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# Geometric approach to the dynamic glass transition

## Abstract

We numerically study the potential energy landscape of a fragile glassy system and find that the dynamic crossover corresponding to the glass transition is actually the effect of an underlying geometric transition caused by the vanishing of the instability index of saddle points of the potential energy. Furthermore, we show that the potential energy barriers connecting local glassy minima increase with decreasing energy of the minima, and we relate this behaviour to the fragility of the system. Finally, we analyze the real space structure of activated processes by studying the distribution of particle displacements for local minima connected by simple saddles.

Despite a large number of investigations, there is still much to understand about the dynamic glass transition in supercooled liquids. The basic problem is that, strictly speaking, there is no dynamic transition at all. In systems known as fragile liquids , experiment finds a sharp rise of the viscosity in a very narrow interval of temperature upon cooling. The shear relaxation time increases by several orders of magnitude in a few degrees, and it becomes impossible to perform an equilibrium experiment. Nevertheless, sharp as this behaviour may be, it is not a genuine dynamic singularity. At the other extreme of the experimental spectrum we find strong liquids , which experience a gentle increase of the relaxation time, often according to the Arrhenius law. Even in such systems though, when the viscosity becomes too large, equilibrium can no longer be achieved in experimental times.

The glass transition temperature $`T_g`$ is conventionally defined as that where the value of the viscosity is $`10^{13}`$ poise. Below $`T_g`$ equilibrium experiments become really hard to perform and a sample can be considered to be in its glass phase. However, $`T_g`$ is just a conventional experimental temperature, defined out of the need to mark the onset of glassy dynamics. The attempt to give a theoretical description of such an ill-defined “transition” may therefore seem pointless.

On the one hand, this conclusion is correct for the strongest liquids: here nothing peculiar happens close to $`T_g`$, and the glass transition fully displays its purely conventional nature. On the other hand, the most fragile systems resist such an objection, simply by virtue of the extremely steep increase of relaxation time in a small interval of temperature around $`T_g`$. This fact suggests that some kind of new physical mechanism is indeed responsible for the onset of the glassy phase in fragile supercooled liquids. We share this view, and the aim of this Letter is to shed some light on the nature of this mechanism.

The key idea is that the sharp dynamic crossover observed in fragile liquids is a consequence of an underlying topological transition, controlled by energy, rather than temperature. More precisely, the existence of an energy level where the instability index of the stationary points of the potential energy vanishes is responsible for a change in the dominant mechanism of diffusion. If energy barriers are large, this change in the mechanism of diffusion causes the fast increase of the relaxation time.

This study is part of a more general program aimed at explaining glassy dynamics in terms of properties of the potential energy landscape. Our method generalizes the ideas of Goldstein , and Stillinger-Weber , by extending to unstable stationary points the analysis formerly restricted to minima of the potential energy. The first steps in this direction have been done in , building on the ideas of , and more concrete results have been recently obtained in . Further inspiration came from the approach of Keyes and coworkers , which related diffusion to the stability properties of instantaneous configurations. In the present work we firmly establish the connection between topological properties of the landscape and fragile glassy dynamics. Furthermore, we study the role of potential energy barriers and we analyze the real space structure of activated processes.

We consider a soft-sphere binary mixture , a fragile model glass-former. In addition to capturing the essential features of fragile glasses , this model can be thermalized below $`T_g`$ with the efficient MC algorithm of . Furthermore, previous investigations of the saddle points have focused on Lennard-Jones systems, so it is useful to look at a broader class of models. Most of our data are obtained for $`N=70`$ particles, but we tested our key results for $`N=140`$ as well. We impose periodic boundary conditions in $`d=3`$ dimensions. Particles are of unit mass and belong to one of two species $`\alpha =1,2`$, present in equal amounts and interacting via a potential

$$𝒱=\underset{i<j}{\overset{N}{}}V_{ij}(|\text{r}_i\text{r}_j|)=\underset{i<j}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{\sigma _{\alpha (i)}+\sigma _{\alpha (j)}}{|\text{r}_i\text{r}_j|}\right]^{12}.$$
(1)
The radii $`\sigma _\alpha `$ are fixed by $`\sigma _2/\sigma _1=1.2`$ and setting the effective diameter to unity, that is $`(2\sigma _1)^3+2(\sigma _1+\sigma _2)^3+(2\sigma _2)^3=4l_0^3`$, where $`l_0`$ is the unit of length. The density is $`\rho =N/V=1`$ in units of $`l_0^3`$, and we set Boltzmann’s constant $`k_B=1`$. We obtain equilibrium configurations at several temperatures by the swap Monte Carlo algorithm of . A long-range cut-off at $`r_c=\sqrt{3}`$ is imposed. However, to find the stationary points we need a potential with a continuous second derivative. Thus, instead of simply shifting the pair potential by a constant $`C_{ij}`$ (so that $`V_{ij}(rr_c)=0`$), we use a smooth cut-off, setting $`V_{ij}(r)=B_{ij}(ar)^3`$ for $`r_c<r<a`$ and $`V_{ij}(r)=0`$ for $`ra`$, fixing $`a`$, $`B_{ij}`$ and $`C_{ij}`$ by imposing continuity.

We sample the stationary points of the potential energy by quenching the equilibrium MC configurations onto saddle points. This is done by numerically solving the $`3N`$ nonlinear equations $`𝒱/𝒓_i=0`$ by means of a backtracking Newton method with finite-difference approximation to the Jacobian . Once a saddle point is found, we measure its potential energy $`U`$ and its instability index $`K`$, that is the number of negative eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix at the saddle.

In Fig. 1 (top) we plot the average index density $`k=K/3N`$ as a function of the potential energy density $`u=U/N`$. As in , we find a well defined function $`k(u)`$ which vanishes at a threshold value of the energy, $`u_{\text{th}}`$. For $`N=70`$, a comparison between the linear fit of the data and the last point of the curve gives $`u_{\text{th}}=1.75\pm 0.01`$. For $`N=140`$, despite worse statistics, we find $`u_{\text{th}}=1.73\pm 0.01`$, consistently with the result for $`N=70`$. Note that the threshold energy is not the ground state of the system, and in fact we found minima down to $`u_0=1.68`$ ($`N=70`$). The threshold energy marks the border between unstable saddle points, dominating the landscape above $`u_{\text{th}}`$, and stable minima, dominant for $`u_0<u<u_{\text{th}}`$. Therefore, a topological transition takes place at $`u_{\text{th}}`$, where the stability properties of the landscape change.

A system confined to the minima-dominated region of the landscape, $`u<u_{\text{th}}`$, must resort to barrier hopping to diffuse in phase space. It is therefore essential to find the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ below which this confinement takes place. To this end we must realize that a system trapped in a single potential well has a potential energy density equal to the bare energy of the bottom of the well, plus a vibrational contribution proportional to $`k_BT`$. Therefore, it is the bare potential energy of the system which we must compare with the threshold energy . We can write the bare energy as $`u_b(T)=u_{\text{eq}}(T)3/2k_BT`$. When the bare energy $`u_b(T)`$ drops below the threshold $`u_{\text{th}}`$, the system is effectively confined to the minima dominated region of the landscape. For $`N=70`$ this happens at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}=0.242\pm 0.012`$ (Fig. 1, bottom). Note that, unlike previous investigations , for $`N=70`$ we thermalize the system below the threshold, giving an accurate determination of $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ . Hence, the dynamic effect of the topological transition at $`u_{\text{th}}`$ must be a qualitative change in the mechanism of diffusion at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$.

The fact that barrier crossing becomes the main mechanism of diffusion below $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ does not necessarily imply a slowing down of the dynamics: large energy barriers at $`u_{\text{th}}`$ are also needed, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }U(u_{\text{th}})`$ substantially larger than $`k_BT_{\mathrm{th}}`$. The value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U(u_{\text{th}})`$ can be estimated as the average difference in energy between simple saddles ($`K=1`$) and threshold minima ($`K=0`$). This difference can be extracted from the slope of $`k(u)`$, as $`\mathrm{\Delta }U(u_{\text{th}})1/[3k^{}(u_{\text{th}})]`$ . Note that the slope of $`k(u)`$ for $`N=70`$ and $`N=140`$ is the same. This is consistent with the fact that activated processes are local in space (as we will discuss later) and therefore barriers do not depend on the size of the system. We find $`\mathrm{\Delta }U(u_{\text{th}})2.210k_BT_{\mathrm{th}}`$. This is an important result: at the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ where activation becomes dominant, potential energy barriers are already very large compared to the available thermal energy. Activation is therefore highly inefficient at the temperature where for the first time it is actually needed. This, we believe, is the most striking feature of very fragile liquids and it confirms the conjecture of  that the fragility of a system is higher the larger the potential energy barriers at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$. We thus predict that a sharp slowing down of the dynamics must occur at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$. Note that the change in the mechanism of diffusion at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ would not be accompanied by a dynamic slowing down if barriers at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ were small. In this case there would rather be a fragile-to-strong crossover at $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$, as discussed in .

To test our prediction about the slowing down we must find the temperature marking the onset of glassiness. For soft-spheres, this is generally accepted to be $`T_c0.226`$ . This value is affected by the same arbitrariness as the experimental $`T_g`$, since an arbitrary time scale (set by the simulation times) is involved . However, as stressed in the introduction, the slowing down of fragile glasses is so sharp that it makes sense to define a $`T_c`$, as long as one keeps the above proviso in mind.

Given that we use a non-standard cut-off for the potential, we perform an independent determination of $`T_c`$ for $`N=70`$. To this end we compute the van Hove self-correlation function $`G_s^\alpha (r,t)`$ from configurations sampled in a molecular dynamics (MD) run which uses equilibrium MC configurations as starting points. Of course, the MD simulation falls out of equilibrium at higher temperatures than the MC swap dynamics. $`G_s^\alpha `$ is defined as

$$G_s^{(\alpha )}(\text{r},t)=\frac{1}{N_\alpha }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N_\alpha }{}}\delta [\text{r}_i(t)\text{r}_i(0)\text{r}].$$
(2)
The probability that a particle of type $`\alpha `$ has moved a distance $`r`$ in a time $`t`$ is proportional to $`r^2G_s^{(\alpha )}(r,t)`$, which is plotted in Fig. 2 for several times and temperatures.

