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# A Fractal Origin for the Mass Spectrum of Interstellar Clouds: II. Cloud Models and Power Law Slopes

## 1 Introduction

Interstellar gas appears scale-free when viewed with Fourier transform power spectra (Crovisier & Dickey 1983; Green 1993; Lazarian & Pogosyan 2000; Stützki et al. 1998; Stanimirovic et al. 1999; Elmegreen, Kim, & Staveley-Smith 2001), delta variance techniques (Stützki et al. 1998; Zielinsky & Stützki 1999), spectral correlation functions (Rosolowsky et al. 1999), principal component analysis (Heyer & Schloerb 1997), perimeter-area measures (Dickman, Horvath, & Margulis 1990; Falgarone, Phillips, & Walker 1991), box-counting techniques (Westpfahl et al. 1999), and multifractal analysis (Chappell & Scalo 2001).

The interstellar medium (ISM) looks like a collection of discrete clouds, however, when intensity contours are drawn (Solomon et al. 1987; Loren 1989; Stützki & Güsten 1990; Williams, de Geus, & Blitz 1994; Lemme et al. 1995; Kramer et al. 1998; Heyer, Carpenter, & Snell 2001) or when spectral absorption lines are fit to Gaussians (Adams 1949; Hobbs 1978; Clark 1965; Radhakrishnan & Goss 1972; Spitzer & Jenkins 1975).

These two interpretations have led to distinct models for the origin of gas structure and star formation. Scale-free models typically involve turbulence and self-gravity (Falgarone & Phillips 1990; Scalo 1990; Pfenniger & Combes 1994; Lazarian 1995; Elmegreen 1999b; Rosolowsky et al. 1999; MacLow & Ossenkopf 2000; Pichardo et al. 2000; Klessen, Heitsch, & MacLow 2000; Vázquez-Semadeni, Gazol, & Scalo 2000; Semelin & Combes 2000; Ostriker, Stone, & Gammie 2001; Heitsch, Mac Low, & Klessen 2001; Toomre & Kalnajs 1991; Wada & Norman 1999, 2001).

Cloudy models involve sticky collisions and star formation triggered by colliding and compressed clouds (Kwan 1979; Hunter et al. 1986; Tan 2000; Scoville, Sanders, & Clemens 1986).

For general interstellar gas dynamics, the turbulent model (von Weizsacker 1951; Sasao 1973) may be more realistic than the cloudy model for the origin of structure (LaRosa, Shore & Magnani 1999; Ballesteros-Paredes, Hartmann, & Vázquez-Semadeni 1999). Turbulence also gives cloud-like spectral lines through both density structure and velocity crowding (Ballesteros-Paredes, Vázquez-Semadeni, & Scalo 1999; Lazarian & Pogosyan 2000; Pichardo, et al. 2000).

For sudden transition fronts like expanding shells, spiral arms, and dust lanes, cloud collisions may be an appropriate way to model the dynamics (e.g., Kenney & Lord 1991; Elmegreen 1988). This is because the pre-front clumps made by turbulence at slow ambient speeds are forced to collide together and interact at much faster speeds inside the front. Strongly self-gravitating clouds that are made by turbulence at moderate speeds but then given a chance to cool and settle to high densities should also interact as in the cloudy models. Because of their high densities, these clouds or clumps should move somewhat independently of the surrounding turbulent gas, perhaps lagging behind the expanding flows to make bright rims, or punching through spiral dustlanes to make feathery structures (Seth 2000).

The most obvious point of contact between these two views of gas structure is the mass spectrum of the regions that are isolated enough to be defined as clouds. The scale-free nature of the gas shows up as a scale-free mass spectrum for the clouds (Elmegreen & Falgarone 1996; Stützki et al. 1997). This mass spectrum is not useful in the turbulent model because it does not reflect the continuous distribution of matter that is really present. The spectrum is more important for bound star clusters, which are better defined (Elmegreen et al. 2000), and for individual stars, whose masses are probably proportional to the primordial clump masses (Motte, André, & Neri 1998; Testi & Sargent 1998; Bacmann et al. 2000; Tachihara et al. 2000).

Here we model the cloud mass and size spectra using the intensity peaks in a simulated fractal to represent clouds. The results show the anticipated $`M^2dM`$ spectrum that comes from simple hierarchical models (Fleck 1996), but for a different reason than what is usually given. In the usual interpretation, the $`M^2dM`$ spectrum comes from the fact that there is a constant total mass in each logarithmic interval of mass; i.e., each small clump at the bottom is contained inside each large clump at the top. Then $`M\xi (\mathrm{log}M)d\mathrm{log}M=`$ constant$`\times d\mathrm{log}M`$ becomes $`n(M)dM\xi (\mathrm{log}M)d\mathrm{log}M=\xi (\mathrm{log}M)dM/MM^2dM`$. We show here that the bottom of the hierarchy, where the gas density has local isolated peaks, has about the same spectrum. This is true even though the probability distribution function of density alone is not a power law, but log-normal.

We also find that the spectrum flattens to $`M^{1.6}dM`$ as the lower limit to the cloud intensity is decreased. This flattening may explain the difference between the mass spectrum of star clusters, which is close to $`M^2dM`$ (Battinelli et al. 1994; Elmegreen & Efremov 1997; Whitmore & Schweizer 1995; Zhang & Fall 1999) and the mass spectrum for clouds, which typically ranges between $`M^{1.5}`$ and $`M^{1.8}`$ (e.g., Blitz 1993; Kramer et al. 1998; Heyer, Carpenter, & Snell 2001). An even steeper spectrum results from the highest clipping levels modeled here and is close to the Salpeter IMF for stars. Thus the increase in slope of the mass functions from clouds to clusters to stars may be partly the result of different density thresholds in the same fractal gas.

## 2 Models

Fractal Brownian motion clouds (Stutzki et al. 1998) are generated by first filling a 3D lattice in wavenumber space, $`(k_x,k_y,k_z)`$, with noise distributed as a Gaussian with a dispersion of unity. The noise cube is multiplied by $`k^{5/3}`$ for $`k=\left(k_x^2+k_y^2+k_z^2\right)^{1/2}`$. The inverse three-dimensional FFT of the resulting truncated noise cube gives a fractal (Voss 1988) with a Gaussian distribution of intensity, $`I_0(x,y,z)`$, as shown on the bottom of Figure 1. To simulate a turbulent fractal, we exponentiate this intensity distribution, $`I(x,y,z)=\mathrm{exp}\left(\alpha I_0(x,y,z)/I_{0,max}\right)`$ for maximum original intensity $`I_{0,max}`$ and contrast factor $`\alpha =4`$. This gives another fractal, now with a log-normal density distribution (Fig. 1, top). The motivation for the log-normal comes from studies by Vázquez-Semadeni (1994), Nordlund & Padoan (1999), Klessen 2000, and Wada & Norman (2001).

A fractal obtained in this way is a continuous distribution of density and more properly called a multifractal because the local fractal dimension of the density structure varies from the peaks to the valleys (e.g., Chappell & Scalo 2001; Vavrek 2001). We refer to it here only as a fractal.

For the cloud mass and size spectra determined here, we consider two cloud models. In the first (Sect. 2.1), a cloud is defined as all of the emission above a fixed cutoff in density. In the second (Sect. 2.2), clouds that are resolved as separate peaks are each counted, whether or not they occur inside a broader emission region above the cutoff. The broader emission in this second case is divided into subparts to go with each peak. The subpart masses are taken proportional to the peak masses that were previously determined from a higher cutoff level. The algorithm will be described in more detail later.

For the first set of models, the fractal density distribution in which the clouds were counted was taken to be the inner $`180^3`$ pixels of a $`210^3`$ grid, to avoid edge effects. In the second case, the inner $`160^3`$ px inside a $`192^3`$ px grid was used. Models with many different grid sizes were made to confirm that the basic results are independent of this. Larger grids have more clouds; the first model had 73,000 separate clouds above 0.03 times the peak density, and the second model had 40,000 clouds and subclouds above $`e^3=0.05`$ times the peak density. The ratio of peak to minimum value in the density distribution was 2400 in the first set of models, and 3800 in the second set; this ratio is determined by the $`\alpha `$ value.

### 2.1 Model 1: Clouds as Emission Regions above a Fixed Density Cutoff

The central $`100^3`$ pixels of the first model is shown in Figure 2, clipped to display everything brighter than 0.03 of the peak. This clipping level gives the most reasonable agreement with interstellar cloud surveys, as discussed below.

