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# Contents

## 1 Summary

This paper describes an extension, to higher dimensions, of the Bayesian Blocks algorithm for estimating signals in noisy time series data (Scargle 1998, 2000). The mathematical problem is to find the partition of the data space with the maximum posterior probability for a model consisting of a homogeneous Poisson process for each partition element. For model Mn, attributing the data within region $`n`$ of the data space to a Poisson process with a fixed event111Throughout we use the terms event and (data) point synonymously. The event is the occurrence of a datum at a given point in the data space. rate $`\lambda _n`$, the global posterior is:

$$P\left(\text{M}\text{n}\right)=\mathrm{\Phi }(N,V)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(N+1\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(VN+1\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(V+2\right)}=\frac{N!\left(VN\right)!}{\left(V+1\right)!}.$$
(1)
Note that $`\lambda _n`$ does not appear, since it has been marginalized, using a flat, improper prior. Other priors yield similar formulas. This expression is valid for a data space of any dimension. It depends on only $`N`$, the number of data points within the region, and $`V`$, the volume of the region. No information about the actual locations of the points enters this expression.

Suppose two such regions, described by $`N_1,V_1`$ and $`N_2,V_2`$, are candidates for being merged into one. From Eq. (1) construct a Bayes merge factor, giving the ratio of posteriors for the two regions merged and not merged, respectively:

$$P\left(\text{Merge}\right)=\frac{\mathrm{\Phi }(N_1+N_2,V_1+V_2)}{\mathrm{\Phi }(N_1,V_1)\mathrm{\Phi }(N_2,V_2)}.$$
(2)
Then collect data points into blocks with this cell coalescence algorithm:

* Start with the Voronoi tessellation of the data points
* Identify each Voronoi cell as a block
* Iteratively merge the pair of blocks with the largest merge factor
* Halt when the maximum merge factor falls below 1

In many applications it is both required and efficient to place the restriction that only blocks touching each other are allowed to merge. This algorithm partitions the data space into a set of blocks, typically much fewer in number than the data points. Each block has a density equal to the number of data points in it divided by its volume. Then, if desired, high-density blocks adjacent to each other can be collected into clusters.

This method allows detection of clusters in high-dimensional data spaces, with the following properties:

* The number of clusters is determined, not assumed
* Clusters can have any shape:

+ Avoid the conventional Gaussian assumption
    + Shapes can include both concavities and convexities
    + Blocks and clusters do not even have to be simply connected
* The density profiles within clusters are estimated, not just the locations of the cluster boundaries
* Any slowly varying background is automatically identified
* No binning of the raw data is necessary

## 2 Statistical Challenges of Modern Astronomy

Certainly in astronomy, and in many other ways, this is the Century of Data. Several new observational programs are severely challenging known techniques for acquiring, archiving, reducing, analyzing, and interpreting astronomical data. The methods described here have been inspired by the need for automated extraction of scientific results from large, synoptic data sets that will be produced by projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, various other cosmological projects, and – closer to home – the exploration of Mars, the Solar System, and planetary systems in the Sun’s neighborhood.

Automated processing already plays a large role in astronomical data analysis, and will clearly become more and more important. What is not generally agreed on is how far along the path to the final scientific output automatic processing can be taken. In my opinion, artificially intelligent processes will soon become surprisingly practical in this setting.

## 3 The Data: Points, Counts, Measurements

Consider data obtained to estimate some quantity (as opposed to a discrete attribute). Such measurements are almost always corrupted by noise, blurring, and other instrumental effects. The observations may be in a space of one dimension (e.g., time series, energy spectra), in two dimensions (e.g. images), or in a space of higher dimension (e.g. galaxy redshift/position catalogs).

Three types of measurement data can be distinguished. The first is point data, often called event data in 1D. That is, it consists of discrete points in the data space under consideration. The density of points detected in a specific region is taken as an estimate of the true density there. Examples from NASA’s Compton $`\gamma `$-Ray Observatory: time-tagged photon data, consisting of lists of photon detection times in units of 2 microseconds; and sky-image data, consisting of lists of photon positions, energies and times.

While the usual coordinate representation of such points uses real numbers, in practice the corresponding infinite accuracy and resolution is not achievable. The coordinate is usually quantized in some unit, small compared to the total range of observation. In high energy (x- and $`\gamma `$-ray) time series data, for example, the points are the times of detection of individual photons; the corresponding quantum is the resolution of the spacecraft clock, typically in the range of microseconds to milliseconds.

In the second data type the entire observation interval (or area, or volume) is partitioned into pre-specified bins (or pixels, or cells) and the number of events in each is recorded. Event data can be converted to this mode, but in doing so one discards information, reduces the resolution of the data, and makes the results dependent on the sizes and locations of the bins. Hence this mode should be used only if event data are not available.

A third type of sequential data is the measurement of some quantity, at a set of times or points in space. This measurement need not be an event count, but can be any measurement operation that yields a real number. An important difference from the event-counting mode arises in the statistical distribution of the observational errors: counts in bins typically obey a Poisson distribution, whereas here the errors may have any distribution, often assumed normal (Gaussian).

## 4 The Model: Segmentation Yields Structure

In any analysis involving likelihoods, a key step is the choice of a model representing two separate aspects of the data: the underlying process, or true signal; and the noise process corrupting the observations, thus hiding the true signal. Precisely, we must compute the probability, or likelihood, that the observed data would be obtained, given the model and its parameters. Although we are studying the underlying signal, the likelihood depends also on the data mode, the sampling process, and the nature of the noise and other corruption processes.

Data consisting of independent points are efficiently described by a very simple model, the Poisson process. In such a process the probability that an event will occur in a small element of the data space is just a coefficient times the volume of that element. This coefficient is called the local event rate or Poisson parameter. It need not be constant, but can vary in an arbitrary way over the data space. If this variation is random – a Cox or doubly-stochastic processit is important to distinguish the two random processes. One describes the occurrence events at a given location, the other how the event rate varies with location. If, as usually assumed, these two processes are independent of each other, even if the event rates at different locations are strongly correlated, the occurrence of events at these locations are independent of each other (i.e., the joint probability is the product of the individual probabilities).

The assumed independence of the data means that the occurrence of one event does not affect the probability of any other event. Hence, a probability referring to separate subsets of the data space is the product of the probabilities of the subsets. A common example of failure of this property – i.e. dependence – is “dead time” in time series data: each photon is followed by an interval in which the occurrence of a second photon is inhibited.

In general, the Poisson model is surprisingly appropriate for astronomical processes. The model seems extremely specialized but is in fact remarkably general and serves for almost all applications. All we have assumed is that the events are independent, and the local event rate is specified by an arbitrary density function. The main limitation, need for independence of the events, can be relaxed by simply incorporating the dependences into the likelihood function.

The model must specify the Poisson rate as a function of location within the space, either parametrically or nonparametrically. Here we assume one does not have a detailed signal model, indicating nonparametric methods. In particular, consider piecewise constant representations of the signal. This very convenient class of model has the following properties

* nonparametric: the number of parameters depends on the number of data points222Rissanen (1989) discusses this seemingly paradoxical definition. Examples are polynomials, Fourier series, and wavelet expansions. The idea is that one is representing the structure generically, in terms of basis functions, the number of which depends on how much information is present – rather than fitting a predefined shape to the data.
* general: capable of representing any reasonable signal
* simple: underlying rate is constant on finite intervals
* useful: any physically significant signal property can be computed

+ pulse widths, rise times, decay times, amplitudes
    + background level
* easy to compute: Bayesian changepoint detection is very effective
* easily extended to two dimensional and higher data spaces
* related to classification, cluster detection, and density estimation
* data adaptive, i.e. responds to local irregularities

One can think of this representation as a density estimator in which blocks take on the role of bins. The sizes and locations of the bins are not fixed, but are determined by the data. The idea is as follows. We partition the data space into subsets, or blocks. The data points within each block are taken to be independent and to obey a Poisson distribution with a constant rate parameter. Different blocks have different event rates. In short, we construct a piecewise constant (“blocky”) signal approximation.

Our aim is to detect and characterize all of the signal structure supported by the datai.e. the statistically significant variations. How best to do this depends on the ultimate purpose of the analysis. Frequently one is interested, not in the true signal shape itself, but in quantities describing local structures – e.g. pulse widths, amplitudes, etc.. Since there are very convenient ways to estimate such parameters directly from blocks, our seemingly crude representation may be perfectly adequate. For such purposes there is no motivation to impose smoothness, although such cosmetic properties are important for visualization of model-data relationships.

Note that we don’t assert that the true event rate changes in a blocky, discontinuous way. The physical signal is presumably continuous, and we represent it as piecewise constant in the spirit of a step-function approximation of a smooth curve – and not with any hope that this representation is exact in the limit of small steps (cf. wavelet theory, and see especially the innovative ideas in Donoho 1994a,b). In the interests of accuracy, one might consider models of higher complexity, such as a piecewise linear representation; however, imposing continuity limits the number of free parameters (to be about the same as for piecewise constant models), so the added accuracy is somewhat illusory.

See (Stoyan, Kendall and Mecke 1995) for an excellent discussion of point processes in general, Poisson point processes in particular, and a number of ways that real world data can depart from being Poisson.

## 5 Algorithms in One Dimension

We begin by considering the one dimensional case (Scargle 1998, 2000). Time series data are usually considered to consist of a signal, the character of which is under investigation, corrupted by observational noise333A point of occasional confusion is that noise in astronomy and physics has two quite distinct meanings: random observational errors, and random variability intrinsic to the source or physical system. The latter, part of the signal, is often just what one is studying, whereas the observational noise is a corruption, to be eliminated as much as possible.. In this setting, segmentation of the data space into subsets where the signal is taken as constant is a very practical representation for many signals. The very different problem of searching for periodic signals will not be discussed here (see Bretthorst 1988, more recent publications on his web site, and my other contribution to this volume).

Three algorithms for implementing this approach to modeling time series have been described elsewhere (Scargle 1998, 2000), so I omit details. Broadly, the approaches are:

* Divide and Conquer: use model comparison to decide whether the interval should be subdivided; apply iteratively to sub-intervals
* Cell Coalescence: start from an ultra-fine representation assigning one block to each datum; merge pairs of blocks based on model comparison
* Markov Chain Monte Carlo: search the block parameter space, computing the posterior (with all block edge locations and Poisson rate parameters marginalized) as a function of the number of blocks

The first two, top-down and bottom-up, are greedy444 Greedy algorithms implement myopic optimization with a “take what you can now, no regard for the future” strategy. On termination of the algorithm the resulting local optimum may be a good approximate solution, but is not guaranteed to be the global optimum. algorithms, iterated until the answer to the question “subdivide?” or “merge?” is always “no.” MCMC convergence is more subtle.