A reliable dynamic diagnostic for $`T_c`$ is to look at the evolution of the first peak of $`r^2G_s^{(\alpha )}(r,t)`$ . In the liquid phase, the peak moves to the right and rapidly becomes Gaussian (top panel of Fig. 2). On the other hand, in the glassy phase it takes a huge time to reach the hydrodynamic limit, and the simulations show an unmoving peak whose area very slowly decreases as a secondary peak grows (bottom panel). The middle panel shows an intermediate situation. On this basis, we estimate $`T_c0.24`$, not far from the standard $`T_c`$. This value is consistent with the topological transition temperature $`T_{\mathrm{th}}0.242`$ we found above, a result which strongly supports our scenario. Let us stress the difference between $`T_c`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$: The first depends on the time scale of the experiment and it can be sensibly defined only if the dynamic crossover is sharp. The latter marks the point where activation starts ruling the dynamics, and it is uniquely defined. In fact, $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ has the same nature as the critical temperature of mode coupling theory .

Our estimate of the barriers can be criticized, since the average distance in energy between minima and simple saddles neglects the requirement that they must be connected to each other. To test our estimate we perform for $`N=70`$ a direct sampling of the potential energy barriers. Starting from a simple saddle we follow the gradient in the two opposite directions along the unstable eigenvector, obtaining two connected minima.

In Fig. 3 we plot the average barrier size $`\mathrm{\Delta }U`$ as a function of the energy density $`u`$ of the adjacent minimum. On the same plot we report the value of $`u_{\text{th}}`$ ($`N=70`$), and the estimate of $`\mathrm{\Delta }U(u_{\text{th}})`$ obtained from the slope of $`k(u)`$: this estimate agrees with the value that can be read off from the plot. We conclude that the function $`k(u)`$ provides the threshold energy and the potential energy barriers at the threshold.

A second important piece of information is contained in Fig. 3: the typical barriers grow with decreasing energy. The consequence is that below $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ the dynamic slowing down is enhanced not only by the decrease of the thermal energy available for activation, but also by the increase of the typical barriers. Thus, below $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$, we expect super-Arrhenius behaviour of the relaxation time .

A brief comment on barrier crossing is in order here. Thermal activation must be introduced within a canonical description, since in the micro-canonical ensemble the total energy is conserved. In other words, an activated transition is performed by a sub-system, with the rest acting as a thermal bath. The sub-system must be much smaller than the total system, and indeed activated processes involve a finite number of particles. For this reason, potential energy barriers associated with such processes are finite in the thermodynamic limit, implying that simple saddles and minima have the same potential energy density for $`N\mathrm{}`$. Yet, the equilibrium potential energy density is of order $`k_BT`$ above minima. This fact does not imply that barriers are easy to overcome, nor that thermal activation is irrelevant, but simply that activated processes involve a finite number of particles.

As we have shown, activated processes are crucial below $`T_{\mathrm{th}}`$ and therefore a real-space description of barrier crossing is very important. To this end we computed the distribution of the displacement, that is the distance between the position of a particle in a minimum and its position in the crossing-connected minimum (Fig. 4) . To interpret this result we need first to fix a reference distance: Fig. 2 shows that, even in the glassy phase, particles can easily travel a distance $`r_m0.5`$. The primary peak in the displacement distribution indicates that the large majority of particles moves less than $`r_m`$, while a small secondary peak can be seen at $`r1`$, involving only $`2`$ particles . From the radial distribution function (not shown) we know that $`r1`$ is the nearest-neighbor distance for type 1 particles. These facts thus suggest that in this system activated processes involve a small number of nearest neighbor particles exchanging positions, while many particles move a small amount to make way for them. We also measure the largest displacement for each pair of minima and find that its distribution has no secondary peak at short distances, confirming the above interpretation. Finally, the distribution of the displacements between minimum and intermediate saddle shows no secondary peak at large distances, consistently with the fact that on the saddle the exchanging particles have not completed their transition yet.

In this Letter we argued that glassy slowing down in fragile liquids is caused by the presence of a topological transition. Potential energy barriers are much larger than the available thermal energy at the transition, and they increase with decreasing energy. Activated processes involve small numbers of particles, each moving a distance of the order of the nearest-neighbor separation.

AC was supported by EPSRC-GR/L97698, TSG partly by CONICET (Argentina). We thank J.L. Barrat, J.-P. Bouchaud, B. Doliwa, G. Ehrhardt, J.P. Garrahan, A. Heuer, E. Marinari, V. Martin-Mayor, M.A. Moore, F. Ricci-Tersenghi, A. Stephenson and F. Thalmann.


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# Galaxy Deconstruction: Clues from Globular Clusters

## 1. Introduction

The origin of galaxies is one of the great outstanding problems in modern astrophysics. How and when did galaxies form? How have they evolved over time? How does environment influence their properties?

One way to unravel the secrets of galaxy formation is by studying their globular cluster populations. Most galaxies possess globular cluster systems of various richness, ranging from dwarf galaxies with only a handful of globulars, to supergiant elliptical galaxies with tens of thousands of globulars surrounding them (see Harris 1991 or van den Bergh 2000 for reviews). Because globular clusters are among the oldest stellar ensembles in the universe, they can provide important clues about the formation of their parent galaxies.

The earliest studies of globular clusters were, by necessity, limited to our own Galaxy and its nearest neighbors. Over the past few decades, however, there has been tremendous progress in our understanding of globular cluster systems of other galaxies. One of the most important recent discoveries in the study of extragalactic globular cluster systems is that most large galaxies appear to possess two or more chemically distinct globular cluster populations (e.g., Gebhardt & Kissler-Patig 1999; Forbes & Forte 2000; Kundu & Whitmore 2001). Some examples are shown in Figure 1, where two peaks are seen in the distribution of globular cluster metallicities for clusters associated with four large elliptical galaxies.

A number of different theories have been proposed to explain the origin of these bimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions. An obvious way to generate two or more chemically distinct globular cluster populations in galaxies would be through two or more bursts of globular cluster formation. This might occur, for example, if mergers of gas-rich galaxies trigger the formation of new globulars (Schweizer 1987; Ashman & Zepf 1992), resulting in the birth of multiple generations of globular clusters. Similarly, one might envision a multiphase galaxy collapse model in which the metal-poor globular clusters formed during the initial collapse of a protogalactic gas cloud, and the metal-rich globulars formed some time later (Forbes, Brodie & Grillmair 1997; Larsen et al. 2001). In both of these scenarios, the metal-poor globular clusters surrounding galaxies such as those shown in Figure 1 would be their original population that formed from low-metallicity gas at early epochs, and the metal-rich globulars would have formed more recently from gas that was enriched by stellar evolution.

Alternatively, bimodal or multimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions could also arise quite naturally from galaxy mergers and/or accretion of globulars stripped from other galaxies without needing to invoke the formation of multiple generations of globulars (Côté, Marzke, & West 1998; Côté, Marzke, West & Minniti 2000). Motivation for this model came from a simple fact: for those elliptical galaxies that exhibit a bimodal globular cluster metallicity distribution, the metallicity of the metal-rich peak shows a clear correlation with parent galaxy luminosity, in the sense that the most luminous galaxies have the most metal-rich globulars (Forbes, Brodie & Grillmair 1997; Forbes & Forte 2001). However, no such correlation is seen for the metal-poor peak, it appears to be largely independent of parent galaxy luminosity. To my collaborators and I, this suggests that the metal-rich globular clusters are innate to large ellipticals, and the metal-poor ones were added later either through mergers or accretion.

## 2. Globular clusters as diagnostics of galaxy mergers

There is no doubt that galaxy mergers have occurred frequently throughout the history of the universe. Figure 2 shows an image of a supergiant elliptical galaxy in which the partially digested remains of several smaller galaxies are still clearly visible. Many large galaxies today may have grown to their present sizes by devouring smaller companions. If so, what becomes of the globular cluster populations of the galaxies that were consumed?

There is also evidence of ongoing galaxy destruction in rich clusters, and countless galaxies may have met their demise over a Hubble time (e.g., Gregg & West 1998; Calcaneo-Rodin et al. 2000). An example is shown in Figure 3. Because they are dense stellar systems, globular clusters are likely to survive the disruption of their parent galaxy, and will accumulate over time in the cores of rich galaxy clusters. The ongoing destruction of the moderate-sized elliptical galaxy shown in Figure 3, for example, will likely strew several hundred globulars into intergalactic space. Some of these may eventually be incorporated into other galaxies, a sort of recycling on cosmic scales (Muzzio 1987). In particular, giant elliptical galaxies at the centers of rich galaxy clusters, which are observed to have enormously rich globular cluster populations, may have inherited myriad intergalactic globular clusters (West et al. 1995).

If large galaxies have grown by consuming smaller neighbors or by accreting material torn from other galaxies, then their present-day globular cluster systems are an amalgamation of the globular cluster systems of their victims. Côté et al. (1998) and Côté et al. (2000) showed that the growth of large galaxies through mergers or accretion will invariably be accompanied by the capture of metal-poor globulars, resulting in bimodal (or even multi-modal) metallicity distributions that are strikingly similar to those see in Figure 1.

Our prescription for building a large elliptical galaxy with a bimodal globular cluster metallicity distribution is remarkably simple:

* We assume that galaxies obey a Schechter-like luminosity function, as is observed. This sets the relative numbers of galaxies of different luminosities that are available for merging.
* We assume that each galaxy is born with its own intrinsic globular cluster population, and that the number of globulars per unit galaxy luminosity is constant, which is consistent with observations (Harris 1991). This determines how many globular clusters each galaxy has available to donate during mergers.
* We assume, again from observations, that the mean metallicity of a galaxy’s original globular cluster population increases monotonically with parent galaxy luminosity (Côté et al. 1998). Smaller galaxies have metal-poorer globulars on average than larger galaxies.

Beginning with a medium-sized elliptical galaxy as a seed, we allow it to consume its smaller neighbors at random, stopping after enough mergers have occurred to yield a large elliptical. We assume that globular cluster numbers are conserved during mergers, so the larger galaxy gains the globulars from the smaller galaxies that it consumed.

Figure 4 shows some results of Monte Carlo simulations based on the Côté et al. (1998, 2000) model. Our simulations indicate that 80 to $`90\%`$ of large elliptical galaxies formed in this way exhibit bimodal (or in some cases multimodal) globular cluster distributions. The locations of the metal-rich and metal-poor peaks also agree well with observations (compare Figures 1 and 4). In our model, the metal-rich globular clisuters of large ellipticals belonged to the progenitor galaxy seed, and the metal-poor globulars were inherited from the many smaller galaxies that it consumed during its growth, or by accretion of intergalactic globulars that were torn from other galaxies. The globulars gained from mergers or accretion are predominantly metal-poor because they originate mostly in low-mass galaxies.

