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# An X-ray Selected Galaxy Cluster at 𝑧=1.11 in the Rosat Deep Cluster SurveyBased in part on observations obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory Based in part on observations obtained at Palomar Observatory Based in part on observations obtained with the Chandra Observatory

## 1 Introduction

The identification and study of distant galaxy clusters is of great interest in current astronomical research. As the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe, the properties and histories of galaxy clusters are highly sensitive to the physics of cosmic structure formation and to the values of the fundamental cosmological parameters (Eke et al., 1996; Bahcall et al., 1997). While clusters in such well-defined samples as the Rosat Deep Cluster Survey (Rosati et al., 1998, RDCS) have been used to constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ (Borgani et al., 2001a), the uncertainty in the relation between cluster mass and measurables such as $`L_x`$ or $`T_x`$ limits the precision obtainable in calculations of cosmological parameters to $``$50%. To improve on this, a better understanding of the mass–$`T_x`$ relation and its evolution is necessary. To that end, we need to study in detail a well-defined sample of clusters at high redshift with independent measures of the cluster mass based on $`T_x`$ (Evrard et al., 1996) and weak lensing (Tyson et al., 1990).

Another equally important use of galaxy clusters lies in studying the formation and evolution of galaxy populations. Progress in understanding early-type galaxy evolution in clusters is being driven by the need to reproduce recent observational results indicating both lower number fractions (Dressler et al., 1997; Couch et al., 1998; van Dokkum et al., 2000) and strong homogeneity and slow evolution in the stellar populations of ellipticals and S0s in moderate redshift clusters (Aragon-Salamanca et al., 1993; Ellis et al., 1997; Stanford et al., 1998; Pahre, 1998; Bender et al., 1998; van Dokkum et al., 1998a; De Propris et al., 1999; Kelson et al., 2000). A self-consistent explanation of these results can be achieved by invoking an observational bias: the progenitors of the youngest, low-redshift early-types drop out of samples constructed in high redshift clusters. van Dokkum & Franx (2001a) have suggested how morphological evolution at $`z2`$ coupled with star formation at $`z23`$ ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) can explain the results cited above. More complex semi-analytic models of galaxy formation and evolution set in a CDM universe naturally predict the morphological evolution that is a central tenet in the currently fashionable paradigm of cluster galaxy evolution: ellipticals are formed by mergers at $`0.5<z<1.5`$ of sub $`L^{}`$ galaxies formed at $`2<z<3`$ (van Dokkum et al., 1999), and the Butcher-Oemler effect is the result of spirals being converted into S0s at moderate redshifts (Dressler et al., 1997). For example, the models of Kauffmann & Charlot (1998) are able to match the small scatter in the color-mag relation of the early-types even at $`z1`$, and the $`M/L`$ evolution found by e.g. van Dokkum et al. (1998b) can be predicted (Diaferio et al., 2001). However the accuracy as well as the details of this scenario for galaxy evolution in clusters is yet open to debate. In the case of the early-types, the arguments are based heavily on observations of only a few high-z clusters e.g., MS1054$``$03 at $`z=0.82`$ (van Dokkum et al., 1998b).

Finding clusters at moderate redshifts has become almost routine using serendipitous X-ray searches. The advent of the ROSAT-PSPC, with its unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution, enabled archival searches for extended X-ray sources to become a very efficient method to construct large, homogeneous samples of galaxy clusters out to $`z0.9`$ (Rosati et al., 1998; Scharf et al., 1997; Collins et al., 1997; Vihklinin et al., 1998). The RDCS has shown no evidence of a decline in the space density of galaxy clusters of X-ray luminosity $`L_XL_X^{}`$ over a wide redshift range, $`0.2<z<0.8`$ (see Rosati 2000 for a recent review), though the evolution of the bright end remains controversial. The fact that the bulk of the X-ray cluster population is not evolving significantly out to this large redshift increases the chances of finding clusters at even higher redshifts, since $`L_{X,z=0}^{}`$ clusters at $`z>1`$ ($`4\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the \[0.5-2.0\] keV band, roughly the Coma cluster) can be detected as extended X-ray sources in deep ROSAT pointed observations, provided that the X-ray surface brightness profile does not evolve significantly.

At fainter fluxes ($`F_x<3\times 10^{14}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the RDCS) the identification of real clusters becomes more difficult due to the increasing confusion and low signal-to-noise ratio of the X-ray sources which makes it more difficult to discriminate between point-like and extended sources. Below $`F_x<2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ the X-ray completeness level can be as low as 50%, and the spurious rate as high as 50%. But it is at these flux levels that the most distant clusters in the survey are expected. To improve the success rate of identifying very high redshift clusters in the RDCS, we have been carrying out a program of near-infrared imaging of faint unidentified X-ray candidates. Relative to the optical, near-IR imaging is advantageous at high redshifts because the expected k-correction significantly dims the dominant population of early-type cluster galaxies in even the observed $`I`$-band for $`z1`$. Stanford et al. (1997) have shown that optical-infrared colors can be used to considerably enhance the contrast of high redshift cluster galaxies against the field galaxy population and, at the same time, to obtain a useful estimate of the cluster redshift. The cluster found by Stanford et al. (1997), RDCS J0848+4453 at $`z=1.27`$, and its neighbor, RDCS J0849+4452 at $`z=1.26`$ (Rosati et al., 1999), have been used to push the study of evolution in the colors and morphology of early-type galaxies beyond $`z>1`$. But such studies continue to be severely limited by the dearth of such high redshift clusters (Dickinson, 1997; Fabian et al., 2001).

In this paper, we describe the imaging and spectroscopic follow-up observations of the extended X-ray source RDCS J0910+5422, which has led to the discovery of a galaxy cluster at $`z=1.106`$. Unless otherwise stated, we adopt the parameters $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$.

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 Optical and IR Imaging

The extended X-ray source RDCS J0910+5422 was selected from a deep ROSAT-PSPC observation; details of the selection procedure are given in Rosati et al. (1999). The candidate field was observed in the optical at the Palomar 5 m telescope with COSMIC, which contains a TEK3 CCD that provides $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}28`$ pixels over a 9.5 arcmin field of view. An exposure of 2820 s was obtained in the gunn $`i`$-band on 18 February 1999 UT in non-photometric conditions with $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}4`$ seeing. The field was observed again with COSMIC in the gunn $`i`$-band in photometric conditions for 300 s on 2000 April 30. 5 standard stars were observed on the latter night and used to calibrate the photometry onto the Vega system. The data were reduced using standard methods. The second observation was used to calibrate the deeper, nonphotometric image before the two reduced images were summed.

We obtained $`J`$ and $`K_s`$ imaging at the Palomar 5 m telescope with the Prime-Focus Infrared Camera (Jarrett et al., 1994). This camera provides a $`2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}1`$ field of view with $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}494`$ pixels. RDCS J0910+5422 was observed in photometric conditions on 1998 March 24. The flux scale was calibrated using observations of three UKIRT standard stars obtained on the same night. The data were taken using a sequence of dither motions with a typical amplitude of 15″ and a dwell time between dithers of 30 seconds. The data were linearized using an empirically measured linearity curve, and reduced using DIMSUM111 Deep Infrared Mosaicing Software, a package of IRAF scripts available at ftp://iraf.noao.edu/contrib/dimsumV2. The total integration times and resolutions of the resulting images are 2310 s and $`1\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}0`$ at $`J`$, and 2880 s and $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}9`$ at $`K_s`$.

A catalog of objects in the $`K_s`$-band image was obtained using SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996) after first geometrically transforming the $`K_s`$ and $`J`$ images to match the $`i`$-band frame. The resolution of the IR images was also degraded slightly to match that of the $`i`$-band image. Objects were detected on the $`K`$-band image with the requirement that 10 contiguous pixels, covering an area of 0.78 arcsec2, must be 1.5 $`\sigma `$ above the background. For reference the 3 $`\sigma `$ detection limit is $`K21.3`$ in a 2 arcsec aperture. All detected objects down to this limit were inspected visually to eliminate false detections. The catalog was then applied to the $`J`$ and $`i`$ band images to obtain matched aperture photometry.

### 2.2 Keck Spectroscopy

Spectroscopic observations of galaxies in a $``$6′ region around RDCS J0910+5422 were obtained using the Low Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (Oke et al., 1995, LRIS) on the Keck II telescope. Objects were assigned slits based on their $`IK`$ and $`JK`$ colors. Spectra were obtained using the 150 l mm-1 grating which is blazed at 7500 Å, and covers the entire optical region, with a gradual blue cutoff imposed by the LRIS optics at $``$5000 Å. The dispersion of $``$4.8 Å pixel-1 resulted in a spectral resolution of 23 Å as measured by the FWHM of emission lines in arc lamp spectra. Usually each mask was observed in a series of 1800 s exposures, with small spatial offsets along the long axis of the slitlets. One slitmask on the field was used to obtain spectra on 1999 March 10 with a total exposure time of 7200 s, and a second slitmask was used on 2000 February 18 for a total of 10800 s.

The slitmask data were separated into individual slitlet spectra and then reduced using standard longslit techniques. A fringe frame was constructed for each exposure from neighboring frames in the observation sequence and then subtracted from each exposure to greatly reduce fringing in the red. The exposures for each slitlet were reduced separately and then coadded. One–dimensional spectra were extracted for each of the targeted objects. Wavelength calibration of the 1-D spectra was obtained from arc lamp exposures taken immediately after the object exposures. A relative flux calibration was obtained from longslit observations of the standard stars HZ 44 and G191B2B (Massey et al., 1988; Massey & Gronwall, 1990). While these spectra do not straightforwardly yield an absolute flux calibration of the slit mask data, the relative calibration of the spectral shapes is accurate.

