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# The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey

## 1 Introduction

The XMM-Newton observatory, the second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 science programme of the European Space Agency has been carrying out science operations since early 2000. Thanks to its high collecting area, large field of view and moderate angular and spectral resolution XMM-Newton is the most powerful observatory in hard X-rays (photon energy $`>2`$ keV), opening an almost unexplored window to the Universe (Jansen et al. 2001). The sensitivity to hard X-rays (not attained by previous missions like $`Einstein`$ and $`ROSAT`$) allows the detection and study of the most energetic objects in the Universe (Active Galactic Nuclei - AGN), most of which are believed to be deeply hidden inside large amounts of absorbing gas and inconspicuous at virtually all other wavelengths.

During science observations (with exposure time over $`10`$ ks) with the EPIC cameras operating in “Full Frame” mode (Turner et al. 2001; Strüder et al. 2001) XMM-Newton is discovering $`30150`$ new X-ray sources, which add to the XMM-Newton serendipitous survey at an expected rate of $`50000`$ new sources per year. The XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC) was appointed by ESA to exploit scientifically the XMM-Newton serendipitous survey for the benefit of the scientific community and as a major legacy of XMM-Newton to future generations. This is being tackled by the SSC consortium in terms of a mostly ground-based optical follow-up and identification (XID) programme.

The XID programme has been described in detail in Watson et al. (2001). Briefly, its implementation has been divided into two parts: a core programme which will identify – spectroscopically – significant samples of sources at X-ray flux limits around $`10^{13}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (bright sample), $`10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (medium sample) and $`10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (faint sample) covering a range of galactic latitudes, and an imaging programme aiming at providing deep optical/infrared images in several colours of a large number of XMM-Newton fields to facilitate statistical identifications of the serendipitous sources.

AXIS (“An XMM-Newton International Survey”)111See http://www.ifca.unican.es/~xray/AXIS forms the backbone of the XID programme by providing the ground-based resources that are essential for the exploitation of the XMM-Newton serendipitous sky survey. Besides making a first and major contribution to the XID programme, AXIS will define the quality standard and will guide future steps in the implementation of the XID programme. AXIS has been conceived and designed to make optimal use of the available instrumentation on the telescopes of the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos. AXIS has been awarded a total of 85 observing nights spread over the period April 2000 - April 2002 on the 4 larger telescopes of the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos: the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), the 2.5m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), the 3.5m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) and the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope (WHT).

In this paper we report on the first results obtained in the AXIS medium sensitivity survey at high galactic latitude. X-ray sources serendipitously found in two XMM-Newton observations (field names G133-69 Pos\_2 and Mkn 205) have been studied and followed up down to a 0.5-4.5 keV flux of $`2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. The survey reaches a source density in excess of 100 sources $`\mathrm{deg}^2`$, which is appropriate for spectrocopic follow up using fibre spectroscopy. Our survey is therefore shallower than the XMM-Newton Lockman Hole survey (Hasinger et al. 2001) and the $`Chandra`$ deep surveys (Mushotzky et al. 2000; Barger et al. 2001; Giacconi et al. 2001). The surface density reached is, however, similar to that of the so-called Rosat Deep Survey (Boyle et al. 1994) and deeper than the $`RIXOS`$ survey (Mason et al. 2000).

Although we are still dealing with a small number of sources (29) the sample presented here provides a flavour of the dominant X-ray source populations at high galactic latitude down to that flux level. The paper also describes the observational techniques that we are following in the AXIS project to build up larger source catalogues at various flux levels and galactic latitudes.

## 2 The X-ray data

### 2.1 XMM-Newton observations

The identifications presented in this paper correspond to X-ray sources serendipitously found in 2 XMM-Newton images (G133-69 Pos\_2 and Mkn 205). G133-69 Pos\_2 was observed as a Guaranteed Time observation to probe the galactic halo using X-ray shadows. It consists of a single data set totalling 16 ks of good exposure time in full frame mode. The Mkn 205 field was observed as a calibration observation, and consists of 3 exposures of 17 ks each. One of these is in large-window mode (for the EPIC pn camera) which only covers half of the field of view. The remaining 2 data sets are in full window mode, and we merged them. One of these was free of particle background flares, but the other one was strongly contaminated and only $`<3`$ ks of it survived the cleaning process. Details of the X-ray observations are reported in Table 1.

Both of these observations have been processed through the pipeline processing system222See http://xmmssc-www.star.le.ac.uk (Watson et al. 2001), using tasks from the XMM-Newton Science Analysis Software (SAS) v5.1. Subsequent analyses were also performed using the same version of the SAS. All event patterns (single, double and triple) were kept when constructing the event files. This provides maximum sensitivity at high photon energies but the fraction of non-X-ray events rejected is consequently smaller. When flaring intervals are removed from the event lists, higher S/N is usually achieved by keeping all patterns.

The pipeline processing source searching procedure has been adopted. We now sketch briefly its main features. We have used data from EPIC-pn because its sensitivity is double that of the invidual EPIC-MOS detectors. Images were extracted in the following 4 spectral bands: 0.5-2 keV, 2-4.5 keV, 4.5-7.5 keV and 7.5-10 keV. Exposure maps, which account for vignetting, CCD gaps, bad columns and bad pixels, were constructed for each band. The combination of the 4 images was used to search for sources with an overall likelihood above 16. This corresponds to a probability of a source being spurious of $`8\times 10^5`$, i.e., up to one spurious detection per image with that likelihood.

First, a simple sliding box algorithm was applied to mask out the brightest sources and to spline-fit the background in each CCD chip. The sliding box algorithm was applied again to search for sources significant against the fitted background. Finally a maximum likelihood fit of the source profiles to the images, simultaneous to all bands, was performed to produce a final source list with exposure corrected count rates in each band. Sources were sorted in terms of the flux in the 0.5-4.5 keV flux. Table 1 lists the countrate to flux conversion factors for both fields which we derived assuming a standard $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$ power law absorbed by the galactic column. Fluxes are corrected for galactic absorption. We experimented with variations in the spectral shape of the sources and found changes of up to 15% only in the conversion factor when varying the spectral index from $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.5`$ to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$. That was expected as the 0.5-4.5 keV band was selected because of the fairly flat sensitivity of XMM-Newton accross the whole band. As there are still issues regarding the processing and calibration of EPIC data (out-of-time events, multiple pattern events, etc.), our listed fluxes have to be understood modulo these uncertainties.

For each 0.5-4.5 keV image we also extracted a sensitivity map (using the SAS task esensmap) showing the minimum count rate that a point source must have to be detectable by the algorithm used, at every position of the detector. We choose a likelihood limit of 10 (as opposed to 16) since we are dealing with a single band. This gives a probability $`4.5\times 10^5`$ for a spurious detection in a single band (again $`1`$ spurious detection per image), similar to the multi-band source search. This map takes into account vignetting, inter-CCD gaps and bad pixels and columns. We then computed the total solid angle where a source brighter than any given flux limit would have been detected. In the case of the Mkn 205 we further excluded a circle of radius 2 arcmin around the target. The field also happens to contain an extended source which we identified as the galaxy NGC 4291. The extent of this X-ray source effectively masks out a circle of 1.5 arcmin radius around it where the much enhanced background due to extended X-ray emission prevents us from detecting any further X-ray sources. We therefore included this galaxy as a serendipitous source in our survey but ignored any other possible sources within a circle of 1.5 arcmin radius around it. Fig. 1 shows the solid angle surveyed at each flux level. At $`2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is our survey limit, we have surveyed 0.26 $`\mathrm{deg}^2`$.

### 2.2 X-ray sources

The source-searching algorithms produced a number of sources in each field (37 and 52 in the G133-69 Pos\_2 and Mkn 205 data respectively), some as faint as $`5\times 10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (all fluxes refer to the 0.5-4.5 keV band). The faintest of these sources have likelihood detections very close to our threshold. When truncating at a flux of $`2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ a total of 12 and 17 X-ray sources were found in the G133-69 Pos\_2 and Mkn 205 fields respectively. Two sources in the Mkn 205 field whose positions fall in CCD gaps have already been excluded from the list. The sensivity of both fields was clearly enough to ensure completeness at that flux level, i.e., sources significantly fainter than our survey limit were detected in each field. Care was taken to visually screen the source lists in order to clean it from artifacts derived from the proximity of inter-CCD gaps, bad columns or other cosmetic effects.