It is noteworthy that unimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions also occur from time to time in our model. An example can be seen in Figure 4. This is not surprising, given the stochastic nature of the merger process. For instance, a large elliptical could in principle be built by merging many small dwarf galaxies (resulting in the globular cluster metallicity distribution of the final merger remnant exhibiting a single metal-poor peak), or by merging two or three medium-sized galaxies (which might lead to a single metal-rich peak), or by merging galaxies over a wide range of luminosities (which yields bimodal or multimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions).

Unfortunately, our model seems to often be misunderstood or misrepresented in the literature. For example, claims that the Côté et al. (1998, 2000) model is ruled out by the discovery of bimodality in some low-luminosity ellipticals (e.g., Forte et al. 2001; Kundu & Whitmore 2001) are completely unfounded; Côté et al. (2000) demonstrated that it is quite straightforward to reproduce the bimodal globular cluster metallicity distribution of our own Galactic spheroid (which has $`M_V19.9`$) as a consequence of accretion and mergers, and hence the same should be true for intermediate- and low-luminosity elliptical galaxies. Similarly, recent assertions that the location of the metal-poor globular cluster peak also correlates weakly with parent galaxy luminosity is not “hard to explain within the accretion/merger pictures” (Larsen et al. 2001). A careful reading of the original Côté, West & Marzke (1998) paper would show that in fact we predict this very result; see Section 3.1.2 of that paper, which states “there is a slight tendency for the brighter gE’s to capture globular cluster populations that are more metal-rich than those accreted by their fainter counterparts (since the brighter gE’s are able to accommodate the capture of more luminous intruder galaxies).”

If our model is correct, then it offers the exciting possibility of placing some quantitative constraints on the number and types of mergers that galaxies have experienced over their lifetimes by comparing the relative numbers of metal-rich and metal-poor globulars that they possess. Côté et al. (1998) used this reasoning to conclude that M49, the most luminous elliptical galaxy in the Virgo cluster, must have gained roughly 2/3 of its present luminosity by consuming other smaller Virgo galaxies. More recently, we have applied these same techniques to understanding the formation of our own Milky Way galaxy. Côté et al. (2000) showed that the present-day globular cluster system of the Milky Way strongly suggests that the Galaxy’s spheroid was assembled from a large number of metal-poor protogalactic fragments. Hence even a relatively low luminosity system like the Milky Way spheroid can and does possess a bimodal distribution of globular cluster metallicities.

## 3. Where do we go from here?

Clearly the competing theories for the origin of bimodal globular cluster metallicity distributions make quite different predictions regarding the ages of globulars. If the metal-poor and metal-rich globulars surrounding large elliptical galaxies are the result of multiple bursts of cluster formation, then the two populations should have quite different ages. If, on the other hand, bimodal metallicity distributions can be explained by dissipationless merging as described above, then the metal-poor and metal-rich globulars should all be old.

Recently, Beasley et al. (2000) measured ages and metallicities of globular clusters in M49, and concluded that (within the sizeable uncertainties) the metal-poor and metal-rich populations are coeval and old. This clearly seems to support the Côté et al. (1998, 2000) picture. However, more precise data are needed to reduce the uncertainties before firm conclusions can be drawn. With that goal, we have obtained Hubble Space Telescope observations of $`10^3`$ globular clusters associated with the giant elliptical galaxy M87 in order to accurately determine their ages using a powerful narrow-band photometry technique.

The hypothesis that galaxies might accrete substantial numbers of intergalactic globular clusters also needs to be tested with direct observations of these objects to determine if they really exist and in what numbers. Unlike many theories for the origin of globular cluster populations, the intergalactic globulars hypothesis is easily falsifiable; if a significant population of intergalactic globulars is not detected in the cores of galaxy clusters, then this idea will have to be abandoned. My collaborators and I are currently analyzing HST, Keck, Subaru and CFHT images that we obtained to search for intergalactic globulars in the Virgo, Coma and Abell 1185 galaxy clusters.

There is also work to be done on the theoretical front. The simple merger model described here is admittedly somewhat naive. For example, we assumed equal merger probabilities for all galaxies, when in reality there is likely to be some mass dependence of merging. As a step towards more realistic models, Frazer Pearce and I are collaborating in a study of the merger histories of galaxies that form in very high-resolution N-body cosmological simulations. By following the detailed merger histories of galaxies from high redshifts to the present, and inputting simple models of globular cluster formation at different epochs, we will be able to make quantitative predictions regarding the evolution of globular cluster metallicity distributions in galaxies as a function of time.

## References

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Calcáneo-Roldán, C., Moore, B., Bland-Hawthorn, J., Malin, D. & Sadler, E.M. 2000, MNRAS, 314, 324

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### Acknowledgments.

I wish to thank my principal collaborators in this research, Pat Côté, Michael Gregg, Ron Marzke, and Frazer Pearce. This work was supported by NSF grant AST 00-71149.

Discussion

Michael Rich: I support your view; in fact, in the Milky Way there are old metal-rich globular clusters in the bulge and, as I mentioned in my talk, when you age-date them they seem to be rather old – at least of order 13Gyr. We have a white dwarf distance modulus distance to 47 Tuc which gives a 13Gyr age, and then we can compare 6528 and 6553 to that, and we think that these red globular clusters were formed along with the Galactic bulge, very early in the history of the Galaxy. So I think that red cluster systems have to do with the formation of the bulge. Now, is the bulge formed in a merger event? Maybe, the simulations show these very early mergers. On the other hand, black hole mass is correlated with bulge velocity dispersion and black holes are very early galaxy formation events. So I don’t know, but I would tend to support the view that the red clusters were formed in the metal-rich spheroid.

West: Thanks. Pat Côté, Ron Marke, Dante Minniti and I published a paper just last year in which we showed that one can account for the properties of the Milky Way spheroid and its globular cluster system if it consumed upwards of $`10^3`$ little dwarf galaxies during its formation.

Hugh Harris: The clusters are usually found more widely distributed spatially than the halo light in their galaxy. How do you interpret that?

West: We think that accretion, not just mergers, has probably played an important role by stripping globular clusters from some galaxies and then adding these to the outer regions of others, especially giant ellipticals in the centers of rich clusters. This would explain why some of large ellipticals, like M87 for example, have far more globulars per unit galaxy luminosity than expected, and why they have very extended distributions.

Alan Stockton: The problem with making large bulges or large ellipticals from a lot of small things, of course, is the luminosity-color relation, or luminosity-metallicity relation. So you indicated in most cases you favor starting with a fairly large progenitor and then putting a bunch of small things on it. Do you still run into any problem with the observed dispersion in that relation?

West: One can imagine making a large elliptical in many different ways, either from the merger of many small dwarfs, in which case the elliptical should be pretty blue as well, or from a number of bigger progenitors which would have had redder colors. The existence of the observed luminosity-color relation for galaxies suggests that in most cases large ellipticals can’t have formed just from the merger of many dwarfs – that probably wouldn’t work, you’re right. It suggests that most large ellipticals must have started from fairly large progenitor seeds. As this seed galaxy consumes smaller neighbors, this will dilute the luminosity-color relation, but won’t necessarily obliterate it.


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# Properties of a Molecular Cloud in NGC 185

## 1 Introduction

Star formation is one of the fundamental aspects of galaxy evolution; in the most simplistic terms, the stars that form in a galaxy today help to determine what the galaxy will look like tomorrow. In this context, the molecular gas in elliptical or early-type galaxies is particularly interesting. The very name “early-type galaxy” suggests the paradigm that the ellipticals formed all their stars most of a Hubble time ago and then ceased, exhausting or ejecting all of their cold gas. But in recent years it has been found that many (if not most) ellipticals do contain dust and cold neutral gas; see Colbert et al. (2001), Goudfrooij et al. (1994), van Dokkum & Franx (1995), and Ferrari et al. (1999) (dust); Huchtmeier et al. (1995), Knapp et al. (1985), and Wardle & Knapp (1986) (HI); Rupen (1997) and Henkel & Wiklind (1997) (CO).

Thus, elliptical galaxies have the raw materials for star formation. Some authors (e.g. Kauffmann 1996) even suggest that if an elliptical galaxy accretes enough cold neutral gas, it could undergo a significant episode of star formation activity and transform itself into something that looks like a late-type galaxy. Clearly, a complete understanding of the evolution of elliptical galaxies must include a knowledge of their molecular gas, and specifically, where the gas came from and what it is doing.

The present paper focuses on the second of these issues— what the molecular gas is doing in elliptical galaxies. It is well known that molecular clouds in our own Galaxy and similar spirals form stars. But we have little information about the distribution and physical properties of the molecular gas in ellipticals. If the physical properties of the molecular gas in ellipticals (temperature, density, density structure, and others) are similar to those in Galactic GMCs, and if the molecular gas is in stable structures with lifetimes long enough to form stars, then star formation might proceed in ellipticals in a manner similar to spirals.

The main hindrance to studying the neutral ISM in ellipticals is that they tend to be rather far away, so the observed fluxes are weak and also the linear resolution is poor. The two major exceptions to this statement are two dwarf elliptical companions to M31, the galaxies NGC 185 and NGC 205. Their distances are less than 1 Mpc. They are the only early-type galaxies with a neutral interstellar medium that can be imaged at resolutions better than 100 pc, which allows us to resolve the individual giant molecular clouds and address the issues mentioned above.

It is true that these galaxies are not true ellipticals in some classification schemes; in general, dwarf ellipticals follow a different fundamental plane than giant ellipticals (Ferguson & Binggeli 1994), and many dwarf ellipticals have exponential light profiles rather than $`R^{1/4}`$. The dwarf ellipticals are not known to have significant amounts of hot gas, as many “true” ellipticals do. However, with respect to other factors which might influence the properties of their interstellar media, they can be regarded as ellipticals or as reasonable facsimiles thereof. They have mostly old stellar populations (Lee 1996; Davidge 1992; Martínez-Delgado et al. 1999), so the energetics of the interstellar medium are dominated by the evolved stars rather than the young massive stars. They are dynamically hot, supported by stellar velocity dispersions (Bender et al. 1991; Held et al. 1992), with no known signs of spiral density waves. Because NGC 185 and NGC 205 have these properties and others in common with “true” ellipticals, their interstellar medium offers important insights into the ISM of elliptical galaxies.

