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# DESY 01–171 KANAZAWA 01-15 On the dynamics of color magnetic monopoles in full QCDTalks given by H. Ichie, Y. Koma and T. Streuer at Lattice 2001, Berlin, Germany.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

In the dual superconductor picture of confinement the crucial degrees of freedom are the color magnetic monopoles revealed after abelian projection. In the maximally abelian gauge  one finds that the string tension is almost entirely due to monopole currents , and that the low-energy effective monopole action reproduces the string tension and the low-lying glueball masses quite well . Furthermore, the monopole currents show non-trivial correlations with gauge invariant excitations of the vacuum, such as the action and topological charge density . The analysis of the monopole degrees of freedom may thus provide important information about the confinement mechanism. Past studies have mainly been restricted to the quenched approximation. It will be interesting now to see how the vacuum reacts to the presence of dynamical color electric charges.

Our studies will be done on $`N_f=2`$ dynamical gauge field configurations generated by the QCDSF and UKQCD collaborations using non-perturbatively $`O(a)`$ improved Wilson fermions :

$$S_F=S_F^{(0)}\frac{\mathrm{i}}{2}\kappa gc_{SW}a^5\underset{x}{}\overline{\psi }(x)\sigma _{\mu \nu }F_{\mu \nu }\psi (x),$$

where $`S_F^{(0)}`$ is the original Wilson action.

The link variables $`U(s,\mu )`$ are brought into the maximally abelian gauge by maximizing the quantity

$$R=\underset{s,\mu }{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}|\stackrel{~}{U}_{ii}(s,\mu )|^2$$
(1)
with respect to gauge transformations $`g`$:

$$\stackrel{~}{U}(s,\mu )=g(s)U(s,\mu )g(s+\widehat{\mu })^1,$$
(2)
using an $`SU(3)`$ update of the simulated annealing algorithm first introduced in  for $`SU(2)`$. The abelian link variables are defined by

$$u_i(s,\mu )e^{i\theta _i(s,\mu )}$$
(3)
with

$`\theta _i(s,\mu )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arg}\stackrel{~}{U}_{ii}(s,\mu )`$ (4)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{3}{}}}\mathrm{arg}\stackrel{~}{U}_{jj}(s,\mu )|_{\mathrm{mod}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\pi }.`$
## 2 MONOPOLE DENSITY

The first quantity we looked at is the monopole density. This is defined by

$$\rho =\frac{1}{12V}\underset{s,\mu }{}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}|k_i(s,\mu )|$$
(5)
where $`k_i(s,\mu )`$ are the monopole currents, which are obtained from the angles $`\theta _i(s,\mu )`$ , and $`V`$ is the lattice volume. The currents are subjected to the constraint $`_ik_i(s,\mu )=0`$.

The monopole currents fall into clusters of different lengths: large clusters are responsible for quark confinement, while short clusters are mainly due to ultraviolet fluctuations and have no effect on the confining forces . As large clusters we count the largest cluster of the system and all clusters that wind around the lattice at least once. It was shown  (in pure $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory) that the density of monopoles belonging to the large clusters is finite in the continuum limit.

In Fig. 1 we show the monopole density for all clusters, and separately for the large clusters, as a function of $`(m_\pi /m_\rho )^2`$. Also shown is the quenched result ($`m_\pi /m_\rho =1`$). The quenched data set, $`\beta =6.0`$, was chosen to match the lattice spacing of the dynamical configurations, $`a0.1`$ fm. The lattice volume varies between $`16^332`$ and $`24^348`$. We see that the monopole density is strongly affected by the presence of dynamical quarks. On the dynamical configurations the density is twice as large as on the quenched configurations with increasing tendency towards smaller quark masses.

## 3 STATIC POTENTIAL

The next quantity we have looked at is the static potential $`V(r)`$. This is computed from smeared Wilson loops. We parameterize the potential by

$$V(r)=V_0\frac{e}{r}+\sigma r.$$
(6)
We also have looked at the abelian potential built from abelian link variables (3). This defines an abelian string tension $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{ab}}`$. In Fig. 2 we show $`V(r)`$ and its abelian counterpart, and compare it with the quenched result. A fit gives $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{ab}}/\sigma =0.94(8)`$ for the dynamical configuration shown and $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{ab}}/\sigma =1.03(15)`$ for the quenched case.

It is instructive to separate the abelian gauge potential into a monopole and ‘photon’ part, $`\theta (s,\mu )=\theta ^{\mathrm{mon}}(s,\mu )+\theta ^{\mathrm{ph}}(s,\mu )`$ where

$$\theta ^{\mathrm{mon}}(s,\mu )=2\pi \underset{s^{}}{}D(ss^{})_\mu ^{}m_{\mu \nu }(s^{}).$$
(7)
Here $`D(s)`$ is the Coulomb propagator and $`m_{\mu \nu }(s)`$ is the number of Dirac strings piercing the abelian plaquette $`u(s,\mu ,\nu )`$. In Fig. 3 we show the abelian potential constructed from the monopole and ‘photon’ part of the abelian gauge potential, respectively. We see that most of the string tension is due to the monopole currents, while the ‘photon’ part of the potential is Coulomb-like, exactly as in the quenched theory.

The quantity $`R`$ may have many local maxima. Numerically it is difficult to get to the absolute maximum, which constitutes a problem, the Gribov problem. In this study we considered a single gauge copy per configuration. To estimate the error arising from incomplete gauge fixing we created a sequence of random gauge copies on each of our configurations at $`\beta =5.29,\kappa =0.135`$, following . In Fig. 4 we show the abelian string tension as a function of the number of gauge copies considered (thereby always computing $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{ab}}`$ on the copy with the largest value of $`R`$). We also show the result for iterative gauge fixing. We see that the bias induced by incomplete gauge fixing is about 6%, while iterative gauge fixing may give results that are wrong by $`O(20\%)`$. Therefore careful gauge fixing is necessary. Similar results hold for other observables.

## 4 SCREENING LENGTH

The screening length $`\xi `$ of a plasma of monopoles is defined by the exponential decrease of the magnetic flux through a sphere of radius $`r`$ around the monopole:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }(r)=\mathrm{\Phi }_0e^{r/\xi }.$$
(8)
A screened plasma of static monopoles is known to generate a string tension

$$\sigma \rho \xi .$$
(9)
If this is true for dynamical monopoles as well, we would expect the screening length to be significantly smaller on dynamical configurations. Considering the monopoles in the large clusters only, we find

| $`m_\pi /m_\rho `$ | $`\xi /r_0`$ | $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{ab}}/\rho \xi `$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 0.602 | 0.484(19) | 0.49(4) |
| 0.709 | 0.466(26) | 0.38(4) |
| 0.757 | 0.521(17) | 0.43(3) |
| 0.831 | 0.482(17) | 0.40(3) |
| 1 | 0.662(34) | 0.31(3) |

We see that the screening length is indeed $`O(40\%)`$ lower in the dynamical case. We interprete this, as well as the increase in the monopole density, as pairing effect .

## 5 ABELIAN FLUX TUBE

The chromoelectric flux tube between static color electric charges forms an interface between the superconducting (confining) phase and the conducting phase, and in this capacity bears valuable information about the properties of the QCD vacuum. Because we are primarily interested in the dynamics of monopoles, we may restrict ourselves to abelian flux tubes being excited by abelian Wilson loops. The abelian Wilson loop is defined by

$$W(R,T)=\frac{1}{3}\text{Tr}\underset{s𝒞}{}u(s,\mu )=\frac{1}{3}\text{Tr}e^{\mathrm{i}\theta _𝒞},$$
(10)
where $`𝒞`$ is a rectangular loop of extension $`R\times T`$, $`\theta _𝒞=\text{diag}[\theta _1,\theta _2,\theta _3]_𝒞`$. In this section we shall study the spatial profile of the flux tube. This is done by looking at correlations of appropriate operators $`𝒪=\text{diag}[𝒪_1,𝒪_2,𝒪_3]`$ with the abelian Wilson loop operator:

$$\frac{1}{3}\frac{\text{Tr}𝒪(s)\text{Tr}e^{\mathrm{i}\theta _𝒞}}{\text{Tr}e^{\mathrm{i}\theta _𝒞}}\frac{1}{3}\text{Tr}𝒪$$
(11)
for C-parity even operators, and

$$\frac{\text{Tr}(𝒪(s)e^{\mathrm{i}\theta _𝒞})}{\text{Tr}e^{\mathrm{i}\theta _𝒞}}$$
(12)
for C-parity odd operators, where $`s`$ is taken to lie on the $`R\times T`$ plane at $`T/2`$.

The first quantities we looked at are the action density

$$\text{Tr}𝒪(s)=\frac{\beta }{3}\underset{\mu >\nu ,i}{}\mathrm{cos}\theta _i(s,\mu ,\nu ).$$
(13)
and the color electric field

$$𝒪_i(s)=E_j^i(s)=\text{i}\overline{\theta }_i(s,4,j),$$
(14)
where

$$\overline{\theta }_i(s,\mu ,\nu )=\text{i}\mathrm{ln}(e^{i\theta _i(s,\mu ,\nu )}).$$
(15)
In Figs. 5 and 6 we show our results on a $`16^332`$ lattice, where we took $`R=10`$, which corresponds to a separation of $`1`$ fm, and $`T=6`$. The action density is somewhat larger in the dynamical case, while we see little difference in the distribution of the electric field between full and quenched QCD. A fit of $`E_{}^i=\text{const.}\mathrm{exp}(r_{}/\lambda )`$, restricting $`r_{}`$ to $`r_{}>0.25`$ fm, gives the penetration length $`\lambda =0.15(2)`$ fm in full QCD and $`0.17(1)`$ fm in the quenched theory.

Next we looked at the local monopole density

$$\text{Tr}𝒪(s)=\frac{1}{12}\underset{\mu ,i}{}|k_i(s,\mu )|.$$
(16)
The result is shown in Fig. 7. In this case $`(1/3)\text{Tr}𝒪`$ was not subtracted in eq. (11). This figure shows again that the monopole density, outside the flux tube, is more than twice as high on the dynamical configurations as in the quenched case. Inside the flux tube the monopole currents are strongly suppressed, as expected. Due to the high monopole density outside the flux tube, the interface appears to be much ‘harder’ in full QCD.