### 2.3 Chandra Imaging

RDCS J0910+5422 was observed for a total of 200 ks in two pointings in observation 800166 with ACIS-I. The first pointing, exposure ID#2452, was performed on 2001 April 24 for 76 ks while the second pointing, exposure ID#2227, was conducted on 2001 April 29 for 124 ks. For each pointing, we removed events from the level 2 event list with a status not equal to zero and with grades one, five and seven. In addition, we used Alexei Vikhlinin’s software for removing background events in data observed with the very faint telemetry mode. We then cleaned bad offsets and examined the data on a chip by chip basis, removing times when the count rate exceeded three standard devations from the mean count rate per 3.3 second interval. For chip one, we specifically excluded the three brightest objects. One of these objects, identified with HD 237786, a G5V star, underwent a flare in the second pointing. For this problem, we excluded the peak time intervals in the flare by hand. We then cleaned each chip for flickering pixels, i.e. times where a pixel had events in two sequential 3.3 second intervals. We finally merged the event lists from the two pointings using the combine\_obsid shell script provided for this purpose. The resulting effective exposure time for the summed data is 163 ks. The main reason for the relatively large amount of time lost from the total exposure is flaring from the bright star in the field.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Optical and Near-IR

The presence of a group of very red galaxies at the position of RDCS J0910+5422 is obvious in Figure 1. The spatial distribution of the very red galaxies in Figure 1 is somewhat linear from the NE to the SW; we will return to this point when discussing the Chandra imaging. Figure 2 shows the $`IK`$ and $`JK`$ color-magnitude diagrams for all objects in a 200 arcsec area around RDCS J0910+5422. A red sequence characteristic of a galaxy cluster may be seen at $`IK4.0`$ in the lower panel of Figure 2. This sequence lies some 0.5 mag to the blue of the predicted no-evolution location for early-type galaxies at the cluster redshift. This prediction was made using photometry of Coma galaxies as detailed in SED98. This amount of bluing in the $`IK`$ color is consistent with the color change due to passive evolution of a single age $`Z_{}`$ stellar population formed in a 0.1 Gyr burst at $`z_f=3`$ (using the GISSEL models of Bruzual & Charlot (2000)). There is an indication that the red sequence in RDCS J0910+5422 has a flatter slope relative to the Coma sequence, but this result is very uncertain. The slope difference is not likely to be due to differences in the photometry of the galaxies in Coma and RDCS J0910+5422—e.g., apertures of the same physical size were used on both clusters. A similarly flatter slope was tentatively found in RDCS J0848+4453 at $`z=1.27`$ (van Dokkum et al., 2001b). The observed scatter in the $`IJ`$ colors of the member galaxies is 0.09 mag and the measurement error is 0.08 mag, indicating a very small amount of intrinsic scatter, $``$0.04, in the rest frame $`UV`$ colors.

The optical spectra for the 9 member galaxies are presented in Figure 3. Redshifts were calculated both by visual identification of emission and absorption features and by cross-correlating the spectra with an E template from Kinney et al. (1996) using the IRAF Package RVSAO/XCSAO (Kurtz et al., 1991) and are listed in Table 1. The redshift measurements primarily are based on major features such as Ca II H+K and OII$`\lambda 3727`$, and is also sensitive to spectral breaks such as D4000 and B2900. Spectra were obtained for a total of 15 color-selected targets; of these redshifts were determined for 13 and 8 are cluster members (one serendipitous spectrum is a member). The locations of the member galaxies are shown on the color composite image in Figure 1. ID #161, which lies outside our $`K_s`$ image, was discovered serendipitously in an LRIS mask to be at the cluster redshift and has relatively strong \[OII\]. Two objects (ID #23 and 57) show weak \[OII\] emission, while the remaining member galaxies have spectra typical of early-type galaxies in the present epoch, albeit with smaller D4000.

### 3.2 X-ray

To measure the X-ray flux in the ACIS-I image, we centered a circular aperture with a radius of 100″ at 09h10m44$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$9, +54d22m08$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$9 (J2000). The position was chosen by the flux weighted centroid of all events at 0.5–2.0 keV within 20″ of the visual center of the cluster. From this circular aperture, we excluded seven point sources. Each point source was identified from the smoothed contour map overlaid on the composite optical and near infrared image. We then fit an elliptical $`\beta `$ model and a constant background to the events within the 0.5–2.0 keV map. We used a map binned into 1″ pixels and fit the model using the CIAO package Sherpa (Freeman, Kashyap, & Siemiginowska, 2000) with the Cash statistic (Cash, 1979). We first explored the parameter space with 3000 Monte Carlo samples, and then refined the best fitting Monte Carlo result. Our best fitting model has a core radius of 19$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$4 $`\pm `$ 0.6 and a $`\beta =0.887_{0.026}^{+0.028}`$. Our best-fitting model was mildy elliptical, with an ellipticity of $`0.045_{0.045}^{+0.048}`$. At the redshift of the cluster, the core radius would be 171.1 $`\pm `$ 5.3 kpc. These values are typical of low redshift clusters.

For an estimate of the background spectrum, we chose three separate regions. Each background region was visually inspected which resulted in the removal of bright point sources. We fit all three regions jointly, using the program XSPEC (Arnaud, 1996), with a two component model (refered to as a background model in the program XSPEC) consisting of a powerlaw, not convolved with the telescope effective area, and a Gaussian for the 2.1 keV Au emission line. Each region had a seperate normalization for the two components. We used separate response matrices for each region, and we generated these using Alexei Vikhlinin’s calcarf/calcrmf tools.

We extracted a spectrum of the cluster using an elliptical aperture. The semi-major axis of the ellipse was twice the core-radius of the cluster. We fixed the background to the values from the best fitting model above, with the normalizations rescaled by the relative area in the aperture. Freezing the background and the absorption by galactic hydrogen at $`2\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2, obtained from the 100 µm maps of Schlegel et al. (1998), we fit a Raymond-Smith spectrum using the Cash statistic to the spectrum shown in Figure 7 in the source aperture. We found a best fitting temperature of kT$`=7.2_{1.2}^{+2.4}`$ keV. The best fitting flux in the ROSAT band of 0.5-2.0 keV was $`1.06_{0.06}^{+0.07}\times 10^{14}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ within the 38$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$8 aperture. The flux as measured in the RDCS in the same band from Rosat data was $`2.0\times 10^{14}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Most of the difference between the Rosat and Chandra fluxes is due to the exclusion of the point sources detected in the ACIS image from the latter flux. The total bolometric luminosity of RDCS J0910+5422 is $`2.48_{0.26}^{+0.33}\times 10^{44}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$ when integrated over the whole of the $`\beta `$ model. The errors on the temperature, flux, and luminosity were determined using 2000 iterations of the fakeit command in XSPEC. Unfortunately we are unable to determine the metallicity of the ICM to see if the canonical 1/3 $`Z_{}`$ seen in clusters up to $`z0.8`$ (Donahue et al., 1999; Mushotzky & Loewenstein, 1997) continues beyond $`z=1`$.

A total mass can be estimated from the $`T_x`$, assuming an isothermal sphere and extrapolating the X-ray emission to $`r=1`$ Mpc using the best fit profile (Borgani et al., 1999; Horner et al., 1999). The total mass of RX J0910+5422 derived from the new X-ray data is $`7.0_{1.1}^{+2.3}\times 10^{14}M_{\mathrm{}}h_{65}^1`$ within $`r=1`$ Mpc. Recent results obtained with Chandra and XMM on the ICM in lower-redshift clusters indicate that, apart from drops in the central regions due to cooling flows, the temperature profiles are fairly constant out to large radii, implying that mass estimates based on the assumption of isothermality are reasonable (Borgani, 2001b).

Several point sources were detected in the vicinity of the extended X-ray emission of the cluster, demonstrating the importance of high spatial resolution when attempting to accurately measure the properties of the ICM in high-$`z`$ clusters. One of the fainter point sources is associated with a cluster member, ID#23, which has weak emission lines and a relatively blue continuum. This object has $`L_x=5.1\times 10^{42}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the \[0.5–10\] keV band. As seen in Figure 1 there is a close neighbor with which ID#23 could be interacting; higher resolution imaging will be useful to answer this question. ID#23 is probably a low luminosity AGN, though we did not find evidence of the NeV line at $`\lambda `$3426 in our LRIS spectrum which is usually detected in such objects. A second much brighter X-ray point source ($`F_x=0.73\times 10^{15}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$) just to the northeast of cluster center is associated with the $`K`$-band object ID#21 which has the colors ($`JK=1.86`$ and $`IK=3.85`$) of a cluster galaxy but for which we have no spectrum. A third point source, ID#61, is also of interest because it is a hard X-ray source and a photometric member. Such galaxies are of particular value as they may represent a source of early heating during the formation of the ICM.

Though the X-ray morphology largely appears to be that of a relaxed system, there are indications that this cluster is still forming. Indeed given its high redshift and the expectations of cluster building which should occur at these redshifts according to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM simulations, evidence of e.g. mergers are to be expected. As shown in Figure 8, there is some evidence in the ACIS data for temperature structure or merging in the ICM. The soft component dominates the central area of the X-ray emission, while to the south there is a harder component. Such a temperature distribution in the ICM could be due to an infalling group, or to mass streaming in along a filament. Indeed, the spatial distribution of the galaxies in the cluster gives the impression of filamentary structure, reminiscent of that seen in CDM simulations of cluster formation (Frenk et al., 1999).

## 4 Summary

### 4.1 The cluster galaxy population

The spectrophotometric properties of all the known members in RDCS J0910+5422 are summarized in Table 1. Two of the member galaxies show signs of current star formation, and one of these may be an AGN due to its X-ray emission. The spectra and colors of 6 of the spectroscopic members are broadly similar to those of a passively evolving elliptical galaxy formed at $`z3`$. But from these data alone, it is unclear if the luminous galaxies in the red sequence formed via hierarchical merging at $`z<3`$ or as a single object at $`z>3`$. Age dating the spectra could provide additional information on the formation epoch of the galaxies; but such detailed modelling is burdened with its own uncertainities due to the age–metallicity degeneracy. Progress on the issue of the assembly of early-type galaxies in clusters is most likely to occur with determining the morphologies of the member galaxies using high resolution HST imaging on a large sample within RDCS J0910+5422, and in other similarly high-$`z`$ clusters.