An interferometric map of the CO emission in NGC 205 (the first image which resolved an individual molecular cloud in an elliptical or dwarf elliptical galaxy) was presented by Young & Lo (1996). Various molecular line ratios in that galaxy were discussed by Young (2000) and Welch, Sage, & Mitchell (1998). The current paper discusses high resolution images of the molecular gas in NGC 185 and their implications for molecular cloud properties.

The first detection of CO emission from NGC 185 was published by Wiklind & Rydbeck (1986). It involved two pointings near the center of the galaxy, but the 33″ beam was too large to say anything about the distribution of the molecular gas. Subsequent observations of the galaxy were all made with single dish telescopes at about 21″ resolution. These include a map of the inner 40″ $`\times `$ 80″ of the galaxy, by Wiklind & Henkel (1993); eight pointings by Welch, Mitchell, & Yi (1996); and two pointings by Young & Lo (1997), hereafter YL97. The present paper gives an interferometric map of the CO emission in NGC 185, with the dual advantages of a larger field of view and higher spatial resolution than have been possible before. The high spatial resolution is particularly valuable— it resolves the molecular cloud, enables dynamical mass estimates of the cloud (without assuming a $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor), and reveals the relationships between molecular gas, atomic gas, and dust in this galaxy.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

The galaxy NGC 185 was observed in the 12CO J=1-0 line with the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) millimeter interferometer in October 1996. At that time the array consisted of nine antennas arranged in a compact configuration, giving projected baselines from 2 to 50 k$`\lambda `$. A total of about 12 hours were obtained on source. Single sideband system temperatures (measured using the chopper wheel method and scaled to outside the atmosphere) were about 500-700 K for the seven SIS receivers and 700-900 K for the two Schottky receivers.

The phase and pointing center for these observations was 00h 38m 57.7s, +48° 20′ 12.0″ (J2000 coordinates), approximately the optical center of the galaxy. NGC 185 is quite large in angular size— the optical isophotes are fit by an exponential with a scale length of 1.5′ (Caldwell et al. 1992)— and the FWHM field of view of the BIMA interferometer is almost 2′ at 115 GHz. A map of HI emission in NGC 185 shows that the atomic gas in NGC 185 is all located within 1.5′ of the center (YL97). Since the CO extent is expected to be comparable to or smaller than the HI extent, and indeed the dust clouds in the galaxy are concentrated within about 30″ of the galaxy center, only one pointing center was used for the CO observations. The correlator was set up to record data in the velocity range $``$138 to $``$267 km s-1 (LSR velocities) at a resolution of 0.5 km s-1.

Absolute flux calibration was based on observations of the planet Mars and double-checked with observations of the secondary calibrators 3C84 and BL Lac. The flux histories of those sources give flux calibrations which are consistent with Mars-derived values at a level of about 10%. The overall flux calibration is probably accurate to about 20%. The secondary calibrators 3C84 and BL Lac were used to track complex gain variations with time; they were observed about once every 45 minutes. Since the millimeter-wavelength continuum emission from NGC 185 is very weak and the CO line is also weak and relatively narrow, no attempt was made to correct the IF part of the bandpass shape.

Two spectral line cubes were made from the data, both with channels 4 km s-1 wide and covering velocities from $``$140 km s-1 to $``$260 km s-1. All velocities in this paper are measured with respect to LSR. One cube was made with the so-called “natural” weighting of the uv data; it has an angular resolution of 5.5″ $`\times `$ 4.6″. The rms noise level in line-free regions of the cube is 0.070 Jy/beam (0.25 K). The other cube was made by applying a Gaussian tapering function to the uv data; it has a resolution of 9.8″ $`\times `$ 8.2″. Its rms noise level is 0.080 Jy/beam (0.091 K). Both cubes were lightly cleaned with the Hogbom clean algorithm. Image masks were created by smoothing and clipping the cleaned cubes, and integrated intensity maps were made by summing the data in unmasked regions of the cubes.

In this paper, the distance to NGC 185 is assumed to be $`(mM)_0=24.0\pm 0.1`$ mag, or 0.63 $`\pm `$ 0.03 Mpc. The value comes from Martínez-Delgado & Aparicio (1998), who derived $`(mM)_0=23.95\pm 0.1`$ mag from the tip of the red giant branch, and from Salaris & Cassisi (1998), who have compiled from the literature distance moduli in the range 24.06 to 24.15. At this distance, the linear resolutions of the two data cubes are 17 $`\times `$ 14 pc and 30 $`\times `$ 25 pc.

## 3 CO flux and distribution

Figure 1 shows the integrated intensity of molecular gas in NGC 185 superposed on an optical broadband ($`B`$) image and the atomic gas (HI) column density from YL97. Figure 2 shows individual channel maps for the CO emission.

The BIMA observations clearly show molecular gas in NGC 185 between velocities of $``$188 km s-1 and $``$200 km s-1. The CO emission is found in one cloud whose center coordinates are 00h 38m 56.6s, +48° 20′ 19″ (J2000.0). The peak CO intensity is 0.31 Jy/beam = 1.1 K on the brightness temperature scale at 5″ (15 pc) resolution. The highest CO integrated intensity is 3.3 Jy beam-1 km s-1= 11.9 K km s-1, also at 15 pc resolution. The total flux of the cloud is 8.8 Jy km s-1 with an uncertainty of at least 20% (see section 2). That number agrees very well with the IRAM 30m telescope observations of Young & Lo (1996), who found an integrated brightness temperature 2.1$`\pm `$0.2 K km s-1 = 9.6$`\pm `$1.0 Jy km s-1 in a 21″ beam centered on the molecular cloud. The data of Wiklind & Rydbeck (1986) imply a flux of about 19 Jy km s-1 in a larger beam, but without an error estimate, so it is difficult to judge whether that is inconsistent with the present results.

The CO distribution presented here agrees very well with the map of Wiklind & Henkel (1993), which was made with the IRAM 30m telescope and a Lucy deconvolution algorithm; both maps show the same prominent molecular cloud and very little (if any) CO elsewhere in the galaxy. The JCMT observations of Welch et al. (1996) show CO emission in three positions which all overlap the cloud in Figure 1; the velocities are consistent with those in the BIMA maps, so it is most probable that all sets of observations found the same gas. In short, there is no conclusive evidence that the interferometric images of the bright molecular cloud in NGC 185 have failed to detect a significant amount of molecular gas in or around that cloud. The interferometer data may lack the sensitivity to detect a smaller amount of gas elsewhere in the galaxy.

A Gaussian fit to the spectrum of the cloud (Figure 3) gives a center velocity of $``$192.4$`\pm `$0.3 km s-1 and a FWHM of 18.3$`\pm `$0.6 km s-1. Fitting the CO column density map with an elliptical Gaussian function gives the deconvolved FWHM of the molecular cloud to be 11$`\pm `$1″ $`\times `$ 6.5$`\pm `$1″ (34 pc $`\times `$ 20 pc); the same result is obtained from simply measuring the dimensions of the 50% contour of column density.

Adopting a $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor which is the same as a “standard” Galactic value, $`X_{gal}`$= 3$`\times 10^{20}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)^1`$ (see Combes 1991), the peak H2 column density is 3.6$`\times 10^{21}`$ cm-2. At 0.63$`\pm `$0.03 Mpc, the H2 mass of the cloud is (4.1$`\pm `$0.9)$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$.111All of the masses quoted in this paper have error estimates which fold in the distance uncertainty as well as other relevant measurement uncertainties. Including helium increases the mass of the cloud by a factor of 1.36 (cf. Wilson 1995 and references therein), to (5.6$`\pm `$1.2)$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. Welch et al. (1996) quote a mass which is 5–10 times higher than this, mainly because they assumed a $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor four times larger. In this paper, the mass of the molecular cloud (plus helium) determined from the CO luminosity and the conversion factor $`X_{gal}`$ is referred to as $`M_{XCO}`$. The appropriateness of this value $`X_{gal}`$ for external galaxies in general and for NGC 185 in particular is a matter of current debate; the mass of this molecular cloud is discussed in greater detail in sections 6, 7, and 9.

## 4 Comparison of CO to dust and HI

Optical broadband observations of NGC 185 reveal complex dust distributions near the center of the galaxy (Hodge 1963; Gallagher & Hunter 1981; Kim & Lee 1998). Hodge identified two relatively large, dark dust patches which he called Dust Cloud 1 (DC1) and Dust Cloud 2 (DC2); they can be seen most clearly in the beautiful images of Martínez-Delgado et al. (1999). Kim & Lee (1998) identify several other clouds which are smaller and/or more diffuse, but all of the known dust in NGC 185 is within 1′ of the center of the galaxy. Figure 4 shows that the molecular cloud I detected in NGC 185 is an extremely good match to the optical obscuration in Hodge’s cloud DC1, in terms of position, size and shape.

Weak ($`3\sigma `$) detections of CO at positions on DC2 have been reported by YL97 and Welch et al (1996). The map presented here and the map of Wiklind & Henkel (1993) show no sign of CO emission near DC2. However, the reported detections in DC2 are factors of $``$2 weaker than detections in DC1, so it is possible that molecular gas is present in DC2 and is too weak to be detected in the present dataset.

Welch et al. (1996) have asserted that a significant amount of the CO emission in NGC 185 comes from locations in the galaxy where dust obscuration is not seen. But the very close correspondence between the CO distribution and the dust obscuration in Figure 4, the agreement between the BIMA map and the IRAM 30m map of Wiklind & Henkel, and the fact that the strongest detections of Welch et al. all overlap Hodge’s DC1 do not support this idea. It seems that all of the CO emission from NGC 185 can be attributed to regions with detectable dust obscuration.

The distribution and properties of the atomic gas (HI) in NGC 185 are discussed by YL97, who used the VLA to make images with resolutions of 21″ (64 pc) and 2.6 km s-1. That work found (1.09$`\pm `$0.06)$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ of HI in the galaxy,222Corrected for the distance of 0.63 Mpc assumed here. or (1.5$`\pm `$0.1)$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ including helium. All of the atomic gas is located within 2′ (370 pc) of the galaxy center. The peak HI column density coincides with galaxy center (within about 10″), and the HI has a cometary morphology; it falls off very quickly to the west, becoming undetectable about 30″ from the center, but trails off to distances of 2′ on the northeast (Figure 1).

