text:
# Chandra Observation of the Radio Source / X-ray Gas Interaction in the Cooling Flow Cluster Abell 2052

## 1 Introduction

The very central regions of clusters of galaxies are among the most active physical environments in the Universe. In a significant fraction of clusters (“cooling flows”), large amounts of gas ($``$$`10^2`$ $`M_{}`$ yr-1) are cooling radiatively from $``$$`10^8`$ to $``$$`10^7`$ K, making these regions extremely bright X-ray sources (see Fabian  for a review). Cooler gas is seen through optical emission lines. There is always a large (cD) galaxy at the center of these cooling flow clusters, and the majority of these galaxies are hosts of radio sources. It may be that the cooling gas acts as fuel for the accreting central black hole, thus helping to produce the radio emission. Recent Chandra images have shown that the radio sources and X-ray gas are interacting; examples include Hydra A (McNamara et al. 2000; David et al. 2001) and Perseus (Fabian et al. 2000). In both of these cases, there is an anti-coincidence between the radio and X-ray emission, such that the radio lobes are found in regions where there are “holes” in the X-ray emission. Depressions in the X-ray emission at the locations of radio emission are also seen with Chandra for Abell 2597 (McNamara et al. 2001).

Abell 2052 is a moderately rich, cooling flow cluster at a redshift of $`z=0.0348`$. The central cD galaxy, UGC 09799, hosts the complex, powerful radio galaxy 3C 317. Previous X-ray observations with $`Einstein`$ (White, Jones, & Forman 1997), ROSAT (Peres et al. 1998), and ASCA (White 2000) have shown that Abell 2052 has an average temperature of approximately 3.3 keV, and contains a cooling flow with a cooling rate of $`\dot{M}120`$ $`M_{}`$ yr-1. ROSAT and VLA images revealed excess X-ray emission surrounding much of the radio source (Rizza et al. 2000).

In this $`Letter`$, we discuss a Chandra observation of Abell 2052 which shows a dramatic interaction between the radio source and X-ray emission. We will present a more detailed study of Abell 2052, based on this data, in a future paper. We assume $`H_{}=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`q_{}=0.5`$ (1″ = 0.95 kpc at $`z=0.0348`$).

## 2 Observation and Data Reduction

Abell 2052 was observed with Chandra on 2000 September 3 for a total of 36,754 seconds. The observation was taken so that the center of the cluster would fall near the aimpoint of the ACIS-S3 CCD. Here, we analyze data from the S3 chip only. The events were telemetered in Faint mode, the data were collected with frame times of 3.2 seconds, and the CCD temperature was -120 C. Only events with ASCA grades of 0,2,3,4, and 6 were included. Standard bad pixels and columns were removed. The data were searched for background flares and none were found. A small period of bad aspect was found and removed, leaving a total exposure of 36,622 seconds.

## 3 X-ray Structure

Figure 3 shows an adaptively smoothed image of the central 4$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2$`\times `$4$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$2 region of the cluster. The smoothed image has a minimum S/N of 3 per smoothing beam and was corrected for exposure and background, the latter using the blank sky background fields from Markevitch (2000). The inner part of the cluster shows the high surface brightness characteristic of a cooling flow. At small radii, a bright ring of emission is apparent. In addition, there is a bar of enhanced X-ray emission running approximately East-West through the center. The brightest parts of the ring and bar appear to form two shells to the north and south, and the bar may be just the intersection of the two shells. These bright shells surround two holes of lowered X-ray brightness. There is also a spur of emission to the NW of the center which protrudes into the northern hole. A point source associated with the center of the cD galaxy and the central AGN is located above the center of the bar. Several other point sources are also evident in Figure 3. All of these features are easily seen in the raw image prior to any smoothing, background subtraction, or exposure corrections.

Figure 3 gives the impression that the two holes in the X-ray image are relatively empty regions surrounded by dense shells of gas, and that the shells are limb-brightened. To test this, we determined the surface brightness in the centers of each of the holes. From the deprojection of the X-ray surface brightness discussed below, we estimated the X-ray brightness expected if the holes were indeed empty, were centered at the same distance as the AGN, and all of the X-rays were due to projection. This gave a predicted central surface brightness of 1.5 ct s-1 arcmin-2, whereas the observed values are 1.5 (1.3) ct s-1 arcmin-2 for the northern (southern) hole. As a further test, we determined the mass for the southern shell, assuming it is spherical and taking the density from deprojection. We compared this mass to the total mass predicted to be within the volume of the shell by extrapolating the deprojected density distribution outside of the disturbed region into these radii. For the southern shell, the observed mass is $`6\times 10^{10}`$ $`M_{}`$, whereas the predicted mass is $`(9\pm 5)\times 10^{10}`$ $`M_{}`$ depending on how the density distribution is extrapolated. Thus, these numbers are consistent with the idea that the holes are devoid of X-ray emitting gas, and that the missing gas was pushed out of the holes and compressed into the shells.

To understand and model the structure in the inner regions of the cluster, we extracted the X-ray surface brightness (Fig. 3a), and spectra in twenty circular annuli centered on the central point source, with radii ranging from 4$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$7 to 226″. Each spectrum typically contained several thousand source counts and was fitted with a single temperature MEKAL model with the absorption fixed to the Galactic value ($`N_H=2.85\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2; Dickey & Lockman 1990). Background was taken from the blank sky fields (Markevitch 2000). The fits reveal that the gas has cooled to a temperature of $`kT1.4`$ keV at the center compared to the value of approximately 3.4 keV found for the outer annuli (Fig. 3c).

The surface brightness values for the band 0.3–10 keV were deprojected to determine the X-ray emissivity and gas density (Fig. 3b), assuming the emissivity is constant in spherical shells. The density and temperature measurements where used to determine the radial variation in the pressure in the gas (Fig. 3d), assuming the temperature in the projected spectrum fit is the temperature at that spherical radius. Outside of the brightened shell of X-ray emission, the pressure exhibits a smooth, monotonic decrease with increasing radius, which is presumably the result of nearly hydrostatic equilibrium. There is a nearly constant pressure ($`P1.5\times 10^{10}`$ dyn cm-2) at radii corresponding to the bright ring of X-ray emission and just outside it. Interior to the ring, the pressure is lower and shows large oscillations. This is the result of the complex, non-circularly symmetric structure (the holes, bar, and spur) within this region, and the spherically averaged pressure is not meaningful.

In order to better determine the pressure in the brightest regions of the ring of emission, we measured the pressure in a pie-annular region of the bright ring located to the West of the center of the cluster. The surface brightness was measured for the region and corrected for background taken just outside of the ring. We assumed that the emission in this region was part of a spherical shell of emission. A spectrum was extracted and the pressure was determined in a manner similar to that described above. In this case, the pressure was found to be $`P=1.43\times 10^{10}`$ dyn cm-2, which is consistent with the values derived assuming spherical symmetry (Fig. 3d).

## 4 Interaction with the Radio Source

An overlay of the 6 cm radio contours (Burns 1990) onto the adaptively smoothed X-ray image (0.3 – 10.0 keV) of the inner region of Abell 2052 is displayed in Figure 4. There is a core source located at the center of the cD galaxy which is seen in both radio and X-ray. Most of the extended radio emission is projected within the X-ray holes to the north and south. Almost all of the radio emission is contained within the bright X-ray shells. However, there appears to be faint radio emission extending slightly beyond the shells to the south and north where the shell is faint or absent.

Figure 4 suggests that the expansion of the radio source has displaced the thermal gas which was formerly in the X-ray holes, and compressed this gas into the bright shells. As noted above, the X-ray holes do indeed appear to be devoid of X-ray emitting gas, and the mass of the shells is consistent with the mass which might have been located in the holes prior to the displacement. How violent and energetic is the expansion of the radio source? Heinz, Reynolds, & Begelman (1998) and Rizza et al. (2000) suggested the radio source would create cavities in the intracluster gas by highly supersonic expansion into the gas. Such a violent expansion would drive strong shocks into the intracluster gas. As a result of such strong shocks, the shell of X-ray gas surrounding the radio-filled cavity would have a higher temperature, pressure, and specific entropy than the gas just outside the shell. In fact, this does not appear to be true of the shells in Abell 2052, although we cannot rule out supersonic expansion by the radio source in the past when it was much younger. Our fits to the X-ray spectra indicate that the average temperature of gas in the shells is 1.1 keV, whereas the temperature of gas just outside the shells is 2.6 keV. Since the gas in the shells is denser than the gas outside the shells, the specific entropy is actually much lower than that outside the shells. Figure 3d shows that the pressure in the shells is roughly equal to that just outside the shells, and there is no evidence for a sharp increase in the pressure which would indicate the presence of a shock. The largest increase, which is still roughly consistent with the gradient in pressure associated with hydrostatic equilibrium, occurs between radii of approximately 40–45″. If we take the pressure increase at this point as an upper limit on any shock, the Mach number $``$ of any shock associated with the radio source expansion must be $`1.2`$. Thus, the expansion of the radio source is subsonic or mildly transonic. Similar results have been found for the radio source cavities in Hydra A (McNamara et al. 2000; David et al. 2001) and Perseus (Fabian et al. 2000).

The relatively slow expansion of the radio source implies that the material in the radio cavity and the surrounding shell should be nearly in pressure equilibrium. Assuming equipartition of energy, Zhao et al. (1993) calculated the minimum radio pressures for several components of 3C 317 using 6 cm observations. For their radio “halo” component (the region centered on the core source with dimensions $`75\times 45`$ kpc which corresponds to most of the volume of the radio-filled holes), they determined a minimum pressure of $`P_{\mathrm{min}}=2\times 10^{11}`$ dyn cm-2, approximately an order of magnitude lower than the Chandra value for the X-ray shells. Even for the radio “bipolar” component (a $`30\times 15`$ kpc region centered on the core), they calculated a value of $`P_{\mathrm{min}}=5\times 10^{11}`$ dyn cm-2, still lower than the value derived from our X-ray observations.