The X-ray source list was then astrometrically corrected. The pipeline-processed data provides astrometry drawn from the attitude and orbit control system (AOCS), which we believe to be good to within a few arcsec. To further improve that, we cross-correlated the source positions of the X-ray sources obtained with a list of optical sources obtained from the i’-band images (see Sect. 3.1) using the SAS task eposcorr. To this goal, we used all detected X-ray sources and all detected optical sources in the field to maximize the number of matches. The situation is summarized in Table 2, were we show that significant astrometric shifts were still present in both data sets. One point that needs stressing is that the number of X-ray to optical matches is much larger when we use the full catalogue of optical sources obtained in our wide-field images than if we used, e.g., the USNO A2 (Monet et al. 1998) catalogued sources. In that case we would be restricted to $`10`$ matches per field, with the corresponding uncertainty in the astrometric correction parameters. We further discuss the accuracy of the astrometric solution in the X-ray images in Sect. 5.1. Table 3 lists the X-ray sources brighter than our survey limit with the astrometrically corrected positions.

In order to gain X-ray spectral information on the X-ray sources, we used the count rates in individual bands to construct the following hardness ratios:

$$HR_1=\frac{C(24.5\mathrm{kev})C(0.52\mathrm{kev})}{C(24.5\mathrm{kev})+C(0.52\mathrm{kev})}$$

and

$$HR_2=\frac{C(4.510\mathrm{kev})C(24.5\mathrm{kev})}{C(4.510\mathrm{kev})+C(24.5\mathrm{kev})}$$

Note that these are computed using the exposure-map corrected count-rates, so that energy dependent vignetting is approximately corrected. All sources in the sample selected here had positive count rates in all bands.Also, note that the typical number of counts per source is fairly small and therefore a detailed individual spectral analysis of each source is difficult and beyond the scope of this paper. Table 3 contains the basic X-ray data on these sources.

In Fig. 2 we plot the integrated source counts derived from this survey. The source density at the survey limit is $`113\pm 21`$ sources $`\mathrm{deg}^2`$. This curve is to be compared with the $`ROSAT`$ source counts (Hasinger et al. 1998) which we converted to our 0.5-4.5 keV band by using a $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ spectrum which is consistent with the average value of $`HR_1`$ (see below). Our source counts are $`60\%`$ higher than the $`ROSAT`$ ones at the survey limit. Choosing a conversion factor corresponding to a power-law with spectral index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.7`$ just brings the $`ROSAT`$ curve up by $`15\%`$, still significantly below our source counts.

We also compare the source counts with those derived in the 2-10 keV from ASCA (Ueda et al. 1999) and $`Chandra`$ (Mushotzky et al. 2000). Note that the Baldi et al. (2001) source counts, based on XMM-Newton data, are consistent with these earlier work. Here a conversion factor for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.6`$ has been applied, which is consistent with the value of $`HR_2`$ (see below). Our source counts fall modestly below (17%, only $`1`$ sigma significant) those in the harder band at the survey limit. It is clear that by selecting in the 0.5-4.5 keV band we find a large fraction of the sources that $`ROSAT`$ missed, but we may still be missing a small fraction of the hard sources detected in the 2-10 keV band.

Fig. 3 shows the hardness ratios for the sources as a function of flux. We must caution that although the two fields under consideration have different Galactic absorbing columns and furthermore have been observed with different EPIC-pn filters (thin and medium, see Table 1), the effect of both of these facts on the hardness ratios (particularly $`HR_1`$) is completely negligible. No obvious trend of the source spectra is seen with source flux. The so-called spectral paradox (Fabian & Barcons 1992), i.e., the source’s spectra being steeper than the X-ray background spectrum ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.4`$), is therefore not obviously solved at this flux level, i.e., we do not find a significant sample of sources that have an X-ray spectrum close to that of the X-ray background. This is also revealed by the histograms of $`HR_1`$ and $`HR_2`$ which are shown in fig. 4 together with the expected values for various power laws with galactic absorption. The weighted averages of the hardness ratios are $`HR_1=0.69\pm 0.03`$ and $`HR_2=0.37\pm 0.03`$, consistent with a fairly steep X-ray spectrum ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.62.0`$). Further details on the X-ray spectra of the different source classes are given in Sect. 5.2.

## 3 Optical observations

### 3.1 Imaging

Both target fields were observed with the Wide-Field Camera (WFC) on the 2.5m INT telescope in dark time. Table 4 summarizes the main features of the images obtained. The WFC covers virtually all the field of view of EPIC, if centered optimally. In our case, all sources listed in Table 3 were imaged.

The WFC images were reduced using standard techniques including de-bias, non-linearity correction, flat fielding and fringe correction (in i’ and Z). Bias frames and twilight flats obtained during the same observing nights were used, but for the fringe correction contemporaneous archival i’ and Z fringe frames were utilised. Information on the WFC pipeline procedures, which performs all these steps can be found under the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit333http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~wfcsur (CASU) web pages.

The photometric calibration was performed by assuming average extinction constants and archival zero-point constants obtained routinely with the WFC, rather than measuring both from photometric standards.

Astrometric calibration was performed in two different ways. First a 12 parameter plate solution was applied to each one of the 4 CCDs of the WFC independently, by matching sources found in the image to USNO source positions. Residuals were typically found to be of the order of 0.3 arcsec for $`100200`$ matched sources. A second astrometric calibration (along the lines of the WFC survey) was performed by a simple 6 parameter plate solution over the whole 4-CCD image, but taking into account the previously calibrated telescope distortion cubic term. In this case the sources found were matched to APM source positions with similar residuals. We found the position of the candidate counterparts to X-ray sources to be consistent in both methods to within $`<0.5`$ arcsec.

### 3.2 Selection of candidate counterparts

In order to search for candidate counterparts of the X-ray sources, we have used the i’-band WFC image. Optical source lists for these images have been constructed by using the Sextractor algorithm (Bertin & Arnouts 1996). Sources were recorded if a minimum number of 10 connected pixels (of 0.33 arcsec) lay above 2 standard deviations of the background. Indeed some very faint sources escaped this detection algorithm, but the impact on the search for candidate counterparts was very limited.

Counterparts for the X-ray sources were searched for in the optical image lists. Candidate counterparts had to be either within the 5$`\sigma `$ statistical error or within 5 arcsec from the position of the X-ray source. This last criterion was used to accommodate any residual systematics in the astrometric calibration of the X-ray EPIC images.

The result of this search was very encouraging. Out of the 29 X-ray sources, 24 showed a single candidate counterpart, 4 showed two candidate counterparts and the remaining source showed no or very faint candidate counterpart in the i’-band image. The two basic conclusions to extract from this are that the selection of filter and depth of the images are appropriate to this sample and that the X-ray positional errors provided by XMM-Newton are good enough to single out a unique counterpart for the vast majority of the high-galactic latitude sources.

### 3.3 Spectroscopic observations

Candidate counterparts were spectroscopically observed with various spectrographs in order to identify the nature of the sources. Table 5 lists the relevant parameters of the spectroscopic instrumental setup used. At the source density we are dealing with ($`100\mathrm{deg}^2`$) fibre spectrographs are likely to be the most efficient. However, we had a very limited amount of nights with this instrumentation and furthermore the fibres used were too large (2.7 arcsec diameter) to detect the faintest objects. Therefore a significant fraction of the sources were identified with long-slit spectrographs.

As pointed out before, the vast majority of X-ray sources have a unique candidate counterpart. For the cases where there were two candidate counterparts we observed the brightest one (which happened also to be the closest one to the X-ray source) which invariably turned out to be a plausible identification (i.e. some sort of AGN).

The spectra were reduced using standard IRAF techniques. These included de-biasing, flat fielding, illumination correction (whenever a twilight flat was available), cosmic ray rejection, spectral extraction and background subtraction, arc lamp wavelength calibration and flux calibration by using spectrophotometric standards. The flux calibration does not have to be understood in absolute terms, as significant fractions of the light escaped the corresponding apertures and no attempt has been made to correct for this. Nevertheless the overall spectral shape, if not the normalisation, should be approximately correct. That is especially true for the long-slit spectra which in the majority of the cases were obtained with the slit oriented in parallactic angle.

The case of fibre spectroscopy deserves further comment. The relative fibre throughput was obtained by observing in offset sky positions within the same fibre configuration under use. In the proper on-target observations, the sky was subtracted by combining all the sky fibres that we placed in regions free from bright sources. We applied the same procedure to the offset sky observations, which allowed us to tweak the relative sensitivity of the fibres by making sure that no significant residuals were left in these spectra after the sky was subtracted. In a couple of iterations we found a satisfactory solution for the relative fibre sensitivity and then we used this to sky-subtract the target apertures. It must be stressed that sky lines are very difficult to subtract at this spectral resolution and therefore residuals will unavoidably be present in the fibre spectra.