The atomic gas is distributed in a handful of clumps which are easily seen in multiply-peaked HI profiles and in HI channel maps; the clumps show no global rotation pattern. They have masses around 104 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, deconvolved radii around 50 pc, and velocity dispersions of 4–15 km s-1. One HI clump of mass about (9.5$`\pm `$1.9)$`\times 10^3`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ (including helium) and deconvolved FWHM 43″ $`\times `$ 32″ (130 pc $`\times `$ 100 pc) is coincident with the molecular cloud, within 5″ (15 pc) and 3 km s-1 (Figure 4). This atomic clump may represent the photodissociated envelope around the molecular cloud. The peak HI column density in this clump is 1.7$`\times 10^{20}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (at a resolution of about 64 pc), and indeed the peak HI column density in NGC 185 as a whole is only about 3$`\times 10^{20}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (YL97). These values are significantly lower than the typical values of about 1021 $`\mathrm{cm}^2`$ which are usually thought to be required for the formation of molecular gas, at least in our own Galaxy; the difference may be caused by a much lower interstellar UV field in NGC 185 than in our own Galaxy, as discussed in greater detail by Young (2000).

Welch et al. (1996) have argued that the atomic gas in NGC 185 is spatially anticorrelated with the molecular gas. Probably this impression is caused by the cometary morphology of the HI. But on small scales ($``$60 pc and smaller), it seems that the atomic and molecular phases are indeed associated with each other, just as one would normally expect a molecular cloud to be associated with some photodissociated atomic gas.

## 5 Previous observations of NGC 205

For purposes of comparison, observations of CO emission in NGC 205 (first presented by Young & Lo 1996) were re-imaged at a velocity resolution of 2 km s-1 and angular resolutions of 9.55″$`\times `$5.0 ″ and 17.0″$`\times `$12.8 ″. A distance of 0.85 Mpc is assumed for NGC 205, and the uncertainty in this distance is probably at least 0.1 Mpc (see Salaris & Cassisi  and Ferrarese et al.  and references therein). At this distance, the linear resolutions of the images are 39 pc $`\times `$21 pc and 70 pc $`\times `$53 pc. CO emission in NGC 205 was analyzed in the same manner as for NGC 185; the CO flux detected in NGC 205 is 10 Jy km s-1 $`\pm `$20%, in good agreement with the 11 Jy km s-1 $`\pm `$14% from the single dish observations of Young (2000). The $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ mass calculated from a $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor is therefore (8.5$`\pm `$2.6)$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, not including helium, or $`M_{XCO}`$= (1.16$`\pm `$0.36)$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ including helium. A Gaussian fit to the integrated CO spectrum of the cloud gives a FWHM 7.3$`\pm `$0.3 km s-1, in reasonable agreement with the values obtained at much higher signal-to-noise ratio from the IRAM 30m telescope (Young 2000). An elliptical Gaussian fit to the CO column density map gives the deconvolved FWHM of the cloud to be 15$`\pm `$1″ $`\times `$ 6.6$`\pm `$1″ (62 pc $`\times `$ 27 pc). The molecular cloud is also associated with an HI cloud of mass (7.3$`\pm `$0.7)$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and with dust obscuration (see Young & Lo ; Young ).

## 6 Velocity gradients and rotational mass estimates

A quantitative understanding of star formation and the ISM in NGC 185 and NGC 205 clearly hinges on the mass estimates for the molecular clouds. But the $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor which was used in section 3 might not be applicable to the dwarf ellipticals. A dynamical mass estimate would provide a valuable check on the physical properties of the gas in NGC 185 and NGC 205 as well as on the general use of $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factors in different environments.

A virial calculation is a very popular dynamical mass estimate, and virial masses for the clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205 will be discussed in section 7. However, as the discussion of Maloney (1990) shows, it’s not clear whether virial equilibrium is a good assumption to make for the clouds in our own Galaxy. And if that is true in our own Galaxy, it is even more true in the dwarf ellipticals, where even less is known about the gas properties, interstellar pressure, magnetic fields, and cloud lifetimes. Fortunately, the high linear resolution provided by the BIMA array allows us to make a dynamical mass estimate for a molecular cloud without using either a conversion factor or an assumption about virial equilibrium. Specifically, the molecular clouds DC1 in NGC 185 and DC11 in NGC 205 show significant velocity gradients; if these are interpreted as rotation, they give an estimate of the gravitating mass of the cloud in the same way that is usually done for rotating galaxies.

The channel maps in figures 2 and 5 clearly show a velocity gradient in the north-south direction for NGC 185 and in the east-west direction for NGC 205, roughly aligned with the cloud’s major axis in each case. The velocity gradients were measured from position-velocity (p-v) plots (Figures 6 and 7). The position angles for these measurements were chosen by eye, based a combination of isovelocity contours on the intensity-weighted mean velocity maps and the cloud’s major axis in the total column density maps. The kinematic and morphological major axes agree within 20° for DC11 in NGC 205. They are offset by about 40° in NGC 185, but both position angles give similar mass estimates (the kinematic position angle gives a larger velocity gradient but a smaller cloud radius). The velocity gradient, extent and velocity width of each rotating region were measured on the approximate midline of the cloud in the p-v diagram and the contour level at 10% of peak intensity (see figures 6 and 7). Uncertainties were roughly estimated from the range of several different reasonable-looking values. Of course these procedures give only crude measurements, but since the clouds are only a few resolution elements in diameter, more elaborate rotation curve-fitting procedures would probably not be helpful or justified.

The velocity gradients, cloud radii, and projected rotation velocities are given in Table 1. The implied gravitating mass inside the radius $`R`$ is calculated from $`M_{rot}=V^2R/G`$, or $`M_{rot}=(233M_{})V^2R`$ with $`V`$ in km s-1 and $`R`$ in pc. (As usual, $`M_{rot}`$ is a lower limit because of the unknown inclination angle between the rotation axis and our line of sight.)

Like the clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205, Galactic GMCs often show significant velocity gradients along their longest direction (Blitz 1993; Phillips 1999). In fact, the molecular clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205 have diameters, velocity gradients, specific angular momenta, and (therefore) dynamical masses which are similar to those of the largest Galactic GMCs (most notably L1641 and the Rosette Molecular complex; see Phillips ). The average densities of the clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205 are also similar to the average densities of Galactic GMCs; for NGC 205, values of 10–190 H2 molecules $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$are found, depending on what values of mass and radius are assumed (see Table 1). For the cloud in NGC 185, average densities fall in the range 25–2500 $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

For Galactic GMCs there is usually a great deal of vacillation about whether a velocity gradient is caused by rotation or by something else— gas outflows, differential acceleration driven by an asymmetric distribution of young massive stars, and so on. As a result, rotational masses are rarely calculated for Galactic GMCs. But Blitz (1993) and Phillips (1999) offer some arguments that velocity gradients in Galactic GMCs are usually due to rotation, at least in the large clouds. Phillips (1999) shows that such rotation is usually dynamically important for clouds larger than a few pc, like the ones in NGC 185 and NGC 205.

One might hope that the position-velocity diagrams could be used to constrain the mass distribution within the molecular clouds, in the same way that rotation curves of galaxies constrain their mass models. However, the appearance of solid-body rotation is determined more by the poor linear resolution and by the fact that the CO emission is optically thick than by the actual mass distribution within the cloud.

## 7 Virial mass estimates

Defining linewidths and especially sizes of irregular objects like molecular clouds is not straightforward, and as a result virial mass estimates for molecular clouds have been calculated in many different ways. In this paper I have followed the methods of Wilson and Scoville (Wilson & Scoville 1990, 1992; Wilson 1995), who studied giant molecular clouds in the Local Group galaxies M33, NGC 6822, and IC 10. Since these galaxies are at approximately the same distance as NGC 185 and NGC 205, and were observed with approximately the same sensitivity and resolution, the cloud diameters, linewidths, and virial masses will be directly comparable.

As usual, Wilson & Scoville (1990, 1992) ignore magnetic field support and external pressure confinement. one The clouds are assumed to have density profiles which drop as $`r^1`$. Under these conditions, Wilson & Scoville calculate $`M_{vir}`$ from

$$M_{vir}=(99M_{})\mathrm{\Delta }v^2D$$

, where the linewidth $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$ is in km s-1 and the cloud’s diameter $`D`$ is in pc. (Note that MacLaren et al.  give the constant as 95 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ instead of 99 $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$.) Table 1 gives $`D`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }v`$, and $`M_{vir}`$ for the clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205.

The diameters of the molecular clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205 are similar to those in the other Local Group galaxies, and the same is true of the linewidth of the cloud DC11 in NGC 205. However, the CO linewidth in NGC 185 is much larger than that of any other cloud in the Local Group sample— about 40% larger than its closest competitor. As a result, the cloud in NGC 185 sits far above the size-linewidth relation determined by Wilson & Scoville (1990) and its virial mass is about a factor of two larger than the largest other cloud in the comparison sample.

Because the dynamical masses of the molecular clouds depend sensitively on the linewidth, and the linewidth in NGC 185 is surprisingly large, that measurement deserves extra scrutiny. The signal-to-noise ratio in the BIMA spectra is not particularly high, either for NGC 185 or for NGC 205, but the width of the line in NGC 205 is confirmed by much higher quality spectra from the IRAM 30m telescope (Young 2000). Thus, the signal-to-noise ratio in the BIMA spectra seems to be high enough to make a reliable determination of line width. (The formal uncertainty estimate for the width, 0.6 km s-1 for NGC 185, is probably lower than the true uncertainty which would include systematic effects such as summing over a slightly different area on the sky.) The large CO linewidth in NGC 185 is also corroborated by previous single-dish CO observations of YL97, which found linewidths of about 18 km s-1 in NGC 185 DC1, and by Welch et al. (1996), who found an even larger value. The HI cloud which is associated with DC1 also has a linewidth around 20 km s-1 (YL97). Finally, the individual channel maps (Figure 2) provide clear evidence of a large linewidth in NGC 185, even without line fits.

## 8 Is the cloud DC1 in NGC 185 in dynamical equilibrium?

As mentioned in the introduction, the amount of star formation that can happen in these molecular clouds depends on whether they are stable entities with dynamical lifetimes greater than the time necessary for the star formation process. Calculations of $`M_{rot}`$ and $`M_{vir}`$ assume that the clouds are in dynamical equilibrium; but since so little is known about molecular clouds in ellipticals, this assumption is worth checking, and particularly so for DC1 in NGC 185, where the large linewidth implies large dynamical masses.

The stellar population of NGC 185 was investigated most recently by Martínez-Delgado, Aparicio, & Gallart (1999), who find that there was a small amount of star formation in the center of that galaxy as recently as 108 years ago (see figure 4). Very little, if any, star formation has occurred since that time. Because of the lack of current star formation activity it seems unlikely that the linewidth of DC1 is inflated by the kinetic energy input of young massive stars.

