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# Evolution of photonic structure on deformation of cholesteric elastomers

## I Introduction

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCE) are materials displaying both a broken orientational symmetry and a sparsely crosslinked rubbery network of flexible polymers. They have novel mechanical behaviour arising from the coupling of the orientational degrees of freedom of the liquid crystalline order and those of the rubber-elastic matrix. In particular, soft deformations and unusual thermal and photo-actuation have been discovered and studied in the aligned monodomain nematic phase of rubbers M.Warner and E.M.Terentjev (1996); III et al. (2001); Finkelmann et al. (2001a).

Cholesteric liquid crystals have attracted much interest over the years due to their exciting optical properties Gennes and Prost (1993). Cholesterics have also found use in very diverse products ranging from thermometers to fabric dyes. There has been an effort for some time to produce and study well-aligned cholesteric liquid crystal polymers and their crosslinked networks – permanently stabilised Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Elastomers (CLCE). Much success has been achieved in developing cholesteric polymers Finkelmann and Rehage (1983); Plate et al. (1985); Zentel et al. (1989), aligning them by electric and magnetic fields and by surface interactions with substrates. However, the permanent chemical crosslinking of cholesteric textures and obtaining a freely-standing, mechanically stable rubbery films of such polymers has proven much more difficult. Early experiments achieved cholesteric order through the mechanical deformation of an elastomer doped with a low mass chiral liquid crystal W.Meier and H.Finkelmann (1993). A second approach has been to form a perfect cholesteric texture between parallel cell surfaces and then forming a crosslinked network by UV-polymerisation Hasson et al. (1999); C.-C.Chang et al. (1997). While these approaches led to materials with interesting properties and enabled for example the study of piezoelectric effects W.Meier and H.Finkelmann (1993); C.-C.Chang et al. (1997), they are not ideal. In the first method, the alignment is only induced mechanically and it is not a permanent property of the material, while in the second method only very thin films elastomers can be synthesized and they cannot be used as freely standing samples. Recently a new method of synthesis was devised which solves both problems. Free standing strips of single-crystal, well aligned cholesteric rubber have been produced by Kim and Finkelmann S.T.Kim and H.Finkelmann (2001) and a uniform orientation of helical director texture has been confirmed by selective reflection measurements. The key idea of this new method is the use of anisotropic (uniaxial) deswelling induced in a laterally constrained film of a weakly crosslinked cholesteric polymer; the resulting effective biaxial planar extension leads to macroscopic orientation of the director in the plane and, therefore, the helical axis perpendicular to the sample plane. This orientation is then locked by a second-stage cross-linking of the network.

In a cholesteric liquid crystal the periodicity of helical structure (characterised by the pitch $`p`$ and the wavenumber $`q_0=\pi /p`$), combined with the local birefringence of the liquid crystal ($`\mathrm{\Delta }n`$), forbids propagation of circularly polarised light with the corresponding handedness and the wavelength $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{gap}=p\mathrm{\Delta }n`$, determining a photonic bandgap. This has been first observed in an elastomer in Hasson et al. (1999); S.T.Kim and H.Finkelmann (2001) as the selective reflection of light. The remarkable property of cholesteric elastomers is that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{gap}`$ is tunable, responding to mechanical deformation, as it has been theoretically predicted in M.Warner et al. (2000) and experimentally observed in H.Finkelmann et al. (2001). These materials have many potential applications as novel optical filters and mirrors. It has been demonstrated how a dye-doped CLCE can form the basis of a mirrorless laser whose wavelength can be controlled through mechanical deformation H.Finkelmann et al. (2001).

Theoretical work, describing CLCE and their response to mechanical deformation, predicted a number of new effects, including a very rich and complex evolution of photonic band structure Y.Mao et al. (2001); P.A.Bermel and M.Warner (2001). Briefly, when a rubber with cholesteric liquid crystalline microstructure is stretched uniaxially in the $`x`$-direction, perpendicular to the helix axis $`z`$, as in Fig. 1, two main phenomena are expected to occur. First, there is a contraction in the $`z`$ direction, due to the rubber incompressibility, whose detail depends on the complex transverse anisotropy of the cholesteric helix. Second, the uniform helical rotation of the optical axis (the local nematic director) is disrupted and the helix coarsens, thus producing complex non-linear corrections to the resulting optical response.

In this paper we study experimentally the effect of uniaxial strain on a CLCE. In marked contrast to the previously studied bi-axial strain H.Finkelmann et al. (2001), a uniaxial deformation does not simply reduce the helical pitch but produces a complex photonic structure that modifies with deformation. We present optical absorption and X-ray diffraction measurements on a CLCE sample as a function of strain and and discuss the complex behavior that is induced even by small uniaxial deformations.

## II Methods

### II.1 Materials and preparation

A new CLCE was synthesized following the general method introduced by Kim and Finkelmann S.T.Kim and H.Finkelmann (2001). Siloxane backbone chains were reacted under centrifugation at 7000rpm with 90 mol% mesogenic side groups (the nematic 4-pentylphenyl-4’-(4-buteneoxy)benzoate, labelled PBB, and Cholesterol Pentenoate, ChP, in proportion 4:1) and 10 mol% of 1,4 di(11-undeceneoxy)benzene, di-11UB, crosslinker groups for 45 minutes at 75C to form a partially crosslinked gel. For the further 4 hours the reaction proceeded under centrifugation at 60C, during which time the solvent was allowed to evaporate, leading to an anisotropic deswelling of the gel and completion of crosslinking. All of the volume change in this setup occurs by reducing the thickness of the gel, while keeping the lateral dimensions fixed (due to centrifugation): this introduces a very strong effective biaxial extension in the plane. At this second-stage temperature of 60C the dried polymer is in the cholesteric phase and its director is forced to remain in the plane of stretching – this results in the uniform cholesteric texture. The structure of the material produced is shown in Fig. 2. This kind of synthesis produces a very homogeneous strip of elastomer whose size is of the order of 20cm$`\times `$1cm$`\times `$200$`\mu `$m.

Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements (Perkin-Elmer Pyris 7 DSC) were used to characterise the resulting elastomer. The glass transition was unambiguously determined at $`T_g10^{}`$C and the clearing point, the isotropic-cholesteric transition occurs at $`T_\mathrm{c}90^{}`$C. No additional thermal transitions were found between these two critical temperatures. All experiments were performed at room temperature, sufficiently far from both transitions.

### II.2 Mechanical measurements

The stress-strain measurements were performed on a custom built device consisting of a temperature compensated stress gauge and controller(UF1 and AD20, from Pioden Controls Ltd) in a thermostatically controlled chamber (Cal3200 from Cal Controls Ltd). The long elastomer strips were mounted with clamps and extended with a micrometer. The resulting force (as well as the current temperature) values were acquired by connection to a Keithley multimeter (2000 series) and stored on a PC over an IEEE interface. Data obtained in arbitrary units were converted to nominal stress in units of mN/mm2=$`10^3`$Pa by calibration with weights.

### II.3 X-Ray Scattering

Wide angle X-ray scattering measurements were performed at room temperature with mono-chromatic CuKα-radiation of 0.154nm, using a two-dimensional photographic plate. Images were then digitalized and analyzed to extract the azimuthal distribution of intensity indicating the degree of uniaxial order. As with the optical measurements, the beam was incident in the cholesteric pitch direction $`z`$, and measurements were performed as a function of applied uniaxial strain $`\lambda _{xx}`$.

### II.4 Visible Light Absorbance

Absorption measurements in the direction of the cholesteric pitch (Fig. 1) were made at room temperature with an HP-8453 UV/Visible spectrophotometer, modified so that incident light reached the sample after being transmitted through a linear polarizer and a Fresnel rhomb. Since the Fresnel rhomb is an achromatic quarter-wave retarder, this arrangement produces circularly polarized light throughout the visible spectrum E.Hecht (1987) with minimal losses of intensity. The handedness of circular polarization is determined by the orientation of the linear polarizer. An instrumental cut-off, due to both the polarizer and the glass prism, is apparent at $``$320nm (Fig. 3). We have measured the transmitted light, and hence will present the data as the ratio $`I/I_0`$ of transmitted to incident light. It is a property of the cholesteric materials under study that the fraction of light that is not transmitted is not absorbed by the sample, but mostly reflected backwards. We comment that the direct measurement of the reflected beam would reduce any effects of scattering from the sample, but would not extend the accessible range to the UV where the elastomer is not transparent.

## III Results

The first, most intuitively obvious effect occurring on uniaxial stretching of a monodomain cholesteric elastomer across its helical axis is the gradual unwinding of the director helix. As the theoretical model M.Warner et al. (2000) predicted for liquid crystalline polymers with prolate anisotropy of the backbone (chain preferentially extended along the local director), on application of uniaxial strain the director tends to align along the stress axis. This is resisted by the anchoring of the local director in the bulk of the material to the initial helical texture frozen-in by the network crosslinks. We first examine the mechanical response of such a system and analyse the director distribution from the X-ray scattering data. Having qualitatively confirmed the theoretical prediction of the helix coarsening and eventual unwinding via a continuous set of highly non-uniform director textures, we then study how these affect the photonic band structure of the material.