Thus, it seems likely that the radio cavities contain some component with a larger pressure than given by these equipartition arguments. This may indicate that one of the basic assumptions of the standard equipartition arguments (random pitch angles, magnetic field not parallel to the line of sight, etc.) is wrong. The high degree of polarization of the radio source once corrected for Faraday rotation (Ge & Owen 1994) suggests that the latter assumption might be nearly correct. There may be a large contribution to the pressure from very low energy relativistic electrons. However, the radio spectrum of the large scale radio component is quite steep ($`\alpha 1.9`$), so the equipartition estimates already include a large population of such particles. The steep spectrum also makes extrapolation to low energies more uncertain. However, since confined radio sources typically have curved spectra, the assumption of a power law spectrum should overestimate rather than underestimate the pressure from the radio source. The energy and pressure contribution of ions may be greater than assumed by Zhao et al. (1993); minimum energy arguments would be roughly consistent with the observed X-ray pressure if the ratio of ions to electrons was $``$70, rather than unity as assumed by Zhao et al. The magnetic field may be larger than the equipartition value. Finally, the nonthermal plasma may only contribute a small fraction of the total energy in the radio-filled cavities (either because the local nonthermal pressure is low or because the radio plasma is filamentary and doesn’t fill the volume), with the majority of the pressure coming from very hot, diffuse thermal gas. We extracted the X-ray spectrum of the southern hole, and searched for a very hot component in the spectrum. None was seen, but the observations are not very restrictive.

Cluster cooling flows with central radio sources are useful bolometers for determining the total energy output of radio sources, since the energy is apparently confined within the radio holes by the high pressure intracluster gas rather than going into adiabatic expansion losses. Assuming that the pressure within the radio cavities is $`P1.5\times 10^{10}`$ dyn cm-2 and approximating the holes as spheres $``$20 kpc in diameter, one finds that the total energy output of the radio source (including the work done on compressing the intracluster gas) is about $`E_{\mathrm{radio}}1\times 10^{59}`$ ergs. There is a factor of $``$2 uncertainty associated with our ignorance of the nature of the dominant energy component in the radio source (higher energy for relativistic particles, lower for magnetic fields). The assumption of near pressure equilibrium implies that this energy is comparable to the energy content of the thermal X-ray gas which filled the holes, but very small compared to the total energy content of the ICM. This suggests that individual radio sources can have dramatic effects locally, but individual radio outbursts are unlikely to have large global effects (i.e., on scales much greater than 30 kpc). On the other hand, central radio sources are found in most cooling flows, and the radio source lifetimes are much shorter than cluster lifetimes; thus, it is very likely that radio activity is episodic. The accumulated effect from repeated episodes of radio activity might affect ICM on larger scales.

The density in the radio cavities is apparently much lower than that in the ambient gas, and the holes should therefore be buoyant. They would be expected to rise out of the center of the cluster at a fraction of the sound speed in the ambient gas, or $`t_{\mathrm{buoy}}2\times 10^7`$ yr. The buoyant rise time is somewhat longer than the synchrotron lifetime of the large scale radio source ($`t_{\mathrm{syn}}9\times 10^6`$ yr), which is consistent with the steep radio spectrum (Zhao et al. 1993). The extended diffuse radio emission at the north and particularly the south ends of the ring and faintness of the shells in these regions may indicate that buoyancy and/or related Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities are acting there.

## 5 Relation to Cooler Materials

We deprojected the surface brightness of the bright western portion of the X-ray ring, and found a density of $`n_e=0.04`$ cm-3. Based on the X-ray spectrum of the bright ring, the temperature in these regions is 1.1 keV. Using the best-fitting model, we find that the isobaric cooling time for the gas in the ring is $`t_{\mathrm{cool}}2.6\times 10^8`$ yr. This is much shorter than the probable age of the cluster, but longer than the upper limit on the age of the radio source $`t_{\mathrm{buoy}}`$. Thus, it is likely that the gas in the ring is cooling, but that most of the compression is due to the expansion of the radio source rather than cooling. Note that this compression is likely to have enhanced the cooling; either adiabatic compression or compression by weak shocks ($`<6.5`$ for bremsstrahlung cooling) actually speed up cooling, despite the associated heating of the gas (Lufkin, Sarazin, & White 2000; Sarazin 2001).

There is also evidence for much cooler material in the same regions. Contours of H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[N II\] emission from Baum et al. (1988) are plotted over the smoothed X-ray emission in Figure 5. The core source is seen at these wavelengths, as well as emission running roughly East-West through the core and corresponding with the X-ray bar. There is also a component NW of the center, spatially coincident with the “spur” of X-ray emission. Given the short cooling time in these regions, it seems possible that this gas at $`T10^4`$ K has cooled down from X-ray temperatures, although this probably occurred before the gas was compressed by the radio source. The displacement of the gas from the higher-pressure central regions outward into lower ambient pressure would lead to adiabatic expansion, which could also contribute to cooling. In general, optical line emission is found associated with nearly all of the very brightest regions of X-ray surface brightness. This suggests that the H$`\alpha `$ \+ \[N II\] image may be surface-brightness limited, and that a deeper emission line image would detect emission from other parts of the X-ray-bright ring.

Support for this work was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, primarily through Chandra Award Number GO0-1158X, but also through GO0-1019X and GO0-1173X, all issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073.


format: text

text:
# Backwards galaxy formation with only a few parameters

## 1. Introduction

One of the main difficulties in the study of galaxy formation is to determine the detailed role played by star formation. The complexity of this process both locally — in the environment of the giant molecular clouds — and globally — via the importance of star formation in the structure and evolution of galaxies — are major hurdles towards a final theory of galaxy formation. The remarkably tight correlation between luminosity and maximum rotation velocity found by Tully & Fisher (1977) in disk galaxies has been the Holy Grail of galaxy formation modellers. Its origin has been claimed to be in cosmology, and attributed to the structure of dark matter halos (Mo, Mao & White 1998; Steinmetz & Navarro 1999). However, star formation may play an important role (Heavens & Jimenez 1999; Silk 2001) and the assumption of light tracing mass may not be correct (McGaugh et al. 2000). In such a situation, a phenomenological approach seems appropriate. The process of star formation may be reduced to a simple set of parameters, and high-quality observations are used as constraints. We concentrate on the scaling relations between luminosity and some “dynamical” parameter such as the maximum rotation velocity in disk galaxies (Tully & Fisher 1977) or the central velocity dispersion in elliptical galaxies (Faber & Jackson 1976). In this paper we compare the difference between the star formation histories in early- and late-type galaxies.

## 2. Star Formation Phenomenology

Our model of galaxy formation follows a “backwards” approach. We describe the process of star formation with a small number of parameters. For a given choice of parameters we integrate the chemical enrichment equations to find a final distribution of stellar ages and metallicities which are convolved using simple stellar populations from the latest models of Bruzual & Charlot (in preparation). The predicted spectrophotometric properties are compared to the observations, so that we come up with a range of parameters that can explain the observations. This phenomenological analysis is useful for the study of the physics of the underlying star formation. Furthermore, it allows us to evolve the system backwards in time, so that its predictions over a large redshift range can be used to further constrain the volume of parameter space compatible with the observations. The parameters used in this model can be separated into two categories: external and internal (see Ferreras & Silk 2000; 2001 for a complete description):

* External. These parameters control the infall of primordial gas that fuels star formation. We define a short “start-up” timescale — $`\tau _10.5`$ Gyr — which allows for the buildup of metals, preventing the over-production of old, low-metallicity stars. The main external parameters are the infall timescale — $`\tau _2`$ — which can be related to galaxy type, with early-types having values $`\tau _212`$ Gyr and late-types having a more extended infall $`\tau _2810`$ Gyr, and the epoch at infall maximum. We characterize this epoch by its redshift $`z_F`$. Even though this epoch could be determined in a hierarchical clustering scenario, either using dynamical simulations or the analytic Press-Schechter formalism, we decided to leave this parameter unconstrained, to find out which formation epochs would be ruled out purely based on spectrophotometric considerations.
* The internal parameters are responsible for the star formation rate and chemical enrichment. We define a star formation efficiency $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ as the constant of proportionality between the star formation rate ($`\psi `$) and a power of the gas mass density ($`\rho _g`$) as given by a Schmidt law: $`\psi (t)=C_{\mathrm{eff}}\rho _g^n(t)`$. This efficiency is roughly the inverse of the time to process gas into stars (in Gyr in our units). Semi-analytic models usually assume this efficiency to be given by the inverse of the dynamical timescale in the galaxy. The other internal parameter is the amount of gas ejected in outflows ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$). It is still a matter of debate whether supernova-driven outflows are important in disk galaxies.

The observational constraints are shown in Figure 1. The multiband Tully-Fisher (Tully & Fisher 1977) and Faber-Jackson (Faber & Jackson 1976) relations are used to explore the star formation history of late-type and early-type galaxies, respectively. Figure 1 shows the data for some of the observed bandpasses. The disk galaxy sample corresponds to a set of disks in the Ursa Major cluster observed by Verheijen (1997) in $`B`$, $`R`$, $`I`$ and $`K^{}`$ bands. The early-type galaxies used in this work are the sample of Coma ellipticals observed by Bower, Lucey & Ellis (1992) in $`U`$, $`V`$, $`J`$ and $`K`$ bands.

The slope difference between filters can be represented in terms of a color-magnitude relation both in ellipticals and disk galaxies (see insets in Figure 1). However, the scatter found in disk galaxies is much larger, notwithstanding the added complication of the contribution from dust in disks. The universality of the color-magnitude relation in disks is a reasonable assumption if we compare the fit for a completely different sample of disk galaxies observed by de Grijs & Peletier (1999) and shown in the inset of Figure 1 (left) as a dashed line. These authors also found similar slopes in several sets of disk galaxies from the literature. The small scatter found in ellipticals even in high redshift clusters (Van Dokkum et al. 2000) is an indication of the dominant role of metallicity to explain the color range in these galaxies. The bulk of the stellar populations in early-type systems must be rather old in order to explain this small scatter if a fine-tuned conspiracy in the star formation history is to be avoided. On the other hand, the large scatter found in the color-magnitude relation of disk galaxies is a tell-tale sign of a more extended period of star formation.

The modus operandi of the model presented here is to select one star formation history by a choice of parameters $`(\tau _1,\tau _2,z_F,C_{\mathrm{eff}},B_{\mathrm{out}})`$. This history is integrated using the standard enrichment equations (Ferreras & Silk 2001) and the final chemical enrichment tracks are used to convolve simple stellar populations over a wide range of ages and metallicities from the latest population synthesis models of Bruzual & Charlot (in preparation), out of which we come up with a spectral energy distribution which gives us a set of broadband fluxes which are compared with the data described above. This procedure is repeated for different choices of parameters. Even though this model is a coarse oversimplification of the star formation process in galaxies, its strength is the robustness allowed by exploring a wide volume of parameter space. In our model we do not assume a priori any functional dependence of the star formation efficiency, the outflow fractions or even the epoch of maximum infall. The outcome of this model should therefore be useful for implementing the “recipes” for galaxy formation included in semi-analytic models.

