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# The Evolution of Cuspy Triaxial Galaxies Harboring Central Black Holes

## 1. Introduction

Observations indicate that most, and perhaps all elliptical galaxies harbor supermassive black holes at their centers (e.g. Gebhardt et al. 2000; Richstone et al. 1998; but see Gebhardt et al. 2001b). In fact, best-fit models of black hole demography indicate that roughly $`97\%`$ of ellipticals contain such black holes (Magorrian et al. 1998). The masses of these black holes seem to be correlated with properties of the host bulge; current dynamical estimates have yielded black hole masses of order $`0.005M_{\mathrm{bulge}}`$ (Kormendy & Richstone 1995; Magorrian et al. 1998; van der Marel 1999). There is also apparently a trend between black hole mass and galaxy velocity dispersion, implying that there is a Fundamental Plane even in the four-dimensional space defined by \[$`\mathrm{log}M_{\mathrm{BH}},\mathrm{log}L,\mathrm{log}\sigma _e,\mathrm{log}R_e`$\] (Gebhardt et al. 2001a; Ferrarese & Merritt 2001). These correlations suggest that galaxy formation and the formation of central black holes are deeply connected.

It is believed that a central supermassive black hole can profoundly influence the evolution of its host galaxy. Massive black holes dominate the galactic potential inside a radius of influence $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}100(M_{\mathrm{BH},9}/\sigma _{0,200}^2)`$ pc where $`M_{\mathrm{BH},9}`$ is the black hole mass in units of $`10^9M_{}`$ and $`\sigma _{0,200}`$ is the central velocity dispersion in units of $`200`$ km/sec. Within $`r<r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$, the three-dimensional structure and phase space of a galaxy will be determined largely by the black hole. Moreover, the effects of a central black hole can reach far beyond $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. Owing to discrete encounters with individual stars, central black holes will “wander,” in a manner akin to molecular Brownian motion (see, e.g. Chatterjee, Hernquist & Loeb  for a recent analysis of this phenomenon), effectively increasing $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. During galaxy cannibalism, supermassive black holes disrupt even dense low-mass companions in radial encounters (Holley-Bockelmann & Richstone 2000; Merritt & Cruz 2001) and may tidally torque debris into a nuclear disk following mergers from eccentric orbits (Holley-Bockelmann & Richstone 2000). Black hole binaries created during galaxy mergers may explain the flat density profiles seen in the inner regions of the largest ellipticals (Makino & Ebisuzaki 1996; Quinlan & Hernquist 1997).

Central black holes can induce secular evolution as well. According to one long-standing suggestion, the growth of a massive black hole in a triaxial potential can destabilize centrophilic box orbits through stochastic diffusion, driving the global shape of a galaxy towards axisymmetry in a few crossing times (Gerhard & Binney 1985; Norman, May, & van Albada 1985; Merritt & Quinlan 1998; Wachlin & Ferraz-Mello 1998; Valluri & Merritt 1998). If this picture of black hole induced evolution away from triaxiality is correct, it will have serious ramifications for our understanding of the fueling of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the observed correlations between the properties of black holes and their host galaxies. Indeed, such evolution could lead to a self-regulation of AGN activity and black hole growth in ellipticals. If triaxiality is linked to AGN fueling, as a consequence of gas being unable to settle into closed orbits in such a potential (Norman & Silk 1983), then an evolution towards axisymmetry would naturally lead to a reduction in the feeding of a central black hole. Such a scenario might also explain, at least in part, the correlation between black hole and bulge mass in early type galaxies (Valluri & Merritt 1998).

While theoretical arguments paint a compelling picture for a link between central black holes and the loss of triaxiality in galaxies, observational support remains somewhat problematic, owing to the difficulty of inferring the three dimensional structure of galaxies from their projected properties. However, recent studies indicate that at least some luminous ellipticals are triaxial (Binney 1976; Franx et al. 1991; Tremblay & Merritt 1995; Bak & Statler 2000). The triaxiality of these systems indicates either that they contain at most low mass black holes (insufficient to drive evolution) or that the coupling between black holes and galaxy shape is not well understood. The former possibility appears to be inconsistent with the notion that luminous AGN are preferentially found in luminous ellipticals.

These considerations emphasize the need for realistic models of galaxies containing central black holes. Earlier theoretical studies have employed either triaxial models with constant density cores (Norman et al. 1985; Merritt & Quinlan 1998) or spherical models with central density cusps (e.g. Sigurdsson et al. 1995). Neither of these two choices is entirely satisfactory. Observations of ellipticals made with the Hubble Space Telescope show that these galaxies typically have central density cusps $`r^\gamma `$ with $`\gamma =0.52`$ (Lauer et al. 1995). Galaxies with density cusps support different stellar orbits than e.g. $`\gamma =0`$ core models (Gerheard & Binney 1985; Gerhard 1986; Pfenniger & de Zeeuw 1989; Schwarzschild 1993; de Zeeuw 1996; Merritt 1999; Holley-Bockelmann et al. 2001), altering the response of a galaxy to the growth of a black hole. Likewise, spherical galaxies will support different orbital families than triaxial ones, whether or not they have central density cusps. While simulations employing spherical models have demonstrated the growth of black hole induced cusps and the polarization of the velocity ellipsoid in such objects (Sigurdsson et al. 1995), they of course have little to say about the evolution of triaxial ellipticals.

To address these shortcomings, we present a study of black hole growth in triaxial elliptical galaxies with central density cusps, using the “adiabatic squeezing” technique described in Holley-Bockelmann et al. (2001; hereafter, “Paper 1”) to generate models with prescribed shapes and cusps that are stable for many dynamical times. Using N-body simulations, we then adiabatically grow a black hole in these galaxies over several crossing times. We characterize the orbital families which populate the models, and find that many of the highly bound boxes, boxlets, and eccentric tubes are transformed into chaotic orbits – a clear signature of the influence of the spherical central potential in a larger, nearly unchanged, triaxial figure.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 summarizes our technique for generating a stable triaxial model of a galaxy, with subsequent growth of a central black hole. Section 3 shows the outcome of black hole growth in a model with central density cusp $`\gamma =1.0`$ and initial half mass axis ratios $`b/a,c/a=0.85,0.7`$, and discusses the structural changes occurring in this model as a result of the growth of a black hole of mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=0.01M_{\mathrm{gal}}`$. Section 4 explores the evolution of the orbital population induced by the black hole, and Section 5 provides conclusions.

## 2. Modeling Technique

The “adiabatic squeezing” technique for generating triaxial models is discussed in detail in Paper 1. To summarize, we begin with, e.g. a spherical Hernquist (1990) model, having a density profile

$$\rho (r)=\frac{M}{2\pi }\frac{a}{r}\frac{1}{(r+a)^3},$$

where $`M`$ is the total mass and $`a`$ is a scale length. We generate an N-body realization of this spherical model using the multimass scheme of Sigurdsson et al. (1995), so that particles have a mass which is roughly inversely proportional to their pericentric radius. This technique gives a finer sampling of the phase space of tightly bound orbits than would be feasible if equal mass particles were used throughout. We then evolve this model while adiabatically applying a drag force first along the $`z`$ axis (using the SCF method described below to maintain axisymmetry in the $`xy`$ plane) and then along the $`y`$ axis to yield a triaxial figure. The system is rescaled after each step so that the scale radius of the long axis, $`a`$, is unity. The lengths of the other axes are correlated with the strength of the drag force applied in each direction. To ensure an equilibrium final state, the model is evolved for several half-mass dynamical times without any drag forces present.

A black hole of final mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ is then grown adiabatically in one of these equilibrium models over a time $`t_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ according to:

$$M(t)=\{\begin{array}{cc}M_{\mathrm{BH}}\left[3\left(\frac{t}{t_{\mathrm{BH}}}\right)^22\left(\frac{t}{t_{\mathrm{BH}}}\right)^3\right],\hfill & \text{for }tt_{\mathrm{BH}}\text{;}\hfill \\ M_{\mathrm{BH}},\hfill & \text{for }t>t_{\mathrm{BH}}\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

This expression ensures smooth evolution of the black hole mass, i.e. that $`\dot{M}(t)=0`$ at $`t=0`$ and at $`t=t_{\mathrm{BH}}`$. The potential of the black hole is that of a softened point mass:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{BH}}(r,t)=\frac{M(t)}{\sqrt{r^2+ϵ_{\mathrm{BH}}^2}},$$

where the softening parameter is set to $`ϵ_{\mathrm{BH}}=0.001`$ in the simulations described here. This softening sets the resolution scale of our model and can be compared to the radius of influence of a 1% mass black hole, which is $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}0.03`$.

To ensure that black hole growth is adiabatic, we chose $`t_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ to be long compared to the orbital periods of stars in the inner regions of the galaxy (Sigurdsson et al. 1995). We varied the value chosen for $`t_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ and determined that for the examples presented here a black hole growth timescale $`t_{\mathrm{BH}}=20`$ is adequate. This can be compared with the dynamical times for the fiducial Hernquist sphere with $`a=1`$ which are $`3.14,5.96,`$ and $`8.33`$ at the scale radius ($`r=1.0`$), effective radius ($`r=1.815`$), and half-mass radius ($`r=2.414`$), respectively. After the black hole has reached its final mass, the model is evolved for another 20 time units to allow the model to reach equilibrium.

The simulations were performed with a self-consistent field (SCF) code (e.g. Hernquist & Ostriker 1992; Hernquist et al. 1995). In this approach, the density and potential of the galaxy are expanded in a set of basis functions, with the lowest order term chosen to represent the underlying density profile. The expansion coefficients are determined from the particle distribution, using $`n`$ radial terms and ($`l,m`$) angular terms. The examples here adopted $`n_{max}=10`$ and $`m_{max}=l_{max}=6`$. The $`N`$-body particles move in the combined potential field of the SCF expansion and the central black hole (Sigurdsson et al. 1997), and orbital accuracy is ensured by using a high-order Hermite integrator with variable time-stepping. The simulations were run on the T3E and the Blue Horizon at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

## 3. Results of Dynamical Modeling

We demonstrate our technique with an N=512,000 particle Hernquist model with total mass $`M=1`$ and initial axis ratios $`b/a=0.85`$ and $`c/a=0.7`$, measured at the half mass radius. To this model, we add an adiabatically growing black hole of final mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=0.01`$. If we insist that this model lies on both the global and core Fundamental Planes (Faber et al. 1997), then the central density slope of $`\gamma =1`$ (neglecting the influence of the black hole) fixes the absolute magnitude ($`M_\mathrm{V}21.6`$), effective radius ($`r_{\mathrm{eff}}6`$ kpc), and projected central velocity dispersion ($`\sigma _p310`$ km/sec) of the corresponding galaxy. Scaling our model to such a galaxy results in a unit length, unit velocity, and unit time corresponding to $`3`$ kpc, $`1200`$ km/sec, and $`3\times 10^6`$ years, respectively. Thus, in our model, the scaled half-mass dynamical timescale is $`2.5\times 10^7`$ years.