### 4.2 ICM

The Chandra data conclusively show the presence of hot gas trapped in the potential well of a massive cluster. This is the third instance in the RDCS of a cluster at $`z>1`$ with a well-defined ICM. The ACIS spectra yield a $`kT=7.2_{1.4}^{+2.2}`$ keV, and a total $`L_x=2.48_{0.26}^{+0.33}\times 10^{44}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1`$, both near the values for an $`L^{}`$ cluster in the present epoch. Furthermore, the position of RDCS J0910+5422 in a plot of $`L_x`$ vs $`T_x`$, shown in Figure 9, shows little if any evolution in the $`LT`$ relation at $`z>1`$, in keeping with the results of Borgani et al. (2001). Along with the well-defined red envelope, these properties indicate that RDCS J0910+5422 is another example of a massive cluster with an old galaxy population and a hot ICM already in place at $`z>1`$.

The authors thank the staffs of Keck and Palomar Observatories, and the builders of the Chandra X-ray Observatory for providing the means with which we obtained our data. We also thank Paolo Tozzi for assistance with the reductions of the Chandra data, and Tom Jarrett for assistance with the use of PFIRCAM at Palomar. Support for SAS came from NASA/LTSA grant NAG5-8430 and for BPH from Chandra grant GO1-2141A. Part of the observational material presented here was obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is a scientific partnership between the University of California and the California Institute of Technology, made possible by a generous gift of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The work by SAS and BPH at LLNL was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48. Portions of this work were carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.


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# Spiral Galaxies with HST/NICMOS. II. Isophotal Fits and Nuclear Cusp Slopes1footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), under NASA contract NAS5-26555

## 1 Introduction

This is the second of two papers in which we report the results of a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) NICMOS snapshot survey of the nuclear regions of nearby spirals in the near-infrared (NIR). As discussed in more detail in the companion paper (paper I; Carollo et al. 2001a), we have previously conducted an optical HST snapshot survey of the same targets with WFPC2. The optical survey has shown that the innermost few hundred parsecs of spirals contain nuclear bars, spiral-, ring-like or irregular distributions of recent star formation and dust, and, in many cases, central spatially-resolved, photometrically-distinct ‘nuclei’ significantly brighter than their surroundings (Carollo et al. 1997a; Carollo et al. 1998, C98; Carollo & Stiavelli 1998, CS98; Carollo 1999). The optical survey has furthermore shown that in the $`V`$-band massive early-type spiral bulges have steep nuclear stellar cusps, i.e., cusp slopes $`\gamma >\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}1}`$ in the power-law approximation of the surface brightness profile $`I(r)r^\gamma `$ as $`r0.1^{\prime \prime }`$. This is similar to what is observed for elliptical galaxies of comparable luminosities (Jaffe et al. 1994; Lauer et al. 1995; Forbes, Franx, & Illingworth 1995; Carollo et al. 1997b,c; Faber et al. 1997). In contrast, the later-type systems often host bulgelike central structures with an exponential rather than $`R^{1/4}`$-law radial profile (‘exponential bulges’, see also Courteau et al. 1996 and references therein), and show shallow nuclear stellar cusps $`\gamma <\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}0.3}`$ and nuclear stellar densities at least a factor 10 lower than those that have been inferred for the massive $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges (CS98).

The visual-band WFPC2 results are potentially severely affected by dust and recent star formation in the central regions of spirals; the NIR window is less sensitive to such ‘polluting’ factors, and thus is much better suited than the visual passband for investigating the underlying older stellar populations. We have therefore followed up the WFPC2 survey with a NICMOS/Camera-2 ($`0.075^{\prime \prime }`$/pixel scale) snapshot survey in the $`H`$ (F160W) passband and, for a fraction of the galaxies, also in the $`J`$ (F110W) band. In paper I we described the properties of the NICMOS sample and the procedure adopted for the basic reduction of the images, and discussed the NIR images and the optical-NIR color maps of spirals at HST resolution. There we also described the methodology used to measure the sizes and luminosities of the photometrically-distinct nuclei, and discussed the statistical NIR and optical-NIR properties of the nuclear regions of spirals, including the distinct nuclei, as a function of Hubble type. Jointly with the WFPC2 data, the NICMOS data also provide nuclear optical-NIR colors, i.e., information on the nuclear stellar populations. These are important for understanding the evolutionary history of the central regions of spirals. We have presented in Carollo et al. (2001b) a discussion of the optical-NIR HST colors of bulges and nuclei in our sample.

In this paper we present the isophotal fits performed on the NICMOS/Camera-2 images in order to investigate the nuclear stellar structure that underlies the distinct nuclei and the nuclear dust patches and bar-, ring- and arm-like features. Specifically, we (i) describe the methodology adopted to perform the isophotal fits, and present the nuclear surface brightness profiles (§2; the brightness profiles are available in electronic format upon request); (ii) describe the results of modeling the nuclear surface brightness profiles with the analytical law introduced by Lauer et al. (1995), and use these analytical descriptions to derive the strength of the nuclear stellar cusp slopes in the NIR (§3); (iii) present and discuss the results of our analysis as a function of global galactic properties (§4). We summarize in §5. Consistently with the previous papers, here we adopt $`H_o=65`$ km/s/Mpc.

## 2 Derivation of the Surface Brightness Profiles

The derivation of the surface photometry was carried out in IRAF by using the ‘ellipse’ task. For all the galaxies we first performed the isophotal fits without masking the knots of star formation and the dust lanes frequently present in the images. For the galaxies with strong star formation or dust patterns, these fits turned out to be a very poor representation of the smooth distribution of the underlying stellar light which we seek to parametrize. For these objects we therefore rederived the final isophotal fits after masking out stars and other knot-like sources such as HII regions and strong dust lanes. In some galaxies the distinct nucleus is slightly offset from the center of the isophotes (paper I); in these cases the nucleus was simply masked out before performing the isophotal fit. The isophotal analysis could be derived for 56 galaxies in the $`H`$-band and for 23 objects in the $`J`$-band; in the remaining galaxies, the images had too little S/N, or the morphology was too irregular, for performing a reliable isophotal fit. We chose not to carry out any Point Spread Function (PSF) deconvolution of the images before fitting the isophotes, but to convolve instead the analytical models of the surface brightness profiles described in §3 with the NICMOS PSF before comparing them to the observed data points. Typically, no suitable star was present in the NICMOS Camera-2 field of view of the target galaxies; appropriate PSFs for the F110W and F160W filters were thus derived with the Tinytim software package (Krist 1997). The approach of convolving the models with the PSF rather than deconvolving the images helps to minimize the effects of a simulated PSF, which does not perfectly represent the true PSF.

Absolute photometric calibration in the AB magnitude system was obtained by applying zero-point corrections. These were taken to be equal to $`Z_{\mathrm{𝙽𝙸𝙲𝟸},\mathrm{𝙵𝟷𝟷𝟶𝚆}}=23.25`$ and $`Z_{\mathrm{𝙽𝙸𝙲𝟸},\mathrm{𝙵𝟷𝟼𝟶𝚆}}=23.11`$ for the the F110W and the F160W filter, respectively, so that:

$$m_\lambda =2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}(\text{counts/sec})+Z_{\mathrm{𝙽𝙸𝙲𝟸},\lambda }+5\mathrm{log}_{10}(0.075)$$
(1)
where the $`5\mathrm{log}_{10}(0.075)`$ term accounts for the pixel size. The calibrated surface brightness profiles were corrected for Galactic extinction by using the values published by Burstein & Heiles (1984). Figure 1 a shows the derived 56 $`H`$-band surface brightness profiles, and Figure 1 b shows the 23 similar measurements in the $`J`$-band.

## 3 Analytical Fits to the Surface Brightness Profile

A few analytical expressions have been proposed to date to describe the surface brightness profiles in the inner regions of galaxies. For spiral galaxies, the presence of photometrically-distinct nuclei leads to the question of whether it is best to include these subcomponents in the analytical description of the nuclear surface brightness profiles. CS98 tested whether the optical nuclear light profiles of spirals could be fitted by a standard exponential profile with the addition of a second component describing a steep nuclear cusp, i.e., by:

$$I(R)=I_0\left(1+\frac{R_c}{R}\right)^\gamma ^{}\mathrm{exp}(R/R_s).$$
(2)
For radii $`R`$ much smaller than the “cusp” radius $`R_c`$, this profile describes a cusp with slope $`\gamma ^{}`$. $`I_0`$ is the central brightness of the exponential component, and $`R_s`$ the exponential scalelength. CS98 found no physically meaningful fit for any of the galaxy light-profiles with the exception of one, this demonstrating that ’steep-cusp exponentials’ could exist, and that a simple fitting procedure of the analytical light profile \[Eq. 2\] would identify them. The lack of a good fit for most cases indicates however that the distinct nuclei present in several galaxies cannot be described as a steepening of the light profile: these sources are a photometrically-distinct component on top of the underlying galaxy light. Thus, a central nucleus that sits right on top on the center of the isophotes needs to be ‘excluded’ from the parametrization. For the latter we adopted the expression introduced by Lauer et al. (1995) for the elliptical galaxies (‘Nuker law’) and used by CS98 for the $`V`$-band light profiles of spirals. This choice allows us to directly compare the optical and NIR results obtained for the spiral galaxies, as well as systematic differences between spiral and earlier-type galaxies. The Nuker law reads:

$$I(r)=2^{(\beta \gamma )/\alpha }I_b\left(\frac{R_b}{r}\right)^\gamma \left[1+\left(\frac{r}{R_b}\right)^\alpha \right]^{(\gamma \beta )/\alpha }.$$
(3)
The parameter $`\gamma `$ measures the steepness of the rise of the profile toward the very center, i.e., the value of $`\gamma `$ in $`I(r)r^\gamma `$ as $`r0`$; $`R_b`$ is the break radius where the profile flattens in some cases to a shallower slope; $`\beta `$ is the slope of the outer profile; $`\alpha `$ controls the sharpness of the transition between inner and outer profile; $`I_b`$ is the surface brightness at $`R_b`$.

In Figures 1 a and b we show the PSF-convolved analytical best fits superimposed on the $`H`$\- and $`J`$-band surface brightness profiles, respectively. For each galaxy fitted in the $`H`$-band, Table 1 lists the radial range of the reported best fit and the corresponding best fit values for $`R_b`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, $`\gamma `$ and $`\mu _b=2.5\mathrm{log}I_b`$. Table 2 lists the similar parameters for the $`J`$-band fits.