I have been developing the Cell Coalescence method for astronomical applications, primarily due to its easy generalization to higher dimensions, as we shall now discuss.

## 6 Structure in Higher Dimensions

This section describes an iterative algorithm for structure analysis based on Bayesian methods. The problem of estimating structure in higher dimensional data spaces is closely related to regression, density estimation (Scott 1992), cluster analysis (Backer 1995), data classification (Gordon 1999), projection pursuit (Friedman and Tukey 1974), etc., depending on the exact nature of the data and the goals of the analysis. Common to all of these approaches is the same situation we have just discussed: the data reflect an underlying signal subject to noise and possibly other corruptions; the signal and the specific noise contributions are unknown, but a statistical model of the noise is known or assumed. The goal is to recover as much information as possible about the signal, making good use of any prior information about the signal and the noise.

Bayesian methods are quite powerful in this arena, due to the natural way prior information and nuisance parameters are handled. In particular, Bayesian methods provide good solutions to problems which apparently plague cluster analysis and related fields (Kaufman and Rousseeuw 1990, Backer 1995, Day 1990): a bewildering variety of ad hoc methods, loss of information in the analysis, and assessing post facto validity of clusters.

### 6.1 Voronoi Cells

The algorithm I am developing for 2D problems uses the same posterior as in Equations (1)-(2), since their derivations apply to Poisson models for point data in any dimension. However, geometrical considerations for partitioning the data space are considerably harder in 2D. Generalizing the concept of intervals is not very productive, due to the great freedom one has in the choice for block shapes: $`\mathrm{}`$ squares? rectangles? circles? other? What is productive is to follow the cell coalescence idea (above, §5) and construct small, elementary blocks from which larger blocks can be composed: assemble the macroscopic out of the microscopic.

In the 1D case, the intervals spanned by the midpoints between successive pairs of adjacent data points are the obvious choice for the cells. The mid-point based construction has the following properties:

1. Cell $`i`$ contains all points closer to datum $`i`$ than to any other datum
2. Forms a partition: Every point in the space lies in one and only one cell
3. Attached to each cell is a number, $`A_i`$, namely its area
4. $`\frac{1}{A_i}`$ is a measure of the density of data points in the vicinity of datum $`i`$

Item (1), a constructive definition valid in any dimension, is the space’s Voronoi tessellation (e.g., Stoyan, Kendall and Mecke 1995) determined by the data points. This definition implies (2), i.e. Voronoi cells partition the space. Where points are close together the cell areas are small, and vice versa. Specifically, the reciprocal of the cell area is a convenient measure of local point density. How useful this representation is! With almost no work we already have a detailed, if choppy, density estimation.

Now three definitions. A cell is one of the Voronoi cells, which are in a one-to-one correspondence with the data points. During the iteration we insure that these cells maintain their identity, so there is no problem thinking of cells and data points interchangeably.

A block is a set of one or more merged cells, including both the initial one-cell blocks and the multi-cell blocks that form during the iteration. It is common to restrict mergers to, e.g., only blocks that are touching555That two blocks are touching can be readily determined by finding a Voronoi cell in one block that has a vertex in common with at least one cell in the other block. The MatLab (© the Math Works, Inc.) routine computing Voronoi tessellations in arbitrary dimensions returns vertex information in a form very convenient for all such computations.; hence blocks consist of adjacent cells.

One last definition: At the end of the iteration, we may find that some sets of adjacent blocks stand out from the general background, say by having event rates substantially above background. We call such groups clusters. In the case of galaxies, this corresponds precisely to the notion of galaxy clusters. In the case of photons, this corresponds to the notion of a source. Note that we are interested in density profiles within clusters; for the most part traditional classification and cluster analysis identifies boundaries only.

### 6.2 The Algorithm: Cell Coalescence

We are now ready to outline the algorithm. The idea is simple: find the partition with the largest total posterior probability

$$P_{total}\mathrm{\Pi }_{n=1}^N\mathrm{\Phi }(N_n,V_n),$$
(3)
obtained from Eq. (1) applied to each element of the partition, and using the product rule since the elements are assumed independent. In principle we want to maximize this posterior over the set

$$S_{\mathrm{}}\left\{\text{P}\right|\text{ D is partitioned by }\text{P}\}$$
(4)
where $`D`$ is the entire data space. This task would be awkwardly complicated and impractically large, so instead we restrict attention to the set

$$S_0\left\{\text{P}\right|\text{ D is partitioned by }\text{P}\text{ into blocks of Voronoi cells }\}.$$
(5)
There are many ways in which these two sets are different – (4) is highly infinite, (5) is quite finite. But for representing the structural information content of the data points $`S_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`S_0`$ are effectively the same. This is sometimes expressed by saying that the Voronoi tessellation contains all the proximity information in the data, a well known fact in the computer graphics industry.

I have coded and experimented with a very simple search through $`S_0`$, namely a greedy iteration that at each step merges the pair of blocks with the largest value of the merge posterior in Eq. (2):

* Initialize: one block ($``$ a Voronoi cell) per data point
* Compute change in $`P\left(\text{P}\right)`$ for merging each pair of adjacent blocks
* If largest change is positive, merge666To merge cells $`n`$ and $`m`$ simply change cell $`n`$ according to $`N_n=N_n+N_m,V_n=V_n+V_m`$ and delete cell $`m`$. that pair and Go To (1)
* Else (no pair should be merged) stop.

This greedy algorithm can be criticized because it is not guaranteed to yield the global maximum. To assess this problem, I am exploring alternative procedures which explore more of the parameter space – including randomized algorithms (Motwani and Raghavan 1995), algorithms using more general transformations than just block merges, and combinatorial optimization methods based on dynamic programming (Hubert, Arabie, and Meulman 2001).

### 6.3 Adopting a Model

There are several ways to determine the model to be adopted. Most simply one can use the model in place when the stopping criterion is triggered. Or, one can select the largest $`P\left(\text{P}\right)`$ from the history of the iteration. If the transformations are such that $`P\left(\text{P}\right)`$ is monotonically non-decreasing, these two are obviously the same. An alternative is to average all of the models, weighting each one according to its posterior probability – model averaging (see Hoeting, Madigan, Raftery, and Volinsky 1999, and for some software `http://www.research.att.com/~volinsky/bma.html`). This approach has the advantage of producing a model that is more in accord with the maximum a posteriori (MAP) principle, but the disadvantage that the averaged model is not in the initially defined space of models – namely, piecewise constant Poissonian blocks. Depending on what information one wants from the models, this disadvantage may or may not be important.

### 6.4 Related Work

Various authors (Ebeling and Wiedenmann 1993, Scargle 2000, Ramella, Boschin, Fadda and Nonino 2001) have considered algorithms that start from the Voronoi tessellation and iteratively merge the Voronoi cells into blocks based on some kind of statistical criterion. Essentially the same problem has been discussed in the literature of automatic data classification (Gordon 1999, Backer 1995), where the concept of merging cells is replaced by a more generalized set of allowed transformations of the partition.

Our ultimate goal is the same as to that of classification, the “detection of important relationships and structure within data” (Gordon 1999, §1.2) by finding “a partition in which objects are similar to the other objects belonging to their class and dissimilar to objects belonging to different classes” (Gordon 1999, §3.1). However, we generalize the concept of similarity (most often taken to be simply closeness of the points) to mean that the distributions of the observed points are adequately described by an appropriate statistical model. Other classification criteria, such as homogeneity, lack of heterogeneity, or isolation or separation from the rest of the data, can be subsumed into this more general concept.

## 7 Information Theoretic Inference

Several foundational issues are pertinent to the above analysis, beginning with the Bayesian definition of probability as a measure of the degree of one’s belief in the truth of the hypothesis (Jaynes 1997). It would be hard to identify two words more fraught with philosophical difficulties than belief and truth.

Science never achieves absolute truth of any hypothesis. Instead it seeks to establish approximate but useful descriptions, models, predictions of future events and measurements, and so on. Belief – by others or of one’s own – is hard to define operationally. The pragmatic point here is that we believe that our model is not true. A discontinuous model can not be a true representation of a continuous signal. The prior for our model is zero. This leads directly to oblivion. There are ways to deal with this problem within the Bayesian framework, but uneasiness about this point remains.

The vexing concept of the noninformative prior is particularly relevant for the construction of general purpose, turn-key algorithms. Although it is possible to fashion algorithms so that one can plug in the prior that expresses one’s knowledge in any given situation, it is still legitimate to seek an algorithm that makes no prior assumptions, perhaps at the price of some loss of sensitivity, efficiency, or the like.

There are other aspects of the Bayesian data analysis formalism that are muddled by the belief-in-truth interpretation. The founders of Bayesian data analysis made a great step forward in recognizing that deductive logic is inappropriate to scientific thought and research. However, in substituting inductive logic they missed that the problem is not just the kind of logic, but that logic itself is inappropriate to the practice of scientific data analysis.

The notion that science deals with information about the Universe, more than with truths about it, leads to a data analysis approach that substitutes information theoretic quantities for the subjective Bayesian probabilities. In particular information contained in data and models replaces the usual notion of belief in the truth of hypotheses. The resulting framework avoids difficulties associated with noninformative priors, and I believe is more in tune with how data analysis actually proceeds – uncovering and processing information about the Universe.

We use models to extract from data information about the world. There is no learning of absolute truths about the world. We proceed by comparing model predictions with observed data. Evaluating the joint information contained in model and data is a straightforward application of information theory. Elsewhere in this volume, related information theoretic ideas are discussed in the papers “Inductive Logic” by Kevin Knuth, and “Information Theoretic Approach to Bayesian Inference” by Jeffrey Jewell.

