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# GAMMA RAY BURSTS: SOME FACTS AND IDEAS

## 1 Introduction

On July 2, 1967, the american VELAaaaNote that the name VELA stands for “to watch”, from the spanish velar. satellites detected a flash of mysterious gamma rays coming from space. Soon after, other events, similar in nature and duration, were detected, even if the announcement of this major discovery awaited a few years, when was finally reported by Klebesadel, Strong & Olson (1973). Gamma–ray bursts (GRB) were therefore discovered by accident, thanks to a series of small military satellites designed to detect the radiation produced by the explosion of thermo–nuclear bombs, that had recently being banned by an international treaty. Even if small X–ray detectors could be enough for the detection of nuclear bomb exploding on earth, it was thought that the russians could have the technology to let a bomb explode on the dark side of the moon. In this case the X–rays are completely shielded, but the radio–active blast triggered by the bomb and expanding beyond the lunar dish, produces detectable $`\gamma `$–rays. This was the reason for having small $`\gamma `$–ray detectors on board. The VELA (limited) capability to reconstruct the source direction through differences in the arrival photon time (there always were two or more satellites in orbit) enabled to exclude the earth, the moon and the sun as sources, and established the cosmic origin of GRBs (see J. Bonnell at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/grbhist.html).

30 years since their detection by the VELA satellites, we now start to understand the physics of GRBs. This has been made possible by the precise localization of the Wide Field Camera of $`Beppo`$SAX, which allowed the detection of their X–ray afterglow emission (Costa et al. 1997) and the optical follow up observations, leading to the discovery that they are cosmological sources (van Paradijs et al. 1997). The huge energy and power releases required by their cosmological distances support the fireball scenario (Cavallo & Rees 1978; Rees & Mészáros 1992; Mészáros & Rees 1993), even if we do not know yet which kind of progenitor makes the GRB phenomenon.

There are already excellent reviews on GRBs (van Paradijs, Kouveliotou, & Wijers 2000; Meszaros 2001, Pian 2001, Klose 2000, Piran 1999, Meszaros 1999, Fishman & Meegan 1995), and I will not even try to be exhaustive in this contribution. I will instead concentrate on non–technical aspects of this very active research field, aiming at non specialized readers, and to point out some of the problems that are still under discussion.

## 2 Why GRBs are so fascinating?

Since their discovery, GBRs acquired a special “aura”, due, I think, mainly to their mysterious nature which persisted for decades. This certainly attracted many astrophysicists looking for a well posed but unsolved problem, and part of the popularity of GRBs is still due to that. The mystery lasted for so long because it was not possible to detect any counterpart at any wavelength, due to the too large error boxes of the positions given by the $`\gamma `$–ray instruments. Now, after knowning about their cosmological nature, the importance of GRBs has, if possible, increased, because they are good probes in at least three broad areas of physics: general relativity, special relativity, and cosmology. In fact we suspect they flag the birth of a stellar mass black hole, and that the corresponding liberation of energy is able to accelerate matter to bulk Lorentz factors exceeding 100, equivalent to speeds differing from $`c`$ by less than one part in ten thousand. When shining, they are the most powerful objects of the universe, and even if their brightness decreases fast, they offer the opportunity to explore the far universe (i.e. redshift greater than 10, if such distant bursts exist) with a level of detail impossible to achieve with any other class of objects.

## 3 Facts I: the pre–BeppoSAX era

After the discovery phase and after the confirmation by many small satellites hosting on board $`\gamma `$–ray detectors, we entered in the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) satellite era. Launched in April 1991, it had onboard several high energy instruments, and in particular BATSE, made by 8 $`\gamma `$–ray detectors (sensitive in the 20–600 keV range) especially designed for GRB observations, and EGRET, sensitive above 100 MeV.

Isotropy in the sky — Fig. 1 shows the positions of 2704 bursts detected by BATSE, and it can be seen that their locations are distributed completely isotropically in the sky. No dipole or quadrupole moments have been detected.

Duration — Fig. 2 shows that GRBs seem to come in (at least) two flavors: the majority of them lasts for more than 2 seconds, while about one third is shorter. All information derived from the precise localization of GRBs refer to long bursts. The bimodality of the distribution of their duration (measured by the time $`T_{90}`$ within which 90 per cent of the total fluence is contained) is confirmed by the associated spectral shape, since short bursts, on average, appear harder than long GRBs. Fig. 5 shows the hardness ratio (which is a measure of the slope of the spectrum: larger values means that the flux at high energies is more dominating) as a function of the duration of the emission.

The light curve of GRBs is erratic (see Fig. 3) and sometimes highly variable: spikes as short as a fraction of a millisecond have been detected (see Shaefer & Walker 1999 and Fig. 4). The issue of variability is central for the modeling of GRBs: the extremely short timescales we observe demand large Lorentz factors, and the fact that the spikes at early and late times of the prompt emission have similar timescales (i.e. their duration does not increase) are major proofs against external shocks (see below) causing the prompt emission of GRBs (Fenimore, Ramirez–Ruiz & Wu 1999).

In addition, as Amelino–Camelia et al. (1998) pointed out (see also these proceedings) the very short variability of high energy photons coming from a cosmological (i.e. redshift greater than one) source can carry key information about the structure of spacetime, which can limit the possibility of having a breaking of the Lorentz invariance as proposed by some theories.

Fluences — Most $`\gamma `$–ray fluences (i.e. the flux integrated over the duration of the burst) are in the range $`10^6`$$`10^4`$ erg cm-2. The number counts of bursts are very flat, with $`V/V_{max}1/3`$. Schmidt (2001) finds that short and long bursts have similar values of $`V/V_{max}`$, while Tavani (1998) found that short and soft bursts show little deviation from the Euclidean value $`V/V_{max}=0.5`$.

Spectra — The spectra of GRBs are very hard, with a peak (in a $`E`$$`EF_E`$ plot) at an energy $`E_{peak}`$ of a few hundreds keV. Fig. 6 shows the distributions of the photon spectral indices derived by fitting the spectrum with the Band function (Band et al. 1993), consisting in two smoothly connected power laws (from Lloyd & Petrosian 1999, 2000, see also Preece et al. 1998), defined as $`N(E)E^\alpha `$ at low energies and $`N(E)E^\beta `$ at high energies. As can be seen, the $`\alpha `$–distribution peaks in the range \[$``$1, $``$0.5\] corresponding to $`F(E)E^0`$$`E^{1/2}`$. This spectral index varies during the burst, as does $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$. The general trend is that the spectrum softens, and $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ decreases, with time. More precise statements must however wait for larger area detectors, since what we inevitably do, at present, is to fit a time integrated spectrum of a very rapidly variable source: the minimum integration time is $``$0.1 second for the strongest bursts, while the variability timescales can be hundreds of times shorter. Some bursts have been detected at very large $`\gamma `$–rays energies ($`>`$ 100 MeV) by the EGRET instrument (see the review by Fishman & Meegan 1995, and references therein).

## 4 Facts II: the BeppoSAX era

Launched on April 1996, the BeppoSAX satellite made the breakthrough observations of GRBs, succeeding in positioning them with error boxes of only a few arcminutes through its coded mask Wide Field Camera sensitive at medium–hard X–ray energies \[2–25 keV\]. This made it possible to promptly slew the satellite in the found direction, to observe the error box region with the Narrow Field Instruments (NFI, in the 0.1–10 keV band) and to detect (in all cases but one) a new fading X–ray source , immediately identified as the X–ray afterglow of the GRB. Thanks to the prompt dissemination of the coordinates through the Gamma–ray Burst Coordinates Network (i.e. the GCN system, created by Scott Barthelmy) all ground based telescopes can point the target and try to detect the optical (and IR, and radio) afterglow.

X–ray afterglows — Usually, BeppoSAX could re–point in 6–8 hours from the trigger, and detect the X–ray afterglow, at an initial level of $`10^{13}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 or higher, and with a flux decaying roughly as $`F_X(t)t^1`$$`t^{1.5}`$. The spectral shape is remarkably softer than the prompt emission, with $`F(E)`$ roughly proportional to $`E^1`$. When does the afterglow begins? We do not know yet, and this is one of the key question that HETE II and especially Swift can answer. Some hints (from SIGMA: GRB 920723, Burenin et al. 1999; from BATSE: GRB 980923, Giblin et al. 1999; from BeppoSAX, Frontera et al. 2000) suggest that the afterglow starts during the prompt emission or immediately after (and this would be in agreement with the optical flash observed in GRB 990123), but much more firm evidence is needed.

Optical afterglows — For about 1/2 of the bursts with good locations an optical afterglow has been detected. The monochromatic flux decreases in time as a power law $`F_\nu (t)t^{0.8}`$$`t^2`$. Usually, the magnitudes of the optical afterglow detected $``$one day after the $`\gamma `$–ray event are in the range 19–21. GRB 990123 is still the only burst detected so far in the optical while the prompt emission was still on, by the robotic telescope ROTSE, 22 seconds after the $`\gamma `$–ray trigger at $`m11.7`$, reaching $`m8.9`$ 47 seconds after the trigger (Akerlof & McKay 1999; Akerlof et al. 2000) bbbThis is the optical flash, and is interpreted by the emission of the reverse shock crossing the fireball when first impacting into the interstellar material. The term flash is indeed appropriate. A magnitude 9 at a redshift $`z=1.6`$ corresponds a power $`L5\times 10^{49}`$ erg s-1 in the optical band, meaning that if the same kind of object switches on at 1 kpc from earth, we would have two equally bright Suns in the sky, albeit for a short time.. For a complete review about the issue of optical and infrared afterglows see Pian (2001).

More than half of the bursts whose X–ray afterglow is detected could not be detected at optical frequencies, despite many of them have been observed with large telescopes at early times (see below and Lazzati, Covino & Ghisellini 2002).