As the black hole grows, both the cusp slope, $`\gamma `$, and projected central velocity dispersion, $`\sigma _p`$, increase. Figure 1 shows the cusp slope (measured at ellipsoidal radius $`\mathrm{log}q=1.3`$) and the projected central velocity dispersion of the model (measured at projected ellipsoidal radius $`\mathrm{log}Q=2.3`$) as a function of time during and after black hole growth. After an initial rapid increase in $`\gamma `$ during the black hole growth phase (between $`0<T<20`$), the evolution in both $`\gamma `$ and $`\sigma _p`$ all but ceases, settling at the equilibrium values $`\gamma 2.05`$, $`\sigma _p0.7`$. These results are characteristic of adiabatic black hole growth in cuspy galaxies and can be compared both to analytic estimates for adiabatic black hole growth in a spherical $`\gamma =1.0`$ model, which predict $`\gamma =7/3`$, $`\sigma _p=0.75`$ (Quinlan, Hernquist & Sigurdsson 1995) and to the results from N-body simulations of adiabatic black hole growth in a Hernquist sphere, where $`\gamma 2.2`$ and $`\sigma 0.65`$ (Sigurdsson, Hernquist, & Quinlan 1995).111The fact that our measured cusp slope is less than the analytic value of $`\gamma =7/3`$ is to be expected since our cusp slope is measured over a finite radial range near the center, and is not the asymptotic $`r=0`$ value. Note that these high central velocity dispersions are measured on length scales smaller than the typical minimum spatial resolution at the distance of nearby ellipticals; observable central velocity dispersions are averaged over larger apertures and tend to obscure velocity cusps.

The evolution in galaxy shape is shown in Figure 2 for the innermost 2%, 10%, and 50% of the galaxy (by mass). Prior to black hole growth, the model has a more or less uniform shape throughout, with a slight tendency towards greater triaxiality in the center (see Figure 2 at $`T=0`$ and Paper 1). As the black hole grows, the inner regions quickly become rounder (Figure 2, panel a); in fact, by the time the black hole has reached full mass, the central 10% of the mass, corresponding to an ellipsoidal radius $`q`$ $`=\sqrt{x^2+(y/b)^2+(z/c)^2}<0.1`$ is practically spherical with axis ratios $`a:b:c=1.0:0.95:0.92`$. The shape evolution in the outer regions is much less dramatic, however (Figure 2, panel c). Following the growth of the black hole, the model exhibits a marked shape gradient, becoming more strongly triaxial with increasing radius. This shape profile, essentially axisymmetric in the center and a relatively unaltered triaxial figure further out, remains stable as the system settles into equilibrium from $`20<T<40`$, even though the dynamical timescale here is much shorter than the integration time of the simulation. Despite the near sphericity at the center, this region is, perhaps surprisingly, still triaxial enough to influence the stellar orbital dynamics (Statler 1987; Hunter & de Zeeuw 1992), at least in principle. We will return to this issue of orbits in the next section.

The final state of this model features several hallmarks of a black hole-embedded triaxial figure. Figure 3 shows the properties of this object as a function of ellipsoidal radius $`q`$ at $`T=40`$ (12.8$`t_{\mathrm{dyn}}`$ at $`q=1`$), well after the black hole has stopped growing. Figure 3a shows the $`\gamma 2`$ density cusp induced by the black hole inside $`\mathrm{log}q=1`$. At a larger radii $`\mathrm{log}q>1`$, though, this plot demonstrates that the system retains the original Hernquist density profile. Figure 3b shows explicitly the strong shape gradient in the model. Inside $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$, both the projected and intrinsic velocity dispersions exhibit a strong central cusp (panels c and d). In the outskirts, where the model maintains its triaxiality, the projected velocity distributions follow $`\sigma _x>\sigma _y>\sigma _z`$ in accord with a triaxial model where $`a>b>c`$. However, inside the cusp the projected velocity dispersions are commensurate. Interestingly, the anisotropy parameter, $`\beta =1v_t^2/v_r^2`$, becomes negative near the black hole, as many radial orbits are given a large tangential component. This is consistent with models of stellar orbits around a black hole that is adiabatically grown, where $`\beta =0.3`$ (Goodman & Binney 1983; Quinlan et al. 1995). Exterior to the black hole’s radius of influence, the system is radially anisotropic ($`\beta >0`$), as expected for a triaxial galaxy.

Structurally, the most dramatic change induced in the model by the black hole is the strong shape gradient as one moves inwards (from $`b,c=0.9,0.8`$ at $`\mathrm{log}q=0`$ to $`b,c=0.95,0.92`$ at $`\mathrm{log}q=2`$). This significant central roundening may arise if box, boxlet, and eccentric tube orbits are lost to stochasticity near the black hole (e.g. Norman et al. 1985; Gerhard & Binney 1985), yet survive at larger radii. However, even the nearly spherical central regions may host significantly triaxial dynamics, as pointed out by Statler (1987) and Hunter & de Zeeuw (1992). Clearly, a more rigorous orbital analysis is warranted; we present this analysis in the next section.

## 4. Orbital Properties

In equilibrium, the structure of a galaxy and its orbital phase space are closely related via the Collisionless Boltzmann equation. Since the intrinsic shape of an elliptical is dictated by the time-averaged configuration space density of the orbits of its stars, the shape of the galaxy may change with time, or with radius, in response to a changing potential. Hence information can be gleaned about galactic structure through the analysis of orbit families and their subsequent stability in our model. Both two- and three-dimensional analyses are useful: planar orbits are subject to less numerical scattering and provide surfaces of section that are easy to analyze and can be compared to previous studies, while three-dimensional orbits directly trace the particle distribution and populate resonances that do not project cleanly onto a plane.

Using the automated orbit classifier described in Paper 1, we analyzed both the two-dimensional phase space along the $`xy`$ and $`xz`$ planes (where, as always, we take $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ to be aligned with the major, intermediate, and minor axes respectively) and the three-dimensional phase space populated by the particles at $`T=40`$. We remind the reader that the initial state of this model (the pre-black hole stage) is the same model analyzed in Paper 1, so a direct determination of the effect of the black hole can be made by contrasting the figures in Paper 1 to those here. As before, we exploited the 8-fold symmetry of the potential to minimize noise in the particle distribution. Orbits were typed by the resonances in the dominant Fourier frequencies of the particle’s motion in each plane (see Paper 1 for more information on these techniques). Following previous work, we identified stochasticity by searching for a significant change in the fundamental frequency over two time intervals (Paper 1; Valluri & Merritt 1998). Each time interval was comprised of 50 orbital periods of a long axis tube at the energy of the orbit in question.222Hence, each integration interval corresponds to 200 dynamical times. We note that Paper 1 erroneously stated that each time interval corresponds to 12.5 dynamical times; however, this misstatement did not affect any of the conclusions in that paper. Each orbit was integrated for a total of $`200`$ orbital times, or until a hard limit of $`T=8000`$. This hard limit was chosen to correspond to greater than a Hubble time of evolution in the model when it is scaled to real galactic units for a galaxy at $`M_\mathrm{V}=21.6`$. At $`3R_e`$ in such a galaxy, the total integration is $``$ two Hubble times, where each integration interval is over 11 Gyr at this hard limit.

We have simplified our identification of strongly chaotic orbits somewhat from the method used in Paper 1. Before, we followed the convention of Valluri & Merritt (1998) to define chaotic orbits. Specifically, an orbit was considered strongly chaotic if $`\mathrm{\Delta }f=f_1f_2/f_0T>f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, where $`f_1`$ and $`f_2`$ are the dominant frequencies at the first and second time intervals, $`f_0`$ is the frequency of a tube about the long axis, T is the time between the sampled intervals, and $`f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is the critical threshold for the onset of a strongly chaotic orbit. For the black hole-less model, we set the following chaotic threshold: $`f_{\mathrm{crit}}=0.05\sqrt{T/t_{200}}`$. The $`\sqrt{T}`$ time dependence was designed to describe the diffusion of chaotic orbits as a random-walk through phase space (Valluri & Merritt 1998). This threshold isolated orbits that were so chaotic that the orbital shape was strongly altered over two successive time intervals.

In the set of calculations for Paper 1, the precise choice of $`f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ was not important, since nearly every orbit was stable and therefore had a negligible $`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$. However, adding a black hole amplifies the level of chaos in a model, yields a wide spectrum of $`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$s, and requires a more careful study of chaotic thresholds. In particular, histograms of chaotic subsamples preliminarily selected with the previous criterion did not show a strong (i.e. $`\sqrt{T}`$) diffusion signal. Concerned that the rising threshold would underestimate the level of chaos in our models, we devised a new, simpler technique to identify chaotic orbits. In this paper, we identify chaos as $`\mathrm{\Delta }f=f_1f_2/f_1>f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, where $`f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is a constant empirical threshold that corresponds to the $`95`$th percentile of the $`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$ distribution for the most bound sample (at $`E=1.0`$) before the black hole is grown. For that sample, $`\mathrm{\Delta }f_{\mathrm{crit}}=0.1`$. Choosing the threshold in this manner provides us with a comparative measure of the black hole’s effect on the phase space distribution. Additionally, the threshold was high enough to ensure that the orbits we have identified as chaotic did not arise from the much slower diffusion of orbits due to potential noise or integration error. We tested the sensitivity of our results by sliding the threshold from $`0.5f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ to $`2.0f_{\mathrm{crit}}`$, and found that the percentage of chaotic orbits was unaffected in this range. In other words, chaotic orbits in this sample typically had $`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$ far larger than the threshold set by any of these techniques.