Since the intrinsic form of the light profile of the nuclei is not known, there is clearly an uncertainty associated with removing the nucleus contribution from a galaxy light profile. We quantified this uncertainty by performing several fits to the light profile of the same galaxy after varying the inner radial cutoff. In Tables 1 and 2 the listed error bars for the parameters refer to the largest between the following two quantities: (1) the formal errors of the reported best fits, and (2) the differences between values obtained from the various fits performed within the different radial ranges.

### 3.1 The average logarithmic slope $`\gamma `$

For the galaxies where a continuous rise of the light profile is observed down to the resolution of the data, the fits with the Nuker-law are indeterminate; nonetheless, they still yield a smooth analytical representation of the data that is unaffected by PSF and central distinct-nucleus effects. Thus, these analytical fits remain best suited for deriving a global representation of the galactic stellar light in the NIR. To this purpose we computed, from the smooth curves provided by the best fits of equation (3) to the $`J`$ and $`H`$ light profiles, respectively the average logarithmic slopes $`\gamma ^J`$ and $`\gamma ^H`$. The radial range adopted for deriving these average logarithmic slopes was $`0.1^{\prime \prime }0.5^{\prime \prime }`$, i.e., coincident with the range adopted by CS98 for deriving an analogous quantity from the optical light profiles of spiral galaxies. This radial range is equivalent to a physical scale $`50`$-100 pc at the average galaxy distance of $`25`$ Mpc.

Computing an average slope within the $`0.1^{\prime \prime }`$-$`0.5^{\prime \prime }`$ radial range has the advantage of producing a description of the nuclear profile that is independent of its particular parametrization. On the other hand, the average nuclear slopes are more sensitive to distance effects than is the asymptotic slope $`\gamma `$. In galaxies with otherwise identical surface brightness profiles, the more the surface brightness profiles deviate from a pure power-law, the more the average slope values vary with distance. However, this is not a problem in our data set, since most of our galaxies typically lie within $``$20 $`h_{65}^1`$ Mpc, and none lies beyond $``$40 $`h^1`$ Mpc.

The values of $`\gamma ^H`$ and $`\gamma ^J`$ are reported also in Tables 1 and 2. The associated error bars refer to the largest between (1) the formal errors of the logarithmic fits, and (2) the standard deviations obtained when estimating $`\gamma `$ by using all the fits derived using different radial cut offs and that provided a physically meaningful description of the given light profile. These error bars are typically smaller than $`0.2`$.

## 4 Results & Discussion

The almost ubiquitous presence of dust and often of star formation knots in the central regions of spiral galaxies implies that a significant fraction of the optical light from the nuclei of spirals could either be absorbed by dust, similarly to what was suggested for the “shallow-core” elliptical galaxies by Silva & Wise (1996), or be dominated by recently formed stars. This means that in principle significant differences in nuclear stellar cusp slopes could be expected when deriving these quantities by using optical and near-infrared data. The latter are much less affected by recent star formation, dust absorption and reddening in the nucleus, and thus provide a better representation of the rate of density increase in the underlying stellar populations with respect to the bluer wavelengths). In Figure 2 a we plot the comparison between the average nuclear cusp slopes $`\gamma ^H`$ and the similar estimates $`\gamma ^V`$ obtained from the WFPC2 study (CS98; in Figure 2 b the comparison between the average nuclear cusp slopes obtained from the F160W images and those obtained from the F110W images shows excellent agreement between the two estimates, so that results similar to those discussed for the $`H`$ band hold when the $`J`$-band data are used instead). There is a small trend for the galaxies with the steepest NIR cusp slopes to have steeper optical slopes. Although in principle this could be due to a small nuclear color gradient in the direction of a bluer center in these systems, the most likely explanation for the trend is that it comes from a spurious residual effect of the wider PSF in the NIR images. The errors bars are larger than the scatter between points. The major uncertainty in estimating the nuclear cusp slopes arises from the unknown shape of the underlying nuclear stellar profile; independently deriving the cusp slopes in the different wavelength regions leads to a correlation in the errors if the shapes are intrinsically similar in the different passbands. Independent from these considerations, by far the most striking result that comes out from this plot is the very good agreement between the average nuclear cusp slopes obtained for any galaxy in the optical and in the NIR wavelength regions.

Diffuse dust effects cannot in principle be ruled out; however, it is unlikely that they may conspire so well to reproduce for all systems the same nuclear cusp slopes in the optical and in the NIR wavelength region. A more plausible interpretation is that once the patches of dust and the knots of star formation are properly masked out from the optical images, both the visual and the NIR passbands provide a fair representation of the underlying nuclear stellar populations in spiral galaxies. The similarity between the visual and NIR average nuclear cusp slopes has two immediate consequences: First, it implies that there are small or no global color gradients within the innermost $`50`$-100 pc from the galaxy centers. In the absence of ‘tuned’ conspiracies between dust and stellar populations ages/metallicities, this in turn means that within that region there are no major global variations in the stellar population properties of nearby spirals, in contrast with the widespread local color variations documented in paper I, which imply significant local variations in stellar populations, star formation rates, and/or dust. Second, the similarity implies that the large range in nuclear stellar cusps observed in both wavelength regions is due to real differences in the rate of increase of the stellar density rather than to dust or recent star formation effects.

In Figure 3 we show the average slope $`\gamma ^H`$ as a function of the Hubble type of the host galaxy. There is a clear trend showing that the nuclear cusp slope decreases with increasing Hubble type, i.e., late-type galaxies have shallower nuclear cusp slopes than earlier-type spirals. A straightforward way to assess the statistical significance of this trend is to derive the distributions of $`\gamma `$ values separate for each morphological type, and verify by means of a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test whether these distributions could be drawn from the same one. The number of objects per morphological type in our sample is however too small to draw a firm conclusion. We therefore binned galaxies in only two groups, one with Hubble types earlier or equal to T=3 and the other with types later than this ‘threshold’, respectively; this division provides bins with roughly equal numbers (23 and 21 objects). The two derived distributions show a probability of only $`5\%`$ of being drawn from the same parent distribution. A similar probability is obtained by changing the threshold type of $`\pm 1`$, although the two bins in these cases are differently populated (29 and 15 objects for T=2, and 7 and 37 objects for T=4). The dispersion in the Hubble type versus $`\gamma ^H`$ relation is however large, and in particular galaxies with intermediate types $`3\pm `$1 cover the entire range of nuclear stellar cusp slope values, from very shallow to very steep. The NICMOS light profiles are not extended enough in radius to perform a bulge-disk decomposition; however, the latter is available for several objects from our previous WFPC2 survey. Using this information on the bulge light profile, in Figure 3 we identify galaxies with different bulge properties: empty squares represent galaxies with $`R^{1/4}`$-law bulge light profiles, while filled squares represent galaxies with exponential bulges. Galaxies for which no fit to the bulge component is available are represented by 4-points stars. The $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges are confined to the earlier types and have on average steep cusps $`\gamma ^H`$, in contrast with the exponential bulges, which are confined to the intermediate types and have on average rather shallow stellar cusps. Interestingly, the only galaxy with a very steep nuclear cusp among the group with Hubble type $``$Sbc is NGC2344, which is also the only galaxy in that group which hosts an $`R^{1/4}`$-type bulge. While it is possible that NGC 2344 has been incorrectly classified, it is a fact that $`R^{1/4}`$ and exponential bulges are both found embedded in the intermediate-type spirals (Courteau et al. 1996; Carollo et al. 1998).

The difference in nuclear behaviour between exponential and $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges is further illustrated in Figure 4a, where we show the $`\gamma ^H`$ versus the absolute $`V`$ bulge magnitude for our sample of spirals. Symbols for the exponential and $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges are as in Figure 3. The dichotomy between the two classes of bulges is quite evident at any given luminosity in the range of overlap, with the exponential bulges showing significantly shallower cusp slopes than the $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges. Within the caveats of the small number statistics, there is no evidence for galaxies belonging to the different ‘nuclear morphological classes’ introduced in paper I (galaxies with concentrated nuclear star formation mixed with dust, galaxies with diffuse blue nuclear regions, galaxies with regular nuclear/circum-nuclear dust and galaxies with irregular nuclear/circum-nuclear dust) occupying any particular region of the $`M_V`$ versus $`\gamma `$ diagram (Figure 4 b). Significantly shallower cusp slopes for exponential relative to $`R^{1/4}`$ bulges were also found in the WFPC2 data (CS98); indeed, this result is a corollary of stating that there is good agreement between the $`\gamma `$ derived in the optical and in the NIR (Figure 2 a). The NIR data are, however, important to make sure that the dichotomy between steep cusp slopes in $`R^{1/4}`$-law systems and shallow cusps in exponential bulges is again not a spurious result driven by the almost ubiquitous presence of dust and recent star formation in the centers of spirals, but a real physical effect that extends to the pc-scales the structural difference that exists between these systems on the kpc-scales. As discussed in CS98, this dichotomy is not the result of a trivial inward extrapolation of the two different analytical forms, since the $`\gamma ^H`$ values are obtained from a different radial range than that used to perform the bulge $`R^{1/4}`$–law or exponential fits, that was taken $`>1^{\prime \prime }`$.

Shown in Figure 4a as dots are also the measurements obtained for a sample of elliptical galaxies from a similar NICMOS study conducted by Quillen et al. (2000). The comparison between the ellipticals and the massive $`R^{1/4}`$-law bulges of spirals shows that the latter have average nuclear cusp slopes similar to those of elliptical galaxies of similar luminosity. Again this was suggested by the optical data, but it is now unambiguosly demonstrated by the NIR observations. The fact that $`R^{1/4}`$ disk-embedded bulges have nuclear stellar cusps (and thus densities) indistinguishable from those of diskless elliptical galaxies of similar luminosities suggests that for these systems the presence of a large-scale disk, which in principle may alter the nuclear structure of the embedded spheroid, has in fact little or no influence on the spheroid.