We equate two expressions for data-model information – following the standard derivation of Bayes Theorem by equating two expressions for the joint data-model probability. Start by defining the mutual information of two random variables as the relative entropy between their actual joint distribution and what the joint distribution would have been if the variables were independent – i.e. the product of the individual distributions:

Definition: Mutual Information
Given random variables $`X`$ and $`Y`$, with probability distributions $`p\left(x\right)`$ and $`p\left(y\right)`$, and joint probability distribution $`p(x,y)`$, the mutual information of $`X`$ and $`Y`$ is

$$I(X;Y)=\underset{x}{}\underset{y}{}p(x,y)log\frac{p(x,y)}{p\left(x\right)p\left(y\right)}$$
(6)
that is, the expectation of $`log\frac{p(x,y)}{p\left(x\right)p\left(y\right)}`$ with respect to the full joint distribution $`p(x,y)`$. The sums in $`x`$ and $`y`$ are over the appropriate discrete event spaces, and become integrals for continuous variables.

Cover and Thomas (1991) prove that

$$I(X;Y)=H\left(X\right)H\left(X|Y\right)$$
(7)
where $`H\left(X\right)`$ is the unconditional entropy of $`X`$, and $`H\left(X|Y\right)`$ is the entropy of $`X`$ conditional on $`Y`$. Noting that $`I(X;Y)=I(Y;X)`$, using the more mnemonic variable names $`D`$ for data and $`M`$ for model, and replacing entropy, $`H`$, with the negative of information, $`I`$, we have

$$I\left(M|D\right)=I\left(D|M\right)+I\left(M\right)I\left(D\right),$$
(8)
rather like Bayes Theorem with the identification $`Ilog\left(P\right)`$. I am experimenting with inference procedures for cluster analysis based on this relationship.

I am indebted to Tom Loredo, Alanna Connors, Larry Bretthorst, Peter Sturrock, Jay Norris, Jerry Bonnell, Ayman Farahat, and other colleagues for comments, suggestions, and encouragement, and to Michele Bierbaum and Bob Fry for their kind hospitality at MAXENT 2001.

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# Antimatter as a probe for physical processes in the early Universe

## 1 Introduction

It is now widely accepted that the Universe is baryon asymmetrical as a whole. Indeed, if the Universe would contain equal amount of matter and antimatter domains, coexisting with each other, the annihilation on the border of these domains will not disturb the observed diffused $`\gamma `$–ray background only in the case when the characteristic size of domains exceeds $`10^3`$Mpc . This scale is comparable with the modern cosmological horizon, what suggests that baryon asymmetry is global over the whole volume of the Universe.

However, the above mentioned arguments cannot exclude the Universe composed almost entirely of matter with relatively small insertions of antimatter regions. If some antimatter regions are sufficiently big, they can survive until now and evolve into astrophysical antimatter objects . Only domains with the present physical sizes exceeding the critical surviving size $`L_c=8h^2`$kpc  survive the annihilation with surrounding matter and can evolve into astrophysical objects.

In this report we consider the model of inhomogeneous baryogenesis  based on the inflationary evolution of the baryon charged scalar field, what makes reasonable to discuss the existence of an anti–star globular cluster in our Galaxy and its observational signature in AMS02 detector, which will be installed on the International Space Station .

## 2 Scenario of inhomogeneous baryogenesis with antimatter generation

Our approach  is based on the spontaneous baryogenesis mechanism , which implies the existence of a complex scalar field $`\chi =(f/\sqrt{2})\mathrm{exp}(\theta )`$ carrying the baryonic charge. The $`U(1)`$ symmetry, which corresponds to the baryon charge, is broken spontaneously and explicitly. The explicit breakdown of $`U(1)`$ symmetry is caused by the phase dependent term

$$V(\theta )=\mathrm{\Lambda }^4(1\mathrm{cos}\theta ),$$
(1)
which results in the pseudo Nambu–Goldstone (PNG) potential Fig.1. The possible lepton number violating interaction of the field $`\chi `$ with matter fields can have the following structure

$$=g\chi \overline{Q}L+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(2)
where fields $`Q`$ and $`L`$ represent a heavy quark and lepton, coupled to the ordinary matter fields. At the certain moment, in the early Universe, when the friction term, induced by the Hubble constant, becomes comparable with the angular mass $`m_\theta =\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}{f}`$, the phase $`\theta `$ starts to oscillate around the minima of PNG potential and decay into matter fields due to (2). The coupling (2) gives rise to the following : as the phase starts to roll down in the clockwise direction during the first oscillation Fig.1 it preferentially creates baryons over antibaryons, while the opposite is true as it starts to roll down in the opposite direction. The baryon/antibaryon number, created in these oscillations, is given by

$$N_{B(\overline{B})}\frac{g^2f^2m_\theta }{8\pi ^2}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\theta _i}\theta _i^2\underset{\theta _i/2}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\omega \frac{\mathrm{sin}^2\omega }{\omega ^2},$$
(3)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\theta _i}`$ is the volume, in which the phase has the value $`\theta _i`$. Thus, the distribution of the resulting baryon charge reflects the primordial distribution of the phase $`\theta `$ in the early Universe.

We suppose  that the radial mass $`m_\chi `$ of the field $`\chi `$ is larger than the Hubble constant $`H_{infl}`$ during inflation, while for the angular mass of $`\chi `$ just the opposite condition $`m_\theta H_{infl}`$ is satisfied in that period. It provides the $`U(1)`$ symmetry to be already broken spontaneously at the beginning of inflation, whereas the background vacuum energy is still so high, that the cosmological friction term $`3H_{infl}\dot{\theta }`$ does not allow the phase to move classically, making the behaviour of $`\theta `$ akin to the behaviour of a massless scalar field.

This means that quantum fluctuations of $`\theta `$ at the de Sitter background  will define the primordial phase distribution in the early Universe. In our case, such fluctuations can be interpreted as one–dimensional Brownian motion  along the circle valley of PNG potential111The radius $`f`$ of PNG potential is equal to the scale of spontaneous U(1) symmetry breaking. Fig.2. Thus to have the globally baryon dominated Universe the phase should have the value in the range $`[\pi ,0]`$ Fig.2, just at the beginning of inflation222We start to consider inflation at 60 e–folds (when the size of the modern Universe crosses the horizon). Then subsequent quantum fluctuations move the phase to the values $`\overline{\theta }_i`$ in the range $`[0,\pi ]`$ Fig.2 causing the successive antibaryon excess production. If it takes place not later than after 15 e – folds from the beginning of inflation , the physical contemporary size of antimatter domain progenitors will exceed the critical surviving size $`L_c=8h^2`$kpc. The numerical simulation  of phase distribution in the inflationary Universe, at the condition $`fH10^{13}`$GeV, shows, that a volume box corresponding to each galaxy can contain up to 10 above–critical progenitors with the phase $`\overline{\theta }_i`$ Fig.2, what makes every galaxy a harbour of an antimatter domain. At the same time the fraction of the total volume of the Universe containing $`\overline{\theta }_i`$ is only $`10^9`$ , what makes sure that the Universe will become baryon asymmetric as a whole. During the Friedman epoch the condition $`m_\theta H`$ eventually gets violated and the oscillations of $`\theta `$ are started, converting the stored energy density $`\rho _\theta V(\theta _I)`$ Fig.1 into baryons and antibaryons via coupling (2). All those domains where the phase starts to oscillate from the values $`\overline{\theta }_i`$ will contain antimatter. The antimatter density inside a domain depends on the initial value $`\overline{\theta }_i`$ Fig.2 and can be different in the different domains . The average number density of surrounding matter should be normalised on the observable one $`n_B/s310^{10}`$. This normalisation sets the condition $`f/m_\theta 10^{10}`$ for the PNG potential .

## 3 Evolution and observational signature of antimatter domains. Antimatter signals from dark matter particles.

The antibaryon number (3) in progenitors shows a strongly rising dependence on the initial value of the phase $`\overline{\theta }_i`$, what makes sense to discuss the possibility to have a high density antimatter region in every galaxy. Let us consider the evolution of such high density antimatter region in the matter surrounding.

It is well known  that a cloud with the mass $`10^5M_{}10^6M_{}`$, which has the temperature near $`10^4`$K and the density several ten times that of the surrounding hot gas, are gravitationally unstable. This object is identified as a protoobject of globular cluster (GC) and reflects the Jeans mass at the recombination epoch. Thus if the primordial antibaryon density inside the antimatter region progenitor was one order of magnitude higher then the surrounding matter density, that region can evolve into an antimatter GC . GC’s are the oldest galactic star systems to form in the Universe, and contain stars of the first population. Thereby GC at the large galactocentric distance is the ideal astrophysical objects which could be made out of antimatter. The $`\overline{p}`$ releasing from such an anti-star GC by the stellar wind and anti–supernova explosions will be collected in our Galaxy and annihilate with $`p`$ contributing into GeV range diffused $`\gamma `$– ray background . This contribution being compared with the measured by EGRET $`\gamma `$– ray background sets the upper limit on the mass of anti–star GC in our galaxy to $`10^5M_{}`$ , while $`L_c`$ defines the lower mass limit $`10^3M_{}`$ on a possible anti-star GC.

The most important experimental signature of the existence of an anti-star GC in our Galaxy, would be the observation of antinuclei in the cosmic rays near Earth orbit . The expected fluxes of $`\overline{{}_{}{}^{4}He}`$ and $`\overline{{}_{}{}^{3}He}`$ Fig.3 from such an antimatter object  are only a factor two below the limit of AMS–01 (STS–91) experiment  and definitely accessible for the sensitivity of coming AMS–02 experiment. Thus one can conclude that AMS02  experiment provides the test of nontrivial physical processes , underlying inflation and baryosynthesis.

The annihilation in our galaxy of lightest supersymmetric particles, which can play the role of the cold dark matter, exposed as antimatter fluxes (positrons and antiprotons) at the earth . Space based PAMELA experiment  provides high statistic measurements of these fluxes Fig.4. This experiment is accessible to search for antinuclei from an anti-star GC and to positron fluxes from annihilation of sparse component of stable 50 GeV neutrino of 4th generation, predicted by the superstring phenomenology , especially, if such annihilation in the Galaxy is enhanced by new Coulomb-like interaction, ascribed to the 4th generation .