### 4.1. Planar orbit structure

Figure 4 shows surfaces of section as a function of binding energy for orbits confined to the $`xy`$ and $`xz`$ planes. As in Paper 1, orbits were sampled to populate the surface of section evenly. In the inner regions ($`1.0<E<0.65`$), the box and boxlet phase space is entirely replaced by chaotic orbits. In addition, there is an easily discernible population of eccentric tubes that are also driven chaotic — on the surface of section, these orbits occupy the high velocity boundary at a given initial position. While the tubes with larger pericenters were unaffected by chaos, eccentric tubes all sample more of the center of the potential, and are more likely to be driven chaotic. We note that the stable loops seen in these tightly bound slices are not a result of motion inside the black hole’s Keplerian potential; even at $`E=1.0`$, the mean ellipsoidal radius $`q=0.2`$ is far larger than the range of influence of the black hole.

The outer regions of the model responded to the growth of the black hole in a strikingly different manner. The number of orbits identified as strongly chaotic fell dramatically compared to the inner regions, and these chaotic orbits were randomly situated in box and boxlet phase space. The 2:1 resonant boxlet (“banana”) is prominent and stable in the $`xz`$ plane of this model, although it does not occur in the original model without a black hole (see Miralda-Escude & Schwarzschild 1989 or Lees & Schwarzschild 1992 for more information on boxlet nomenclature). In the $`xy`$ plane, the resonant orbit islands are very weak, particularly in the $`E=0.40`$ slice where chaotic and regular resonant orbits seem to be mixed randomly throughout box phase space. The relative number of these scattered “boxlet” orbits is consistent with the orbit identification error of $`1\%`$.

A common interpretation for the lack of strong chaos in the weakly bound orbits is that they have been integrated for far fewer dynamical times than the highly bound orbits. For example, orbits in the innermost slice (where $`q=0.2`$) were integrated for $`200t_{\mathrm{orb}}`$, while orbits in the outermost slice (with $`q=3.9`$) had typically reached only $`50t_{\mathrm{orb}}`$ before the hard limit set by the analysis routine. Thus, under this interpretation, there has simply been less time to observe substantial stochastic diffusion in these outermost orbits, and a longer integration might produce the same fraction of chaotic orbits as is seen in the more tightly bound set. To test this hypothesis, we integrated a subset of the lesser bound box and boxlet orbits ($`E=0.40;q=1.3`$) in the $`xz`$ plane for $`625`$ orbital times (see Figure 5). After 200 orbital times, the orbits were as dynamically evolved as the most tightly bound orbits, but the fraction of box and boxlet phase space that had gone chaotic only reached $`7\%`$ (versus $`100\%`$ of the box and boxlet phase space at $`E=1.0`$). As the integration time increased to well over two Hubble times, the fraction of chaotic orbits also went up. However, although the percentage of chaotic orbits in this subset increased from $`2\%`$ to $`16\%`$ over the course of the experiment, even after a scaled time of $`29`$ Gyr, many stable centrophilic orbits persist, including a population of non-resonant boxes. To test the extent of numerical error over long integrations, we also integrated the same subset of orbits (i.e. $`xz`$ plane, $`E=0.40`$) from our initial triaxial model without the black hole and in this experiment, only $`4\%`$ of the orbits were considered strongly chaotic well after two Hubble times. So, the chaos present in these weakly bound orbits is a real effect, not simply an artifact of the longer integration time. Furthermore, the long integration time ensured that the remaining stable box orbits were stable despite repeated passes through the black hole’s sphere of influence.

### 4.2. Three-dimensional orbit structure

To study the orbital evolution induced by a central black hole, it is not sufficient to consider only two-dimensional surfaces of section. Orbits in triaxial galaxies are not simply confined to the major and minor planes; there are several important 3-D resonances which serve to support a triaxial figure and which do not project down onto an identifiable resonance in a principal plane. Furthermore, the fact that 2-D orbits are confined to a plane dampens the onset of chaos. For example, in a singular logarithmic triaxial potential, much of the chaos present is in the 3-D orbits; this chaos is not reflected in the orbit families moving in the principle planes (e.g. Papaphilippou & Laskar 1996).

With this in mind, we also investigated the three-dimensional orbital content as traced by the particle distribution. As in Paper 1, we sorted the final particle distribution according to binding energy and binned the distribution into 9 slices of equal particle number. Figure 6 shows the percentage, by mass, of tube families versus chaotic orbits as a function of binding energy and radius. Notice that the predominant orbit families in this model are tubes, and the precipitous drop-off in the number of chaotic orbits with decreasing binding energy, as seen in the planar sample, is also reflected here.

Figure 7 presents the particle distribution on a frequency map of $`f_y/f_z`$ versus $`f_x/f_z`$ after 50 orbital times. Since the initial conditions were set by the actual N-body model, this frequency map is not evenly sampled. Furthermore, since only the initial frequencies are shown, this plot does not show orbital chaos. What is shown, however, are the resonant regions that are populated by the particles in this model. In the most bound slice ($`E=1.0`$), it is clear that nearly the entire population is composed of tube orbits, since practically all of the 40000 orbits in this slice lie along the $`(0,1,1)`$ or $`(1,1,0)`$ resonance lines, marking the inner long-axis tubes and short-axis tubes, respectively. In fact, the only significant area that does not lie along these lines also contains tube orbits; the clump near $`(f_x/f_z,f_y/f_z)=(0.8,0.98)`$, contains orbits which project to long axis tubes in the xy-plane plane and low-order boxlets in another. The majority of these tube orbits are well outside the Keplerian potential of the black hole; these tubes are instead dictated by the nearly spherical $`stellar`$ potential which extends out past $`\mathrm{log}q=1`$. To underscore this point, we note that most of these tubes in this energy slice clump near the $`(1,1,1)`$ resonance, suggesting that the potential is not just axisymmetric here, but nearly spherical (However we note that, by itself, a predominance of 1:1:1 resonant orbits does not necessarily mandate a spherical density distribution (Statler 1987; Hunter & de Zeeuw 1992).)

As we move out in the model to the least tightly bound particles, although the strong presence of tube orbits remains, low order boxlets are discernible, as in the $`(1,2,1)`$ resonance at $`E=0.65`$, and the $`(2,0,3)`$ resonance at $`E=0.2`$ and $`0.4`$. These final two panels strongly resemble the frequency maps for the same energy slices in the model without a central black hole (see Paper 1). This, along with the lack of shape evolution beyond $`\mathrm{log}q=0`$, indicates that the effect of the black hole does not strongly alter the outer regions of the model over galactic evolutionary timescales.

The general result that more loosely bound box orbits persist even well after a Hubble time is not new. Both analytic estimates and early numerical simulations indicated that while an unsoftened black hole induces stochasticity in nearly all of the box and boxlet orbits, the loss of triaxiality is confined to the center. For example, Gerhard & Binney (1985) modeled the disruption of planar box orbits as a series of discrete scattering events by a $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=0.02M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ black hole and found that, in a Hubble time, box orbits extending far outside the core are unlikely to have experienced enough pericentric passes to have been substantially scattered. In a fully self-consistent N-body simulation of black hole growth in a post-collapse triaxial potential, Norman, May & van Albada (1985) showed that a black hole causes box phase space to be replaced with fully stochastic orbits on a timescale proportional to an orbit’s dynamical time. This was taken to be consistent with the black hole scattering picture, with the caveat that the small number of particles in the simulation could result in an additional numerical source of scattering by two-body relaxation.

However, recent work has suggested that the trend toward stochasticity is a more rapid and a more global phenomenon. Merritt & Quinlan (1998) conducted self-consistent N-body experiments of black hole growth in triaxial models, and determined that black hole masses greater than $`0.003M_{\mathrm{gal}}`$ drive the galaxy toward axisymmetry, and that global stochasticity – where the axisymmetry extends well outside the half-mass radius and evolves on the order of an orbital period – occurred at $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}0.3M_{\mathrm{gal}}`$. Our more subtle and local evolution is not necessarily at odds with these results. The study conducted by Merritt & Quinlan involved galaxies which were more triaxial than ours, and which also had flat ($`\gamma =0`$) central density profiles. The different density structure of the models results in different orbit populations in the two studies – the constant density cores of the Merritt & Quinlan models are likely populated by a much higher fraction of box orbits than our more cuspy models (Statler 1987; Hunter & de Zeeuw 1992; Arnold et al. 1994). Furthermore, the growth of a central black hole in a $`\gamma =0`$ model represents a more significant perturbation to the central potential than in our $`\gamma =1`$ models. Even with identical initial density profiles, though, a direct comparison is complex. For example, using Schwarzschild’s (1979) method of reconstructing a $`\gamma =0.5`$ potential via a judicious selection of orbit libraries, Valluri & Merritt (1998) found that slightly different initial minor axis flattenings give different results for the relative fraction of tightly bound and less bound chaotic orbits. Moreover, the degeneracy between a given physical shape and its possible orbital content makes any particular solution for the orbital behavior non-unique. It is apparent from our study, though, that there exists at least one set of orbit families that generate a triaxial figure and respond to an adiabatically growing central potential in such a way as to preserve its global shape over long timescales.

### 4.3. Discussion

It is clear that the onset of chaos in the most tightly bound orbit families leads to a rapid change in the inner structure of the model galaxies. What is less clear is the specific agent driving the chaos in the system — is it scattering by the central black hole itself, the effects of the steepened stellar density cusp, or something else entirely? One way to check if the stellar cusp is responsible for the chaos is to remove the black hole and categorize the orbits that result from the $`\gamma 2`$ frozen stellar potential. Although this is not a self-consistent galaxy model, it is a useful tool to gauge the relative importance of the black hole to the steep stellar cusp (and its spherical stellar potential). We integrated a subset of particles in the $`E=0.65`$ energy slice in the purely stellar potential for a total of $`200t_{\mathrm{orb}}`$, and classified the orbits in the manner described previously. In both the two- and three-dimensional orbital analysis, we find that rapid chaos is strongly suppressed when the black hole is removed. Therefore, it seems clear from this experiment that the steep stellar cusp is not the source of strong chaos in these models. This result is interesting in light of the work of Merritt & Fridman (1996) which links the rapid onset of global chaos to the presence of steep ($`\gamma 2`$) density cusps in galaxies. Earlier work by Schwarzschild (1993), however, demonstrated the secular stability of $`\gamma 2`$ density cusps in scale-free triaxial logarithmic potentials, more in line with our results. These different conclusions indicate that the connection between cusp slope, figure shape, and orbit stochasticity may well be extremely sensitive to the various orbit families initially present in the model.