Radio afterglows — The first GRB radio afterglow was detected for GRB 970508. In this case, the radio flux at 8.5 GHz behaved “nervously” for about one month, to “calm down” after this time. This has been interpreted as due to interstellar scintillation in our Galaxy, affecting sources of very small angular diameter. Therefore the fact that scintillation ceased after some time was a sign of the increased source dimension. Since this is a burst of known distance, it is possible to estimate the size needed to quench the scintillation effect, and then to estimate the velocity of the fireball, which turned out to be relativistic (Frail et al. 1997).

Redshifts — Up to November 2001, about 20 redshifts of GRBs have been measured, and Fig. 7 shows their distribution. Apart from the controversial case of GRB 980425, possibly associated with the nearby SN 1998bw (at $`z0.008`$), all other redshifts are within the 0.4–4.5 range. Fig. 8 shows the $`\gamma `$–ray luminosity (assumed isotropically emitted), the $`\gamma `$–ray fluence and the magnitude of the host galaxy (when detected) as a function of redshift. A particularly useful updated link with all the relevant information about bursts with good localization is maintained by Jochen Greiner at:
http://www.aip.de/$``$jcg/grbgen.html

The host galaxies — The host galaxies of GRBs are not particularly luminous ($`L<L_{}`$), they appear blue (Hogg & Fruchter 1999), and the location of the optical transient is never very distant from the galaxy center, in agreement with the idea that long GRBs are associated with massive (and short lived) progenitors (for a recent review see Djorgovski et al. 2001). Fig. 8 shows the magnitude of the host as a function of redshift (almost all magnitudes are in the $`R`$ band).

The GRB–Supernova connection — It is possible that GRB 980425 was associated with the nearby supernova SN 1998bw. If so, this GRB would be very anomalous, being 3–4 orders of magnitude underluminous with respect to the other bursts of known redshift. On the other hand even SN 1998bw is far from being a typical member of its class (for instance, from its radio light curve Kulkarni et al. 1998 estimated a very high brightness temperature, requiring a bulk flow with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }2`$). Independent of the reality of this association, these observations triggered much interest about the possibility that GRB are in some way associated with some rare kind of supernovae. The other main evidence in favor of it is the re–brightnening of the late optical–infrared light curve observed in some afterglows (Bloom et al. 1999; Reichart 1999; Galama et al. 2000; Lazzati et al., 2001), especially if accompanied by evidence of a spectral change (spectrum which becomes redder), as appropriate if the supernova emission exceeds the afterglow light (see one example in Fig. 9).

Iron lines — There are five bursts displaying evidence for large amounts of X–ray line emitting material around the site of the explosion: four (GRB 970508, Piro et al., 1999; GRB 970828, Yoshida et al., 1999; GRB 991216, Piro et al., 2000; GRB 000214, Antonelli et al., 2000) show an emission feature during the afterglow, and one (GRB 990705, Amati et al., 2000) displays an edge in absorption during the burst itself. The detection of emission features in the afterglow spectra of GRBs some hours after the GRB event poses strong constraints on the properties of the line–emitting material.

The first constraint comes from the large detected flux. Assuming the line lasts for $`10^5t_5`$ seconds at the level of $`10^{13}F_{Fe,13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for a burst at $`z=1`$, this corresponds to $`3\times 10^{57}`$ line photons. If each iron atom produces $`k`$ line photons, the required total mass of iron is $`M_{Fe}150F_{Fe,13}t_5/k`$ solar masses. It is clear that we need at the very least $`k>10^3`$ to bring $`M_{Fe}`$ down to reasonable values. This means that the iron must recombine sufficiently fast, and this implies large densities and not so large temperatures.

The second constraint concerns the geometrical setup: the line emitting material cannot be between us and the burst, because 1) we should see an absorption line, and 2) the large amount of material would stop the fireball and the associated afterglow, contrary to what observed. The line emitting material must therefore be out of the line of sight and nevertheless be illuminated by a large amount of ionizing flux. Furthermore, for a line observed after a time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ since trigger, we must have that the emitting material must be close to the burst site, within a distance $`R`$ given by

$$R\frac{c\mathrm{\Delta }t}{1+z}\frac{1}{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }\frac{1.1\times 10^{15}}{1+z}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{10\mathrm{h}}\frac{1}{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }\mathrm{cm},$$
(1)
where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the location of the material and the line of sight (see the cartoon in Fig. 15 showing some possible set–ups, and see below for a brief discussion of the proposed models).

### 4.1 Afterglow in short GRBs?

Lazzati, Ramirez–Ruiz & Ghisellini (2001) have summed up the BATSE light curves of the best signal–to–noise bursts lasting for less than one second. The resulting 76 light curves were analized separately in each of the four BATSE energy channels, and some excess was found in the first two BATSE channels, between 30 and 100 seconds after the trigger. The four flux data points (two detections and two upper limits) indicate a relatively $`steep`$ spectrum, similar to the shape of the X–ray afterglow of long bursts. This could be the first detection of an afterglow in short bursts: if confirmed, it proves that also short bursts can transform bulk into random energy, suggesting the presence of a relativistic fireball also in this case.

## 5 The fireball

The energy involved in GRB explosions is huge. No matter in which form the energy is initially injected, a quasi–thermal equilibrium (at relativistic temperatures) between matter and radiation is reached, with the formation of electron–positron pairs accelerated to relativistic speeds by the high internal pressure. This is a fireball (Cavallo & Rees 1978). When the temperature of the radiation (as measured in the comoving frame) drops below $``$50 keV the pairs annihilate faster than the rate at which they are produced. But the presence of even a small amount of barions, corresponding to only $`10^6M_{}`$, makes the fireball opaque to Thomson scattering: the internal radiation thus continues to accelerate the fireball until most of its initial energy has been converted into bulk motion. After this phase the fireball expands at a constant speed and at some point becomes transparent.

The compactness problem — Even before the discovery that GRBs are at high redhift, researchers were puzzled about such rapidly variable and strong high energy fluxes. In fact, even if bursts were close by (say, in the Galactic halo), they would be highly super–Eddington, and this poses the problem to explain how high energy $`\gamma `$–rays can survive against the $`\gamma `$$`\gamma e^\pm `$ process. In fact, from the minimum variability time–scale (time needed to double or halve the flux) we can estimate, by a causality argument, the size $`R`$ of the emitting region. Therefore we can form the luminosity to size ratio $`L/R`$ which controls the processes involving photons, and in particular the $`\gamma \gamma e^\pm `$ process (in fact its optical depth $`\tau _{\gamma \gamma }R(L/R^2)L/R`$. Taken at face value, the $`L/R`$ ratio is too large (and therefore GRBs are too compact) to let any photon above threshold for pair production (i.e. with an energy greater than $`m_ec^2`$) to survive.

Relativistic motion — If the source is moving relativistically, then the observed photon energies are blueshifted, and the typical angles (as observed in the lab frame) between photons are smaller, decreasing the probability for them to interact. This solves the compactness problem. Bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }>100`$ are required to avoid strong suppression of high energy $`\gamma `$–rays due to photon–photon collisions. It is worth stressing here that the photon–photon problem is particularly demanding if one associates the $`>100`$ MeV photons seen by EGRET with the prompt emission of GRBs. It is much less severe if it is instead associated with the early afterglow. This is still an unsettled issue.

There is however a second argument demanding for strong relativistic motion, concerning the very fast observed variability. In fact the size associated with one millisecond is $`R3\times 10^7`$cm, which is much too small to be optically thin. To match the observed timescales with the size at which the fireball becomes transparent ($`R_t10^{13}`$ cm) we need a Doppler contraction of time given approximately by $`ct_{var}R_t(1\beta )`$, yielding $`\mathrm{\Gamma }400`$.

### 5.1 The internal/external shock scenario

If the central engine does not produce a single pulse, but works intermittently, it can produce many shells (i.e. many fireballs) with slightly different Lorentz factors. Late but faster shells can catch up early slower ones, producing shocks which give rise to the observed burst emission. In the meantime, all shells interact with the interstellar medium, and at some point the amount of swept up matter is large enough to decelerate the fireball and produce other radiation which can be identified with the afterglow emission observed at all frequencies.

This is currently the most accepted picture for the burst and afterglow emission, and it is called the internal/external shock scenario (Rees & Mészáros 1992; Rees & Mészáros 1994; Sari & Piran 1997). According to this scenario, the burst emission is due to collisions of pairs of relativistic shells (internal shocks), while the afterglow is generated by the collisionless shocks produced by shells interacting with the interstellar medium (external shocks). All the radiation we see is believed to come from the transformation of ordered kinetic energy of the fireball into random energy. For internal shocks, this must happen at some distance from the explosion site, to allow the shells to be transparent to the produced radiation ($`R_t10^{13}`$ cm). For external shocks, the deceleration radius, where the fireball starts to emit the afterglow, depends on the density of the interstellar medium (and by the possible presence of a stellar wind), by the energy of the fireball and its bulk Lorentz factor. For densities of the order of 1–10 proton/cm3, we get $`R10^{16}`$ cm as a typical value for the start of the afterglow. Note that this would correspond to observe the initial afterglow $`150R_{16}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^2`$ seconds after the trigger.

### 5.2 Efficiency

In the internal shock scenario we have collisions of pairs of shells which are both relativistic, with bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. After the collision, the merged shell is still relativistic, with a bulk Lorentz factor which is between $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$. The energy which is liberated in the process is therefore a small fraction of the initial one, unless the ratio $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_1/\mathrm{\Gamma }_2`$ is huge (Beloborodov 2000, Kobayashi & Sari 2001). But if the Lorentz factor of the shells is distributed in a large interval, then a very fast shell would move in the photon field created by the previous collisions, would scatter these ambient photons and would produce very high energy $`\gamma `$–rays by the inverse Compton process. This Compton drag effect can be relevant: it can in fact decelerate the fast shells and then it would narrow the range of the bulk Lorentz factors of the shells undergoing internal shocks, thus lowering their efficiency (Lazzati, Ghisellini & Celotti 1999).