Acknowledgement The speaker (AS) acknowledges Mark Pears, who kindly provided him with the expected PAMELA statistics. The work of (MKh) and (SR) was supported by project ”Cosmoparticle physics”, collaborations Cosmion–ETHZ, AMS–Epcos and kind hospitality (MKh) of IHES.


text:
# Black Hole Production Rates at the LHC: Still Large

## Abstract

We examine the rates for the production of black holes(BH) at the LHC in light of the exponential suppression of the geometric cross section estimate proposed by Voloshin. We show that these rates will still be quite large over a reasonable range of model parameters. While BH production may not be the dominant process, its unique signature will ensure observability over conventional backgrounds.

preprint: SLAC-PUB-9053/ P3-39

Theories with extra dimensions and a low effective Planck scale($`M_{}`$) offer the exciting possibility that the production rate of black holes(BH) somewhat more massive than $`M_{}`$ can be quite large at future colliders. For example, cross sections of order 100 pb at the LHCgids , and even larger ones at the VLHC, have been advertised in the analyses presented by Giddings and Thomas(GT) and by Dimopoulos and Landsberg(DL). Although in practice the actual production cross section critically depends on the BH mass, the exact value of $`M_{}`$ and the number of extra dimensions, following the analysis of the authors in Ref.gids , one finds very large rates over almost all of the interesting parameter space. These earlier analyses and discussions of the production of BH at colliders have been extended for the Snowmass proceedings by several authorssgid .

The basic idea behind the original collider BH papers is as follows: we consider the collision of two high energy Standard Model(SM) partons which are confined to a 3-brane, as they are in both the models of Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos and Dvali(ADD)add  and Randall and Sundrum(RS)rs . In addition, we imagine that gravity is free to propagate in $`\delta `$ extra dimensions with the $`4+\delta `$ dimensional Planck scale assumed to be $`M_{}1`$ TeV. The curvature of the space is assumed to be small compared to the energy scales involved in the collision so that quantum gravity effects can be neglected. When these partons have a center of mass energy in excess of $`M_{}`$ and the impact parameter for the collision is less than the Schwarzschild radius, $`R_S`$, associated with this center of mass energy, a $`4+\delta `$-dimensional BH is formed with reasonably high efficiency. The subprocess cross section for the production of a non-spinning BH is thus essentially geometric for each pair of partons:

$$\widehat{\sigma }\pi R_S^2;$$
(1)
where we note that $`R_S`$ scales as

$$R_S\left[\frac{M_{BH}}{M_{}^{2+\delta }}\right]^{\frac{1}{1+\delta }},$$
(2)
apart from an overall $`\delta `$\- and author-dependent numerical factor. This is due to the different expressions for the $`4+\delta `$ dimensional Schwarzschild radius used by the two sets of original authors GT and DL. Explicitly there are two different relationships employed between the $`4+\delta `$-dimensional Planck masses, $`M_{GT,DL}`$, and the associated Newton’s constant, $`G_{4+\delta }`$: $`M_{DL}^{2+\delta }=G_{4+\delta }^1`$, while $`M_{GT}^{2+\delta }=(2\pi )^\delta /4\pi G_{4+\delta }`$. Depending on how the input parameters are chosen, this numerical factor can turn out to be relatively important since it leads to a very different $`\delta `$ dependence for the BH production cross section in the two cases. In the DL case the $`\delta `$-dependence of the numerical coefficient is rather weak whereas is it somewhat stronger in the GT analysis. For the same input value of $`M_{BH}`$ one finds the ratio of the cross sections obtained by the two sets of authors to be

$$\frac{\widehat{\sigma }_{GT}}{\widehat{\sigma }_{DL}}=\left[\frac{(2\pi )^\delta }{(4\pi )}\right]^{\frac{2}{1+\delta }}\left[\frac{M_{DL}^2}{M_{GT}^2}\right]^{\frac{2+\delta }{1+\delta }},$$
(3)
which is always greater than unity for $`\delta 2`$ and grows as $`\delta `$ increases if one assumes $`M_{}=M_{GT}=M_{DL}`$ as an input. When the differences in the definitions of the Planck scale are accounted for both cross sections lead to the same numerical result.

The approximate geometric subprocess cross section expression is claimed to hold by GT and DL when the ratio $`M_{BH}/M_{}`$ is “large”, i.e., when the system can be treated semi-classically and quantum gravitational effects are small; one may debate just what “large” really means, but it most likely means “at least a few”. Certainly when $`M_{BH}/M_{}`$ is near unity one might expect stringy effects to become important and even the finite extent of the incoming partons associated with this stringy-ness would need to be considered.

In order to obtain the actual cross section at a collider one takes the geometric parton-level result, folds in the appropriate parton densities and integrates over the relevant kinematic variables. The resulting total cross section for BH with masses $`M_{BH}^{min}`$ is then given by the expression

$$\sigma =_{M_{BH}^{min2}/s}^1𝑑\tau _\tau ^1\frac{dx}{x}\underset{ab}{}f_a(x)f_b(\tau /x)\widehat{\sigma }(M_{BH}),$$
(4)
where we have summed over all possible pairs of initial state partons with their associated densities $`f_i(x)`$.

Voloshin has recently argued that an additional exponential suppression factor, $`S`$, is also present which seriously damps the pure geometric cross section for this processvoloshin  even in the semi-classical case, i.e., we should rescale $`\widehat{\sigma }S\widehat{\sigma }`$ in the equations above. Here $`S`$ is given by

$$S=exp[4\pi R_SM_{BH}/(1+\delta )(2+\delta )]exp\left[C\left(\frac{M_{BH}}{M_{}}\right)^{\frac{2+\delta }{1+\delta }}\right],$$
(5)
where $`C`$ is a relatively small, though $`\delta `$-dependent, constant. While this possibility remains controversial, and strong arguments have been made on either side of the argument, for purposes of this discussion we will assume this suppression is indeed present. (However, we warn the reader that the jury is still out on this issue. In either case we anxiously await the resolution of this important argument.) If Voloshin’s criticisms of the geometrical cross section are valid one worries that the resulting exponentially suppressed rates for heavy BH production will possibly be too small to be observable at the LHC; as we will see below this need not be so.

Just how do the suppressed and unsuppressed cross sections at the LHC compare? As can be seen in Fig. 1 for the case $`M_{}=1`$ TeV, the unsuppressed rates for BH production at the LHC are quite large over a wide range of masses and numbers of extra dimensions using either set of authors’ cross section expressions. (In this figure and the others below we appropriately identify $`M_{}`$ as either $`M_{GT}`$ or $`M_{DL}`$ depending on which set of predictions are being discussed.) Note that the results of Giddings and Thomas are always larger than those of Dimopoulos and Landsberg due to the different definitions used for the Planck scale and that the difference between the two sets of predictions increases as $`\delta `$ increases as discussed above. We also see that Fig. 1 shows the effects of the suppression predicted by Voloshin in the two cases. From these results we make the important observation that for at least for some ranges of parameters BH will still be produced at rates that are large enough to be observable at the LHC even when the Voloshin suppression is active. For example, assuming that $`M_{BH}^{min}=5`$ TeV, we see that it is quite easy to have cross sections in the 100-1000 fb range. Although this is not a huge cross section the associated rates at the LHC will be quite large given an integrated luminosity of order 100 $`fb^1`$/yr. Note that the suppression factor modifies the two sets of predictions in quite different manners due to the two different expressions used for $`R_S`$. Since $`(R_S)_{GT}>(R_S)_{DL}`$ for all $`\delta 2`$, assuming the same input values for $`M_{GT}`$ and $`M_{DL}`$, the GT results are found to be more suppressed than are those of DL.

What happens as we vary $`M_{}`$? Figs. 2 and 3 show the effects of increasing $`M_{}`$ from 1 TeV to 2 and 3 TeV. As expected the unsuppressed rates for any fixed value of $`M_{BH}`$ decreases but we also see that the Voloshin suppression becomes less effective. This is also to be expected since the ratio $`M_{BH}/M_{}`$ in the exponent of the factor $`S`$ has been decreased for fixed $`M_{BH}`$. Again we see that for BH in the 5-6 TeV range it is relatively likely that the production cross section can quite easily be in excess of 100 fb.

We remind the reader that once produced these BH essentially decay semi-classically, mostly on the brane, via Hawking radiation into a reasonably large number $`25`$ or more final state partons in a highly spherical pattern. Hadrons will dominate over leptons by a factor of order 5-10 for such final states. These unusual signatures would not be missed at either hadron or lepton colliders. (We note that an alternative decay scenario has been advocated by Casadio and Harmscasa .) These features are sufficiently unique that BH production above conventional backgrounds should be observable at the LHC even if the cross sections are substantially smaller than the original estimates.

We have examined the production of BH at the LHC assuming that the exponential suppression of the geometric cross section predicted by Voloshin is realized. We have found that even when this suppression is significant the resulting rates are still quite large for a wide range of model parameters given an integrated luminosity of order 100 $`fb^1`$.


text:
# BULLETS IN A CORE COLLAPSE SUPERNOVA REMNANT: THE VELA REMNANT

## 1 INTRODUCTION

There is widespread evidence that the ejecta of core collapse supernovae are clumpy. The oxygen line profiles in the nearby Type II supernovae SN 1987A (Stathakis et al. 1991) and SN 1993J (Spyromilio 1994; Matheson et al. 2000) showed evidence for structure, implying that the gas is clumped. The velocity range for the emission extends to $`1,500\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in SN 1987A and $`4,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in SN 1993J. Similar evidence for clumping has been found in the Type Ib supernova SN 1985F (Filippenko & Sargent 1989). Among young supernova remnants, Cas A is the prototype of the oxygen-rich SNRs, which show evidence for freely expanding, oxygen-rich ejecta in clumps (Chevalier & Kirshner 1979). Puppis A, with an age $`3,700`$ yr, is a more elderly example of such a remnant (Winkler et al. 1988). The finding of a neutron star in the remnant demonstrates that it is a core collapse supernova (Pavlov, Zavlin, & Trümper 1999).

Clumping of the ejecta is also found in the Crab Nebula, in which the ejecta have been swept up and compressed by a pulsar wind bubble. When a remnant with clumpy ejecta runs into the surrounding medium, the clumps can be expected to move ahead of the blast wave created by the smooth ejecta. An apparent case of such evolution involves X-ray and radio observations of the Vela supernova remnant (SNR). The finding of protrusions around the periphery of the remnant is best explained by ejecta clumps (Aschenbach, Egger, & Trümper 1995; Strom et al. 1995). X-ray spectra of one of the protrusions shows evidence for an enhanced Si abundance, confirming the ejecta clump picture (Tsunemi, Miyata, & Aschenbach 1999). Kundt (1988) had discussed the possibility that supernovae are explosions of ‘shrapnel,’ giving rise to a complex outer boundary.