We must emphasize that fibre spectroscopy, even with the large fibre aperture of 2.7 arcsec, was very efficient in identifying the optically brightest conterparts in the Mkn 205 field. We allocated a total of 26 fibres on optical sources in a single setup, which included several corresponding to X-ray sources below the flux cutoff. We succeeded in identifying 8 X-ray sources above the flux cutoff and a futher 3 below it in a total time of 2.5 hours including all overheads. This is at least twice as efficient as long-slit spectroscopy on the same telescope.

This high efficiency in the fibre spectroscopy relied, however, on two basic facts: the night was dark (so the sky background and noise were as low as possible) and the number of X-ray sources with a single candidate counterpart was very large. It must be pointed out that fibre spectrographs do not usually allow to place fibres within several arcsec at best, and therefore it is not possible to observe different candidate counterparts of the same X-ray source within the same fibre setup.

## 4 Identification of the X-ray sources

Table 6 lists the optical identification of the sources together with their optical magnitudes. The classification we have chosen includes several source classes: Broad-Line Active Galactic Nuclei (BLAGN), Narrow Emission Line Galaxies (NELG, which invariably turned out to be Narrow-Line AGN), non-emission line galaxies (Gal), Active Coronal stars (AC), stars without signs of activity (STAR) and clusters of galaxies (Clus).

Finding charts and spectra of these sources can be found under the AXIS programme web pages (http://www.ifca.unican.es/x̃ray/AXIS). Here we add some notes on individual objects

XMMU J010327.3-064643 is the faintest optical source (in r’, i’ and Z) with hints of narrow emission lines. We have binned the spectrum into bins of 600 Å each, and applied a photometric redshift technique using a set of galaxy templates as in Fernández-Soto, Lanzetta & Yahil (1999). The minimum $`\chi ^2`$ happens at $`z=1.01`$, which allows us to interpret an apparently narrow emission line as CIII\], and a dubious \[OII\]. We therefore tentatively classify this source as a NELG, although its high luminosity ($`1.8\times 10^{44}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$) would promote it to QSO2. The optical colours of this source do indeed correspond to a QSO or to a starforming galaxy (see fig. 6, where this source is the empty circle at the bottom of the graph). The classification and redshift of this source are at present very uncertain.

XMMU J122258.1+751934 is a faint source, with a detected but weak emission line that we believe to be \[OII\] and dubious \[OIII\] doublet at z=0.257. Since the spectrum is very noisy, we applied the photometric redshift technique to the binned spectrum. The minimum $`\chi ^2`$ is indeed found at $`z0.3`$.

XMMU J122120.5+751616 appears to have a very blue spectrum, but the H$`\beta `$ line, which is weak, does not appear to be broad. On the other hand it has strong \[NeV\], \[OII\] and \[OIII\] doublet. Therefore we have classified it as a NELG.

XMMU J010328.7-064633 and XMMU J010316.7-065137 appear to be BAL QSOs. They will be discussed in Sect. 5.4

Fig. 5 shows the $`g^{}i^{}`$ colour of the identified sources as a function of their i’-magnitude. As expected, BLAGNs are usually bluer than the NELGs where the optical light is dominated by the host galaxy rather than by the active nucleus.

To further explore the optical colours, we plot in fig. 6 the $`r^{}i^{}`$ versus $`g^{}r^{}`$ optical colour-colour diagram for the identified sources. We overlay median colours for QSOs, as derived from the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey (Richards et al. 2001), in the redshift range $`z=03`$ and for E/S0 galaxies, as derived from the Coleman, Wu & Weedman (1980) template, in the redshift range $`z=01`$. For clarity we do not show the expected colours for starforming galaxies as they are mostly coincident with those of QSOs, but they can follow the track marked by the E/S0 colours by adding increasing amounts of reddening. The influence of cosmological Lyman-$`\alpha `$ absorption has not been included, as it is only relevant in the g’-band for redshifts $`z>3`$. Clearly, the X-ray sources classified as BLAGNs have optical colours as expected for QSOs, and the X-ray sources identified as NELGs fall in the region where the galaxies lie (either E/S0 or more likely reddened starforming galaxies). This implies again that in NELGs most of the optical light we see comes from the host galaxy, unlike the X-ray emission which comes from the nucleus.

### 4.1 Additional identifications

Besides the identifications corresponding to the complete sample of X-ray selected sources down to an X-ray flux of $`2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, we have identified a few sources fainter than these. These 10 additional sources are not part of the sample considered here, but still we list their identifications to help other researchers in possible identification work of fainter sources. These identifications are listed in Table 7.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Astrometric accuracy in the X-ray source list

With the sample of X-ray sources whose optical counterparts have been positively identified (including the ones below our flux limit), we check how good the astrometry of the XMM-Newton data was. We then analyzed the offsets of the optical position with respect to the X-ray position. These are shown in Fig. 7, where error bars are just the X-ray positional errors, which by far dominate over the optical position ones.

An obvious feature to note is that, apart from the source XMMU J122017.9+752212 which is extended both in X-rays and in the optical (NGC 4291), there is no obvious trend of offsets being larger for any source class. In particular the sources classified as NELGs (which in fact are all AGNs) are unlikely to be chance coincidences, as in that case they would exhibit larger offsets with respect to the X-ray sources.

Fig. 8 shows the histogram of these offsets normalized to their corresponding statistical errors. Assuming that position errors are well reproduced by a gaussian, this normalized offset $`x`$ should be distributed as

$$f_{pos}(x|x_0)xx_0\mathrm{exp}\left(xx_0^2/2\right)$$
(1)
where in the absence of systematic shifts $`x_0=0`$. Actually $`x_0`$ measures the magnitude of systematic residuals in units of statistical errors. An attempt to fit the histogram of fig. 8 without systematics reveals that it can only reproduce the first peak (at around $`x1`$), but leaves the second peak unexplained. Then we maximum-likelihood fitted the sum of two of the above functions, one with $`x_0=0`$ and a second one with the systematic shift $`x_0`$ as a free parameter, the relative contribution of both terms being also a free parameter. The result (fit shown in fig. 8) is that about 83% of the sources have no significant systematic shifts and the remaining 17% of the sources have systematic shifts of $`4.5`$ statistical errors (typically $`34`$ arcsec).

A closer inspection of the sources showing residual astrometric systematics shows that all of them are in the Mkn 205 field, all of them are relatively bright and only one of them is relatively close to the centre of the field (but then close enough to the Mkn 205 point-spread function tail). We do not fully understand the reason for this, but perhaps it might be related to the overall astrometric solution being dominated by some spurious matches of X-ray sources fainter than the ones used in our survey. The residuals are, however, so small that they are irrelevant for a high galactic latitude field. Much more care should be taken, however, in galactic plane fields where the density of optical sources is much larger and chance associations might produce a completely wrong astrometric solution. We suggest in this case to use a very limited number of secure identifications to derive a first astrometric correction and then iterate as the number of identified sources grows.

### 5.2 Overall source populations

As expected, the majority of the identified X-ray sources are extragalactic (only 1 galactic AC), and in particular AGN. Fig. 9 shows the optical to X-ray relation for the X-ray sources. We see that most, if not all, of the BLAGNs will be identified in the medium sensitivity survey (i.e. at a flux limit of $`2\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$) down to i’$`22^\mathrm{m}`$. NELGs and other galaxies are typically fainter, but we expect to identify large fractions of them within the AXIS resources. We can conclude from this pilot study that $`>90\%`$ of the medium sample can be identified with the AXIS programme.

One remarkable feature of this survey is that we have found no clusters of galaxies as counterparts of the identified X-ray sources. Using the source counts from the $`ROSAT`$ Deep Cluster Survey (Rosati et al. 1998) we would have expected $`<23`$ clusters in our sample. We must further stress that there are no cluster candidates in the unidentified sources, down to the sensitivity limits of the optical images. Actually, the sliding box algorithm used to search for sources in the XMM-Newton images is not optimized for the detection of extended sources. Therefore we do not expect to be complete in groups and clusters. In fact, extended sources in XMM-Newton images are the subject of on-going parallel studies within the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre activities.