For the $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids, the correlation between the total spheroid luminosity, as described by $`M_V`$, and the strength of the nuclear stellar cusp, as described by $`\gamma `$, is not the only known relationship between a global and a nuclear quantity. The total spheroid luminosity has been found to correlate also with the mass of the central black hole $`M_{BH}`$ (e.g., Magorrian et al. 1998); in fact, an even better correlation is found between the central black hole mass $`M_{BH}`$ and the mass of the spheroid $`M_{sph}`$, as described by its velocity dispersion $`\sigma `$; Ferrarese & Merritt 2000; Gebhardt et al. 2000). These relationships imply a ‘triangular’ correlation for $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids between $`M_{sph}`$, $`M_{BH}`$ and $`\gamma `$, drawn schematically in the bottom panel of Figure 5, which is likely to hold valuable information on the process of $`R^{1/4}`$-type spheroid formation. Our result that at any given total luminosity (and thus likely mass) of overlap, the exponential bulges have systematically lower nuclear stellar cusps than their $`R^{1/4}`$ relatives may be indicative of a breakdown of the above ‘triangular’ relationship, as illustrated schematically in the upper panel of Figure 5. Indeed, the fact that the exponential bulges do not lie on the $`M_{sph}`$-$`\gamma `$ correlation that holds for the $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids could imply that for these systems at least one of the other two correlations, either the $`M_{BH}`$-$`\gamma `$, or the $`M_{sph}`$-$`M_{BH}`$, or even both must also break down. An alternative is that what we are observing for the exponential bulges is not a breakdown of the $`M_{sph}`$-$`\gamma `$ correlation and a consequent breaking of the triangular relation among $`M_{sph}`$-$`\gamma `$-$`M_{BH}`$, but rather a similar triangular relationship, ‘displaced’ however to a different region of parameter space. A ‘displaced’ triangular relationship for the exponential bulges could explain the $`M_{BH}`$ estimate for the Milky Way bulge: this is the only exponential bulge for which the black hole mass has been accurately measured and found to be significantly smaller than what is expected on the basis of the $`\sigma `$-$`M_{BH}`$ correlation valid for the $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids. Kinematic information for a significant sample of exponential bulges is still missing, and is awaited to clarify whether or not the processes that form the exponential bulges produce a global to nuclear connection of the kind found in the $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids. Either way, it is clear that either the disappearance or the modification of the nuclear versus global relationships for the exponential bulges requires abundant consideration in the context of understanding the formation of this class of spheroids and their connection if any with the $`R^{1/4}`$ spheroids.

## 5 Summary

Using the NICMOS dataset introduced in Carollo et al. (2001, paper I), we have presented the results of the isophotal fits performed on the F160W images (56 galaxies) and on the F110W images (23 objects). We have modelled the derived surface brightness profiles with the analytical law introduced by Lauer et al. (1995), and used the smooth analytical representation of the data to compute the strength of the average nuclear cusp slopes $`\gamma `$. Our findings about the NIR structural properties of spiral galaxies are very similar to those that we had obtained by investigating for the same systems in the optical wavelength region. This lack of a major difference between the visual and the NIR analysis of the nuclear stellar density cusps carries important consequences for our understanding of the nuclear structure of spiral galaxies, since it establishes that the diversity unveiled in their central regions is not an artifact of ‘polluting’ effects but the manifestation of real nuclear differences in systems with different global properties.

We thank Phil James for useful discussions, Roeland van der Marel for providing the pedestal-removal software, and the anonymous referee for many comments that have improved the presentation of this work. This research has been partially funded by Grants GO-06359.01-95A and GO-07331.02-96A awarded by STScI, and has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with NASA.


text:
# Ionospheric effects of the solar flares as deduced from global GPS network data

## 1 Introduction

The enhancement of X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) emission that is observed during chromospheric flares on the Sun immediately causes an increase in electron density in the ionosphere. These density variations are different for different altitudes and are called Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances, SID, (Davies, 1990), (Donnelly,1969). SIDs are generally recorded as the short wave fadeout, SWF,( Stonehocker, 1970), sudden phase anomaly, SPA, (Ohshio, 1971), sudden frequency deviation, SFD, (Donnelly, 1971), (Liu et al., 1996), sudden cosmic noise absorption, SCNA, (Deshpande and Mitra, 1972), sudden enhancement/decrease of atmospherics, SES, (Sao et al., 1970). Much research is devoted to SID studies, among them a number of thorough reviews (Mitra, 1974), (Davies, 1990).

SFD are caused by an almost time-coincident increase in $`E`$-and $`F`$-region electron densities at over 100 km altitudes covering an area with the size comparable to or exceding that of the region monitored by the system of HF radio paths (Davies, 1990), (Donnelly,1969), (Liu et al., 1996). A limitation of this method is the uncertainty in the spatial and altitude localization of the UV flux effect, the inadequate number of paths, and the need to use special-purpose equipment.

The effect of solar flares on the ionospheric $`F`$-region is also manifested as a Sudden Increase of Total Electron Content, SITEC, which was measured previously using continuously operating VHF radio beacons on geostationary satellites (Mendillo et al., 1974), (Davies, 1980). A serious limitation of methods based on analyzing VHF signals from geostationary satellites is their small and ever increasing (with the time) number and the nonuniform distribution in longitude. Hence it is impossible to make measurements in some geophysically interesting regions of the globe, especially in high latitudes.

A further, highly informative, technique is the method of Incoherent Scatter - IS (Mendillo et al., 1974), (Thome et al., 1971). However, the practical implementation of the IS method requires very sophisticated, expensive equipment. An added limitation is inadequate time resolution. Since the relaxation time of electron density in the $`E`$ and $`F1`$ regions is also less than 5-10 min, most IS measurements lack time resolution needed for the study of ionospheric effects of flares.

Consequently, none of the above-mentioned existing methods can serve as an effective basis for the radio detection system to provide a continuous, global SID monitoring with adequate space-time resolution. Furthermore, the creation of these facilities requires developing special purpose equipment, including powerful radio transmitters contaminating the radio environment. It is also significant that when using the existing methods, the inadequate spatial aperture gives no way of deducing the possible spatial inhomogeneity of the X-ray and UV flux.

The advent and evolution of a Global Positioning System (GPS) and also the creation on its basis of widely branched networks of GPS stations (at least 800 sites at the February of 2001, the data from which are placed on the Internet) opened up a new era in remote ionospheric sensing. High-precision measurements of the TEC along the line-of-sight (LOS) between the receiver on the ground and transmitters on the GPS system satellites covering the reception zone are made using two-frequency multichannel receivers of the GPS system at almost any point of the globe and at any time simultaneously at two coherently coupled frequencies $`f_1=1575.42`$ MHz and $`f_2=1227.60`$ MHz.

The sensitivity of phase measurements in the GPS system is sufficient for detecting irregularities with an amplitude of up to $`10^310^4`$ of the diurnal TEC variation. This makes it possible to formulate the problem of detecting ionospheric disturbances from different sources of artificial and natural origins. The TEC unit (TECU) which is equal to $`10^{16}`$m-2 and is commonly accepted in the literature, will be used throughout the text.

Afraimovich et al. (2000a, 2000b, 2001) developed a novel technology of a global detection of ionospheric effects from solar flares and presented data from first GPS measurements of global response of the ionosphere to powerful impulsive flares of July 29, 1999, and December 28, 1999, were chosen to illustrate the practical implementation of the proposed method. Authors found that fluctuations of TEC, obtained by removing the linear trend of TEC with a time window of about 5 min, are coherent for all stations and LOS on the dayside of the Earth. The time profile of TEC responses is similar to the time behavior of hard X-ray emission variations during flares in the energy range 25-35 keV if the relaxation time of electron density disturbances in the ionosphere of order 50-100 s is introduced. No such effect on the nightside of the Earth has been detected yet.

The objective of this paper is to use this technology for analysing the ionosphere response to faint and bright solar flares.

## 2 Processing of the data from the GPS network

Following is a brief outline of the global monitoring (detection) technique for solar flares. A physical groundwork for the method is formed by the effect of fast change in electron density in the Earth’s ionosphere at the time of a flare simultaneously on the entire sunlit surface. Essentially, the method implies using appropriate filtering and a coherent processing of TEC variations in the ionosphere simultaneously for the entire set of visible (during a given time interval) GPS satellites (as many as 5-10 satellites) at all global GPS network stations used in the analysis.

In detecting solar flares, the ionospheric response is virtually simultaneous for all stations on the dayside of the globe within the time resolution range of the GPS receivers (from 30 s to 0.1 s). Therefore, a coherent processing of TEC variations implies in this case a simple addition of single TEC variations. The detection sensitivity is determined by the ability to detect typical signals of the ionospheric response to a solar flare (leading edge duration, period, form, length) at the level of TEC background fluctuations. Ionospheric irregularities are characterized by a power spectrum, so that background fluctuations will always be distinguished in the frequency range of interest. However, background fluctuations are not correlated in the case of beams to the satellite spaced by an amount exceeding the typical irregularity size. With a typical length of X-ray bursts and UV emission of solar flares of about 5-10 min, the corresponding ionization irregularity size does normally not exceed 30-50 km; hence the condition of a statistical independence of TEC fluctuations at spaced beams is almost always satisfied. Therefore, coherent summation of responses to a flare on a set of LOS spaced throughout the dayside of the globe permits the solar flare effect to be detected even when the response amplitude on partial LOS is markedly smaller than the noise level (background fluctuations).

The proposed procedure of coherent accumulation is essentially equivalent to the operation of coincidence schemes which are extensively used in X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes. If the SID response and background fluctuations, respectively, are considered to be the signal and noise, then as a consequence of a statistical independence of background fluctuations the signal/noise ratio when detecting the flare effect is increased through a coherent processing by at least a factor of $`\sqrt{N}`$, where $`N`$ is the number of LOS.

The GPS technology provides the means of estimating TEC variations on the basis of phase measurements of TEC $`I`$ in each of the spaced two-frequency GPS receivers using the formula (Hofmann-Wellenhof et al., 1992), (Calais and Minster, 1996):

$$I=\frac{1}{40.308}\frac{f_1^2f_2^2}{f_1^2f_2^2}[(L_1\lambda _1L_2\lambda _2)+const+nL]$$
(1)
where $`L_1\lambda _1`$ and $`L_2\lambda _2`$ are the increments of the radio signal phase path caused by the phase delay in the ionosphere (m); $`L_1`$ and $`L_2`$ stand for the number of complete phase rotations, and $`\lambda _1`$ and $`\lambda _2`$ are the wavelengths (m) for the frequencies $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$, respectively; $`const`$ is some unknown initial phase path (m); and $`nL`$ is the error in determining the phase path (m).