## 3. The efficiency of Star Formation

Figure 2 shows the range of star formation efficiencies predicted by the model. A $`\chi ^2`$ test was applied to compare the predicted colors for a given choice of parameters and the linear fits to the observed data shown in Figure 1. A typical infall timescale in early and late-type systems was chosen for these figures, but a different value of $`\tau _2`$ does not change the result significantly (Ferreras & Silk 2001). A remarkable difference is found between the efficiency in disks and elliptical galaxies. The former have efficiencies that range over nearly two orders of magnitude, being strongly correlated with the maximum rotation velocity of the disk (or roughly the luminosity or even the disk mass). On the other hand, elliptical galaxies have very high star formation efficiencies which are not correlated with galaxy mass.

This result should not come as a surprise if we realize the colors of ellipticals are very red and the scatter of the color-magnitude relation is remarkably small. There is an interesting point that can be predicted from the figure: The high star formation efficiency required to explain the data is telling us that pure passive evolution should be expected for early-type cluster galaxies with redshift. This has been observed already in several samples of clusters at moderate and high redshift (e.g. Stanford et al. 1998) but the constraint for the efficiencies shown in Figure 2 only involves zero redshift data from the Coma cluster.

The large range of efficiencies found in late-type galaxies implies low mass disks should have a very high mass fraction of gas. The slope of the correlation between maximum rotation velocity and star formation efficiency ($`C_{\mathrm{eff}}v_{\mathrm{rot}}^\eta `$) is $`\eta 3.54`$ depending on infall parameters and whether a linear or a quadratic Schmidt law is used. In order to check how inefficient star formation can be (and so how high the gas mass fraction can be), we show in Figure 3 the colors predicted by our model, enforcing a power-law dependence between $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ for a few choices of power law index. The result shows that the correlation must be steep in order to reproduce the colors. Correlations with $`\eta 12`$ are incapable of reaching blue colors for any choice of infall parameters.

The steepness of the correlation was further analyzed in Ferreras & Silk (2001) with respect to the predictions of the star formation rates at zero redshift and compared with a local sample. The model gives consistent answers. This leads us to conclude that a large amount of molecular hydrogen is needed in order to explain the high gas mass fractions predicted for low mass disks. This is a highly speculative prediction of our relatively simple model. However, the “canonical” method of estimating molecular hydrogen using carbon monoxide as tracer (e.g. Young & Knezek 1989) may underestimate the contribution from $`H_2`$ in low metallicity regions. Furthermore, direct detections of large amounts of $`H_2`$ through its rotational transitions (Valentijn & Van der Werf 1999) as well as recent theoretical estimates of the lifetimes of the giant molecular clouds that nurture star formation (Pringle et al. 2001) point to the possible existence of large masses of hitherto undetected, cold $`H_2`$. More work in this field is badly needed and the prospect of a partial solution to the baryonic dark matter problem via an augmentation in the cold gas mass seems very encouraging. We note paranthetically that the warm/hot intergalactic medium predicted from large-scale hydrodynamical simulations accounts for at most half of the baryonic dark matter.

## 4. Gas Outflows

The ejection of gas and metals in outflows changes the metallicity distribution of the stellar populations. If the outflow fraction is very large, it could even deplete the gas reservoir, “stifling” star formation. However, the average metallicities that would be found in such a system would be very low so that the predicted photometry would not be compatible with the observations. Nevertheless, our model explores a wide range of outflows $`0B_{\mathrm{out}}<1`$, using only the observed colors to reject unphysical values. Figure 4 shows the predicted outflow mass fractions both for disks (left) and elliptical galaxies (right). One can see from the figure that gas outflows may not be important in disk galaxies. The observations are compatible with no gas outflow throughout the mass range. This result is in good agreement with hydrodynamical simulations in disk galaxies (MacLow & Ferrara 1999). The 2-dimensional geometry of disks prevent a large fraction of gas from being ejected out of the galaxy. Most of the gas “stirred” by supernovae-driven winds stays in the interstellar medium. Only in small galaxies (well below the range of maximum rotation velocities analyzed in this paper) feedback from supernovae seems to play an important role.

On the other hand, elliptical galaxies present an important range of outflows, being very significant at the faint end of the luminosity function. This is necessary in order to obtain the observed color range in cluster ellipticals. Figure 2 shows that early-type systems have a high star formation efficiency. This translates into rather old stellar populations. In this case, the only way to explain a color-magnitude relation is to assume a mass-metallicity relation. This is confirmed by the lack of evolution in the slope of the color-magnitude relation in clusters up to redshifts $`z1`$ (Stanford et al. 1998). Hence, a mass-metallicity relation can only be obtained by a correlation between mass and gas$`+`$metal outflows as seen in the figure. We want to emphasize that the conclusions reached here with respect to star formation efficiencies and gas outflows are purely based on spectrophotometry and not on the dynamics of these galaxies. The fact that these results are compatible with the current ideas about the dynamical history of early- and late-type systems should count as independent further evidence towards the galaxy formation scenario.

## 5. The Dynamics/Star Formation connection

Star formation is assumed to take place mostly (or even completely) in giant molecular clouds. However, it is not clear which mechanisms are responsible for the onset of this process. Turbulence and magnetic fields play an important role in the process of star formation. Nevertheless, a simple scenario for star formation involving cloud-cloud collisions seems to give reasonable results (e.g. Tan 2000; Silk 2001). This implies the quiescent dynamics of disk galaxies should result in very low star formation efficiencies. Furthermore, massive disk galaxies should have more cloud-cloud encounters compared to low mass disks, thereby raising the average star formation efficiency. On the other hand, the dynamically violent birth of elliptical galaxies after the merging of progenitors with similar masses (Toomre & Toomre 1972) implies a higher rate of cloud-cloud collisions, yielding high star formation efficiencies that are uncorrelated with the progenitor masses. Hence, the dependence of the star formation efficiency with respect to some “mass-related parameter” such as the rotational velocity in disk galaxies or central velocity dispersion in elliptical systems can be explained — at least qualitatively — with respect to the dynamical history of the galaxies.

The dependence on galaxy mass of the outflow fraction ($`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$) presented in Figure 4 can also be explained in terms of the dynamical formation process of both galaxy types: disks are presumed to form by an “ordered” infall of gas on to the center of dark mater halos (e.g. White & Rees 1978). This implies outflows can only be triggered by supernova-driven winds, a process that seems not to be too effective in the 2D geometry of disk galaxies, even with masses at the faint end of the observed Tully-Fisher relation ($`v_{\mathrm{rot}}100`$ km s-1). Notice that this analysis has not been extended to dwarf galaxies. In fact, dwarf galaxies drop off the luminosity Tully-Fisher relation and are claimed by McGaugh et al. (2000) to “jump back” to a linear correlation if baryonic mass — rather than luminosity — is plotted against rotation velocity. Our analysis is purely based on luminosity and so we would have to add the non-linearity of the low-mass end of the Tully-Fisher relation to draw any conclusions regarding dwarf galaxies. On the other side of the morphological spectrum, early-type systems are thought to have been formed in merging processes whose progenitors had similar masses. This mechanism involves a violent encounter with low relative velocities, and it is very efficient in driving gas, metals and even stars out of the galaxy. Hence, the results shown in Figure 4 are qualitatively consistent with the dynamical history of early- and late-type galaxies.

A quantitative estimate is harder to get. Wyse & Silk (1989) proposed a star formation efficiency that scales with the local angular frequency: $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}(r)ϵ\mathrm{\Omega }(r)`$. Tan (2000) uses a simple model of cloud-cloud collisions to find a similar scaling behavior for the efficiency. In our notation, their claim implies a global (i.e. spatially integrated) efficiency of $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}v_{\mathrm{rot}}^2`$. The correlation shown in Figure 2 is significantly steeper than this, and only a steep dependence of disk sizes would reconcile both estimates (however, see §6).

Concerning gas outflows, high resolution Hydro$`+`$N-body numerical simulations of mergers for a wide range of encounters should be performed in order to estimate the scaling of the outflow fraction $`B_{\mathrm{out}}`$ as a function of galaxy mass.

## 6. Caveat: Formation Epoch

One of the caveats of the model can be seen in Figure 2. The star formation efficiency is shown as a dot-dashed line for an extremely low formation redshift ($`z_F=0.3`$). In that case, a similar correlation is predicted for $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ vs $`\mathrm{log}v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ but the values are one order of magnitude higher !. This implies that a disk formation scenario in which small disks form much later than large disks could result in a star formation efficiency that is completely uncorrelated with the galaxy mass. This result has been suggested by several authors (Bell & Bower 2000; Boissier et al. 2001). According to a standard hierarchical formation scenario, small disks should be dynamically older than their massive counterparts. However, one can think of several processes by which either infall or star formation can be delayed in small disks. Even though we do not believe values of $`z_F0.1`$ are realistic for our low mass disks ($`v_{\mathrm{rot}}100`$ km s-1), we must emphasize that an inverted hierarchy in the formation of stars in disks may make the predicted correlation between disk mass and efficiency shallower.

## 7. Redshift evolution

The model presented here allows us not only to connect phenomenology with physical processes driving star formation. It also enables us to evolve the “best fit” for a given mass backwards in time, so that we can trace the redshift evolution of color and luminosity (of course aside from the problem of dust formation and depletion). One of the main consequences of the star formation efficiencies found in Figure 2 is that:

* (Unsurprising) The high and uncorrelated star formation efficiency found in early-type galaxies implies their stellar populations are old and so the luminosity evolution corresponds to a passively evolving simple stellar population. The color-magnitude relation should not change its slope with redshift. Only the zero-point offset should evolve in step with the luminosity evolution of a simple stellar population (e.g. Bower et al. 1992; Stanford et al. 1998).
* (Somehow surprising) The strongly correlated efficiency found in disk galaxies implies a huge difference between the stellar age histogram of low mass disks and their massive counterparts. This translates into a slope change of the Tully-Fisher relation with redshift.

Figure 5 shows the redshift evolution of the Tully-Fisher relation observed in rest frame $`B`$ band. The bottom panel plots the evolution of the slope $`\gamma _B`$ (so that $`L_Bv_{\mathrm{rot}}^{\gamma _B}`$). Needless to say, a change in the slope will result in a different zero-point offset between $`z=0`$ and $`z>0`$ depending on the absolute luminosity of the galaxies observed. The top and middle panels show this offset for low ($`\mathrm{log}v_{\mathrm{rot}}=2`$) and high mass ($`2.6`$) disks, respectively. The points are observed offsets of the Tully-Fisher relation at moderate redshifts: Bershady et al. (1999, hollow square); Vogt (2000, filled square) and Simard & Pritchet (1998, triangle). The horizontal error bar encompasses the redshift range of the observations. The horizontal line — at $`\gamma _B=3`$ — in the bottom panel gives the prediction of a simple dynamical model that assumes the same mass-to-light ratio for all disks (Mo et al. 1998).