We have cross-correlated the X-ray source positions with the NVSS radio survey (Condon et al. 1998). No coincidences closer than 10 arcsec are found for the flux-limited sample. The only radio source within 30 arcsec of an X-ray source is a faint source of 2.4 mJy, just below the completeness level of NVSS, 14.4 arcsec away from XMMU J010400.9-064949. The NVSS positional uncertainty for a source this faint (rms about 7 arcsec), when combined with the astrometric accuracy of our X-ray sources (Sect. 5.1) make it unlikely that this is a true association. For the full sample of 89 sources found by our source-searching algorithms, the number of coincidences within 30 arcsec increases from zero to one, with a source of 2.7 mJy being found 7.1 arcsec from an unidentified X-ray source of 5.6 $`\times 10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Despite the fact that this is likely to be a true association, preliminary statistics based on about 3000 X-ray sources from the ChaMP survey (Wilkes et al. 2001; Wilkes and Green 2001, private communication) find a radio association with NVSS which increases with X-ray flux, and with which our two XMM-Newton fields disagree at the 95% confidence level. Work is underway to investigate the radio properties of larger samples of sources.

### 5.3 The extragalactic X-ray sources

Fig. 10 shows the luminosity-redshift relation for the extragalactic sources identified in our sample. With the exception of NGC 4291, which has a luminosity not far from that of a normal galaxy ($`3\times 10^{40}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$), all the remaining extragalactic objects have luminosities higher than $`10^{42.5}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, so there is no doubt they host an Active Galactic Nucleus. In particular, all the objects classified as NELGs, should in reality be called Narrow-line AGNs (NLAGNs). Indeed some (if not all of them) exhibit \[OIII\] lines much stronger than \[OII\] and/or \[NeV\] emission lines, all of which are features of a hard non-stellar ionizing continuum in the narrow-line emitting region.

The weighted average hardness ratios for BLAGN are $`HR_1=0.68\pm 0.01`$ and $`HR_2=0.31\pm 0.04`$. It is interesting to note that for a single power-law spectrum, these values correspond to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.6`$ respectively, i.e., it appears that BLAGN have a hardening in their spectrum towards high photon energies.

It is remarkable, however, that the average spectra of BLAGN do not appear to be consistent with a single power law spectrum. Indeed, while $`HR_1`$ is consistent with an unabsorbed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ spectrum, at harder photon energies $`HR_2`$ calls for a much flatter X-ray spectrum, with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1.6`$. A similar result has been recently found by Pappa et al (2001) by co-adding $`ROSAT`$ and $`ASCA`$ spectra of 21 BLAGN. Our result confirms that this is not due to a mismatch between $`ROSAT`$ and $`ASCA`$ calibrations and amphasizes the power of XMM-Newton in broad-band X-ray spectral studies.

The spectral shape that we infer for BLAGN was first empirically proposed by Schwartz & Tucker (1988) in order to reproduce the XRB spectrum. The subsequent discovery of a Compton reflection bump in the X-ray spectrum of Seyfert 1 galaxies (Pounds et al 1990) suggested that reflection-dominated AGN (i.e., AGN where $`>90\%`$ of the observed X-rays would have been reflected in cold/warm material) could contribute the bulk of the X-ray background (Fabian et al 1990). Although no significant population of such sources has been detected, it is likely that we are witnessing the effects of Compton reflection or a similar phenomenon in the average X-ray spectra of the $`z12`$ BLAGN in our sample. If the Compton reflection bump entering the 4.5-10 keV band is the ultimate reason for the hard values of $`HR_2`$, then a trend with redshift should be seen. In fig. 11 we plot both hardness ratios $`HR_1`$ and $`HR_2`$ as a function of redshift for the extragalactic objects. No trend is found in $`HR_1`$ vs z for BLAGN, and at best we can only claim a hint of $`HR_2`$ becoming higher at high redshifts. That, which would be expected if Compton reflection is responsible for the hardening of the spectrum, needs much more data to be confirmed.

We only find marginal evidence for the NLAGN having a harder spectrum than BLAGN (see fig. 3). Such a trend had been found in $`ROSAT`$ surveys (Romero-Colmenero et al. 1996; Almaini et al. 1996). The weighted average hardness ratios for these objects are $`HR_1=0.48\pm 0.11`$ and $`HR_2=0.37\pm 0.04`$. $`HR_2`$ agrees with the corresponding value for BLAGNs, but $`HR_1`$ is slightly higher, although only at $`2\sigma `$ significance. If we interpret the marginal difference in terms of a $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ power-law spectrum being affected by intrinsic absorption in NLAGN, the inferred column density is $`N_{HI}=5\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ at a redshift of $`z=0.4`$ where most of the NLAGNs are located.

We must recall that evidence has been accumulated that X-ray photoelectric absorption and optical spectroscopic classification do not appear to have a one-to-one relation. For example hard X-ray sources found in $`ROSAT`$ surveys contain large fractions of unobscured type 1 QSOs and Seyferts (Page, Mittaz & Carrera 2001). On the contrary, dusty warm absorbers produce little effect in the X-ray broad-band colours of AGN, but substantially influence their optical appearence. The underlying reason for all these apparent inconsistencies could be the different distributions of atomic gas and dust in the close environment of the AGN central engine (Maiolino et al. 2001), perhaps due to dust sublimation near the center (Granato, Danese & Franceschini 1997).

Source XMMU J122017.9+752212 (NGC 4291) deserves further comment. X-ray emission from this galaxy was detected with $`Einstein`$ (Canizares, Fabbiano & Trinchieri 1987). Roberts & Warwick (2000) analyze $`ROSAT`$ HRI images of nearby galaxies and find a nuclear X-ray point source within 6.8 arcsec from the centre of NGC 4291. The extended X-ray emission of this source in the 0.5-4.5 keV XMM-Newton image clearly masks out a part of the sky, which is why we have removed a 1.5 arcmin radius circle around it. However, when this region is examined only in the 2-10 keV band, the diffuse emission disappears. What is then seen is a point source approximately coincident with the nucleus of NGC 4291 and a further 4 sources within the excised region, some of which might possibly be associated with the galaxy. The fact that NGC 4291 presents a point source in its center is a strong suggestion that an active nucleus might be actually hidden in the centre of this optically dull galaxy. A more complete discussion of this interesting galaxy and its environment is beyond the scope of this paper and will be presented elsewhere.

### 5.4 The Broad-Absorption Line QSOs

Among the sample of BLAGN we find 2 (XMMU J010328.7-064633 at $`z=1.82`$ and XMMU J010316.7-065137 at $`z=1.91`$) Broad-Absorption-Line (BAL) QSO (see figs. 12 and 13). Parameters of the corresponding broad-absorption line systems (based on the CIV line) are listed in Table 8. In particular we have computed the so-called Balnicity index introduced by Weymann et al. (1991) as a way to provide a continuous classification between BAL and non-BAL QSOs. In the context of the sample studied by Weymann et al. (1991) the value of the Balnicity Index is in the low end for XMMU J010316.7-065137 but close to average for XMMU J010328.7-064633.

BAL QSOs have been practically absent from previous X-ray selected samples. There have been a few exceptions: 1 BAL QSO in the Einstein Medium Sensitivity Survey at $`z=2.027`$ (Stocke et al. 1991) and more recently the ELAIS/BeppoSAX survey at $`z=2.2`$ (Alexander et al. 2001), the Chandra deep field south at $`z=2.75`$, (Giacconi et al. 2001) and the survey of $`ROSAT`$ hard X-ray sources at $`z=2.21`$ (Page, Mittaz & Carrera 2001).

The paucity of BAL QSOs in previous X-ray surveys is hardly surprising, as the gas ejected by BAL QSOs which is responsible for the broad absorption lines will efficiently absorb soft X-rays. Previous X-ray missions, mostly sensitive to soft X-rays like $`Einstein`$ and $`ROSAT`$, are expected to have a much reduced sensitivity to BAL QSOs with respect to optical surveys. It is illustrative to notice that the only $`ROSAT`$-discovered BAL QSO was found in a selection of hard X-ray spectrum sources.