### 5.3 Radiation mechanisms

It is reasonable to assume that internal and external shocks can amplify seed magnetic fields and accelerate electrons to relativistic random energies. These are the basic ingredients for the synchrotron process, which is therefore a strong candidate for the origin of the observed radiation of both the prompt and the afterglow emission. There is indeed strong evidence that this is the main process operating during the afterglow: the power law decay of the flux with time, the observed power law energy spectra and the recently detected linear optical polarization in GRB 990510 (Covino et al. 1999; Wijers et al. 1999) and GRB 990712 (Rol et al. 2000). The synchrotron nature of the prompt emission is instead controversial, and alternatives have been proposed, such as quasi–thermal Comptonization (Liang 1997, Ghisellini & Celotti 1999a), Compton drag (Lazzati et al. 2000), relativistic inverse Compton emission (Panaitescu & Meszaros 2000) and “jitter” radiation (i.e. electrons emitting by following magnetic field lines highly tangled on small scales; Medvedev 2000).

## 6 Spheres versus jets

A hot issue in the GRB field is the possible collimation of their emitting plasma, leading to anisotropic emission able to relax the power requirements, at the expense of an increased burst event rate. In this respect polarization studies could be crucial, since there can be a link between the deceleration of a collimated fireball, the time behavior of the polarized flux and its position angle, and the light curve of the total flux.

### 6.1 Arguments in favor of collimation

Breaks in the light curves — Assume that the burst is collimated within a cone of semiaperture $`\theta `$. Assume also that, initially, the bulk Lorentz factor of the fireball is such that $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }<\theta `$. In this case, because of relativistic aberration, the observer (which is within the cone defined by $`\theta `$) will receive light only from a section of the emitting surface, of aperture $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and radius $`R/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, where $`R`$ is the distance from the apex of the cone. This is illustrated in Fig. 12. Initially, this area increases both because $`R`$ increases with time and because $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ decreases. This leads to the estimate of how the received flux varies in time. If the fireball is spherical, this will continue as long as the motion is relativistic. But if the fireball is collimated, there is a time when $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ becomes comparable to $`\theta `$. After this time the observed area will increase only because $`R`$ increases while the decrease in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ will not “enlarge” the available surface (we ignore here the complications due to side expansion, which does not change qualitatively the argument). Since the rate of increase of the observed emitting area changes, then there will be a change in the slope of the light curve. An achromatic break is predicted. The best example observed so far of such a case is the afterglow of GRB 990510, shown in Fig. 13.

Clustering of fireball energies — Taking advantage of the relation between the time of the break in the light curve and the degree of collimation (strong collimation should produce an earlier break than mild collimation), Frail et al. (2001) calculated the “jet angle” for a small sample of bursts of known redshifts. This immediately yields the “true” energy dissipated during the prompt emission. The remarkable results of Frail et al. (2001) is that despite the “isotropic” energy values differ by some orders of magnitude, the corrected values are all very similar and cluster around a value of a few times $`10^{50}`$ erg, as shown in Fig. 14. These values are however obtained assuming a density of the decelerating interstellar medium of $`n=0.1`$ cm-3, a particularly small value, but in agreement with fits to the afterglow spectral energy distribution (from radio to X–rays, see, e.g. Panaitescu & Kumar 2001). Assuming a larger density makes the jet angle and the “true” energy to increase (even if they remain clustered: Fig. 14 shows how the distribution of energy shifts assuming $`n=10^4`$ cm-3).

Polarized afterglows — To produce polarized light some asymmetry is required. If the radiation is due to the synchrotron process, the magnetic field cannot be completely tangled, but must have some degree of order within the emitting available (i.e. within the $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ angle) volume. Even in a spherical source there can be distinct regions of ordered magnetic fields producing a net polarized flux (Gruzinov & Waxman 1999), but a perhaps more natural asymmetry corresponds to a jet observed off axis (note that the probability of observing a jet exactly on axis is vanishingly small). Ghisellini & Lazzati (1999) and Sari (1999) have considered a jet geometry where the initially tangled magnetic field is “squeezed” (by compression) in one direction. It appears completely random for face–on observes (with respect to the direction of compression), but highly ordered to edge–on observers (a similar model was proposed by Laing 1980 for polarized, radio–loud Active Galactic Nuclei). Photons emitted in the plane of the slab can then be highly polarized. If the slab moves with Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, those photons emitted in the slab plane (perpendicularly to the direction of motion) are aberrated in the observer frame, and make an angle $`\theta =1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ with respect to the slab velocity. Observers looking at the moving slab at this angle will detect a large degree of optical polarization. In particular there will be 2 maxima in the light curve of the polarized light (which become 3 considering side expansion), with a switch of 90 degrees in the polarization angle between the two maxima.

Should these predictions be confirmed, we would have a very powerful tool to know the degree of collimation of the fireball, and hence the true total emitted power.

### 6.2 Arguments against strong collimation: Iron lines

The presence of (possibly broad) iron lines in the X–ray afterglow of some bursts imply that a dense, possibly iron–rich material must be present in the vicinity of the burst site. The large densities involved suggest that the line emission process is fast photoionization and recombination by an optically thick slab, reprocessing the impinging ionizing continuum in its $`\tau 1`$ layer (where $`\tau `$ is the relevant optical depth). The observed line flux would then be proportional to the projected emitting area, which becomes very small if the burst and afterglow fluxes are collimated in a cone as narrow as envisaged, e.g. by Frail et al. (2001).

Models proposed so far for the iron line origin can be broadly divided into two categories: “internal” (Meszaros & Rees 2001) and “external” (Lazzati, Campana & Ghisellini 1999; Vietri et al. 2001) models. The latter ones assume that a supernova explodes some time before the burst and forms a dense and iron rich remnant at $`10^{15}`$$`10^{16}`$ cm from the burst. This material is illuminated by the burst and afterglow X–ray flux, which can also transfer some linear momentum to the walls of the funnels excavated inside the remnant (see Fig. 15) which is therefore accelerated to velocities of $`10^4`$ km s-1. This can help explaining a paradox: in GRB 991216 the line is broad, implying velocities of 15,000 km s-1 (Piro et al. 2000). Since we can estimate (Eq. 1) the size of the emitting material, we can also estimate the time elapsed from the supernova explosion, and this turns out to be much too short for the decay of Cobalt and Nickel into iron (Vietri et al. 2001).

In the “internal” models the reprocessing material is identified with the funnel walls or the envelopes of the hypernova thought to be the progenitor of the burst. In such a scenario the super/hyper-nova explodes at the same time of the burst. In this case the appropriate density can be obviously much greater then in the “external” model, enhancing the recombination rate and therefore requiring less iron. On the other hand one needs a continuous illuminator lasting for at least one day after the burst explosion, generating $`10^{47}`$ erg s-1 to sufficiently photoionize the iron atoms. Three possibilities have been proposed: 1) instead of a black hole, the compact object resulting from the burst explosion is a magnetar, with a fastly decaying magnetic field; 2) accretion by fall–back material onto the black hole; 3) side–deposition at the top of the funnel of $`10^{51}`$ erg producing a continuous X–ray radiation illuminating filaments or clumpy material which generates the line.

We can see that in both class of models there must be a sizeable fraction of energy not well collimated (e.g. the relevant $`\theta `$ must be relatively large).

There is finally a very serious energy budget problem: if the “true” energy derived by Frail et al. (2001) is to be taken seriously, we have a few times $`10^{50}`$ erg available in $`\gamma `$–rays, and a factor $`20`$ less (i.e. $`E_{ioniz}10^{49}`$ erg) in ionizing X–ray photons. The observed lines have $`L_{Fe}10^{44}`$ erg s-1. If they last for $`10^5`$ seconds we have $`E_{Fe}E_{ioniz}`$: that is, a completely unreasonable conversion efficiency of 100 per cent.

## 7 The primary energy source

The greatest unknown in GRB science is what is the progenitor. In recent years the attention of the community polarized onto three proposals: 1) the merging of two compact objects, such as two neutron stars forming a black hole surrounded by some accreting neutron–dense torus (Paczynski 1986; Goodman 1986; Eichler et al. 1989; Meszaros & Rees 1997); 2) the core collapse of a very massive star (hypernova, Woosley 1993; Paczynski 1998; Fryer, Woosley & Hartmann 1999); 3) the formation of a black hole from a rapidly spinning but decelerating neutron star left over by a previous explosion of a “quasi–normal” supernova (supranova, Vietri & Stella 1998).

Irrespective of the differences among these three proposals, the central engine could be very similar, being composed by the same ingredients: a fast spinning black hole surrounded by a very dense (neutron–dense) torus. In this case the available sources of energies, apart from gravitational radiation, are in the form of neutrinos, accretion of the torus material onto the black hole, and rotation of both the torus and the hole.

The black hole is more massive than the disk: it should have at least 2 solar masses, and probably more in the collapsar scenario, versus 0.1–0.2 solar masses in the torus. Therefore, if the hole is fastly spinning, most of the energy is in its rotation. One promising way to extract this energy is the Blandford & Znajek (1977) process, in which the rotational energy of a Kerr black hole can be extracted by a magnetic field surrounding the hole providing a source of power:

$$L_{\mathrm{BZ}}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{51}\left(\frac{a}{m}\right)^2\left(\frac{M_{\mathrm{BH}}}{10M_{}}\right)^2\left(\frac{B}{10^{14}\mathrm{G}}\right)^2\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\left(\frac{a}{m}\right)^2(3R_s)^2U_Bc$$
(2)
where $`(a/m)`$ is the specific black hole angular momentum ($`1`$ for maximally rotating black holes), $`R_s`$ is the Schwarzchild radius and $`U_B=B^2/(8\pi )`$. For a maximally rotating black hole of 10 solar masses the extractable rotational energy is $`0.29\times 10M_{}c^25\times 10^{54}`$ erg: even if the bursts are not collimated in a narrow cone, there is (theoretically) plenty of energy stored in the black hole spin.