Another development is the finding of an apparent young remnant superposed on the Vela remnant (Aschenbach 1998; Iyudin et al. 1998). Aschenbach (1998) found the object, RX J0852.0–4622 (hereafter abbreviated to RX J0852), in the ROSAT image of Vela by restricting the photon energies to those $`>1.3`$ keV. An shell source then appears. There is some emission from other parts of Vela, including one of the bullets (Aschenbach et al. 1995), but it is less prominent. Iyudin et al. (1998) independently found evidence for a young remnant in this region by the detection of 44Ti emission, making it the second young remnant observed in this line after Cas A. The strength of the emission, together with the remnant properties, require a distance of $`200`$ pc and an age of $`680`$ years (Iyudin et al. 1998; Aschenbach, Iyudin, & Schönfelder 1999). However, Schönfelder et al. (2000) have recently reanalyzed the COMPTEL data on RX J0852 and found that the results depend on the method of analysis. They conclude that the evidence for a 44Ti signal from RX J0852 is at the $`2\sigma 4\sigma `$ significance level and that an independent discovery of a 44Ti supernova remnant cannot be claimed. In view of these uncertainties, here we investigate a model where RX J0852 is not a young remnant in its own right, but is a part of the Vela remnant, perhaps created by a fast moving clump of ejecta.

The well-defined protrusions around the Vela remnant are suitable for hydrodynamic modeling and that is the main subject of this paper. The aims are to elucidate the properties of the interaction and to place constraints on the properties of the ejecta clumps. The work is related to that of Wang & Chevalier (2001; hereafter WC01) on instabilities and clumping in Type Ia SNRs, especially Tycho’s remnant. The differences here are the supernova profile appropriate to a core collapse event, the greater age of Vela, and presence of well-defined protrusions. In § 2, we present our computational setup and the method. The evolution of nonlinear inhomogeneities is given in § 3. The application of these results to the protrusions in Vela is in § 4. In § 5, we discuss the possibility that the apparent SNR RX J0852 is related to clump interaction with the forward shock front of the Vela remnant and is not a separate SNR. Our conclusions and discussion of future propects are in § 6.

## 2 SUPERNOVA DENSITY STRUCTURE AND METHOD

The existence of the Vela pulsar near the Vela remnant’s center implies a supernova origin in gravitational core collapse. For such supernovae, a strong shock wave passes through the star, leading to two density components: an inner flat portion and an outer power law profile (e.g., Chevalier & Liang 1989):

$$\rho _{SN}=\{\begin{array}{cc}Ft^3\hfill & v<v_{tr}\hfill \\ Ft^3(v/v_{tr})^n\hfill & v>v_{tr}\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
where

$$F=\frac{1}{4\pi n}\frac{[3(n3)M]^{5/2}}{[10(n5)E]^{3/2}},$$
(2)
$$v_{tr}=\left[\frac{10(n5)E}{3(n3)M}\right]^{1/2},$$
(3)
$`v_{tr}`$ is the transition velocity between the two density components, and $`v=r/t`$ is the flow velocity. The initial supernova explosion powers a spherical expansion of the ejecta so that a gas element expands freely with a constant velocity and its density drops as $`t^3`$. The ejecta density structure is determined by three parameters: the density power index $`n`$, the supernova’s total explosion energy $`E`$, and the total ejecta mass $`M`$. The power law index $`n`$ is generally taken to be in the range $`712`$. For Vela, we take $`n=8`$; the flat component then comprises 5/8 of the total ejecta by mass. A better representation of the density distribution would be to allow for a continuous change from the inner flat profile to the outer power law part, as expected in a realistic situation. Matzner & McKee (1999) have made calculations of such profiles for core collapse supernovae. However, we do not expect that the our results on clumps are substantially affected by the details of the background density profile.

The interaction between an outer power law ejecta profile with $`n>5`$ and a constant ambient density $`\rho _{am}`$ gives rise to an intershock solution that evolves in a self-similar way (Chevalier 1982). With $`n=8`$ ejecta, the characteristic radii of the intershock structure evolve as

$$R=A\left(\frac{E^5}{\rho _{am}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}M^3}\right)^{1/16}t^{5/8},$$
(4)
where $`A`$ is 1.08, 0.94, and 0.89 for the forward shock, the contact discontinuity, and the reverse shock, respectively. The self-similar phase ends when the inner flat ejecta run into the reverse shock at the time

$$t_c=0.29\left(\frac{M^5}{\rho _{am}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}E^3}\right)^{1/6}.$$
(5)
The reverse shock then starts to propagate back to the explosion center relative to the self-similar expansion.

The computational methods in this paper are similar to that of our previous study on Type Ia SNRs (WC01). We place density inhomogeneities in the unshocked, freely expanding ejecta to track the clump-remnant interactions at later times.

To acquire the one-dimensional intershock solutions, we initiated the computation with a freely-expanding power law density profile $`n=8`$ representing the ejecta on the inner side of the grid, and a stationary ambient medium on the outer side. The inner numerical boundary condition was changed to accomodate the transition to flat ejecta after the time $`t_c`$. The one-dimensional intershock profile was then used to initiate two-dimensional simulations. The grid was radially expanding, following the intershock boundaries. We neglected the effects of magnetism, heat conduction, and radiation. The gas pressure in the unshocked gas is not important compared to the kinetic energy. The filamentary optical emission from Vela indicates that there are radiative shock waves in the remnant. These probably represent cloud interaction, as there is evidence for a number of density components in the shocked gas, but much of the shock interaction may be nonradiative (see § 4). Our assumption of no radiation is a first approximation to the evolution. We used an adiabatic index $`\gamma =5/3`$.

Although our simulations are for a particular set of parameters, through scaling we can obtain solutions corresponding to various explosion parameters and ambient densities. The scaling parameters follow those of Dwarkadas & Chevalier (1998) and WC01 (see also Truelove & McKee 1999): we define $`R^{}=(3M/4\pi \rho _{am})^{1/3}`$, $`V^{}=(2E/M)^{1/2}`$, and $`T^{}=R^{}/V^{}`$, to describe the solution in the nondimensional quantities $`r^{}`$, $`t^{}`$, and $`v^{}`$, where $`r^{}=r/R^{}`$, $`t^{}=t/T^{}`$, and $`v^{}=v/V^{}`$. For example, for an ejected mass of $`10M_{}`$, an explosion energy of $`10^{51}`$ ergs, and an ambient density of $`2.34\times 10^{24}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (corresponding to $`n_H=1`$ cm-3 with a H/He ratio of 10/1 by number) along with $`n=8`$, $`R^{}=4.1`$ pc, $`V^{}=v_{tr}=3162\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and $`T^{}=1271`$ yr. The nondimensional solutions can be re-scaled back to the dimensional solutions corresponding to a different set of explosion conditions; the nondimensional solution sequence thus represents all possible dimensional solutions with varying sets of initial parameters.

## 3 EVOLUTION OF CLUMPS

### 3.1 Numerical Simulations

One-dimensional simulations illustrate the overall hydrodynamic situation in which the clumps are placed. Fig. 1 shows the evolution of characteristic radii for our one-dimensional simulations. The self-similar phase occurs for $`t^{}0.7`$, when both the forward and reverse shock move steadily with a constant expansion parameter $`m=0.625`$, where $`m=(dR/dt)/(R/t)`$. At $`t^{}2.5`$ the reverse shock starts to turn over in a fixed frame. At $`t^{}=5.7`$, the reverse shock reaches the explosion center. The expansion approximately reaches the Sedov phase at $`t^{}10`$.

In the absence of clumps, our two dimensional simulations show the Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that are expected when the ejecta are decelerated by their interaction with the surrounding medium. These instabilities have been well described in previous numerical studies (Chevalier, Blondin, & Emmering 1992; Jun & Norman 1996; Kane, Drake, & Remington 1999; WC01). One aspect of the present work is the inclusion of a flat portion of the density profile. When the reverse shock front enters this part of the density profile, the instabilities begin to decay, as in the case of an exponential density profile (WC01). The unstable flow provides a background for our simulations of clump interaction. Fig. 2 shows angle-averaged radial density profiles superposed on the one-dimensional density profiles at 4 times; the first 3 times are ones at which the clump passes the reverse shock front in our simulations.

In the simulations, we aim to reproduce the initial conditions for Vela’s bullets, although our results should also be applicable to other supernovae. Our method is similar to that used in our discussion of Type Ia supernovae (WC01). The differences here are the density profile for a core collapse supernova, the need for significant protrusions in the outer shock front, and the greater age of the remnant. We placed dense regions in the ejecta to represent clumps in order to examine their hydrodynamical interaction with the remnant. The clumps were initiated at the polar angle $`\theta =45^{}`$. Although the nonzero polar angle makes a toroidal clump in our two-dimensional simulations, the dynamics of such a cloud are likely to be similar to those of a spherical cloud (WC01). In our simulations, the grid lines were set linearly expanding from the inner grid boundary so that the zone spacing was kept uniform with time. We used 1/2 of a quadrant or $``$1 quadrant centered at $`\theta =45^{}`$. To prevent the reverse shock from being reflected from the side boundaries as it turned over, we applied periodic boundary conditions to these boundaries.

The global evolution can be determined by three parameters: the initial density contrast, $`\chi `$, between the clump and supernova ejecta; the initial impact time with the reverse shock, $`t_0^{}`$; and the initial size of the clump. We typically took $`\alpha _0=1/3`$, where $`\alpha _0`$ is the ratio of clump size to the intershock width between the forward and reverse shocks, at the time that the clump reaches the reverse shock front. Table 1 gives the corresponding ratio of the clump size to its radius. The deceleration of a shocked clump is determined by the drag of the surrounding material. A denser and larger clump is more able to resist crushing. Once the shocked clump laterally expands into a crescent shape, its cross sectional area and drag are increased, and it becomes significantly decelerated. In the cases of Type Ia SNRs (WC01), clumps with $`\alpha _01/3`$ are found to require $`\chi 100`$ to survive crushing and cause a significant protrusion on the forward shock. Here we similarly examine the initial density inhomogeneity for Vela’s bullets. We initiated clump interactions at various dynamical epochs, with $`\chi `$ up to 1000 and $`\alpha _0`$ up to 1/3 (Table 1).