### III.1 Stress-strain response

The equilibrium stress-strain curve of cholesteric rubber stretched perpendicular to its helix axis could be expected to possess anomalies, since the complex pattern of internal director rotation should follow the deformation; this often is a requirement for soft-elastic response. However, the detailed theoretical calculation Y.Mao et al. (2001) has shown that in this geometry (cf. Fig. 1) the rotations are not soft. In fact, only a small anomaly is predicted (within this ideal molecular model) at the critical point of transition where the coarsened winding texture transforms into the non-helical coarsened wagging one. The estimate of critical strain for this discontinuous transition, $`\lambda _\mathrm{c}=r^{2/7}`$, is related to the effective parameter of backbone anisotropy $`r`$. This is the single parameter of the ideal theory of nematic (and cholesteric) elastomers; $`r=\mathrm{}_{}/\mathrm{}_{}`$ is interpreted as the average ratio of backbone chain step lengths along and perpendicular to the local director. $`r`$ could be directly measured by examining the uniaxial thermal expansion of nematic rubber. Recently much attention has been paid to evaluating this parameter Finkelmann et al. (2001b); Clarke et al. (2001) and directly relating it to the local value of underlying nematic order parameter $`Q(T)`$. To a good approximation a relationship $`r(1+\alpha Q)^3`$ holds with a coefficient $`\alpha `$ taking a value $`\alpha 0.91`$ for the side-chain siloxane liquid crystalline elastomer crosslinked by the flexible linkages, as shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 4 shows the experimentally measured stress-strain curve for our CLCE. The mechanical response is essentially linear for strains up to 20-25%. In this regime the linear rubber modulus is $`\mu 89\text{kPa}`$, consistent with other measurements performed on nematic materials with similar composition and crosslinking density. There is a break in the linear stress-strain relation, emphasized by the arrow in the plot. We could attribute this to the theoretically predicted anomaly Y.Mao et al. (2001), when at a critical strain $`\lambda _\mathrm{c}`$ the stress drops below the linear regime. If so, then the value of local backbone anisotropy $`r=\lambda _\mathrm{c}^{7/2}2.2`$, which is not far from the typical values measured in similar nematic rubbers ($`r`$ between $`2.5`$ and $`3`$ are reported for such materials). The little discrepancy in the values of $`r`$ is to be expected: the usual monodomain nematic rubbers are prepared by two-step crosslinking with the uniaxial strain of up to 300%, while the cholesteric monodomain was prepared under the effective biaxial strain of much lower magnitude – hence, perhaps, the slightly lower value of effectively frozen chain anisotropy.

### III.2 Helix coarsening and unwinding

Fig. 5 shows X-ray scattering patterns for the equilibrium (unstretched) cholesteric rubber (a) and the same rubber stretched by $`\lambda _{xx}=1.4`$ (b). In this scattering geometry, the wide-angle diffraction is due to the characteristic dimension given by the thickness of the aligned and densely packed mesogenic rods M.Deutsch (1991), averaged over the local director rotating along the $`z`$-axis. The scattered intensity around this ring is initially uniform, see Fig. 5(a), indicating that the nematic director is uniformly distributed along $`z`$ (the angle $`\varphi (z)=q_0z`$, cf. Fig. 1). As the sample is stretched, azimuthal lobes develop, see Fig. 5(b), indicating that there is now a preferred orientation of the nematic director, along the direction of elongation. There is no detectable threshold for lobes to develop, as can be seen from the azimuthal intensity scans shown in Fig. 6(a).

We can, in fact, model these azimuthal intensity profiles by assuming that the cholesteric structure is locally exactly the same as that of a chemically similar nematic and then performing the average along the helical pitch. To do so, we need the X-ray scattering data for a corresponding monodomain (aligned) nematic elastomer – which is presented for comparison as the maximal curve in Fig. 6(a); this gives the reasonable value of nematic order parameter $`Q0.5`$, calculated by standard methods M.Deutsch (1991). One then assumes a stack of such nematic layers along the beam path, continuously rotating by the angle $`\varphi (z)`$. In an ideal cholesteric $`\varphi =q_0z`$ and the predicted azimuthal distribution is uniform: all director orientations in the plane are equally represented in the scattering.

As soon as an external strain $`\lambda =\lambda _{xx}`$ is applied, the cholesteric texture is modified, with its angle expressed by the formula derived in M.Warner et al. (2000):

$$\mathrm{tan}2\varphi =\frac{2\lambda ^{1/4}(r1)\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\stackrel{~}{q}z}{(r1)(\lambda ^2+\lambda ^{3/2})\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\stackrel{~}{q}z+(r+1)(\lambda ^2\lambda ^{3/2})}$$
(1)
This expression is written in a slightly different format than in M.Warner et al. (2000), using a shorthand $`\lambda `$ for the imposed extension $`\lambda _{xx}`$ and substituting the calculated value for the transverse sample contraction due to incompressibility, $`\lambda _{zz}=\lambda ^{1/4}`$. Also, the corresponding affine contraction of the cholesteric pitch is taken into account by taking the wavenumber $`\stackrel{~}{q}=\lambda ^{1/4}q_0`$. Eq. (1) expresses the strain-induced bias of director orientations along the $`x`$-direction: the coarsening of the helix occurs (interrupted by the critical jump at $`\lambda _\mathrm{c}`$ which is the point of zero denominator of $`\mathrm{tan}2\varphi `$). Taking the value of $`r`$ as estimated from the stress-strain data in Fig. 4 and the values of imposed strain $`\lambda `$ as labelled in Fig. 6(a), we can analytically predict how the azimuthal intensity distribution would evolve – see Fig. 6(b). The agreement is very satisfactory, suggesting that the theoretical description of helix coarsening in CLCE is reasonable.

### III.3 Effects of strain on the photonic structure

It is evident from a comparison of the unstretched sample spectra in Fig. 3 how the sample transmits very differently light of opposite polarizations. In the region of wavelengths around $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=`$400nm a difference in transmission greater than 2 O.D. is measured 111The optical density (O.D.) is a unit measuring the effective attenuation of transmitted light, on logarithmic scale, so that a difference of 2 O.D. between R\* and L\* transmitted light intensity means a ratio of 100..

Figs. 7(a,b) show the evolution of absorption spectra of right and left hand circularly polarized light, respectively, as the sample is uniaxially strained. The data in Fig. 7(a) clearly shows that with no applied strain R\* polarized light is reflected at wavelenghts below $``$500nm. This gap wavelength shifts downwards as the sample is stretched, as shown in Fig. 8.

The transmitted intensity spectra of L\* polarized light Fig. 7(b) reveal a dramatic development of a new reflection gap centered around $``$430nm as soon as the sample is stretched. With further increasing uniaxial strain, at $`\lambda >1.04`$ the L\* reflection gap appears to have fine structure, the transmitted intensity shows two separate minima respectively at $``$390nm and $``$440nm. We remark that as no R\* polarized light is transmitted here, this complementary nearly-total reflection of L\* polarized light means that for $`\lambda _{xx}>1.04`$ the material is not transmitting any light at the wavelengths corresponding to the L\* reflection peak. We have measured spectra of transmitted non-polarized light that confirm this. Above a strain $`\lambda =1.08`$ the transmitted light spectra of L\* and R\* polarized light are indistinguishable.

### III.4 Effects of strain on the geometry

In an incompressible elastomer, a strain $`\lambda _{xx}`$ induces a contraction in $`y`$ and $`z`$ directions. For an isotropic rubber one would expect $`\lambda _{yy}=\lambda _{zz}=1/\sqrt{\lambda }`$. The pitch of the cholesteric helix, which is probed by absorption of R\* light, is affinely deformed by the contraction in $`z`$, and the shift of the reflection gap edge is a direct measure of this $`z`$-contraction. We measured the strain–induced shift of the wavelength at which transmission of R\* polarized light is inhibited, Fig. 7(a), and present this data as a function of the strain $`\lambda _{xx}`$ in Fig. 8.

It is clear that the data are incompatible with the deformation of an isotropic rubber. Instead, the data agrees qualitatively with the prediction from the theory of cholesteric rubber deformation of M.Warner et al. (2000) and furthermore we are able to confirm the validity of the refined approximation reported by P.A.Bermel and M.Warner (2001), which matches the scaling of our data to within our experimental error. The underlying asymmetry of mechanical properties, introduced by the cholesteric helix texture, leads to an imbalance between $`y`$\- and $`z`$-directions, so effectively the rubber strip is much stiffer along the pitch axis and the stretched cholesteric rubber strip contracts much more in the plane of the director and much less along its thickness: $`\lambda _{yy}=\lambda ^{3/4}`$ and $`\lambda _{zz}=\lambda ^{1/4}`$. A refinement P.A.Bermel and M.Warner (2001) of this theoretical prediction, $`\lambda _{yy}\lambda ^{2/7}\lambda ^{0.28}`$ fits the experimental data in Fig. 8 even better.

## IV Conclusions

Qualitative agreement is obvious between the experimental and the theoretical azimuthal intensity profiles, indicating that the predicted helix coarsening is very likely to be a reasonable description of the structure of stretched CLCE systems. Eq. 1 has been successfully used to evaluate the patterns of X-ray scattering at different degrees of imposed extension and the associated mechanical change $`\lambda _{zz}`$ reflected in the gap edge movement.

On increasing strain the cholesteric texture evolves in a predictable way, coarsening into a sequence of nearly-uniform director regions, separated by increasingly sharp twist walls. Deviation from the perfectly sinusoidal modulation of optical indicatrice in an undistorted cholesteric can be described as a mixture of higher harmonics and, accordingly, new bandgaps emerge in both the “correct” (R\* in our case) and the “opposite” (L\*) circular polarisations of incident light. The detailed calculation in P.A.Bermel and M.Warner (2001) gives the particular predictions of photonic structure and its evolution. Our spectral measurements, Figs. 7(a,b) can be directly compared to the bandgaps that occur at the first Brillouin zone boundary. The general behavior, that is predicted in P.A.Bermel and M.Warner (2001) for smaller wavevectors, would lie in the UV-range for our particular material, although the fine structure in the L\* helicity spectra may be a signal of that complexity.