While the presence of a black hole is necessary for driving chaos in our models, the mechanics of this process are less clear. Under a simple black hole scattering model, chaotic orbits should have more – or closer – pericentric passes within $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ than stable ones, but this is not the case in our sample. In fact, the degree of stochasticity depended on neither the number of pericentric passes within $`r_{\mathrm{BH}}`$ nor on the minimum $`r_{\mathrm{peri}}`$. So, while the black hole does induce strong chaos, it seems not to do so through a simple scattering process. Another possibility is that chaos is driven by the transition between the inner spherical Keplerian potential of the black hole and the outer triaxial potential of the galaxy. In this picture, weakly bound box orbits in the outskirts of the model may spend too little of their orbital period in the inflection region to be significantly perturbed, and are thus not driven stochastic at all. In our simulations, however, there was no strong correlation between $`\mathrm{\Delta }f`$ and the time spent within the inflection region, leaving open the question of what drives chaos. In truth, however, the graininess of the potential makes it difficult to disentangle the subtleties of chaos from numerical noise in the potential, so that analytic studies are better suited for this question.

In the outer regions, orbits stay regular even after repeated passages near the potential center. It is possible that many of these orbits are actually chaotic orbits that are “sticky” (Siopis & Kandrup 2000), with a diffusion timescale that is much longer than a few dynamical times. The course-grainedness of our potential seems to argue against this explanation; a course-grained potential effectively creates holes in the Arnold web (Arnold 1964) through which an otherwise confined orbit may escape. In addition, we observed the same effect in the planar orbit sample, and Arnold diffusion does not occur in 2-D potentials (Merritt & Fridman 1996). It seems likely, then, that the regularity of these orbits is real.

Issues of orbital chaos and regularity aside, our galaxy model maintains its original degree of triaxiality on a global scale despite the presence of a massive central black hole. The orbit analysis described in §4 indicates that the model will remain relatively stable for as long as a Hubble time. It is therefore interesting to compare this stable galaxy model with observations of real elliptical galaxies.

Initially, our scaling parameters were chosen to place the model on both the global and the core fundamental planes. After the evolution in structural and kinematic properties driven by the black hole, does the model still obey these relations? In the case of the global fundamental plane, the answer is certainly yes: the changes in the velocity dispersion and radial density profiles occur only in the central regions ( $`\mathrm{log}r<1.5`$, or $`r`$ $`\stackrel{<}{}`$100 pc ), leaving the global properties of the model unchanged. For the core fundamental plane, the increase in central cusp slope ( from $`\gamma =1`$ to $`\gamma 2`$ ) represents a significant change, leaving the model with a cusp slope which is perhaps a bit too steep for its scaled luminosity of $`M_B=21.6`$ (see e.g., , Gebhardt et al. 1996). However, the $`\gamma M_B`$ relationship is quite steep and shows significant scatter at intermediate luminosity (Gebhardt et al. 1996), so that this discrepancy may not be significant – ellipticals with $`M_B21`$ show cusp slopes of $`\gamma =12`$. Scaling our model to more luminous ellipticals begins to present problems, however, since adiabatic black hole growth models generically predict cusp slopes steeper than that observed in luminous ellipticals (e.g., Bahcall & Wolf 1976; Young 1980; Goodman & Binney 1984; Sigurdsson et al. 1995; Quinlan et al. 1995).

Turning to the issue of triaxiality in ellipticals, the triaxiality parameter of the model at the half-mass radius is $`T=(1b^2)/(1c^2)=0.5`$, with a flattening $`c/a=0.8`$. Unfortunately, a problem arises in defining the best sample of ellipticals with which to compare our model. To select for black hole embedded ellipticals, samples of radio-loud ellipticals might seem the best choice, but luminous ellipticals typically have a flatter cusp slope than that used our models. On the other hand, although a more general sample of ellipticals may possess a wider range of cusp slopes, including steeper cusps like that of our model, they may also harbor black holes at a reduced rate when compared to AGN-selected samples. Bearing these caveats in mind, we compare the structural properties of our model to the triaxiality inferred for different samples of elliptical galaxies. Using a combination of photometric and kinematic data, Bak & Statler (2000) show that the Davies & Birkinshaw (1988) sample of radio galaxies is characterized by a range of shapes biased towards prolate figures but that – as long as ellipticals are not disk-like rotators – triaxialities like that of our model are common. In addition, the typical flattening of the galaxies in that sample is $`c/a0.7`$, similar to, although somewhat flatter than, our models. Studies of larger samples of ellipticals (not radio selected) also show characteristic flattening similar to that of our model (e.g. Ryden 1992; Tremblay & Merritt 1995). While a more detailed analysis of triaxiality in black hole embedded ellipticals must await more complete data, at face value our model does represent well the observed structural properties of elliptical galaxies.

The connection between supermassive black holes and triaxiality has important consequences for both secular and hierarchical galaxy evolution models. For example, it has been suggested that if a central black hole drives its host galaxy toward axisymmetry globally and rapidly, one possible difference between an intrinsically bright elliptical (thought to be more triaxial) and a faint elliptical is that the stars in the faint elliptical, with their shorter crossing times, have had more interactions with the black hole and the galaxy is thus more dynamically evolved (Valluri & Merritt 1998). The black hole/bulge mass relation can be explained in terms of galaxy evolution (Valluri & Merritt 1998) as well. In this scenario, spiral galaxies begin as gas-rich disks with a small triaxial bulge. The triaxial potential supports fueling of the central black hole through material falling into it on box orbits (e.g. Norman & Silk 1983) or by gas traveling on intersecting orbits which drive dissipation and inflow. The black hole grows until a critical mass of $``$ few $`\%`$ $`M_{\mathrm{gal}}`$, which breaks triaxiality and strongly curtails the gas inflow. Subsequent disk-disk merging can create a elliptical galaxy, and black hole feeding ensues in this larger triaxial bulge until the critical black hole mass is achieved. In both types of galaxies, the process is the same: once the black hole mass fraction is large enough to disrupt box orbits, gas inflow is sharply diminished.

The black hole in our model induced axisymmetry out to several hundred parsecs, and resulted in a clearly observable change in the shape and structure of the galaxy on these scales. Since the transformation did not take place globally, it is tempting to say that the black hole mass/bulge mass relation observed in the current galaxy population is not simply an artifact of gas inflow in a more triaxial-shaped progenitor population. However, it is not immediately clear how the more localized axisymmetry we observed would affect gas inflow and subsequent black hole feeding. While it is true in our globally triaxial model that gas inflow from outside the half mass radius would never be entirely cut off, the behavior of the gas once it hits the axisymmetric region requires detailed gas dynamical simulations. Nonetheless, it is clear that a central supermassive black hole causes dramatic and long-lasting changes in the host galaxy over scales well outside the region in which it dominates the potential.

Finally, 21-cm observations of elliptical galaxies have revealed the presence of extended neutral hydrogen disks and rings in many ellipticals (e.g. Franx et al. 1994; van Gorkom & Schiminovich 1997; Hibbard et al. 2001). Several authors have proposed that these structures are precursors to “disk rebuilding” in ellipticals (Schweizer 1998; van Gorkom 2001). If this scenario is correct, there must be an inward migration of gas in these systems. Triaxiality offers a mechanism to drive this inflow, but if black holes were to break triaxiality on large scales it is difficult to see how migration and disk building could occur. Our results alleviate these concerns; the fact that triaxiality is maintained in all but the inner few hundred parsecs of the galaxy would allow gas to move inwards on kiloparsec scales to perhaps begin the process of disk formation. However, the modest degree of triaxiality in the model suggests that the rebuilding timescale may be long.333This is particularly problematic for the very extended (i.e. many $`R_e`$) rings seen in some ellipticals. In these cases, not only is the dynamical timescale long, but the dynamics are more likely driven by the structure of the dark matter halo than by the luminous galaxy itself (e.g., Franx, van Gorkom, & de Zeeuw 1994).

## 5. Summary

Using numerical simulations, we have studied the growth of central supermassive black holes inside cuspy triaxial galaxies. Unlike previous self-consistent modeling of black hole growth in triaxial ellipticals, our calculations employ progenitor galaxy models which are both triaxial and have central density cusps typical of observed ellipticals (Holley-Bockelmann et al. 2000). Inside these progenitors, we adiabatically grow a central black hole of mass $`M_{\mathrm{BH}}=0.01M_{\mathrm{gal}}`$. As the black hole grows, it induces a central cusp ($`\gamma 2`$) in the stellar density profile and a strong roundening of the central shape of the elliptical. However, while the effects of the black hole do extend beyond its nominal “sphere of influence”, out at an effective radius the galaxy figure remains largely unchanged.

To explore the change in the orbital structure induced by the black hole, we use a combination of Fourier spectral classification and axis-crossing pattern recognition to classify the orbits present in the model. At the most tightly bound energies, the models are composed entirely of loops, short and long axis tubes, and chaotic orbits. These chaotic orbits comprise all of the box and boxlet phase space present in the original model, and even a population of eccentric tubes. The outer regions predominantly contain short axis tube orbits; however, in these outer regions, there still exists a modest phase space of boxes and boxlets which support the large-scale triaxiality of the system. Of these centrophilic orbit families, there are a substantial fraction that do not go strongly chaotic, even over thousands of dynamical times. While the presence of noise in the potential expansion limits our ability to detect mild chaos in the orbit populations, we believe that the remaining boxes and boxlets in the outer regions are stable enough to continue to support the global shape of the galaxy for a Hubble time.