To find clouds in the $`180^3`$ px3 fractal, we begin by initiating another $`180^3`$ cube, $`J(x,y,z)`$, with values all equal to 0. This cube keeps track of which pixels in the fractal cube have been counted in the mass sum. Then, to find a cloud, we begin $`10`$ pixels inside each edge in one corner of the fractal cube and step along in one direction in a regular fashion until a pixel value is reached that exceeds the clipping threshold. We determine whether this pixel has been counted before by viewing the value of the corresponding pixel in $`J(x,y,z)`$. If $`J=0`$, then it has not been counted before and we proceed to count the cloud mass. If $`J=1`$, we continue with our regular search for another cloud. In the case where $`J=0`$ for this pixel, we add the density of the pixel to the total mass of this cloud, which begins at 0, and we change the corresponding pixel in the $`J`$ cube from 0 to 1. We then begin to map around inside this cloud by stepping one pixel away from the current pixel in a random direction. If the new pixel has a value lower than the threshold, we have just crossed the cloud boundary so we go back. If the new pixel value is greater than the threshold so we are still inside the cloud, then we determine if this position has already been added to the cloud mass sum by reading the value of $`J`$ at this position. If the new pixel has not been counted in the current cloud (i.e., if the $`J`$ value is still 0), then we add its density to the running sum for that cloud and set the corresponding value in $`J`$ to 1.

This procedure continues until further random searching returns no new pixels in the same cloud after a total number of additional tries equal to $`4N^2`$, where $`N`$ is the number of pixels already counted for that cloud. If $`N`$ is small or large, then the minimum or maximum trial counts were taken equal to 1000 and $`10^7`$. This step number requirement gives the random walk among pixels a reasonable chance to visit every pixel inside the cloud, even if the boundary is very ragged and there are cul de sacs and spikes which would nearly trap a shorter random search. When the cloud mass is summed, we add the result to a histogram of cloud masses, which is the mass spectrum, using a linear interval of the mass for counting. The cloud search then continues along the regular search path where it was before the most recent cloud was mapped. Cloud searches are much faster for higher intensity cut-off levels because the clouds are smaller and the search requirement of $`4N^2`$ steps without a new cloud pixel is more easily reached.

The clouds modeled here are solid objects, not projected objects. We consider cloud structure in the full three-dimensional grid because spectral line mapping in real data can usually distinguish between different three-dimensional objects at different velocities on the same line of sight. Thus the fractal dimension of observed interstellar CO clouds and clumps, obtained from the size distribution of contour-mapped objects, was found to be around 2.3 – one more than the projected fractal dimension of 1.3 obtained from the boundary structure (Pfenniger & Combes 1994; Elmegreen & Falgarone 1997). This approximation does not account for artificial clouds that may appear in real surveys because of velocity crowding in turbulent gas (Lazarian & Pogosyan 2000).

Figure 3 shows mass spectra for intensity clipping values equal to 0.03, 0.1, and 0.3 times the peak intensity. The spectrum for the 0.3 clipping level is an average of the spectra for 10 different random fractal models; this averaging was done in order to reduce the noise in the cloud counting, considering the small number of bright peaks in each model. The spectrum for the 0.1 clipping level is an average over 4 random fractal models, and the spectrum for 0.03 is an average over 2 fractal models. The spectral slopes are approximately $`\alpha =1.7`$, $`1.9`$ and $`2.3`$, respectively. These correspond to power law mass functions $`n(M)dMM^\alpha dM`$ in linear intervals of mass, or mass functions $`M^{1+\alpha }d\mathrm{log}M`$ in logarithmic intervals of mass.

Figure 4 shows the running average slopes of the mass functions versus the cloud mass for different clipping levels. These average slopes start at the lowest cloud mass for that clipping level and extend up to the mass $`M`$ plotted on the abscissa. The slopes of the power law mass spectra become inaccurate at high mass because the number of clouds goes to zero and the individual spectra level off. At low to intermediate mass, the slopes are about constant for a range in cloud mass that spans a factor of $`100`$ for low clipping levels. This is the mass range where the spectrum is a power law. The range is smaller for higher clipping levels because the cloud masses are smaller.

The slope of the power law mass spectrum gets steeper with higher clipping levels. To understand the origin of this increase, we ran other models with smaller peak-to-valley density contrasts (e.g., using $`\alpha =1.4`$). The same range in clump spectral slopes resulted for the high and low clipping levels, but now the range in clipping levels was only a factor of 5 because of the smaller density contrast for the low $`\alpha `$ case, rather than 30 as in the Figures. This change suggests that the mass spectrum slope decreases for low clipping values in both cases because the low density limit of the fractal is approached. Near the low density limit, each cloud has a sprawling boundary that spans nearly the distance to the next cloud, and there is a higher proportion of high mass clouds. There is also very little intercloud medium at low clipping levels. For the lowest clipping level, 0.03 times the peak, the threshold cloud density is $`70`$ times the minimum fractal density, which is $`1/2400`$ of the peak. This is still far from the lowest density level, but apparently close enough to change the geometric characteristics.

Figure 5 shows the size distribution function for the model clipped at 0.03 times the peak value. The cloud size is taken to be the cube-root of the number of pixels. The size distribution function is approximately a power law with a slope of $`3.75`$. This plot is again a histogram, determined for linear intervals of size. Thus the average fractal dimension is one more than this slope, or $`D2.75`$ (Mandelbrot 1982). This is not a very meaningful concept for a multifractal with a smooth distribution of density because there is a range of fractal dimensions depending on location, but the result is analogous to the dimension determined from the size distribution of interstellar clouds, which gives about $`D2.3`$ (Elmegreen & Falgarone 1996). The size spectra for the models with other clipping factors are not shown because the size ranges are too small to be interesting; they tend to be steeper for higher clipping levels like the mass spectra.

Figure 6 shows the mass versus size for all clouds. The regressions with slopes of $`3.3`$ indicate that all clouds found with a particular clipping level have about the same average density and that the density scales in proportion to the clipping level. This is to be expected because most of the cloud mass is on the periphery of the cloud, where the volume is greatest, and the density there is about the clipping value. This cubic dependence is similar to that found for clump studies inside molecular clouds (Loren 1989; Stützki & Güsten 1990; Williams, de Geus, & Blitz 1994; Williams, Blitz, & Stark 1995; see the summary of observations in Elmegreen & Falgarone 1996) and differs significantly from the quadratic dependence found by Larson (1981).

The difference in the mass-radius relations for clump surveys and whole GMC surveys seems to be related to the threshold used for the observation. In the clump case, the threshold is probably the critical density for excitation of the molecule (as recognized, for example, by Williams, Blitz, & Stark 1995). In Larson’s correlation, which was based on large scale CO surveys and later confirmed by other whole-cloud surveys (e.g., Solomon et al. 1987), the threshold is CO column density, probably tied to the telescope sensitivity. For example, the Solomon et al. survey used a brightness temperature limit to define CO clouds. Thus the fundamental $`MR^2`$ result of Larson (1981), which, when combined with the virial theorem and Kolmogorov law, is the basis for most of the correlations that have been found for molecular clouds, seems to be an artifact of sampling near the telescope limit of detection, which is a column density limit for a fractal cloud (see also Vázquez-Semadeni, Ballesteros-Paredes, & Rodriguez, 1997).

### 2.2 Model 2: Clouds and Subclouds Defined by Each Peak

In the second model, clouds were defined in a $`160^3`$ px3 grid by local peaks in the density, whether or not they were separated by a region below the current density cutoff. This is analogous to the definition of a cloud or clump in the surveys by Williams et al. (1994, 1995) and Stützki, & Güsten (1990), who fit the peaks and their surrounding emission with various strategies. This model differs from the first model discussed above because a single cloud in the first case could be divided into several sub-clouds in the second case if there are separate peaks. To keep track of where the peaks are, we used a third cube, $`P(x,y,z)`$, of size $`160^3`$ with entries equal to the peak number. A second cube, $`J(x,y,z)`$ as in model 1, kept track of which pixels had been searched already.

The peaks in the density are found by successively lowering the threshold, which begins at $`\mathrm{exp}(1)`$ times the overall peak density in the fractal cube, and then goes to $`\mathrm{exp}(2)`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(3)`$ times this peak density. The peaks found with the $`\mathrm{exp}(1)`$ threshold are located in the same way as for model 1, with no separate subpeaks. Presumably they would be unresolved also in a real cloud if the peak intensity stands above the detection threshold by a factor less than $`e^1=2.7`$. These first-threshold clouds are then used by the program again, but now with the threshold of $`\mathrm{exp}(2)`$. When a new cloud was found standing above this $`\mathrm{exp}(2)`$ threshold, the peak-identification cube, $`P`$, was viewed at all of the positions belonging to this new cloud to see if there were already any peaks in it. If there were no peaks, then the current cloud was defined to be a new peak and its full mass was added to the list of peaks. If there was one previous peak, then the mass from this level was given to the previous peak. If there was more than one previous peak from the next higher cutoff level, then the mass of the current cloud was divided up among the higher peaks. With this strategy, a distinct peak is a region separated from another peak by a level of emission that dips below $`\mathrm{exp}\left(1\right)`$ of the peak value.