Phase measurements in the GPS system are made with a high degree of accuracy where the error in TEC determination for 30-second averaging intervals does not exceed $`10^{14}`$m-2, although the initial value of TEC does remain unknown (Hofmann-Wellenhof et al., 1992).

This permits ionization irregularities and wave processes in the ionosphere to be detected over a wide range of amplitudes (as large as $`10^4`$ of the diurnal variation of TEC) and periods (from several days to 5 min). The TEC unit, $`TECU`$, which is equal to $`10^{16}`$ m-2 and is commonly accepted in the literature, will be used throughout the text.

The data analysis was based on using the stations, for which the loval time during the flare was within 10 to 17 LT. From 50 to 150 LOS were processed for each flare.

Primary data include series of slant values of TEC $`I(t)`$, as well as the corresponding series of elevations $`\theta (t)`$ and azimuths $`\alpha (t)`$ along LOS to the satellite calculated using our developed CONVTEC program which converts the GPS system standard RINEX-files on the INTERNET (Gurtner, 1993). The determination of SID characteristics involves selecting continuous series of $`I(t)`$ measurements of at least a one-hour interval in length, which includes the time of the flare. Series of elevations $`\theta (t)`$ and azimuths $`\alpha (t)`$ of the LOS are used to determine the coordinates of subionospheric points. In the case under consideration, all results were obtained for elevations $`\theta (t)`$ larger than $`30^{}`$.

The method of coherent summation of time derivatives of the series of variations of the ”vertical” TEC value was employed in studying the ionospheric response to solar flares. Our choice of the time derivative of TEC was motivated by the fact this derivative permits us to get rid of a constant component in TEC variations; furthermore, it reflects electron density variations that are proportional to the flux of ionizing radiation.

The coherent summation of time derivatives of the series of variations of the ”vertical” TEC value was made by the formula:

$$Sw=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}dI(t)/dt_i\times K_i$$
(2)
where $`n`$ is the number of LOS. The correction coefficient $`K_i`$ is required for converting the slant TEC to an equivalent ”vertical” value (Klobuchar, 1986)

$$K_i=\mathrm{cos}\left[\mathrm{arcsin}\left(\frac{R_z}{B_z+h_{\mathrm{max}}}\mathrm{cos}\theta _i\right)\right],$$
(3)
where $`R_z`$ is Earth’s radius; and $`h_{max}`$ is the height of the ionospheric $`F2`$-layer maximum.

Next the trend determined as a polynomial on a corresponding time interval is removed from the result (normalized to the number of LOS) of the coherent summation of the time derivatives. After that, the calculated time dependence $`(Sd_{ex}(t))`$ is integrated in order to obtain the mean integral TEC increment $`\mathrm{}`$ $`I(t)`$ on the time interval specified.

$$\mathrm{}I(t)=\underset{t1}{\overset{t2}{}}Sd_{ex}(t)𝑑t$$
(4)
This technique is useful for identifying the ionospheric response to faint solar flares (of X-ray class C) when the variation amplitude of the TEC response to separate LOS is comparable to the level of background fluctuations.

## 3 Ionospheric response to faint solar flares

An example of a processing of the data for a faint solar flare July 29, 1999 (C2.7/ SF, 11:11 GT, S16W11) is given in Figure 1. One hundred LOS were processed for the analysis of this event. Panels (a) and (b) present the typical time dependencies of TEC variations for separate LOS, and their time derivatives. The BRUS (PRN14, thick line) and BAHR (PRN29, thin line) stations are taken as our example. It is apparent from these dependencies that no response to the flare is distinguished in the TEC variations and in their time derivatives for the individual LOS, because the amplitude of the TEC response for the individual LOS is comparable to the level of background fluctuations.

A response to the solar flare is clearly seen in the time dependence (Figure 1c) which is a normalized result of a coherent summation $`Sd`$ of the time derivatives of the TEC variations for all LOS. Upon subtracting the trend determined as a polynomial of degree 3 on the time interval 10:07-10:39 UT, the same curve (c) is presented in Figure 1d as $`Sd_{ex}(t)`$. Next the calculated time dependence was integrated over the time interval 10:07-10:39 UT to give the mean integral increment of TEC (Figure 1e, thick line). A comparison of the resulting dependence with the values of the soft X-ray emission flux (GOES-10) in the range 1-8 $`\AA `$ (Figure 1e, thin line) reveals that it has a more flattened form, both in it rise and fall. A maximum in X-rays is about 6 minutes ahead of that in TEC.

Examples of the application of our technology for the analysis of the ionospheric response to faint solar flares are given in Figures 2 and 3. Figure 2 gives the data processing results on TEC variations for solar flares : July 29, 1999 (C2.2, 11:00 UT) on panels a, b, c, d, and July 29, 1999 (C6.2/SN, 15:14 UT, N25E33 ) on panels e, f, g, h. Figure 3 shows the results of a data processing of TEC variations for solar flares of November 17, 1999 (C7.0/1N, 09:38 UT, S15W53) on panels a, b, c, d, and November 11, 1999 (C5.0, 15:40 UT) on panels e, f, g, h.

## 4 Ionospheric response to bright flares

An example of a processing of the data for the bright solar flare of July 14, 1998 (M4.6/1B, 12:59 UT, S23E20) is given in Figure 4.

Fifty LOS were used in the analysis of this event. Figure 4a presents the time dependencies of hard X-ray emission (CGRO/Batse, 25-50 keV, thick line on panels a ) and of the UV line (SOHO/SUMMER 171 $`\AA `$ , thin line) in arbitrary units (Aschwanden et al., 1999). It should be noted that the time dependence of the UV 171 $`\AA `$ line is more flattened, both in the rise and in the fall, when compared with the hard X-ray emission characteristic. The increase in the UV 171 $`\AA `$ line starts by about 1.8 minute earlier, and the duration of its disturbance exceeds considerably that of the hard X-ray emission disturbance.

Panel (b) presents the typical time dependencies of the TEC variations for separate LOS. The AOML (PRN24, thick line) and ACSI (PRN18, thin line) stations are taken as examples. A response to the bright flare is clearly distinguished for separate LOS. The normalized sum $`Sd`$ of the time derivatives of the TEC variations for all LOS is presented in Figure 4c; panel (d) plots the same curve (c), upon subtracting the trend determined as a polynomial of degree 3 on the time interval 12:48-13:12 UT. Next the resulting time dependence was integrated in order to obtain the mean integral increment of TEC (Figure 4e). It might be well to point out that the time dependence of the mean integral increment of TEC has a more flattened form in the rise than the emission flux characteristics; however, the onset time of its increase coincides with that of hard X-ray emission, and is delayed by about 1.8 minutes with respect to the UV 171 $`\AA `$ line.

A total of 11 events was processed. The class of X-ray flares was from M4.5 to M7.4. It was found that the mean TEC variation response in the ionosphere depends on the flare lecation on the Sun (central meridian distance, CMD) - Figure 5a.

## 5 Discussion

Our results is consistent with the findings reported by (Donnelly, 1969), (Donnelly, 1971), (Donnelly, 1976), (Donnelly et al., 1986a), where a study of extreme UV (EUV) flashes of solar flares observed via SFD was made. In the cited references it was shown that the relative strength of impulsive EUV emission from flares decreases with increasing CMD and average peak frequency deviation is also significantly lower for SFD’s associated with $`H\alpha `$ flares at large CMD. (Donnelly, 1971) is of the opinion that percentage of $`H\alpha `$ flares with SFD’s tends to decrease for large CMD of $`H\alpha `$ flare location - Figure 5b. Similar effects at the center and limb were observed in the ratio of EUV flux to the concurrent hard X ray flux (Kane and Donnelly, 1971). Using a fourth-order polynomial to fit the results in Figure 5b with CMD in degrees (Donnelly, 1976) gives

$$A(CMD)10.484CMD+0.001426CMD^21.7910^5CMD^3+7.4310^8CMD^4$$
(5)
Equation (5) implies that on the average the impulsive EUV emission is more than an order of magnitude weaker for flares near the solar limb than for flares at the central meridian. (Donnelly, 1976) have assumed that it is result from the low-lying nature of the $`10^4K10^6K`$ flare source region and from absorption of EUV emission in the surrounding cool nonflaring atmosphere. Figure 5c presents the result of a modeling of the SFD occurrence probability at the time of the solar flare as a function of CMD (solid line) in arbitrary units, as well as the values amplitude of the TEC response in the ionosphere to solar flares (in the range of X-ray class M4.9-M5.7 (dots), and M6.6-M7.4 (grosses) as a function of CMD. The modeling used equation (5). It figure suggests that the results of our measurements do not contradict the conclusions drawn by Donnelly (1976) that the relative strength of impulsive EUV emission from flares decreases with increasing CMD. It should be noted that in the case of solar flares whose class is similar in X-ray emission, the dependence under study resembles cos(CMD) rather than a polynomial of degree 4. The fitting cos(CMD) curve for solar X-ray M4.4-M5.7 flares is plotted in Figure 5a (solid line) and 5c (dashed line). This conclusion is consistent with the findings reported by (Donnelly and Puga, 1990). In the cited reference it was found the empirical curves of the average dependence of active region emission on its CMD (Figure 6a) for several wavelengs. Assume a quiet Sun plus one average active region that starts at the center of the backside of the Sun and rotates across the center of the solar disk with a 28-day period.

Fig. 6(b-e) presents our obtained dependencies of $`\mathrm{}I`$ as a function of the angular distance of the flaring region from the central solar meridian (CMD) for different classes of flares in the X-ray range: X2.0-X5.7 (Fig. 6b, 6 flares), M2.0-M7.4 (Fig. 6c, 26 flares), M1.1 (Fig. 6d, 14 flares), and C2.7-C10 (Fig. 6e, 7 flares). Because of lack of space, we do not give here any detailed characteristics of the flares. Our analysis was based on using sets of GPS stations and LOS similar to those described in the previous section. Fig. 6a presents the appropriate dependencies of X-ray flux emission intensities (Mosher, 1979), F10 cm (Riddle, 1969; Vauquois, 1955), and UV (Samain, 1979).