While massive black holes act as agents of chaos in the inner regions of our models, they provoke a more modest response in the outer regions than expected on the basis of earlier studies (e.g. Norman et al. 1985; Merritt & Quinlan 1998). However, those previous studies employed galaxy models which had flat central density “cores” and were also significantly more flattened than ours, a combination which yields a significantly higher fraction of boxes in the original orbital families than found in our model. These differences are likely the root cause of the more dramatic evolution seen in previous calculations. Our galaxy models indicate that even moderately triaxial ellipticals can host central massive black holes, in agreement with observational evidence which suggests both that black holes are ubiquitous (Magorrian et al. 1998) and that triaxiality may be common (Bak & Statler 2000).

Our more realistic elliptical galaxy models make an excellent tool for the simulation of several unsolved problems in elliptical galaxy formation and evolution. such as the degree of disk rebuilding by large-scale gas inflow, the effect of satellite infall on the structure of the galaxy, the interaction between galaxies and their triaxial dark matter halos, the persistence of central cusps, and the formation of nuclear disks.

This work is supported through a grant of computing time from the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and by NASA through grant NAG5-7019. JCM is also supported by an NSF Career Grant and Research Corporation Cottrell Scholarship. We wish to thank Tim de Zeeuw for the careful refereeing of this paper. We thank Rebecca Stanek for help with data analysis.


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# LARGE SCALE STRUCTURE AND X-RAY CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES

## 1 Introduction

Our quest for understanding the origin and evolution of galaxies and larger–scale structures is based on the exploration of large volumes of space through redshift surveys of luminous objects. This short review concentrates on using clusters of galaxies as the basic bricks by which to study large-scale structure (LSS hereafter) on the largest accessible scales. In fact, with mean separations $`10\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$, clusters of galaxies are ideal objects for sampling efficiently long–wavelength ($`\lambda 50100\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$) density fluctuations over large volumes, i.e. well in the linear regime where inhomogeneities are expected to fully reflect initial conditions as they emerged at recombination. This means that, for example, we do not necessarily need to go through n–body simulations to produce reliable model predictions for the clustering of clusters, but can use analytic approximations with sufficient accuracy . The second important advantage, which will be discussed at some length later in the text, is that clusters can be selected directly through their X-ray luminosity, a quantity that correlates well with their mass . This is not what happens with galaxies, where luminosity is usually a measure of star formation efficiency, rather than of total mass itself. At the same time, with respect to the loose optical definition of a cluster, X-ray selection provides the ability to select samples with a well–defined selection function, essentially that of a flux–limited sample as in the case of galaxy surveys. On the other hand, clusters provide a biased view of clustering: they only represent the very high peaks of the global density field, such that their variance is amplified with respect to galaxies (and of course, mass) as first described by Nick Kaiser . Therefore, they miss the small–scale details of the LSS (that can be complementarily better studied through galaxy surveys). Nevertheless, for the same reason the cluster distribution might provide an enhanced view of possible low–amplitude features in the clustering spectrum on very large scales.

This review inevitably reflects a personal perspective and covers a limited amount of work. However, an effort was made to provide references to complementary topics, as e.g. galaxy surveys and optically selected clusters. Using these, the interested reader can surely enlarge the restricted view of large-scale structure presented here. I also apologize to those colleagues whose work is not adequately represented in this paper.

## 2 Tracing Light vs. Tracing Mass

Even when studying the distribution of galaxies through redshift surveys (see the review by Da Costa in this same volume), one should always be aware that what is being described is the clustering of a specific class of objects, not of the matter. We know for example that infrared–selected galaxies show a weaker clustering with respect to optically–selected galaxies , or that elliptical galaxies are more clustered than spirals , or that high-redshift Ly-break selected galaxies look (at $`z=3`$) as clustered as nowadays normal galaxies . In other words, with redshift surveys of visible objects we always study the distribution of tracers of the LSS. The relation to the mass distribution depends on the kind of tracer we are using, such that the clustering in the light will be in some way proportional to the clustering in the mass. The proportionality between these two distributions is expressed through the bias function, in general a function of scale and cosmic epoch. One of the simplest possibilities, which is shown to work reasonably well in the local Universe, is that of a statistical bias parameter b independent of scale relating the variances in galaxy counts and in the mass:

$$\left(\frac{\delta n(R)}{n}\right)_{rms}=b\left(\frac{\delta \rho (R)}{\rho }\right)_{rms}$$
(1)
A fair amount of work has been dedicated to the problem of galaxy biasing during the last fifteen years, both theoretically (e.g. ) and observationally (e.g. establishing that for “normal” optically selected galaxies we have $`b11.5`$ over a fair range of scales ). However, understanding the physical origin of the bias is not an easy task, as it involves comprehending the details of how the mass of a galaxy translates into the visible stellar light we use to select it for our surveys. Despite the great advances of the last few years in our knowledge of the early phases of galaxy formation , we are still very ignorant about the details of star formation and evolution within galaxies, and as a consequence $`b`$ remains a free parameter when comparing galaxy clustering to the models.

## 3 Clusters of Galaxies as Tracers of LSS

Clusters of galaxies have a honourable history as an alternative, complementary tracer of LSS. Although one could spend endless discussions on the semantic of the word “structure” and argue that only galaxies do describe it properly, it is in fact a mere question of “spatial resolution” and of the scales on which we want to focus our attention. Galaxies are best for the fine details, but (even in the 2dF and SDSS era222The 2dF  and SDSS  surveys represent the two largest efforts to date to reconstruct the galaxy distribution over a large portion of the local Universe ($`z<\text{ }0.2`$). The latter, in particular, is measuring redshifts for 1 million galaxies using a dedicated telescope, with additional photometric data in five bands for almost $`10^8`$ galaxies.) it is difficult to fully cover large volumes of space using galaxy redshift surveys, because measuring galaxy redshifts costs time. Groups and clusters are much more efficient to cover large volumes, as they are sparser objects, and are therefore excellent for studying the gross structure and its statistical properties in the weak clustering regime. Since clustering extends to scales of the order of 1 Gpc, there is a good deal of structure to be “seen” and measured using such sparse tracers (note e.g. the chains of clusters visible both in the data and simulations of Figs.2 and 6). Also, we are used to the rarity of very rich, massive clusters, but in fact this is just a limitation of current X-ray surveys. An all–sky X-ray survey to a sufficiently faint flux limit ($`10^{14}`$ erg s-1 cm-2, i.e. two orders of magnitude fainter than the current ROSAT All–Sky Survey) would provide a finer description of structures connecting rich clusters out to $`z0.3`$, detecting chains of faint X-ray groups as pearls on a necklace.

But, are clusters and groups so well defined as a class to be used to trace LSS in a homogeneous and statistically reliable way? If defined in the optical as galaxy overdensities, clusters are in fact just a “collection of pieces”, thus intrinsically prone to subjective interpretations and biases . Overcoming at least the human intervention in this process prompted the construction of automatic cluster catalogues, based on the first digitised galaxy photographic surveys produced in the UK, notably the EDCC  and APM  catalogues (see also contributions by Gal  and Kim  in this volume). However, it is when we come to estimating its mass that we are faced with the intrinsic ambiguity of the optical definition of a cluster. Richness (i.e. the number of galaxies observed in projection within a fiducial radius, corrected for the expected background contamination) has a poor correlation with mass . A much better way would be to measure the velocity dispersion of the cluster galaxies, which at equilibrium (no galaxy infall) is a measure of the cluster potential well. However, this requires a very large number of galaxy velocities to be reliably measured  and still one will not be sure that the sample contains all clusters within a given volume and above a given mass . This simply because in the first place the cluster selection function was only loosely related to this fundamental parameter, which is what model predictions are based upon. This is a serious problem if one wants to do cosmology with clusters of galaxies, which means e.g. measuring their mean density or two–point statistics, because questions as simple as “What is the volume explored by my survey?” do not have an obvious answer when clusters are selected just as overdensities in the galaxy distribution.

## 4 X-ray Selected Clusters

X-ray selection represents currently the most physical way by which to identify and homogeneously select large numbers of clusters of galaxies333A notable powerful alternative is represented by radio surveys using the Sunyaev–Zel’dovic effect. This technique also probes directly the energy content of the cluster potential well: towards the cluster direction, the Cosmic Microwave Background photons are scattered through Inverse Compton by the energetic electrons of the intracluster plasma. An advantage of SZ is that the $`(1+z)^4`$ surface brightness dimming is compensated by a $`(1+z)^4`$ increase in the CMB energy density, which would make an SZ survey for clusters effectively flux–limited also at very large redshifts (see e.g.  for a review). Large-scale applications of this effect have been so far limited by technology issues, such that only about 20 clusters with observed effect are currently known, but one can foresee a rapid development in the coming years.. Clusters shine in the X-ray sky thanks to the bremsstrahlung emission produced by the hot plasma ($`kT110`$ KeV) trapped within their potential wells. For this mechanism the bolometric emissivity (i.e., the energy released per unit time and volume) at temperature $`T`$ scales as $`ϵ_Tn_en_iT^{1/2}`$, where $`n_e`$ and $`n_i`$ are the number densities of electrons and ions, respectively. The dependence on the density squared is one reason why the identification of clusters in the X-ray band is less affected by false projection effects. In fact, traditional optical selection based on galaxy overdensities depends only linearly on the density of galaxies. Fig.1 explicitly shows how in the X-ray band clusters emerge as single, mostly isolated, extended sources (virtually at any $`z`$), which can be unambiguously identified by an X-ray telescope with sufficient resolution and sensitivity. At the same time, the selection function of an X-ray cluster survey can be determined to high accuracy, knowing the properties of the X-ray telescope used, in a similar way to what is usually done with magnitude–limited samples of galaxies . This is a crucial point if our cluster surveys are to be used as cosmological probes to address global properties and not only for studying single, yet interesting, objects.