Considering first the circular polarization R\*, the same helicity as the cholesteric itself, our main result is the experimental measure of the scaling of the pitch wavelength as a function of strain Fig. 8: the observed movement of the band edge is $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{gap}\lambda ^{2/7}`$. In addition, an important observation can be made of the band edge becoming much steeper on deformation. One could imagine that a number of intrinsic imperfections, in particular, the possible wandering of the helical axis away from the sample plane normal, would be reduced by mechanical strain: the cholesteric texture coarsens, but also becomes more perfect, defect-free. This might have an important in lasing and other photonic applications where the increasing of optical purity of the system is of importance. In the case of opposite circular polarization, L\*, we confirm the absence of a bandgap for the unstrained material. On deformation we observe the gradual development of such a gap with no apparent threshold.

Several more detailed issues remain outstanding. In particular, this relates to the fine structure of transmission spectra for both R\* and L\* polarisations (we assume it is due to the selective reflection, rather than absorption). The fine structure below 450nm is evident, as well as the apparent double-peak modulation, both seemingly reproducible between different samples and different stretching events. This modulation, as is the fine structure on top of it, are not necessarily the noise: one can clearly resolve the spectra down to $`10^4`$ level in the unstrained sample. Intriguing possible explanations include the effects of randomly quenched disorder (an inherent feature of liquid crystalline elastomers), further modified by deformation and affecting the average light propagation through the cholesteric texture.

To summarise – we have described the first combined measurements of optical, structural and mechanical properties of a cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer and compared with the theoretical predictions of the deformation and the resulting optical effects. The behavior of this class of materials under biaxial strain had been shown to be much simpler and has already found application in novel photonic devices. The present study confirms our understanding of the effects of a mechanical field and demonstrates the surprisingly rich behavior of these materials as a function of uniaxial strain.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank P.A. Bermel and M. Warner for a number of useful discussions. The preparation of materials has been possible due to the advice and help of S.T. Kim and H. Finkelmann. This research has been supported by EPSRC.


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# The optical afterglow and host galaxy of GRB 000926

## 1 Introduction

Although the nature of the “central engines” of GRBs still are a subject of intense debate it is now well established that the majority of the long duration GRBs occur in star forming galaxies at cosmological redshifts (see Van Paradijs, Kouveliotou & Wijers 2000 for a review).

In this paper we focus on GRB 000926. This long duration burst was detected on September 26.9927 (UT) 2000 by three instruments (Ulysses, Konus and NEAR) in the Interplanetary Network (IPN, e.g. Klebsabel et al. 1982; Hurley et al. 2000), and localized to a 35 arcmin2 error box which was circulated via the GRB Coordinates Network (GCN)111 http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/ 20.3 hours after the burst (Hurley 2000). GRB 000926 was well studied over a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum (Fynbo et al. 2001; Price et al. 2000, Piro et al. 2001; Harrison et al. 2001).

## 2 Identification of the afterglow

Optical follow-up observations started at the Nordic Optical Telescope 17 minutes after the release of the IPN error box coordinates (Hurley 2000). In the main panel of Fig. 1, we show an R–band image of the Optical Afterglow (OA). The OA is marked with an arrow. The three small panels show the fading of the afterglow during the following days.

## 3 Spectroscopy

Optical spectra of the afterglow were obtained 21.7 hours and 44.4 hours after the burst. The combined spectrum is shown in Fig. 2. Seen are a number of strong metal absorption lines from which a redshift of z=2.0377 is determined. We detect no lines from intervening absorbers. In the blue end of the spectrum there is a damped absorption line due to neutral hydrogen from which we infer a HI column density of around 2$`\times `$1021 cm-2. The equivalent widths of the metal absorption lines are stronger than for any known Damped Ly$`\alpha `$ Absorber at similar redshifts (Møller et al. in preparation).

## 4 The host galaxy

With deep R–band imaging obtained 1 month after the burst we detect the host galaxy as an extended object consisting of several compact knots. In order to study the host galaxy further, we obtained a special narrow (fwhm 45Å) band filter designed to cover Ly$`\alpha `$ at the GRB redshift. In May 2000 we obtained 12 hours of imaging in the narrow filter as well as 7 hours of imaging in the U filter and 3 hours of imaging in the I filter at the Nordic Optical Telescope. We detect the host galaxy in all bands (Fig. 3). The host galaxy is a relatively strong Ly$`\alpha `$ emitter (we detect one brighter Ly$`\alpha `$ emitter in the field). About 65% of the Ly$`\alpha `$ emission comes from the eastern knot of the host and the remaining 35% from the western knot in which the GRB occured. Although the signal-to-noise ratio is low, the western knot seems to be brightest in the I-band, and it must hence be redder than the other components. This indicates either more extinction or the presence of an older stellar population.

## 5 Summary

GRB 000926 occurred in a star forming galaxy at a redshift of z=2.0377. The optical spectrum of the afterglow shows strong metal absorption as well as a damped Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption from metal enriched gas in the host galaxy of the burst. The galaxy is a strong Ly$`\alpha `$ emitter consisting of at least two compact knots. The GRB occurred in the western and reddest of the knots.

## Acknowledgments

The data presented here have been taken using ALFOSC, which is owned by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) and operated at the Nordic Optical Telescope under agreement between IAA and the NBIfAFG of the Astronomical Observatory of Copenhagen. Nordic Optical Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. MPE and MW acknowledge support from the ESO Directors Discretionary Fund. JG acknowledges the receipt of a Marie Curie Research Grant from the European Commission. This work was supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council (SNF).


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# Investigation of gauge-fixed pure 𝑈(1) theory at strong coupling Talk presented by S. Basak at Lattice 2001

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Recently it has been shown  that nonperturbative gauge fixing  can be applied successfully to decouple the longitudinal gauge degrees of freedom (dof) from Abelian lattice chiral gauge theories ($`L\chi GT`$) in the limit of zero gauge coupling. After one gauge transforms a gauge-noninvariant $`L\chi GT`$ proposal like the Smit-Swift model or the domain wall waveguide model, one picks up the longitudinal gauge dof, the radially frozen scalars, explicitly in the action. The job of gauge fixing is to find a phase transition where the gauge symmetry would be restored with the scalars decoupled.

The gauge fixing proposal has also been successful in describing pure $`U(1)`$ gauge theory  where pure QED is recovered at weak gauge coupling. In the present work we extend the study of gauge-fixed pure $`U(1)`$ gauge theory on lattice at strong gauge couplings. The major concern here is whether the FM-FMD transition, where the gauge symmetry is restored and was useful in defining $`L\chi GT`$, still exists at large $`g`$ and if so, what is the order of the transition. The gauge-fixed pure $`U(1)`$ theory can be looked upon as another lattice regularization of the strongly coupled $`U(1)`$ theory and its strong coupling properties like confinement can also be investigated.

## 2 GAUGE-FIXED PURE $`U(1)`$ THEORY

The gauge-fixed pure gauge action for compact $`U(1)`$ , where the ghosts are free and decoupled, is:

$$S_B(U)=S_G(U)+S_{Gf}(U)+S_{Ct}(U)$$
(1)
where $`S_G`$ is the usual Wilson plaquette action, $`S_{Gf}`$ is the gauge fixing term and $`S_{Ct}`$ are appropriate counterterms given by,

$`S_G`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{x\mu <\nu }{}}\left(1\mathrm{Re}U_{\mu \nu x}\right)`$ (2)
$`S_{Gf}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }\left({\displaystyle \underset{xyz}{}}\mathrm{}(U)_{xy}\mathrm{}(U)_{yz}{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}B_x^2\right)`$
$`S_{Ct}`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa {\displaystyle \underset{\mu x}{}}\left(U_{\mu x}+U_{\mu x}^{}\right)`$ (4)
where $`\mathrm{}(U)`$ is the covariant lattice Laplacian with $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }=1/(2\xi g^2)`$ and

$$B_x=\underset{\mu }{}\left(\frac{𝒜_{\mu x\mu }+𝒜_{\mu x}}{2}\right)^2,$$
(5)
where $`𝒜_{\mu x}=\mathrm{Im}U_{\mu x}`$. $`S_{Gf}`$ is not just a naive transcription of continuum covariant gauge fixing term it has in addition appropriate irrelevant terms. As a result, $`S_{Gf}`$ has a unique absolute minimum at $`U_{\mu x}=1`$, validating weak coupling perturbation theory around $`g=0`$ or $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }=\mathrm{}`$ and in the naive continuum limit reduces to $`1/2\xi d^4x(_\mu A_\mu )^2`$. Validity of weak coupling perturbation theory together with perturbative renormalizability helps determining the form of the counter terms to be present in $`S_{Ct}`$. It turns out that the most important bosonic counterterm is the gauge field mass counterterm given by (4).

Our philosophy here has been to take a lattice theory given by (1) having the correct weak coupling limits, and then try and find out the strong coupling properties of the same theory. This is the best one can do.

### 2.1 Phase structure at weak coupling

One can have insight into the phase structure of the weak coupling theory from the leading order effective potential $`V_{cl}`$, obtained by perturbative expansion of $`U_{\mu x}=\mathrm{exp}igA_{\mu x}`$ around $`U_{\mu x}=1`$ and then requiring the gauge potential $`A_\mu `$ to be constant,

$`V_{cl}`$ $`=`$ $`\kappa \left[g^2{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}A_\mu ^2+\mathrm{}\right]+`$ (6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{g^4}{2\xi }}\left[\left({\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}A_\mu ^2\right)\left({\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}A_\mu ^4\right)+\mathrm{}\right].`$
$`\kappa \kappa _c=0`$ signals a continuous phase transition (because the gauge boson mass obviously vanishes) between two broken phases: a ferromagnetic (FM) phase for $`\kappa >0`$ and a directional ferromagnetic (FMD) phase for $`\kappa <0`$. FMD phase is characterize by rotational noninvariance (minimum of $`V_{cl}`$ is at $`A_\mu 0`$). At the FM $``$ FMD transition the longitudinal gauge dof do not scale and hence get decoupled.