We expect the monopole current to form a solenoidal supercurrent which, similar to a coil in electrodynamics, constricts the color electric fields into flux tubes. This is expressed by the dual Ampère law

$$𝐤=\times 𝐄.$$
(17)
We find that the monopole current is indeed azimuthal, as can be seen in Fig. 8. In Fig. 9 we compare the l.h.s of eq. (17) with the r.h.s. and find that Ampère’s law is very well satisfied on our dynamical configurations. Ampère’s law was already verified in pure $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory in .

We expect the flux tube (string) to break eventually if the static charges are pulled apart beyond a certain distance. That distance is expected to be between 1.5 and 2 fm, depending on the mass of the quark. In Fig. 10 we show the distribution of the color electric field in the vicinity of the flux tube on the $`24^348`$ lattice at $`\beta =5.29,\kappa =0.1355`$, corresponding to an $`m_\pi /m_\rho `$ ratio of $`0.7`$, for $`R=22`$ which amounts to a separation of $`2`$ fm. We see no sign of string breaking yet. We notice though that the electric field vectors show some level of noise half way between the charges.

The penetration length and half width of the flux tube turn out to be $`0.16`$ fm and $`0.3`$ fm, respectively. It is striking that the abelian flux tube does not show any broadening towards larger distances from the static charges, as one would expect if the fluctuations of the string were described effectively by the Nambu-Goto action . (This effect has also been observed in pure $`SU(2)`$ gauge theory .) This could mean that the abelian string is described by the Ramond string action instead, which, for example, does not show such a broadening effect .

## 6 EFFECTIVE MONOPOLE ACTION

We have seen that the vacuum undergoes several changes if dynamical color electric charges are introduced. We shall study now how this will affect the effective monopole action.

There are three types of monopole currents, of which two are independent. For simplicity we take into account only one of them, thus integrating out the other two . For the time being, we assume the form of the effective monopole action in full QCD to be the same as in the quenched theory . This is composed of 27 types of two-point interactions, one four-point interaction and one six-point interaction:

$$S(k)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{29}{}}G_iS_i(k),$$
(18)
where $`G_i`$ are the coupling constants which need to be determined. This we will do by employing an extended Swendsen method . Explicitly, we have:

Two-point interaction ($`i=1,\mathrm{},27`$)

$`S_1(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{4}{}}}k(s,\mu )^2,`$
$`S_2(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu =1}{\overset{4}{}}}k(s,\mu )k(s+\widehat{\mu },\mu ),`$
$`S_3(k)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\mu \nu }{}}k(s,\mu )k(s+\widehat{\nu },\mu );`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
Four-point interaction

$$S_{28}(k)=\underset{s}{}\left(\underset{\mu =4}{\overset{4}{}}k(s,\mu )^2\right)^2;$$
(20)
Six-point interaction

$$S_{29}(k)=\underset{s}{}\left(\underset{\mu =4}{\overset{4}{}}k(s,\mu )^2\right)^3.$$
(21)
Our calculations are done on $`O(50)`$ gauge fixed configurations each on the $`24^348`$ lattice at $`\beta =5.29,\kappa =0.1355`$ and on the $`16^332`$ lattice at $`\beta =5.29,\kappa =0.1350`$ . For comparison, we have also done calculations in the quenched theory on $`24^348`$ lattices at $`\beta =5.8,6.0`$ and $`6.2`$, and on a $`16^332`$ lattice at $`\beta =6.0`$.

We have employed a type-II block spin transformation  with up to $`n1=3`$ blocking steps. In Fig. 11 we show the self-coupling $`G_1`$ as a function of the physical length scale $`b=na`$ for both full and quenched QCD. We see that $`G_1^{\mathrm{full}}`$ is systematically smaller than $`G_1^{\mathrm{quenched}}`$ for all $`b`$, in agreement with the higher monopole density in full QCD. A necessary condition for monopole condensation is $`G_1\mathrm{ln}7`$. This is achieved for $`b0.27`$ fm in full QCD and for $`b0.35`$ fm in the quenched theory. In Fig. 12 we show the coupling constants $`G_2`$ and $`G_3`$. We see that $`G_2^{\mathrm{full}}<G_2^{\mathrm{quenched}}`$ as in the previous case, while $`G_3`$ shows the opposite behavior: $`G_3^{\mathrm{full}}>G(3)^{\mathrm{quenched}}`$. For the other coupling constants we find little difference between full QCD and the quenched theory. In Fig. 13 we show, as an example, $`G_{28}`$ and $`G_{29}`$. Note that the self-coupling is the dominant coupling.

To shed some more light on the dynamics of the monopoles we have looked at the coupling $`G`$ of two ($`n=1`$) parallel monopole currents, $`k(s,\mu )`$ and $`k(s^{},\mu )`$, as a function of their distance $`d=\sqrt{_\mu (s_\mu s_\mu ^{})^2}`$. In Fig. 14 we show $`G`$ together with the Coulomb propagator. We see that at distances $`d2`$ the interaction becomes weaker than Coulomb in both full and quenched QCD. This is a result of the screening effect discussed earlier on. It comes as a surprise though that we see no difference between full QCD and the quenched theory. We would have expected the screening effect to be considerably stronger in full QCD.

Our task for the future is to check for scaling of the effective monopole action, as this has already successfully been done in the quenched theory.

Furthermore, it would be useful to cast the action into the form

$$S(k)=S_{\mathrm{Coulomb}}+S_{\mathrm{self}}+S_{4\mathrm{point}}+S_{6\mathrm{point}},$$

to make contact with the dual Ginzburg-Landau theory, and the string model, and determine their parameters. This would allow us to do truly quantitative, analytic calculations .

## 7 CONCLUSIONS

We have had a first look at the dynamics of color magnetic monopoles in full QCD. We found striking differences between full QCD and the quenched theory.

How can this be understood? Monopoles are at least partly induced by instantons . The fermion determinant causes instantons and anti-instantons to attract each other, with a force that increases with decreasing quark mass. The effect is that isolated instantons are suppressed, and instantons and anti-instantons are forced to form (overlapping) pairs. This will increase the density of (anti-)instantons, and consequently the density of monopoles.

## 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is partially supported by INTAS grant 00-00111. H.I. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science JSPS. She acknowledges the hospitality of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. T.S. acknowledges financial support from a JSPS Grant-in-aid for Scientific Research (B) (No. 11695029).


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# Scaling relations of supersonic turbulence in star-forming molecular clouds

## 1 Introduction

Observations and numerical simulations of gas motion in molecular clouds show rather complex distributions of velocity and density fields, indicating that the motion is turbulent. Although the nature and the scales of the driving force of the turbulence can vary, it has been established long ago that this turbulence is highly supersonic, with Mach numbers varying from cloud to cloud and reaching up to of the order of $`30`$ at scales $`100`$ pc (Larson, 1979, 1981, 1992; Falgarone & Phillips, 1990; Falgarone, Puget, & Perault, 1992; Myers & Gammie, 1999; Padoan & Nordlund, 1999, 2000; Ossenkopf & Mac Low, 2000; Ostriker, Stone, & Gammie, 2001).

Star formation is, of course, ultimately due to gravitational collapse of small Jeans-unstable cores. However, as is seen in high-resolution numerical simulation, the initial density fragmentation, that leads to creation of such cores, may be mainly due to strong supersonic turbulence, i.e. may be explained to large extent without invoking the effects of self-gravity (Padoan et al., 2001). The process of star formation can therefore be divided into two stages that may be approached separately. In the first stage, the supersonic, turbulent motion of the interstellar gas develops shocks that interact with each other and with the turbulent flow, which results in the emergence of rather complicated density structures. This stage should be described statistically, in terms of probability distribution of density and velocity fluctuations, or in terms of their moments; attempts to understand the complicated picture of turbulence by studying each particular structure can hardly be successful. On the other hand, the second stage, dealing with collapsing cores, can be approached on the grounds of classical dynamics, and depends on the effects of gravity and of the specific environment (e.g., pressure, temperature, magnetic fields). These two stages are not independent, however, since the first one sets the distribution of initial conditions for the second one, for further discussion see, e.g., Padoan & Nordlund (1999); Klein, Fisher, & McKee (2000); Burkert (2001); Klessen (2001); Elmegreen (2001). Even more, with some suitable definition of density clumps, the first stage of density fragmentation leads to the distribution of clumps over masses that already resembles the observed initial mass distribution function of stars (Padoan & Nordlund, 2000; Padoan et al., 2000).

In this paper we address both numerically and analytically the first, “turbulent” stage of star-formation. So far, there has been no analytical theory predicting the statistical properties of supersonic interstellar turbulence, notwithstanding the fact that supersonic conditions have been inferred from observations for more than 20 years. In particular, the turbulence scaling relations, referred to as the Larson’s laws, concern the scaling of velocity and density fluctuations with respect to the size of the fluctuations (Larson, 1979, 1981). These scalings seem to vary for different clouds, but most observations suggest that the velocity difference scaling scatters around $`|\mathrm{\Delta }u|^2^{1/2}L^{0.4}`$ (Falgarone, Puget, & Perault, 1992). The corresponding velocity power spectra are steeper than the Kolmogorov one $`E_kk^{5/3}`$, which would correspond to $`|\mathrm{\Delta }u|^2^{1/2}L^{1/3}`$. As for the density fluctuations, the scaling of the peak density of fluctuations on scales $`L`$ is close to $`\rho (L)L^1`$ (Falgarone, Puget, & Perault, 1992). However, these results should be taken with a certain degree of precaution. The error bars of available observations are rather large, and the systematic errors are sometimes unknown. Moreover, there are fundamental reasons that prevent one from restoring the three-dimensional velocity correlators from the measured two-dimensional projections (Ballesteros-Paredes & Mac Low, 2001).