## 8 Open issues and problems

In the very recent past the GRB field witnessed extraordinary successes both in the theory and in the observations, and the fireball–internal/external shock scenario is becoming a paradigm. All this is obviously great, since a framework is always useful to systemize ideas, observations, and maybe to sharpen our criticisms. On the other hand a paradigm helps lazy people to do useful but “ordinary” work without exploring alternatives. Therefore it can be useful to point out some areas where the proposed solutions are still not completely convincing (even if this will be a biased list, based on my own prejudices).

Efficiency and energetics of internal shocks — Kumar (1999); Lazzati, Ghisellini & Celotti (1999); Spada, Panaitescu & Meszaros (2000) and Panaitescu & Kumar (2001) pointed out that internal shocks are not the most efficient way to transform the bulk kinetic energy of the fireball(s) into radiation. With a Lorentz factor contrast of a few between the colliding shells we have efficiencies of the order of 1 per cent. This implies that: 1) the total fireball energy is much more than what we estimate from the $`\gamma `$–ray radiation, and 2) that the afterglow, powered by the much more efficient external shocks, should radiate more energy than the burst. This is not not what we observe.

The peak energy of the prompt emission — The peaks (in $`EF_E`$) of the prompt emission spectra ($`E_{peak}`$) are remarkably narrowly distributed, clustering around a few hundreds keV. This despite the possible spread of the Lorentz factor values and also the different redshifts. The value of $`E_{peak}`$ is tantalizingly close to $`m_ec^2`$, possibly suggesting the importance of Compton down–scattering and/or photon–photon processes for the prompt emission (Ghisellini & Celotti 1999b; Thompson & Madau 2000; Brainerd 1994).

Radiation mechanism of the prompt emission — In the internal shock scenario, the prompt emission is thought to be synchrotron emission by electrons with a low energy cutoff. This should yield spectra with a low energy tail $`F(E)E^{1/3}`$ (equivalent to $`N(E)E^{2/3}`$), in rough agreement with the distribution of the low energy spectral index $`\alpha `$ (as shown in Fig. 6). But in the very same scenario, the magnetic field is large enough to make electrons radiatively cool on a timescale much shorter than a milliseconds (and of course much shorter than any integration time to get a spectrum). Furthermore, we know that the electrons must cool fast, since the light curves do vary on the millisecond timescales. The synchrotron spectrum of a cooling electron is $`F(E)E^{1/2}`$ (equivalent to $`N(E)E^{3/2}`$) and this slope is much too softer than observed (Ghisellini, Celotti & Lazzati 2000).

What causes the intermittent release of energy — The term “fireball” may lead to think of a great and single explosion. But what we need in GRBs is an intermittent source of energy (i.e. thousands of fireballs). Consider that the Schwarzchild radius light crossing timescale for a 10 solar mass black hole is $`10^4`$ s, while we see bursts lasting for more than 100 seconds. To make a comparison, think of a $`10^9M_{}`$ AGN black hole producing a very energetic phenomenon lasting for 300 years. Indeed, there is time for quasi–stationary processes. Even if the Blandford–Znajek process can indeed work for “all” this time (and for hundreds million years in radio–loud AGNs), it is not clear what can cause the on–off states as witnessed by the erratic light curves.

What fixes the relatively small amount of mass in the fireball — We are convinced that the bulk Lorentz factors are of the order of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }100`$. This must correspond to a moving mass of the order of $`10^6`$$`10^4`$ solar masses (depending on the “true” fireball energy). For a fixed value of the fireball energy per unit solid angle, the above amount of mass cannot be much less, since otherwise the fireball becomes transparent when pairs annihilate, letting internal radiation escape freely with a blackbody spectrum and leaving no energy for the afterglow. It cannot be much more than that, since otherwise the bulk Lorentz factor becomes too small to account for the observed variability. Therefore we must explain what causes the “right” amount of barion contamination.

Density of the circumburst material — The three leading models mentioned in Section 7 envisage very different densities of the circumburst material. In fact in the collapsar model the GRB is associated with a newly formed star, which should live in a star forming region of densities of about $`10^{4\pm 1}`$ cm-3, corresponding, for a 1 pc region, to Hydrogen column densities of $`N_H3\times 10^{22\pm 1}`$ cm-2. Besides that, the star itself should be surrounded by the circumburst material of its stellar wind. Studies of winds in massive stars give outflows of $`10^5`$$`10^4`$ $`M_{}`$ yr-1, with a velocity of $`10^2`$$`10^3`$ km s-1. Supranovae should be located in dense star forming region as well, but during the delay between the supernova and the burst explosion, the newly born neutron star can “clean” the environment through the super–Eddington luminosity produced by the neutron star before the GRB event (Vietri & Stella 1998). Finally, NS–NS mergings should instead happen far away from their original birth place, and so be characterized by surrounding densities of the order of 0.1–1 cm-3.

Therefore it seems odd that there is some consensus regarding collapsars as the progenitor for long bursts, and at the same time almost all hints we currently have indicate a small value for the density, i.e. 0.1–10 cm-3. These include fits of the afterglow spectra (see e.g. Panaitescu & Kumar 2001) and X–ray absorption rarely exceeding $`N_H=10^{21}`$ cm-2 (Owens et al. 1998; Galama & Wijers 2001; Stratta et al., in prep.). This issue could greatly benefit from early low energy X–ray observations, revealing a time dependent $`N_H`$ column, since the absorbing material, being neutral at first, can become completely ionized after the passage of the burst photons if sufficiently close to the GRB site (Lazzati & Perna 2001).

“Failed optical afterglows” — More than half of the bursts with detected X–ray afterglows were not detected in the optical. This is not due to adverse observing conditions (i.e. too short exposures or too late observations), as shown by Fig. 17 (see Lazzati, Covino & Ghisellini 2002). Are they optically reddened? If the dust responsible for absorption is too close to the GRB site (within a few parsec) it should sublimate (Fruchter, Krolik & Rhoads 2001), while if it is far away (as in a ultra–luminous IR galaxy, Ramirez–Ruiz, Trentham & Blain 2001) we should see some absorption in X–rays. The other alternatives are very high redshift bursts ($`z>5`$, so that the Ly–$`\alpha `$ clouds absorb all of the optical flux), or an intrinsic optical weakness, despite of a normal behavior in X–rays.

## 9 The future

It is my impression that the field of GRB is now living the same excitement felt soon after the discovery that quasars were at cosmological distances. If true, then the GRB field should be in its infancy, even though the next four or five years could bring it to adultness. This is because we expect a huge impetus from new planned mission and projects, and because the field has already attracted hundreds of researches.

### 9.1 Issues

Short bursts — Are short bursts really a separate class of bursts, with a different progenitor? We need accurate localization of short bursts and of course to find their redshifts. BeppoSAX only triggered on long bursts, so our hope relies on HETE II and/or the next missions.

Cosmology — If bursts are really associated with massive stars, then they should trace the high mass end of the initial mass function at all redshifts. There is the exciting possibility for a small but important fraction of bursts to be associated to the so called Pop III stars, thought to be responsible of the first metal enrichment of the primordial gas and possibly for its re–ionization (see e.g. the review by Loeb & Barkana 2001).

### 9.2 Projects

Swift — The most powerful tool we will have to study GRB is the dedicated satellite called Swift (http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/). It will host three instruments: a hard X–ray \[10–150 keV\] coded mask with a wide field of view and localization accuracy of a few arcminutes, a low and medium X–ray telescope \[0.1–10 keV\] with arcsecond localization performances, and an optical monitor (30 cm of diameter) with optical and UV filters and low dispersion grisms. Swift is planned to observe 250–300 burst per year, to distribute their coordinates immediately, to slew to target in a few tens of seconds, and start to observe with the X–ray mirrors and the optical monitor while the prompt emission can still be on. The launch is foreseen in 2003. All data will be public.

REM: an infrared robotic telescopes — On ground, even before Swift, several groups are planning to organize the necessary follow–up observations of GRBs, to find their redshift and also to observe at other wavelengths, not covered by the optical monitor onboard Swift. This will in fact be blind in the infrared, where dust and/or Ly–$`\alpha `$ clouds absorption have small or no effect. It is therefore crucial to have a completely robotic, fast slewing infrared telescope, such as REM (Rapid Eye Mount, see the web page at:
http://golem.merate.mi.astro.it/projects/rem/).
This will also be equipped with a dichroic beam splitter, and it will be able to perform simultaneous IR and optical spectrophotometric observations. If the afterglow of a burst is seen in the IR but not in the optical, we will have a very good high redshift candidate object, and we will have the opportunity to alert much larger telescopes (REM has a 60 cm diameter mirror) to perform high resolution infrared spectroscopy at potentially any redshift. There is no other way to acheive this result.

## Acknowledgments

I thank Annalisa Celotti and Davide Lazzati for years of fruitful collaboration and them again, together with Sergio Campana, Stefano Covino, and Daniele Malesani for their help in improving this manuscript.

## References


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text:
# The Intriguing Plerionic Supernova Remnant: G21.5-0.9

## 1. Introduction

G21.5$``$0.9 has a flat radio spectral index, and is highly polarized (Green 2000). It is a 1.3 diameter plerion ($``$ 1.9 pc at a distance of 5.0 kpc) in the radio, infrared, and in X-rays (prior to Chandra; Becker and Szymkowiak 1981). Early Chandra observations (Slane et al. 2000) revealed a low-surface brightness extended component interpreted as the missing SNR shell. G21.5$``$0.9 shares similar properties to 3C 58 and CTB 87, plerions having a spectral break at low frequencies and classified as plerions of the second kind (Woltjer et al. 1997). Bock, Wright, & Dickel (2001) have however recently questioned the spectral break in G21.5$``$0.9. In this paper, we highlight the Chandra observations. More details about the analysis (including ROSAT and ASCA observations) and interpretation of our results can be found in Safi-Harb et al. (2001).