It is evident from Fig. 6 that the character of the response amplitude corresponds to the behavior of ultraviolet lines. Hence it follows that the main contribution to the ionospheric TEC response to solar flares is made by the F region and the upper part of the E region where solar ultraviolet radiation is absorbed.

Fig. 7 plots, on a logarithmic scale, the dependence of the response amplitude $`\mathrm{}I`$ to solar flares as a function of their peak power F in the X-ray range for flares located near the center of the solar disk ($`CMD<40^{}`$). This dependence illustrates a wide dynamic range of the proposed method (three orders in the flare power), and is quite well approximated by the power-law function

$$\mathrm{}I=649.4F^{0.7}$$
(6)
## 6 SUMMARY

This paper suggests a new method for investigating the ionospheric response to faint solar flares (of X-ray class C) when the variation amplitude of the TEC response to individual LOS is comparable to the level of background fluctuations. The dependence of the TEC variation response amplitude on the flare location on the Sun is investigated. In the case of solar flares whose class is similar in X-ray emission, the dependence under study resembles cos(CMD). The high sensitivity of our method permits us to propose the problem of detecting, in the flare X-ray and EUV ranges, emissions of non-solar origins which are the result of supernova explosions. For powerful solar flares it is not necessary to invoke a coherent summation, and the ionospheric response can be investigated for each beam. This opens the way to a detailed study of the SID dependence on a great variety of parameters (latitude, longitude, solar zenith angle, spectral characteristics of the emission flux, etc.). With current increasing solar activity, such studies become highly challenging. In addition to solving traditional problems of estimating parameters of ionization processes in the ionosphere and problems of reconstructing emission parameters, the data obtained through the use of our method can be used to estimate the spatial inhomogeneity of emission fluxes at scales of the Earth’s radius.

## 7 Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to E.A. Kosogorov and O.S. Lesuta for preparing the input data. Thanks are also due V.G. Mikhalkovsky for his assistance in preparing the English version of the manuscript. This work was done with support under RFBR grant of leaping scientific schools of the Russian Federation No. 00-15-98509 and Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grants 99-05-64753,00-05-72026, 00-07-72026 and 00-02-16819a), GNTP ’Astronomy’.


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# Untitled Document

A NEW APPROACH TO THE GEOMETRIZATION OF MATTER

by: Louis Crane, Mathematics Department, KSU

ABSTRACT: We show that the sum over geometries in the Lorentzian 4-D state sum model proposed for quantum GR in  includes terms which correspond to geometries on manifolds with conical singularities. Natural approximations suggest that they can be interpreted as gauge bosons for the standard model, plus fermions, plus dark matter.

1. Introduction

Over the last few years, a new model for the quantum theory of gravity has appeared. The model we are referring to is in the class of spin foam models; more specifically it is a Lorentzian categorical state sum model . It is based on state sums on a trangulated manifold, rather than differential equations on a smooth manifold. The model has passed a number of preliminary mathematical hurdles; it is actually finite on any finite triangulation . The biggest hurdle it still has to overcome is an explicit physical interpretation, or differently put, a classical limit.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a radically new way to include matter in this type of theory. While it may seem premature in light of the abovementioned hurdle, it is extremely natural in the setting of the model, and perhaps easier to find than the classical limit itself. If one accepts the approximate arguments we make, the bosonic part of the standard model, rather than any random collection of matter fields, is what appears. The approach yields a fermionic sector as well, but we do not yet understand it. Also a natural family of candidates for dark matter appears in it. The crucial point of departure for this paper is the observation that for a discrete state sum, unlike for a Lagrangian composed of continuum fields, there is no need for the spacetime to consist entirely of manifold points. We find that in investigating the kind of singular points which the model naturally allows a number of intriguing parallels to the standard model arise.

The realization that a specific possibility appears for including matter in the model came as two complimentary points of view on the construction of the model met. The first, the quantum geometric point of view, is an interpretation of the categorical state sum as a sum over Lorentzian discrete quantum geometries . The second, the Group Field Theory picture , interprets the state sums on particular triangulations as Feynman diagrams for a quantum field theory on a group manifold. The cross fertilization of these two approaches, as discussed in  was an important motivation for the finiteness proof. The sum over Feynman diagrams in the GFT picture can be interpreted as a superposition of quantum geometries in the LCSS point of view.

However, there is an important discrepancy between the two pictures. Not every Feynman diagram in the GFT picture corresponds to a manifold. The most general diagram, as we shall discuss below, is a manifold with conical singularities over surfaces propagating along paths and connecting at vertex-like cobordisms of the surfaces.

Thus we are faced with a dilemma. We must take one of the following paths:

1.Restrict the class of Feynman diagrams we sum over in the GFT picture in a nonlocal and unnatural way,

2. Abandon the GFT picture altogether, and try to add matter to the LCSS picture; or

3. Reinterpret the conical singularities in the GFT picture as matter.

Thus, within the line of development we are pursuing, the new proposal for matter, namely that it results from geometric excitations at conical singularities, is actually the most parsimonious (as well, needless to say, as the most optimistic) possibility to consider.

Put differently, the GFT picture seems to be telling us to take the departure of the LCSS model, namely substituting a superposition of discrete geometries for a continuum picture, to its logical conclusion of including all simplicial complexes.

The development of the LCSS approach to quantum gravity has proceeded, rather surprizingly, at the mathematical level of rigor. The finiteness result cited above is a theorem. Regrettably, the proposal in this paper cannot be formulated as rigorously at this point. We are only able to progress by making approximations. However, it is at least possible to state the results as conjectures, which a careful study of some well defined integrals could in the future prove.

Since we are making a radical departure from existing lines of development towards a fundamental understanding of matter fields, we preface our proposal with a brief historical discussion, which shows that the new suggestion is not as far conceptually from other approaches as might at first appear. This is what motivates the phrase “geometrization of matter” in our title.

2. Matter and Space

Our current understanding of the physics of matter is rooted in the idea of symmetry. Fields in quantum field theories are determined by their quantum numbers, which index representations of the symmetries of the theory. Interactions (vertices in Feynmanology) are linear maps on state spaces which intertwine the action of the symmetries, or as physicists like to say “are not forbidden by the symmetries of the theory.”

Our ideas about symmetry are much older than quantum field theory and derive from our experience of space. Already in the nineteenth century, mathematicians had the idea that different types of geometry correspond to different types of symmetry.

When mathematicians and physicists have tried to understand the symmetries of quantum physics, they have invariably resorted to explaining matter fields in terms of one or another sort of geometry. Aside from the manifestly spacetime symmetries of spin and energy-monentum, every approach to find a fundamental explanation of the internal or gauge symmetries has invoked one or another geometric setting.

Thus gauge theory is formulated as the geometry of vector bundles, Kaluza Klein theories resort to higher dimensional spacetime, supergravity is based in superspace, string theory originally lived in the geometry of loop spaces, while its M theoretic offspring seem to be dwelling in bundles over manifolds of various dimensions again, perhaps with specified submanifolds as well.

One could also mention noncommutative geometry, which studies deformations both of families of symmetries and of the spaces they act on to noncommutative C\* algebras.

Nevertheless, at this point, we cannot say that any of these approaches have really succeeded. A particular difficulty in many of them has been the failure of the standard model to emerge from a limitless set of possibilities.

We want to propose that this historical survey suggests the following points:

1.Our understanding of symmetry is so rooted in geometry that if the fundamental theory of matter is not geometrical we will not find it anytime soon.

2, We need to try a different type of geometry, and hope to get lucky as regards the standard model.

Now we want to claim that the ideas of quantum geometry which have developed in the process of understanding the LCSS/GFT models point to a natural generalization of the geometry of spacetime, namely simplicial complexes. In this new geometric framework, it is plausible that the standard model emerges naturally. To reiterate, the shift from smooth manifolds to simplicial complexes is natural because we have substituted combinatorial state sums for differential equations.

3. The topology of a class of simplicial complexes.

The GFT picture is a generalization of the idea of a state sum attached to a triangulation of a 4-manifold. The picture is to think of a triangulation of a 4-manifold as a 5-valent graph with each edge of the graph refined into a bundle of 4 strands. Different matchings of the strands at an edge are different diagrams. The vertices of the diagram correspond to the 4-simplices, the edges are the 3-simplices, and the strands are the faces of the 3-simplices. Mathematicians would describe this as the dual 2-skeleton of the triangulation, following strands around until they close into loops, and attaching disks along the loops.

A crucial observation is that the LCSS model in , unlike the topological models that preceeded it , requires only the combinatorial data of the dual 2-skeleton to formulate it, since it has no terms on the edges or vertices of the triangulated manifold. The GFT picture actually goes beyond this and produces all possible strand diagrams as terms in an expansion of a field theory into Feynman graphs.

A standard argument from PL topology tells us when the complex we would build up from such a diagram by adding simplices of dimensions 1 and 0 is a manifold: the links of all simplices must be spheres of appropriate dimension. (The combinatorial picture described above in fact tells us how they should be added). In the situation we are considering, this will be automatically satisfied for the 4- 3- and 2- simplices, the link of a 1-simplex can be any 2-manifold, and the link of a vertex can be any 3-manifold with conical singularities on the surfaces corresponding to the links of the incident edges. The links of vertices can also be described as 3-manifolds with boundary components the links of the edges incident to the vertex, leaving the cones out for simplicity.

For the nonmathematical reader, we note that a cone over any space is the cross product of an interval with the space, with the copy at one end of the interval contracted to a point. A point in a manifold has neighborhoods which are homeomorphic to the cone over a sphere, which is just a ball. A point with a neighborhood homeomorphic to a cone over some other manifold is not a manifold point, and is referred to as a conic singularity. In the case of an isolated singularity, the submanifold over which the cone is constructed is called the link of the point. If instead we have a simplex crossed with a cone on a lower dimensional submanifold, it is the link of the simplex. In a triangulated manifold, all links of simplices are spheres of appropriate dimension.