The high-resolution numerical results that recently became available (e.g. Padoan, Nordlund, & Jones, 1997; Porter, Woodward, & Pouquet, 1998; Mac Low, 1999; Porter et al., 1999; Stone, Ostriker, & Gammie, 1998; Padoan & Nordlund, 1999, 2000; Padoan et al., 2000) shed some light onto the physics of supersonic turbulence. In this paper, we present numerical simulations of supersonic, super-Alfvénic turbulence, driven on large scales in such a way that the sonic Mach number $`M`$ is of the order 10 and the Alfvénic Mach number $`M_a`$ is of the order 3. An analysis of simulations with different Mach numbers will be presented elsewhere (Jimenez, Padoan & Nordlund, 2001). We propose an analytical theory that explains the results of our numerical findings, and discuss its applicability to molecular clouds. We are interested mostly in the velocity correlators, although an application to the density statistics is presented as well. The next section analyzes the results of the numerical simulations. In particular, the velocity-difference structure functions are constructed. In section 3 we show that the observed features agree well with the recently proposed Kolmogorov–Burgers theory of supersonic turbulence. Section 4 discusses application of the results to molecular clouds. Conclusions are presented in section 5.

## 2 Scaling laws in numerical simulations of supersonic turbulence

The numerical simulations were performed with $`250^3`$ and $`500^3`$ resolutions for MHD turbulence with an isothermal equation of state, using the same method and program as in Padoan, Nordlund, & Jones (1997), Padoan & Nordlund (1999), Padoan et al. (2000), and Padoan et al. (2001). The turbulence was driven on large scales by a solenoidal external force with $`1k2`$, where $`k=1`$ corresponds to the size of the periodic box. The solenoidal character of the forcing is not crucial for the velocity scaling in the inertial region—this was checked by comparing with runs with mixed compressional and solenoidal driving. The solenoidal driving was chosen to provide a better ‘boundary condition’ for the inertial interval in $`k`$ space, since it turns out that the compressional to solenoidal ratio tends to become small in the inertial range. The external force sustains the supersonic gas motion ($`M=10`$) in the simulations. The motions would otherwise decay on a time scale of the order of a crossing time and become sub-sonic due to the dissipation in shocks (Stone, Ostriker, & Gammie, 1998; Padoan & Nordlund, 1999). The real forcing is probably due to a turbulent cascade from large scales, driven by supernovae and superbubbles (Korpi et al., 1999; de Avillez, 2000),

The supersonic turbulence exhibits rather interesting properties that we summarize as follows. First of all, the spectra of both the potential, $`𝐮_c`$, and the solenoidal, $`𝐮_s`$, components of the velocity field are steeper than the Kolmogorov spectrum $`k^{5/3}`$. These components are defined according to $`𝐮_s=0`$ and $`\times 𝐮_c=0`$. In Fig. 1 we plot the solenoidal spectrum weighted by $`k^{1.74}`$, since the theory that we present below predicts for the velocity spectrum of turbulence $`E_kk^{1.74}`$. Second, the divergence-free, solenoidal part of the velocity field, $`𝐮_s`$, is generated quite effectively by such turbulence, contrary to the two-dimensional case, where turbulence without pressure is mostly potential. This effect of vorticity generation is analogous to the magnetic dynamo effect existing in 3D and non-existing in 2D turbulence (also, the presence of a magnetic field can help generate vorticity, as discussed by Vázquez-Semadeni, Passot, & Pouquet, 1996). We find that the compressible part accounts for only 10–20 percent of the intensity of the velocity field, see Fig. 1. The ratio $`\gamma =u_c^2/u_s^2`$ can thus be chosen as a small parameter of the turbulence. Third, the dissipative structures look like two-dimensional shocks rather than one-dimensional filaments or vortices as in incompressible turbulence. To demonstrate this, we plot in Fig. 2 a randomly chosen two-dimensional cross-section of the density distribution in a physical simulation domain. The filaments seen on the picture correspond to the two-dimensional shock structures.

To quantitatively characterize the statistical properties of the turbulence we have measured the so-called structure functions of the velocity field (Frisch, 1995). These functions are defined as:

$`S_p(L)=|u(x+L)u(x)|^pL^{\zeta (p)},`$ (1)
where $`u`$ is the component of the velocity field perpendicular or parallel to the vector $`𝐋`$. According to the chosen component, the structure functions are called transversal or longitudinal, respectively. In the inertial interval, the structure functions obey scaling laws, and the exponents $`\zeta (p)`$ may be determined; it is usually expected that both transversal and longitudinal functions have the same scaling. The power spectrum of the velocity field is the Fourier transform of the second-order structure function, and may be expressed as $`E_kk^{1\zeta (2)}`$.

We performed measurements of the structure functions up to $`p=5`$. Since the Reynolds number in our simulations was not large enough to observe good scaling behavior of the structure functions, the method of Extended Self-Similarity (ESS) was applied. Namely, instead of plotting the structure functions themselves, we plotted the ratios of their logarithmic slopes. As was discovered by Benzi, et al. (1993) and Camussi & Benzi (1996), such ratios exhibit rather good (and correct) scaling behavior, even in systems with moderate Reynolds numbers. Then, if one knows from the theory that the third order structure function scales with $`\zeta (3)=1`$, or if any other scaling exponent $`\zeta (n)`$ is known from numerics or observations with good precision, one can obtain the scalings of all the other structure functions. To illustrate this procedure, in Fig. 3 we show the plots of the transversal structure functions, $`S_1\mathrm{}S_5`$, their logarithmic slopes, and the ratios of the slopes vs that of $`S_3`$. We chose to deal with the transversal rather than longitudinal functions since the flow is shear-dominated, and the transversal functions are therefore found to have a better scaling behavior. As illustrated by Fig. 3, the structure functions themselves do not exhibit good scaling behavior, but their relative scaling is well established in a rather large interval. As has been suggested by Dubrulle (1994), the ratios of scaling exponents may be universal while the scaling exponents themselves may be not. The reason is that the physical length $`L`$ may not be a good scaling variable, and the universal scaling of all structure functions holds not with respect to $`L`$, but with respect to a certain function $`\xi (L)`$ that depends on the Reynolds number and other parameters of the system.

From Fig. 3 we conclude that the observed properties of the supersonic turbulence can hardly be predicted in the framework of any known model of strong turbulence. Indeed, the Kolmogorov model, or its generalizations to MHD, cannot be directly applied, since the turbulence has very small pressure and rather weak magnetic field. The model of turbulence without pressure, developed for the potential velocity field (the Burgers model), does not work either since the 3D turbulent flow generates vorticity. In the next section we present a theory of supersonic turbulence that explains the obtained spectra on the basis of the so-called She–Lévêque model of strong turbulence. This explanation was suggested in (Boldyrev, 2001), and was motivated by recent successful application of the model to incompressible MHD turbulence (Biskamp & Müller, 2000; Müller & Biskamp, 2000).

## 3 Kolmogorov–Burgers model for supersonic turbulence

The analytical model hinges on the observation that in the inertial range the turbulence is mostly incompressible, obeying the Kolmogorov naive scaling laws of velocity fluctuations (see below), while in the dissipative range it behaves as Burgers turbulence, developing shock singularities. A model that relates the dissipative structures to the velocity scaling in the inertial interval was developed by She & Lévêque (1994) and She & Waymire (1995). As was pointed out by Dubrulle (1994), this model represents the velocity energy cascade as a $`\mathrm{log}`$-Poisson process and can be obtained as a suitable limit of the so-called random $`\beta `$ model of turbulence (see, e.g., Frisch, 1995). In general, the She and Lévêque model has three input parameters. Two of them are the exponents of the naive (i.e. non-intermittent) scalings of the velocity fluctuation, $`u_ll^\mathrm{\Theta }`$, and of the characteristic time of the energy transfer at this scale, $`t_ll/u_ll^\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In our case these parameters are related, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1\mathrm{\Theta }`$, although in general this does not need to be so, as e.g. in the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan model of incompressible MHD turbulence (Grauer, Krug, & Marliani, 1994; Politano & Pouquet, 1995). The other parameter is the dimension of the most singular dissipative structure, $`D`$. The She–Lévêque formula, as generalized by Dubrulle (1994), then reads:

$`\zeta (p)/\zeta (3)=\mathrm{\Theta }\left(1\mathrm{\Delta }\right)p+(3D)\left(1\mathrm{\Sigma }^{\mathrm{\Theta }p}\right),`$ (2)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=1\mathrm{\Delta }/(3D)`$. Since in our case the velocity field in the inertial interval is mostly incompressible, one can imagine that the energy transfer is due to the Kolmogorov cascade, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Theta }=1/3`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=1\mathrm{\Theta }=2/3`$, while the dissipative structures are shocks, not filaments, so $`D=2`$. With such input parameters, the formula gives:

$`\zeta (p)/\zeta (3)={\displaystyle \frac{p}{9}}+1\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\right)^{p/3},`$ (3)
For the first five structure functions the model gives: $`\zeta (1)/\zeta (3)=0.42`$, $`\zeta (2)/\zeta (3)=0.74`$, $`\zeta (4)/\zeta (3)=1.21`$, $`\zeta (5)/\zeta (3)=1.40`$, in excellent agreement with the numerical results (cf. Fig. 3). To find the absolute scalings, we need to know the scaling of at least one of the structure functions. As we mentioned in Sec. 2, the Reynolds number is not large enough to see good scaling of the structure functions. However, it is known that the Fourier transform of the second order structure function, i.e., the velocity spectrum, can have larger scaling interval than the second order structure function itself. Thus, knowing from the measurement of the spectrum that $`\zeta (2)0.7\mathrm{}0.8`$, we infer $`\zeta (3)0.95\mathrm{}1.08`$, and the Kolmogorov relation, $`\zeta (3)=1`$, may indeed hold in the inertial interval.

Note that our formula (3) coincides with the formula derived in (Biskamp & Müller, 2000; Müller & Biskamp, 2000) for incompressible MHD turbulence, where $`\zeta (3)=1`$, and in this sense both systems belong to the same class of universality, in accord with the ideas put forward by Dubrulle (1994) and She & Waymire (1995). However, these two systems are completely different, and the Kolmogorov relation, $`\zeta (3)=1`$, that is exactly proved in MHD, is not rigorously established in our case, but rather inferred from the numerical simulations. Strictly speaking, the scaling exponents can be different for these systems; it is their ratios that are reliably obtained from our numerical simulations and are believed to be universal. For instance, there is a possibility that these exponents can vary from cloud to cloud, depending on the equation of state, mechanisms of dissipation, Mach numbers, etc.