However, the cloud might be passing close enough to the center of the galaxy to be tidally disrupted. If a small cloud of mass $`m`$ and radius $`r`$ orbits at a distance $`R`$ from a mass $`M`$, and $`rR`$, then $`m>2M(r/R)^3`$ is required to prevent tidal disruption of $`m`$ (e.g. von Hoerner 1957; Shu 1990). The molecular cloud DC1 has a radius $`r`$ $``$ 20 pc; its projected distance $`R`$ from the center of the galaxy is about 13″ or 40 pc. The mass $`M`$ of the galaxy interior to the projected radius $`R`$ = 13″ can be estimated as follows. Caldwell et al. (1992), reanalyzing the data of Kent (1987), find NGC 185 well fit by an exponential light distribution with a scale length of 1.5′ = 275 pc and a total magnitude $`M_V=15.3`$. For that scale length, about 1% of that light is within a radius of 13″. Peterson & Caldwell (1993) find a mass-to-light ratio of 5.3 in $`V`$, which (if constant throughout the galaxy) implies a mass of 6$`\times 10^8`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ for the entire galaxy and 6$`\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ interior to 13″.

For the cloud DC1 to be stable against tidal disruption according to the formula given above, it must have a mass greater than about 1.5$`\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. A slightly better calculation, made without assuming $`rR`$, gives a somewhat smaller limit of 8$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$. This value is comparable to the estimated $`M_{vir}`$ and larger than $`M_{rot}`$ and $`M_{XCO}`$ for the cloud DC1, implying that indeed the cloud may be vulnerable to tidal disruption. The large CO linewidth in NGC 185 could therefore be a symptom of a cloud which is being disrupted, rather than an indicator of a large mass. Of course, the true distance from the cloud to the center of the galaxy is probably larger than the projected distance of 13″ = 40 pc, so the cloud could be stable for that reason.

At present the dynamical status of the cloud DC1 in NGC 185— whether it is in an orbit where it will be stable— cannot be decided because of the unknown geometry; however, it is clear that disruption in the near future is a possibility for this cloud. In contrast, the cloud DC11 is considerably farther away from the center of its galaxy, NGC 205 (53″ = 220 pc in projection). That cloud is much less likely to suffer tidal disruption than DC1 in NGC 185, provided it stays out of radial orbits.

## 9 H2/CO conversion factor

If the molecular clouds are assumed to be in virial equilibrium or to be supported by rotation (i.e. if the linewidth traces the gravitating mass of the cloud, not the process of tidal disruption), then the dynamical mass ($`M_{vir}`$ or $`M_{rot}`$) is taken to be the true mass of each cloud. One can then use the observed CO luminosity and $`M_{XCO}`$ to infer $`X_{vir}`$ and $`X_{rot}`$, CO-to-H2 conversion factors which are appropriate for NGC 185 and NGC 205 (Table 1):

$$\frac{X_{rot}}{X_{gal}}=\frac{M_{rot}}{M_{XCO}};\frac{X_{vir}}{X_{gal}}=\frac{M_{vir}}{M_{XCO}}.$$

The $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factors which are inferred for NGC 205 are similar to the adopted value of $`X_{gal}`$, but the inferred values for NGC 185 are about ten times larger than $`X_{gal}`$; this cloud is significantly underluminous in CO, compared to its Galactic counterparts, if the mass estimates are accurate. This large discrepancy cannot be convincingly explained at the present time. Many authors assert that the $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor should increase as the metallicity of a galaxy decreases (e.g. Wilson 1995, Israel 1997, Mihos et al. 1999). Planetary nebulae in NGC 185 and 205 have oxygen abundances about 0.2 solar and 0.5 solar, respectively (Richer & McCall 1995); thus, if these galaxies followed the trend with metallicity of the other Local Group galaxies in Wilson (1995), their conversion factors would be $`X_{185}`$/$`X_{gal}`$= 2.5 and $`X_{205}`$/$`X_{gal}`$= 1.6. This metallicity effect may adequately explain the properties of the cloud in NGC 205, but it is clearly not large enough, by itself, to explain the inferred conversion factors in NGC 185. (If the cloud in NGC 185 is not in dynamical equilibrium, of course, this conversion factor problem disappears.)

Metallicity is not the only property which may affect the conversion factor (e.g. Walter 2001); for example, the conversion factor is also expected to change with the strength of the local UV field. NGC 185 and NGC 205 have internal UV fields which are estimated at between 0.01 and 0.1 times the “standard solar neighborhood” value (Welch et al. 1996, 1998). But exactly how the conversion factor changes with the UV field is not clearly established. Israel (1997), Lequeux et al. (1994), and others have argued that a high UV field in the SMC preferentially destroys CO instead of H2 and raises the conversion factor. On the other hand, Weiss et al. (2001) argue that a high UV field increases the temperature of the molecular gas in the center of M82. The CO luminosity is thereby increased, and the conversion factor is lowered. Cases of molecular clouds bathed in very low UV fields are rarely discussed in the literature. Thus it is difficult to predict whether the effect of the low UV field in NGC 185 would be in agreement with observations.

The large conversion factor in NGC 185 could conceivably be caused by a different density structure than the other clouds in the Local Group sample; specifically, homogeneous clouds (ones with a small clump-interclump density ratio) can have a conversion factor which is ten times larger than their clumpy counterparts (Mihos et al. 1999). This possibility could be checked with observations of molecular isotopic line ratios, which would give another independent density estimate.

## 10 Implications for the Formation of Molecular Clouds

A global understanding of star formation in galaxies depends on the evolution of the interstellar medium and the life cycle of molecular clouds, i.e. how the clouds are formed and destroyed. Heyer & Terebey (1998) argue that the molecular clouds which now exist in the spiral arms of our Galaxy were created out of atomic gas by the shocks associated with the arms. Other authors (see Heyer & Terebey for references) have argued that the molecular gas is merely assembled, not created, by the density waves. In either case, it is clear that the density waves are assumed to play a critical role in the origin of GMCs in our Galaxy.

Contrasting perspectives on the importance of spiral density waves are offered by the flocculent galaxies, disk galaxies in which the grand-design spiral density waves are very weak (if present at all; e.g. Elmegreen et al. 1999, Thornley 1996). The flocculent galaxies NGC 5055 and NGC 4414 do show large, Giant Molecular Association (GMA)-type structures similar to those in our own Galaxy (Thornley & Mundy 1997a, 1997b). This result is particularly interesting for the case of NGC 4414, in which the GMAs have formed without strong, long-lived kinematic arms; apparently local instabilities or other mechanisms can form molecular clouds, and spiral density waves are not required.

The present observations of CO in NGC 185 and NGC 205 may strengthen this idea, if the gas has an internal origin. We know of no spiral density waves in the two dwarf ellipticals; indeed, these galaxies are dynamically hot, supported by stellar velocity dispersions rather than by rotation (Bender et al. 1991; Held et al. 1992; Peterson & Caldwell 1993). It is possible, of course, that the GMCs in NGC 185 and NGC 205 were acquired from some larger disk galaxy through gravitational interaction (e.g. Knapp et al. 1985), and that they were originally formed in density waves. On the other hand, Oosterloo et al. (1999) suggest that the neutral gas in the smaller early-type galaxies may have an internal origin, which would be consistent with the distribution and kinematics of the HI in NGC 185 (YL97).

## 11 Summary

High resolution interferometric observations of CO emission in NGC 185 show that the detected molecular gas is concentrated in one GMC-size structure. It has a CO flux of 8.8 Jy km s-1 $`\pm `$20%, and the molecular mass is (5.6$`\pm `$1.2)$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, including helium, if one assumes a $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor of 3$`\times 10^{20}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)^1`$. The cloud has deconvolved FWHM diameters 34 pc $`\times `$ 20 pc; it is exceedingly well matched in size and shape to the darkest patch of optical dust obscuration in the galaxy. The molecular gas is most likely associated with a clump of atomic gas of mass (9.5$`\pm `$1.9)$`\times 10^3`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$, including helium. The peak HI column density of this clump is 1.7$`\times 10^{20}`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2`$, much lower than the HI column density which is usually thought to be required for the formation of molecular gas.

The high linear resolution (17 pc $`\times `$ 14 pc) reveals a velocity gradient, suggestive of solid body rotation, roughly aligned with the major axis of the cloud. In this respect the CO cloud in NGC 185 is similar to the cloud DC11 in NGC 205. The velocity gradients are estimated to be 0.47$`\pm `$0.09 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{pc}^1`$ and 0.16$`\pm `$0.03 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{pc}^1`$ for the clouds in NGC 185 and NGC 205 respectively; the gradients extend over 40 pc and 70 pc, giving gravitating masses of (4.2$`\pm `$1.0)$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ and (2.6$`\pm `$0.6)$`\times 10^5`$ $`\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}`$ respectively. Virial masses are similar to those rotational masses but may not be relevant because of the large rotational component to the line width.

$`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factors derived from those dynamical masses are at least 7.5$`\pm `$2.4 (for NGC 185) and 2.4$`\pm `$0.7 (for NGC 205) times larger than the “standard” Galactic conversion factor mentioned above. The conversion factor for NGC 205 can be explained by that galaxy’s metallicity and the proposed variation of conversion factor with metallicity; however, the conversion factor in NGC 185 is too large to be explained by metallicity effects alone. If the clouds are in dynamical equilibrium, the cloud in NGC 185 is significantly underluminous compared to its Local Group counterparts. However, its projected distance to the center of the galaxy is small enough to suggest that it may be suffering tidal disruption, leading to a large linewidth.

The major result of the present paper, especially in combination with the work of Young (2000) on molecular line ratios in NGC 205, is that the molecular gas in these two dwarf elliptical or early-type galaxies is found in structures which are very much like Galactic GMCs. The major known differences between these clouds and Galactic GMCs are (1) the very low HI column densities which are associated with molecular gas, and (2) the large inferred $`\mathrm{H}_2/\mathrm{CO}`$ conversion factor in NGC 185, which admittedly could be overestimated if the cloud is not in dynamical equilibrium. To the extent that the physical properties of the molecular clouds in the dwarf ellipticals are similar to the properties of Galactic GMCs, there is no reason not to suppose that star formation may proceed in the dwarf ellipticals in a manner similar to star formation in Galactic clouds.

Thanks to Liese van Zee for providing the optical images of NGC 185 and to Michael Rupen, Christine Wilson, and Rick Forster for helpful discussions. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant AST-0074709.