## 8. Final Remarks

A phenomenological model using only observed data as a constraint enables us to determine the role of the star formation efficiency and gas outflows. The passband-dependent slope of both the Tully-Fisher and the Faber-Jackson relations for disk and elliptical galaxies, respectively yields a remarkably different picture of star formation. Taking the model at face value, one could venture into the risky business of extrapolation and consider that the model described so far has only taken into account star formation. Were we to determine the scaling between $`C_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ from a so far undeveloped theory of star formation, we could have inferred that self-regulated star formation could explain the Tully-Fisher relation (e.g. Silk 2001).

### Acknowledgments.

IF is supported by a grant from the European Community under contract HPMF-CT-1999-00109. We would very much like to thank the organizers for such an enjoyable workshop.

## References

Bell, E. F. & Bower, R. G. 2000, MNRAS, 319, 235

Bershady, M. A., et al. 1999, ASP Conf. Ser. 182, 499

Boissier, S., Bosselli, A,. Prantzos, N., Gavazzi, G. 2001, MNRAS, 321, 733

Bower, R. G., Lucey, J. R. & Ellis, R. S. 1992, MNRAS, 254, 589

de Grijs, R. & Peletier, R. F. 1999, MNRAS, 310, 157

Faber, S. M. & Jackson, R. 1976, ApJ, 204, 668

Ferreras, I. & Silk, J. 2000, MNRAS, 2000, 316, 786

Ferreras, I. & Silk, J. 2001, ApJ, in press astro-ph/0104240.

Heavens, A. F. & Jimenez, R. 1999, MNRAS, 305, 770

MacLow, M.-M. & Ferrara, A. 1999, ApJ, 513, 142

McGaugh, S. S., Schombert, J. M., Bothun, G. D. & de Blok, W. J. G. 2000, ApJ, 533, L99

Mo, H. J., Mao, S. & White, S. D. M. 1998, MNRAS, 295, 319

Pringle, J. E, Allen, R. J. & Lubow, S. H. 2001, astro-ph/0106420

Silk, J. 2001, MNRAS, 324, 313

Stanford, S. A., Eisenhardt, P. R. & Dickinson, M. 1998, ApJ, 492, 461

Steinmetz, M. & Navarro, J. F. 1999, ApJ, 513, 555

Tan, J. C. 2000, ApJ, 536, 173

Toomre, A. & Toomre, J. 1972, ApJ, 178, 623

Tully, R. B. & Fisher, J. R. 1977, A&A, 54, 661

Valentijn, E. A. & Van der Werf, P. 1999, ApJ, 522, L29

Van Dokkum, P. G., Franx, M., Fabricant, D., Illingworth, G. & Kelson, D. D. 2000, ApJ, 541, 95

Verheijen, M. A.W. 1997, PhD thesis, Univ. Groeningen

White S. D. M. & Rees, M. J. 1978, MNRAS, 183, 341

Wyse, R. F. G. & Silk, J. 1989, ApJ, 339, 700

Young, J. S. & Knezek, P. M. 1989, ApJ, 347, L55


text:
# Fabry-Perot Kinematics of HH 202, 203-204 in the Orion Nebula: Are they part of a Big Bipolar Outflow?

## 1 Introduction

The Orion Nebula is one of the most interesting HII regions that still reveals intriguing phenomena. Indeed, Orion is one of the nearest star forming regions (located at a distance of 450 pc) and, consequently the phenomena can be studied with the highest angular resolution. In the Orion region coexist several phases of the interstellar medium, such as molecular, neutral, and ionized gas. With the development of near IR imaging and spectroscopy in recent years, new phenomena have been revealed that constitute important clues to the understanding of the process of star formation and the evolution of shocks in a molecular environment. In this work we show the results of a Fabry-Perot kinematical study of the Orion Nebula that was mainly motivated by:

– The excellent HST image coverage of the Orion Nebula that reveals a plethora of new objects like Herbig-Haro (HH) objects and proplyds (O’Dell et al. 1997a).

– The discovery of giant ($``$1 pc) HH flows that challenge our ideas of the energetics and timescales involved in the star formation process (Reipurth et al. 1997). These giant HH flows are constituted of two or more HH objects that, in the past, were thought to be isolated.

– The interest in studying jets which are photo-ionized by external sources such as the jet discovered in the Trifid Nebula (Cernicharo et al. 1997). This kind of jet have complex emission and kinematical properties which are now being studied theoretically.

With the aim of obtaining a global view on the kinematics of HH objects and jets in Orion that allows us to search for large scale features that link the HH objects already known, we undertook the study of the inner 5’ of the Orion Nebula by means of Fabry-Perot observations at H$`\alpha `$ and \[NII\]($`\lambda `$ 6583 Å). Here we present some of the results derived from this study.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

The Fabry-Perot (FP) observations were carried out at the f/7.5 Cassegrain focus of the 2.1 m telescope of the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional at San Pedro Mártir, B.C. (México) using the UNAM Scanning Fabry-Perot Interferometer PUMA (Rosado et al. 1995). We used a 1024$`\times `$1024 thinned Tektronix CCD detector, with an image scale of 0.59 arcsec pixel-1. The interference filters used in the observations are centered at H$`\alpha `$ and \[NII\]($`\lambda `$ 6583 Å) with bandpasses of 20 and 10 Å, respectively. The main characteristics of this interferometer are: interference order of 330, free spectral range of 19.89 Å (equivalent to a velocity range of 908 km s-1) and sampling spectral resolution of 0.41 Å (equivalent to 18.9 km s-1), at H$`\alpha `$, achieved by scanning the interferometer gap at 48 positions. Thus, the resulting data cubes have dimensions of 512$`\times `$512$`\times `$48.

With this setup, we have obtained two nebular data cubes at H$`\alpha `$ and \[NII\] with total exposure times of 48 and 144 min., respectively. The data reduction and analysis were performed using the data reduction package CIGALE (Le Coarer et al. 1993).

## 3 Kinematical Results

Figure 1 shows the velocity map at $`V_{helio}`$ = –127 km s-1 (i.e., 150 km s-1 blueshifted relative to the velocity of the intense nebular background) at H$`\alpha `$ in which we have identified the different objects present in the inner 5’ region of the Orion Nebula: the HH objects HH 202, HH 269 (barely seen at H$`\alpha `$), HH 203 and HH 204, the E-W jet mentioned by O’Dell et al. (1997b). In what follows, we will describe some of our results on the kinematics of the HH objects HH 202, HH 203 and HH 204 and discuss the possible existence of a large HH bipolar outflow.

### 3.1  HH 202

HH 202 was discovered by Cantó et al. (1980) as an emission line object showing two knots embedded in an arc-shaped nebulosity. Herbig & Jones (1981) obtained proper motions for the knots, finding that the proper motion vectors were parallel and pointing towards the concave side of the curved shell and that there was a considerable dispersion in the tangential speeds of several of the knots: from 100 to 294 km s-1. More recently, O’Dell et al. (1997a) have obtained wonderful HST images of the HH 202 region in the \[SII\], H$`\alpha `$ and \[OIII\] lines showing that the arc-shaped nebulosity is visible in \[SII\], H$`\alpha `$ and \[OIII\] lines. O’Dell et al. (1997b) obtained \[SII\] and \[OIII\] FP spectroscopy of the Trapezium region. They found a blueshifted portion of HH 202 that extends towards the NW.

From our FP work we see that HH 202 has a different morphology in H$`\alpha `$ and in \[NII\]. Figure 2 shows a close-up of the \[NII\] velocity map at $`V_{helio}`$ = – 90 km s-1 showing the field near to HH 202 which is located at the NW corner. Comparing with the H$`\alpha `$ velocity map (shown in Figure 1) we see that the HH 202 object itself has different morphologies at H$`\alpha `$ and \[NII\]. Indeed, while in \[NII\] we see the arc-shaped nebulosity ending to the SW in the southern knot, in H$`\alpha `$ we detect, the arc-shaped nebulosity, but the southern knot is not easily disentangled from the emission of a bright nebulosity and several knots. Instead, we see a bright head of irregular shape (somewhat like an arrow head) pointing in the E-W direction, with three faint filamentary extensions also oriented in the E-W direction. The longest filamentary extensions seem to form a rotated spur, or $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

Another interesting feature revealed in Figures 1 and 2 is that HH 202 seems to be part of a larger scale lobe (of 82” $`\times `$ 25” and aperture angle of $``$ 40 °), oriented in the NW-SE direction, ending at the position of HH 202 on one side, and in a point close to the E-W jet in its SE end. The \[NII\] emission shows that, inside this lobe, two elongated cavities (one of 35” $`\times `$ 9” and other of 55” $`\times `$ 12”, both with aperture angles of $``$ 20 °), somewhat similar to bow shocks are detected. In H$`\alpha `$, the walls of the lobe are clearly seen but, the elongated cavities interior to the lobe (hereafter called ‘fingers’), are confused with the bright background nebula.

Our FP data show that high internal motions of the known regions of HH 202 reach blueshifted velocities of up to 100 km s-1. The spur also shows this range of velocities indicating that it should belong to HH 202. On the other hand, the lobe and the ‘fingers’ inside it also have high blueshifted velocities reaching up to 100 km s-1. This shows that these new features are related to a high velocity flow, probably an HH flow, not catalogued as such because of the difficulties of disentangling it from the bright nebular background. It is unclear whether this flow is associated with HH 202 or whether it constitutes another HH system.

### 3.2  HH 203 and HH 204

These objects were discovered by Munch & Wilson (1962). Taylor & Munch (1978) give radial velocities and velocity dispersions for several different features within these objects. However, it was Cantó et al. (1980) who identified these objects as HH objects. Hu (1996) has measured tangential velocities of 0 and 70 km s-1 for HH 203 and HH 204, respectively, directed towards the apex of the bow.

There are at least two important questions related to these objects: are HH 203 and HH 204 parts of the same object? and, why does HH 204 show an asymmetry in its brightness distribution?.

Our kinematical results show that:

– HH 204 has a conical shape (resembling a bow shock) better appreciated at extreme heliocentric velocities: at $`V_{helio}`$ = –50 km s-1 and $`V_{helio}`$ = +45 km s-1.