For completeness, we would like to present here a cartoon model which leads to the She-Lévêque formula. Our discussion is rather similar to the work of Dubrulle (1994). The reader not interested in the details of the derivation can safely skip to Sec 4. We start with the simple $`\beta `$ model of turbulence, formulated in a way suitable for generalization of the results to the random $`\beta `$ model (a detailed discussion of such models may be found in (Frisch, 1995)). Let us assume that our system is divided into boxes of size $`l`$ and let us concentrate on the density of the velocity energy flux over scales in each box, $`ϵ_l`$. Now let us divide each box into smaller boxes, with size $`l\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }<1`$. The number of boxes increases, but now we want to leave only a fraction $`\beta `$ of all newly formed boxes, and since the energy flux is constant, $`ϵ_l=const`$, the density of the energy flux in each box should be increased by $`1/\beta `$. After that, start decreasing the size of boxes again and repeat all the procedure exactly as in the previous step. One may introduce $`W=ϵ_{i+1}/ϵ_i`$, which takes the value $`1/\beta `$ with probability $`\beta `$, and $`0`$ with probability $`1\beta `$ at each step, independently of previous steps. The fraction of space occupied by boxes decreases at each step, and one can easily check that eventually our boxes will cover the structure with fractal dimension

$`D=3\mathrm{log}(\beta )/\mathrm{log}(\mathrm{\Gamma }).`$ (4)
This is the dimension of the structure to which the cascade converges. It is easy to see that $`ϵ_l^pl^{\tau (p)}`$, where

$`\tau (p)=\mathrm{log}W^p/\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Gamma }.`$ (5)
Let us now apply this model to incompressible turbulence. According to the Kolmogorov refined similarity hypothesis, $`ϵ_l`$ scales as $`u_l^3/l`$; we will denote this as $`ϵ_lu_l^3/l`$. So we have

$`\zeta (p)=p/3+\tau (p/3)=p/3+(3D)(1p/3),`$ (6)
which gives, e.g., a velocity spectrum steeper than the Kolmogorov one. The $`\beta `$ model produces the linear relation (6) which is not what is observed.

We now generalize this model in the following way. First, let us assume that the steps of size changes are very small, i.e., $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1x/(3D)`$, and $`\beta =1x`$, where $`x0`$. These expressions are chosen to satisfy (4) up to the first order in small $`x`$. To modify the previous model we now assume that we do not disregard any newly formed boxes, whose fraction would be $`1\beta =x`$, but instead fill them with $`W=\beta _1`$, while the other boxes are filled with some factor $`W=\beta _2`$. This procedure leads to a so-called random $`\beta `$ model. Since we have to preserve $`ϵ_l=const`$, we have to impose the relation $`x\beta _1+\beta _2\left(1x\right)=1`$ which gives $`\beta _2=1+x(1\beta _1)`$. Using formula (5), we now derive $`\tau (p)=C(\beta _11)p+C(1\beta _1^p)`$, where we introduced the co-dimension $`C=3D`$. If we now assume the Kolmogorov relation $`ϵ_lu_l^3/l`$, we immediately recover formula (2), where $`\zeta (3)=1`$ and $`\beta _1`$ plays the role of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$. This shows that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ describes the degree of intermittency in the She–Lévêque model. However, in the compressible case the Kolmogorov relation is not proven. We can, however, hope that if we change the length variable $`l\stackrel{~}{l}=\xi (l)`$ in such a way that the scaling exponent of the third-order structure function with respect to $`\stackrel{~}{l}`$ becomes $`\stackrel{~}{\zeta }(3)=1`$, the scaling of all the other structure functions will be restored as well. To achieve that we have to define the new scaling variable as $`\stackrel{~}{l}=\xi (l)=u_l^3/ϵ_l`$. Also, instead of the Kolmogorov relation, we assume $`ϵ_l/ϵu_l^3/u_l^3`$, which is suggested by the quadratic nonlinearity of the Navier-Stokes equation. Redefining the scaling $`\tau (p)`$ as $`ϵ_l^p\stackrel{~}{l}^{\tau (p)}`$, we now easily get:

$`\zeta (p)/\zeta (3)=p/3C(1\beta _1)p/3+C(1\beta _1^{p/3}),`$ (7)
which is the required generalization of the She-Lévêque formula. The unknown parameters $`\beta _1`$ and $`C`$ can be obtained, e.g., from numerical simulations. In this formula it is not obvious that $`C`$ is a co-dimension of the most singular dissipative structure, since the cascade was organized not with respect to physical length $`l`$, but with respect to $`\stackrel{~}{l}`$.

## 4 Application to molecular clouds

We now ask how adequate our numerical and analytical results are to real molecular clouds. The density structures of molecular clouds, as obtained from observations, are rather complicated, and one may question the validity of our simple model assuming shock singularities. In fact, observational relation of molecular cloud mass to the cloud size is close to $`ML^D`$, where $`D`$ is estimated to be greater than $`2`$ see, e.g. Larson (1992), and also Elmegreen & Falgarone (1996), where the estimate $`D=2.3\pm 0.3`$ was presented. If the density were concentrated in elongated shocks, the scaling power would be 2. A plausible resolution lies in the assumption that over a range of scales (not available in numerical simulations due to limited resolution) dense structures are folded to form a complex distribution having fractal dimension $`D2`$; a complicated fractal (even multifractal) density distribution is indeed inferred from observations (Chappell & Scalo, 2001). It seems natural to assume that the energy dissipation occurs mostly in shocks (Stone, Ostriker, & Gammie, 1998; Ostriker, Stone, & Gammie, 2001), and therefore the dissipative singularities should have the same dimension. Formula (2) thus relates the fractal dimension of a given molecular cloud to scaling properties of the velocity field in this cloud. In principle, this dimension can be different for different clouds, depending on mechanisms of cooling, dissipation, structure of magnetic fields, etc. Substitution of the fiducial value $`D=2.3`$ in our formula (2) leads to even better agreement of the theory with recent observations, see Brunt & Heyer (2001), producing $`|\mathrm{\Delta }u|L^{0.55}`$ and $`E_kk^{1.83}`$, where we assumed that the Kolmogorov relation $`\zeta (3)=1`$ holds.

It is interesting to note that formula (2) also gives the upper boundary for the dimension of density distribution. The parameter $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ introduced in (2) measures the degree of intermittency of turbulence. For example, for $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ one recovers the Kolmogorov, non-intermittent, scaling $`\zeta (p)=p/3`$. By its definition, $`0\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$, and therefore, $`D2\frac{1}{3}`$. Taking into account that on small scales the dissipative structures take the form of two-dimensional shocks, one may argue that the lower boundary for the density dimension is $`D=2`$. We thus established a rather narrow window for $`D`$ consistent with our theory. With the aid of formula (2) one then finds the corresponding intervals for the structure functions scaling exponents that are admissible in our theory. In particular, the first order exponent is expected to lie in the interval $`[0.42\mathrm{}0.78]`$, and the second order exponent, related to the velocity spectrum, within $`[0.74\mathrm{}0.89]`$. It is interesting that the observed value, $`D=2.3`$, is rather close to the upper boundary. In Figs. 4 and 5 we plotted the scaling exponents $`\zeta (1)`$ and $`\zeta (2)`$ as functions of $`D`$ for $`2D2\frac{1}{3}`$. We see that the exponents are very sensitive to the value of $`D`$, and it is therefore very hard to infer $`\zeta `$’s from measurements of $`D`$ – this would require measuring $`D`$ with high precision. More practical test of the theory would be plotting observed $`\zeta (2)`$ versus $`\zeta (1)`$, our theory predicts that the values should lie on the line shown in Fig. 6.

## 5 Conclusions

The presented model proves to be rather successful in explaining the statistical properties of supersonic turbulence. In particular, we were able to explain the observational scaling relations of the turbulence in molecular clouds. It would be highly desirable to obtain a clear physical picture underlying the Log-Poisson energy cascade assumed in the derivation of (2). Also, the relation of the density distribution to the statistics of the velocity field requires a better understanding. Such a relation may be derived analytically in a simplified one-dimensional case (Boldyrev, 1998; Boldyrev & Brandenburg, 2001), although in the three-dimensional case the question is still open. However, in the derivation of formula (7) we explicitly constructed the multifractal distribution of the energy dissipation $`ϵ`$, which can possibly be related to the multifractal distribution of the density, since the energy dissipates in shocks where the density is accumulated. And finally, in the present paper we did not try to address the problem of the initial mass distribution of stars (but see Padoan & Nordlund, 2000). The process of turbulent density fragmentation leads to creation of complicated density structures and sets the initial conditions for gravitationally unstable density clumps. The effects of self-gravity, and the dynamics of collapsing density cores fall beyond the scope of the present paper. All these are the questions for the future.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In the standard theory of gravity the problem of particle collisions at trans-Planckian energies, i.e. far above the Planck energy scale, has no chance to be tested experimentally or by observation of cosmic rays. However this problem has recently attracted a lively attention in connection with models with extra spatial dimensions, where the multi-dimensional analog of the Planck energy scale can be as low as few TeV , and thus may be within the reach of realistic accelerators and also within the range of energies of cosmic rays.

It has been claimed (see also ) that the dominant process in such collisions should be a collapse of a finite part of the total c.m. energy of the colliding particles $`\sqrt{s}`$ into a black hole, whose mass should thus be $`M_H\sqrt{s}`$. The cross section for this process is claimed to be given by the geometric cross section area of the black hole horizon with the radius $`r_H`$, $`\sigma (2BH)\pi r_H^2`$. Some consequences of this claimed behavior of the cross section for black hole production within models with extra dimensions were recently considered for cosmic ray observations and for experiments at future colliders.