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# Sub-mm gravity: confronting the modified dynamics with higher-dimensional theories

## 1 Introduction

There exists today an international effort aiming at the detection of deviations from conventional gravity, motivated by the possible existence of new spatial dimensions. The hypothesis of the existence of new spatial dimensions has been proposed as a solution to the hierarchy problem in particle physics. Compact dimensions would make the gravitational interaction appear to be weaker than other interactions, since part of its strength would “leak” into other dimensions . Thus, the gravitational attraction should be stronger on small scales. Some recent gravitational experiments have been searching for exactly this kind of deviation from Newtonian gravity . We propose in this letter that the same experiments can be used to test for a similar prediction of deviations, suggested by the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), which is postulated to be valid for accelerations below a certain threshold, $`a_0`$ 1.2 $`\times `$ 10-8 cms-2.

We briefly discuss the predicted accelerations for a given mass according to each theory, and then calculate the mass range which makes a direct comparison possible. We also discuss how MOND, in its original form, implicitly violates the strong equivalence principle and suggest that this hypothesis be relaxed. As we shall see, this is a necessary condition for testing MOND effects in the laboratory.

## 2 Theories with Extra Dimensions

The induced Yukawa-type gravitational potential in the context of extra dimensions can be written as :

$$V(r)=\frac{GM}{r}(1+\alpha e^{r/\lambda }),$$
(1)
where $`\alpha `$ and $`\lambda `$ are the intensity and range of the potential, respectively. According to recent experiments, the upper limit for $`\lambda `$ is of the order of 1 mm. A review of theoretical and experimental constraints for both $`\lambda `$ and $`\alpha `$ can be found in . Assuming spherical symmetry, the gravitational acceleration corresponding to the above potential is, thus,

$$g_{submm}=\frac{GM}{r}\left[\frac{1}{r}+\alpha e^{r/\lambda }\left(\frac{1}{r}+\frac{1}{\lambda }\right)\right].$$
(2)
## 3 Modified Newtonian Dynamics

The dark matter problem on galactic and extragalactic scales has led to the development of MOND . This theory postulates that for accelerations below a certain threshold (determined empirically to be $`1.2\times 10^8`$ cm s-2), Newtonian dynamics should be no longer valid. It was proposed, instead, that the correct form of the gravitational acceleration be given by

$$g=\frac{g_N}{\mu (g/a_0)},$$
(3)
where $`g_N`$ is the usual Newtonian acceleration and $`\mu (x)`$ is a function which obeys the relation

$$\mu (x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1,\hfill & \text{ }x1\hfill \\ x,\hfill & \text{ }x1\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
A commonly used function having the required asymptotic behavior is

$$\mu (x)=\frac{x}{\sqrt{1+x^2}}.$$
(5)
Unfortunately, MOND cannot be considered to be a complete theory, since a relativistic theory whose weak field limit yields MOND does not exist. Some attempts to find a general gravitational theory have been made , but none of them were completely satisfactory. However, MOND fits rotation curve data from spiral galaxies very well with only one free parameter, while dark matter fits usually demand three free parameters (see  for a discussion). MOND also predicts the observed Tully-Fisher relation  for spiral galaxies (e.g. ), as well as the Faber-Jackson  relation for ellipticals, as long as M/L does not vary much with mass . The theory has also been applied to other astrophysical phenomena, such as the stability and warp of disk galaxies , the internal structure of satellite galaxies , the fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies , and structure formation .

In addition to the absence of a relativistic theory which incorporates MOND, there is yet another difficulty to be dealt with. MOND does not appear to obey the strong equivalence principle (SEP). Milgrom  suggested, in a seminal paper, that the dynamics of a subsystem $`s`$ of a system $`S`$ should not be described by MOND when $`a_sa_0`$ and $`a_Sa_0`$ (where $`a_s`$ and $`a_S`$ are the typical accelerations in $`s`$ and $`S`$, respectively). $`S`$ and $`s`$ could be, for example, a cluster of galaxies and a single galaxy belonging to this cluster, respectively. Thus, when $`a_sa_0`$ and $`a_Sa_0`$, the accelerations are given by MOND, whereas when $`a_sa_0`$ and $`a_Sa_0`$ they are not given by MOND, but rather by conventional Newtonian theory. This means that an observer inside an elevator in free fall, which is embedded in an external homogeneous gravitational field, would be able to detect this field. This obviously is a violation of the SEP and, if correct, would rule out any attempt of measuring MOND effects in the laboratory. Even if one could isolate a system where accelerations are well below $`a_0`$, the strong external fields from the Earth, Moon, and the Sun would erase any MOND signature, according to Milgrom .

The main motivation for introducing such a violation of the SEP apparently comes from the interpretation of data on open stellar clusters in the Solar Neighborhood. According to Jones , the dynamically deduced masses of the clusters Pleiades and Praesepe are about 1.5 times as large as the mass that can be accounted for by the stars in these clusters. The fact that: (1) the internal accelerations within these clusters are a few times smaller than $`a_0`$ (which would lead to a much larger mass discrepancy according to MOND); and (2) the accelerations of the clusters produced by the Galaxy is of the order of $`a_0`$; led Milgrom to propose that MOND does not obey the SEP. A sample of only two open clusters seems to be too small to be used as a firm indication that MOND violates the SEP. A larger sample of both isolated and non-isolated star clusters could set the stage for a more complete study of the issue. More recent studies on wide binaries  and open clusters  also yield dynamical masses consistent with the stellar content. Newer and more refined data might help in this sense (e.g. ). In this work we neglect the problem of the violation of the SEP in MOND and examine the possibility of testing relations (3) and (5) in the laboratory.

## 4 MOND $`\times `$ Extra Dimensions

Test particles with masses small enough to make MONDian effects noticeable on submillimetric scales need to be studied. With the aid of eq. (5) and taking $`g_N`$ as $`GM/r^2`$, assuming spherical symmetry, we can solve eq. (3) for $`g`$:

$$g=\frac{1}{r^2}\left[\frac{GM}{2}(GM+\sqrt{G^2M^2+4r^4a_0^2})\right]^{1/2}.$$
(6)
In order to estimate the limiting mass for which MOND predicts deviations from the $`1/r^2`$ law, we must find the mass M which satisfies

$$g=a_0.$$
(7)
For example, $`M`$ 1 miligram when $`r=`$ 1 mm. Current experiments on sub-mm gravity are able to test the gravitational field produced by test-particles with $`M`$ 1 gram. Fig. (1) illustrates the type of deviations expected from both MOND and theories with extra dimensions. We used the ($`\lambda \alpha `$) diagram of  for eq. (2) and assumed that $`\lambda `$ 1 mm and $`\alpha `$ 7. If future experiments succeed in testing the required MOND mass scale at the sub-mm level, we will then be able to test for the presence of MONDian effects in strong external gravitational fields. MOND makes predictions that are clearly distinguishable from those of theories with new compact dimensions, which makes them competitive in interpreting future experimental results. The major problem is, of course, that very small masses are required for a direct comparison. We leave the question of whether such an achievement is plausible in the near future to the experimentalists. MOND could also be tested in other regions of the mass-distance parameter-space: (60 g, 1 cm), (1 kg, 1 m), etc. In this case, one would test MOND alone, since this is well beyond the range expected for the strengthening of gravity due to extra dimensions.

## Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to C.D. Hoyle who kindly clarified some aspects of the experiment discussed in . SOM would like to thank the Brazilian agency CAPES for financial support. RO would like to thank the Brazilian agencies FAPESP, CNPq and PRONEX/FINEP (no. 41.96.0908.00) for partial support. The authors also thank FAPESP for partial support through project no. 2000/06770-2.


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# NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS

## 1 Introduction

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are remote at cosmological distances and thus their released energies in $`\gamma `$-ray photons are almost $`10^{52}\mathrm{erg}`$ Kulkarni et al. (1999). Although fireball models Rees & Mészáros (1992); Piran (1998) or a cannonball model Dar (2000) can explain many observational properties of GRBs, a progenitor of GRB is yet to be solved. An important key to probe a progenitor of GRB is the detection of iron spectral features in X-ray afterglows. Iron is the most abundant heavy element and fall in the middle of the observed energy range of X-ray satellites. Strong iron features can be produced in a dense gas environment. Therefore, the detection is the best evidence of a collapsing model of a massive star such as Hypernova/Collapsar or Supranova Paczyński (1998); Woosley (1993); Vietri et al. (1998).

The iron features were already reported in four X-ray afterglows. The redshifted iron emission line was discovered in the X-ray afterglow of GRB 970508 with BeppoSAX Piro et al. (1999), and the redshift was consistent with the distance of a host galaxy. An independent discovery of a redshifted iron emission line was reported for GRB 970828 with ASCA Yoshida et al. (1999). Assuming a He-like K$`\alpha `$ line, the spectral feature was once interpreted as an emission line with a redshift of $`z=0.33`$. However, the Keck observation of the host galaxy, which was discovered later in 1998, revealed the redshift of $`z=0.9578`$ Djorgovski et al. (2000). The discrepancy in distance with ASCA and moreover the temporal detections of both forced us to doubt the reality of existence of the iron features before the confirmation by the Chandra detection.

In 1999, Chandra observed GRB 991216 at 37 hours after the GRB with the ACIS-S/HETG instruments, and Piro et al. (2000) reported the detection of both the iron emission line together with the Radiative Recombination edge and Continuum (RRC) from fully ionized iron with high statistical significance of $`4.7\sigma `$ and $`3.0\sigma `$ respectively. The redshift of the line and the RRC were consistent with the host galaxy, and the line was broaden to $`\sigma _{\mathrm{line}}=0.23\pm 0.07\mathrm{keV}`$ suggesting a moving ejecta. Soon after the Chandra detection, Antonelli et al. (2000) also reported the probable iron emission line in the spectrum of GRB 000214 with $`3.2\sigma `$ confidence level. This was the second detection of the iron with BeppoSAX. However the redshift of a host galaxy of GRB 000214 is unknown. Therefore, it remains a question whether the observed feature is the iron emission line or the RRC.

Motivated by the RRC detection with Chandra, Yoshida et al. 2001 paper-I  apply the RRC for the ASCA data of GRB 970828 using the redshift of $`z=0.9578`$, and obtain the edge energy, which is consistent with $`9.28\mathrm{keV}`$. This possibility was earlier suggested in the paper by Djorgovski et al. (2001). However, there was no iron K$`\alpha `$ line detected at the expected energy from GRB 970828. The upper limit of the line flux is $`<1.5\times 10^6\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ or $`120`$ eV in equivalent width (EW). We must explain the no detection of K$`\alpha `$ line.