The proposal we are making is to interpret the web of singularities in such a complex as a Feynman graph; that is to say, we want to interpret the low energy part of the geometry around the cones over surfaces as particles, and the 3-manifolds with boundary connecting them as interaction vertices.

We shall make an attempt at this below, using several approximate techniques. At this point, we wish to underscore the extreme parsimoniousness of this proposal. Nothing is added to the model for quantum GR, no extra dimensions, no larger group, We simply allow a natural larger set of configurations. Once we abandon smooth manifolds for PL ones, there is really no reason not to allow such configurations. In the GFT picture, where geometries appear as fluctuations of a nongeometric vacuum, they are on an equal footing.

4. Conical matter

Now we want to get some picture of what degrees of freedom would appear on a conical singularity in the model of . Since we need to average over all triangulations this is not easy. Also, in order to obtain a model to compare with particle physics as we see it today, we need to describe a universe which has cooled enormously from the Planck temperature, i.e. we need a low energy limit of the model. At present we do not know how to abstract such a limit from the model directly, so we approach this problem by making use of the connection between the discrete models for TQFTs in  and the model in .

A TQFT is an automatic solution to the renormalization group, in the sense that if we make a refinement of the triangulation on which it is computed the result is unchanged. We want to suggest that the state space of low energy states which survive summing over refinements of triangulation of a cone over a surface is given by the space of states for an associated 2+1 dimensional TQFT on the surface with a puncture. (The puncture would allow information to flow out, thus imitating the conical singular point. The state space for a TQFT with puncture is larger than the one for a closed surface in a TQFT.)

This should be taken as a physical hypothesis at this moment. One reason for believing it is that the LCSS model in  is itself obtained by constraining a TQFT.

Then there is the question of what TQFT to expect. Since the state sum in  is from the unitary representations of SL(2,C), which is a sort of double for Su(2), the TQFT should be the one for $`SU_q(2)\times SU_q(2)`$, i.e. a left-right symmetric TQFT produced from a quantum group in the by now standard way. This is also the TQFT we constrain to produce the euclidean signature model for quantum general relativity in .

Approximating limits of theories by states of other theories is not an unknown technique in theoretical physics. At this point we do not know how to set q or what value it should take. We could introduce a q into our original model by passing to the Quantum Lorentz Algebra . It may also be that a q emerges from the poorly understood limit of low energy in the model, as a cosmological constant. As we note below, certain choices for q have interesting implications for the particle content of the low energy theory.

We believe that in the future it may be possible to make a stronger argument for this. The reason has to do with the relationship between conformal structures on a surface and flat Lorentzian metrics on the cone over the surface. A Riemann surface can be obtained by quotienting the hyperboloid in three dimensional Minkowski space by a discrete subgroup of the 2+1 dimensional Lorentz group, which is isomorphic to SL(2,R). Quotienting the entire forward timelike cone by the same group yields a flat Lorentzian metric on the entire cone over the surface, except that the conical singularity (the origin in Minkowski space), is not a manifold point, so naive definitions of metrics fail there. Thus, the approach to producing CSW theory by quantizing a bundle over Riemann moduli space could be interpreted as a quantization over the space of flat geometries around a conic singularity. States arising from effects around flat geometry should be important in understanding the low energy behavior of the model. This argument will be difficult because it will be necessary to treat the effect of the singular point, so we do not attempt it here. We will make further use of the relationship between flat Lorentzian metrics on a cone and constant negative sectional curvature (hyperbolic) metrics on the boundary of the cone in what follows.

At this point, let us note that the space of states assigned to a once punctured torus by a TQFT is a very special object. As demonstrated in , it is always a Hopf algebra object in the category associated to the TQFT. In the case of the TQFT produced from $`SU(2)_q`$, also known as the CSW  model, it is a sum of matrix rings, one at each dimension, up to the cutoff determined by q. The unitary part of this has been suggested by Connes and Lott  as a natural origin for the gauge symmetry of the standard model.

Thus, according to our ansatz using TQFT states, we find a copy of the gauge bosons of the standard model in the states on a toroidal conical singularity. If we choose the q in such a way as to get exactly 3 matrix blocks in our space , we could get exactly the standard model, otherwise we could be led to the conjecture that the standard model is really part of a gauge theory with group U(1)+SU(2)+ SU(3)+SU(4)… where particles charged in the higher dimensional pieces acquire very large masses and are therefore unseen.

It is therefore interesting to ask what sort of interaction vertices toroidal and other conical singularities might admit. Are the toroidal singularities special, as compared to the higher genus ones?

5. Hyperbolic manifolds and interaction vertices for conic matter.

We remind the reader that we are interpreting regions which look like a conic singularity over a surface crossed with an interval as propagating particles. Now we want to think of the vertices where such topologies meet as interaction vertices. As we explained above, the regions around these vertices are cones over 3-manifolds with conic singularities over surfaces.

We now want to propose a second approximation. The low energy vertices corresponding to these cones over 3-manifolds should be dominated by the flat Lorentzian metrics on them. The physical argument justifying this is that topologies which did not admit flat geometries would become very high energy as we summed over refinements of the triangulation. In the related context of 3d manifolds discussed above we noted a possible connection between this approximation and the TQFT ansatz.

Now we discover an interesting connection. Flat Lorentzian geometries on the cone over a 3-manifold arise in a natural way from hyperbolic structures on it. This is because hyperbolic structures can be recovered as the quotient space of the forward timelike hyperboloid of Minkowski space by discrete subgroups of SL(2,C) acting isometrically on it. Extending the action to the entire forward cone yields a flat Lorentzian 4-geometry on the cone. If we do a similar construction to produce a 3-manifold with boundary, we obtain a conformal (=hyperbolic) structure on the two dimensional boundary of the 3-manifold at the same time. Thus we are led to a picture where we match the hyperbolic structures on the surfaces linking the edges to the hyperbolic structures assigned to the boundary components of the 3-manifolds linking the vertices to obtain flat geometries surrounding the entire singular part of a 4-D simplicial complex which could arise in our model.

An interesting theorem about hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds with boundary, called Mostow rigidity , tells us that the degrees of freedom of a hyperbolic structure on the bulk are exactly the degrees of freedom of the conformal structure on the boundary components. This means that when we sum over flat geometries in our situation, we get a multiple integral over Teichmuller parameters. This produces a sort of mathematical convergence with the Polyakov approach to string theory. We do not yet know if when we go to quantizing over the space of flat structures any deeper connections to string theory will result.

Now we make another critical observation: the only complete hyperbolic 3-manifolds with finite volume are the ones whose boundary components are tori and Klein bottles . We believe that infinite volume metrics would not make an important low energy contribution to the model, while incomplete hyperbolic metrics would not match flatly at the surfaces linking the edges.

This leads us to a picture in which the low energy interacting world would contain only toroidal and Klein bottle singularities, leaving the higher genus surfaces to decouple and form dark matter. Since our TQFT ansatz suggested that the states on tori could reproduce the gauge bosons for the standard model, while the Klein bottle, being nonorientable, would produce fermionic states, this yields a picture with many similarities to the standard model plus dark matter. We have not yet tried to find an argument for the state space on a Klein bottle.

We would also like to find an approximate argument for how TQFT states might propagate across a vertex described by some cobordism between the incoming and outgoing surfaces. The most obvious would be to simply take the linear map between the surface states given by the TQFT itself. It is interesting to note that for a particularly simple cobordism from two tori to a third this would just give the multiplication of the associative algebra we mentioned above, yielding the gauge algebra of the standard model.

Conclusions

It is clear that the arguments presented here to analyse the behavior of the LCSS model near singular points are very preliminary; it would be rash to jump to the conclusion that we had the unified field theory in hand. Nevertheless the trilogy of standard model bosons, fermions, and weakly interacting higher genus states, especially embedded in a plausible model for quantum general relativity, cannot be ignored.

It does seem safe to say that the simplicity of this model makes it an interesting problem for mathematical physics to study. The connection between particle interactions and hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds has the advantage that it poses problems for a mathematical subject which has been deeply studied from several points of view and concerning which much is known . It is interesting to note that the question of hyperbolic structure on 3-manifolds with toroidal boundaries is deeply connected to knot theory. We may find knotted vertex structures play a role in this theory; interestingly, they are chiral.

Given the finiteness proof in , the conjectures in this paper pertain to limits of families of finite integrals; at least in principle there is reason to hope they can be rigorously formulated and proven.

The fact that the families of flat structures which appear here are parametrized by the Teichmuller parameters on the boundary (Mostow rigidity) means that the subject takes on an unexpected mathematical resemblance to string theory, although it is “world sheets” rather than loops which propagate through spacetime.

We do think the moral can be drawn from this model that there are more possibilities for forming fundamental quantum theories of nature than contemporary theoretical physics seems to recognize.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 J. Barrett and L. Crane, A Lorrentzian Signature Model for Quantum General Relativity CQG 17 (2000) 3101-3118.

see also:

J. C. Baez, Spinfoam Models CQG 15 (1998) 1827-1858.

A. Perez and C. Rovelli A Spin Foam Model without Bullbe Divergences Nucl hys B 599 (2001) 427-434

 L. Crane A. Perez, C. Rovelli, A Finiteness Proof for the Lorentzian State Sum Model for General Relativity gr-qc 0104057

 L. Crane L. Kauffman and D. Yetter, State Sum invariants of 4-Manifolds JKTR (2) (1997) 177-234.

 J. Barrett and L. Crane Relativistic Spin Nets and Quantum Gravity, J. Math. Phys 39 (1998) 3296-3302.

 L. Crane and D. Yetter, On Algebraic Structures Implicit in Topological Quantum Field Theories, JKTR 8 (2) (1999) 125-164.

 E. Buffenoir and P. Roche, Harmonic Ananysis on the Quantum Group, CMP 207, (1999) 499-555.

 E. Witten, Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial, CMP 121 (1989) 351-399.

 A. Connes and J. Lott Particle Models and Non-Commutative Geometry Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Supp.) 18B 29 (1990)

 R. Coquereaux, A. O. Garcia and R. Trinchero, Differential Calculus and Connections on a Quantum Plane at a Cubic Root of Unity, Rev. Mod. Phys. 12 (2000) 227-285

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 W. Thurston The Geometry and Topology of Three-Manifolds Princeton University notes, unpublished