The reasoning for the geometric classical cross section is based on two points. The first being that for collisions at the impact parameter $`b`$ equal to zero (axisymmetric head-on collisions) in a (2+1) dimensional anti-de-Sitter space it has been shown that a black hole is inevitably created, while in (3+1) dimensions the estimates of the radiated away gravitational energy leave a finite fraction of the total energy of the colliding particles reaching small separations, and plausibly forming a large black hole with mass $`M_H\sqrt{s}`$. The second point in the reasoning is that a natural scale for the impact parameter $`b`$ in off-axis collisions is given by the gravitational radius $`r_H`$. Thus an extrapolation of the behavior at $`b=0`$ to such range of the impact parameter yields the claimed estimate $`\sigma (2BH)\pi r_H^2`$111This reasoning is most clearly formulated by Banks and Fischler: “General Relativity predicts that when the impact parameter … is smaller than a critical value $`R_S`$, a black hole is formed. …$`R_S`$ is of order the Schwarzchild radius of the corresponding black hole…”. Notably, no supporting references or arguments are supplied with these statements..

These estimates were argued in Ref. to be grossly incorrect, and two semiclassical approaches to the problem were presented, one based on a path integral calculation of the production amplitude, and the other based on thermodynamic properties of black holes, both leading to the conclusion that the cross section is exponentially suppressed by the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(I_E)`$, with $`I_E`$ being the Euclidean Gibbons-Hawking action for the black hole.

In view of the recent interest to the discussed problem and also in view of an explicit contradiction between the conclusion of  and seemingly more intuitive geometric estimates, it is worthwhile to discuss additional “pro and con” arguments. This paper contains two remarks relevant to the existing controversy. The first is based on considering the energy fragmentation of the colliding particles due to emission of gravitons. It is argued in Sec.2 that if one assumes the geometric cross section, growing as a power of the total energy, a fragmentation of the initial energy with subsequent formation of multiple smaller black holes should be even more probable, so that the sum of the cross section over the channels with multiple black holes should grow exponentially with energy. If one further assumes that unitarity is restored in some form, so that the total cross section is non-exponential, the partial cross section into a single large black hole has to be exponentially suppressed. The second remark to be presented in Sec.3 addresses the relation between a semiclassical calculation of the exponentially suppressed cross section and a possible classical behavior. Formally, the Gibbons-Hawking exponent requires that the cross section vanishes in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$. In terms of the effective impact parameter for creation of a black hole in collision of two ultrarelativistic (formally massless) particles the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(I_E)`$ corresponds to an effective range of $`b`$ being independent of the energy and given by the Planck length $`b\sqrt{G\mathrm{}}`$ (in (3+1) dimensions), which also vanishes in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, leading to distinct implications for off-axis classical collisions that can possibly be verified by numerical simulations. Finally, in Sec. 4 the conclusions of the present paper are summarized and also specific most recent comments on the argumentation of Ref. are addressed.

The standard General Relativity in (3+1) dimensions is implied throughout the discussion in this paper with no further reference to schemes with extra dimensions.

## 2 Energy fragmentation and multi-black-hole production

The geometric formula $`\sigma \pi r_H^2`$ implies that the cross section for the black hole production grows quadratically in the mass $`M_H`$, since $`r_H=2GM_H`$ with $`G`$ being the Newton’s constant. Clearly, at a far trans-Planckian energy $`E=\sqrt{s}`$, such that $`GE^21`$, one might find a larger probability if the energy is split in several fragments, and those fragments collide to produce several black holes of smaller masses. We discuss here such process in the case where the fragments are gravitons, and the number $`n`$ of produced black holes is large, $`n1`$, so that the typical energy $`\omega E/n`$ of each graviton is much smaller than $`E`$. On the other hand, it is assumed here that the typical invariant mass in pairwise collisions of the gravitons is still larger than the Planck mass, so that one could apply the geometric formula for creation of “small” black holes in those collisions. The latter condition allows to only consider the range of $`n`$ up to $`n\sqrt{G}E`$.

For the estimate of the effect of the energy fragmentation into gravitons we start with considering a single soft graviton bremsstrahlung in a collision involving ultrarelativistic particles. The term in the amplitude, corresponding to emission of a soft graviton with momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ by massless particle “$`a`$” with energy $`E_a\omega `$, can be simply found in the physical gauge in the c.m. frame, where the components of the graviton tensor amplitude $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ are only spatial, traceless, and transversal to the graviton momentum $`\stackrel{}{k}`$:

$$A_a=\sqrt{16\pi G}\frac{E_a}{\omega }\frac{\widehat{p}^i\widehat{p}^jh_{ij}}{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }.$$
(1)
Here $`i`$ and $`j`$ stand for the spatial indices, and $`\widehat{p}^i`$ is a unit vector in the direction of the momentum of the particle $`a`$, and $`\theta `$ is the angle between that direction and the graviton momentum. Also it is assumed that the graviton tensor amplitude is canonically normalized, i.e. $`g_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }+\sqrt{16\pi G}h_{\mu \nu }`$. One can further notice that for the physical components of the graviton tensor amplitude, the product $`\widehat{p}^i\widehat{p}^jh_{ij}`$ is in fact proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}^2\theta `$. Thus unlike in a bremsstrahlung of massless vector bosons (e.g. photons) there is no forward peak in the emission of gravitons for an ultrarelativistic particle, i.e. in the massless limit.

The total amplitude of a soft graviton emission is given by the sum of the amplitudes of emission, as in eq.(1), by all the energetic particles. In particular this generally leads to that, unlike in the familiar case of bremsstrahlung of vector particles, the direction of emission of soft graviton is not associated with the direction of any particular incoming or outgoing particle. This is most explicitly illustrated by the graviton bremsstrahlung in a collision of two massless particles at energy $`E=\sqrt{s}`$ forming a static (in the c.m.) massive object (as in the discussed production of a single large black hole). The total amplitude of emission can be written in the c.m. frame as

$$A=\sqrt{16\pi G}\frac{E}{2\omega }\widehat{p}^i\widehat{p}^kh_{ik}\left(\frac{1}{1\mathrm{cos}\theta }+\frac{1}{1+\mathrm{cos}\theta }\right),$$
(2)
which results in totally isotropic probability of emission of the graviton:

$$dw=\frac{2Gs}{\pi }\frac{d\omega }{\omega }\frac{d\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi },$$
(3)
where $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the differential of the solid angle. It is important for what follows that the effective strength of the source of soft gravitons is determined by the large energy $`E`$ of the projectile, rather than by the soft graviton energy $`\omega `$.

Proceeding to considering the fragmentation of the energy of the initial particles, we first discuss a condition that would ensure that the produced fragments do not subsequently fall into a common large black hole. Most conservatively, i.e. in a manner most favorable to the idea of geometric cross section for black hole production, it is assumed here that all objects moving at transverse distances shorter than the gravitational radius of the largest possible common black hole, $`r_0=2G\sqrt{s}`$, are likely to fall into the large black hole. Thus only the fragments, that move at transverse distances larger than $`r_0`$ will be considered as avoiding that fall. One can readily verify that this condition limits the transverse momenta of the “fall safe” fragments as $`k_{}<1/r_0`$. The longitudinal distance at which a fragment with energy $`\omega `$ is emitted can be estimated as $`\mathrm{}\omega /k_{}^2`$, and this distance is also larger than $`r_0`$, once the above condition for $`k_{}`$ is satisfied.

Let us estimate now the amplitude for production of $`n`$ black holes due to collisions of soft virtual (in fact almost real) gravitons, under the assumption of the geometric cross section. A generic graph for this process is shown in Fig.1. According to the previous discussion of soft graviton emission the factor in the amplitude describing production of black hole in the collision of $`i`$-th and $`j`$-th gravitons can be estimated as

$$\frac{Gs}{\omega _i\omega _j}f(q^2)\frac{d^4k_i}{k_i^2k_j^2},$$
(4)
where $`f(q^2)`$ is the coupling of two gravitons to a state of black hole with mass $`M_H^2=q^2`$. In evaluating the amplitude we treat the logarithmic integrals as being of order one, which is sufficient for estimating the lower bound on the amplitude. In this approximation the result of the integration over $`k_i`$ (with the restriction $`k_{}<1/r_0`$ for both $`k_i`$ and $`k_j`$) can be estimated as $`d^4k_i/(k_i^2k_j^2)O(1)`$, and $`\omega _i\omega _jq^2=M_H^2`$. Then the cross section for producing $`n`$ smaller black holes can be estimated as

$$d\sigma _n\frac{1}{(n!)^2}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{G^2s^2}{(q_a^2)^2}|f(q_a^2)|^2\frac{d^3q_a}{q_a^0}\rho (q_a^2)dq_a^2,$$
(5)
where the index $`a`$ enumerates the produced black holes, and $`\rho (M_H^2)`$ is the density of states of a black hole at mass $`M_H`$. The factor $`(n!)^2`$ in eq.(5) arises from the number ($`2n`$) of identical (virtual) gravitons, and we neglect weaker in $`n`$ factors, i.e. behaving as powers of $`n`$ or as $`c^n`$ with $`c`$ being a numerical constant. With the constraint $`q_{}<1/r_0`$ the integration over the momentum $`q_a`$ of the black hole can be estimated (again, up to a logarithmic factor) as $`d^3q/q^01/r_0^21/(G^2s)`$. Furthermore, the geometric cross section, that is assumed here for the purpose of this calculation, implies that

$$|f(q^2)|^2\rho (q^2)G^2(q^2)^2,$$
(6)
which according to eq.(5) results in the estimate of the cross section as

$$d\sigma _n\frac{1}{(n!)^2}\underset{a=1}{\overset{n}{}}G^2sdq_a^2.$$
(7)
For production of $`n`$ black holes, each with mass ranging up to $`E/n`$, (the lower bound on) the cross section can thus be estimated as

$$\sigma _n\left(\frac{G^2s^2}{n^4}\right)^n.$$
(8)
In obtaining this estimate for the cross section the graphs with graviton self-interactions were neglected. The contribution of emission of gravitons by gravitons would enhance the amplitude, and eq.(8) can still be used as a lower bound. A more serious problem arises from loop graphs with rescattering of gravitons. These graphs generally would modify the amplitude by order one. However a reliable estimate of the effect runs into the general problem of calculating loop graphs in quantum gravity, which is not readily solvable at present. This undoubtedly makes the status of the estimate (8) less certain, although it does not look any less certain than that of the geometric cross section.