This partitioning of mass among the various peaks in a threshold-defined cloud was done in several different ways. In one method, the peaks were fit to Gaussians when they were first found, and the extrapolated masses from these Gaussians were determined at the next lower level when they appeared inside a cloud there. This mass at the next lower level was then divided up among the former peaks in proportion to their extrapolated Gaussian masses. In another method, the current cloud was divided into pieces proportional to the former peak masses themselves, without any Gaussian extrapolations. The difference between these two partitionings was noticeable but not large. Because the peak masses from the levels where they are first discovered are distributed as a power law, as shown in the previous subsection, any partitioning of the current cloud in proportion to these previous peaks maintains that same power law and extends it to larger masses. Thus the combined mass distribution of isolated peaks and subdivided clouds is similar to that of the peaks alone. In what follows, we discuss this case, i.e., where the partitioning is proportional to the previous peak masses. In the Gaussian-fitting case, the extrapolated Gaussian masses could be much larger than the pure peak masses if the Gaussian dispersions were large, and this led to a wild variation in how the clouds in the current level were divided among peaks from the higher levels. It gave results that were similar to a third case where the current cloud was equally divided among the peaks from the higher level.

In the final spectrum down to the third level ($`e^3`$), the Gaussian and equal-division methods did not produce a continuous power law, but had a power law at low mass, where the peaks were single, and a broad concentration of masses at intermediate values, where the subdivisions gave a somewhat random mixture of masses. The preferred case, with the subdivisions directly proportional to the former peak masses, gave an approximately continuous power law.

Figure 7 shows the mass distribution functions for clouds and sub-clouds defined in this way using density cutoffs of $`\mathrm{exp}(1)`$ (on the left), $`\mathrm{exp}(2)`$, and $`\mathrm{exp}(3)`$ (on the right). The top three panels have no added noise, the bottom three have noise at the level of $`0.5e^3`$ times the peak density. This noise affects only the mass spectrum made from the lowest contour (plotted on the right), and it tends to add low mass clouds, which are mostly noise. The average slope of the mass spectrum does not change much with added noise.

The dashed lines that lie nearly parallel to the distribution functions in Figure 7 have slopes of $`2.4`$, $`1.8`$, and $`1.6`$ for these three cutoffs, respectively. These slopes are similar to the mass spectrum slopes found in the previous section for the cases with similar density cutoffs. Thus the division of big clouds into subclouds does not affect the spectrum much. There is a tendency for the mass spectra to become slightly steeper at low mass, which is the result of the steepening effect found previously for small clouds at high cutoff levels: most of these low mass clouds are single peaks near the threshold. Figure 8 shows the running average slopes for the noise-free cloud/subcloud case, as in Figure 4. The other figures shown in section 2.1, namely, the mass-size relation and the size spectrum, are essentially the same for the present case.

## 3 Discussion

The connection between the cloud model of interstellar structure and the multifractal model is readily understood when clouds are viewed as isolated peaks in the fractal. Here we have shown that the mass spectrum for such fractal clouds is similar to the observed cloud spectrum when clouds are defined or selected to be those regions where the local density exceeds several percent of the peak (resolved) density, or when clouds are defined to be the resolvable peaks plus a proportional amount of gas in the underlying plateaus. Unresolved peaks can have higher densities, as can a fractal model with more cells, but this will not affect the mass spectrum of the resolved objects.

Observational cloud surveys tend to span only a factor of 5 to 10 in physical scale (see references for cloud and clump surveys given above). This limited range is entirely a selection effect because unbiased surveys analyzed with power spectra or similar techniques find a much wider range of scales in the interstellar medium, up to a factor greater than $`100`$ in the case of whole galaxies. In the cloud surveys, the factor of $`10`$ limit arises because smaller regions are unresolved and larger regions are subdivided into separate clouds, the whole structure being hierarchical (Scalo 1985).

For many CO surveys, a factor of 10 in scale corresponds to a factor of 10 in average density (Larson 1981), and a factor of 10 in density corresponds to a volume filling factor of 10%. This latter result is because for an infinitely self-similar fractal, the filling factor scales inversely with the density (Elmegreen 1999c). In fact, most cloud surveys report a filling factor of about $`10`$% (e.g., see review in Blitz 1993); this is only an artifact of sampling in the fractal point of view. In the current models, the average filling factors for the clouds in Section 2.1 are $`1.2\times 10^4`$, $`7.0\times 10^3`$, and 0.13 for clipping densities of 0.3, 0.1, and 0.03 times the peak. For the clouds in section 2.2, they are $`1.3\times 10^4`$, $`5.7\times 10^3`$, and 0.065.

These filling factors vary approximately as the inverse cube or inverse square of the density threshold because the low clipping levels approach the minimum density, and the sprawling cloud boundaries take up excess volume. The models with the lowest clipping levels, 0.03 and $`e^3=0.05`$, have the about same filling factors as the observed clouds and clumps in surveys.

The point here is that the density range that is inadvertently selected for real cloud surveys is also what the fractal models need to give the observed filling factor and mass function. If different observing techniques are employed, giving a wider range of cloud sizes or average densities, for example, thereby increasing the clump filling factor, then we predict that the slope of the resulting mass function will decrease. Similarly, surveys with molecular tracers sensitive to very high densities should be selecting regions closer to the peaks of the turbulent fractal, with lower filling factors, and these surveys should get slightly steeper slopes for the clump mass spectrum.

Note that the absolute density of an observed region is not important for the slope of the mass spectrum, only the relative density compared to the peaks and valleys in that region. As the threshold density approaches the minimum density, the mass spectrum flattens because the cloud boundaries spread out and the low density ”intercloud” medium, which is just the sub-threshold gas in the same fractal, gets included more and more with each cloud. This interpretation is valid for molecular clouds and other gases with a single phase of thermal temperature. Of course, the intercloud means something different when there is a high temperature phase. For example, fractal models of the neutral hydrogen in the Large Magellanic Cloud require a multi-phase structure because of the high density contrasts that are present (Elmegreen, Kim, & Staveley-Smith 2001).

The size distribution function for our model clouds is also similar to that for interstellar clouds in the best-fit case. The power law nature of the size spectrum, combined with the cutoff in density in the definition of a cloud, ensures that the mass spectrum is also a power law. This is because the average density is always some factor of order unity times the cutoff. Thus the mass spectrum is a power law even though the density distribution function is a log-normal.

The mass spectrum for star clusters is steeper than that for clumps, by several tenths (cf. Sect. 1). The fractal model suggests that this steepness results from the denser cloud regions that are sampled by clusters. The typical density of an embedded star cluster corresponds to an H2 density of around $`10^5`$ cm-3 (Lada, Evans & Falgarone 1997). This is much closer to the peak density of the turbulent fractal than the density threshold for the cloud itself, so the mass spectrum should be steeper in this model. However, gravity modifies the gas density in the region of a cluster, so the present results are only suggestive.

The densest peaks sampled here, with $`>30`$% of the peak density in the cloud, have mass spectra with slopes of $`2.3`$ and $`2.4`$ for models 1 and 2, respectively. These are similar to the slope of the Salpeter stellar IMF. Indeed, mm-continuum sources and stars do sample denser regions than clusters, so the increase in slope is sensible. However, other factors enter into the stellar IMF, such as the relative rate of collapse in regions with different masses and the competition for mass. Thus the importance of the purely fractal result for the IMF cannot be assessed without further modeling (see Elmegreen 1997, 1999a).

## 4 Summary

Clouds that are defined by the peaks of a smooth fractal distribution, whether deliberately or inadvertently because of the observing procedure, have power law mass distributions even if the gas density has a log-normal distribution. The power of the mass distribution ranges from $`1.6`$ to $`2.4`$ as the clipping level varies from 0.03 to 0.3 times the peak. The shallower power is similar to what is observed for interstellar clouds, and the cloud filling factor in the model is similar to the observations too. The steeper power laws are similar to what are observed for star clusters and mm-continuum sources, respectively, perhaps because clusters and continuum sources sample greater densities than the outer cloud boundary.

The origin of the power law for the cloud mass spectrum is the power law for the cloud size spectrum at a fixed threshold in density or column density, depending on the nature of the survey. Many of the correlations observed for molecular clouds and clumps now appear to be artifacts of these density and column density thresholds, considering the fractal nature of the interstellar medium and the internal correlations from turbulent motions.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by NSF Grant AST-9870112 to B.G.E. Helpful comments by the referee led to the second clump-finding algorithm discussed here.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

In superstring theory , it is well known that there are various flat directions parameterized by scalar fields. (Hereafter, we call these fields as “moduli” fields.) Since their potential is usually generated by effects of supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking, their masses are expected to be of the order of the gravitino mass. Although masses of the moduli fields can be as light as (or even lighter than) the electroweak scale, moduli fields do not affect collider experiments since their interactions are suppressed by inverse powers of the gravitational scale.