Figs. 3 and 4 show the interaction with a single clump for $`\chi =100`$ and $`\chi =1000`$ with $`\alpha _0=1/3`$. The basic physics of the interaction is related to that for the interaction of planar nonradiative blast waves with an interstellar cloud (Klein, McKee, & Collela 1994). As the clump impacts on the reverse shock, a transmitted ‘cloud shock’ is driven into the clump and crushes it. A larger density contrast between the clump and the interclump medium causes a larger velocity difference, helping the development of a shear flow and the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the cloud-intercloud interface. When the cloud shock exits the cloud, a rarefaction wave moves back into the clump and causes lateral expansion. The cloud gradually becomes flattened and curved like a crescent. Material streams out from the horns of the crescent; the ram pressure difference between the axis and the side of the cloud drives the mass loss. The pressure near the cloud axis was higher because of the additional ram pressure on the front face of the clump. At the rear of the clump the flow became turbulent and left a trail of vorticies. The acceleration leads to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability on the upstream side of the clump. The combined instabilities lead to the destruction of the clump.

The clump-remnant interaction has two regimes based on the intershock structures: the steep power law regime, when the shocked region is self-similar, and the flat density regime. During the power law regime, the fragmentation process does not depend on the initial dynamical age, because the profiles of the physical variables remain constant. For a given clump size/radius ratio and $`\chi `$, the evolution can be scaled to other radii and times. During the flat density regime, the ratio of the density at the reverse shock to that at the forward shock decreases (Fig. 2), and clumps must traverse a relatively larger column density of matter to reach the forward shock front, so that a clump with a given value of $`\chi `$ is more effectively stopped by the swept up surrounding medium. Clumps initiated earlier are thus able to cause protrusions in the forward shock with a smaller density contrast. This is similar to the case of Type Ia SNRs (WC01).

For the cases listed in Table 1 with $`\chi =100`$, we found that (a) in the power law regime for $`t_0^{}=0.004`$ and $`t_0^{}=0.028`$, the forward shock restores spherical symmetry by $`t^{}=0.3`$; (b) for $`t_0^{}=0.8`$, as the reverse shock has just entered the flat ejecta, the protrusion reaches its maximum strength at $`t^{}=4.0`$, with an extent of $`<30\%`$ in radius; (c) for $`t_0^{}=1.4`$, the protrusion is less than 20%; (d) for $`t_0^{}=2.22`$ and $`t_0^{}=4.1`$, the clump is quickly destroyed and does not affect the forward shock. At this stage, the reverse shock has started propagating back to the explosion center.

When the clump initial density was increased to $`\chi =1000`$, clumps initiated early in the power law regime remain ineffective in causing a protrusion after $`t^{}1`$. The $`t_0^{}=0.8`$ clump produces the strongest protrusion at $`t^{}510`$. Although the remnant outline can also be disturbed in other cases over a large expansion factor, the $`t_0^{}=0.8`$ case can best cause a protrusion lasting to times $`t^{}5`$. To reproduce a 40% bulge at the present epoch in the Vela remnant, presumably at $`t^{}5`$ (see § 4), the initial clump-reverse shock impact should take place close to the transition between the power law regime and the flat regime. The reverse shock wave encounters the transition point at $`t^{}=0.7`$.

One property of the flow after the clump moves ahead of the forward shock front is that the pressure is low immediately downstream from the clump. In our model with $`t_0^{}=0.028`$ (or other cases in the self-similar phase) and $`\chi =1000`$, the pressure ratio between the head of the clump and the minimum pressure downstream region is $`20300`$ for $`t^{}`$ in the range $`0.050.5`$. As the clump is broken up, the low pressure region moves downstream from the clump and occurs in parts of the flow with a large vortical motion. The low pressure regions also have a low density.

We have compared our lower resolution runs with 300 by 300 zones to runs with 600 by 1000 zones (Fig. 5). At higher resolution, more structure appears in the flow, but the larger scale results and the density contrast that we determined are not changed. Fig. 5 shows that there is a narrow protuberance at the leading part of the flow at higher resolution, but it does not ultimately lead to a substantially more extended protrusion. X-ray and radio observations of supernova remnants may eventually be able to delineate the outer shock front for comparison with simulations, although the unknown structure of the clump could be a factor in the result.

### 3.2 Interpretation

In the case of a cloud that is passed over by a blast wave (Klein et al. 1994), the destruction of the cloud occurs on several cloud crushing times. The destruction time is approximately the time at which we expect strong deceleration of a clump. The velocity of the shock in the cloud is determined by the surrounding pressure, which is $`\rho _{am}v_b^2`$, where $`v_b`$ is the velocity of the blast wave. In the present case, when the clump has extended beyond the forward shock wave radius, the ram pressure at the head of the clump is $`\rho _{am}v_c^2`$, where $`v_c`$ is the clump velocity in the fixed frame and $`\rho _{am}`$ is the density outside the forward shock wave. Before the clump reaches the outer shock, it is in the hot shocked shell and the total pressure experienced by the clump is given by the local value of $`p+\rho v_{rel}^2`$, where $`v_{rel}`$ is the relative velocity between the clump and the surrounding medium. During the early self-similar phase, both the forward and reverse shock radii increase as $`t^m`$, where $`m=5/8`$ for $`n=8`$. Using the postshock conditions at the reverse shock ($`p=0.75\rho _r[1m]^2R^2/t^2`$, $`\rho =4\rho _r`$, $`v_{rel}=0.75[1m]R/t`$), we find $`p+\rho v_{rel}^2=3\rho _r(1m)^2R^2/t^2`$, where $`\rho _r`$ is the preshock density at the reverse shock and $`R`$ is the reverse shock radius. The value of $`p+\rho v_{rel}^2=0.42\rho _rR^2/t^2`$ for $`n=8`$ stays fairly constant in the shocked region (Chevalier 1982). For $`n=8`$, $`\rho _r/\rho _{am}=2.1`$ (Table 1 of Chevalier 1982) and the clump is freely expanding so that $`v_c=R_1/t_1`$, where $`R_1`$ is the reverse shock radius when the clump reaches the reverse shock at time $`t_1`$. Then clump then initially experiences a total pressure of $`0.9\rho _{am}v_c^2`$. These considerations show that the clump experiences a fairly even total pressure after it moves through the reverse shock.

Another property of the clumps in our case is that they are initially uniformly expanding, so that their density decreases as $`t^3`$. If the clumps travel a significant radial distance, this change is important. If a clump reaches the reverse shock front (radius $`R_1`$) at time $`t_1`$ and it continues to move at a constant velocity, it reaches the forward shock (radius $`1.21R_1`$ moving as $`t^{5/8}`$ for $`n=8`$) at time $`1.66t_1`$. There is some evolution of the density and the properties of the shocked shell during this time.

We now consider an approximate model for the crushing of a clump. A clump moving with velocity $`v_c`$ reaches the reverse shock front at time $`t_1`$ when its size is $`a_1`$ and density is $`\rho _1`$. If the cloud is crushed rapidly compared to $`t_1`$, the crushing time is $`t_{c1}a_1v_c^1(\rho _1/\rho _{am})^{1/2}`$. If the clump is more long-lived, the variation of the clump size, $`a`$, in the frame of the clump can be estimated from the equation of motion for the shock position in the expanding clump:

$$\frac{da}{dt}=\frac{a}{t}v_c\left(\frac{\rho _{am}}{\rho _1}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{t}{t_1}\right)^{3/2},$$
(6)
with the solution

$$a=a_1\frac{t}{t_1}\frac{2v_c}{3}\left(\frac{\rho _{am}}{\rho _1}\right)^{1/2}\frac{(t^{3/2}t_1^{3/2})t}{t_1^{3/2}}.$$
(7)
The shock is initially carried out by the clump expansion, but the decrease in density eventually leads to a relatively rapid compression of the clump. The clump is crushed ($`a=0`$) at time

$$t_{cr}=t_1\left(1+\frac{3t_{c1}}{2t_1}\right)^{2/3},$$
(8)
where $`t_{cr}`$ is now measured from $`t=0`$. We have $`\rho _1/\rho _{am}=2.1\chi `$ during the self-similar phase, so $`t_{cr}a_1^{2/3}\chi ^{1/3}`$ when $`3t_{c1}>2t_1`$. For the self-similar case with $`a_1/R_1=0.075`$, we find $`t_{cr}t_1(1+0.16\chi ^{1/2})^{2/3}`$; for $`\chi =1000`$, $`t_{cr}=3.3t_1`$. Once the clump is crushed, the initial expansion is no longer a factor and we expect clump “destruction” on several crushing times, as in Klein et al. (1994). This is in accord with the stopping times noted above. Denser clumps are expected to be more robust given the same mass, because the initial cloud crushing time is $`t_{c1}\chi ^{1/2}a_1/v_c`$ and $`\chi a_1^3`$ for a fixed mass, so that $`t_{c1}\chi ^{1/6}`$.

## 4 THE VELA SUPERNOVA REMNANT

The Vela SNR is a middle-aged Galactic SNR. Its overall emission shows an extended circular limb-brightened shell similar to the Cygnus Loop, and a pulsar-powered nebula Vela X like the Crab Nebula. We take the age to be the characteristic spin-down time of the Vela pulsar PSR B0833-45 assuming magnetic dipole radiation, $`11400`$ yrs (Reichley, Downs & Morris 1970). Lyne et al. (1996) have measured a braking index of $`n=1.4\pm 0.2`$ for the pulsar, which would suggest a larger age, but the result is uncertain. Recent studies suggest a distance of 250 pc (Cha, Sembach & Danks 1999), placing Vela the closest SNR to Earth. The observed diameter of $`8^{}`$ (Aschenbach et al. 1995) gives it a radius of 17 pc.

There are the six X-ray bullets or knots (Aschenbach et al. 1995) protruding beyond the remnant boundary by up to 40% of the blast wave radius. Of these, 5 have been detected at radio wavelengths (Strom et al. 1995; Duncan et al. 1996). In the radio, knot A, which lies $`5.3^{}`$ from PSR 0833-45, is especially prominent and shows a greater extent than at X-ray wavelengths. Knots A and E extend beyond the remnant edge by $`1.2^{}`$ and $`2.4^{}`$, respectively. The trailing Mach cones indicate that the knots have moved supersonically through their surroundings. The symmetry axes of these knots intersect close to the remnant’s geometric center, suggesting an association with the supernova, rather than with density inhomogeneities of the surrounding medium. The finding of a Si overabundance in knot A (Tsunemi et al. 1999) and O, Mg, and Si overabundances in knot D (Slane et al. 2001b), as deduced from X-ray observations, also provides strong support for an ejecta clump origin for these features.