Clearly, the estimate (8) implies that at $`Gs1`$ the total cross section should grow exponentially $`\sigma _{tot}\mathrm{exp}(\sqrt{Gs})`$, and should be dominated by production of $`O(\sqrt{Gs})`$ small black holes, each having mass of order the Planck mass $`G^{1/2}`$. I believe that this behavior illustrates the intrinsic inconsistency of the assumption of a geometric cross section for black hole production. Namely, assuming the geometric formula for production of a single black hole, one arrives at the conclusion that the channel with a single black hole should make only an exponentially small fraction of the total cross section. Thus in any unitary picture, where the total cross section does not grow exponentially with energy, the partial cross section with production of one large black hole should be exponentially small, in contradiction with the assumption of geometric cross section.

## 3 Semiclassical cross section, and its classical limit

A semiclassical treatment of the black hole production in particle collisions results in a formula, which is completely different from the geometric one. Namely the cross section for production of a large black hole is exponentially suppressed by the factor $`\mathrm{exp}(I_E)`$ with $`I_E`$ being the (Euclidean) Gibbons-Hawking action for the black hole. For a non-charged black hole with mass $`M_H`$ and angular momentum $`J`$, the production cross section is thus estimated as

$$\sigma (M_H,J)\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{2\pi GM_H^2}{\mathrm{}}\left(1+\frac{1}{\sqrt{1J^2/(G^2M_H^4)}}\right)\right],$$
(9)
where the dependence on the Planck’s constant $`\mathrm{}`$ is restored. The explicit $`J`$ dependence in eq.(9) allows one to find values of the characteristic angular momentum with which a black hole is produced: $`J\sqrt{G\mathrm{}}M_H`$ and thus to estimate the range of the impact parameter $`b`$ at which the black hole is produced:

$$b=\frac{J}{M_h}\sqrt{G\mathrm{}}.$$
(10)
In other words, the characteristic impact parameter is of order the Planck length and does not depend on the energy of colliding particles.

Clearly, for a large black hole, $`GM_H^21`$, this estimate is much smaller than in the geometric picture: $`br_H`$. Moreover, in the classical limit, $`\mathrm{}0`$, both the impact parameter and the exponential expression in eq.(9) for the cross section of the black hole production both go to zero. This undoubtedly implies that classically two ultrarelativistic particles either do not form a black hole at any $`b`$, even though at $`b=0`$ they are shown to approach a zero separation retaining a finite fraction of the initial energy, or the behavior in $`b`$ is singular, and they collapse into a black hole only in a head-on collision and that such collapse does not take place in off-axis collisions with any finite offset.

The latter singular in $`b`$ behavior might look unnatural. This singularity however may well be a result of a somewhat singular limit usually considered in the classical setup of the problem. Namely, in the classical setting one considers a configuration, which initially is described by two Schwarzchild metrics boosted towards each other. The mass $`m`$ corresponding to each metric is small. Furthermore, the limit is considered in which the mass $`m`$ is taken to zero with the energy per particle $`E/2=m\gamma `$ being fixed. In this massless limit the boosted Schwarzchild metric is described by the well-known Aichelburg-Sexl shock wave. The latter metric is however quite singular, e.g. the curvature invariants are identically zero everywhere, except for the point of classical location of the particle. Thus a singular dependence on the impact parameter of a classical collapse into a black hole may in fact be merely a reflection of the singularity of the Aichelburg-Sexl metric, that is smoothly regularized for finite values of $`m`$ and $`\gamma `$.

## 4 Discussion and some comments on recent literature

The common physical intuition about universality of gravitational collapse of any form of energy into a black hole, which is certainly correct for non-relativistic objects, might turn to be misleading for collisions of ultrarelativistic particles. The geometric formula for the cross section of production of a large black hole, naturally following from this intuitive picture of universal collapse, gives rise to a scattering behavior that does not comply well with either physical intuition or unitarity. Namely, as argued in Sec. 2, assuming the geometric formula, one arrives at the conclusion that fragmentation of the energy of initial particles and producing multiple smaller black holes is more probable than creation of just one large black hole. The total cross section for multiple-black hole production is then exponentially larger than for one black hole, and is dominated by final states with masses of produced black hole of order Planck mass. Thus one should either accept a non-intuitive and non-unitary exponential growth of the total cross section with energy, or admit that the geometric formula is incorrect.

The semiclassical approach resulting in eq.(9) with an exponentially suppressed cross section for production of large black holes, undoubtedly is at variance with the picture of universality of gravitational collapse. As discussed in Sec. 3, the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit of the semiclassical formula in fact requires the classical cross section for producing a large black hole to be zero in the ultrarelativistic limit. At this point it can only be suggested as a speculation that a numerical solution of the general relativity equations can be analyzed for off-axis collisions of either two Aichelburg-Sexl solutions, or for two smoothed configurations at finite $`m`$ and $`\gamma `$, in order to either confirm or disprove the classical behavior following from eq.(9).

A vanishing classical cross section for black hole production would certainly have to be reconciled with the picture of universal collapse into a black hole. At present one may speculate on two logical possibilities for such reconciliation. One possible resolution would be that essentially all the energy of initial particles gets radiated away before they approach each other at the distance of order $`r_0`$, so that no collapse of energy of order $`\sqrt{s}`$ can take place. This behavior was also suggested in Ref., based on the observation that the exponential factor in eq.(9) is somewhat analogous to Sudakov form factor in QED with the effective strength $`GE^2`$ in place of the QED coupling $`\alpha `$, albeit without the usual QED logarithms. However this reasoning becomes less certain upon a closer inspection. Indeed, one can estimate the total energy radiated away using the formula in eq.(3). In order to include only the gravitons radiated at distances larger than $`r_0`$ the upper cutoff in the soft graviton energy should be set at $`\omega 1/r_0`$, which gives the estimate of the total radiated energy as

$$E_{rad}\frac{Gs}{r_0}\sqrt{s},$$
(11)
and the total number of emitted gravitons is of order $`Gs`$. According to this estimate the radiated energy is of order the total energy in the process222It can be noted that the back reaction of the graviton radiation gives rise to an uncertainty in the impact parameter of order $`\sqrt{Gs}/\sqrt{s}=\sqrt{G}`$, i.e. of order of the Planck length, which agrees with the estimate of the effective impact parameter in eq.(10).. However the accuracy of the simple one-graviton formula (3) is generally insufficient to assert that exactly all the energy is radiated away. On the other hand, the total energy loss in bremsstrahlung is a classical quantity, and in principle can be found classically. According to the estimates of classical radiation not more than about 16% of the initial energy is lost in radiation in an on-axis collision of Aichelburg-Sexl shock waves. Although, a non-trivial behavior of the total amount of radiated energy on the impact parameter in off-axis collisions is quite possible, the problem of graviton radiation certainly remains open and is subject to further study.

Another possible resolution of the contradiction with the intuitive picture of collapse can be that in an essentially non-spherical configuration the rapid time evolution of the energy density distribution prevents from the collapse into a black hole. One argument, recently suggested in favor of the geometric cross section appeals to the “Thorne’s hoop suggestion, which states that horizons form when and only when a mass $`M`$ is compacted into a region whose circumference in every direction is less than $`2\pi r_h(M)`$”. However, as useful as Thorne’s hoop suggestion may be for sufficiently slowly evolving mass distributions, for the case of ultrarelativistic evolution, as one encounters in trans-Planckian particle collisions, this suggestion needs at least a better formulation, as regards the issues of e.g. simultaneity in defining the “circumference in every direction”, before its status can be ascertained in this setting.

Summarizing the discussion in two previous paragraphs, it should be admitted that reconciling the possible zero cross section in the classical limit, as suggested by eq.(9), with the intuitive picture of collapse undoubtedly presents a problem, which however can hopefully be resolved by classical, possibly numerical, methods.

I also use the opportunity presented by this ‘discussion’ section to answer some specific recent comments on the argumentation presented in Ref.. Recently Giddings has argued that a semiclassical calculation of the black hole production should be invalid, since a Euclidean action arises only for processes that are classically forbidden. He also states: “…black hole formation is a classically allowed (in fact compulsory!) process”. I believe that the discussion presented in Sec.3 and earlier in this section clearly suggests that the question whether the formation of a black hole in an ultrarelativistic collision is “classically allowed” or forbidden is still not resolved. One of the ways of probing this issue in the absence of a good classical description is to attempt a semiclassical calculation as was done in Ref.. In such calculation the Euclidean action becomes essential and suggests that classically the cross section should vanish. This argument at least indicates that a further study is needed, classical or semiclassical.

Another criticism, expressed in Ref. relates to the CPT treatment of the reciprocity between the production and decay amplitudes for the states of a black hole. Namely, it is argued that the time reversal of a black hole is a white hole ”which is a very different state”. It should be noted at this point that, using the picture of a black hole as being an ensemble of a very large number of resonant states, the reciprocity in Ref. is treated exactly as for ordinary resonances: it relates the amplitudes of formation and decay of a resonance, rather than relating a formation amplitude for a resonance to a decay amplitude of a “very different” (and unphysical) state whose wave function formally exponentially grows with time. A somewhat similar reasoning based on reciprocity for processes involving states of a black hole can be also found in Ref.. The thermodynamic argument might indeed have caveats of its own, as discussed in Ref., however not related to reciprocity.

Finally, Dimopoluos and Emparan argued against the exponential suppression of the cross section on the basis that the geometric formula matches their estimate of the cross section of production of string-theory objects, ‘string-balls’, at intermediate energies, where the general relativity limit is not applicable, and the string dynamics should be considered instead. However, if general relativity is replaced by string theory, or some other scheme, the Gibbons-Hawking action, used in eq.(9), would also become invalid at intermediate energies around the Planck mass, and has to be replaced by appropriate expression in that more universal theory. Thus no problems with matching the cross section across the energy spectrum should arise. In any case, it is highly unlikely that at far trans-Planckian energies (e.g. of order solar mass), where the general relativity is perfectly applicable, such gross features of the discussed cross section as the difference between the geometric and semiclassical formulas would depend on details of the string theory, or some other scheme of quantum gravity. Rather the problem of large black hole production should be solvable within classical or semiclassical standard general relativity.