Cosmologically, however, they may cause serious problems . If the mass of the moduli fields $`m_{\varphi }^{}{}_{}{}^{<}O(10\mathrm{TeV})`$, reheating temperature of the universe becomes lower than $`1\mathrm{MeV}`$. With such a low reheating temperature, the success of the standard big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is spoiled. For lighter moduli fields ($`m_{\varphi }^{}{}_{}{}^{<}O(100\mathrm{MeV})`$), they survive until today and overclose the universe. One solution to these difficulties is to push up the mass of the moduli fields . In particular, in Ref. , it was pointed out that the scenario with heavy moduli can naturally fit into the framework of the anomaly-mediated SUSY breaking . Indeed the reheating temperature can be higher than $`1\mathrm{MeV}`$ if $`m_{\varphi }^{}{}_{}{}^{>}O(10\mathrm{TeV})`$. In this case, the BBN occurs after the decay of the modulus field. Although the thermal history after the BBN is mostly the same as the standard one, cosmology before the modulus decay is completely different. Importantly, fluctuations of moduli fields affect the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this talk, we consider this scenario and study its consequence in the CMB.

## 2 Effects of moduli fields on CMB

Now we discuss the CMB angular power spectrum from the scenario with the cosmological modulus field . First, we emphasize that there are two independent sources of the CMB anisotropy, i.e., primordial metric perturbation $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ induced by inflaton field fluctuation and amplitude fluctuation of the modulus field $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}`$ which is of order $`H_{\mathrm{inf}}/2\pi `$ where $`H_{\mathrm{inf}}`$ is the Hubble parameter during inflation. Therefore, the resultant CMB angular power spectrum $`C_l`$ is given in the following form:

$$C_l=C_l^{(\mathrm{adi})}+C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}.$$
(1)
Here, $`C_l^{(\mathrm{adi})}`$ is from the perturbation in the inflaton field, which is of order $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}^2`$. On the contrary, $`C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ is from the primordial fluctuation of the modulus amplitude, which is of order $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}^2`$. (Notice that there is no term which is of order $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}`$ since two fluctuations are uncorrelated.) $`C_l^{(\mathrm{adi})}`$ can be calculated by following the standard method. In calculating $`C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}`$, we must specify the origin of CDM and baryon. Here, we assume that CDM is generated by the decay of $`\varphi `$. In this case, after the decay of the modulus field, there is no entropy between CDM and radiation. On the contrary, we consider two possibilities of generating baryon asymmetry: (i) the baryon asymmetry is (somehow) generated at the time of (or after) the decay of $`\varphi `$, or (ii) the Affleck-Dine (AD) mechanism  generates the baryon number.

Let us first consider the case (i). In this case, there is no entropy between baryon and radiation, so the cosmic fluctuations are same as the conventional adiabatic case once the modulus field decays. Thus, if we neglect the scale dependences of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}`$, $`C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ is proportional to $`C_l^{(\mathrm{adi})}`$. In this case, the CMB angular power spectrum is the same as the usual adiabatic case if the normalization of the initial fluctuations are properly chosen. However, this fact has significant implications when we construct a model of inflation. First of all, since curvature perturbation induced by the modulus field $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ is of order $`H_{\mathrm{inf}}/\overline{\varphi }_\mathrm{i}`$ where $`\overline{\varphi _\mathrm{i}}`$ is the initial amplitude of $`\varphi `$, large cosmic perturbation can be generated by lowering $`\overline{\varphi }_\mathrm{i}`$ even if $`H_{\mathrm{inf}}`$ is small. Furthermore, usually, scale dependence of $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}`$ is milder than that of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$. Thus, when $`C_l^{(\mathrm{adi})}C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ is realized, the resultant CMB angular power spectrum may be like that from the scale-invariant adiabatic perturbation even if $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ has a strong scale dependence. These facts relax constraints on the potential of the inflaton field .

Next we consider the case (ii). Here we assume that the initial value of the fluctuation in the AD field is negligibly small.#1#1#1 This may happen when, for example, the effective mass of the AD field is comparable to $`H_{\mathrm{inf}}`$ during the inflation.

Even when there is no primordial fluctuation in the AD field, however, non-vanishing isocurvature fluctuation is generated in the baryonic sector if $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}0`$. Since, initially, there is no fluctuation in the baryon energy density, the entropy between baryon and $`\varphi `$ exists; $`S_{b\varphi }\delta _b\delta _\varphi =S_\mathrm{i}0,`$ where $`\delta _x\delta \rho _x/\rho _x.`$ This entropy is conserved until the modulus field decays, and it becomes the entropy between photon and baryon after the decay of $`\varphi `$. Therefore, in calculating $`C_l^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ which is generated by the primordial fluctuation in the modulus amplitude, initial condition for the baryonic density fluctuation is different from the conventional adiabatic one, and is given by, in deep radiation dominated epoch ,

$`\delta _b=S_\mathrm{i}+(3/4)\delta _\gamma =4.5\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\delta \varphi )}+(3/4)\delta _\gamma .`$ (2)
Importantly, the curvature perturbation $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ is induced by the initial entropy perturbation $`S_\mathrm{i}`$. In addition, notice that the first term in the right-handed side of the above equation does not exist in the usual adiabatic ones. Initial conditions for other perturbations are the same as the usual adiabatic case. The first term in Eq. (2) gives rise to the non-vanishing entropy in the baryonic sector and hence we call it as the “isocurvature” term. Here, it should be emphasized that such an isocurvature fluctuation is correlated with the contribution from $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\delta \varphi )}`$ which gives rise to the effect like the conventional adiabatic fluctuation. Thus, the effect of this “isocurvature” fluctuation is completely different from the conventional uncorrelated isocurvature fluctuation.

In Fig. 1, we show the total CMB angular power spectrum with such a correlated isocurvature fluctuation in the baryonic density fluctuation. Since there are two sources of the cosmic perturbations, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_\mathrm{i}`$ and $`S_\mathrm{i}`$ (or equivalently, $`\delta \varphi _\mathrm{i}`$), we define $`RS_\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\mathrm{adi})},`$ where $`\mathrm{\Psi }^{(\mathrm{adi})}`$ is the gravitational potential in the adiabatic mode at the radiation dominated epoch after the modulus decay. (For simplicity, we neglect the scale dependence of $`R`$.) Treating $`R`$ as a free parameter, we plot the total $`C_l`$ for several values of $`R`$ in Fig. 1. As one can see, correlated isocurvature perturbation in the baryonic sector may result in an enhancement of $`C_l`$ at higher multipoles relative to that at lower ones. Therefore, on-going and future experiments will give us interesting tests of the scenario with the cosmological moduli fields.

## 3 Conclusion

We have studied the effects of the cosmological moduli fields on the CMB anisotropy. In the scenario with the cosmological moduli fields, correlated isocurvature fluctuation may exist in the baryonic sector which results in enhanced CMB angular power spectrum at higher multipoles relative to that at lower ones. In addition, even in the case where there is no isocurvature perturbation, the cosmological modulus field may have important implication to the model-building of the inflation.


text:
# MSSM Constraints from Higgs Boson Searches

## 1 Introduction

The search for Higgs bosons has been one of the most important lines of research during the LEP era. Final LEP-1 results from data taken at the Z-resonance  and preliminary LEP-2 results for complete data up to 209 GeV center-of-mass energy  were recently reviewed. The MSSM is well motivated and the most discussed extension of the SM. It predicts three neutral (h, H, and A) and two charged Higgs bosons.  At the beginning of LEP operation in 1989, no radiative corrections to the neutral Higgs boson masses were calculated and $`m_\mathrm{h}<m_\mathrm{Z}`$ was predicted. First- and second-order corrections increased the upper mass bound to about 130 GeV. The neutral Higgs boson masses and production cross sections strongly depend on various model parameters. At LEP two ways were chosen to present the mass limits: benchmark limits for a certain set of MSSM parameters and mass limits based on MSSM parameter scans. Details of the benchmark and scan parameters are given for example in Refs. .

## 2 Largely reduced h mass limit

The importance of a MSSM parameter scan to set mass limits was already realized at LEP-1. The region marked by the thick black line in Fig. 1 shows that the h mass limit is reduced from 41 to 25 GeV in a parameter scan compared to benchmark results .

## 3 Removal of A mass limit

An early LEP-2 study showed that a benchmark limit of 52 GeV on the A mass  disappeared completely in a MSSM parameter scan  (Fig. 2).

## 4 Similar limits from different experiments

The results from very different parameter scan methods of different LEP experiments agree well as shown in Figs. 4 and 4 for 189 GeV data . The shaded region in Fig. 4 is excluded by charge- and color-breaking (CCB) criteria .