## 2. Imaging

In Fig. 1, we show the Chandra images of G21.5$``$0.9 in the soft and hard energy bands. With ROSAT and previous radio observations, only the bright 40′′ radius core is detected. Chandra allowed the discovery of a faint extended component (Fig. 1, left) making the SNR at least twice as big as previously thought. In Fig. 2, the hardness ratio map (2.4–10 keV over 0.5–2.4 keV) shows that the central core is harder than the extended component (in agreement with our spectral analysis below). Moreover, the extended component is harder in the northern quadrant, with brighter knots and filamentary structures.

## 3. Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy:

We perform a spatially resolved spectroscopy of the plerion using a 72 ksec exposure with $`\mathrm{𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎}`$ ACIS S3. The spectrum of the inner core is extracted from a circle of radius $`R`$=40′′ (with rings of 5” thickness). For the extended component, we extract a spectrum from 50′′–150′′. All spectra are best described by a power law with the photon index, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, steepening away from the bright center from 1.5 to 2.7 ($`N_H`$=2.2$`\times `$1022 cm-2). We rule out thermal models for the extended component. Collisional equilibrium ionization (CEI) models, such as $`\mathrm{𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑐}`$, yield poor fits ($`\chi _\nu ^2`$$``$1.15). Non-equilibrium ionization (NEI) models, such as $`\mathrm{𝑃𝐻𝑆𝑂𝐶𝐾}`$, are unlikely since they yield a very low ionization timescale, and an interstellar column density, $`N_H`$, much lower than that derived for the SNR (Table 1). Furthermore, we find no evidence of line emission from the filaments and knots. Their spectra are well fitted with a power law model.

## 4. The putative pulsar

The morphology and spectrum of the inner core indicate the presence of a pulsar powering G21.5$``$0.9. We did not find pulsations using the ASCA and Chandra archival observations. Using 5 HRC observations totaling to 76 ksec, we put an upper limit on the pulsed fraction of 16%. We also measure an unabsorbed flux of 2.4$`\times `$10-12 erg cm-2 s-1 from the point source. The failure to detect pulsations could be due to a beaming effect. Using various $`L_X`$$`\dot{E}`$ empirical relationships for pulsar-powered plerions, we find that a plausible estimate of the spin down energy loss, $`\dot{E}`$, is $`\dot{E}_{37}\dot{E}/(10^{37}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1)3`$–6. In the Kennel and Coroniti (1984) model, the pulsar wind gets shocked at a radius, $`R_s`$, given by equating the pressure of the pulsar’s wind with the pressure in the nebula. Beyond this radius, a non-relativistic flow transports the plasma from the shock region to the edge of the nebula. The size of the nebula, $`R_n`$ is related to the shock radius, $`R_s`$ as: $`R_n`$/$`R_s`$ $``$ 1/$`\sqrt{\sigma }`$; where $`\sigma `$ is the so-called pulsar wind magnetization parameter defined as the ratio of the Poynting flux to the particles flux . Using the power law fit to the inner 40′′ radius core, we estimate a shock radius $`R_s`$ $``$ 0.08–0.11 pc ($``$ 3′′–5′′ at 5 kpc). The pulsar wind parameter $`\sigma `$ is $``$ (4–11) $`\times `$ 10-4, indicating a particle dominated wind. In Table 3, we summarize the inferred parameters of the putative pulsar in G21.5$``$0.9, in comparison with the Crab and 3C 58 pulsars.

## 5. Conclusions and future work

The extended component is non-thermal–in agreement with XMM-Newton observations (Warwick et al. 2001). The softening of the spectral index away from the core could be explained by synchrotron losses. Unlike other plerions, G21.5$``$0.9 is the only candidate whose X-ray size is bigger than its radio size. Deep radio observations (recently performed with the VLA) will allow us to search for the radio counterpart of the extended X-ray component and the missing SNR shell. Since G21.5$``$0.9 is bright and heavily absorbed, a significant fraction of its flux would be scattered by dust (R. Smith, private communication). Future work should include modeling a dust scattering X-ray halo.

## References

Becker, R.H. & Szymkowiak, A.E. 1981, ApJ, 248, 23

Bock, D., Wright, M., & Dickel, J. 2001, ApJ, 561, L203

Green, D. A. 2000, http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/surveys/snrs/

Kennel, C. F. & Coroniti, F. V. 1984, ApJ, 283, 694

Safi-Harb, S. et al. 2001, ApJ, 561, 308

Slane, P. et al. 2000, ApJ, 533, L29

Warwick, R. S. et al. 2001, A&A, 365, 248

Woltjer, L. et al. 1997, A&A, 325, 295


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# Correlation functions for a Bose-Einstein condensate in the Bogoliubov approximation.

## I Introduction

The observations of atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in dilute atomic gases have triggered a great theoretical interest for this particular state of matter. The Bose-Einstein condensate is a good opportunity to apply theoretically and verify experimentally the concepts of the quantum mechanics. In fact several interesting theoretical features, as macroscopic quantum tunneling and macroscopic quantum coherence, could be observed in BEC’s in the near future. A condensate is characterized by a macroscopic occupation of a single particle state and by a large spatial correlation for the atomic spatial distribution. The long range spatial order has been studied in a series of theoretical papers. On the experimental side interference experiments involving sodium and rubidium condensates  have demonstrated the presence of long-range order. The excellent agreement between the experimental results and theoretical analyses  has confirmed the presence of that long range order. More recent experiments have explored some features of second order and third-order atomic coherences . In ref. the relationship between the second order coherence and the interaction energy has been studied, infering that release energy measurements are consistent with an unitary value for the second order coherence of a pure condensate. Burt et al. have measured the three-body rubidium recombination rate of a condensate and of a cold noncondensate. They derive that the ratio of the third order coherences in those systems is $`7.4\pm 2.6`$, in good agreement with the predicted value of 6.

Two standard tools to study the condensate are the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and the Bogoliubov approximation. Because in this approximation the hamiltonian is quadratic in the field, each property of the system is derivable by the mean field $`\psi (\stackrel{}{x})`$ and the first order correlation function $`G^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$, that is related to the first order coherence properties of a condensate. The mean field is described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. An extensive theoretical study of coherence properties of BEC has been performed by M. Naraschewski and R. J. Glauber. To calculate the correlation functions they use the local density approximation, that is suitable for large enough systems. Furthermore they assume that the condensate kinetic energy is much smaller than the interaction energy. This condition is not fullfilled in a region close to the surface of the condensate, where the laplacian of the wave function, and therefore the kinetic energy, is not small. A standard way to calculate the correlation functions is to solve an eigenvector problem. For instance this method was used in for a spherically symmetric harmonic-oscillator trap to evaluate the number of noncondensate atoms. In the anisotropic tridimensional case it is essential to choose a suitable set of functions to reduce the dimension of the matrix to be diagonalized. Often it is not easy to find this set and the matrix becomes very large for the numerical calculations, for example in the case of a double well trap.

Purpose of the present work is to find also for $`G^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ a differential equation, similar to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for $`\psi (\stackrel{}{x})`$, in order to provide the dependence of the first order correlation on the physical parameters. This equation suggests an alternative method to evaluate the correlation function. We introduce a differential equation for the $`2\times 2`$ matrix $`F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})=\stackrel{}{x}|F|\stackrel{}{y}`$, with $`\stackrel{}{x}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ positions in the phase space. We find that the knowledge of $`F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ allows us to evaluate the correlation functions. The complete calculation of $`G^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ is not much more efficient than the eigenvector evaluation. However our equation for $`F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ allows to obtain easily $`G^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ for a fixed $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ or integrating it with a weight function $`P(\stackrel{}{y})`$. Our method is very useful if a complete information is not required. Moreover it is suitable to test numerically the approximations introduced with other methods of solutions. At first we will consider the case of zero temperature, then we generalize our equation to the case of non zero temperature .

## II Correlation function

In the Bogoliubov approximation the quantum boson field $`\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ is written in the following way

$$\widehat{\psi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\psi (\stackrel{}{x})+\underset{\lambda =1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}[u_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda +v_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda ^{}]$$
(1)
where $`\psi `$ is determined by the time-independent Gross-Pitaevskii equation

$$\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2\psi +g|\psi |^2\psi =\mu \psi .$$
(2)
and $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential. In Eq. (1) $`\widehat{a}_\lambda `$ and $`\widehat{a}_\lambda ^{}`$ are annihilation and creation operators and $`(u_\lambda ,v_\lambda )`$ are the solutions of the following eigenvector problem

$`_ϵu_\lambda +g\psi ^2v_\lambda =E_\lambda u_\lambda `$ (3)
$`_ϵv_\lambda +g(\psi ^{})^2u_\lambda =E_\lambda v_\lambda `$ (4)
with $`_ϵ=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m}^2+2g|\psi |^2+V\mu +ϵ`$. $`ϵ`$ is a positive infinitesimal number that we introduce to eliminate some divergences to be met with. To simplify the notation we do not indicate the dependence of the eigenvectors and the eigenvalues on $`ϵ`$. The zero energy eigenvector ($`\lambda =0`$) is excluded in summation of Eq. (1)(as applied for instance in ref. ).

$`(u_\lambda ,v_\lambda )`$ satisfy the orthonormality and completeness relations

$$[u_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})u_\lambda ^{}^{}(\stackrel{}{x})v_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})v_\lambda ^{}^{}(\stackrel{}{x})]d^3x=\delta _{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}},\lambda ,\lambda ^{}0$$
(5)
$$\underset{\lambda =0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}[u_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})u_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{y})v_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})v_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{y})]=\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y})$$
(6)
We point out that for $`ϵ=0`$ $`(u_0=\psi ,v_0=\psi ^{})`$ is the energy eigenvector with eigenvalue $`E_0=0`$. $`(u_0,v_0)`$ is not normalizable, because $`[|u_0|^2|v_0|^2]d^3x=[|\psi |^2|\psi |^2]d^3x=0`$.