In conclusion. At present there is no compelling reason to believe that formation of a large black hole in particle collisions at trans-Planckian energies is a “compulsory” process and is described by a geometric cross section, $`\sigma \pi r_H^2`$. Moreover, a semiclassical treatment suggests that this cross section is exponentially suppressed, and in fact vanishes in the classical ultrarelativistic limit. To an extent, this issue can be resolved by a further analysis, e.g. numerical, of ultrarelativistic collisions in the classical theory of gravity. It may well be that a further study of the fascinating problem of creating black holes, as useless as it most probably is for practical collisions, will bring new conceptual developments in understanding gravity.

## 5 Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the hospitality of the Aspen Center for Physics, where initial estimates for this paper were done. This work is supported in part by DOE under the grant number DE-FG02-94ER40823.


text:
# Circular Polarisation in AGN

## 1 Introduction

The mean degree of circular polarisation (CP) in AGN is typically less than 1%, but its origin is not understood. Although the linear polarisation observed in AGN is accepted as evidence of synchrotron emission, the physical significance — hence the correct interpretation — of the CP in AGN is not clear. This is largely because, until now, the observations were of insufficient quality to constrain the properties of the CP.

New data from the VLBA and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) have enabled a reassessment of the origin of CP. The high angular resolution of the VLBA gives it a decisive advantage over most telescopes in circular polarimetry. Since the magnitude of the CP is usually small and occurs primarily in compact regions, high resolution is necessary to mitigate the effects of beam depolarisation. The VLBA has also been able to, for the first time, determine the location of a circularly polarised region in an AGN relative to its core and jets.

Paradoxically, the ATCA, with its modest angular resolution, has made equally important contributions to our understanding of CP. Its advantage is the demonstrated ability to measure the degree of CP in sources to better than 0.01%. It is particularly useful when the angular resolution of the instrument is irrelevant because there is some other means of obtaining high angular resolution information about the source, usually from source variability. Its ability to do high precision, short timescale monitoring of intraday variable (IDV) radio sources, coupled with an understanding of interstellar scintillation, allows it to achieve microarcsecond resolution polarimetry.

We outline in Section 2 the various possible origins of the CP and in Section 3 the constraints placed upon these mechanisms by the observations. Various other sources that exhibit CP are discussed in Section 4. The conclusions are presented in Section 5.

## 2 Origins of Circular Polarisation

### 2.1 Synchrotron Emission

There is a small degree of CP associated with synchrotron emission. For an electron with Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ gyrating around a field line at an angle $`\theta `$ to the line of sight the degree of CP observed is (Legg & Westfold 1968)

$`m_c={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cot}\theta }{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{3\nu _H}}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{cot}\theta /\gamma `$ (1)
in an optically thin source, where $`\nu _H=eB\mathrm{sin}\theta /m_e`$ is the electron gyrofrequency. The degree of CP for an optically thick source remains similar; it is modified by a term of order unity dependent on the distribution of relativistic electrons, $`N(ϵ)ϵ^{2\alpha 1}`$ (Melrose 1971). In a homogeneous source the sense of the CP is expected to reverse as the source becomes optically thick.

Equation (1) implies that high CP is associated with emission from particles with low Lorentz factors, $`\gamma `$, or emission nearly parallel to the magnetic field (i.e. small $`\theta `$). However, in both instances the power expected from synchrotron radiation is small. The brightness temperature of particles radiating with Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ is limited by self-absorption to $`T_B<(\gamma 1)m_ec^2/k0.6\times 10^{10}(\gamma 1)`$ K. However, bulk relativistic motion of the emitting region toward the observer can Doppler boost the radiation, permitting higher degrees of CP for a given observed brightness temperature.

The emission intensity in synchrotron radiation is proportional to $`(\mathrm{sin}\theta )^{\alpha +1}`$. This falls to zero for emission nearly parallel to the magnetic field lines (i.e. as $`\theta 0`$). Although a high degree of CP is expected from radiation parallel to the magnetic field, it is associated with low power emission. Furthermore, regions with small $`\theta `$ would be confined to a small volume of the source in any plausible model for the distribution of the magnetic field. The importance of magnetic field non-uniformity is implied by the fact that the degree of linear polarisation observed in AGN is at least an order of magnitude lower than the $`70`$% expected due to synchrotron radiation. This suggests that the level of CP expected due to synchrotron radiation is at least an order of magnitude lower than that expected from equation (1).

The low levels of CP expected from this emission mechanism and the fact that its $`m_c\nu ^{1/2}`$ dependence is generally not observed (see references in Saikia & Salter 1998) suggest that synchrotron emission is not responsible for most of the CP observed in extragalactic sources at centimetre wavelengths.

### 2.2 Cyclotron Emission

Cyclotron emission refers to radiation from non-relativistic electrons (i.e. $`\gamma 11`$). If the electron orbit is edge-on to the line of sight then 100% linearly polarised radiation is observed and, if face-on, the radiation is fully circularly polarised. Elliptically polarised radiation is observed for intermediate orientations.

Cyclotron emission occurs at frequencies that are integer multiples of the cyclotron frequency, $`\nu _H`$. The power of the emission at the harmonics of the cyclotron frequency is proportional to $`\mathrm{sin}\theta `$, and thus falls to zero as $`\theta 0`$. The radiative power in these harmonics therefore falls to zero as the emission becomes more circularly polarised. The radiative power is non-zero for $`\theta =0`$ only for the emission at the fundamental frequency, and this is the only radiation which may be, in principle, fully circularly polarised.

The brightness temperature of the emission in the rest frame of the emitting particles is low: $`T_B0.6\times 10^{10}`$ K. Unless the cyclotron emission is highly Doppler boosted any CP associated with it is easily diluted by emission from brighter, synchrotron emitting regions.

### 2.3 Coherent Emission Mechanisms

Coherent emission processes have the potential to account for CP in AGN. The polarisation of pulsar radiation suggests that this is plausible. Pulsar radiation must be due to coherent emission, since the brightness temperature of the radiation is in the range $`T_B10^{22}10^{26}`$ K. The emission is also observed to be highly polarised (e.g. Manchester, Taylor, & Huguenin 1975), however it is possible that the CP in pulsars is not intrinsic to the radiation mechanism at all, but instead arises due to propagation effects in the pulsar magnetosphere.

It is difficult to make specific comments about the polarisation properties of any coherent emission that may occur in AGN since (i) there is no preferred mechanism for the coherent emission, (ii) the polarisation properties of most of the various mechanisms have not been considered in detail, and (iii) it is unknown whether the physical conditions necessary for the coherent emission would also lead to depolarisation of the escaping radiation. This last point is relevant because any coherent emission observed in AGN is likely to emanate from many localised patches emitting simultaneously (e.g. Melrose 1991; Benford 1992), which would lead to averaging out of the polarisation properties of each individual patch. Nonetheless, some specific mechanisms predict no CP (Windsor & Kellogg 1974; Benford 1984).

Coherent mechanisms are not required to explain high brightness temperature emission in IDV sources (see Melrose, these proceedings), and they do not seem to be explicitly required to explain the few per cent levels of CP seen in these sources either. Furthermore, if these processes do operate in AGN it is not obvious that they would dominate incoherent synchrotron emission or propagation induced polarisation effects.

### 2.4 Faraday Conversion in a Relativistic Plasma

Propagation can convert CP from linear polarisation in a process analogous to Faraday rotation, called generalised Faraday rotation or Faraday repolarisation (Sazonov 1969; Pacholczyk 1973; Jones & O’Dell 1977).

The transfer of polarised radiation in a birefringent plasma may be understood in terms of the Poincaré sphere (Figure 1). A magnetised homogeneous plasma has two mutually orthogonal natural wave modes, with some difference in wavenumber between the two modes, $`\mathrm{\Delta }k0`$. The wave modes of a given birefringent medium define a diagonal through the origin and opposite ends on the surface of the Poincaré sphere. Propagation through the plasma induces a phase difference $`L\mathrm{\Delta }k`$ between the two orthogonally polarised wavefields which results in a rotation of the polarisation vector around the Poincaré sphere at constant latitude around the axis defined by the natural modes.

In a magnetised relativistic plasma the natural modes of the medium are elliptically polarised. Propagation of radiation through such a plasma converts linearly polarised radiation into circularly polarised radiation as follows (Kennett & Melrose 1998):

$`V(\nu )`$ $`=`$ $`U_0(\nu )\mathrm{sin}(\lambda ^3\mathrm{RRM}),`$ (2)
$`\mathrm{RRM}`$ $`=`$ $`3\times 10^4\left({\displaystyle \frac{L}{1\mathrm{pc}}}\right)_L\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_r}{1\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{B}{1\mathrm{G}}}\right)^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^3,`$ (3)
where the relativistic rotation measure, RRM, depends upon the density of relativistic particles, $`n_r`$, the path length, $`L`$, the magnetic field, $`B`$, and the minimum Lorentz factor of the pairs, $`_L`$. This effect operates only when the direction of the incident linear polarisation is at an oblique angle to the projection of the magnetic field on the plane orthogonal to the ray direction. The axes used to define the Stokes parameters may be chosen such that synchrotron emission has $`Q0,U=0`$. With this choice, the effect occurs only if the incident radiation has $`U_00`$, requiring either Faraday rotation or that it originate from a region of the source where the magnetic field is in a different direction to that in the region where the polarisation conversion takes place.

A characteristic of this model is a strong frequency dependence on the sign of $`V`$. If $`\mathrm{RRM}`$ is high enough to produce appreciable amounts of CP at high frequency, this model predicts rapid changes in its handedness at low frequency. In a relativistic plasma, the position angle of the radiation defined by the $`UV`$ plane rotates $`\lambda ^3`$.

However, the structure of the source can have important consequences for the frequency dependence of the CP. The Blandford-Königl jet is a particular and relevant instance of this (Blandford & Königl 1979). Its largely self-similar structure can ensure that, at each frequency, the CP is of constant sign and comparable magnitude. This is because the emission height of the CP observed along the jet varies as a function of frequency.