We find it intriguing that the BAL QSOs have ‘normal’ values of $`HR_1`$: $`0.79\pm 0.08`$ for XMMU J010328.7-064633 and $`0.62\pm 0.17`$ for XMMU J010316.7-065137 (the average over all sources in the sample is $`0.69\pm 0.01`$ for $`HR_1`$). Indeed, the high redshift of the two objects helps to move the intrinsic photoelectric absorption feature below our detection band (0.5-4.5 keV). Assuming $`z=1.85`$, and an unabsobed $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ power-law spectrum, an intrinsic absorbing column of $`10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ increases the value of $`HR_1`$ from -0.68 in the absence of intrinsic absorption to -0.61. It is then clear that these objects cannot have intrinsic columns significantly in excess of $`10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ or otherwise we would see it in their X-ray spectra. However, these are unusually small values for the absorbing columns in BAL QSOs. Gallagher et al. (2001) report on ASCA and $`Chandra`$ observations of several BAL QSOs, and the inferred absorbing columns always exceed $`10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and sometimes by a large amount. Here we see that low (neutral) column density BAL QSOs do exist. Perhaps high ionisation and/or partial covering could bring to agreement the apparent small X-ray absorbing column with a sizeable CIV broad absorption line.

A further remarkable fact is that both BAL QSOs lie at the redshift where the distribution of BLAGN peaks. This might be telling us that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, i.e., we have only detected BAL QSOs at the redshift where this detection would be more likely (helped indeed by the K-correction discussed above).

What remains to be understood is why BAL QSOs were practically absent in $`ROSAT`$ surveys of similar depth (e.g. Boyle et al 1994). The sensitivity to higher X-ray photons of our current survey (0.5-4.5 keV) with respect to the standard 0.5-2 keV $`ROSAT`$ band does not make a big difference: for a $`z=1.85`$, intrinsically absorbed ($`10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) power-law ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$) QSO spectrum, only $`20\%`$ of the counts from the source fall in the 2-4.5 keV band in EPIC pn. A source with that spectrum at our survey limit, would have a 0.5-2 keV flux slightly above $`1\times 10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and would have been therefore detectable in the so-called $`ROSAT`$ deep survey (Boyle et al 1994).

## 6 Conclusions

As expected, the majority (25 out of 29 or 86%) of the X-ray sources identified in this sample are AGN. These are divided into 25% Narrow-line AGN and 75% Broad-Line AGN. Narrow-line AGNs have some hints of photoelectric absorption with respect to the BLAGN population, but the effect is less than $`2\sigma `$ significant in our small sample. Inferred columns for narrow-line AGNs at $`z0.4`$ would be around $`5\times 10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding is that 2 out of 24 AGN are BAL QSOs, i.e., $`10\%`$. This is similar to the fraction of BAL QSOs in optically selected samples. The X-ray spectrum of these BAL QSOs does not show evidence for photoelectric absorption, and the limits we derive for the intrinsic absorption column ($`<10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) tell us that these are unusual objects among the BAL QSO population in their X-ray spectra.

The AXIS high-galactic latitude medium survey is now progressing with $`250`$ X-ray sources spectroscopically identified. Large numbers of sources are needed, not only to study in detail the overall properties of the dominant source population (AGN in this case), but also to find and characterize the rarer populations, e.g., BAL QSOs or optically dull galaxies (Mushotzky et al. 2000; Baldi et al. 2001).

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Alberto Fernández-Soto for help with the photometric redshift techniques and the referee Ioannis Georgantopoluos for interesting suggestions. We are grateful to the CCI of the observatories of the Canary Islands for a generous allocation of telescope time, through the International Time Programme scheme. The INT/WHT and TNG telescopes are operated on the island of La Palma by the Isaac Newton Group and the Centro Galileo Galilei respectively in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. XB, FJC, MTC and SM acknowledge financial support by the Spanish MCYT under project AYA2000-1690. RDC and TM acknowledge partial financial support by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and by the MURST (Cofin00-32-36). This project was supported by the DLR under grants 50 OR 9908 0 (GPS) and 50 OX 9801 3 (HB).


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KIMS-1994-08-20

gr-qc/0110065

Local Time and the Unification of Physics

Part I. Local Time

Hitoshi Kitada

Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Tokyo

Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo 153, Japan

E-mail: kitada@po.iijnet.or.jp

and

Lancelot R. Fletcher

30-3406 Newport Parkway

Jersey City, New Jersey 07310, USA

E-mail: lance@freelance.com

April 8, 1996

(published in Apeiron, vol.3, no.2, April 1996, pp.38–45)

Abstract: The notions of time in the theories of Newton and Einstein are reviewed so that the difficulty which impedes the unification of quantum mechanics (QM) and general relativity (GR) is clarified. It is seen that GR by itself contains an intrinsic difficulty relating to the definition of local clocks, as well as that GR still requires a kind of absolute that can serve as an objective reference standard. We present a new understanding of time, which gives a consistent definition of a local time associated with each local system in a quantum mechanical way, so that it serves the requirements of both GR as well as QM. As a consequence, QM and GR are reconciled while preserving the current mathematical formulations of both theories.

I. Introduction

Previous papers of Kitada 1994a, 1994b proposed an approach to the problem of overcoming the apparent inconsistency of non-relativistic quantum mechanics and general relativity. The purpose of this paper is to explain the structure and background of that approach, with emphasis on a certain philosophical problem related with the notion of time.

The inconsistency of quantum mechanics and general relativity, when looked at mathematically, seems at first sight obvious and inescapable from the fact that the geometry of quantum mechanics is Euclidean, while general relativity employs a curved, Riemannian geometry.

Kitada 1994a proposes to overcome this apparent mathematical incommensurability of these two geometries by “orthogonalizing” them; i.e. by expressing them as a direct product $`X\times R^6`$, where $`X`$ represents the curved Riemannian manifold associated with general relativity, and $`R^6`$ (or in the usual space-time context, $`R^4`$) denotes the Euclidean space of phase space coordinates $`(x,v)`$ of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. As two components of the orthogonalized total space $`X\times R^6`$, the Riemannian space $`X`$ and the Euclidean space $`R^6`$ are compatible without contradiction.

General relativity and quantum mechanics are the two most important and comprehensive theories of contemporary physics. By “comprehensive” we mean that both theories claim to apply to everything. In practice it might seem that these two theories describe two different physical domains, since the most striking applications of quantum mechanics occur when we consider things that are extremely tiny in relation to ourselves – things like electrons and photons – while the most striking applications of general relativity occur in connection with extremely large and dense concentrations of matter and enormous spatio-temporal magnitudes. But, in principle, every physical thing must be capable of being described adequately by both theories, at least this is what the theories claim. And there are certain cases – of particular interest in recent cosmology and astrophysics – where the extremes of density that are the particular province of general relativity coincide with the extremes of minuteness that are the special province of quantum mechanics. In those situations, the physicist is compelled to face a problem which is present in the background of science all the time but which can otherwise be evaded without practical consequence: the fact, namely, that these two comprehensive theoretical structures appear to be mutually incompatible, that they seem to involve different – and contradictory – assumptions about the nature of space, time and causality.

Our intention in this paper is to outline an approach to the understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics in which these theories will appear as distinct but systematically coordinated perspectives on the same reality. The orthogonalization of the spatial foundations of the two theories allows us to speak of the two theories as distinct. To express the possibility of their systematic coordination will require a more extended analysis of the nature of time.

In brief, we can express our approach as follows:

1. We begin by distinguishing the notion of a local system consisting of a finite number of particles. Here we mean by “local” that the positions of all particles in a local system are understood as defined with respect to the same reference frame.
2. In so far as the particles comprised in this local system are understood locally, we note that these particles are describable only in terms of quantum mechanics. In other words, to the extent that we consider the particles solely within the local reference frame, these particles have only quantum mechanical properties, and cannot be described as classical particles in accordance with general relativity.
3. Next we consider the center of mass of a local system. Although the local system is considered as composed of particles which – as local – have only quantum mechanical properties, in our orthogonal approach we posit that each point $`(t,x)`$ in the Riemannian manifold $`X`$ is correlated to the center of mass of some local system. Therefore, in our approach, the classical particles whose behavior is described by the general theory of relativity are not understood as identical with the “quantum mechanical” particles inhabiting the local system – rather the classical particles are understood as precisely correlated only with the centers of mass of the local systems.
4. It is important to recognize that the distinction we are making between local systems and classical particles which are the centers of mass of local systems is not a simple distinction of inclusion/exclusion. For example, we may consider a local system containing some set of particles, and within that set of particles we may identify a number of subordinate “sublocal” systems. It would seem that the centers of mass of these sublocal systems must be “inside” the local system as originally defined, but the sublocal system is at the same time a local system, and we have said that the centers of mass of local systems are correlated with classical particles whose behavior is to be described in terms of relativity theory.