The ground state is defined by the Eqs. $`\widehat{a}_\lambda |0>=0`$, $`\lambda 1`$. Explicitely using Eq. (1) we find that the first order correlation function for temperature $`T=0`$ is given by

$$<\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\psi (\stackrel{}{y})>=\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\psi (\stackrel{}{y})+\underset{ϵ0^+}{lim}\underset{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}<0|[u_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda ^{}+v_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda ][u_\lambda (\stackrel{}{y})\widehat{a}_\lambda +v_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{y})\widehat{a}_\lambda ^{}]|0>$$

$$=\psi ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\psi (\stackrel{}{y})+C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})$$
(7)
With

$$C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})=\underset{ϵ0^+}{lim}\underset{\lambda =1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}v_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})v_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{y}).$$
(8)
Eq. (1) cannot be considered a operator identity and, to be more rigorous, we should have followed the Gardiner’s approach . However the resulting Eqs. (7,8) are not changed. The set of Eqs. (3,4,7,8) defines completely our problem.

Our first purpose is to find for $`C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ a compact equation, where no eigenvector set appears and the dependence on the physical parameters is more evident. We introduce the annihilation operator field

$$\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{\lambda =0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[u_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda +v_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{a}_\lambda ^{}\right],$$
(9)
where the summation is performed over all the eigenvectors. $`\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ satisfies the usual commutation relations

$$[\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x}),\widehat{\varphi }^{}(\stackrel{}{y})]=\delta (\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{y})$$
(10)
We then consider the state $`|\stackrel{~}{0}>`$ defined by the equations $`a_\lambda |\stackrel{~}{0}>=0`$, $`\lambda 0`$. It is evident that the Wigner function for $`|\stackrel{~}{0}>`$ is

$$W(\{a_\eta \},\{a_\eta ^{}\})e^{2_{\lambda =0}^{\mathrm{}}a_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda }$$
(11)
By the orthonormality relations (5) the Wigner function becomes

$$W(\{a_\eta \},\{a_\eta ^{}\})e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}=0}^{\mathrm{}}(u_\lambda ^{}u_\lambda ^{}v_\lambda ^{}v_\lambda ^{})a_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda ^{}}}$$

$$=e^{{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}=0}^{\mathrm{}}\left[(u_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda ^{}+v_\lambda a_\lambda )(u_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda ^{}v_\lambda ^{}^{}a_\lambda ^{}^{})+(u_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda ^{}v_\lambda a_\lambda )(u_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda ^{}+v_\lambda ^{}^{}a_\lambda ^{}^{})\right]}}$$
(12)
It is useful to write $`a_\lambda `$ as a two component vector and $`u_\lambda `$, $`v_\lambda `$ as $`2\times 2`$ matrices. We will use the notations

$$\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda =\left(\begin{array}{c}Re[a_\lambda ]\\ Im[a_\lambda ]\end{array}\right)$$

$$𝐮_\lambda =\left(\begin{array}{cc}Re[u_\lambda ]& Im[u_\lambda ]\\ Im[u_\lambda ]& Re[u_\lambda ]\end{array}\right),𝐯_\lambda =\left(\begin{array}{cc}Re[v_\lambda ]& Im[v_\lambda ]\\ Im[v_\lambda ]& Re[v_\lambda ]\end{array}\right)$$

$`\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}=\widehat{\sigma }_3\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ,𝐮^{}=\widehat{\sigma }_3𝐮_\lambda ,𝐯_\lambda ^{}=\widehat{\sigma }_3𝐯_\lambda `$ (13)
where $`\widehat{\sigma }_3`$ is the Pauli matrix with the diagonal elements $`1`$ and $`1`$. With this vector and matrix notations Eq. (12) becomes

$$W(\{\stackrel{}{a}_\eta \})e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}=0}^{\mathrm{}}(\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}𝐮_\lambda ^{}+\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}𝐯_\lambda ^{})(𝐮_\lambda ^{}\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}𝐯_\lambda ^{}^{}\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}^{})}}$$
(14)
Eqs. (3,4) allow us to find that

$`H_1(𝐮\stackrel{}{a}+𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})=E_\lambda (𝐮\stackrel{}{a}𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})`$ (15)
$`H_2(𝐮\stackrel{}{a}𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})=E_\lambda (𝐮\stackrel{}{a}+𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})`$ (16)
where $`H_1=_ϵ+g\mathrm{\Psi }^2\widehat{\sigma }_3`$, $`H_2=_ϵg\mathrm{\Psi }^2\widehat{\sigma }_3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a $`2\times 2`$ matrix constructed by $`\psi `$ as the $`𝐮`$ and $`𝐯`$ matrices. ¿From these equations we deduce

$$(H_1H_2)^{1/2}(𝐮\stackrel{}{a}𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})=E_\lambda (𝐮\stackrel{}{a}𝐯^{}\stackrel{}{a}^{})$$
(17)
and from Eqs. (15,17)

$$W(\{\stackrel{}{a}_\eta \})e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x_{\lambda ,\lambda ^{}=0}^{\mathrm{}}(\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}𝐮_\lambda ^{}+\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}𝐯_\lambda ^{})(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1(𝐮_\lambda ^{}\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}+𝐯_\lambda ^{}^{}\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}^{})}}.$$
(18)
Note that if we did not use our real notation we had to introduce antilinear operators.

We now perform the transformation

$$\stackrel{}{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{\lambda =0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[𝐮_\lambda (\stackrel{}{x})\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda +𝐯_\lambda ^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\stackrel{}{a}_\lambda ^{}\right]$$
(19)
to obtain the $`W`$ as a function of the field $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ that corresponds to the quantum field $`\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})`$ of Eq. (9)

$$W(\{\stackrel{}{\varphi }\})e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1\stackrel{}{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})}}$$
(20)
It is evident that $`(H_1H_2)H_1=H_1(H_2H_1)`$. Therefore $`M=(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1=H_1(H_2H_1)^{1/2}=M^{}`$ , i.e. $`M`$ is a symmetric operator. More in general

$$f(H_1H_2)H_1=H_1f(H_2H_1)$$
(21)
It is then easy to demonstrate that the mean weighted with the Wigner function is given by

$$<\varphi _i(\stackrel{}{x})\varphi _j(\stackrel{}{y})>_W=\frac{1}{4}M_{(\stackrel{}{x},i),(\stackrel{}{y},j)}^1\frac{1}{4}\left[H_1^1(H_1H_2)^{1/2}\right]_{(\stackrel{}{x},i),(\stackrel{}{y},j)}=\frac{1}{4}\stackrel{}{x},i|H_1^1(H_1H_2)^{1/2}|\stackrel{}{y},j.$$
(22)
In fact, if $`\widehat{T}_{k,l}`$ is a symmetric matrix then exists a orthogonal transformation $`z_k=_l\widehat{O}_{k,l}Z_l`$ that diagonalizes $`\widehat{T}`$. Therefore

$$z_iz_je^{2_{k,l}\widehat{T}_{k,l}z_kz_l}𝑑\stackrel{}{z}=\underset{i^{},j^{}}{}\widehat{O}_{i,i^{}}\widehat{O}_{j,j^{}}Z_i^{}Z_j^{}e^{2_k\widehat{T}_{k,k}^{}Z_kZ_k}𝑑\stackrel{}{Z}$$

$$=1/4\underset{i^{},j^{}}{}O_{i,i^{}}O_{j,j^{}}(\widehat{T}^1)_{i^{},j^{}}=1/4(\widehat{T}^1)_{i,j}$$
(23)
The expectation value of an operator $`F(\widehat{\varphi },\widehat{\varphi }^{})`$, symmetrically ordered, is given by the mean of the classical function $`F(\varphi ,\varphi ^{})`$ weighed with the Wigner function, therefore

$$1/2<0|\widehat{\varphi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{y})+h.c|0>=<(\varphi _1(\stackrel{}{x})i\varphi _2(\stackrel{}{x}))(\varphi _1(\stackrel{}{y})+i\varphi _2(\stackrel{}{y}))>_W$$
(24)
Combining Eq. (10,22,24) we find that

$$\stackrel{~}{C}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})<0|\widehat{\varphi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})\widehat{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{y})|0>=F_{(\stackrel{}{x},1),(\stackrel{}{y},1)}+F_{(\stackrel{}{x},2),(\stackrel{}{y},2)}+iF_{(\stackrel{}{x},1),(\stackrel{}{y},2)}iF_{(\stackrel{}{x},2),(\stackrel{}{y},1)}$$
(25)
where the operator $`F`$ is defined by

$$F\frac{1}{4}H_1^1\left[(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1\right]$$

The $`\lambda =0`$ term should be subtracted from $`\stackrel{~}{C}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ in order to obtain the $`C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ quantity defined in Eq. (8)

$$C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})=\underset{ϵ0^+}{lim}\left[\stackrel{~}{C}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})v_0(\stackrel{}{x})v_0^{}(\stackrel{}{y})\right]$$
(26)
where $`\stackrel{~}{C}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ and $`v_0(\stackrel{}{x})`$ depend implicitly by the parameter $`ϵ`$. $`v_0(\stackrel{}{x})`$ can be calculated solving the dynamical equations obtained replacing $`E_\lambda `$ with $`i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}`$ in Eqs. (3,4). In fact, if $`u(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ and $`v(\stackrel{}{x},t)`$ are the solution of these equations then

$$v_0(\stackrel{}{x})_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t_0^\eta 𝑑Ee^{iEt}v(\stackrel{}{x},t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\frac{1}{it}\left(e^{i\eta t}1\right)v(\stackrel{}{x},t)$$

$$u_0(\stackrel{}{x})_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t_0^\eta 𝑑Ee^{iEt}u(\stackrel{}{x},t)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t\frac{1}{it}\left(e^{i\eta t}1\right)u(\stackrel{}{x},t)$$
(27)
where $`\eta `$ is a number such that $`E_0<\eta <E_1`$. It is convenient to get $`u(\stackrel{}{x},0)=v(\stackrel{}{y},0)=\psi `$ as initial state and to introduce a temporal gaussian window to lower the convergence time.