The intracluster gas temperature, as measured through the observed X-ray spectrum, is the most direct probe of the potential well: $`kT\mu m_p\sigma _v^2G\mu m_pM_{vir}/(3r)`$ (where $`m_p`$ is the proton mass, $`\mu 0.6`$ the gas mean molecular weight, $`\sigma _v`$ the galaxy 1D velocity dispersion and $`M_{vir}`$ the cluster virial mass). Current large surveys of X-ray clusters are based on instruments with limited spectral resolution (essentially the ROSAT satellite) and this quantity is therefore not available in general. However, at least on a phenomenological basis, X-ray luminosity, a more directly observable quantity, shows a good correlation with temperature, $`L_XT^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha 3`$ and a small scatter, $`<\text{ }30\%`$. Although one can debate at length about the physical processes that shape up such a relatively tight relationship (and there were a few discussions at the meeting on this subject, see e.g Moscardini and White contributions in this volume), this does not affect its practical usefulness: we can select clusters by X-ray luminosity and be sure we are selecting them by mass with an error estimated to be $`<\text{ }35`$ % when taking into account all uncertainties in the various steps . Even if pre–heating processes as e.g. supernovae explosions are important in the overall cluster thermodynamics (and necessary, given the observed slope of the relation), it has been shown that these cannot perturb the temperature–mass relation at more than the 10–15% level . Therefore, once we establish that the L–T relation is tight, the L–M will be as well and we can safely use $`L_X`$ as possibly the cheapest reliable way to select clusters by mass. What is surprising is that this relation seems to hold rather well also at redshifts close to unity and above , which makes pre–heating even more necessary. Still, this means that we can safely make cosmological predictions for clusters of a given mass out to these redshifts and sensibly compare them with observed clusters of a given luminosity (). This is by far superior to any attempt to estimate the mass of clusters using an optical estimator, as e.g. richness  (although see  for a possible improvement).

## 5 Clustering of X-ray Clusters: Recent Progress

The study of clustering of optically–selected clusters has a long tradition, since the early pioneering work on the Abell catalogue , and subsequent studies on automatic cluster catalogues as the EDCC  and APM . Only in recent years similar clustering works have become possible on X-ray selected samples of clusters , mostly thanks to the completion of the ROSAT All–Sky Survey (RASS, see  for details).

The largest, statistically homogeneous sample of clusters with measured distances constructed so far from the RASS for clustering studies is the REFLEX (ROSAT-ESO Flux Limited X-ray) survey . The survey contains 452 clusters over the southern celestial hemisphere ($`\delta <2.5^{}`$), at galactic latitudes $`|b_{II}|>20^{}`$ and is more than 90% complete to a flux limit of $`3\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 (in the ROSAT band, 0.1–2.4 keV). Redshifts for all REFLEX clusters have been measured during a long observing campaign (1992-2000) using ESO telescopes.

Fig. 2 plots the 3D distribution of REFLEX clusters within $`600\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$, showing a number of superstructures with sizes $`100\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$. Despite the fading with distance due to the flux–limited selection function, it is visually evident how clusters are still strongly clustered among themselves. One of the main motivations for constructing this survey was to measure the power spectrum on scales approaching 1 h-1 Gpc. Fig. 3 shows an estimate of the power spectrum of REFLEX clusters (from ), compared to that of galaxies and to the best fitting CDM model (dashed line). This comparison is particularly significant because here, contrary to when comparing models to galaxy power spectra, the normalisation (i.e. the bias factor of the specific clusters used) is not a free parameter, but is computed given the well–understood mass selection function of REFLEX and the appropriate theory . In this way, it has been shown that an $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.3`$ model (open or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$–dominated), best matches both the shape and amplitude of the observed REFLEX correlation function and power spectrum . The sensitivity of these quantities to variations in the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ is shown by the plots in Fig. 4. From these plots, one can also appreciate the remarkable agreement in shape between galaxies and clusters on all scales, with the correlation function breaking down to zero around $`6070\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ for both classes of objects. Such simple proportionality was never seen so clearly with previous cluster samples and is a confirmation of the bias scenario where clusters form at the high, rare peaks of the mass density distribution . It also confirms the reassuring view that at least above $`5\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ the galaxy and mass distributions are as well linked by a simple constant bias.

One important point from Fig. 3 is how significant is the evidence for a turnover in the power spectrum at low $`k`$’s. This issue has been addressed using the so–called Karhunen-Loeve transform to the REFLEX data, exploring volumes up to $`1\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Gpc}`$ size . Such specific likelihood analysis which is based on finding the optimal basis of eigenvectors given the survey geometry , confirms the evidence for a turnover in the REFLEX $`P(k)`$ at $`k=0.023\pm 0.006\mathrm{h}\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, providing a best fitting value for the CDM shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.14_{0.07}^{+0.13}`$. Similar power on these scales is seen in the 2dF galaxy redshift survey444Unfortunately, the 2dF $`P(k)`$ results (although published) could not be obtained in electronic form at the time of writing, and a direct comparison plot similar to Fig. 3 could not be done. .

Finally, Fig. 5 plots the two–point correlation map $`\xi (r_p,\pi )`$ for the REFLEX survey data. This function is used to evidence distortions produced by peculiar velocities on the observed galaxy and cluster 3D maps, which by definition are constructed in redshift space. In the REFLEX case, it shows for the first time a clear indication of infall of clusters towards superstructures . This result indicates that in most previous cluster samples this effect was masked by selection effects and redshift errors . Contrary to these, in this sample there is basically no elongation of the contours along the $`\pi `$ direction (the line of sight component of the separation $`s`$ between pairs, $`s^2=\pi ^2+r_p^3`$), which tells us that both projection effects and redshift errors are negligible in this survey. On the other hand, the contours are significantly compressed at large $`r_p`$’s: this is the fingerprint of streaming motions (see  for a discussion of these effects based on the Hubble Volume simulations), and is a function of the parameter $`\beta =\mathrm{\Omega }_M^{0.6}/b`$ (see  for details and  for an application to the 2dF survey).

## 6 Power on Gpc Scales and Features in the Power Spectrum

The REFLEX power spectra from the largest volumes available, tend to show significant power around $`k0.02`$, but still consistent with a CDM model with very low value of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }0.14`$, as stated above. Significant power in this range of scales is also expected if the baryonic contribution to the mean density is non–negligible with respect to the dark matter. In this regard, there has been significant interest in the last few years about the possibility of detecting other “baryon features”, i.e. wiggles in the observed power spectrum amplitude produced by acoustic oscillations within the last scattering surface . The observational results so far have been contradictory: Miller et al.  claim to detect oscillations through a joint statistical analysis of the power spectra from three different cluster$`+`$galaxy data sets. Interestingly, their finding is very consistent to what one would expect by just taking the best fitting set of cosmological parameters from the very last CMB observations  and computing the CDM+baryons transfer function. On the other hand, the wiggles visible in the latest 2dF power spectrum are currently not considered as particularly significant by the authors . As an aside, it remains still a fascinating issue to understand whether one of these features, if confirmed, could be related to the “periodic” pattern detected more than 10 years ago by Broadhurst and collaborators  in their pencil beam surveys at the galactic poles (see  for more discussion of past results, and  for similar tentative indications from the 2dF QSO survey).

## 7 X-ray Clusters and the Evolution of Structure: Deep Surveys

Fig. 6 (from ) shows in a clear way how sensitive the evolution of structure is to the cosmological model, and in particular to the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Clusters of galaxies basically describe the growth of structures within comoving volumes of $`10\mathrm{h}^1\mathrm{Mpc}`$ size, and one can notice how their abundance at even moderate redshifts is strikingly different in the two scenarios: massive systems are already quite rare at $`z=0.6`$ and substantially absent at $`z=1.4`$ in the Einstein–De Sitter model. This figure provides one of the main motivations for the deep surveys of clusters to $`z1`$ and beyond, that have been performed in recent years based mainly on the ROSAT PSPC archive. Such surveys constructed samples of serendipitously-observed clusters which have been used to measure directly the cosmic evolution of the mean density of X-ray luminous systems (see  and  for reviews). The lack of evolution in the X-ray luminosity function (XLF) for $`L<L^{}410^{44}`$ erg s-1 out to $`z0.8`$ resembles the situation of the top panel of

Fig. 6 (once we translate temperatures into luminosities), thus favouring low values for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ (see  for details). At the same time, these results confirm the early findings from the EMSS  of mild evolution at the bright end of the XLF . Fig. 7 plots a comparison of the latest XLF from the REFLEX survey, which represents the state of the art in the local ($`z<\text{ }0.3`$) Universe , to measurements at higher redshift . Despite these strong observational efforts, however, the number of high–redshift X-ray selected clusters is still disappointingly small ($`15`$ known above $`z=0.8`$). Also, essentially all current large samples are based on the same ROSAT–PSPC instrument, including the most recent attempt to exploit the large area of the RASS to find massive clusters beyond the REFLEX limit (the MACS survey at $`z<\text{ }0.6`$ ). A different approach has been taken by a new survey, recently started after a thorough re–analysis of the higher–resolution ROSAT–HRI archive, a database so far neglected for cluster searches. This is the BMW (Brera Multiscale Wavelet) cluster survey . Although still in the early phases of its optical follow–up, the BMW survey, which features a very interesting sky coverage to farly faint fluxes ($`100`$ sq.deg around $`10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, 1 sq.deg at $`2.5\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1), is producing very promising first results (two clusters above $`z=0.8`$ and a few $`z1`$ candidates, see also http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/$``$guzzo/BMW/gallery.html) and is expected to provide an important complementary “bridge” between the PSPC surveys and future ($`>2003`$) surveys based on Chandra and XMM data (see e.g. Pierre, this volume).

Acknowledgements.  I thank M. Treyer and L. Tresse for the wonderful organization of this meeting and for their patience with the proceedings. I am grateful to all my collaborators in the various projects discussed here and in particular to H. Böhringer, C. Collins and P. Schuecker. This paper draws freely from another review written together with S. Borgani, to whom I am deeply indebted. I also thank P. Rosati for very useful discussions on finding distant clusters and for access to his RDCS data, S. Borgani and A. Fernandez-Soto for critically reading the manuscript and A. Moretti for his help with figure 1.


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# Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy in models with Quintessence11footnote 1To appear in the proceedings of ”Frontier of Cosmology and Gravitation” (YITP, Kyoto, April 25-27, 2001). This presentation is based on the work with M. Kawasaki and T. Moroi [1, 2].