## 3 NONPERTURBATIVE PHASE DIAGRAM

To obtain the phase diagram of the gauge-fixed pure $`U(1)`$ theory, given by the action (1), in $`(\kappa ,\stackrel{~}{\kappa })`$ -plane for fixed values of gauge coupling, we defined the following observables:

$`E_P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6L^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,\mu <\nu }{}}\mathrm{Re}U_{\mu \nu x}`$ (7)
$`E_\kappa `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4L^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{x,\mu }{}}\mathrm{Re}U_{\mu x}`$ (8)
$`V`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu }{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{L^4}}{\displaystyle \underset{x}{}}\mathrm{Im}U_{\mu x}\right)^2}.`$ (9)
$`E_P`$ and $`E_\kappa `$ are not order parameters but they signal phase transitions by sharp changes. We expect $`E_\kappa 0`$ in the broken symmetric phase FM and FMD and $`E_\kappa 0`$ in the symmetric (PM) phase. Besides, $`E_\kappa `$ is expected to have a large slope at $`2^{nd}`$ order phase transition (infinite slope in the infinite volume limit) and a discrete jump at $`1^{st}`$ order transitions. The true order parameter is $`V`$ which allows us to distinguish the FMD phase, where $`V0`$, from the other phases where $`V0`$.

We also probed the pure gauge system by quenched staggered fermions by measuring the chiral condensate,

$$\overline{\chi }\chi _{m_0}=\frac{1}{L^4}\underset{x}{}M_{xx}^1$$
(10)
where $`M`$ is the fermion matrix and $`m_0`$ is the bare mass.

### 3.1 Numerical results

The Monte Carlo simulations were done with 4-hit Metropolis algorithm on $`4^4`$ and $`10^4`$ lattices. We explored the phase diagram in $`(\kappa ,\stackrel{~}{\kappa })`$-plane at gauge couplings $`g=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.6},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.8},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.0},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.1},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.3}`$ and 1.4 over a range of 0.30 to -2.30 for $`\kappa `$ and 0.00 to 1.00 for $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$. Each data point consisted of 45,000 Metropolis sweeps for $`4^4`$ lattice and 6,500 sweeps for $`10^4`$ lattice. The autocorrelation length was less than 10 for both lattices.

Figure 1 collectively shows the phase diagram in $`(\kappa ,\stackrel{~}{\kappa })`$-plane for the different gauge couplings. The diagram looks qualitatively the same for all gauge couplings. At weaker gauge couplings ($`g=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.6},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.8},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.0}`$) the FM-FMD transition (the dotted lines roughly parallel to the $`\stackrel{~}{\kappa }`$-axis) appears to be continuous, as found previously in reduced model  and as also in the weak coupling ($`g=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.6}`$) investigation , done previously.

At strong couplings ($`g=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.2},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.3},\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.4}`$) the FM-FMD transition still exists, albeit at larger negative $`\kappa `$ resulting in a slimming of the FMD phase. A closer look, as shown in fig. 2, at the nature of change of $`E_\kappa `$ across FM-FMD at these couplings indicates a discrete jump, possibly implying a $`1^{st}`$ order transition.

Figure 3 shows quenched chiral condensates near the FM-FMD transition (remaining in the FM phase) for different gauge couplings as a function of staggered fermion bare mass $`m_0`$. The chiral condensates were computed with the Gaussian noise estimator method. Anti-periodic boundary condition in one direction was employed. Figure 3 clearly indicates that for weaker gauge couplings ($`g<1.1`$) the chiral condensates in the chiral limit (obtained by linear extrapolation) vanish. However, for stronger gauge couplings ($`g>1.1`$) the chiral condensates are not zero in the chiral limit. The above observation may signal confinement on the lattice for the strongly coupled gauge-fixed pure $`U(1)`$ theory.

The gauge-fixed pure $`U(1)`$ theory with a dim-2 mass counterterm has an expected weak coupling behavior persisting upto $`g=1.0`$. At stronger couplings there is indication for confinement. However, the confinement seems to be a lattice artifact because the FM-FMD transition probably is of $`1^{st}`$ order.

We thank Tilak Sinha for help with part of the simulations.


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# Untitled Document

VERTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF GALACTIC DISC STARS AND GAS

CONSTRAINED BY A MOLECULAR CLOUD COMPLEX

Chanda J. Jog and Chaitra A. Narayan

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science

Bangalore 560012, India

email: cjjog@physics.iisc.ernet.in, chaitra@physics.iisc.ernet.in

ABSTRACT

We investigate the dynamical effects of a molecular cloud complex with a mass $`10^7M_{}`$ and a size $``$ a few $`100`$ pc, on the vertical distribution of stars and atomic hydrogen gas in a spiral galactic disc. Such massive complexes have now been observed in a number of spiral galaxies. The extended mass distribution in a complex, with an average mass density six times higher than the Oort limit, is shown to dominate the local gravitational field. This results in a significant re-distribution or clustering of the surrounding disc components towards the mid-plane, with a resulting decrease in their vertical scale-heights.

The modified, self-consistent stellar density distribution is obtained by solving the combined Poisson equation and the force equation along the z-direction for an isothermal stellar disc on which the complex is imposed. The effect of the complex is strongest at its centre, where the stellar mid-plane density increases by a factor of 2.6 and the vertical scale-height decreases by a factor of 3.4 compared to the undisturbed stellar disc. A surprising result is the large radial distance $`500`$ pc from the complex centre over which the complex influences the disc, this is due to the extended mass distribution in a complex. The complex has a comparable effect on the vertical distribution of the atomic hydrogen gas in the galactic disc. This ‘pinching’ or constraining effect should be detectable in the nearby spiral galaxies, as for example has been done for NGC 2403 (Sicking 1997). Thus, the gravitational field of a complex results in local corrugations of the stellar and HI vertical scale-heights, and the galactic disc potential is highly non-uniform on scales of the inter-complex separation of $`1`$ kpc.

Running Title: Vertical constraining by a cloud complex

Key Words: galaxies: ISM - galaxies: Kinematics and Dynamics - Molecular clouds - galaxies: spiral - galaxies: structure

1. INTRODUCTION

It is well known that the interstellar molecular hydrogen gas in the Milky Way galaxy is contained in giant molecular clouds, with a typical radius of 20 pc and a mass of $`5\times 10^5M_{}`$ each (Scoville & Sanders 1987). It is also established that the giant molecular clouds are further segregated in larger features which have been variously called as complexes or clusters or chains (Sanders et al. 1985, Rivolo, Solomon, & Sanders 1986, Dame et al. 1987). These complexes are large, well-defined, discrete objects as seen by the closed contours of the CO distribution. Such a hierarchical distribution in complexes or associations has also now been observed in external galaxies such as M 51 (Lo et al. 1987, Rand & Kulkarni 1990), M 83 (Lord & Kenney 1991), and M 100 (Rand 1995), see Section 2 for details. The typical molecular cloud complex has a mass of $`10^7M_{}`$ and a size of $``$ a few 100 pc, and a central total scale-height of about 120 pc. Thus, the mass distribution in a complex is elongated and it has an oblate spheroidal shape.

The average observed number density of hydrogen molecules in a typical complex is about 16 $`cm^3`$, which equals $`1M_{}pc^3`$. We note that this is about six times higher than the dynamical or total mass density in the mid-plane of the galactic disc in the solar neighbourhood as given by the Oort limit of $`0.15M_{}pc^3`$. (Oort 1960, Binney & Tremaine 1987). This ratio may be even higher than six since the recent estimates based on the Hipparcos data (e.g., Binney 1997) give a smaller value of $`0.076M_{}pc^3`$ for the Oort limit. Therefore, such a massive, extended mass distribution in the form of a molecular cloud complex in a galactic disc would dominate the local gravitational field. Thus the stars and the atomic hydrogen gas in the surrounding galactic disc would respond to the additional and dominant gravitational field due to the complex, and tend to get clustered towards the mid-plane, with a resulting decrease in their vertical scale-heights. We investigate this effect quantitatively, and show that the above intuitive picture is confirmed by our calculations.

A similar clustering effect will also be seen around an individual giant molecular cloud, though with a much smaller magnitude and over a smaller spatial range than for the case of a complex.

We show that the gravitational field of a complex results in a local variation of the stellar and HI vertical scale-heights, and the net disc potential is locally non-uniform. This would be of interest in the general theoretical studies of galactic disc dynamics since the usual assumption of uniform and smooth mass distribution or potential is shown to no longer hold good.

A similar problem involving the effect of dark halo on the vertical distribution of the embedded disc matter was studied by Bahcall (1984). However, in that case the halo acts as a perturbation in the plane and hence a perturbation analysis was used. In our work, on the other hand, the complex dominates the gravitational field in the disc region around it.

In another analogous problem, a planar disc response to the perturbation due to an imposed massive cloud taken to be a point mass was treated by Julian & Toomre (1966), whereas we have treated the effect on the vertical disc distribution due to a spatially extended mass distribution in a complex which dominates the local gravitaional field. Further, we argue that the complex has a stronger effect on the vertical than the planar disc distribution (Section 5).