– The apex of HH 204 has a complex velocity profile showing a splitting of the main velocity components (at $`V_{helio}`$ = –24 and +20 km s-1) and a blueshifted wing at $`V_{helio}`$ = –120 km s-1. Thus, the apex of HH 204 has the maximum blueshifted velocity of the region, in agreement with the predictions of bow shock models.

– HH 203 is more jet-like and it seems to be a different entity colliding with a lateral wall of HH 204.

– We distinguish a pronounced asymmetry in brightness between the bow side of HH 204 near to the star $`\mathrm{\Theta }^2`$ A and the side located away from this star. Henney (1996) has proposed that a transverse density gradient in the ambient medium where a bow shock propagates, could lead to an asymmetry in brightness of the bow shock. We find some evidence of a transverse density gradient because we find that there is a slight velocity gradient running perpendicular to the axis of HH 204 in the sense that the fainter regions have larger velocities.

– HH 203 and HH 204 seem to be part of a structure of large dimensions or lobe. Indeed, Figure 3 is a close-up of the \[NII\] velocity map at $`V_{helio}`$ = –14 km s-1 showing the field around HH 203 and HH 204, which are located in the SE of this figure. A careful inspection of this figure suggests the detection of an incomplete lobe ending in HH 204 on one side, and at the mark shown in Figure 3 on the other side. This lobe is 132” or 0.29 pc long and it is more intense in its northern half. The possible existence of this lobe is also revealed in O’Dell’s image of the Orion Nebula published in the National Geographic Supplement (Grosvenor et al. 1995).

## 4  Discussion

Our results show that HH 202 seems to be part of a larger scale lobe. This lobe is blueshifted relative to the main HII region velocity and shows the large internal motions characteristic of HH flows. The \[NII\] velocity cubes show that this lobe (NW lobe) is formed by two ‘fingers’ starting from a region close to the E-W jet discovered by O’Dell et al. (1997a). HH 203 and HH 204 also seem to be part of a large structure or lobe (SE lobe) of similar dimensions to the ones of the NW lobe. HH 204 is at one of the ends while the other end is located close to the E-W jet, as in the case of the NW lobe. Furthermore, the SE lobe shares the same orientation as the NW lobe. Considering the results presented in the previous sections, we suggest that HH 202 and HH 203-204, are part of a large bipolar outflow, 0.55 pc long, that arises from an object close to the E-W jet. Besides, a preliminary analysis suggests that the NW lobe is blueshifted relative to the background nebula while the SE lobe is redshifted. The measured proper motions of HH 203-204 agree with this interpretation while the proper motions measured a long time ago for HH 202 (Herbig & Jones 1981) do not support this idea. On the other hand, the region close to the E-W jet is so rich in objects that it is difficult to identify, by means of the existing stellar data, the object that could be the source of this suggested bipolar outflow. Figure 4 shows the H$`\alpha `$ velocity map at $`V_{helio}`$ = – 50 km s-1 of the inner 5’ of the Orion Nebula which allows us to have a global view of both lobes. At blueshifted velocities the NW lobe is better detected than the SE lobe. However, jet-like features (such as HH 203 and the ‘fingers’ inside the NW lobe) are detected inside these lobes. Further studies of the stellar content close to the E-W jet and of proper motions of the HH 202 knots would be quite interesting for confirming or rejecting this suggestion.

## Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank to Alex Raga for first suggesting the idea of studying the kinematics of the Orion Nebula with the PUMA equipment. They also wish to acknowledge the financial support from grants 400354-5-2398PE of CONACYT and IN104696 of DGAPA-UNAM and from scholarships 124449 (CONACYT) and DGEP-UNAM. The authors also thank to Alfredo Díaz and Carmelo Guzmán for the computer help.


text:
# Periods of Strebel Differentials and Algebraic Curves Defined over the Field of Algebraic Numbers

## 1. Introduction

The periodic function $`e^{i\pi \theta }`$ has the following remarkable property: for every rational number $`\theta `$, $`e^{i\pi \theta }`$ gives an algebraic number, while for every non-rational algebraic number $`\theta `$, it gives a transcendental number. It follows that if $`e^{i\pi \theta }`$ is algebraic and $`\theta `$ is not rational, then $`\theta `$ is transcendental. This somewhat reciprocal algebraicity-transcendence relation between the periods of a function and its values is commonly seen among the periodic functions appearing in algebraic geometry such as modular functions and theta functions .

The purpose of this paper is to examine a similar relation between the periods of Strebel differentials on a complete nonsingular algebraic curve and its field of definition. In an earlier paper , we have established that if a compact Riemann surface $`C`$ admits a Strebel differential $`q`$ such that the length of every *critical horizontal trajectory* is rational, then $`C`$ is the complex model of an algebraic curve defined over the field $`\overline{}`$ of algebraic numbers. (We refer to  for the definitions of the notions used in this article.) Let us call the length of a critical horizontal trajectory a *period* of $`q`$. Thus the rationality of the periods makes the field of definition of $`C`$ algebraic. Following the analogy of the relation between the periods and the values of theta functions, one can ask questions about the transcendence of the periods of a Strebel differential and the field of definition of an algebraic curve.

Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ be a *ribbon graph*, that is, a graph with a prescribed cyclic order of half-edges at each vertex. A ribbon graph is a *metric* ribbon graph if a positive real number, conventionally referred to as the *length*, is assigned to each edge. From every metric ribbon graph $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, one can construct a compact Riemann surface $`C`$ and a *Strebel differential* $`q`$ on it in a unique manner. The number of poles of $`q`$ is equal to the number of *boundary circuits* of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and the residue of $`\sqrt{q}`$ at each pole is the total length of the boundary circuit corresponding to the pole.

Conversely, starting with a compact Riemann surface $`C`$ with $`n>0`$ marked points and an $`n`$-tuple of positive real numbers, one constructs a unique metric ribbon graph as the union of the critical horizontal trajectories of the Strebel differential $`q`$ on $`C`$. The integral of $`\sqrt{q}`$ between zeros of $`q`$ along a critical horizontal trajectory is called a *period* of $`q`$. The periods of the Strebel differential determine a metric on the ribbon graph.

Harer  used this idea to establish an orbifold isomorphism

(1)
$$\underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{}\frac{_+^{e(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}\stackrel{}{}𝔐_{g,n}\times _+^n,$$

where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ runs over all ribbon graphs with valence of each vertex no less than 3 and with Euler characteristic $`22gn`$, $`e(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ is the number of edges of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, $`\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ is the group of ribbon graph automorphisms of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ that fix its boundary circuits, and $`𝔐_{g,n}`$ is the moduli space of smooth compact complex algebraic curves of genus $`g`$ with $`n`$ ordered marked points. This isomorphism plays a key role in many recent papers (cf. , , , , , ). For an explicit construction of this isomorphism, we refer to .

The set of *rational points*

$$\underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{}\frac{_+^{e(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}\underset{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{}\frac{_+^{e(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}$$

is well defined (although not as an orbifold over $``$) because a ribbon graph automorphism acts as a permutation of edges. Let $`𝔐_{g,n}(\overline{})`$ denote the moduli space of $`n`$-pointed complete nonsingular algebraic curves defined over $`\overline{}`$. Comparing Belyi’s theorem , Grothendieck’s idea of *dessins d’enfants* , and Strebel theory , we have established in  that there is a natural injective map $`j`$:

(2)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}_\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{_+^{e(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}& \stackrel{}{}& 𝔐_{g,n}\times _+^n\\ & & \\ _\mathrm{\Gamma }\frac{_+^{e(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{\text{Aut}_{}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}& \underset{j}{}& 𝔐_{g,n}(\overline{})\times _+^n.\end{array}$$

Belyi’s theorem shows that *every* complete nonsingular algebraic curve over $`\overline{}`$ is constructed as the image of the map $`j`$ *if* we do not specify the number $`n`$ of marked points. However, in the light of the geometric $`Gal(\overline{}/)`$ actions , $`j`$ cannot be surjective. Indeed, we shall prove the following:

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`C`$ be an arbitrary complete nonsingular algebraic curve defined over $`\overline{}`$. Then there is a Strebel differential $`q`$ on the complex model of $`C`$ such that

1. every pole of $`q`$ is a $`\overline{}`$-rational point of $`C`$;
2. the residue of $`\sqrt{q}`$ at each pole is a positive integer; and
3. $`q`$ has a transcendental period.

###### Acknowledgement.

The authors would like to thank Josephine Yu for creating the graphics Figure 1 and Figure 2 in this paper.

## 2. Construction of the Strebel Differential

Let us start by constructing a simple example on $`^1`$. We wish to exhibit a Strebel differential $`q_c`$ on $`^1`$ that has poles at $`0`$, $`1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`c`$ and $`c^2`$, such that $`\sqrt{q_c}`$ has residues 2, 2, 2, 4, and 2, resp., at these poles, with $`c\overline{}\{0,1\}`$ a constant to be determined later. We define two rational maps $`f`$ and $`g`$ in order to construct certain Strebel differentials on $`^1`$. First we choose

(3)
$$f:^1xy=\frac{1}{(1c)^2}\frac{(xc)^2}{x}^1.$$

Since

$$f^{}(x)=\frac{1}{(1c)^2}\frac{x^2c^2}{x^2},$$

$`f`$ is ramified at $`x=\pm c`$. We note that

$$f(0)=f(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{},f(1)=f(c^2)=1,f(c)=0,f(c)=\frac{4c}{(1c)^2}.$$

The other rational map is

(4)
$$g:^1y\zeta =\frac{4(y^2y+1)^3}{27y^2(1y)^2}^1.$$

Consider the meromorphic quadratic differential

$$q_0=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}\frac{d\zeta ^2}{\zeta (1\zeta )}$$

on $`^1`$, and put

(5)
$$q_1=g^{}(q_0)=\frac{1}{\pi ^2}\frac{y^2y+1}{y^2(1y)^2}dy^2.$$

It has quadratic poles at $`0`$, $`1`$, and $`\mathrm{}`$, and simple zeros at $`\frac{1}{2}\pm i\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}`$. The residue of $`\sqrt{q_1}`$ at each pole is $`2`$, and the three periods of $`q_1`$ are all $`1`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_y=g^1([0,1])`$. It has been shown in  that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_y`$ is the ribbon graph consisting of the set of critical trajectories of the Strebel differential $`q_1`$.