## 1 Introduction

Recent cosmological observations suggest that there exists a dark energy which must be added to the matter density in order to reach the critical density. Although the cosmological constant is usually assumed as the dark energy, in the past years, a slowly evolving scalar field, dubbed as “quintessence” has been proposed as the dark energy  and has been been studied by many authors . There are some differences between the cosmological constant and quintessence. Firstly, for the quintessence, the equation-of-state parameter $`\omega _Q=\rho _Q/p_Q`$ varies with time, whilst for the cosmological constant, it remains a fixed value $`\omega _\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. Secondly, since the quintessence is a scalar field, it fluctuates.

One of the observational effects produced by the existence of the quintessence is the CMB anisotropies. In many cases, the quintessence dominates the universe at late times ($`zO(1)`$, with $`z`$ being redshift) after the recombination. At that epoch the gravitational potential is changed because the equation of state for quintessence is different from that for non-relativistic matter, which leads to an enhancement of the CMB anisotropies at large angular scales $`l10`$ due to the late-time integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. The quintessence also changes the locations of the acoustic peaks in the CMB angular power spectrum because the projection of the horizon at last scattering onto the present sky is enlarged compared with models with the cosmological constant. Furthermore, the initial fluctuations of the quintessence fields are generated during inflation. These fluctuations behave as isocurvature mode  and hence the quintessence may have both adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations.

## 2 CMB anisotropy in models with cosine-type quintessence

The quintessence model we take here is the cosine-type quintessence which has the potential

$`V(Q)=\mathrm{\Lambda }^4\left[1\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q}{f_Q}}\right)\right]=2\mathrm{\Lambda }^4\mathrm{sin}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{Q}{2f_Q}}\right),`$ (1)
where $`f_Q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are model parameters. This type of potential can be generated if the quintessence field is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson. In this class of models, effective mass of the quintessence field is always of $`O(\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/f_Q)`$.

Since the quintessence is a scalar field, its amplitude may have position-dependent fluctuations. To investigate its behavior, we decompose the $`Q`$ field as $`Q(t,\stackrel{}{x})=\overline{Q}(t)+q(t,\stackrel{}{x})`$, where $`q`$ is the perturbation of the amplitude of the quintessence field. Before we consider the fluctuations of the quintessence fields, we discuss the dynamics of the zero mode of the quintessence fields briefly. For details, see Ref..

The zero mode $`\overline{Q}`$ obeys the equation of motion $`\ddot{\overline{Q}}+3H\dot{Q}+dV/dQ=0`$ where the dot represents the derivative with respect to time $`t`$. When the relation $`H\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/f_Q`$ is satisfied, the quintessence field starts to oscillate. If the combination $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^2/f_Q`$ is large, the oscillation starts earlier epoch and the quintessence field undergoes many oscillations until the present time. We call the parameter space where the oscillation of the quintessence is significant as “oscillatory region.” When the quintessence field starts to oscillate earlier, it dominates the energy density of the universe from earlier epoch. This has significant implications to the CMB power spectrum.

Now we discuss the the fluctuations of the quintessence fields. There are two origins of non-vanishing $`q`$ at the present time; one is non-vanishing gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and the other is primordial $`q`$ itself. We call these modes as “adiabatic” and “isocurvature” modes, respectively. In the actual situations, both modes may exist. Since these modes are uncorrelated, the total fluctuation can be decomposed into two modes which originate to primordial fluctuations in $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ and $`q`$, respectively:
$`\mathrm{Adiabatic}:\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Psi }(a0)0\hfill \\ q(a0)=0\hfill \end{array},`$  (3)       $`\mathrm{Isocurvature}:\{\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Psi }(a0)=0\hfill \\ q(a0)0\hfill \end{array}.`$  (6)
We assume that there is no entropy fluctuations between any of two energy components other than that of quintessence. Thus, the adiabatic mode given with the initial condition (6) corresponds to the conventional adiabatic initial condition. On the contrary, the mode with the initial condition (6) is called “isocurvature mode,” since the total density fluctuation and the potential $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vanishes as $`a0`$ if this is the only source of the fluctuation in the early universe. To parameterize the relative size of adiabatic and isocurvature contributions, it is convenient to define $`r_q`$, the ratio of the primordial value of $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$ to that of the gauge-invariant variable $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ at the radiation-dominated universe

$`r_q{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{~}{q}}{M_{}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}}},`$ (7)
where $`M_{}`$ is the reduced Planck scale. Since the ratio $`r_q`$ generically depends on the model of the inflation, we treat $`r_q`$ as a free parameter in our analysis. (For example, for the chaotic inflation with $`V_{\mathrm{inf}}\chi ^p`$ with $`p`$ being an integer $`p=2`$ $``$ 10, $`r_q0.3`$ $``$ 0.6. 222In our analysis, we only consider the case with scale-independent primordial fluctuation, and $`r_q`$ is treated as a scale-invariant quantity. When $`r_q`$ has a scale dependence via $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Psi }}`$ and/or $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$, $`r_q(k)`$ for the present horizon scale becomes the most important since the quadrupole anisotropy is most strongly affected by the isocurvature mode as will be shown below. )

### 2.1 Adiabatic Fluctuation

Here, we discuss the CMB anisotropy in models with quintessence. To calculate the CMB angular power spectrum, we used the modified version of CMBFAST . In this section, we consider the adiabatic modes, so we take $`r_q=0`$.

Some of interesting features in the CMB angular power spectrum are discussed in order. First, let us consider the locations of the acoustic peaks. The locations of the peaks depend on two quantities, the sound horizon at last scattering and the angular diameter distance to the last scattering surface. Approximately, the location of $`n`$-th peak in the $`l`$ space is estimated as $`l_n(r_\theta (\tau _{})/r_s(\tau _{}))n\pi `$ , where $`r_\theta (\tau _{})`$ is the angular diameter distance to the last scattering surface and $`r_s(\tau _{})`$ is the sound horizon at last scattering. Since the behavior of the cosine-type quintessence is almost the same as that of the cosmological constant until very recently, $`r_s(\tau _{})`$ is the same in both cases. However, $`r_\theta (\tau _{})`$ in the quintessence model is different from that in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. Since the quintessence models provides larger total energy density of the universe than the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models in the earlier epoch, the angular diameter distance in the quintessence model becomes smaller than that in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. As we can see from Fig. 2, the location of the peaks is shifted to lower multipole $`l`$ for the quintessence models. If we take a parameter in the oscillatory region, this feature becomes more prominent.

Next let us consider the height of the acoustic peaks. Since the energy density of the quintessence becomes dominant when $`zO(1)`$, the late time integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect enhances low multipoles. Such an enhancement may be more effective in the quintessence models than in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models since, in the quintessence case, the “dark energy” (i.e., the quintessence) may dominate the universe earlier than in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM case. As a result, the ratio of the height of the first peak to $`C_{10}`$ becomes smaller. On the contrary, since the quintessence becomes the dominant component of the universe only at later epoch, pattern of the acoustic oscillation before the recombination does not change compared to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. Therefore, ratios of the height of the first peak to those of higher peaks are the same as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models.

Now we discuss constraints on the cosine-type quintessence models from the observations of COBE, BOOMERanG and MAXIMA. Constraints on the parameter $`f_Q`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are shown in Fig. 2. When we take a parameter in the oscillatory regions, the quintessence field becomes dominant component of the universe at earlier epoch. Namely the late time ISW effect becomes large and the angular diameter distance to the last scattering surface becomes smaller as mentioned before. Therefore, if $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is significantly large, the late time ISW effect enhances angular power spectrum at low multipoles. As a result, the heights of the acoustic peaks are suppressed relative to $`C_l`$ with small $`l`$.

### 2.2 Isocurvature Fluctuation

Next, we consider the CMB anisotropy in the case with the isocurvature mode. We calculate the CMB anisotropy for various cases, and in Table 1, we show the quadrupole $`C_2`$ normalized by $`C_{10}`$.

If we limit ourselves to the parameter region which is consistent with the COBE, BOOMERanG, and MAXIMA observations with simple scale-invariant primordial fluctuation, effect of the isocurvature mode is quite small as far as $`r_q1`$. This is because, in such cases, there is a severe upper bound on $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to suppress the late time ISW effect which enhances $`C_l`$ with small $`l`$. As a result, the quintessence field cannot dominate the universe when $`z1`$. Then, the isocurvature fluctuation in the quintessence density also becomes a minor effect until very recently. As one can see in Table 1, for the best-fit value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (i.e., for the Point A given in Fig. 2), the enhancement of $`C_2`$ is about 2 % even for $`r_Q=2`$. If we consider larger value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, effect on $`C_2`$ is more enhanced. For $`(f_Q,\mathrm{\Lambda })=(5\times 10^{17}\mathrm{GeV},3.0\times 10^{12}\mathrm{GeV})`$ (i.e., for the Point C given in Fig. 3, which is allowed at 99 % C.L.), we calculate the CMB angular power spectrum and the result is given in Fig. 3. In this case, $`C_2`$ can be enhanced by the factor 2.6 if $`r_Q=2`$.

One should note that angular power spectrum of the CMB anisotropy strongly depends on the primordial spectrum of the fluctuations. Thus, the constraint on the $`f_Q`$ vs. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane is sensitive to the scale-dependence of the primordial adiabatic fluctuation which is determined by the model of the inflation. Therefore, if we adopt a possibility of a non-trivial scale dependence of the primordial fluctuation, the constraint on the $`f_Q`$ vs. $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane given in the previous section may be relaxed or modified. If this is the case, larger value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ may be allowed and the energy density of the quintessence field may become significant at earlier stage of the universe.

## 3 Conclusions and Discussion

We have studied the CMB anisotropies produced by cosine-type quintessence models. In particular, effects of the adiabatic and isocurvature fluctuations have been both discussed.

For purely adiabatic fluctuations with scale invariant spectrum, the existence of the quintessence suppresses the relative height of the first acoustic peak of the angular power spectrum compared with the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM case. This is because, in the quintessence models, the “dark energy” due to the quintessence may dominate the universe earlier than the cosmological constant case, and hence the late time ISW effect becomes more effective. As a result, the CMB anisotropy for large angular scale is more enhanced, which relatively suppresses the height of the acoustic peaks. Because of this effect, the CMB data from COBE, BOOMERanG and MAXIMA have imposed the stringent constraint on the model parameters of the quintessence models. We have also seen that the location of the the first acoustic peak shifts to lower multipole $`l`$ compared with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models.