Related to the iron features, we should note the fact that the iron features were found only in a small fraction ($`<10`$ %) of X-ray afterglows, and sometimes the features were observed only during a certain interval. BeppoSAX has tried to search lines in eleven X-ray afterglow spectra, but found only one from GRB 970508 at the end of 1999 (Piro; private communication). Most X-ray afterglows did show only upper limits. Especially, Yonetoku et al. (2000) set an extremely low upper limit of almost $`100`$ eV in EW for the bright GRB 990123 with ASCA. The published intensities of the observed iron K$`\alpha `$ line and the RRC are summarized in table 1. There is a wide variety in the iron emission and the RRC intensity. In this paper, we try to explain these varieties of the iron features with the assumption that the line-emitting plasma state is in “non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) state” which has a low electron temperature as compared to the ionization degree.

## 2 Spectral Simulation for Non-equilibrium Plasma

In paper-I, the observed flux of the RRC and the upper limit for the iron K$`\alpha `$ line are given for GRB 970828 with $`90`$ % confidence errors. So, we focus on the ratio of the integrated RRC flux to the iron intensity: $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}`$, which is free from the continuum. The observed ratio of: $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}>3.3`$ in $`90`$ % statistical lower limit is very hard to reproduce. The case of a strong RRC without K$`\alpha `$ line looks abnormal. In fact, BeppoSAX detected the strong K$`\alpha `$ line and the Chandra observation showed both features of H-like iron with the flux ratio: $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}1`$. Therefore, we are forced to consider a different condition between ASCA and other results containing the strong K$`\alpha `$ line.

The no K$`\alpha `$ line of highly ionized iron accompanied by the recombination edge gives a constraint on the possible emission mechanisms. If the line were produced due to excitation by electron-impact, the RRC would be hidden by a much more intense thermal bremsstrahlung. Also the synchrotron emission, which is thought to dominate the afterglow, would be significantly overlaid by the thermal bremsstrahlung. Therefore, we need a condition that the iron is highly ionized but the involved electron energy is low. This is a radiative recombination in the NEI ($`T_e<T_z`$) state or charge exchange must be responsible for the iron emission.

In this section, we show spectra by numerical calculations in the NEI plasma state, not depending on the specific model. To explain the observed strong RRC without the K$`\alpha `$ line of iron, we calculate the emissivity using the NEI plasma radiation code Masai (1994). The code employs three mechanisms for the continuum, such as free-free emission, two-photon decay and radiative recombination. For line emissions, as well as excitation by electron-impact, fluorescence lines due to ionization and cascade lines due to recombination are taken into account. Radiation properties of a plasma were described by two parameters of the electron temperature ($`T_e`$) and the ionization degree represented in units of temperature ($`T_z`$), assuming a cosmical abundance. We study the emissivities in the range of $`0.1<kT_e<10\mathrm{keV}`$ and $`0.1<kT_z<100\mathrm{keV}`$ in every $`0.1\mathrm{keV}`$ step. We show representative spectra in figure NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS.

The strong RRC compared with the K$`\alpha `$ line can be formed only in the regime of $`T_e<T_z`$, recombining plasma condition. This condition is, however, attained by several situations as discussed later. We intend to find the condition of the plasma to account for the observed flux ratio ($`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}`$), which is free from specific modelling with iron abundance, the emission measure, the geometry and so forth if the line and RRC are emitted from the same cite. Thus, for a given $`T_e`$ and $`T_z`$ a priori, we carried out calculations of the emissivity ratio in the above wide range of $`T_e`$$`T_z`$ space.

Figure NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS-c and NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS-d are the simulated plasma emissivities with a cosmical abundance to explain the ratio: $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}`$ of GRB 991216 and GRB 970828 respectively. The ratios of an integrated RRC flux to K$`\alpha `$ lines of the simulated ionization state are $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}1`$ and $`4`$ for figure NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS-c and NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS-d respectively, and the ratios are within the observational values in $`90`$ % statistical error. In the calculation of the ratios, the line components (mostly the blend of Fe and Ni) very close to the edge of the RRC are included to the RRC component, due to the limited energy resolving power of the SIS detectors onboard ASCA.

## 3 The Reason for Strong RRC and Weak K$`\alpha `$ Line

To produce the strong RRC in quantum number $`n=1`$, the iron must be almost fully ionized. The H-like K$`\alpha `$ line, which was observed with Chandra, dominates other ionization states at a temperature of $`kT_z>20\mathrm{keV}`$. Above the temperature, Fe XXVII consists of more than 70 % of iron, thus we assume $`kT_z>20\mathrm{keV}`$ in the following discussion. In a condition of high electron temperature of $`kT_ekT_z>20\mathrm{keV}`$, i.e., equilibrium ionization, the capture rate of free electrons is small and the emissivity of the line and RRC also becomes small. Moreover, the free-free emission from high $`T_e`$ electrons dominates at the hard X-ray band. Therefore, the RRC may not be observed because it can be obscured by the free-free component.

The cross section of the electron capture into $`n`$ th quantum state can be expressed as

$`\sigma _n{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{kT_e}{ϵ}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n^2}}\right)^1`$ (1)
where $`ϵ`$ is an ionization energy of $`9.28\mathrm{keV}`$ for H-like iron e.g. Nakayama & Masai (2001). Thus, the best condition to form the strong RRC would be the case of $`kT_eϵ(kT_z)`$. In such a plasma state, $`\sigma _nn^3`$ and then most of free electrons recombine directly into the ground state ($`n=1`$), compared to the $`n2`$ levels. However, free-free emission dominates the continuum.

With decreasing $`kT_e`$, the recombination rate increases, while free-free emission becomes suppressed. Recombination into $`n2`$ increases relatively and produces line emission. Thus, the K$`\alpha `$ line can be enhanced by cascades from $`n3`$ excited levels. This is the case for He-like K$`\alpha `$, but H-like K$`\alpha `$ (Ly$`\alpha `$) is little affected; a considerable fraction comes to direct transition to the ground state.

We summarize the above discussions in view point of the intensity of the RRC and K$`\alpha `$ line. The plasma state with the strong RRC but the weak K$`\alpha `$ line, which was observed with ASCA, is realized when $`kT_e`$ is slightly less than $`ϵ`$ but in high $`kT_z`$. The ratio of the RRC to K$`\alpha `$ lines ($`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}`$) from the numerical calculations is shown in figure NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS as the function of $`T_e`$ and $`T_z`$. The peak of the ratio appears at around $`kT_e=4\mathrm{keV}`$ and $`kT_z=100\mathrm{keV}`$ in the calculated range. The condition of $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}>3.3`$ of GRB 970828 can be explained by this result.

## 4 Discussion

A high ionization degree of $`kT_z100\mathrm{keV}`$ and low electron temperature of $`kT_e1\mathrm{keV}`$ are required when we reproduce the high ratio of the RRC to the iron line more than $`3.3`$. This condition may be attained in the situations: (i) photoionizations by X-rays or (ii) rapid cooling due to rarefaction.

In the case (i), also a fluorescence K$`\alpha `$ line of energies 6.4 – 6.5 keV of partially ionized iron is likely accompanied. Especially, the photoionizations of a neutral circumstellar gas by the initial bright flash of GRB, iron lines in the low ionization states are expected but not observed. The line observed with Chandra was purely H-like (Piro et al. 2000). Therefore, the iron atoms should be fully ionized by the time of the observed iron emission. However, if the line and the RRC emitting region is illuminated continuously by a hidden intense beam, discussed by Rees et al. (2000), it can achieve the NEI ($`T_e<T_z`$) state by the photoionization process. Even if this process realize, the mean energy of the hidden-beam photons which illuminate the line emitting region should not be largely greater than the edge energy of $`9.28\mathrm{keV}`$, since the observed values of $`T_e`$ were low of $`kT_e=0.8_{0.2}^{+1.0}\mathrm{keV}`$ at the rest frame for ASCA and $`kT_e1\mathrm{keV}`$ for Chandra respectively.

We pay attention to the case (ii) of a rapid adiabatic expansion of a highly ionized hot plasma. This sort of mechanism has already been investigated by Itoh & Masai (1989) for a supernova which explodes in the circumstellar matter ejected during its progenitor’s supergiant phase. They show that when the blast shock breaks out of the dense circumstellar matter into a low-density interstellar medium, a rarefaction wave propagates inward into the shocked hot plasma. Then the hot plasma expands adiabatically and loses its internal energy quickly. The electron temperature $`T_e`$ decreases, but the ionization degree $`T_z`$ temporally remains high, because the recombination time scale becomes much longer due to the low density. The mean temperature of the shocked matter, $`kT100(v_s/10^9\mathrm{cm}\mathrm{s}^1)^2\mathrm{keV}`$ where $`v_s`$ is the shock velocity, drops by about two orders of magnitude for the density contrast (ratio) of the dense matter to the ambient medium of $`10^3`$ in their hydrodynamic calculations. Therefore, the plasma can achieve the NEI ($`T_e1\mathrm{keV},T_z100\mathrm{keV}`$) state naturally, and emit the strong RRC with the weak K$`\alpha `$ line of $`F_{\mathrm{RRC}}/F_{\mathrm{line}}4`$.

If these mechanisms work, we can estimate an emission measure for GRB 970828 using the observed photon flux of the RRC ($`_{\mathrm{RRC}}`$), the distance $`D`$ and the integrated emissivity ($`\epsilon _{\mathrm{RRC}}`$) shown in the figure NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATES OF GRB ENVIRONMENTS with the cosmical abundance,

$`n^2V10^{68}\left({\displaystyle \frac{D}{3\mathrm{Gpc}}}\right)^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{_{\mathrm{RRC}}}{1.7\times 10^5}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _{\mathrm{RRC}}}{2\times 10^{16}}}\right)^1`$ (2)
Although these $`n`$ and $`V`$ are coupled with each other and highly depend upon the specific model, we may conclude that the density of line emitting region is considerably high.

The RRC and/or the line of a large EW suggest a recombing ($`T_e<T_z`$) condition, which can be realized by the photoionization or rarefaction. It should be noted that most of X-ray afterglow did not show both emission features; NEI is not always the case.

## 5 Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Shri Kulkarni and George Djorgovski for their comments and suggestions about the distance to the host galaxy before the publication. This work was done under the support of Grant-in-Aides for the Scientific Research (Nos. 12640302) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Piro et al. 1999 ; the line intensity was variable.
Yoshida et al. 2001 ; the RRC was temporal.
Piro et al. 2000
Antonelli et al. 2000
Yonetoku et al. 2000