Limits from charmless b-decays, the electroweak parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }\rho `$ and direct searches for Supersymmetric particles do not change the h and A mass limits . The parameter scan reduced the benchmark limits by up to 7 GeV . The constraints on $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ are given in Figs. 6 and 6.

## 5 Small reduction of limits

With increasing center-of-mass energy, benchmark and parameter scan limits agree within 1 GeV for 202 GeV data . The mass and $`\mathrm{tan}\beta `$ limits are given in Figs. 78 and 9.

## 6 Combined LEP parameter scan limits

The mass limits from benchmark and parameter scan agree within about 2 GeV in the combination of the 202 GeV data from all LEP experiments . The scan limits are given in Figs. 1011 and 12.

## 7 Latest results

The latest benchmark and scan results including 209 GeV data agree within 2 GeV  and give mass limits on h and A of 89 GeV (Figs. 1314 and 15). The importance of a MSSM parameter scan is underlined in Fig. 16, which shows that large parameter regions exist where a Higgs boson could decay invisibly into a pair of neutralinos. Thus, only in conjunction with a dedicated search  the h and A mass limits are set.

## 8 Three Higgs boson hypothesis

For 202 GeV data, taken in 1999, and first 2000 data, h and A mass limits were 2 GeV below expectation . This tendency is enhanced by including complete 209 GeV data, in which case the limits are 3.1 to 3.6 GeV below the expectations of about 95 GeV . A possible explanation is that the HZ excess at about 115 GeV is due to the heavier scalar H and that, in addition, the production of hA with masses between 90 and 100 GeV occurs . Figure 17 (from ) shows a data excess above $`2\sigma `$ for $`m_\mathrm{h}+m_\mathrm{A}=187`$ GeV in the $`\mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}`$$`\mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}`$ channel. The same data excess is also expressed by the confidence level $`CL_\mathrm{b}`$ for a signal observation as shown in Fig. 18 (from ). The hypothesis of the production of three MSSM Higgs bosons is supported by the data excess seen in Fig. 19 (from ) at 100 GeV which could result from hZ production in addition to HZ production. For the reported MSSM parameters  $`\mathrm{cos}^2(\beta \alpha )0.9`$; therefore $`\mathrm{sin}^2(\beta \alpha )=\xi ^20.1`$. The $`\xi ^2`$ limit in the 100 GeV mass region shows a deviation of about 2$`\sigma `$ between the expected and observed limit, as seen in Fig. 20 (from ). Figure 21 shows that this new support is only observed in the complete LEP data.

## 9 Conclusions

The LEP-1 and LEP-2 data are consistent with a background-only hypothesis and give stringent mass limits on the neutral Higgs bosons h and A of the MSSM. During the LEP era, MSSM parameter scans reduced – or for early LEP-2 data even removed completely – the benchmark mass limits. The importance of parameter scans is stressed by large parameter regions where the Higgs boson decays invisibly, which is not considered in benchmark results. At the highest center-of-mass energies, benchmark limits are only slightly reduced by a general parameter scan when the results from invisible Higgs boson searches are included. Table 1 compares benchmark and scan mass limits in the MSSM.

The combined LEP data show a preference for the SM Higgs boson of 115.6 GeV, which can also be interpreted as a preference for a Higgs boson of that mass in the MSSM. Further small data excesses for Higgs boson pair-production and bremsstrahlung between 90 and 100 GeV allow the hypothesis that h, A and H of the MSSM all have masses below 116 GeV. Previously reported MSSM parameter combinations from a general parameter scan for this scenario are supported by the complete data set.

## Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the organizers of the conference for their kind hospitality.


text:
# The Vela pulsar wind nebula at 6cm

## 1. Introduction

High resolution images from Chandra X-ray observations of the Vela pulsar have shown (Helfand, Gotthelf, & Halpern 2001; Pavlov et al. 2001) an X-ray pulsar wind nebula (PWN), which has been modelled in detail by Helfand et al. (2001) with an alternative interpretation by Radhakrishnan & Deshpande (2001). X-ray and synchrotron emissions are closely linked as highly charged particle flows drive both, so radio emission is a natural comparison. This targeted observation was optimised at 6 cm to match the Chandra image resolution and to improve on previous radio knowledge. We imaged a compact radio counterpart about the pulsar (figure 1). Previous radio studies (Bietenholz, Frail, & Hankins 1991; Frail et al. 1997a; Bock et al. 1998a; Bock, Turtle, & Green 1998b) have focussed on larger scales of filaments or wisps and the apparent connection to the Vela-X region of the supernova remnant. Reprocessed ATCA archive data showed diffuse extended emission in the region of the lobes and indicated a lack of emission in the X-ray PWN region, but it was not clear if this was due to sensitivity limits or a signature of radio emission.

## 2. Observation

The ATCA correlator sampling rate gives a minimum bin size of 2.5 ms over 32 bins, which is within the 89 ms period of the Vela pulsar. The on-pulse flux density was contained in one bin over all observations due to the precise timing solution from our real-time monitoring project at the University of Tasmania (Dodson & Lewis, these proceedings) and the small duty cycle (2.5%). Binning allows the strong, time-variable pulse flux density to be cleanly removed from the residual image, which has a comparable flux to the mean pulse flux density. The on-pulse bin flux density is 2.0 Jy, while the combined mean flux density level for off-pulse was 0.1 Jy at 4800 MHz. The on-pulse bin image gives an excellent phase self-calibrator for the residual image of 31-bins by using the strong point source, ie. the Vela pulsar, which is usually unavailable for otherwise less luminous pulsars.

Previous comparable ATCA observations have only used 8 bins, while the VLA is limited to pulsar ‘gating’ (Frail et al. 1991). Vela is at low elevations for the VLA, where-as the ATCA can observe Vela for full u-v coverage at high elevations. The narrower bin of the 32-binned signal increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the on-pulse bin compared with previous 8-bin observations. Post-detection de-dispersion is more effective across 32 bins, to a level where smearing is insignificant across the 128 MHz bandwidths. Improving de-dispersion and the number of off-pulse bins increased the effective off-pulse time from 75% to 93%. Increasing off-pulse information and self-calibration also reduces the time spent on the secondary calibrator (previously up to 13% plus slew time).

A full complement of ATCA configurations (6D, 1.5D, 0.75D and 0.375D) gave angular scales of 1’ to 10” (4 to 20 k$`\lambda `$). This maximised and included shorter baselines making it more suited to the 30” scale size desired than previous observations. The longer baselines were included to subtract the relatively strong FR-II background galaxy at 08:35:23, -45:07:35. The two 128 MHz IF’s were placed in a single band with central frequencies of 4800 MHz and 5696 MHz, increasing u-v coverage and sensitivity giving a final image RMS of 30 $`\mu `$Jy/beam.

## 3. Results

Figure 1 shows a northern and southern lobe with overlayed contours from archive Chandra X-ray data. The structure is smooth and resolved on the 6 km baselines. Emission is oriented in projection around the spin axis of the pulsar (Helfand et al. 2001; Radhakrishnan & Deshpande 2001) and the radio VLBI (Legge 2001) and optical HST (Caraveo et al. 2001) proper motions. There is no wake of emission behind the proper motion of the pulsar. The emission is typically 70% linearly polarised. In figure 2, the spectral index comparison is between C-band (effective central frequency of 5230 MHz) and archived (Bock et al. 1998) S-band data (central frequency 2368 MHz). The C-band total intensity flux density contours of 0.5 and 1.0 mJy are overlayed. Values increase past -1.5 in the southern lobe but are less reliable (nearing the S/N cut-off). Figure 3 shows an extrapolation of the Radhakrishnan & Deshpande (2001) work from an X-ray to a radio model of emission from the pulsar.

## 4. Discussion

The morphology is inconsistent with a bowshock PWN, the size is well below that of a static shock PWN and the spin down energy to radio luminosity ratio of $`3\times 10^{32}`$ is much lower than the upper limits found for other radio PWN (Frail & Scharringhausen 1997; Gaensler et al. 2000). The velocities given by Pavlov et al. (2001) are sufficient to deliver the particles to the radio nebula, but the lack of a wake and small radius of emission from the pulsar requires it to cease within a few thousand years. No conventional energy loss mechanism can achieve this; synchrotron spectral aging gives 105 years (Lang 1980), while expansion and inverse Compton processes are also insufficient. Possibly a reverse shock in the SNR may be suppressing the emission (Blondin, Chevalier, & Frierson 2001). There is a bridge of emission from the northern lobe to a peak at 08:35:45 -45:15. This is consistent with extrapolating an assumed characteristic age of 11 kyr with the proper motion representing the birth site and is within errors of a TeV $`\gamma `$-ray source (Yoshikoshi et al. 1997), previously noted by Bock et al. (1998). Proper motion and spin axis, if in agreement, may support theories of slow neutron star kick mechanisms (Lai, Chernoff, & Cordes 2001). The three-dimensional orientation can be determined from the radio results, X-ray and X-ray/radio theory (Helfand et al. 2001; Radhakrishnan & Deshpande 2001). The radio lobes lie around the spin axis in agreement with models where the emission is driven by particles from the magnetic poles. The high polarisation and spectral index of -0.5 within the contours (figure 2) implies that the emission is due to a synchrotron source. The bright northern edge (previously described as a ’wisp’) polarisation and spectral index characteristics were separated from Vela-X previously by Beitenholz et al. (1991). The intensity, polarisation and spectral index characteristics of the lobes are different to the Vela-X region. We propose that this shows that the compact nebula is directly driven by the pulsar, while the formation of the Vela-X region is a longer term process.