In Section 2, the observed physical parameters for the typical giant molecular cloud complex, and also the choice of the galactic disc potential used are described. The formulation of the equations for the self-consistent response of a disc to the imposed complex are given in Section 3. The results on the vertical constraining effects of a complex on stars and HI gas and a comparison with observational data are given in Section 4 . A discussion of a few general points are given in Section 5, and Section 6 contains a brief summary of our conclusions.

2. PARAMETERS FOR COMPLEX AND GALACTIC DISC

2.1 Parameters for a cloud complex

Observations of a number of spiral galaxies have now clearly established the existence of giant molecular cloud complexes or associations in our Galaxy (see §1), and also in external galaxies: for example as in M51 (Lo et al. 1987, Rand & Kulkarni 1990), M83 (Lord & Kenney 1991), M 31 (Allen & Lequex 1993), SMC (Rubio, Lequex, & Boulanger 1993), M100 (Rand 1995), NGC 4414 (Sakamoto 1996), NGC 5055 (Thornley & Mundy 1997), M81 (Brouillet et al. 1998), and for the central regions of 20 nearby spiral galaxies (Sakamoto et al. 1999) - some of which overlap with the galaxies listed above. Thus, such large gas features appear to be common in spiral galaxies.

The molecular cloud complexes in these galaxies are observed to cover a wide range of masses from $`10^6`$ to $`10^8M_{}`$, with a typical mass of $`10^7M_{}`$ and a typical size of a few hundred pc. These complexes are shown to be spatially coherent features (Rivolo et al. 1986), and are statistically significant and are not mere superpositions or artifacts of the low spatial resolution of the observations (Rivolo et al. 1986, Rand & Kulkarni 1990, Sakamoto 1996).

Gravitationally bound complexes with the above typical values are shown to occur naturally via induced gas instabilities in a gravitationally coupled star-gas two-fluid galactic disc (Jog & Solomon 1984). From the observed star complexes, Efremov (1995) has argued that gas ‘superclouds’ of $`10^7M_{}`$ occur in all spiral galaxies. Rand & Kulkarni (1990) show for M 51 that features above a few times $`10^7M_{}`$ may not be gravitationally bound. Hence for our work, we use a typical complex of mass equal to $`10^7M_{}`$ and a radius of 200 pc. We assume a maximum height at the centre of the complex to be equal to 120 pc which is the FWHM as observed for the molecular gas in the galactic disc (Sanders, Solomon, & Scoville 1984, Clemens et al. 1986). Further, the mass distribution inside a complex is assumed to be uniform for simplicity. This gives a mean molecular hydrogen gas density, $`n`$, in a typical complex to be equal to 15.8 $`H_2cm^3`$. The mass density in a complex, $`\rho _{complex}`$, assuming a 10 % gas number fraction in helium, is equal to $`2.8m_Hn`$ where $`m_H`$ is the atomic mass of hydrogen. For the typical complex, $`\rho _{complex}`$ is equal to 1 $`M_{}pc^3`$.

This is a conservative choice because a complex more massive than this will have a stronger effect on the stars but since it is not bound the effect will be short-lived, hence we do not consider complexes more massive than $`10^7M_{}`$. Also for these more massive and extended complexes, the effect of the differential rotation in the disc cannot be neglected.

It has been claimed by some authors that the molecular gas distribution is hierarchical and may be denoted as a fractal, however this covers largest entities of sizes $`100`$ pc which are self-gravitating (Falgarone, Phillips, & Walker 1991). The fractal description therefore does not seem to cover the larger size bound complexes that are observed in a number of galaxies.

The complex is taken to be co-planar with the galactic disc, and $`z`$ is along normal to the galactic plane, with $`z=0`$ denoting the galactic mid-plane. The radial distance $`r`$ is measured from the complex centre, taken to be at $`r=0`$. Here $`r`$ and $`z`$ are the cylindrical polar co-ordinates. The mass distribution in a cloud complex is that of an oblate spheroid, and the force per unit mass due to it along $`z`$ is taken from Schmidt (1956) who had obtained it in the context of galaxy mass models:

$$(K_z)_{complex}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.25em}4}\pi G\rho _{complex}ϵ^3(1ϵ^2)^{1/2}z(tan\beta \beta )$$
$`(1)`$
where $`\beta `$ is given within and outside the ellipsoid respectively by:

$$sin\beta =ϵ$$
$`(2)`$
$$r^2sin^2\beta +z^2tan^2\beta =a^2ϵ^2.$$
$`(3)`$
Here $`ϵ`$ is the eccentricity of the oblate spheroid and is equal to $`ϵ=(1c^2/a^2)^{1/2}`$ where $`c`$ and $`a`$ are the semi-minor and semi-major axes along the $`z`$ and the radial directions respectively. For a typical complex, $`c=60`$ pc and $`a=200`$ pc as discussed above, so that $`ϵ`$ = 0.95.

2.2 Parameters for the galactic disc

We have assumed the galactic disc to consist of a single isothermal stellar component with the density distribution along $`z`$ satisfying the $`sech^2`$ law (Spitzer 1942), rather than assuming a more realistic, multi-component galactic mass model say by Carlberg & Innanen (1981). This was done for simplicity since it captures the main $`z`$ distribution of the galactic disc, and because it allows us to clearly illustrate the physical effect of the imposed complex on the stellar disc.

Further we assume for simplicity that the stellar distribution remains isothermal even in presence of a complex, with the z-velocity dispersion, $`<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>^{1/2}`$, the same as observed in the undisturbed disc, namely 15 km s-1 (Binney & Merrifield 1998). For an isothermal, one-component, self-gravitating stellar disc, the density distribution, $`\rho _s`$, and the force per unit mass, $`(K_z)_s`$, are obtained by solving the force equation along $`z`$ along with the Poisson equation (Spitzer 1942, Rohlfs 1977) and are given respectively by:

$$\rho _s=\frac{<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{2\pi Gz_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}sech^2(\frac{z}{z_0})$$
$`(4)`$
$$(K_z)_s=\frac{2<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{z_0}tanh\frac{z}{z_0}$$
$`(5)`$
where

$$z_0=\left[\frac{<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{2\pi G\rho _0}\right]^{1/2}$$
$`(6)`$
here $`z_0`$ is taken to be a measure of the thickness of the undisturbed disc but is not identically equal to the vertical scale-height $`h_{1/2}`$ (or HWHM) which we will use in Section 4 and later sections. For small $`z/z_0`$, the density distribution is that of a gaussian.

To get a quantitative feel for the effect of the complex, in Fig. 1 we plot the magnitude of the z-force per unit mass due to a complex (eq.) and that due to the undisturbed stellar disc without the complex (eq.) versus $`z`$ at the complex centre ($`r=0`$). It is interesting that upto $`z`$ 200 pc, the force due to the complex dominates over that due to the disc. This ratio a is maximum, equal to 9.5, at the outer edge of the complex, where the force due to the complex is a maximum. Because of the large value of this ratio, we are justified in assuming that the complex itself is not affected by the stellar disc.

Fig. 2 shows the ratio of the force per unit mass along the $`z`$ direction due to the complex to that due to the undisturbed stellar disc versus $`z`$ at different radial distances from the centre of the complex. The ratio is large $`9.5`$ at the mid-plane over $`r=0`$ to $`r=200`$ pc and decreases gradually with the radial and vertical distance, and indicates the large spatial range over which the complex affects the disc. This large range is confirmed for the self-consistent disc response in Section 4.

3. FORMULATION OF EQUATIONS

We first formulate the equations for the self-consistent response of the stellar disc to the imposed complex potential and obtain the modified stellar density distribution.

3.1 Effect on Stars

We obtain the density distribution along the $`z`$ direction at a given radial distance, $`r`$, from the centre of the complex, so that we look at the distribution along a normal cut across a complex. The equations to be solved to study the modified stellar mass density distribution, $`\rho _s`$, in the presence of an imposed cloud complex are the force equation along the $`z`$ direction and the joint Poisson equation for the stars and the complex :

$$\frac{<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{\rho _s}\frac{d\rho _s}{dz}=(K_z)_s+(K_z)_{complex}$$
$`(7)`$
and,

$$\frac{d(K_z)_s}{dz}+\frac{d(K_z)_{complex}}{dz}+\frac{d(K_r)_{complex}}{dr}+\frac{(K_r)_{complex}}{r}=4\pi G(\rho _s+\rho _{complex})$$
$`(8)`$
where $`(K_z)_s`$ and $`(K_z)_{complex}`$ are the z-components of the force per unit mass due to the modified stellar distribution and the complex respectively, and $`(K_r)_{complex}`$ is the $`r`$ component of the force per unit mass due to the complex. Since the stellar disc is thin compared to its radial extent, only the $`z`$ component of the Laplacian for the stars needs to be retained on the l.h.s. of the Poisson equation, as usual (see e.g. Binney & Tremaine 1987, pg. 199). For the complex, on the other hand, both $`z`$ and $`r`$ terms are required since the $`z`$ and $`r`$ dimensions are comparable. Because of the azimuthal symmetry w.r.t. the complex centre, the $`\varphi `$ term for both stars and the complex is zero.

The complex is assumed to be unaffected by the disc (Section 2.2), hence the joint Poisson equation (eq.) effectively reduces to that for the re-distributed stellar case alone. Thus, on combining the above two coupled first-order linear differential equations in $`\rho _s`$ and $`(K_z)_s`$ (eq.-), we get the following linear, second-order differential equation in $`\rho _s`$ :

$$\frac{d}{dz}\left(\frac{<(v_z)_{s}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{\rho _s}\frac{d\rho _s}{dz}\right)=4\pi G\rho _s+\frac{d(K_z)_{complex}}{dz}$$
$`(9)`$
where the term due to the complex on the r.h.s. of equation (9) is obtained starting from equation (1).