Recent Chandra observations show that the pressure in the head region of knot A is $`10`$ times higher than that in the tail region (Miyata et al. 2001). As discussed in the previous section, a pressure differential of this magnitude is expected to be present between the head and downstream region of a fast knot. The morphology of knot A and its trail indicates that it is still in an early expansion phase and has not yet greatly decelerated and spread laterally. The tail region observed by Miyata et al. (2001) is immediately downstream from the bright head region. This is the region where is low pressure is expected, before the strong deceleration. The pressure observations thus support a picture with fast clumps, as opposed to structure formed by an inhomogeneous blast wave.

A limitation of our models is that we have assumed a constant density surrounding medium, although there is evidence that the surroundings of Vela are inhomogeneous. Different densities have been deduced from observations at different wavelength regions. From X-ray observations, where hot low density gas is observed, Bocchino et al. (1999) claim the presence of an ambient intercloud medium with $`n_0=0.03`$ cm-3 and denser inhomogeneities with $`n_0=0.13`$ cm-3. Raymond et al. (1997) have studied a face-on radiative shock wave in the remnant at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, finding a shock velocity of $`170\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and an ambient density of $`n_0=2.7`$ cm-3. H I observations by Dubner et al. (1998) indicate the presence of a partial shell of neutral gas moving at $`30\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$; they deduce a preshock hydrogen density of $`n_012`$ cm-3. Dubner et al. (1998) argue that the neutral gas makes up a shell of material, but the multiwavelength observations and the low velocity suggest that this represents the shock front moving into clouds.

Vela is the result of a core collapse supernova, so that it is likely that the progenitor star was massive and affected its environment through photoionization and stellar winds (e.g., Gvaramadze 1999). It is possible that the partial H I shell is related to such effects. However, the assumption of a constant density surroundings with density $`0.10.2`$ cm-3 provides a first approximation for the dynamics. Because of the appearance of the Vela X pulsar nebula and the displacement of the pulsar from the nebula, Blondin, Chevalier, & Frierson (2001) argued that the reverse shock front in Vela has returned to the center and affected the pulsar nebula. From Fig. 1, this requires $`t^{}5.7`$ for Vela. At this phase, the remnant is not well into the Sedov blast wave regime, so in Fig. 6 we show the required ambient density and explosion mass in order to obtain a particular value of $`t^{}`$, for an energy of $`10^{51}`$ and the current radius of Vela. For $`n_0=0.1`$ cm-3, $`E=10^{51}`$ ergs, and $`M=8M_{}`$, the reference quantities discussed in § 2 are $`R^{}=8.2`$ pc, $`V^{}=v_{tr}=3,540\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and $`T^{}=2,280`$ yr. The age is $`t^{}5`$. The fact that the protrusions extend to $`40`$% of the remnant radius and the considerations of the previous section imply clump velocities in the freely expanding ejecta of $`3,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

Our models assume that radiative cooling is not important for the evolution. The pressure-driven snowplow, or radiative cooling, phase is expected to begin at a radius (e.g., Cioffi et al. 1988)

$$R_{PDS}=37\left(\frac{E}{10^{51}\mathrm{ergs}}\right)^{2/7}\left(\frac{n_0}{0.1\mathrm{cm}^3}\right)^{3/7}\mathrm{pc},$$
(9)
which is consistent with Vela currently being in the nonradiative phase. However, radiative shocks are present where the remnant in running into denser interstellar gas. The protrusion ‘D’ appears to be driving a radiative shock wave into the surrounding medium on one side (Redman et al. 2000), which we attribute to an interstellar inhomogeneity.

The density in the inner, flat part of the supernova density profile can be obtained from equation (1). The density of a clump in this region is

$$\rho _{cl}=6\times 10^{24}\left(\frac{\chi }{10^3}\right)\left(\frac{M}{8M_{}}\right)^{5/2}\left(\frac{E}{10^{51}\mathrm{ergs}}\right)^{3/2}\left(\frac{t}{10^4\mathrm{yr}}\right)^3\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3.$$
(10)
An estimate of the cooling rate at the present time, taking into account O-rich gas with a temperature of $`(36)\times 10^6`$ K (Aschenbach et al. 1995; Tsunemi et al. 1999) yields a cooling time somewhat larger than the age using the equilibrium cooling curve for an O gas (Borkowski & Shull 1990). This is consistent with the lack of optical emission that might be associated with heavy element gas. However, the cooling for a Si gas is more rapid (Hamilton & Shull 1984) and at an earlier stage of evolution when the protrusion is growing, the density is higher and radiative effects may be important. A complete treatment of radiative cooling of a heavy element gas is outside the scope of the present paper.

In our simulations, we have taken a low sound speed in the ambient medium, so that the motion of the clumps is highly supersonic. The results do not depend on the ambient sound speed provided the clump velocity is at least moderately supersonic. Aschenbach et al. (1995) have estimated relatively low Mach numbers for the clumps (2.4–4.0) based on the opening angles of the observed protrusions. However, those estimates assume that the clump trail is formed by a clump moving at a constant velocity. We expect that the clumps initially move out rapidly, but then are decelerated by their interaction with the surrounding medium. Since they spend most of their time in the decelerated state, most of the observed knots are probably strongly decelerated so that the opening angle cannot be used to determine the Mach number.

## 5 IS RX J0852 A SEPARATE SUPERNOVA REMNANT?

The ROSAT source RX J0852 is a shell X-ray source that appears in harder X-rays superposed on the Vela remnant (Aschenbach 1998). Here, we investigate the possibility that it is part of the Vela remnant. We have found that as an ejecta clump makes a protrusion in the supernova remnant shell, the ram pressure of the external medium causes instabilities and lateral spreading of the clump. The clump decelerates and the rest of the blast wave catches up with it. The deceleration of the clump effectively deposits the kinetic energy of the clump into the supernova shell. The growth of the disturbance in the main shell can be seen in Figs. 3 and 4, which show that the outer edge of the disturbance is accompanied by a region of somewhat higher density. This region has a sharp edge, which is a tangential discontinuity.

The required properties of the clump can be estimated from observations of RX J0852 and the Vela remnant. The angular diameter of RX J0852 is about $`2^{}`$, as compared to the $`8^{}`$ diameter of the Vela remnant. The outer diameter of the corresponding radio features is $`1.8^{}\pm 0.2^{}`$ (Duncan & Green 2000). The RX J0852 source thus covers $`10^2`$ of the surface of the supernova remnant. Assuming a supernova energy of $`10^{51}`$ ergs for Vela, the energy in the affected solid angle is $`10^{49}`$ ergs. We express the energy deposited by the fast clump as $`10^{49}\beta `$ ergs where $`\beta <1`$ because there is little pressure enhancement in the disturbed region at the times of interest; in fact, $`\beta <0.1`$ is likely. The clump interaction is in a more advanced state than that of the current protrusions in Vela, for which we estimated an initial velocity of $`3,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. If we take the same velocity here, the estimated clump mass is $`0.1\beta M_{}`$. The energy and mass are similar to those estimated for the knots in Vela and their trails (Aschenbach et al. 1995).

The thermal energy in RX J0852 has been estimated from the X-ray emission. Chen & Gehrels (1999) and Aschenbach et al. (1999) made estimates of the energetics of RX J0852 based on the assumption that it is a separate supernova remnant and is a 44Ti source. They found that the estimated energy is low. For their preferred values, Aschenbach et al. (1999) find an energy of $`2.6\times 10^{49}`$ ergs for a distance of 200 pc, although the uncertainty is large. The fact that the X-ray spectrum of RX J0852 appears to be nonthermal (Allen et al. 1999; Slane et al. 2001a) means that the X-ray flux actually gives an upper limit on the thermal emission. The observed X-ray spectrum is $`F_\nu \nu ^{1.6}`$ (Slane et al. 2001a), which corresponds to the steep particle spectrum $`N(E)E^{4.2}`$ for synchrotron emission. If the X-ray emission is due to the steeply declining tail of the electron distribution, a relatively small disturbance in the total energy density may be able to give the observed effect. The lack of the shell in the complete ROSAT band indicates that there is not a large density jump. We speculate that the larger shock velocity in the region of the protrusion enhanced the production of high energy electrons and the observed shell is the remnant of that effect.

The morphology of the source edge in our model is a toroidal region on the surface of the Vela remnant. In view of the fact that RX J0852 is near the edge of the remnant, foreshortening of the ring would be expected. The observed shell is not clearly present on the East side, so this is difficult to test. The observed source does show some elongation in the expected North–South direction.

A possible problem for our model is that if RX J0852 is the result of a clump interaction, similar emission regions might be created by other clumps. Yet, the $`>1.3`$ keV image of Aschenbach (1998) does not show other features similar to RX J0852. In our model, the clump does not create a shell feature when it is causing a protrusion, but Figs. 3 and 4 show that as a clump that has caused a substantial protrusion moves back toward the main shell, there is a density disturbance at the intersection of the protruding shock with the main shell. Once a clump has decelerated and expanded laterally, the enhanced density ring generated in the shell is a transient feature that is expected to weaken with age, so that features of this type may be short-lived. Allen et al. (1999) find that both RX J0852 and the Vela remnant have similar spectra in the $`312`$ keV range; it is difficult to distinguish them, providing a further connection between RX J0852 and the Vela remnant.

The radio emission associated with RX J0852 has been discussed by Combi, Romero, & Benaglia (1999) and Duncan & Green (2000). Duncan & Green (2000) give a more detailed discussion and mention several aspects of RX J0852 that make it plausible that it is part of the Vela remnant: 1) The surface brightness of RX J0852 is similar to that of the Vela remnant. Before the finding of the X-ray shell, the object was assumed to be part of the Vela remnant. If the remnant is as close as 200 pc, its radio surface brightness is unusually low for a supernova remnant, even compared to SN 1006. 2) Radio features of the remnant appear to join up with those in the Vela supernova remnant. In particular, the eastern edge continues to the North in a filament that is clearly part of the Vela remnant. Extensions that Combi et al. (1999) suggested may be part of RX J0852 can be identified as structure in the Vela remnant. 3) The radio spectral index of the bright North part of RX J0852 is estimated to be $`\alpha =0.4\pm 0.15`$, where flux $`F_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$. This value is unusually flat for a young supernova remnant, but is comparable to that found in other parts of Vela’s supernova remnant shell (Dwarakanath 1991). 4) The values of rotation measure and magnetic field direction deduced from the radio polarization do not show any discontinuities across the shell of RX J0852. If RX J0852 is a separate object, it does not contribute to the polarization properties in this region of the Vela remnant.