One specific configuration for producing moderate (a few per cent) CP with consistent sign (see Begelman, these proceedings) involves a plasma with a weak uniform magnetic field and a highly spatially variable random magnetic field. The random component, with high rotativity per unit length, can generate moderate degrees of CP. Because this model relies on a highly spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field, one expects that the CP, as observed on the plane of the sky, is also highly spatially inhomogeneous. The viability of this model can be constrained from scintillation observations, as described in Section 3.

### 2.5 Scintillation-induced Circular Polarisation

Another model that relies upon a highly inhomogeneous medium involves scintillation-induced CP (Macquart & Melrose 2000a,b). This is produced when even unpolarised radiation propagates through a region with non-uniform $`n_eB`$ (related to the Faraday rotation per unit length). A transverse gradient in this quantity leads to different ray bending for the right- and left-hand circularly polarised radiation. Since the wavefronts are also rippled due to the phase delays caused by the inhomogeneity, as occurs in scintillation, transverse displacement of the two wavefronts can induce CP. The difference in bending angles between the two senses of polarisation is small but the radiation propagates over a large distance, so that the displacement between the two wavefronts, and hence the CP, can be appreciable. This theory may provide an explanation for the variable CP observed at cm wavelengths in some AGN and in Sgr A\*.

There is no preferred handedness for the sense of the CP produced by this mechanism: although the mean square CP is non-zero, the mean CP, averaged over a sufficiently long time span, is zero. One expects sign changes in the CP on a timescale associated with the scintillation pattern. This is not observed. However, this model needs to be extended to remove some of the constraining assumptions on which it is based. The most notable of these is the assumption that the inhomogeneities occur on a thin screen. The relaxation of this assumption to take into account the extended nature of the medium would affect both the magnitude of the effect and the timescale on which sign changes are predicted to occur.

## 3 Observational Properties

In this section we concentrate on the connection between the CP and its variability. Rayner (these proceedings) contains a further discussion on the origins of the CP in AGN.

The CP in AGN was known to be variable almost twenty years ago (e.g. Weiler & de Pater 1983; Komesaroff et al. 1984). In their monitoring of a sample of AGN at 5 GHz, Komesaroff et al. (1984) observed several general features which have been borne out by more accurate measurements:

* Changes in CP occur with only small accompanying changes in the total intensity. Interpreting these in terms of an intrinsic change in the source due to, say, the emergence of a new component, the authors argued this implied degrees of CP typically $`5`$% in the polarised subcomponents of these sources. (These arguments also apply if the variability is due to scintillation.)
* The timescale of variability in CP is shorter than that of the linear polarisation, which in turn is shorter than that in the total intensity.
* The magnitude of the fractional variability in the CP usually exceeds that in the linear polarisation, which exceeds that in the total intensity.

Comparison with recent ATCA and VLBA observations shows that many sources retain the same handedness of CP over decade-long time scales. However, early measurements indicated that some sources do change sign: Komesaroff et al. (1984) noted sources 2 out of 14 on the $`100`$ day timescale that the observations were sensitive to. The reality of these sign changes has not been pursued with recent observations.

The CP appears to occur in compact regions. VLBI observations by Homan & Wardle (1999) and Homan, Attridge, & Wardle (2001) support the general conclusion that the CP is associated with the compact regions near the cores of AGN.

It is not clear why some sources exhibit high degrees of CP. There appears to be no connection between the degree of CP and the linear polarisation (Rayner, Norris, & Sault 2000). VLBI suggests this may be due to Faraday depolarisation of the linearly polarised radiation (e.g. Homan et al. 2001). There is, however, a tentative connection between high CP and IDV AGN. Many of these sources exhibit strong and variable CP; these sources include PKS 1519$``$273 (Macquart et al. 2000), PKS 0404$``$385 and PKS 1144$``$379. In each case the degree of CP implied by comparing the changes in Stokes $`V`$ and $`I`$ is a few per cent222The mean degree of CP in these three sources ranges from $`0.20.8`$%.. The last two sources exhibit CP variability on shorter timescales than that observed in the total intensity, suggesting that it emanates from an even more compact region that does the emission responsible for the bulk of the unpolarised variability.

Are the degrees of CP inferred in IDV sources atypical? The possibility that many other sources have high CP in regions so compact that they appear beam depolarised even on VLBI scales remains to be investigated.

### 3.1 The Significance of CP Variability

The prevalence of CP variability in AGN suggests that it occurs predominantly in compact regions. One might expect that it should vary more rapidly than $`I`$ because it can also change sign. However, this is unlikely to be the correct explanation for the short timescale. Both Stokes $`Q`$ and $`U`$ can also change sign in the same manner as the CP, but they are not, in general, observed to vary as quickly. The rarity of sign reversals in the CP also argues against this, especially when compared to the large position angle changes observed in linear polarisation in the same sources.

The fact that the simultaneous total flux density and polarised flux density variations in IDV sources are different is often used as evidence against the viability of scintillation in these sources. While scintillation affects all four Stokes parameters of the propagating radiation identically333This is strictly only true if the medium is unmagnetised, but it holds to a good approximation for scintillations in our Galaxy’s ISM., the structure of the scintillating source complicates the issue.

A simple source model comprised of two compact (scintillating) components illustrates this. Suppose one component is faint but highly (say 10%) circularly polarised, while the other is strong but unpolarised. If the angular separation between the sources is comparable to the angular scale of the scintillations ($`\theta _\mathrm{F}=r_\mathrm{F}/D`$ for weak scintillations) then the fluctuations due to each of the components are uncorrelated. Furthermore, because the fluctuations in CP come from one component while the majority of the unpolarised flux density variations originate from the other, the fluctuations in Stokes $`V`$ and $`I`$ show only a small correlation.

The nature of the correlation may change during the course of a year if the direction of the scintillation velocity changes. Such changes are possible because changes in Earth’s velocity, due to its orbit about the Sun, can substantially alter the apparent scintillation velocity. If the two source components lie in a line parallel to the scintillation velocity one observes identical fluctuations in both components, but with a delay corresponding to the angular separation of the components relative to the scale of the scintillation pattern. If the velocity is orthogonal, one sees a loss of correlation, with a large decorrelation if the angular separation of the components is greater than the relevant scintillation decorrelation length divided by distance to screen (i.e. $`\theta _\mathrm{F}`$ in the weak scattering regime).

However, real sources are more complicated than two blobs. VLBI polarimetric imaging (e.g. Gabuzda, Pushkarev, & Cawthorne 2000) shows a great richness of detail and structure in the linear polarisation of milliarcsecond components in AGN. If IDV sources exhibit the same richness of structure on microarcsecond scales that they do on VLBI scales it would be surprising that the polarisation lightcurves of IDV sources bear any resemblance at all to the fluctuations in total intensity! Indeed, many IDV sources show rich structure in polarisation lightcurves relative to the total intensity.

This suggests that attempts to model source variability in terms of a finite number of distinct components are missing the point. One instead ought to be talking about measuring the power spectrum of the brightness distribution in each of the four Stokes parameters.

It is possible to invert for the source structure in a rigorous manner if the variability is due to scintillation. Formally, the power spectrum of the observed fluctuations is the product of the scintillation power spectrum due to a point source, which is known or can be determined, and the power spectrum of the source angular brightness distribution; see Macquart & Jauncey (2001 submitted) for more detail, and Figure 2 for an intuitive explanation of the effect of source structure on its lightcurve. This technique would be useful in testing the model advanced by Begelman for which one expects small-scale structure in the CP.

## 4 Lessons from Other Sources

Sgr A\*

CP has been detected in Sgr A\* from 1.4 to 8.6 GHz with ATCA and the VLA (Bower, Falcke, & Backer 2000; Sault & Macquart 1999). The mean degree of CP is 0.3% but the CP varies on a timescale of $`10`$ days, much faster than the monthly to yearly variability observed in the total flux density at these frequencies. The origin of the variability is not well constrained; it could be intrinsic or due to scintillation of a compact component in the source.

The spectrum of the mean degree of CP is flat from 1.4 to 8.6 GHz but the significance of this is complicated by the fact that one does not know the degree of CP in the polarised component. It appears that only a small portion of the source is polarised. Changes in the CP are accompanied by only small changes in the total intensity. If the variability in the CP is indeed associated with the variability of a specific component of the source, the 1.4 and 2.4 GHz ATCA data suggest the presence of a subcomponent with an intrinsic CP of a few percent.

Galactic microquasars

CP is observed in several Galactic microquasars. CP was first detected in SS433 by Fender et al. (2000) but the data were insufficient to determine the origin of the CP. While the total intensity emission and linearly polarised emission were unresolved, the CP was not. It was suggested that the CP originated in the inner parts of the system and that the actual polarisation of these regions was as high as 10%.

CP has recently been discovered in GRO 1655$``$40 from ATCA archival data of the August 1994 outburst (J.-P. Macquart et al., in preparation). The time evolution of the CP was observed at frequencies from 1.4 to 9 GHz, and shows the CP changing sign during the early stages of the outburst, reaching a maximum and decaying over a period comparable to the decay of the total emission.

## 5 Conclusions

The advent of high precision circular polarimetry has enabled a reassessment of the CP in AGN. However, most of the outstanding questions twenty years ago regarding the origin of the CP in AGN still remain.

VLBI and variability (scintillation) measurements indicate the CP in AGN is associated with the emission near their cores, and that it occurs in very compact regions. Future measurements of the CP will therefore only be useful if the observations are capable of resolving this polarised emission.

The best means of obtaining this resolution at the centimetre wavelengths at which the CP is currently being detected is via scintillation ‘imaging’. ATCA data indicate that a large proportion of IDV sources exhibit variable CP. Scintillation data can be used to extract information about the degree of the CP and its location relative to the linearly polarised and unpolarised emission.

High precision polarimetry over a larger range of frequencies would be useful in constraining the origin of the circularly polarised emission. However, its use may be limited. Complications due to source inhomogeneity and structure limit the degree to which one can use the spectral slope of the CP to constrain its origin.

## Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank Don Melrose, Dave Rayner, and Bob Sault for their advice and help.

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