The above formulation effectively assumes the complex to be stationary in the disc and long-lived. This is justified since the response time of a star given by $`2\pi /\nu =6\times 10^7`$ yr, where $`\nu `$ is the vertical frequency (Binney & Tremaine 1987), is comparable to the crossing time of the complex in the plane, and it is smaller than the life-time of the complex which is gravitationally bound.

3.2 Effect on Atomic Hydrogen Gas

We next consider the effect of a molecular cloud complex and the modified stellar distribution on the atomic hydrogen gas in a galactic disc, also taking account of the self-gravity of the atomic gas. The atomic hydrogen gas is assumed to be isothermal as is known from gas dynamics, with the z-velocity dispersion, $`<(v_z)_{g}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>^{1/2}`$ = 8 km s-1 (Spitzer 1978). The modified distribution of the gas is given by:

$$\frac{d}{dz}\left(\frac{<(v_z)_{g}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}>}{\rho _g}\frac{d\rho _g}{dz}\right)=4\pi G\rho _s4\pi G\rho _g+\frac{d(K_z)_{complex}}{dz}$$
$`(10)`$
where $`\rho _s`$ denotes the re-distributed stellar density obtained from equation (9). The gas has a negligible effect on stars in the presence of a complex, hence we do not include it in the study of stellar distribution in Section 3.1.

4. RESULTS

4.1 Effect on Stars

First, we consider the effect of a molecular cloud complex on stars, and obtain the modified stellar density distribution. The problem studied in the present paper is analogous to that of the re-distribution of charges in the presence of an external imposed electric field, that is commonly studied in the electromagnetic theory (e.g., Jackson 1976). This analogy was first saught to help solve equation (9) by assuming that the stellar distribution reverts back to the undisturbed value at large $`z`$. However, we find that even if we start at very large z values of $`2`$ kpc, the disc still retains the memory of the initial solution, and hence one cannot exploit this analogy to solve this problem. This is because while 2 kpc is a large distance physically for the disc being studied, mathematically it is still not large enough for this approach to work.

Instead, the second-order, linear differential equation in $`\rho _s`$ (eq. ) is solved as an initial value problem from inside-out numerically using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method (Press et al. 1986). The initial condition of $`d\rho _s/dz=0`$ at $`z=0`$ is used since that would be true for any realistic mass distribution in a disc. The value of the re-distributed density $`\rho _s`$ at the mid-plane ($`z=0`$) is not known a priori. We constrain this by assuming that the total column density of the undisturbed stellar disc, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$, remains constant even in the presence of a complex. Thus, the complex is assumed to re-destribute the stars only along $`z`$ at a given radius, and thus we have solved this 1-D problem. The radial force due to a complex can be neglected as discussed in Section 5.

The complex centre is taken to be located at the galactocentric radius of 8.5 kpc, in the solar neighbourhood. Here, the unperturbed central, mid-plane stellar density is known from observations to be $`0.07M_{}`$ pc-3 (Binney & Tremaine 1987). The equation (9) with zero contribution from the complex is solved and this gives the variation with $`z`$ in the self-gravitating, undisturbed stellar mass density (Fig. 3, dashed line). This shows a $`sech^2z`$ distribution as expected for an undisturbed disc (eq.). The net column or surface density for stars, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$, at a given radius is obtained by summing up the area under the curve and doubling it and this is found to be 47.6 $`M_{}`$ pc-2. Assuming the stellar surface density at a given radius to remain constant when the complex is imposed, equation (9) is solved to obtain the modified or re-distributed stellar density distribution, which is also shown in Fig. 3 (solid line). The complex strongly alters the vertical distribution of the stellar disc. First, the central stellar density at $`z=0`$ increases by a factor of 2.6 to be equal to $`0.19M_{}`$ pc-3. Second, the vertical distribution still satisfies a $`sech^2`$ law but now the scale-height $`h_{1/2}`$ (HWHM) of the distribution has decreased by a factor of 3.4 to be equal to 88 pc. This ‘pinching’ or constraining effect confirms the intuitive picture given in Section 1.

This procedure is repeated at different radii from the complex centre to get the net 2-D re-distribution of the stars, where the constant net stellar column density of 47.6 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 is used as explained above. In Fig. 4, the resulting modified vertical scale-height, $`h_{1/2}`$, is plotted as a function of radial distance from the complex centre (solid line). Also shown is the constant undisturbed scale-height (dashed line). The most striking result is the large radial distance from the complex centre over which the complex influences the stellar distribution. This interesting and somewhat unexpected result is due to the extended mass distribution in a complex. The trough representing the scale-height is broad so that even at a radial distance of 500 pc from the complex centre, the vertical scale-height decrease is still $`8\%`$. The scale-height asymptotically reverts back to the undisturbed value of 299 pc only beyond $`r=`$ 1 kpc. The broad trough makes it more likely that this effect would be detected in observations (see Section 4.4). Thus, the resulting stellar scale-height distribution is locally corrugated, see Section 4.4 for a comparison with observations.

In Fig. 5, we show a contour diagram for the iso-density contours of the modified stellar distribution to show another aspect of the constraining effect due to the complex. In the presence of a complex, a higher range of density values is covered over a smaller z-range than for the undisturbed disc. As in the variation of scale-height (Fig. 4), the density also asymptotically reverts back to the undisturbed value of $`0.035M_{}`$ pc-3 at the scale-height = 299 pc, only beyond $`r=`$ 1 kpc, as expected since the scale-height and density variations are inter-related. An interesting point is that the density contours are clearly curved around the complex, thus highlighting the important effect of the complex in re-distributing the stellar matter around it.

4.2 Effect on stars: Parameter Study

We study the effect of a complex over the parameter space covering a wide range of realistic values for the complexes and the stellar disc density. The results from this study are given in Table 1. Columns 2-4 give the input parameters for the complex, namely the semi-major axis $`a`$, the semi-minor axis $`c`$, and the molecular hydrogen number density $`n`$. Column 5 gives the total stellar disc surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$. Columns 6 and 7 give the resulting mid-plane density and the vertical scale-height $`h_{1/2}`$ for the modified stellar distribution.

Case 1 is the typical case studied in Section 4.1 (Fig. 4), which is used as a benchmark with which we compare the results from the other cases. Case 2 with double the total disc surface density of case 1 represents the peak of the molecular ring region at 6 kpc. This follows from the radial dependence of surface density for an exponential disc ($`exp[r/r_{exp}]`$) with a disc scale-length, $`r_{exp}`$, of 3.5 kpc as in the Galaxy (Binney & Tremaine 1987). Here the unperturbed central density is 0.28 $`M_{}`$ pc-3 and the scale-height is 150 pc as obtained by solving equation (9) with zero contribution from the complex. The effect of a complex is smaller in this case, with the mid-plane density increasing and the scale-height decreasing only by a factor of 2 - see the last two columns, case 2 in Table 1. The trough showing the effect of a complex is shallower and less broad in this case because a higher density disc is less disturbed by the same complex.

The converse result would be seen for a lower stellar disc surface density where the effect of a complex would be stronger. This could be applicable for the few, less-massive cloud complexes observed in the outer Galaxy (Digel, Thaddeus, & Bally 1990).

A smaller value of the complex number density of 10 $`H_2`$ $`cm^3`$ results in a smaller increase in the mid-plane density to 0.14 $`M_{}pc^3`$ at $`r=0`$, and a larger central scale-height of 119 pc, as expected because the trough in the scale-height is shallower (case 3). A complex with a smaller radius $`a`$ (case 4), or with a smaller height $`c`$ (case 5), with the same density as in case 1, also results in an effect of smaller magnitude as expected.

4.3 Effect on Atomic Hydrogen Gas

The modified HI distribution is obtained by solving equation (10) where $`\rho _s`$ is obtained as a solution to equation (9) (see Section 3.2). The atomic hydrogen gas surface density is taken to be constant at 5 $`M_{}`$ pc-2 as observed in the inner disc (Scoville & Sanders 1987). This, plus the assumption of the gradient of the gas density to be zero at $`z`$ = 0, as done before for the stellar case (Section 4.1), allows us to solve equation (10). The re-distributed gas density at the mid-plane at the central radius of the complex is higher by a factor of 3.2 and the vertical gas scale-height is lower by a factor of 3.3 compared to the case without the complex. Fig. 6 shows the vertical scale-height for HI as a function of radius. The vertical constraining of HI gas as a function of input parameters would show a trend similar to that for stars as studied in Section 4.2.

4.4 Comparison with Observations

1. The ‘pinching’ or the constraining effect: The ‘pinching’ or the constraining effect of a complex on the z-distribution of stars and gas (Sections 4.1 - 4.3) is strong in magnitude and it affects stars and gas upto a large radial distance of $`500`$ pc from the complex centre (Fig. 4). Nevertheless it could be missed unless it is looked for carefully. This is because in an edge-on galaxy like say NGC 891, the cumulative effect over many such complexes along a line-of-sight would average out and hence cannot be seen easily, and in a face-on galaxy the spatial z-distribution cannot be studied directly. Further, for the external galaxies, the uncertainty in the determination of the inclination angle and the ubiquitous presence of warps (Burton 1992) and also the flaring of gas can affect the determination of scale-height.

However, if one were to carefully analyze the information for the column density $`N(l,b,v)`$ where $`l,b,v`$ are the galactic longitude, latitude and the line-of-sight velocity respectively, and model the data cube say as one does to study the spiral structure parameters, then in principle, the z scale-height variation predicted in our paper can be verified from observations for a nearby, inclined galaxy. This result for variation is in fact confirmed from the high-resolution HI mapping of NGC 2403 by Sicking (1997) who found that the vertical scale-height of HI shows variations on a scale of about 100 arc sec, which corresponds to about 1.3 kpc for the distance of 3.5 Mpc for this galaxy. This agrees with a total of $``$ 1 kpc radial range affected by a complex as shown in our paper. Note that this is a late-type Sc galaxy with a large amount of molecular gas detected in it (Young et al. 1995).