## References

Bietenholz, M., Frail, D., & Hankins, T. 1991, ApJ, 376, L41

Blondin, J. M., Chevalier, R. A., & Frierson, D. M. 2001, astro-ph/0107076

Bock, D. et al. 1998, MmSAI, 69, 919

Bock, D., Turtle, A. J., & Green, A. J. 1998, AJ, 116, 1886

Caraveo, P.A., De Luca A., Mignani R.P., & Bignami G.F. 2001, ApJ, 561, 930

Frail, D.A., Cordes, J.M., Hankins, T.H., & Weisberg, J.M. 1991, ApJ, 382, 168

Frail, D. A. et al. 1997, ApJ, 475, 224

Frail, D. A. & Scharringhausen, B. R. 1997, ApJ, 480, 364

Gaensler, B. M. et al. 2000, MNRAS, 318, 58

Helfand, D., Gotthelf, E., & Halpern, J. 2001, ApJ, 556, 380

Lai, D., Chernoff, D. F., & Cordes, J. M. 2001, ApJ, 549, 1111

Lang, K. 1980, Astrophysical Formulae, Springer-Verlag

Legge, D. R. 2001, PhD thesis, University of Tasmania

Pavlov, G., Kargaltsev, O., Sanwal, D., & Garmire, G. 2001, ApJ, 554, L189

Radhakrishnan, V. & Deshpande, A. 2001, A&A, 379, 551

Yoshikoshi, T., et al. 1997, ApJ, 487, L65


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# Hot Accretion onto White Dwarfs in Quiescent Dwarf Novae

## 1. Introduction

Dwarf novae (DN) are accreting binary star systems with a white dwarf (WD) primary fed by a main-sequence donor via Roche-lobe overflow. They represent a subclass of cataclysmic variables (CVs) and experience semi-regular, luminous outbursts, during which accretion onto the WD proceeds at a high rate. Most of the time, however, DN are in quiescence — a phase during which the accretion rate onto the WD (and the system luminosity) is considerably reduced (see Warner 1995 for a review). According to the disk instability model (DIM), such a behavior arises because most of the mass transferred by the companion star builds up in an unsteady disk during quiescence (Cannizzo 1993; Lasota 2001).

Quiescent DN are hard X-ray sources with typical luminosities of $`10^{30}10^{32}`$ erg s-1 (see, e.g., Córdova & Mason 1983; Patterson & Raymond 1985). Spectral fits to this X-ray emission suggest a Bremsstrahlung origin from gas with temperatures $`220`$ keV (Patterson & Raymond 1985; Eracleous et al. 1991; Belloni et al. 1991; Yoshida et al. 1992; Mukai & Shiokawa 1993). This X-ray emission is commonly attributed to the boundary layer (BL) at the interface between the WD and the thin accretion disk around it. At low accretion rates ($`<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{16}`$ g s-1, typical of quiescent DN), the gas in the BL is hot and optically thin, hence it is a substantial source of hard X-ray emission (Pringle & Savonije 1979; Tylenda 1981; Patterson & Raymond 1985). Detailed calculations by Narayan & Popham (1993) show that the optically-thin BLs of disk-accreting WDs can also be radially extended (of order a WD radius) and that energy advection is an important element of their internal structure.

On the other hand, Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister (1994) presented two arguments in favor of a more extended, inner hot flow structure in quiescent DN. They noted that: (i) the standard DIM predicts accretion rates at the WD surface which are smaller than those inferred from quiescent X-ray luminosities by typically more than one order of magnitude and (ii) the presence of an extended, low-density hot flow in the WD vicinity may explain the observed delay (of $`0.51`$ day) in the rise to outburst of the EUV light relative to the optical light (e.g., Mauche, Mattei & Bateson 2001, but see Smak 1998). Our current understanding of the structure and properties of quiescent disks is rather limited (Menou 2002), so studying the possible presence of an extended, hot flow in quiescent DN is certainly worthwhile.

Recently, Medvedev & Narayan (2001a) discovered solutions for hot accretion onto unmagnetized, rotating compact stars. They found that at large stellar spin rates, dissipation in the hot flow is dominated by stellar braking in a “hot settling flow” (HSF) configuration, whereas in the opposite limit, the flow reduces to a conventional advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF; Narayan & Yi 1994; 1995). Both flows exist at relatively low accretion rates ($`10^2`$ of Eddington). Medvedev & Narayan (2001b) have also addressed the thermal stability of their (cooling-dominated) settling solution, and found that it is most likely stable, once turbulent thermal conduction is accounted for. The work of Medvedev & Narayan was largely focused on accretion onto neutron stars, but the HSF solutions are also valid for WD accretion. This is important because, in general, much more is known about WDs in CVs than about neutron stars in close binary systems. In particular, the rotation rates of several WDs in DN have been measured during the last few years thanks to HST spectroscopy (see Sion 1999 for a review). In this Letter, we apply the model of Medvedev & Narayan to WDs in quiescent DN by constructing numerical solutions for hot accretion in five systems with relatively well known system parameters.

## 2. System Parameters

We have gathered existing data on quiescent DN for which estimates of the WD rotation rate and the quiescent X-ray luminosity were both available. A summary of the system parameters adopted for this study is given in Table 1. For the WD masses, $`M_{\mathrm{wd}}`$, and orbital inclinations, $`i`$, we uniformly adopt the values given in the catalog of Ritter & Kolb (1998). To derive the WD rotation rates, we use the observationally inferred values of $`V_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$ compiled by Sion (1999) and make the assumption that the stellar rotation axis is aligned with the rotation axis of the orbital motion. A spin parameter, $`s`$, can then be calculated as the ratio of $`V_{\mathrm{rot}}`$ to the Keplerian rotation rate at the WD radius, $`V_\mathrm{K}(R_{\mathrm{wd}})`$. For the WD radii, we simply use the reasonable mass–radius relation: $`R_{\mathrm{wd}}=5\times 10^8\mathrm{cm}(M_{\mathrm{wd}}/1.2\mathrm{M}_{})^{0.33}`$. Finally, references from which quiescent X-ray luminosities were collected can be found in Table 1. When several values existed for a given system, we generally adopted the value corresponding to the hardest X-ray spectral range (given the typically hard Bremsstrahlung spectrum of quiescent DN). Note that the accuracy of the system parameters adopted is not crucial because we only wish to illustrate the general properties of hot accretion in these systems.111For instance, even if the WD in WZ Sge was much more massive than assumed in Table 1 (e.g. Steeghs et al. 2001), it would still be the fastest rotator among all five systems, as measured by the $`s`$ parameter.

## 3. Hot Accretion Solutions

To investigate the nature of hot accretion in quiescent DN, we use the numerical code described in detail by Medvedev & Narayan (2001a). We solve the height-integrated, axisymmetric hydrodynamical equations for the conservation of mass, radial and angular momenta, and two energy equations for the proton and electron fluids. These equations are solved by the relaxation method with appropriate boundary conditions. A special grid was used to carefully resolve steep gradients near the stellar surface. At the outer boundary, the electron and proton temperatures and the angular velocity of the flow are fixed to the values appropriate for an ADAF. At the inner boundary, where the flow meets the stellar surface, the flow temperature and the angular velocity are forced to match those of the star. We assume a stellar temperature of $`\mathrm{few}\times 10^5\mathrm{K}`$ (the exact value is unimportant here). The mass accretion rate, $`\dot{M}`$, is a free parameter, and a standard Shakura-Sunyaev $`\alpha `$-viscosity is used. We assume that most of the viscously generated heat goes to protons. However, this is unimportant because the electrons are coupled to the protons via Coulomb collisions very efficiently. The electrons are cooled via optically thin Bremsstrahlung emission. Thermal conduction and (self-absorbed) synchrotron cooling are not included, for simplicity (the latter should be negligible). The effects of Comptonization of the stellar radiation and self-Comptonization of the Bremsstrahlung radiation are included, but both are very weak. We generally adopt an adiabatic index $`\gamma =1.6`$, close to the $`\gamma =5/3`$ of a non-relativistic, monoatomic ideal gas. In all models we choose the outer radius of the flow to be at $`\mathrm{few}\times 10^{11}\mathrm{cm}`$ to better isolate the effects of the inner and outer boundary conditions. In real systems, the outer radius is probably much smaller. The adopted parameters, namely the stellar mass, $`M_{\mathrm{wd}}`$, its radius, $`R_{\mathrm{wd}}`$, and its spin parameter, $`s`$, are given in Table 1. In all systems but WZ Sge, we used a conventional value of the viscosity parameter, $`\alpha =0.1`$. In WZ Sge we set $`\alpha =0.02`$, as discussed below.