Next, let $`s`$ be a real algebraic number such that $`0<s<\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}`$, choose the constant $`c`$ so that

(6)
$$f(c)=\frac{4c}{(1c)^2}=\frac{1}{2}+is,$$

and define $`q_c=f^{}(q_1)`$. Since the two critical values of the double-sheeted holomorphic covering map $`f`$ are $`f(c)=0`$ and $`f(c)`$, one sees that the Strebel differential $`q_c`$ on $`^1`$ has quadratic poles at $`0`$, $`1`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`c`$ and $`c^2`$ with residues of $`\sqrt{q_c}`$ at these poles 2, 2, 2, 4, and 2, resp., and a new double zero at $`c`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_c=f^1(\mathrm{\Gamma }_y)`$. Because of the choice of $`c`$ in Eq. 6, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_c`$ is the ribbon graph consisting of the critical trajectories for the Strebel differential $`q_c`$. It has four tri-valent vertices at $`f^1(\frac{1}{2}\pm i\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2})`$ and a unique 4-valent vertex at $`c=f^1(\frac{1}{2}+is)`$.

Let $`L`$ denote the edge of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_c`$ that connects the vertex $`c`$ and one of the tri-valent vertices. From Eq. 5 one sees that the period of $`q_c`$ corresponding to the edge $`L`$ is equal to $`\frac{1}{2}\pm \mathrm{}(s)`$ depending on the choice of the tri-valent vertex, where

(7) $`\mathrm{}(s)`$ $`={\displaystyle _{1/2}^{1/2+is}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{y^2y+1}{y^2(1y)^2}}}𝑑y`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _0^s}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3/4t^2}}{1/4+t^2}}𝑑t`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\mathrm{arcsin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2s(9+4s^2)}{3\sqrt{3}(1+4s^2)}}\right).`$
In Section 3, we shall show that $`\mathrm{}(s)`$ is transcendent at $`s=r\sqrt{3}`$ for every rational number $`r`$ such that $`0<r<\frac{1}{2}`$.

The above construction immediately gives the construction of the Strebel differential $`q`$ for the general case of Theorem 1. Let $`C`$ be an arbitrary complete nonsingular algebraic curve defined over $`\overline{}`$. Belyi  has shown that there is a holomorphic map

(8)
$$\beta :C^1$$

that is ramified only over $`0`$, $`1`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$. The map $`\beta `$ is called a *Belyi map*. Without loss of generality, we can assume that the ramification degrees over the point $`0^1`$ are no less than 3 and the ramification degrees over $`1^1`$ are always 2. Define $`q=\beta ^{}(q_c)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\beta ^1(\mathrm{\Gamma }_c)`$. Then $`q`$ is the Strebel differential on $`C`$ with poles at $`\beta ^1(0)`$, $`\beta ^1(1)`$, $`\beta ^1(\mathrm{})`$, $`\beta ^1(c)`$, and $`\beta ^1(c^2)`$. The residue of $`\sqrt{q}`$ at each of these poles is 2 times the ramification degree of $`\beta `$ at each ramification point, 4 at each inverse image of $`c`$, and 2 at each inverse image of $`c^2`$. Certainly the period of $`q`$ corresponding to any edge of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ that is an inverse image of $`L`$ is a transcendental number if we chose $`s=r\sqrt{3}`$.

## 3. Transcendence of the Period

Let us now show that $`\mathrm{}(s)`$ of Eq. 7 is transcendental for every $`s=r\sqrt{3}`$, where $`r`$ is a rational number in between $`0`$ and $`1/2`$. Since

$$\mathrm{sin}(\pi \mathrm{}(s))=\frac{2s(9+4s^2)}{3\sqrt{3}(1+4s^2)}=\frac{2r(3+4r^2)}{(1+12r^2)}\{1/2\},$$

the claim follows from

###### Proposition 2.

Let $`0<\mathrm{}<1/2`$ be such that $`a=\mathrm{sin}(\pi \mathrm{})`$ is rational but not equal to $`\frac{1}{2}`$. Then $`\mathrm{}`$ is transcendental.

###### Proof.

Let

$$b=a+i\sqrt{1a^2}=e^{i\pi (\mathrm{}+1/2)}.$$

This is a solution of the quadratic equation $`x^2+2ax+1=0`$. Let $`a=m/n`$ be an irreducible fraction. Then $`nx^2+2mx+n`$ is primitive and irreducible if $`n`$ is odd, and if $`n=2k`$, then $`kx^2+mx+k`$ is primitive and irreducible.

Suppose that $`\mathrm{}`$. Then $`b`$ is a solution of the primitive equation $`x^N1=0`$ for some integer $`N`$. We note that the primitive minimal polynomial of $`b`$ divides $`x^N1`$. Therefore, if $`n`$ is odd, then $`n=1`$, and hence $`a=m1`$, which is a contradiction. If $`n`$ is even, then $`k=1`$ and the only possibility is $`a=\frac{1}{2}`$. Thus $`\mathrm{}`$ is not rational. It cannot be algebraic because $`b`$ is algebraic. This completes the proof. ∎

It would be desirable to establish that if a compact Riemann surface $`C`$ admits a Strebel differential $`q`$ whose periods are algebraic but not rational, then the geometric data $`(C,(p_1,\mathrm{},p_n))`$, where $`(p_1,\mathrm{},p_n)`$ are the poles of $`q`$, cannot be defined over $`\overline{}`$. In our simple example of Section 2, if the period corresponding to the edge $`L`$ is taken to be algebraic but not rational, then the ramification points $`c`$ and $`c^2`$ become transcendental. However, we do not have any general theorem in this direction.


text:
# Deformation potential scattering from dislocations in III-V nitride quantum wells

## Abstract

We present a theory of deformation potential carrier scattering of two-dimensional electron gases from the strain fields surrounding dislocations. The results are applied to study the transport characteristics in III-V nitride two-dimensional electron gases in Al(Ga)N/GaN quantum wells. A hypothetical charged core has been associated as the only scattering potential for analyzing experimental results for transport studies of the nitrides; we critically examine this assumption in light of our results of strain field scattering. By computing the effect of all possible scattering mechanisms we gauge the importance of strain field scattering from dislocations.

Many years ago, the effect of ‘cold working’ on metallic resistivity was studied in detail ,,,. Cold working is a technique of introducing controlled amount of dislocations by deformation; the study showed that metallic conductivity is reduced by scattering of conduction electrons from strain fields that develop around dislocations. The effect of strain fields on electronic energy levels and charge transport in semiconductors is a widely studied topic, assuming special importance in the problems of lattice scattering and optical transitions in strained heterostructures.

Localized strain fields exist around point and extended defects in semiconductors. Traditionally in electronic transport theory one considers charge scattering by coulombic interaction of mobile carriers with charged defects; strain fields associated with defects is generally neglected. This approximation is justified for substitutional donors/acceptors for example, since the lattice distortion around them is minimal. However, as our work shows for dislocations, which may or may not be charged, the strain fields can contribute substantially to scattering of mobile carriers in semiconductors, just as in metals. Electron-strain field interaction will affect transport properties for vacancies/interstitials as well; we do not consider them in this work.

Dislocation scattering effect on two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) transport in AlGaN/GaN heterostructures has been recently studied assuming coulombic scattering from a charged dislocation core . In this work, we solve the general problem of the effect of scattering from the strain field surrounding edge dislocations for a 2DEG. We examine it’s importance by applying the results for the AlGaN/GaN system. It is important to note that this form of scattering arises even if the dislocation core is uncharged.

Dislocations set up a strain field around them with atoms displaced from their equilibrium positions in a perfect crystal. The band extrema (conduction band CB minimum, valence band VB maximum) shift under influence of the strain fields. The magnitude of spatial variation of the band extrema to linear order in strain is given by the deformation potential theorem of Bardeen and Shockley .

We start with a suitable model for behavior of quantum well band-edges in the presence of a localized strain field, such as around a dislocation. We assume a flat quantum well, with no built in fields, which houses a 2DEG. Our work deals with electron transport; the problem of hole transport can be formulated in a similar fashion. The effect of a strain in the quantum well is to shift the conduction and valence band edges. The shift in the conduction band edge was shown by Chuang to be

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_C=a_CTr(ϵ)$$
(1)
where $`a_C`$ is the conduction band deformation potential, and $`Tr(ϵ)=ϵ_{xx}+ϵ_{yy}+ϵ_{zz}=\delta \mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the trace of the strain matrix. The trace is also equal to the fractional change in the volume of unit cells ($`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }`$).

In our model, we assume dislocations with their axes perpendicular to the quantum well plane. We also assume that the 2DEG is perfect, which means there is no $`z`$ direction spread along the growth axis. Considering a realistic 2DEG would require incorporation of form factors; perfect 2DEG is chosen for simplicity. As an electron in the 2DEG approaches a dislocation, it experiences a potential due the strain around the dislocation, which causes scattering (see Figure for a schematic). The strain distribution radially outward from an edge dislocation is well known. Combined with Equation  we get the necessary perturbing potential responsible for electron scattering

$$\delta V=\mathrm{\Delta }E_C=a_CTr(ϵ)=\frac{a_Cb_e}{2\pi }\frac{12\gamma }{1\gamma }\frac{sin(\theta )}{r}.$$
(2)
Here $`b_e`$ is the magnitude of the burger’s vector of the edge dislocation, and $`\gamma `$ is the Poisson’s ratio for the crystal. $`ϵ_{zz}=0`$ for an edge dislocation, and nonzero for a screw dislocation. For a screw dislocation in a cubic crystal, the strain field has purely shear strain, causing no dilatation/compression of the unit cells. This means there can be no deformation potential scattering for screw dislocations in cubic crystals. However, for uniaxial crystals such as GaN, the argument does not hold, and there is a deformation potential coupling even for screw dislocations for bulk transport. We limit ourselves to the simpler case of edge dislocations.