For a more detailed spatial comparison, we need a resolution of about 2 arc sec corresponding to 100 pc at say a distance of 10 Mpc. The current HI surveys of galaxies are typically at 20 arc sec (e.g. Binney & Merrifield 1998, pg. 488). Thus only in our Galaxy the HI data have sufficient resolution to allow a more detailed study of the variation in scale-height due to a complex that we predict. We will attempt this in a future paper.

A recent, interesting paper has shown how the HI scale-height for face-on galaxies such as LMC may be determined using the technique of spectral correlation function (Padoan et al. 2001). Here the scale-height can be determined upto spatial scales of the resolution for their data, namely, 20 pc. If this technique could be applied to HI data from other galaxies in which molecular cloud complexes have been observed (e.g., M 51, M 81), then it would give the variation in vertical scale-height around a complex. Note that since the effect of a complex is felt over 500 pc, and the above galaxies are a few Mpc away, the resolution required to study this variation is about 20 arc second which is exactly within the resolution of large-scale HI surveys of these galaxies.

Our paper also predicts the constraining effect for the old stars in the disc, which can be checked in the near-IR data on galaxies since that traces old stars. Unfortunately, in the literature on external galaxies, the data is averaged over radius to give only a typical vertical scale-length, as e.g. in the large sample of 486 galaxies studied by Ma et al. (1997). For our Galaxy also, the near-IR study by Freudenreich (1998) gives an average vertical scale-height, whereas the best fit to the near-IR data by Kent, Dame, & Fazio (1991) requires a constant scale-height upto a radius of 5 kpc and radially increasing beyond that. This agrees with the flaring behaviour expected if we take account of the average effect of the complexes in the inner Galaxy (see Section 4.4, point 2).

Thus, the observational verification of our results on the vertical constraining due to a complex is within the present observational capabilities, especially for a nearby, slightly tilted galaxy.

2. Flaring of HI : The molecular gas and hence the cloud complexes are located within the solar circle (Scoville & Sanders 1987). Thus the vertical constraining of the atomic hydrogen gas due to the molecular cloud complexes would abruptly stop at this radius and this could naturally explain the long-standing puzzle of why the atomic hydrogen gas shows flaring exactly outside of the solar position (e.g., Burton & te Lintel Hekkert 1986, Wouterloot et al. 1990). The details of this will be checked in a future paper that involves taking account of the effect of many such complexes in the disc (also see Sections 4.5, and 5).

3. Corrugation of the vertical scale-heights: We have shown that a complex would result in the local corrugation of the vertical scale-heights of stars and gas. The previous studies of corrugation in the galactic disc typically refer to the variation in the mid-plane ($`<z>`$) with radius of HI (e.g. Lockman 1977, Spicker & Feitzinger 1986), or the old stars (Florido et al. 1991), the physical origin of which is not yet understood, and we do not study it here. The stellar corrugation is color-dependent which Florido et al. (1991) attribute to star formation. We note that the local corrugation of the vertical scale-heights obtained in the present paper is an additional complexity, seen on top of the corrugation of the mid-plane, and has to be reckoned with while studying the $`z`$ distribution in a spiral galactic disc. If the underlying molecular gas mid-plane is corrugated as it is in our Galaxy (Sanders et al. 1984), then the corrugation of scale-heights predicted here is a local phenomenon seen around a complex. It is probably easiest to detect this effect around a complex in nearby galaxies such as M 51 or M 81.

4.5 Implications for Galactic Dynamics

The massive, extended cloud complex and the resulting clustering of stellar disc mass around it means that the mass distribution and hence the potential of a galactic disc in a spiral galaxy is not uniform. The galactic disc potential is $`\mathrm{𝑛𝑜𝑛}\mathrm{𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚}`$ on the scales of a typical observed separation between complexes $`1`$ kpc (Section 5). This could be important in the general theoretical studies of galactic disc dynamics in spiral galaxies. For example, this may contribute to the observed increase with age (Wielen 1977) of the stellar random velocity dispersion. The increase in stellar dispersion is a classic problem, and in the past it has been attributed as arising due to scattering of stars off molecular clouds (Spitzer & Schawrzschild 1951, Lacey 1984), or due to local spiral features (Barbanis & Woltjer 1967), or as a combination of both these processes (Jenkins 1992). The cloud complexes present a new source of non-uniform potential on a spatial scale that lies between these two cases studied earlier. In a future paper, we will study the heating caused by the cloud complexes, and thus check the importance of the integrated dynamical effect of cloud complexes in a galactic disc.

The potential distribution resulting due to several such complexes would have the appearance of the ”muffin-tin” potential that is used to study solids in condensed matter physics (e.g., Ashcroft & Mermin 1976). It would be very useful if future observations give the mass spectrum and the distances between such complexes in a spiral galaxy. This will decide if the influence of the various ‘potential wells’ located at the complex centres are distinct or they merge together (also see Section 5). This will be studied in the context of flaring in a future paper (see Section 4.4).

5. DISCUSSION

(1). The total molecular gas mass in the disc of our Galaxy is equal to $`2\times 10^9M_{}`$, most of which is observed to be in the inner disc (Scoville & Sanders 1987). Assuming that all the molecular gas mass in the disc is in cloud complexes, there are about $`200`$ such complexes in the inner Galaxy and the typical separation between two neighbouring complexes can be calculated to be $`1`$ kpc. Since each complex can affect the distribution of stars and gas upto 500 pc and beyond from its centre on either side (see Figs. 4 and 6), hence the dynamical effect of the complexes taken together can effectively ‘cover’ or affect most of the disc. To address this question in detail, it would be necessary to have observational determination of the mass spectrum of the complexes, and the fraction of molecular hydrogen gas mass that exists in complexes in a galactic disc.

(2). We have assumed the net stellar disc column or surface density, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_s`$, at a given radius $`r`$ to remain constant in the presence of a complex and have used this constraint to obtain the re-distributed stellar disc density (Section 4.1). The complex will also exert a radial force on the surrounding disc components. However, the ratio of the radial to the $`z`$ component of the force due to a complex is $`<`$ 1 (Schmidt 1956), except near the mid-plane at the outer boundary of a complex. Further, from the radial force equation (e.g., Binney & Tremaine 1987), it can be shown that the ratio of the change in density along $`r`$ to that along $`z`$ will be proportional to the ratio of vertical to the radial mean square of the random velocity, which is observed to be 1/4 (see Binney & Merrifield 1998, Chap. 10). Therefore, we can ignore the transfer or re-distribution of matter along the radial direction as compared to that along $`z`$, hence the assumption of constant surface density is valid.

(3). We have assumed for simplicity that the stellar disc surface density is constant across the complex. In a realistic galactic disc the mid-plane density increases at lower galactic radii. Hence the net effect of complex will be lower at the inner boundary of the complex than at the highest radius (see Section 4.2). For example, an exponential disc mass distribution with a scale-length of $`3.5`$ kpc as observed for the Galaxy (Section 4.2), results in a $`8\%`$ variation in the disc surface density between the inner and the outer edges of a complex. This results in a $`7\%`$ difference in the scale-heights at the inner and outer boundaries of the complex. Thus the pinching effect would show a radial asymmetry, and the net scale-height distribution would be horn-shaped with the broad-end of the horn at a smaller radius.

6. CONCLUSIONS

We have studied the dynamical effects of a massive, extended giant molecular cloud complex, with a mass $`10^7M_{}`$ and a size $``$ a few hundred pc, on the z-distribution of stars and atomic hydrogen gas in a spiral galactic disc. The main results obtained are:

(1). Physically, a superposition of a co-planar potential due to the complex on the stellar disc re-distributes the stars so that the stellar density at the mid-plane is higher, and correspondingly, the scale-height of the stellar distribution is lower. The constraining effect of the complex is highest at its central radius, where the mid-plane stellar density is shown to increase by a factor of 2.6, and the vertical scale-height is shown to decrease by a factor of 3.4. The complex significantly affects the disc upto a large radial distance of 500 pc from its centre, and the undisturbed distribution is reached slowly beyond $``$ 1 kpc. This is a direct consequence of the extended mass distribution in a complex. The complex is shown to have a comparable effect on the vertical distribution of the atomic hydrogen gas in the galactic disc.

(2). The verification of the ‘pinching’ or constraining effect predicted around a cloud complex is within the present observational capabilities, especially for a nearby, slightly tilted galaxy. In fact, this result has been confirmed from the observations of HI in NGC 2403 (Sicking 1997). Thus, the gravitational field of a complex results in local corrugations of the vertical scale-heights of the stellar and HI distributions in a galactic disc.

(3). The massive complex, and the resulting significant clustering of stellar mass around it, means that the gravitational potential in a typical spiral galactic disc is distinctly non-uniform on scales of the inter-complex seperation of $`1`$ kpc. This would be of interest in the general theoretical studies of galactic disc dynamics since the usual assumption of a smooth and uniform disc potential is shown to be not valid.

(4). The observed onset of flaring of HI gas outside of the solar circle is probably due to the observed drop in the molecular gas content beyond this radius, where the vertical constraining due to the cloud complexes would not be operative. This will be studied in detail in a future paper.