The paradox is avoided by noting that the distinction we are making is a distinction of reference frame, not a distinction of inclusion or exclusion. When we speak of classical particles (or centers of mass) we are speaking of the particle in terms of the observer’s time, which is understood as distinct from that of the particle observed. To the extent that the time of the system $`L`$ itself is adopted as the reference time, then we are speaking of the behavior of a local system whose development must be described in terms of quantum mechanics111The mathematical details of the relationship between the local time and the observer’s time will be set forth in Part II, after we have developed our notion of local time in section IV of this part..

It is our contention that time necessarily has two quite different aspects, in relativity theory, on the one hand, and in quantum theory on the other, and the intention of this paper is to show that these two aspects of time are in fact complementary and that the notion of local time, which we have associated with the quantum mechanical local system, is not only the main ingredient of a unification of quantum and relativity theories, but that this actually is necessary to constituting the time of relativity theory.

The “orthogonalization” of the geometries of quantum mechanics and general relativity does not by itself specify the nature of the relationship between them. It simply gives us a way of representing them as independent but complementary. The nature of that relationship, and the value of this form of representation, will come to light in Part II, after we outline our notion of local time below.

Before stating our notion of local time, it will be useful to show how this notion relates to the apparent inconsistency of quantum mechanics and general relativity.

II. Time in Quantum Mechanics

That the difficulty of reconciling quantum mechanics and general relativity is connected to the question of time is now generally recognized (see especially Isham 1993, Unruh 1993 and Hartle 1993). What is central is the divergent relationship of these two branches of modern physics to their common Newtonian heritage.

At the beginning of modern physics, Isaac Newton specified his notion of time in the Principia as follows (Newton 1962, p.6):

> Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion, which is commonly used instead of true time; such as an hour, a day, a month, a year.

Also in pp.7-8, he states:

> Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative, by the equation or correction of the apparent time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal, and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality that they may measure the celestial motions by a more accurate time. It may be, that there is no such thing as an equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may be accelerated and retarded, but the flowing of absolute time is not liable to any change. The duration or perseverance of the existence of things remains the same, whether the motions are swift or slow, or none at all: and therefore this duration ought to be distinguished from what are only sensible measures thereof; and from which we deduce it, by means of the astronomical equation. The necessity of this equation, for determining the times of a phenomenon, is evinced as well from the experiments of the pendulum clock, as by eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter.

The main point of this famous passage is to assert the existence of an absolute, true time. However, it is important to note that Newton asserts the existence of his absolute time by means of a distinction. There is absolute time, which flows without reference to anything external, and then there is relative, apparent, or common time, which is a measure of duration made by comparison of motions. Not only that, but although there may be no absolutely regular motion by means of which absolute time may be accurately represented, absolute time is an ideal standard by means of which relative or common time is “corrected.”

Einstein’s theory of relativity, as is well-known, sharply contrasts with Newton precisely on the question of time and space: Einstein’s theory makes no reference to either absolute time or absolute space. Einstein retains the relative or common time which can be measured and determined by means of actual clocks associated with each local observer, but he completely jettisons Newton’s notion of an absolute time flowing equably for all observers.

But precisely in this respect, quantum mechanics stands in sharp contrast to relativity – especially the general theory of relativity. In quantum mechanics, unlike relativity, the time parameter continues to be treated in an essentially Newtonian manner.

That time plays a special, absolute role in quantum mechanics is evident in Schrödinger equation (at least as customarily interpreted):

$$\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}\frac{}{t}\psi (x,t)+H\psi (x,t)=0,\psi (x,0)=\psi _0(x),$$

where the Schrödinger operator or the Hamiltonian $`H`$ of the system is defined by

$$H\psi (x,t)=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}\underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{^2\psi }{x_j^2}(x,t)+V(x)\psi (x,t).$$

Thus the solution of the Schrödinger equation is given by

$$\psi (x,t)=\mathrm{exp}[itH/\mathrm{}]\psi _0.$$

In this context, the time $`t`$ appears to be given a priori, and then the motion $`\psi (x,t)`$ of the system is derived from the Schrödinger equation by using the time evolution $`\mathrm{exp}[itH/\mathrm{}]`$ of the system222See Kitada 1994a and sections IV and V below for a different interpretation of this solution, which will supply the key to our notion of a ‘local clock’..

The fact that time plays a special role in quantum mechanics may also be seen by looking at the alternative formulation of quantum mechanics by Feynman 1948. See also Kitada 1980 for the relation between the classical mechanics and quantum mechanics researched along the line given by Feynman 1948.

Because in non-relativistic quantum mechanics the time-evolution of a system is governed by the Schrödinger equation, space and time in quantum mechanics are intrinsically Newtonian in the sense that the form of Schrödinger equation is not invariant with respect to the relativistic transformation of coordinates.

III. What would an adequate notion of time require?

We have indicated that the primary source of the inconsistency between QM and GR is to be found in their divergent and apparently incompatible ways of treating time. Einstein pointedly rejects Newton’s idea of absolute time and treats time as something which is locally defined by means of clocks which are at the same time physical objects. In non-relativistic QM, on the other hand, the role of time is essentially Newtonian, in the sense that time is an external, background parameter.

Newton’s statements about absolute time and space were controversial from the time they were first published, and Einstein was by no means the first to call them into question. Einstein seems to have considered the Newtonian absolutes as purely metaphysical in nature, having no direct bearing on actual physical description – even for classical mechanics. In his own presentations Einstein is consistently operational. The description of spatial relations, prior to the introduction of GR, is explained as involving the specification of places on rigid reference bodies and spatial co-ordinate systems are understood as convenient, abstract mathematical substitutes for such rigid bodies of reference. Time is understood, not as some absolute parameter, but as something based on the readings of identically constructed clocks held in the hands of different observers, who match up the “ticks” of their clocks with the observed positions of the various objects which they are observing.

In short, it looks as if Einstein considered the Newtonian absolutes completely superfluous and thought that they could be disposed of with no consequence, and in fact much gain in scientific rigor. However, once we inquire into the epistemological function of the Newtonian absolutes we may discover that it is not in fact quite so easy to get rid of them without any consequence.

Clearly, the epistemological function of the Newtonian absolutes is to serve as a common reference standard. The idea is that there must be something which is the same for all observers, in terms of which all can be described. To that extent, it is clear that in the physics of Einstein, Newton’s absolutes have not actually been removed – they have only been disguised. So the notions of a rigid body and a “standard clock” are essentially surrogates for absolute space and time. This can be seen to some extent by comparing Weyl’s definition of a clock with Newton’s definition of absolute time:

Weyl 1952 (p.7) has this to say on the question of clocks and the measurement of time:

> To be able to apply mathematical conceptions to questions of Time we must postulate that it is theoretically possible to fix in Time, to any order of accuracy, an absolutely rigorous now (present) as a point of Time – i.e. to be able to indicate points of time, one of which will always be the earlier and the other the later. The following principle will hold for this “order-relation”. If A is earlier than B and B is earlier than C, then A is earlier than C. Each two points of Time, A and B, of which A is the earlier, mark off a length of time; this includes every point which is later than A and earlier than B. The fact that Time is a form of our stream of experience is expressed in the idea of equality: the empirical content which fills the length of Time AB can in itself be put into any other time without being in any way different from what it is. The length of time which it would then occupy is equal to the distance AB. This, with the help of the principle of causality, gives us the following objective criterion in physics for equal lengths of time. If an absolutely isolated physical system (i.e. one not subject to external influences) reverts once again to exactly the same state as that in which it was at some earlier instant, then the same succession of states will be repeated in time and the whole series of events will constitute a cycle. In general such a system is called a clock. Each period of the cycle then lasts equally long.

In particular note his reference to “…an absolutely isolated physical system (i.e. one not subject to external influences),” and compare it to Newton’s statement that, “Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external…” Clearly, Newton’s absolute time is unobservable – and from the standpoint of empirical science this is a serious fault which makes it unfit to serve as a standard of measurement. But in fact Weyl’s clock – defined as an absolutely isolated physical system – suffers from exactly the same problem: that which allows it to be accurate makes it at the same time unobservable. Indeed, strictly speaking, Weyl’s clock must be exactly the same thing as Newton’s, since the only absolutely isolated physical system one can imagine is the universe itself.