The matrix element of the perturbation for scattering of a 2DEG electron from state $`|𝐤_𝐢>`$ to state $`|𝐤_𝐟>`$ is needed for evaluating scattering rates in the Born approximation. Position space representations of the states are given by plane waves

$$<r|k_{i,f}>=\frac{1}{\sqrt{S}}e^{i𝐤_{𝐢,𝐟}𝐫}.$$
(3)
Here $`𝐤_{𝐢,𝐟}`$ are the 2D wavevectors of the initial (i) and final (f) states, $`𝐫`$ is the 2D space coordinate, and $`S`$ is the macroscopic 2D area. The wavevectors of the initial and final states are both perpendicular to the dislocation axis. The matrix element $`<𝐤_𝐟|\delta V(r,\theta )|𝐤_𝐢>`$ is given by the 2D Fourier transform of the scattering potential (the Born approximation)

$$\delta V(q,\varphi )=e^{i(𝐤_𝐢𝐤_𝐟)𝐫}\delta V(𝐫)d^2r=\frac{b_ea_C}{2\pi S}\frac{12\gamma }{1\gamma }\frac{sin(\varphi )}{q},$$
(4)
where $`q=|𝐤_𝐟𝐤_𝐢|`$ and $`\varphi `$ is the angle between $`𝐪`$ and $`𝐛_𝐞`$, the Burger’s vector. For taking into account screening of this perturbation by mobile charges, the matrix element is scaled by the Lindhard dielectric function in the long-wavelength limit $`ϵ(q)=1+\frac{q_{TF}}{q}`$, where $`q_{TF}=\frac{2}{a_B^{}}`$ is the Thomas-Fermi wavevector ($`a_B^{}`$ is the effective Bohr radius in the semiconductor). Summing the square of the matrix element over all scatterers in the dilute scatterers limit requires an average of the angular dependence over random orientations of the burger’s vectors for different dislocations; averaging yields $`<sin^2(\varphi )>=\frac{1}{2}`$. Transport scattering rate is found by Fermi’s golden rule; for scattering into the single final state $`𝐤_𝐟`$, the rate is given by

$$\frac{1}{\tau }=\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}}|\delta V(q)|^2\delta (E_{𝐤_𝐢}E_{𝐤_𝐟}),$$
(5)
where $`\tau `$ is the scattering rate, $`\mathrm{}`$ is the reduced Planck’s constant, and the $`\delta `$ function is a statement of the elastic nature of scattering, conserving energy between the initial ($`E_{𝐤_𝐢}`$) and final ($`E_{𝐤_𝐟}`$) states.

To find the ensemble rate, we sum over all the available final states in the 2D density of states, and evaluate the transport scattering rate

$$\frac{1}{\tau _{tr}}=\frac{N_{disl}m^{}b_e^2a_C^2}{2\pi k_F^2\mathrm{}^3}(\frac{12\gamma }{1\gamma })^2\underset{I(n_s)}{\underset{}{_0^1\frac{u^2}{(u+\frac{q_{TF}}{2k_F})^2\sqrt{1u^2}}𝑑u}}.$$
(6)
Here, $`N_{disl}`$ is the 2D density of threading edge dislocations, $`m^{}`$ is the effective mass of conduction electrons in the 2DEG, and $`k_F=\sqrt{2\pi n_s}`$ is the Fermi wavevector ($`n_s`$ being the 2DEG electron sheet density).

The dimensionless integral $`I(n_s)`$ is dependent only on the sheet density $`n_s`$, and can be evaluated explicitly. Since the expression is long and does not contain any extra information, we plot the dependence of the integral factor on the sheet density in Figure. Finally, we arrive at the dislocation strain field scattering limited electron mobility given by the Drude result $`\mu =e\tau _{disl}^{strain}/m^{}`$

$$\mu _{disl}^{strain}=\frac{2e\mathrm{}^3\pi k_F^2}{N_{disl}m_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}b_e^2a_C^2}(\frac{1\gamma }{12\gamma })^2\frac{1}{I(n_s)}.$$
(7)
Quantities needed for a numerical evaluation are the magnitude of the Burger’s vector $`b_e=a_0=3.189`$Å, the conduction electron effective mass $`m^{}=0.2m_0`$ ($`m_0`$ is free electron mass), Poisson’s ratio for the crystal, $`\gamma =0.3`$ , and the conduction band deformation potential $`a_C`$.

For uniaxial crystals such as the wurtzite crystal, the second rank deformation potential tensor $`\mathrm{\Xi }_{ij}`$ has two independent components, $`\mathrm{\Xi }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_2`$ at the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ point in the E-k diagram. The volume change (compression or dilatation) leads to a shift in the band gap

$$\mathrm{\Delta }E_G=\mathrm{\Xi }_1ϵ_{zz}+\mathrm{\Xi }_2(\underset{ϵ_{}}{\underset{}{ϵ_{xx}+ϵ_{yy}}})$$
(8)
Where $`\mathrm{\Xi }_1=a_1=6.5`$eV and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_2=a_2=11.8`$eV for GaN. For an edge dislocation, there is no strain along the $`z`$ (0001) axis ($`ϵ_{zz}=0`$); thus only $`\mathrm{\Xi }_2`$ will be required in our analysis. The deformation potential has contributions from both the CB and the VB, $`\mathrm{\Xi }_2=\mathrm{\Xi }_2^{CB}+\mathrm{\Xi }_2^{VB}`$. We require only the conduction band deformation potential for our calculation. Separate experimental values of the conduction and valence band deformation potentials are not available for GaN at present. We use an approximation of $`a_C=\mathrm{\Xi }_2^{CB}=8.0`$eV (and $`\mathrm{\Xi }_2^{VB}=3.8`$eV) for numerical estimates. This split in CB and VB deformation potentials is assumed following the general trend of other III-V semiconductor deformation potentials.

We now apply the derived results to 2DEGs at AlGaN/GaN heterojunctions. To do a comparison of the different scattering mechanisms, we plot mobility limited by each scattering mechanism for a range of 2DEG densities in Figure. The total low temperature mobility is evaluated by Matheissen’s rule ($`\mu _{tot}^1=_i\mu _i^1`$, $`\mu _i`$ being mobilites limited by individual scattering mechanisms). In the same plot, we plot the highest reported 2DEG mobilities in Al(Ga)N/GaN 2DEGs,. The calculation was done for background impurity concentration $`10^{16}/cm^3`$, remote (surface) donor density equal to the 2DEG density, interface roughness characterized by island of height $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2.5`$Åand correlation length $`L=10`$Å, and charged core filling factor $`f=0.3`$. The barrier alloy concentration was $`9\%`$.

It is evident that scattering at high carrier densities is dominated by alloy scattering, and in the absence of an alloy barrier, interface roughness scattering. There is a noticeable jump in mobility at higher 2DEG densities in passing from an AlGaN (empty circles) to AlN barrier (filled circles), marking the removal of alloy scattering.

However, at low carrier densities, dislocation scattering dominates electron transport properties. Even for an uncharged dislocation core, the strain field-deformation potential scattering is large enough to limit low temperature electron mobilities. In Figure, we plot total mobilities calculated for three different dislocation densities $`N_{disl}=5\times (10^8,10^9,10^{10})/cm^2`$. It is important to note that dislocation scattering (be it from a charged core or from the strain field) is much stronger than charged impurity scattering for impurity and dislocation densities typical in the III-V nitrides.

In addition to the deformation potential scattering from the strain fields, there is also a possibility of piezoelectric fields associated with dislocations in non-centrosymmetric crystals as GaN. However, we expect this form of scattering to be negligible. The effect of screw dislocations on transport in uniaxial crystals is a more subtle question, and we postpone it for a future work.

In conclusion, we demonstrated that strain fields surrounding dislocations affect measured electron transport properties in a 2DEG. We derived scattering rates for deformation potential scattering from strain fields of edge dislocations. The theoretical results were applied to the case of III-V nitride 2DEGs. By comparison with all low-temperature scattering mechanisms, the importance of dislocation scattering (originating from strain fields as well as charged cores) was highlighted.

The authors would like to thank P. Waltereit, J. Singh, A. C.Gossard, and J. Speck for useful discussions. The authors acknowledge funding assistance from J. Zolper (ONR-IMPACT), C. Wood (ONR-POLARIS) and G. Witt (AFOSR).

Figure 1
D. Jena and U. K. Mishra

Figure 2
D. Jena and U. K. Mishra

Figure 3
D. Jena and U. K. Mishra

Figure 4
D. Jena and U. K. Mishra


text:
# IFT-P.053/2001 Neutrino-neutrino and neutrino-matter helicity flip interactions

\[

## Abstract

Taking into account that neutrinos are massive particles and that they are produced mainly as states of negative helicity, we show that the neutral and charged current interactions change these neutrinos into transversally polarized states. This implies a considerable reduction of the neutrino flux when propagating through ordinary matter (electrons, protons and neutrons). The same happens when neutrinos propagate through the sea of relic neutrinos if these neutrinos are degenerate fermions. However, in this case the change of helicity depends on the value of the neutrino–anti-neutrino asymmetry.

\]

The recent solar  and atmospheric  neutrino data are consistent with three neutrinos with masses $`m_1=0`$, $`m_2=2.3\times 10^3`$ eV and $`m_3=5\times 10^2`$ eV. In this paper we show that if neutrinos are massive particles, the neutral and charged effective interactions due to $`Z^0`$ and $`W^\pm `$ exchange will induce an helicity flip on the neutrinos of negative helicity. These effects are complementary to those discovered, some years ago, by Stodoslky  and Wolfenstein .

Let us first consider neutrinos coming from astrophysical sources, here denoted by $`\nu _A`$. They interact with the relic cosmological neutrinos, denoted by $`\nu _r`$, through the effective hamiltonian (induced by the neutral current coupled to $`Z^0`$)

$$H_Z=\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}c_W^2}\overline{\psi }_{\nu _A}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\psi _{\nu _A}\overline{\psi }_{\nu _r}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\psi _{\nu _r}.$$
(1)
We will also assume that neutrinos are Dirac fermions.