In the case of the isocurvature fluctuations, we have shown that the isocurvature fluctuations have significant effects on the CMB angular power spectrum at low multipoles in some parameter space, which may be detectable in future satellite experiments. Such effects is also seen in the tracker-type models . This signal may be used to test the quitessence model, combining with the global shape of the CMB angular power spectrum.


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# Crystal Growth of Isotactic Polystyrene in Ultrathin Films : Film Thickness Dependence

## 1 Introduction

Crystal growth of polymers in thin films has recently studied on morphology and growth rate . The crystal growth rate is reduced in thin films . For isotactic polystyrene (it-PS), the thickness dependence of the growth rate down to 20nm was found to be expressed as follows ,

$$G(d)=G(\mathrm{})\left(1a/d\right),$$
(1)
where $`G(d)`$ is the growth rate in the film of thickness $`d`$, $`G(\mathrm{})`$ is the growth rate in the bulk and $`a`$ is a constant of about 6 nm independent of crystallization temperature, molecular weight and substrate materials. This decrease in growth rate was attributed to the reduction on mobility of chain molecules in thin films and proposed that the value of $`a`$ corresponds to the tube diameter in the reptation model of polymer dynamics .

In a previous paper , we reported on morphological change with crystallization temperature for it-PS crystals in a ultrathin film, the thickness of which is 11nm; the crystal morphology changes from faceted to branched one with decreasing crystallization temperature. In the present paper we investigate the film thickness dependence of morphology and growth rate of it-PS crystals grown at 180C in ultrathin films, the thickness of which is thinner than 20 nm, down to 4 nm. It is to be noted that at 180C in the bulk it-PS the growth rate is maximum and the morphology shows a circular disk. It is interesting to observe how the thickness dependence of growth rate, eq (1), together with morphology changes for $`da`$. We will discuss the film thickness dependence of growth rate and morphology in terms of chain diffusion in thin films.

## 2 Experimental

The sample used was it-PS supplied by Polymer Laboratory ($`M_w=590,000`$, $`M_w/M_n=3.4`$, tacticity: 97% isotactic triad). This molecular weight corresponds to 22 nm in radius of gyration of a polystyrene molecule in the melt. Ultrathin films of the it-PS were prepared on a carbon-evaporated glass slide by spin-coating 0.3 to 1.0wt% cyclohexanone solution at 4000 rpm; amorphous it-PS films with uniform thickness of 4 - 20 nm were thereby obtained. The films were crystallized isothermally at several temperatures 180C for a certain period of time in a hot stage (Mettler FP800). Before crystallization, the films were melted at 250 C for 3 minutes, quenched to room temperature much lower than the glass transition temperature Tg ($``$ 90C), and immediately elevated to the crystallization temperature. The lateral growth rate was determined by in situ differential-contrast optical microscopy (Nikon Optiphoto-2). Detailed morphology and structure of the crystals were investigated by an atomic force microscope (AFM) (SHIMADZU SPM-9500J) and a transmission electron microscope (TEM) (JEOL 1200EX II) at room temperature after crystallization and quenching.

## 3 Results

Figure 1 shows the AFM images (height mode) of it-PS lamellar crystals grown at 180C in ultrathin films below 20 nm in thickness. Amorphous regions around the crystals close to the growth interface is always thinner by several nanometers than the region far from the interface(original thickness); we call hereafter this region “halo”, named after the bright region in TEM images . A few nm-thick amorphous layer covers the surface of these lamellae, including lateral growth surface . In 17 nm-thick films Fig.1 a, the crystal shows a rounded shape with an undulated growth interface and a few small overgrowth lamellae is on its surface. It is observed that the top surface of the lamellar crystal is also undulated a few nm in height as indicated by the radial stripes. In films thinner than 15nm, the crystal morphology changes to that observed in the diffusion-controlled growth , as shown in Fig.1 b to f. In 14 nm thick films, the crystal shows the splitting of growth face to have many irregular branches typical in the dense branching morphology (DBM) or compact seaweed (CS)  . The envelope of this branching structure is nearly circular; we call hereafter this envelope ”average front” in contrast to the local growth interface of its branch . The crystal grown in 11nm-thick films (Fig.1 c), also consists of many branches, however it has an almost hexagonal average front similar to the compact dendrite (CD). Below about 8 nm , the average front is triangular rather than hexagonal; it is to be noted that it-PS has the trigonal crystal structure . There is little material left between the branches developed.

It is clearly shown in Fig.1 d-f that for films thinner than 10nm the mean width of the branches increases as the film thickness decreases. While the branched structures are compact in films thicker than 10nm, those in filmsthinner than 10nm are rather open structure similar to the fractal dendrite (FD) or seaweed (FS) . Figure 2 shows the dependence of the mean width of branches, $`w`$, in CS or side branches in dendritic structure on the inverse of film thickness, $`d`$; the value of $`w`$ remains constant down to the film thickness of 10nm and becomes larger and larger with decreasing film thickness.

Although the top surface of the lamellar crystal grown in films thicker than 11 nm is at almost the same level as that of surrounding melt, the crystals in films thinner than 10 nm protrudes from the surrounding amorphous surface. The regions of “halo” extend over a few hundreds nm radially in the thicker films and are observed in the AFM images as dark contrast in front of the growth face of a crystal. In films thinner than 10 nm, the width of the “halo” becomes larger with decreasing film thickness and eventually no “halo” is observed. Figure 3 shows the TEM bright field images of it-PS crystals grown in ultrathin films at 180C with the diffraction patterns. The diffraction patterns prove that all the branching crystals have a single crystallographic orientation with the chain axis perpendicular to the lamellar surface. It is also found that the three sides of the triangular crystals are parallel to the $`\{1\overline{2}10\}`$ planes.

Figure 4 shows the time evolution of the farthest tips from the center of crystals, $`r_{tip}`$, measured by in-situ optical microscopy. All the growth rates of farthest tips in ultrathin films down to 5 nm-thick were found to be constant during growth (linear growth); it is to be noted that the growth rates of reentrant sites between the fartheset tips decreased during growth. The growth rates of farthest tips determined from the data in Fig. 4 are plotted against the inverse of film thickness, $`1/d`$, as shown in Fig. 5. The growth rates of it-PS grown at 180C in ultrathin films also decrease with decreasing film thickness according to the Eq. (1) with $`a`$ 7.2 nm. However below about 9 nm, the Eq. (1) can not hold any longer and a crossover of the film thickness dependence is observed; the decreasing rate of $`G`$ with 1/$`d`$ becomes much lower,and in 5 nm-thick films the growth rate reduces to 1/20 of that in the bulk. It is very interesting that the thickness of 9 nm is that of crystal lamellar thickness grown at 180C.

## 4 Discussion

The experimental results on the morphology and growth rates indicate that the diffusion process of chain molecules begins to control the crystal growth in ultrathin films . The morphological instability in ultrathin films was considered to be caused by the gradients of film thickness in the “halo” region, which could makes a self diffusion field of polymer molecules . When the film thickness is much thicker than the depletion of “halo”of several nanometers, the effect of the gradient on instability is so small that the crystal remains a circular disk as schematically shown in Fig. 6 a. However, when the film thickness becomes thinner than the lamellar thickness ($``$ 9 nm), the growth of crystal requires diffusion of molecules in the melt further from growth front in order to supply crystallizing materials for the thicker crystals (Fig. 6 b,c). Hence, the growth rate in films thinner than lamellar thickness also decreases with decreasing film thickness. This film thickness dependence of the growth rates is different from that in films thicker than lamellar thickness caused by reduction of chain mobility in thin films due to entanglement effect , and hence the crossover is observed at lamellar thickness. A morphological instability appears by the gradient of film thickness around a crystal; the characteristic length of the diffusion controlled growth, such as the width of branches, is generally scaled by the diffusion length $`l_D`$ given by $`2D/G(d)`$ where $`D`$ is the diffusion constant of chain molecules . For the film thinner than the entanglement distance, i.e. the diameter of the tube in the reptation model ($``$ 7 nm ), entanglement effect on diffusion constant is small; the diffusion constant $`D`$ should remain almost constant with film thickness . Still the $`G(d)`$ decreases with decreasing film thickness. Consequently $`l_D`$ increases as denoted in Fig. 6 b,c and hence the width of branch $`w`$ accordingly increases with decreasing film thickness. When $`l_D`$ becomes very large and then “halo” is hardly observed as in Fig. 1 f in very thin films, the situation looks similar to the DLA growth: the crystal structure hence should become open fractal aggregates. In fact, this has been demonstrated in the Monte Carlo simulation  on crystallization of adsorbed polymer monolayers, where the thicker the lamellar thickness becomes, the wider of the width of branches and more open the structure becomes. It is worth noting that the dendritic tip can grow steadily even in the diffusion controlled growth as in Fig. 4, while the steady growth of a spherical interface is impossible; its growth rate decreases with time as $`Gt^{1/2}`$ .

## 5 Conclusion

In this paper we have reported the film thickness dependence of morphology and growth rates of it-PS crystals grown at 180C in ultrathin films thinner than 20 nm down to 4 nm. It is clearly shown that in films thinner than 15 nm, the crystal morphology typical in the diffusion-controlled growth appeared and the morphology varied with decreasing film thickness from dense branching morphology (DBM) to diffusion-limited aggregates (DLA). In particular, it is found that in films thinner than the lamellar crystal, the structure becomes more open and characteristic length of the strucrure becomes larger and larger with decreasing film thickness. The dependence of the growth rates on film thickness also changed in the vicinity of the lamellar thickness.

## 6 Acknowledgements

This work was supported partly by Grant-in-Aid for Science Research on PriorityAreas, ”Mechanism of Polymer Crystallization” (No12127204) from The Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture.


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# Lifetime Differences, Direct CP Violation and Partial Widths in 𝐷⁰ Meson Decays to 𝐾⁺𝐾⁻ and 𝜋⁺𝜋⁻

## Acknowledgments

We thank A. A. Petrov for valuable discussions. We gratefully acknowledge the effort of the CESR staff in providing us with excellent luminosity and running conditions. M. Selen thanks the PFF program of the NSF and the Research Corporation, and A.H. Mahmood thanks the Texas Advanced Research Program. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.