The discovery of the finite velocity of light revealed that it is not possible to provide a univocal definition of time with respect to bodies of reference that are in relative motion. One consequence of this discovery, as Einstein observes, was to expose the previously unnoticed interdependence of space and time. That is to say, prior to the advent of relativity, points in space and instants of time were taken to be absolute realities – and time and space themselves were understood as completely different and independent things. In the special theory of relativity, Newton’s absolutes are reorganized as follows:

1. We stipulate that the velocity of light is not only finite, but that it is an absolute constant – i.e. that its velocity in a vacuum is the same for all observers, independent of relative motion.

2. We stipulate that we will confine our attention to inertial reference frames – i.e. to bodies whose rate of relative motion is uniform.

3. And we continue to presuppose the absolutes of rigid transport and standard clocks.

Given these assumptions and qualifications, as Einstein observes, what has “physical reality” is neither points in space nor instants in time, but events, which are understood as specifications of four numbers in a space-time manifold. Accordingly, he observes,

> There is no absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space, and no absolute relation in time between two events, but there is an absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space and time, as will appear in the sequel. (1922, p.30f.)

And in the following lecture he is equally clear about the fact that something like the Newtonian absolute is retained in the special theory of relativity (Einstein 1922, p.55):

> The principle of inertia, in particular, seems to compel us to ascribe physically objective properties to the space-time continuum. Just as it was consistent from the Newtonian standpoint to make both the statements, tempus est absolutum, spatium est absolutum, so from the standpoint of the special theory of relativity we must say, continuum spatii et temporis est absolutum. In this latter statement absolutum means not only “physically real,” but also “independent in its physical properties, having a physical effect, but not itself influenced by physical conditions.”

But it is important that this paragraph occurs on the first page of the lecture in which Einstein is beginning to introduce the General Theory of Relativity – by contrasting it with the Special Theory. Because the point of this paragraph is that precisely that principle which seems to compel us to treat the space-time continuum as physically real and absolute – precisely that principle is what loses its privileged status under GR. If we attempt to generalize the theory of relativity to allow the description of the behavior of bodies insofar as they are in mutually accelerated reference frames, we can no longer hope to describe this behavior accurately by means of coordinate systems referring to rigid reference bodies, nor can we assume that two clocks in different locations, both of which are at rest with respect to one reference body will give uniform readings when considered with respect to another reference body which is in non-uniform motion with respect to the first.

Our contention, therefore, is that it is only with the advent of GR that Einstein is forced to fully abandon the Newtonian absolute (understood in its 4-dimensional Minkowski version). But it is precisely at this point in the development of Einstein’s theory that one discovers the need for what, in the following section, we call “the localized absolute.”

That is to say, as soon as Einstein attempts to move beyond the restrictions of the special theory of relativity, two problems occur at the same time: One is that he is confronted by a need to give a consistent definition of a local clock. The other is that he needs to find or create something that can serve as an objective reference standard (which, as noted above, was one of the main intended – although not fulfilled – functions of Newton’s notion of absolute time). But, paradoxical as it may seem, the abandonment of the rigidity of Minkowskian space-time means that the desired objective reference standard must be identified, not with some global frame of reference within which the local system is situated, but with the local system itself – insofar as the local system is taken as the system.

We resolve these two problems, i.e. the need for a properly defined local clock and an objective reference standard, by introducing the notion of the local time of a local system on the basis of a total universe, which is introduced as an objective reference standard. Our notion of local time, on the one hand, gives a consistent definition of local systems, each of which can accommodate a proper clock that serves the requirements of GR. We associate a local system to each classical point $`(t,x)`$ of the 4 dimensional Riemannian manifold $`X`$, so that the local system can accommodate a local clock inside it which describes the local time at the center of mass of the local system.

On the other hand, we will show that it is possible to construct a concept of a “total universe” which will serve as the ground for an objective reference standard – without, however, violating the strictures of Einstein against an absolute reference frame in the classical Newtonian sense. We represent the total universe as an eigenstate of a Hamiltonian of infinite degrees of freedom. This allows to define the local time of each local system with finite degrees of freedom inside the total universe. We shall discuss this point in sections IV and V in detail.

The local system $`L`$ at a classical point $`(t,x)`$ in $`X`$ has an internal structure which is independent of the classical mechanical world outside the local system $`L`$, as we will see in later sections. The internal structure of the local system $`L`$ is described by quantum mechanics in our formulation. Since the local system $`L`$ is independent of the external classical world, this assumption of our formulation does not lead to any contradiction as we shall see later. Furthermore, in the local system $`L`$ a local time can be defined as a quantum mechanical notion associated with that local system $`L`$ without requiring that time be defined as the problematic point-specific notion we encountered in Einstein’s formulation of GR. This local time as defined above – specific to each local system – also gives us a local time for the center of mass of $`L`$, thus satisfying the requirement of GR for a definition of local time valid at a particular point. Thus we can regard the centers of mass of various local systems as classical particles obeying GR, so that we can recover GR in this formulation of local systems and local times.

In this way the formulation outlined above illustrates the possibility of understanding QM and GR as mutually independent, but at the same time mutually complementary, such that each supports the other, supplying and supporting features that cannot be adequately defined within either theory by itself. QM provides the internal clock which recovers the local clock for GR, whose realization has been the intrinsic difficulty of GR from its very beginning as we have seen (see also section V below).

As a basis for this approach, we define, in the next section, the local clock of a local system as a measure of motion inside the local system. Our notion of local time will give us, as we explain below, a localized version of Newton’s absolute time. As we shall see below, by “localizing” Newtonian time, we will be enabled to salvage that aspect of Newtonian time which is presupposed by quantum mechanics, without becoming entangled in conflict with the theory of relativity.

IV. Defining the Local Clock: an alternative notion of time

In this section we begin the presentation – to be continued in part II of this article – of an outline of our theory of local time, which we contend offers a possible way to unify Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity.

As noted in Kitada 1994a, p.283, the empirical scientist’s notion of time in actual practice is necessarily a local one. That is to say, time does not appear to us until it is measured by some equipment. In this respect the observation of time is quite different from the observation of positions and motions, which are perceived directly by our senses. Even when we use a tool, such as a measuring stick, to measure the length of a thing, what we actually do is to look and see which markings on the scale of the ruler coincide with either extreme of the thing being measured. The fundamental act of observation here is the perception of this coincidence (of the ruler-mark with the edge of the thing). If we consider how time is measured by means of clocks, we notice that the measurement process is actually a process of comparing the motions and positions of certain bodies, so that it is possible to describe the measurement of time (somewhat abstractly) as a quotient of certain positions and velocities. With an analog clock, time is measured by examining the motion of its hands. We look at the hands, and recognize that one second passes if the second hand “moves” one “scale”. We do not measure time directly by our senses, but we know time by perceiving the positions and motions of the hands of clocks. In this sense time is neither a quantity nor a frame given a priori. What exists first are the positions and movements of the bodies relative to our own position. The perception of the positions and motions indicates an introduction of the common parameter in each system of bodies consisting of a finite number of particles. This parameter is called time and it is a local notion by nature333It should be noted here that the foregoing observations concerning the nature of time measurement are in full agreement with Einstein, for it is clear that Einstein’s understanding of time is completely “operational,” as may be observed from the fact Einstein speaks primarily of clocks, not of time as a thing existing in itself..

In QM, however, as we noted above in section II, the notion of time is quite different from that of Einstein. Obviously, as experimenters, quantum physicists use clocks in the same way that relativity physicists do, so that in practice they must implicitly share the understanding of time as a local notion. But in theory the Schrödinger equation has traditionally been understood to define the evolution of the particle states of a system with respect to an externally-given, “Newtonian,” time parameter, which means that for QM the clocks by which time is measured are understood as if they were completely external to the system being investigated – in sharp contrast to GR, where the fact that the clock is itself an object within the system is essential to the working of the theory. However, in recent years a group of mathematical physicists specializing in the study of Schrödinger wave operators in many-body systems, including Enss and Kitada, have made important strides in understanding the asymptotic completeness of observables in such systems. Building on the work of Enss, Kitada has shown that it is possible to re-interpret the role of the time parameter in the Schrödinger equation. Specifically, it is possible to treat the $`t`$ in that equation, not as an observable, but as a dependent variable, whose specific meaning and value are derived, subject to appropriate assumptions, from a mathematical consideration based on the velocity and momentum of the particles of the system – which actually are observable. The mathematical reasoning which accomplishes this result is fairly technical – it will be summarized below and the reader is referred to Kitada 1994a, etc. for a more formal presentation of the argument. However, it is possible to state briefly here that this analysis, by inverting the customary relationship between the time parameter and the observation of the velocities and positions of particles as these things are interpreted by the Schrödinger equation, actually brings the understanding of time in QM into a much closer and more intelligible relation to that of GR than it had before. That is to say, the result of Kitada 1994a is to show that time may be understood in QM, no longer as an external “Newtonian” parameter, but as a certain expression of the relative motions and positions of the particles making up the local system. Thus we show that time may be understood as rooted in the internal motions of a local system in QM, just as it is in GR. At the same time, however, the theorem of Enss as interpreted and extended by Kitada 1994a allows us to explain why this “local time” must nonetheless appear as if it were an absolute, Newtonian time, independent of which point is selected within the local system and the same for all. And we will show later that it is precisely because it possesses this feature that the “local clock,” as we have defined it in the language of QM, provides the required logical foundation for the definition of local time in GR.