If the relic neutrino is massive we can use its rest frame. Since $`T_\nu =195\mathrm{K}1.68\times 10^4`$ eV, neutrinos with masses $`m_{2,3}>T_\nu `$ are non-relativistic at present. However, since our goal is to point out new effects we are only interested in the order of magnitude, as an illustration of the phenomena, we will assume for the sake of simplicity that the relic neutrino, $`\nu _r`$, is the lightest neutrino, i.e., that with $`m_1=0`$, and that the astrophysical neutrinos $`\nu _A`$ are massive neutrinos, i.e., $`\nu _2`$ or $`\nu _3`$. In the rest frame of the “neutrino sea”, in which the relic neutrinos are isotropically distributed, the term $`\overline{\psi }_{\nu _r}\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\psi _{\nu _r}`$ is the neutrino number density (in fact, $`n_\nu n_{\overline{\nu }}`$) and for the relic neutrinos $`1\gamma _5=2`$. In the same frame the astrophysical neutrino has a velocity $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ and spin $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }`$; thus the corresponding bilinear is proportional to $`1+\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{v}`$. On the other hand, in the frame of the massive neutrino the relic neutrinos have a current density $`\stackrel{}{J}_\nu =2n_\nu \stackrel{}{v}\gamma `$, where $`\gamma =(1v^2)^{1/2}=E_{\nu _A}/m_{\nu _A}`$ (we are using $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$). Since the helicity is an eigenstate of propagation, we can write the evolution equation in the source basis denoted by primed fields

$$i\frac{d}{d\tau }\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+^{}\\ \nu _{}^{}\end{array}\right)=\left[\left(\begin{array}{cc}E& 0\\ 0& E\end{array}\right)+\frac{2G_Fn_\nu \gamma }{\sqrt{2}c_W^2}\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{v}\right]\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+^{}\\ \nu _{}^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(2)
where $`\tau `$ is the proper time of the astrophysical neutrino. Neglecting an overall phase factor $`E`$ (we are assuming $`E_+^{}=E_{}^{}E`$, otherwise the global phase is $`(E_+^{}+E_{}^{})/2`$) we can re-write Eq. (2) as

$$i\frac{d}{d\tau }\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+^{}\\ \nu _{}^{}\end{array}\right)=\frac{2G_Fn_\nu \gamma v_z}{\sqrt{2}c_W^2}\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& \mathrm{tan}\theta e^{i\varphi }\\ \mathrm{tan}\theta e^{i\varphi }& 1\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+^{}\\ \nu _{}^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{tan}\theta =2v_{}/v_z`$ with $`v_{}=(v_x^2+v_y^2)^{1/2}`$ and $`\varphi =\mathrm{arctan}(v_y/v_x)`$; notice that $`0\theta <\pi `$ and $`0\varphi <2\pi `$. The eigenvalues of the matrix in Eq. (3) are given by

$$E_\pm =\pm \frac{2G_Fn_\nu v\gamma }{\sqrt{2}c_W^2},$$
(4)
and

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+\\ \nu _{}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\frac{\varphi }{2}}& \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\frac{\varphi }{2}}\\ \mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\frac{\varphi }{2}}& \mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}e^{i\frac{\varphi }{2}}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _+^{}\\ \nu _{}^{}\end{array}\right),$$
(5)
denote the basis in which the hamiltonian is diagonal.

Astrophysical neutrinos are produced, as usual, via the standard electroweak processes, with are mainly of negative helicity $`\nu _{}^{}`$, however they become, because of the interaction with the sea, a linear superposition of both helicity states

$$|\nu _{}^{}=e^{i\varphi }\left(e^{iE_+\tau }\mathrm{sin}\frac{\theta }{2}|\nu _++e^{iE_{}\tau }\mathrm{cos}\frac{\theta }{2}|\nu _{}\right),$$
(6)
and we can calculate for the massive neutrinos the survival probability (they remain in the same helicity state):

$$P(\nu _{}^{}\nu _{}^{})=1\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{sin}^2\left(\frac{4G_Fn_\nu }{\sqrt{2}c_W^2}d\right),$$
(7)
and the transition probability (when there is a helicity flip)

$$P(\nu _{}^{}\nu _+^{})=1P(\nu _{}^{}\nu _{}^{})$$
(8)
where $`(E_+E_{})t/\gamma `$ becomes $`(4G_Fn_\nu d)/\sqrt{2}c_W^2`$, in the rest frame of the relic neutrinos $`\tau =t\gamma ^1`$, and we have defined $`d=vt`$ as the distance traveled through the relic neutrino sea.

If both $`\nu `$ and $`\overline{\nu }`$ are present $`n_\nu `$ means $`n_\nu n_{\overline{\nu }}`$. However we can also assume that there is an asymmetry i.e., neutrinos form a degenerate Fermi gas, $`n_\nu 0`$ and $`n_{\overline{\nu }}0`$ (or vice versa). The oscillation length defined from Eq. (7) is

$$l\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{\sqrt{2}c_W^2}{4G_Fn_\nu },$$
(9)
and assuming $`n_\nu 1700\mathrm{cm}^3(1.3\times 10^{11}\mathrm{eV}^3)`$  we see that $`l=5.28\times 10^9`$ ly. Which is of the order of the radius of the observed universe. Notice, however, that for $`d=0.5l`$ we have from Eq. (7) that $`P(\nu _{}^{}\nu _{}^{})=0.5`$ for $`\theta =\pi /2`$. Moreover, if the relic neutrinos are the massive ones they can be clustered in local galactic halo and it is possible to have $`n_\nu =(10^710^9)\mathrm{cm}^3`$ . Using, for instance, $`n_\nu =10^7`$ the oscillation length is $`l=1.05\times 10^6`$ ly, i.e., this clustering, if it does exist, reduce the oscillation length at least in some regions. (But in this case, relic neutrinos are non-relativistic and the approach of Ref.  has to be used.) If the value of $`l`$ can be lower than the size of the universe we have to take also the average over the distance, the average survival probability is

$$PP(\nu _{}^{}\nu _{}^{})=1\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta .$$
(10)
The average probability in $`\theta `$ may also be needed in some cases:

$$P_\theta P(\nu _{}^{}\nu _{}^{})_\theta =0.75.$$
(11)
As an effect due to the potential it depends only on the number density of particles in the medium and on the distance traveled by the propagating particle. The effect depends also on a non-zero, but otherwise arbitrary, neutrino mass. The same happens also for charged particles in cosmic rays, say electrons, however in this case both helicity states feel the electromagnetic interactions with the same strength so the effect is, in practice, usefulness. Neutrinos with positive helicity will have a similar effect, but since these neutrinos are produced by exotic unknown interactions their fluxes are reduced with respect to the flux of neutrinos produced in the usual electroweak processes.

The case when neutrinos propagate through ordinary matter is more interesting. We will consider only the charged current interaction (after a Fierz transformation) since here we are only showing the main features of the effect. The effective hamiltonian is

$$H_W=\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}\overline{\psi }_e\gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\psi _e\overline{\psi }_\nu \gamma _\mu (1\gamma _5)\psi _\nu ,$$
(12)
$`\nu `$ is one of the massive neutrinos and we are neglecting mixing angles. We have with this interaction a flip of the electron spin due to massless neutrinos (Stodolsky effect); or the effect in the propagation through matter of massless or massive neutrinos (Wolfenstein effect); and also the spin flip of a massive neutrino due to the matter density, this is the effect that we will consider below. Similarly to Eq. (7) but without the $`2/c_W^2`$ factor and $`n_e`$ being now the electron number density in the medium, say the Sun, the Earth, the atmosphere or even a detector. The oscillation length is now given by

$$l\frac{\pi }{2}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}G_Fn_e},$$
(13)
since in this case $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=\sqrt{2}G_Fn_ev\gamma `$, and $`v`$ is now the neutrino velocity in the rest frame of the electrons. In the neutrino rest frame the electron current density is $`\stackrel{}{J}_e=n_e\stackrel{}{v}\gamma `$. Assuming a typical value $`\rho =1\mathrm{gr}/\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (or $`n_e8.45\times 10^{12}\mathrm{eV}^3`$) we see that the oscillation length is in this case $`l2.2`$ km. In the solar interior $`l`$ is two order of magnitude smaller that this value while in the atmosphere it is two or three order of magnitude larger. Hence in solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments only the averaged probability transition in Eq. (10) may be considered. A similar effect occur with protons through both neutral and charged currents and with neutrons through the neutral currents only.

We can interpret these effects, induced by the interactions in Eqs. (1) or (12), as follows. The usual neutrino oscillations which are driven by mass square differences can be understood as a transition between a left-handed neutrino of flavor f to a left-handed neutrino of flavor f (f may be equal or different from f), via a negative helicity neutrino mass eigenstate $`\nu _{}^{}`$

$$\nu _{\mathrm{fL}}\nu _{}^{}\nu _{\mathrm{f}^{}\mathrm{L}}.$$
(14)
In the standard model, flavor neutrinos are produced as left-handed states, the intermediate mass eigenstates are also mainly of negative helicity because of $`\nu _{fL}=\nu _{}^{}+O(m/E_\nu )`$. Since neutrino masses are small and the respective energies, for the usual experiments, are large we see that $`\nu _{fL}\nu _{}^{}`$. However, in the presence of matter (or relic neutrinos) there is an helicity flip $`\nu _{}^{}\nu _+^{}`$ and this transition is independent of the neutrino mass, it depends only on the matter (sea) density, but again $`\nu _+^{}\nu _{fR}+O(m/E_\nu )`$ the neutrino is not detected since it is mainly an (sterile) right-handed neutrino.

Hence, as an illustration, in the two flavor case and assuming $`m_1=0`$ and $`m_20`$ (but otherwise arbitrary) we should write

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _e\\ \nu _\mu \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{cos}\theta _f& P\mathrm{sin}\theta _f\\ \mathrm{sin}\theta _f& P\mathrm{cos}\theta _f\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\end{array}\right),$$
(15)
where $`\theta _f`$ is a Cabibbo-like mixing angle. For geochemical experiments $`P=P_\theta =0.75`$ must be used. On the other hand, in directional, real time experiments in which the $`z`$-axis is already defined as the azimuthal direction, we can identify $`\theta `$ with the azimuthal angle and Eq. (10) must be used. Only vacuum neutrino oscillation experiments are not sensitive to the effect induced by the hamiltonian given in Eq. (12). In this case the oscillation length is large enough (induced only by the relic neutrinos) to be appreciable at the typical distances of this sort of experiments. This is the case for the LSND experiment .

The considerations above are valid for Dirac neutrinos. In this case the right-handed chiral states are sterile neutrinos, $`\nu _R`$. For Majorana neutrinos $`\nu _R`$’s are not sterile but interact mainly with anti-leptons. In this case in order to have a non-vanishing effect in the neutrino-neutrino interactions, it is necessary to have a net left-handed chirality asymmetry, $`n_{\nu _L}0`$, $`n_{\nu _R}0`$. The Stodolsky effect with Majorana relic neutrinos was considered also in Ref. .

The mechanical forces exerted on macroscopic targets by relic neutrinos is unfortunately very small . However we have considered here the effect on neutrinos propagating in a medium which can be the relic neutrino sea or ordinary charged or neutral matter. The important thing, besides a non-zero but arbitrary mass, is the number density of the medium and the distance travel by the neutrinos. The helicity flip does not depend on the real value of the neutrino masses.

There are also spin-spin interactions (i.e., the effect of a vector potential) but this case needs a more careful treatment. We would like to call the effects above considered “GEFAN–effects”.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Conselho Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia (CNPq) and by Programa de Apoio a Núcleos de Excelência (PRONEX). The author would like to thank G. Matsas, all the GEFAN and IFT-UNESP collaborators for useful discussions.