We have reduced our problem to the evaluation of the operator $`F`$. $`F`$ satisfies the following equation

$$H_1F=\frac{1}{4}\left[(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1\right]S$$
(28)
that is

$$^2F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})+M^2F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})=\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}S(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})$$
(29)
where

$$M^2=\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}\left[V+2g\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\mathrm{\Psi }g\mathrm{\Psi }^2\mu +ϵ\right]$$
(30)
Eq. (29) is a Yukawa-like equation with a coordinate dependent mass and a charge distribution $`S(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ in $`\stackrel{}{x}`$. Both S and M are $`2\times 2`$ matrices.

If $`S`$ is known, $`F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ can be evaluated finding for all the $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ positions the stationary state of the following differential equation:

$$\frac{}{t}F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})+H_1F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})=S(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y}).$$
(31)
Every function whose evolution is determined by Eq (31) collapses in this stationary state because $`H_1`$ is a positive eigenvalue operator.

The standard method to calculate the correlation function is to solve the eigenvector problem of Eqs. (3,4) using Eqs. (7,8). However in some cases the matrix to be diagonalized becomes too large to be handled. Eq. (28) can be useful to extract informations about the correlation function without the resolution of an eigenvector problem.

If we want to calculate $`C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ with a fixed $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ or integrating $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ with a weight function $`P(\stackrel{}{y})`$

$$C(\stackrel{}{x})=C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})P(\stackrel{}{y})d^3y$$
(32)
we have to solve only the differential equation (31) with $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ fixed or with the source term

$$(\stackrel{}{S}_0)_i(\stackrel{}{x})=\underset{j=1}{\overset{2}{}}S_{i,j}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})\stackrel{}{P}_j(\stackrel{}{y})d^3y.$$
(33)
where $`\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{y})=\left(\begin{array}{c}P(\stackrel{}{y})\\ P(\stackrel{}{y})\end{array}\right)`$. This approach allows to decrease considerably the computation time.

The question to be solved is the evaluation of $`\stackrel{}{S}_0`$. To calculate the source term the square root in the second term of Eq. (28) should be known, but that requires to solve an eigenvector problem that could be avoided through an alternative method. It is well known from the Dirac theory that a square root of the operator $`^2+m^2`$ is a local operator with first order differential derivatives that multiply anticommuting matrices. The only difference between that square root and the nonlocal operator $`\sqrt{^2+m^2}`$ is the sign of the eigenvalues, that in the last case are all positive.

A local non-positive square root exists also for $`R=H_1H_2`$. $`R`$ has the form, apart from a constant factor,

$$R=\left[^2+Q_1+Q_2\widehat{\sigma }_1+Q_3\widehat{\sigma }_3\right]\left[^2+Q_1Q_2\widehat{\sigma }_1Q_3\widehat{\sigma }_3\right]$$
(34)
where $`Q_1`$, $`Q_2`$ and $`Q_3`$ are three real functions. It is easy to demonstrate that the operator

$$H_r=\widehat{\sigma }_2(^2+Q_1)i\widehat{\sigma }_3Q_2+i\widehat{\sigma }_1Q_3$$
(35)
is square root of R, that is $`H_r^2=R`$.

If $`\stackrel{}{P}_+`$ and $`\stackrel{}{P}_{}`$ are the projections of $`\stackrel{}{P}`$ respectively over the positive and negative eigenvalue subspaces of $`H_r`$ then

$$\stackrel{}{S}_0(\stackrel{}{x})=H_r(\stackrel{}{P}_+\stackrel{}{P}_{})$$
(36)
We now describe how to handle $`\stackrel{}{P}_+\stackrel{}{P}_{}`$. If $`\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )`$ is solution of the equation

$$i\frac{}{\tau }\stackrel{}{P}=H_r\stackrel{}{P}$$
(37)
it is evident that

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑E_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )e^{iE\tau }𝑑\tau =\stackrel{}{P}_+(\stackrel{}{x})$$

$$_{\mathrm{}}^0𝑑E_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )e^{iE\tau }𝑑\tau =\stackrel{}{P}_{}(\stackrel{}{x})$$
(38)
Performing the integration in E, we obtain

$$\stackrel{}{P}_+(\stackrel{}{x})\stackrel{}{P}_{}(\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{\pi }\underset{\eta 0^+}{lim}_\eta ^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{\tau }[\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )]𝑑\tau $$
(39)
Therefore

$$\stackrel{}{S}_0(\stackrel{}{x})=\frac{1}{\pi }H_r\underset{\eta 0^+}{lim}_\eta ^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{\tau }[\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )\stackrel{}{P}(\stackrel{}{x},\tau )]𝑑\tau $$
(40)
The solution of Eq. (37) allows to evaluate the source term of Eq. (33). The direct calculation of Eq. (39) is probably not the best choice. In fact, if the ratio between the greatest and lowest frequencies is too large then the integration step has to be too small with respect to the integration time. In this case it is convenient to perform the energy integration of Eqs. (38) over the windows $`(E_1,E_2)`$, $`(E_2,E_3)`$, $`(E_3,E_4)`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, with $`E_1>E_2>E_3\mathrm{}`$ and to choose for each window a suitable integration step. It is also convenient to use a temporal gaussian window to reduce the calculation time. In this article we do not discuss these numerical questions into details.

## III Numerical tests

At this stage we have all the tools to evaluate the correlation function of Eq. (32). We have checked numerically in the one-dimensional case that the same source terms are obtained from Eq. (40) and by the diagonalization. Also the validity of Eq. (28) has been verified numerically.

In order to test the technique we have considered the case of a one-dimensional harmonic trap with $`V(x)=1/2x^2`$ and a coupling constant $`g=10`$ ($`\mathrm{}=m=1`$). The $`\psi (x)`$ solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is reported in the lower part of Fig. 1. Instead sections of $`S_{1,1}(x,y)`$ are reported in the upper part of the figure for different values of $`y`$. The results of the figure point out that the source term is a near diagonal operator. In fact $`S`$ is a sum of a diagonal matrix and a smooth function $`f(x,y)`$. In other terms, for every $`y`$, the source has a point-like charge with a cloud around.

We have considered also a tridimensional case. The studied system is constituted by $`{}_{}{}^{87}Rb`$ atoms confined in a spherical harmonic trap in the $`|F=1,m_f=1`$ hyperfine sublevels. For the scattering length we have used $`a=109.1`$ a.u.. The trap frequency is supposed $`\omega =2\pi 300`$ s<sup>-1</sup>. We have imposed $`\stackrel{}{y}=0`$ in Eq.(32) in order to exploit the trap symmetry and therefore to simplify the calculation. The application into the case of asymmetric trap require only some additional algebra. In Fig. 2 we plot $`C(r)=C(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y}=0)`$ as a function of $`r=|\stackrel{}{x}|`$ for different values of the boson number $`N`$. The functions obtained by diagonalization and solving our differential equation overlap and therefore are indistinguishable in the plot.

We note that $`C(r=0)`$ increases with $`N`$. This is obvious because the correlations of the field fluttuations are a consequence of the Gross-Pitaevskii non-linear term. The variation scale of $`C(r)`$ is given by $`1/M(r)`$ and for $`N=0`$ its magnitude is of the order of $`sqrt\mathrm{}/m\omega =6.210^7m`$.

## IV Finite temperature

Eq. (28) can be generalized to include the finite temperature fluctuations. Eq. (11) is replaced by

$$W(\{a_\eta \},\{a_\eta ^{}\})e^{_{\lambda =0}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{a_\lambda ^{}a_\lambda }{1/2+\left(e^{\beta _\lambda }1\right)^1}}$$
(41)
where $`\beta _\lambda =E_\lambda /kT`$. For $`TE_\lambda `$ the correct classical distribution is obtained.

Using Eq. (17) we find $`W`$ as a function of $`\stackrel{}{\varphi }`$

$$W(\{\stackrel{}{\varphi }\})e^{2{\scriptscriptstyle d^3x\stackrel{}{\varphi }^{}(\stackrel{}{x})(H_1H_2)^{1/2}A_T^1H_1\stackrel{}{\varphi }(\stackrel{}{x})}}$$
(42)
where $`A_T`$ is the operator

$$A_T=1+2\left(e^{\frac{(H_1H_2)^{1/2}}{kT}}1\right)^1$$
(43)
The $`F`$ operator of Eq. (25) is replaced by

$$F_T\frac{1}{4}H_1^1\left[A_T(H_1H_2)^{1/2}H_1\right]$$
(44)
It is possible to find a relation between $`F_T`$ and $`F=F_0`$. We subtract $`1/4`$ from the two terms of Eq. (44) and multiply them by $`A_T^1`$. We obtain using Eq. (21)

$$H_1B_T^1(F_T1)=\frac{1}{4}(H_1H_2)^{1/2}.$$
(45)
where

$$B_T=1+2\left(e^{\frac{(H_2H_1)^{1/2}}{kT}}1\right)^1.$$
(46)
Therefore

$$B_T^1(F_T1)=B_T^{}^1(F_T^{}1)$$
(47)
Setting $`T^{}=0`$ we finally find

$$F_T=1+B_T(F1).$$
(48)
We can perform the following expansion

$$B_T=1+2e^{\frac{(H_2H_1)^{1/2}}{kT}}\left(1e^{\frac{(H_2H_1)^{1/2}}{kT}}\right)^1$$