(5). This paper has highlighted the importance of the dynamical effects of cloud complexes on a galactic disc. We stress that the complexes should be included as a major structural component in the study of a spiral galaxy. Future observations that give the mass spectrum and distances between such complexes in a spiral galaxy are needed, these will help in deciding how far the effect of the nearby complexes overlaps.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank D. Chakraborty for useful discussions during the early stages of this work, and R. Nityananda, H. Bhatt, and T. Prabhu for useful comments. We would like to thank the referee, P. Grosbol, for detailed and constructive comments which clarified several points in the paper, and improved the discussion on the comparison of our results with observations.

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FIGURE LEGENDS

FIG. 1. $``$ A plot of $`|(K_z)_{complex}|`$, the magnitude of the force per unit mass along $`z`$ due to a complex and that due to the undisturbed stellar disc versus $`z`$, the distance from the mid-plane, at the complex centre. Upto $`z`$ 200 pc, the force due to the complex dominates over that due to the disc. The ratio is a maximum, equal to 9.5, at the outer edge of the complex (z = 60 pc).

FIG. 2. $``$ A plot of $`(K_z)_{complex}`$/$`(K_z)_s`$, the ratio of the force due to the complex to that due to the undisturbed stellar disc, versus $`z`$ at different radial distances from the complex centre, in steps of 50 pc. The curves for $`r=0,200,`$ and $`250`$ pc only are labeled for clarity. The ratio is large $`9.5`$ at the mid-plane over $`r=0`$ to $`r=200`$ pc and decreases gradually with the radial and vertical distance.

FIG. 3. $``$ A plot of the modified stellar disc density in the presence of a cloud complex versus $`z`$, the distance from the mid-plane (solid line) at the centre of the complex, and also the self-gravitating, undisturbed stellar disc density without the complex (dashed line). The modified mid-plane density is 2.6 times higher and the vertical scale-height is smaller by a factor of 3.4 than the undisturbed case, showing the strong ‘pinching’ or constraining effect due to the complex.

FIG. 4. $``$ A plot of the vertical scale-height $`h_{1/2}`$ (HWHM) for the modified stellar distribution versus $`r`$, the radial distance from the complex centre (solid line), and the constant scale-height for the undisturbed stellar disc without the complex (dashed line). The vertical constraining by the complex is significant over a large radial distance $`500`$ pc from its centre, this is due to the extended mass distribution in a complex.

FIG. 5. $``$ A contour diagram for the constant density contours of the modified stellar distribution in the $`r,z`$ plane in units of $`M_{}pc^3`$. A higher range of stellar density values (upto 0.18 $`M_{}pc^3`$) is covered over a smaller z-range than for the undisturbed disc, this is due to the constraining effect of the complex. The contours are clearly curved around the complex, thus highlighting the important effect of the complex in re-distributing the stellar matter around it.

FIG. 6. $``$ A plot of the vertical scale-height for the modified HI gas distribution versus $`r`$, the radial distance from the complex centre (solid line), and the constant gas scale-height for an undisturbed disc without the complex (dashed line). The constraining effect of the complex on the gas is similar to that for the stellar case (see Fig. 4).


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# References

Self-organized Criticality on Small World Networks

L. de Arcangelis1 and H.J. Herrmann2

Department of Information Engineering, Second University of Neaples1

INFM Neaples UdR and CG SUN, Via Roma 29, I-81031 Aversa (CE), Italy

Institute for Computer Applications 1, University of Stuttgart2

Pfaffenwaldring 27, D-70569 Stuttgart

## Abstract

We study the BTW-height model of self-organized criticality on a square lattice with some long range connections giving to the lattice the character of small world network. We find that as function of the fraction $`p`$ of long ranged bonds the power law of the avalanche size and lifetime distribution changes following a crossover scaling law with crossover exponents $`2/3`$ and $`1`$ for size and lifetime respectively.

Small world networks have recently been observed to exist in many physical, biological and social cases . A simple minded example is the structure of the neo-cortex and the network of acquaintances in certain societies. Another ubiquitous phenomenon (SOC)  in nature and society is self-organized criticality, i.e. the appearance of avalanches of all sizes without characteristic scale over a certain range. Easily one can imagine cases in which both of these phenomena occur simultaneously, that means that we find an avalanche type spreading on a sparsely long-range connected network. As an example we propose the spreading of neural information inside the cervical cortex which is due to the threshold behaviour given by the firing rule which automatically induces avalanches of synapses. Another example one can imagine are societies where each individual has a certain threshold of endurance. Let us take the example of Peter Grassberger for the classical SOC-model  of office clerks moving sheets of papers from desk to desk, as illustrated in Peter Bak’s book  in Fig. 13 and admit that the clerks do not sit on a square lattice but have a more realistic connectivity in their work relation (typically small world network behaviour). Many other examples of this kind can be thought of.

In this short paper we want to present a model for self-organized criticality on a graph having the properties of small world networks. In fact, we consider the classical height model of Bak, Tang and Wiesenfeld (BTW)  on a square lattice which has been “rewired” for a certain fraction of bonds $`p`$ which are chosen of arbitrary range. For that purpose we take a square lattice of linear size $`L`$ and all bonds present between nearest neighbours sites. Then we choose randomly two sites of the system and place a bond between them (which can therefore be of any length smaller than $`\sqrt{2}L`$). In order to keep the coordination of the sites on average to be four, one of the smaller bonds going to a neighbouring site of one of the end points of one long bond is removed. This procedure repeats until a fraction $`p`$ of all bonds has been replaced by long range connections. This type of graph is not the same as the one used by most authors working on small world networks, because the underlying short range lattice is not a linear chain but a square lattice. Nevertheless the properties should qualitatively be the same: large world behaviour for large $`p`$ and a small world behaviour for small $`p`$. The situation $`p=0`$ corresponds to the simple square lattice and $`p=1`$ to random graph with average coordination 4 and long range connections (Viana-Bray) on which one would expect mean-field behaviour.

On each site of the lattice we place an integer value $`h_i`$ less than a threshold $`h_c=6`$. At each time step randomly one site $`i`$ is chosen and its value $`h_i`$ is increased by unity, i.e. a unit mass is added to it.

When the value of the height $`h_i`$ having $`q`$ neighbours reaches the threshold $`h_c`$, it topples, i.e. it distributes mass equally to its neighbours:

$`h_i`$ $``$ $`h_iq`$ (1)
$`h_j`$ $``$ $`h_j+1`$
where $`j`$ goes over all $`q`$ neighbors of site $`i`$. We see that eq. (1) preserves the mass (the sum of all heights).

We have studied the statistics of avalanches monitoring as well their size $`s`$ (number of sites that toppled at least once) as their lifetime $`t`$, that means the number of time step an avalanche lives. The quantities $`n(s)`$ and $`n(t)`$ denote the avalanche size and life time distributions. For the case $`p=0`$, that means the classical BTW-model on the square lattice it is known that asymptotically

$`n(s)`$ $``$ $`s^\sigma ,`$ (2)
$`n(t)`$ $``$ $`t^\tau `$
with $`\sigma =1.0`$ and $`\tau =0.5`$ in two dimensions.

It is our aim here to investigate what happens for different values of $`p`$. To this purpose we have analysed square lattices of size $`L=50,100`$ and $`200`$ and a range of $`p`$ values from $`p=0`$ to $`p=0.5`$. The lattice has spiral boundary conditions in one direction and two open boundaries at top and bottom, where mass in excess can flow out of the system. In each configuration we have injected randomly 2500 particles of unit mass, letting each time the avalanche proceed until no site had a value of $`h>h_c`$. The data were averaged over 200, 50 and 10 configurations for $`L=50,100`$ and $`200`$ respectively.

In Fig. 1 we see the distribution of avalanche sizes for different system sizes and two different values of $`p,0.1`$ and $`0.3`$ in a double logarithmic plot. We see that the data follow a straight line for nearly two decades indicating that we still find SOC-behaviour. The slope of the straight line gives us the exponent $`\sigma `$. In Fig. 2 we see the corresponding figures for the distribution of life times. Again the data show power law behaviour and the slope gives the exponent $`\tau `$. We observe that the exponents $`\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ depend on $`p`$ but they do not appear to depend on $`L`$.

In Fig. 3 we see the dependence of $`\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ on $`p`$ as obtained from our simulations. We see that for $`p0`$ we obtain the classical result on the square lattice of BTW $`\sigma =1`$, $`\tau =1/2`$ . For $`p`$ close to unity the values of the exponents convert to the meanfield values $`\sigma =3/2`$ and $`\tau =1`$ . This is of course not surprising and the question is if the continuous change of the exponent $`\sigma `$ and $`\tau `$ is an intrinsic continuous line of critical points or, if we have here a crossover phenomenon as it appears for instance in magnetic models that interpolate between 2 and 3 dimensions. For that purpose we tried for both the size and the lifetime avalanche data in Fig. 4, a data collapse of all the distributions for different values of $`p`$ following the classical crossover scaling

$`n_p(s)`$ $`=`$ $`s^\sigma (sp^\varphi )`$ (3)
$`n_p(t)`$ $`=`$ $`t^\tau 𝒢(tp^\psi )`$
where $``$ and $`𝒢`$ are scaling functions and $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ are universal crossover exponents. We see from Fig. 4 that a collapse of the data works reasonably well yielding crossover exponents of $`\varphi =0.65\pm 0.1`$ for the avalanche size distribution and $`\psi =1.0\pm 0.1`$ for the lifetime distribution.

By studying the BTW-model on a small world square network we observed a crossover to meanfield behaviour following a crossover scaling law of eq. (3). It would be interesting to see if the same occurs for the simpler Manna-model and we have heard calculations are already under way .

This work has been partially supported by the European TMR Network-Fractals under contract No.FMRXCT980183 and by MURST-PRIN-2000.