We are now in a position to define our notion of local time. We remark that the following exposition is a rather intuitive definition and precise formulation needs some mathematical notions and notations as described in sections 4 and 5, pp. 286-288 of Kitada 1994a. Let $`L`$ be a local system consisting of $`N`$ number of particles $`1,2,\mathrm{},N`$. Then there can be defined the position vectors $`x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_N`$ and momentum vectors $`p_1=m_1v_1,p_2=m_2v_2,\mathrm{},p_N=m_Nv_N`$, where $`m_j`$ is the mass of the $`j`$-th particle, so that the correspondent quantum mechanical selfadjoint operators $`X_j=(X_{j1},X_{j2},X_{j3})`$ and $`P_j=(P_{j1},P_{j2},P_{j3})`$ in a Hilbert space $`=L^2(R^{3n})`$ of $`N=(n+1)`$ particles satisfy the so-called canonical commutation relation. (This statement is axiom 2 of Kitada 1994a.) Then the local time $`t_L`$ associated with the local system $`L`$ is defined as a quotient of position $`x_j`$ by velocity $`v_j=p_j/m_j`$

$`t_L={\displaystyle \frac{|x_j|}{|v_j|}}.`$ (1)
Here we note that the right hand side of this definition looks as if it depends on the number $`j`$. But it is known (Enss 1986) that it does not depend on $`j`$, if one defines the right hand side as in Kitada 1994a, sections 4-5 (see axiom 3, Theorem 1, and Definitions 1-3 there, and section V of part II for more precise descriptions). Thus local time is defined as a measure of motion inside each local system.

We note that we have defined time only for local systems as a parameter of motions, which is abstracted from the internal motions inside the local systems. The fact that the universe as a whole is not a local system thus makes it reasonable to postulate that there is no time associated with the total universe. This postulate is axiom 1 of Kitada 1994a. This distinction between local systems and the total universe is seen more clearly when one notices that the local Hamiltonians describing local systems and the total Hamiltonian used to define the total universe differ in that the former is of finite degrees of freedom while the latter is of infinite degrees of freedom, and that the local Hamiltonians are no more than convenient approximations to the total Hamiltonian, used instead of the true, total Hamiltonian when one observes the outside. The fact that each of the local Hamiltonians of finite degrees of freedom is an approximation, but only an approximation, of the total Hamiltonian of infinite degrees of freedom has an interesting and important consequence: Namely it allows each local system to vary, so that local motions can occur and local clocks can be defined – even though the total universe, consisting of an infinite number of particles is stationary444The word “stationary” here is the one used in mathematical physics to express an eigenstate of a Hamiltonian as a “stationary state.”, as we have postulated.

The stationary nature of the total universe will be described in section V of Part II in a more precise way. Any local system of a finite number of particles, however, can be nonstationary, and can vary inside itself, as a consequence of the variation outside the local system, which compensates for the change inside the local system, so that the stationary nature of the total universe is preserved.

Because of the fact that the relationship expressed in formula (1) has been shown to be independent of the particular choice of particle number, this quotient can be understood to hold approximately in the same way for any particle in the given local system – and precisely for this reason, this can be understood as defining a common parameter $`t_L`$ associated with the local system $`L`$ itself, rather than with any particular point in it, and which we can, therefore, define as the “local time” of the local system. Thus the demonstration, due to Enss, that this quotient holds independent of the choice of particle number $`j`$, is remarkable in that it not only gives us a way of understanding how a definition of time can be derived from the relative motions of particles within a local system, but at the same time it shows us that this parameter, because it is (approximately) independent of the particular choice of particle, can be treated as if it actually existed externally, independent of the motions on which it is based.

Nevertheless, once a local time is identified by the formula (1), as a measure of motion, as $`t=|x|/|v|`$ in each local system, our definition of local times is a specification or a clarification of the ‘relative, apparent, and common time’ measured ‘by the means of motion, which is used’ ‘instead of true time’ in Newton’s sense (see the first quotation from Principia, Newton 1962). It is a realization of Einstein’s local nature of time and coordinates, as well, in the sense that the local time is defined only for each local system consisting of a finite number of particles.

We note that there is a considerable difference between our definition of local times and the conventional understanding of the notion of time. The common feature of the conventional understanding of time, including Newton’s definition of absolute time, is that time is something existing or given a priori, independently of any of our activities, e.g. activities of observation. In our definition, time is not an a priori existence, but a convenient measure of motions inside each local system. Our definition of local times mentioned above is that a local time is a clock – which measures, not time, but the motions of the local system. Unlike the conventional understanding where time is given a priori, the local clock does not measure time, but it is time. Further, as we will state in section V, the proper clock is the local system itself, and it is a necessary manifestation of that local system. In this sense, “clocking” is the natural activity of any local system. It follows from this that to be an existing thing in the world necessarily involves clocking, without which there is no interaction. In these respects, our position is in complete opposition to the conventional understanding of time measurement, where time is given a priori and clocks measure those times, therefore the measurement of time is an incidental activity. Contrary to the conventional understanding, our view is that all beings are engaged in measuring and observing, and the activities of measuring and observing are not incidental, but pertain to the essence of all interactions. If we are permitted to express it somewhat boldly, we have turned things completely around: It is not that things exist and their duration is incidentally expressed by clocks. According to our formulation, clocks exist and their operation is necessarily expressed by duration.

Philosophically speaking, our understanding stated in axiom 1 about the totality of nature reflects that of Spinoza, especially insofar as Spinoza says that the totality of nature is Eternal, and defines Eternity as follows (Spinoza, Ethics, Part I, Definition 8, from E. Curley 1985 p.409):

> D8: By eternity I understand existence itself, insofar as it is conceived to follow necessarily from the definition alone of the eternal thing.
>
> Explanation: For such existence, like the essence of a thing, is conceived as an eternal truth, and on that account cannot be explained by duration or time, even if the duration is conceived to be without beginning or end.

Our axiom 1 which asserts that the total universe, which will be denoted $`\varphi `$, is stationary means in its mathematical formulation that it is an eigenstate of a total Hamiltonian $`H`$. This means that the universe $`\varphi `$ is an eternal truth, which cannot be explained in terms of duration or time. In fact, the eigenstate in itself contains no reference to time, as may be seen from its definition: $`H\varphi =\lambda \varphi `$ for some real number $`\lambda `$. The reader might think that this definition just states that the entire universe $`\varphi `$ is frozen at an instant which lasts forever without a beginning or end. However, as we will see, the total universe $`\varphi `$ has infinite degrees of freedom inside itself, as internal motion of finite and local systems, and never freezes. Therefore, as an existence itself, the universe $`\varphi `$ does not change, however, at the same time, it is not frozen internally. These two seemingly contradictory aspects of the universe $`\varphi `$ are possible by virtue of the quantum mechanical nature of the definition of eigenstates.

To sum up, the universe itself does not change. However, inside itself, the universe can vary quantum mechanically, in any local region or in any local system consisting of a finite number of (quantum mechanical) particles. Therefore, we can define a local time in each local system as a measure or a clock of (quantum mechanical) motions in that local system.

Let us consider, finally, the relationship that our notion of time bears to those of Newton and Einstein. First, we are in agreement with Einstein in abandoning the Newtonian conception of time as an absolute time pertaining to the entire universe. We have defined local times for describing local motions in a way that will be shown to be consistent with GR. However, we have also preserved certain aspects of the Newtonian conception: we have localized Newtonian time by showing that the local clock, as we have defined it, gives an approximation to Newtonian time which is valid for any particle of the local system. And, in another sense, we have retained for the universe as a whole the absoluteness of Newton – but without the flow of time – since our definition of local time involves the consequence (whose implications will be explored in Part II) that the universe itself is not in time, but is eternal, as Spinoza has defined that term.

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