$$=1+2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\frac{n(H_2H_1)^{1/2}}{kT}}.$$
(49)
If $`\stackrel{}{F}_i(\stackrel{}{x})=_jF_{i,j}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})\stackrel{}{P}_j(\stackrel{}{y})d^3y`$ and $`\stackrel{}{F}_T(\stackrel{}{x})=_j(F_T)_{i,j}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})\stackrel{}{P}_j(\stackrel{}{y})d^3y`$ then

$$\stackrel{}{F}_T=\stackrel{}{F}+2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\frac{n(H_2H_1)^{1/2}}{kT}}(\stackrel{}{F}+\stackrel{}{P})$$

$$=\stackrel{}{F}+2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\frac{n\stackrel{~}{H}_r}{kT}}(\stackrel{}{F}_++\stackrel{}{P}_+)+2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{\frac{n\stackrel{~}{H}_r}{kT}}(\stackrel{}{F}_{}+\stackrel{}{P}_{})$$
(50)
where $`\stackrel{}{F}_+`$, $`\stackrel{}{P}_+`$ and $`\stackrel{}{F}_{}`$, $`\stackrel{}{P}_{}`$ are the projections over the positive and negative eigenvalues subspaces of $`\stackrel{~}{H}_r=\widehat{\sigma }_3H_r\widehat{\sigma }_3`$. If $`\stackrel{}{F}_\pm (\stackrel{}{x},\tau )`$ and $`\stackrel{}{P}_\pm (\stackrel{}{x},\tau )`$ are the solution of the differential equation

$$\frac{}{\tau }()=\stackrel{~}{H}_r()$$
(51)
with $`\stackrel{}{F}_\pm (\stackrel{}{x},0)=\stackrel{}{F}_\pm `$ and $`\stackrel{}{P}_\pm (\stackrel{}{x},0)=\stackrel{}{P}_\pm `$, then

$$\stackrel{}{F}_T(\stackrel{}{x})=\stackrel{}{F}(\stackrel{}{x})+2\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\left[(\stackrel{}{F}_++\stackrel{}{P}_+)(\stackrel{}{x},\frac{n}{kT})+(\stackrel{}{F}_{}+\stackrel{}{P}_{})(\stackrel{}{x},\frac{n}{kT})\right]$$
(52)
Equations similar to the (25,26) ones can be defined for temperatures $`T`$ different from zero. Therefore we have shown that it is possible derive the correlation function for $`T0`$ by knowing it for $`T=0`$.

## V conclusion

In conclusion we have introduced a differential equation that is useful to evaluate numerically the first order correlation function $`G^{(1)}(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ for some fixed $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ or its integration over $`\stackrel{}{y}`$ with a weight function $`P(\stackrel{}{y})`$. In the Bogoliubov approximation the hamiltonian is quadratic in the field, therefore the ground state is a squeezed state, that is, the Wigner function is a gaussian one for all its infinite modes. The gaussian parameters are $`\psi (\stackrel{}{x})`$, that defines its position in phase space, and the function $`F(\stackrel{}{x},\stackrel{}{y})`$ that we have introduced. There are not other free parameters. Therefore each property of the BEC is derivable by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and Eq. (28). In particular the resolution of these equations allows to evaluate the higher order correlation functions.

Our method can be applied to study the quantum fluttuations of the condensate in double-well traps, improving the two mode model, that is the standard approach to deal with these problems .


text:
# A simple operational interpretation of the fidelity

This note presents a corollary to Uhlmann’s theorem Uhlmann76 ; Jozsa94  which provides a simple operational interpretation for the fidelity of mixed states.

For any states $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$, the fidelity is defined by $`F(\rho ,\sigma )\mathrm{tr}\sqrt{\rho ^{1/2}\sigma \rho ^{1/2}}`$. \[See Fuchs96  for other expressions for the fidelity and extensive references.\] When applied to pure states $`|\psi `$ and $`|\varphi `$, this expression reduces to $`F(|\psi ,|\varphi )=|\psi |\varphi |`$ which has an operational interpretation in terms of the distinguishability of the two states: when testing whether or not $`|\varphi `$ is the same as $`|\psi `$, the probability that $`|\varphi `$ passes the test is $`F(|\psi ,|\varphi )^2`$. Unfortunately, such an interpretation is lacking when the input states are mixed. In this note, we present a result which gives the mixed-state fidelity a simple operational interpretation. It is a corollary to Uhlmann’s theorem, which provides a formula for the fidelity in terms of purifications:

Uhlmann’s Theorem: Let $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ be two states of a quantum system $`Q`$, and let $`E`$ be a second system with dimension greater than or equal to the dimension of $`Q`$. Then

$$F(\rho ,\sigma )=\mathrm{max}|\psi _0|\varphi _0|$$
(1)
where the maximization runs over all $`|\psi _0`$ and $`|\varphi _0`$ which are purifications of $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ in $`EQ`$.

The corollary gives an alternative formula for the fidelity in which the purifying systems of Uhlmann’s theorem have been replaced by quantum operations:

Corollary: Let $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ be two states of a quantum system $`Q`$. Then

$$F(\rho ,\sigma )=\mathrm{max}|\psi |\varphi |$$
(2)
where the maximization runs over all pure states $`|\psi `$ and $`|\varphi `$ which are taken to $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ by some quantum operation $``$, that is, $`(\psi )=\rho `$, and $`(\varphi )=\sigma `$. \[Note: a quantum operation is a completely positive trace-preserving map Nielsen00 , and we use the shorthand $`(\alpha )(|\alpha \alpha |)`$.\]

An interpretation suggested by this characterization is the following: If $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ are the (potentially mixed) output states of a noisy channel, then the fidelity $`F(\rho ,\sigma )`$ is a lower bound on the overlap of the input states, assuming they were pure.

Proof of the Corollary: Denote the quantity on the right-hand side of Eq. (2) by $`F^{}(\rho ,\sigma )`$. We aim to show $`F^{}(\rho ,\sigma )=F(\rho ,\sigma )`$ using Uhlmann’s theorem. The crucial step is a relationship between quantum operations and purifications. Suppose $`Q`$ is initially in the state $`|\beta `$, and $``$ takes $`|\beta `$ to $`\tau `$. We can always introduce a second system $`E`$ (assumed to be in the initial state $`|0`$, and with dimension equal to the dimension of $`Q`$ squared) so that

$$\tau =(\beta )=\mathrm{tr}_E\left[U|0|\beta 0|\beta |U^{}\right]$$
(3)
for some unitary $`U`$ which acts on $`EQ`$. Comparing the two sides of this equation, we see that $`U|0|\beta `$ purifies $`\tau `$ in the joint system $`EQ`$.

So, for every pair $`|\psi `$, $`|\varphi `$, the condition “$`:(\psi )=\rho `$ and $`(\varphi )=\sigma `$” can be rewritten as “$`U:U|0|\psi `$ and $`U|0|\varphi `$ purify $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$, respectively”. Therefore, from Uhlmann’s theorem, we have

$$F(\rho ,\sigma )\mathrm{max}|0|\psi |U^{}U|0|\varphi |=\mathrm{max}|\psi |\varphi |$$
(4)
where the maximization runs over states $`|\psi `$, $`|\varphi `$ satisfying the condition above. But the quantity on the right-hand side is just $`F^{}(\rho ,\sigma )`$, so we have $`F(\rho ,\sigma )F^{}(\rho ,\sigma )`$.

Furthermore, every pair $`|\psi _0`$, $`|\varphi _0`$ in the composite space $`EQ`$ can be obtained by a unitary transformation on a pair $`|0_E|\psi _Q`$, $`|0_E|\varphi _Q`$, provided $`\psi |\varphi =\psi _0|\varphi _0`$. Therefore, the maximization in Eq. (4) runs over the same values as the maximization in Eq. (1), so we have $`F(\rho ,\sigma )=F^{}(\rho ,\sigma )`$, which completes the proof.

The value of this corollary lies in providing an operational interpretation for the fidelity. Furthermore, this approach may be valuable for suggesting new approaches to problems. As an example, this characterization suggests a simple, intuitive proof of the well-known fact that no quantum operation can increase the distinguishability of two quantum states Barnum96 . In terms of the fidelity, this means that for any quantum operation $`𝒢`$ which acts on $`Q`$, $`F(𝒢(\rho ),𝒢(\sigma ))F(\rho ,\sigma )`$ for all states $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ of $`Q`$. The proof is immediate from the corollary: Choose $`|\psi `$, $`|\varphi `$ and $``$ such that $`(\psi )=\rho `$, $`(\varphi )=\sigma `$ and $`F(\rho ,\sigma )=|\psi |\varphi |`$. Then $`𝒢`$ takes $`|\psi `$ and $`|\varphi `$ to $`𝒢(\rho )`$ and $`𝒢(\sigma )`$, respectively. Therefore, by the corollary, $`F(𝒢(\rho ),𝒢(\sigma ))|\psi |\varphi |=F(\rho ,\sigma )`$.

Acknowledgment: This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY99-07949.


text:
# to appear in Theor. Math. Phys Kovalevskaya top – an elementary approach

## Acknowledgments

The main result of this note on the equivalence of the Kovalevskaya system to the special case of the Clebsch system has been obtained in 1983 during the preparation of the review on the motion of the rigid body around the fixed point . Later I had the possibility to discuss with Prof. Moser the Kovalevskaya problem and other problems of classical mechanics. These discussions had great influence on my point of view on the problems of classical mechanics in general. In particular, Prof. Moser emphasized the important role of factorization of the Kovalevskaya polynomial $`P_5(x)`$ into polynomials $`P_3(x)`$ and $`P_2(x)`$. The simple explanation of this fact is absent unfortunately till now.

I am grateful also to V.Z. Enolsky, A.P. Veselov and referee for their remarks.

Finally, I would like to thank the Department of Physics of the University of Oviedo for the hospitality.