Figure 1 shows the numerical solutions obtained for the five systems listed in Table 1. In each case, the accretion rate in the steady, hot flow has been adjusted so that the total Bremsstrahlung emission fits the quiescent X-ray luminosity given in Table 1. The four panels in Figure 1 show the radial profiles of density, $`\rho `$ (in g cm-3), electron and proton temperatures, $`T_e`$ and $`T_p`$ respectively (in Kelvin; the curves overlap because $`T_eT_p`$ indicating efficient Coulomb transfer of energy between the ions and the electrons), angular rotation velocity, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ (in units of the Keplerian value at the WD radius, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_K(R_{\mathrm{wd}})`$) and radial velocity, $`V_R`$ (in units of the speed of light, $`c`$). The profiles are approximate power laws, with narrow boundary layers close to the WD surface (except for $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which smoothly matches the stellar rotation rate). The profiles of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`V_R`$ indicate that boundary effects are present over a substantial range of radii, at both the inner and outer edges.

The scalings in an ADAF are $`\rho R^{3/2}`$ and $`V_RR^{1/2}`$ (Narayan & Yi 1994), while in a HSF they are $`\rho R^2`$ and $`V_RR^0`$ (Medvedev & Narayan 2001a). The profiles of $`\rho `$ and $`V_R`$ in Fig. 1 deviate from perfect power laws and are intermediate between the above two solutions. The Bernoulli number is negative everywhere (for $`\gamma 5/3`$), except in a narrow region at the outer edge of the flow where the ADAF conditions hold (in an ADAF, $`Be>0`$). Hence, the solutions should be convectively stable (Narayan et al. 2000; Medvedev & Narayan 2001a).

The solutions shown in Fig. 1 are not “advection-dominated” in the sense that the gas entropy decreases inward (it increases inward in an ADAF). The flow energetics is best described by computing the ratio of the integrated Bremsstrahlung luminosity to the available accretion luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{acc}}=GM_{\mathrm{wd}}\dot{M}/R_{\mathrm{wd}}`$. The accretion rates for the five systems are quite low (Table 1). The corresponding ratios, $`\eta _{\mathrm{eff}}L_X/L_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, are $`1`$ for low-$`s`$ systems and larger than unity for large $`s`$, indicating significant extraction of rotational energy from the central star. Thus, in large-$`s`$ systems such as WZ Sge, the $`\dot{M}`$ value given in Table 1 should be considered as a rough upper limit because $`L_X`$ is essentially powered by stellar spindown with little contribution from the accretion luminosity. However, the luminosity of a HSF is sensitive to $`\alpha `$. We were able to fit the observed $`L_X`$ of WZ Sge only for $`\alpha 0.02`$. Perhaps, this may indicate that the value of $`\alpha `$ may be lower than generally expected.

The value of the adiabatic index has a strong effect on the flow structure. We illustrate this by calculating a model for U Gem with $`\gamma =4/3`$ (all other parameters being the same). It is shown in Fig. 1 as a thick solid line. At large radii, the flow structure now adopts an ADAF configuration, with $`\rho R^{3/2}`$, $`V_RR^{1/2}`$ and a larger, constant value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_K`$. The Bernoulli number is positive everywhere in the hot flow (excluding the BL) and energy advection is dominant in the outer regions of the flow with ADAF properties. However all the advected energy is now radiated in the optically thin BL so that $`\eta _{\mathrm{eff}}1`$ as well. This influence of $`\gamma `$ is consistent with the results of Medvedev & Narayan (2001a). According to their classification, the solutions we obtained for $`\gamma =1.6`$ and the inner zone of the flow in the case with $`\gamma =4/3`$ are “settling ADAFs” (WZ Sge clearly corresponds to a HSF, however).

Fig. 2 shows the Bremsstrahlung luminosity, per unit logarithmic fractional distance from the WD surface, for the five solutions with $`\gamma =1.6`$ shown in Fig. 1. The density in the flow is low enough that Comptonization has a negligible effect on the emitted spectrum, even in the densest regions, near the WD surface. Fig. 2 clearly shows that X-ray emission originates mostly from regions in the close vicinity of the WD (the same is true for the U Gem model with $`\gamma =4/3`$). The brightest regions of the flow are also approximately the hottest, with temperatures $`10^8`$ K for WZ Sge, $`2\times 10^8`$ K for VW Hyi and $`4\times 10^8`$ K for the three other systems.

## 4. Discussion

We constructed numerical models for hot accretion onto unmagnetized, rotating WDs in five quiescent DN. Our solutions are a significant improvement over previous work on hot accretion in this context (Katz 1977; Kylafis & Lamb 1982; Mahasena & Osaki 1999; Menou 2000) in that both the WD rotation and the viscous nature of the flow are accounted for in the present case. This makes these solutions plausible modes of accretion in quiescent DN.

The outer boundary conditions chosen are somewhat artificial and constitute a significant shortcoming of the present study. It is unclear exactly how the transition from an inner hot flow to an outer thin disk (known to be present) would occur. Strong boundary effects may be expected for a hot flow with a limited radial extent. Nonetheless, our work has the virtue of isolating the main properties of the hot flow, independently of the disk. It will be important in the future to study the structure of a hot flow with a smaller radial extent and more realistic boundary conditions. For the non-relativistic gas considered here and non-dominant magnetic fields, we expect rather large values of $`\gamma `$ and therefore flows which are not subject to outflows (Blandford & Begelman 1999) or convection (Narayan et al. 2000; Quataert & Gruzinov 2000).

Menou (2000) proposed that energy advection in a hot flow could be important in powering a dominant EUV emission component that could explain the strong He II emission lines observed in many quiescent DN. Since the hot flow solutions presented here lack energy advection (for $`\gamma `$’s near 5/3), this possibility seems unlikely.

While a star is spun up by accretion via a disk boundary layer (except when rotating near breakup; Popham & Narayan 1991; Paczynski 1991), it is spun down when accreting via a hot flow like an ADAF, a HSF or the hot flow solutions presented here (except at very low spin rates; Medvedev & Narayan 2001a). This property has potentially important consequences for the spin history of WDs in DN. Sion (1999) emphasized that in the standard picture WDs should rotate near break up in DN, but observations suggest that rapidly spinning WDs are rare. If a WD is spun down via hot accretion during quiescence, an equilibrium at substantially sub-Keplerian rotation rates may be expected from the balance between spin-up in outburst and spin-down in quiescence. This possibility requires further study with more appropriate boundary conditions. We note that other mechanisms could contribute to spinning down single WDs (Spruit 1998) and WDs in DN (and thus get rid of the angular momentum acquired during accretion), including angular momentum losses induced by coupling to an expanding envelope during nova explosions (Livio & Pringle 1998; Sion et al. 2001).

X-ray eclipses in several quiescent DN indicate that the emission originates from the vicinity of the WD (Wood et al. 1995; Mukai et al. 1997; Pratt et al. 1999; Ramsay et al. 2001). Without a detailed comparison, it is unclear whether the hot flow solutions presented here satisfy the existing observational constraints or not. Such a comparison should take into account the spectral coverage of the various X-ray instruments used and it probably requires a reliable boundary layer model taking into account the role of heat conduction in potentially modifying its emission properties (which is beyond the scope of the present paper). It is certainly encouraging that X-ray emission is highly concentrated near the stellar surface in our models, but it is presently unclear whether these models will be able to account for the available X-ray eclipse data or not. We note, for instance, that the X-ray eclipse of OY Car observed by Ramsay et al. (2001) suggest an X-ray flux approaching zero at eclipse minimum and a small vertical extent for the X-ray emitting region. These properties may not be easily reconciled with the hot flow models presented here. In the future, it will also be possible to probe the structure of hot flows in (even non-eclipsing) quiescent DN with detailed X-ray spectroscopic diagnostics, as illustrated in Menou, Perna & Raymond (2001; see also Narayan & Raymond 1999).