The model proposed here for RX J0852 makes a number of testable predictions. One is that it should not be a source of 44Ti emission at the level that was initially claimed (Iyudin et al. 1998). This can be tested by observations with the forthcoming INTEGRAL mission. Another is that X-ray emission from the disrupted clump may be detectable in RX J0852. Tsunemi et al. (2000) found evidence for a Ca overabundance on one side of RX J0852 from X-ray observation with ASCA. They attribute the presence of Ca to the decays of 44Ti, but it is possible that it comes from ejecta clumps. In addition, they note that the lower energy emission from the region of RX J0852 is very much like that from the Vela remnant and they suggest that Vela is the source of the emission. From ASCA observations, Slane et al. (2001a) found evidence for diffuse central emission, but also for a possible compact X-ray source, which is not expected in our model. Mereghetti (2001) has examined this region with BeppoSAX and found that the candidate compact star is likely to be an early-type star, but there is another unresolved source that is possibly a neutron star. Pavlov et al. (2001) clarified the situation with Chandra observations showing the presence of a compact X-ray source. They suggest that the central source belongs to the newly emerging class of radio-quiet young neutron stars. If this identification is confirmed and the source is clearly linked to RX J0852, the scenario discussed here must be rejected.

## 6 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Our simulations for the apparent bullets in the Vela remnant show that they are likely to be ejecta clumps with an initial velocity of $`3,0004,000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and a density contrast $`\chi 10^3`$ compared to their surroundings. Observations of core collapse supernovae show evidence for such clumps in the heavy element ejecta at an age $``$ 1 year, and we have assumed here that the clumps form at an early time compared to the age of Vela so that the clumps are comoving with the surrounding ejecta.

The origin of the clumps is uncertain. The ejecta density structure observed in SN 1987A can be attributed to the Ni bubble expansion effect (Li et al. 1993; Basko 1994). One prediction of this model is that the expanding low density gas is initially 56Ni, which decays to Fe. It compresses the nonradioactive ejecta components, which is consistent with the overabundance of Si observed in bullet ‘A’ (Tsunemi et al. 1999). However, it is not clear whether the Ni bubble effect can give the required compression ratio in the clumps. Blondin, Borkowski, & Reynolds (2001) studied the interaction of supernova Ni–Fe bubbles with a surrounding medium. They found deformation of the outer shock front, but not the type of protrusions observed in the Vela remnant. However, their calculations emphasized the low density bubbles rather than high density regions in the bubble walls. The computations of Basko (1994) show that the Ni bubble sweeps up a shell with density compression up to a factor $`\chi 10`$. If radiative cooling is not important for the clumps, we find that $`\chi 10^3`$ is needed. If cooling is important, there is less lateral expansion of the clumps and a lower value of $`\chi `$ is presumably needed to obtain a given protrusion.

Another mechanism that could operate in Vela is the sweeping up of ejecta by a pulsar bubble, as is observed to occur in the Crab Nebula. In the Crab, the average density of the ejecta if they were smoothed over the whole volume would be $`n_H4`$ cm-3, while the density in ionized filaments is $`10^3`$ cm-3 (Davidson & Fesen 1985). The effective density contrast is thus $`250`$. If there is cooler, neutral gas in a pulsar bubble, the compression could be higher. The existence of the Vela pulsar and the Vela X nebula in the remnant (Bock et al. 1998) shows that clumping by a pulsar nebula is a possibility.

Our finding that clumpy ejecta can produce the protrusions observed in the Vela remnant suggests that there may be similar phenomena in the remnants of other core collapse supernova remnants. However, we have found that in remnants that are more evolved than Vela, it is difficult to produce protrusions, so the phenomenon is expected only in relatively young remnants. There is widespread evidence for optically-emitting ejecta knots in young core collapse supernova remnants, such as Cas A, N132D, and Puppis A. These are cases where no pulsar nebula is observed and where a complex interaction with circumstellar gas appears to be taking place. The finding of protrusions like those around the Vela remnant may require deeper studies at X-ray and optical wavelengths.

In our picture, clumps move out ahead of the forward shock front in the Vela remnant, are decelerated, and the forward shock front catches up with them. In this process, the kinetic energy of the clump is added to the internal energy of the supernova remnant, which can result in the formation of features in the outer part of the remnant. We suggest that the apparent supernova remnant RX J0852-4622 superposed on the Vela remnant is structure in the Vela remnant shell created in this way. Current radio studies indicate that RX J0852 has properties that appear to relate it to the Vela remnant. Further X-ray studies should show whether its X-ray properties clearly distinguish it from the rest of the Vela remnant. Confirmation of either a 44Ti excess or a compact object in RX J0852 would show that our conjecture is incorrect. In addition, spatially resolved X-ray spectra, as is possible with the Chandra and XMM observatories, will be valuable for showing whether our picture of ejecta clumps is valid. We expect heavy element clumps to be fragmented by their interaction with the surrounding medium.

We are grateful to J. Blondin and J. Hawley for help and comments on the manuscript, and to R. Diehl for discussions of the $`\gamma `$-ray emission from RX J0852–4622. Support for this work was provided in part by NASA grant NAG5-8232.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In spite of the advances made in recent years in cosmology, the question of what kind of universe we live in is still unsettled \[1-10\]. According to FRW, based on general relativity theory, one can calculate a critical mass density $`\rho _c`$ at the nowadays time such that the Hubble expansion will ultimately be reversed if, and only if, the actual average mass density $`\rho `$ exceeds $`\rho _c`$, where $`\rho _c=3H_0^2/8\pi G`$, with $`H_0`$ the present-time Hubble parameter and $`G`$ the Newtonian gravitational constant. The value of $`\rho _c`$ is about $`10^{29}`$g/cm3, a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter throughout the cosmos. Thus it is the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\rho /\rho _c`$ which determines the behavior of the expansion of the universe: $`\mathrm{\Omega }>1`$, a finite universe, $`\mathrm{\Omega }<1`$, an infinite curved universe, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ an infinite flat-space universe, and the sign of the quantity $`(1\mathrm{\Omega })`$ is the determining factor here .

In this paper we use cosmological general relativity theory \[13-15\] to derive a general formula for the redshift in which the term $`(1\mathrm{\Omega })`$ appears explicitly. Since there are enough data of measurements of redshifts, this allows one to determine what is the sign of $`(1\mathrm{\Omega })`$, positive, zero or negative. Our conclusion is that $`(1\mathrm{\Omega })`$ cannot be negative or zero. This means that the universe is infinite, curved and expands forever, a result favored by some cosmologists . To this end we proceed as follows.

## 2 Gravitational Field Equations

We seek a spherical symmetric solution to the Einstein field equations $`G_\mu ^\nu =\kappa T_\mu ^\nu `$ and use spherical coordinates $`x^\mu =(x^0,x^1,x^2,x^3)=(\tau v,r,\theta ,\varphi )`$, where $`\tau `$ is Hubble’s time in the zero-gravity limit and $`v`$ is the velocity parameter. Since the universe is spherically symmetric at any chosen point, the line element we seek is of the form

$$ds^2=\tau ^2dv^2e^\lambda dr^2r^2\left(d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2\right),$$
$`(1)`$
where comoving coordinates, as in the Friedmann theory, are used and $`\lambda `$ is a function of the radial distance $`r`$ only. To determine $`\lambda `$ it is enough to solve the field equation $`G_0^0=\kappa T_0^0`$ which turns out to be \[13-15\]

$$G_0^0=e^\lambda \left(\frac{\lambda ^{}}{r}\frac{1}{r^2}\right)+\frac{1}{r^2}=\frac{8\pi G}{c^4}T_0^0=\frac{8\pi G}{c^2}\rho _{eff},$$
$`(2)`$
where a prime denotes derivation with respect to $`r`$ and $`\rho _{eff}=\rho \rho _c`$. The solution of Eq. (2) is

$$e^\lambda =1+\frac{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }\right)}{c^2\tau ^2}r^2,$$
$`(3)`$
with $`g_{11}=e^\lambda `$, $`a^2=c^2\tau ^2/(1\mathrm{\Omega })`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\rho /\rho _c`$.

## 3 Cosmological Redshift

Having the metric tensor we may now find the redshift of light emitted in the cosmos. As usual, at two points 1 and 2 we have for the wave lengths:

$$\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}=\frac{ds\left(1\right)}{ds\left(2\right)}=\sqrt{\frac{g_{11}\left(1\right)}{g_{11}\left(2\right)}}.$$
$`(4)`$
Using now the solution for $`g_{11}`$ in Eq. (4) we obtain

$$\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}=\sqrt{\frac{1+r_2^2/a^2}{1+r_1^2/a^2}}.$$
$`(5)`$
For a sun-like body located at the coordinates origin, and an observer at a distance $`r`$ from the center of the body, we then have $`r_2=r`$ and $`r_1=0`$, thus

$$\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}=\sqrt{1+\frac{r^2}{a^2}}=\sqrt{1+\frac{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }\right)r^2}{c^2\tau ^2}}$$
$`(6)`$
for the cosmological contribution to the redshift. If, furthermore, $`ra`$ we then have

$$\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}=1+\frac{r^2}{2a^2}=1+\frac{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }\right)r^2}{2c^2\tau ^2},$$
$`(7)`$
to the lowest apprixomation in $`r^2/a^2`$, and thus

$$z=\frac{\lambda _2}{\lambda _1}1=\frac{r^2}{2a^2}=\frac{\left(1\mathrm{\Omega }\right)r^2}{2c^2\tau ^2}.$$
$`(8)`$
From Eqs. (6)–(8) it is clear that $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cannot be larger than one since otherwise $`z`$ will be negative, which means blueshift, and as is well known nobody sees such a thing. If $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ then $`z=0`$, and for $`\mathrm{\Omega }<1`$ we have $`z>0`$. The case of $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ is also implausible since the light from stars we see is usually redshifted more than the redshift due to the gravity of the body emitting the radiation, as is evident from our sun, for example, whose emitted light is shifted by only $`z=2.12\times 10^{16}`$ .

## 4 Conclusions

One can thus conclude that the theory of cosmological general relativity predicts that the universe is infinite and expands from now on forever. As is well known the standard FRW model does not relate the cosmological redshift to the kind of the universe. Our conclusion is also in full agreement with the measurements recently obtained by the High-Z Supernovae Team and the Suprenovae Cosmology Project \[18-24\].