons

Our present understanding of the various experiments on dilepton and photon production has been reviewed by Gale. The enhancement of low mass dileptons seems to be well accounted for by detailed calculations of the spectral function of the $`\rho `$ meson in a dense medium. The main question of whether the effect can be interpreted as a manifestation of chiral symmetry restoration remains opened, and will perhaps be answered by the expected new precision data.

The rate of direct photon production has been calculated in QCD at 2-loop order, and Gelis discussed the difficulties of such calculations. When these rates are combined with an hydrodynamical model for the evolution of the system, a good fit to the WA98 data is obtained for parameters compatible with quark-gluon plasma formation (see the talk by Srivastava). However, as discussed by Gale, this interpretation is not unique.

There has been also discussion of the intermediate mass dileptons, where recent calculations suggest that thermal contributions may compete with open charm . Clearly a direct measurement of open charm would help clarifying the issue.

### 4.5 $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ enhancement (?)

The study of $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production in nucleus-nucleus collisions is one of the highlights of the CERN/SPS program, and beautiful data on various aspects of this phenomenon have been collected over the years by the NA50 collaboration. Unfortunately, as we were reminded by J. Qiu, our theoretical understanding of $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production in hadronic collisions is still limited, even in kinematical conditions were QCD calculations could be carried out reliably. The difficult part concerns the evolution from the small $`c\overline{c}`$ pair, whose production can be calculated perturbatively, to the fully developed $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ meson. Qiu provided a picture for the transition from the pre-$`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ partonic state to the physical $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in which the multiple scattering of the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair with the nuclear medium may increase its invariant mass above the $`D\overline{D}`$ threshold, leading eventually to $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ suppression. This provides a mechanism for nuclear absorption which seems also capable to account for some of the anomalous suppression, but fails to reproduce the data at large transverse energies.

In fact, what happens at large transverse energy is likely to be related to the transverse energy fluctuations . As reported by Dinh, the data can be explained by a simple model in which the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$’s are suppressed whenever they would be produced in a region where the local energy density exceeds some critical value. One outcome of this model is that it is not correct to associate the two structures in the pattern of $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ suppression to the successive melting of the charmonium resonances, first the $`\chi `$ and then the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$. Note that transverse energy fluctuations would also lead to increased comover absorption; however the effect is much weaker in this case, as shown by Capella. To account for the data, one needs to assume that all the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$’s are destroyed at large $`E_T`$. The analysis presented by Dinh relies on the assumption that what suppresses the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a local phenomenon, related to the local energy density. Confirmation of this picture could come from measurements at various beam energies, allowing to vary the local energy density without changing the collision geometry. Unfortunately, such a study was not possible at CERN.

What will happen at RHIC? The various models, when extrapolated to high energies, lead to a severe suppression, making even the observation of $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$’s problematic. But these extrapolations miss a potentially important feature. There is indeed the interesting possibility that $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production could be enhanced at RHIC, rather than suppressed! The main idea leading to this expectation is that, at the high energy of RHIC, several $`c\overline{c}`$ pairs may be present in the same system. These pairs have a finite probability to recombine leading to a $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ yield growing as the square of the number of $`c\overline{c}`$ pairs produced, and various calculations suggest that this may overcome the expected severe suppression . Clearly it will be very interesting to see the first data on $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production at RHIC!

### 4.6 Jet quenching

The last specific signal that I wish to discuss is a new one in the list. It concerns indeed an effect which was not observed at the SPS and which is related to the energy loss of fast partons moving through a quark gluon plasma. The calculation of this effect has been done by various teams , using various formalisms, leading to successive improvements in the estimate, in particular of its energy dependence (see the talks by Levai, Wang and Wiedemann).

The energy loss of a fast moving quark or gluon in a quark-gluon plasma is mostly due to induced gluon radiation and it affects the momentum distributions of the produced hadrons: when the jets hadronize they have less energy than they would if they had been produced in free space. As a result, the hadron momentum distribution is softer. Much excitement during the meeting was generated in particular by the first reports on the $`\pi _0`$ spectra by PHENIX, because these spectra are distorted in a way which could be compatible with partonic energy loss. As Levai showed in his contribution, while perturbative QCD combined with a simple Glauber picture accounts perfectly for the yields in peripheral collisions, it fails by a factor 10 for the most central ones. Jet quenching was proposed as a possible explanation and indeed a fit to the data can be achieved with a moderate value of the energy loss, $`dE/dx0.25`$Gev/fm.

Is this a hint for the presence of a quark-gluon plasma? Data with higher transverse momentum particles will certainly bring further crucial information. One should note here that the extrapolation from peripheral to central collisions involve assumptions about the dependence of centrality on the number of binary collisions which are perhaps not fully under control. It should also be emphasized that this is an indirect observation since we do not see the jets and, as was the case for the phenomenon of $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ suppression, one will perhaps find hadronic mechanisms to explain the data. It remains that we have here a new and exciting phenomenon which, when fully understood, will provide a new tool for exploring the properties of the produced matter. It will complement nicely the use of other penetrating probes such as the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ meson.

## 5 CONCLUDING REMARKS

At the end of such a meeting, one cannot help feeling grateful to all the people who have contributed to make RHIC available for the study of dense and hot matter. What has been a dream for many years starts to be realized, perhaps beyond expectations, and the new perspectives that RHIC opens in the field are quite exciting.

Although many of the data presented during the week may just seem to confirm the overall picture that has emerged from previous studies at lower energies, a few observations may force us already to review certain aspects of our standard picture of high energy nuclear collisions. There is evidence that, as expected, quark and gluon degrees of freedom play a more visible role at RHIC than at the SPS, and indeed QCD is being more directly involved in the interpretation of the data. Besides, a few new non trivial effects have been reported, and new probes have become available. At the same time several exciting theoretical developments suggest that the gap is closing between fundamental studies of QCD and more phenomenological ones on the physics of heavy ions. In summary, both the data which have been presented and the progress in theory that have been reported will certainly be the source of inspiration for a lot of work in the months to come. This is the sign of a very successful meeting!

Acknowledgments. I wish to thank Jean-Yves Ollitrault for numerous discussions and for his critical reading of the manuscript.