## Acknowledgments

We thank J. Raymond for comments on the manuscript. Support for this work was provided by CITA (for MM), and by NASA (for KM) through Chandra Fellowship grant PF9-10006 awarded by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS8-39073. KM thanks the Center for Astrophysical Sciences at Johns Hopkins University for hospitality.


text:
# Momentum space topology of fermion zero modes on brane

## Abstract

We discuss fermion zero modes within the 3+1 brane – the domain wall between the two vacua in 4+1 spacetime. We do not assume relativistic invariance in 4+1 spacetime, or any special form of the 4+1 action. The only input is that the fermions in bulk are fully gapped and are described by nontrivial momentum-space topology. Then the 3+1 wall between such vacua contains chiral 3+1 fermions. The bosonic collective modes in the wall form the gauge and gravitational fields. In principle, this universality class of fermionic vacua can contain all the ingredients of the Standard Model and gravity.

Introduction. The idea that our Universe lives on a brane embedded in higher dimensional space  is popular at the moment. It is the further development of an old ideas of extra compact dimensions introduced by Kaluza  and Klein . In a new approach the compactification occurs because the low-energy physics is concentrated within the brane, for example, in a flat 4-dimensional brane embedded in a 5-dimensional anti-de Sitter space with a negative cosmological constant . Branes can be represented by topological defects, such as domain walls (membranes) and strings. It is supposed that we live inside the core of such a defect. This new twist in the idea of extra dimensions is fashionable because by accomodation of the core size one can bring the gravitational Planck energy scale close to TeV range. That is why, there is a hope that the deviations from the Newton’s law can become observable already at the distance of order 1 mm. At the moment the Newton’s law has been tested for distances $`>0.2`$ mm .

The particular mechanism of why the matter is localized on the brane, is that the low-energy fermionic matter is represented by the fermion zero modes, whose wave function is concentrated in the core region. Outside the core the fermions are massive and thus are frozen out at low temperature $`T`$. An example of such topologically induced Kaluza-Klein compactification of the multidimensional space is provided by the condensed matter analogs of branes – domain walls and vortices. These topological defects do contain fermion zero modes which can live only within the core of defects. These fermions form the 2+1 world within the domain wall, and 1+1 world within the domain wall in quasi-two-dimensional thin films or in the core of the linear defects – quantized vortices.

Recently an attempt was made to ‘construct’ the 4+1 condensed matter system with gapped fermions in bulk and gapless excitations on the 3+1 boundary, which include gauge bosons and gravitons . This is the 4+1 dimensional generalization of the 2+1 quantum Hall effect (QHE) in the presence of the external $`SU(2)`$ gauge field, where the low energy fermions are the analogs of the so-called edge states  on the boundary of the system.

Here we show that there is a natural scenario in which the chiral fermions emergently appear in the brane together with gauge and gravitational field. Instead of the QHE system, we consider the system in which quantization of Hall conductivity occurs without external magnetic field. In this scenario the topology of momentum space  plays the central role determining the universality classes. We consider the domain wall, which separates two 4+1 quantum vacua with nontrivial topology in the momentum space. If the momentum-space topological invariant is different on two sides of the wall, such 3+1 brane contains fermion zero modes – the gapless 3+1 fermions. Close to the nodes in the energy spectrum – Fermi points – these fermions are chiral. The collective bosonic modes within the brane correspond to gauge and gravitational fields acting on fermion modes.

As distinct from the relativistic theories , in this scenario the existence of gauge and gravitational fields in brane does not require the existence of the corresponding 4+1 fields in the bulk. The 3+1 fields in the brane emergently arise as collective modes of fermionic vacuum in the same manner as they arise in quantum liquids belonging to the universality class of Fermi points . Thus, the brane separating the 4+1 vacua with different momentum-space topology is one more universality class of the quantum vacua, whose properties are dictated by the momentum-space topology.

Walls in 2+1 systems. Let us first consider how all this occurs in 2+1 systems, then it can be easily generalized to the 4+1 case. For the 2+1 systems it is known that the quantization of Hall or spin-Hall conductivity can occur even without an external magnetic field. This quantization is provided by the integer valued momentum-space topological invariant :

$$N_3=\frac{1}{24\pi ^2}e_{\mu \nu \lambda }\mathrm{𝐭𝐫}𝑑p_x𝑑p_y𝑑p_0𝒢_{p_\mu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\nu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\lambda }𝒢^1.$$
(1)
Here $`𝒢`$ is the fermionic propagator expressed in terms of the momentum $`p_\mu =(𝐩,p_0)`$, where $`𝐩=(p_x,p_y)`$ and $`p_0`$ is the frequency on the imaginary axis. In the most simple examples, which occur for example in thin films of 3He and probably in the atomic layers of some superconductors, one has $`𝒢^1=z(𝐩)`$, where $`z=ip_0`$; and the $`2\times 2`$ Hamiltonian $`(𝐩)=\tau ^ig_i(p_x,p_y)`$ is expressed in terms of Pauli matrices $`\tau ^i`$. In this case the Eq.(1) is simplified:

$$N_3=\frac{1}{4\pi }\frac{dp_xdp_y}{|𝐠|^3}𝐠\left(\frac{𝐠}{p_x}\times \frac{𝐠}{p_y}\right).$$
(2)
The invariant exists only if the fermions are gapped, i.e. their energy $`E(p_x,p_y)=|𝐠|0`$. The value of Hall or spin-Hall conductivity depends on this invariant and that is why the quantization of conductivities occurs without external field. The invariant $`N_3`$ can be varied by varying the thickness of the film, instead of varying the magnetic field in conventional QHE. Similar invariants have been used in conventional QHE too, see .

Another important property of the conventional QHE, which is reproduced by the system under discussion, is the existence of the edge states on the boundary of the system, or on the boundary separating vacua with different values of quantized conductivity. Let us consider the domain wall (the 1+1 brane) separating vacua with different topological invariants on the left and on the right side of the wall: $`N_3(right)`$ and $`N_3(left)`$. If $`N_3(right)N_3(left)`$ one finds that there are fermion zero modes. These are the gapless branches $`E(p_{})`$, where $`p_{}`$ is the linear momentum along the wall. These branches cross zero energy when $`p_{}`$ varies. Close to zero energy the spectrum of the $`a`$-th fermion zero mode is linear:

$$E_a(p_{})=c_a(p_{}p_a)$$
(3)
These fermion zero modes correspond to the chiral (left-moving and right-moving) gapless edge states in QHE. There is an index theorem which determines the algebraic number $`\nu `$ of the fermion zero modes, i.e. the number of modes crossing zero with positive slope (right-moving) minus the number of modes with negative slope (left-moving):

$$\nu =\underset{a}{}\mathrm{sign}c_a.$$
(4)
According to this theorem, which is similar to the Atiyah-Singer index theorem  relating the number of fermion zero modes with the topological charge of the gauge field configuration, one has

$$\nu =N_3(right)N_3(left).$$
(5)
The crossing point $`p_a`$ on each branch is nothing but the Fermi surface in 1D momentum space $`p_{}`$. In general the Fermi surfaces can be described by the topological invariant $`N_1`$ expressed in terms of Green’s function

$$N_1=\mathrm{𝐓𝐫}_C\frac{dl}{2\pi i}𝒢(p_0,p_{})_l𝒢^1(p_0,p_{})=\nu .$$
(6)
Here $`𝒢`$ is the propagator for the 1+1 fermion zero modes; and the contour $`C`$ embraces all the points $`(p_0=0,p_{}=p_a)`$ where the Green’s function is singular. In the simplest case the propagator for the 1+1 fermion zero modes has the form

$$𝒢^1=ip_0E_a(p_{}),$$
(7)
and the contour $`C`$ embraces the point $`(p_0=0,p_{}=p_a)`$ in momentum space. The equation $`N_1=N_3(right)N_3(left)`$ illustrates the topology of the dimensional reduction in the momentum space: the momentum-space topological invariant $`N_3`$ of the bulk 2+1 system gives rise to the 1+1 fermion zero modes described by the momentum-space topological invariant $`N_1`$.

Branes in 4+1 systems. Now we can move from 2+1 to 4+1 dimension. Let us suppose that we have the quantum liquid in 4+1 spacetime, which contains the 3+1 domain wall separating two domains, each with fully gapped fermions. Then everything can be obtained from the case of the quantum liquid in 2+1 spacetime just by increasing the dimension.

According to analogy with 2+1 systems, the 4+1 gapped fermions must have nontrivial momentum-space topology. Such topology is described by the invariant $`N_5`$ instead of $`N_3`$:

$$N_5=C_5e_{\mu \nu \lambda \alpha \beta }\mathrm{𝐭𝐫}d^5p𝒢_{p_\mu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\nu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\lambda }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\alpha }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\beta }𝒢^1.$$
(8)
Here $`p_\mu =(p_0,𝐩)`$, where $`𝐩=(p_1,p_2,p_3,p_4)`$ is the momentum in 4D space; $`p_0`$ is the energy considered at imaginary axis: $`z=ip_0`$; and $`C_5`$ is proper normalization. It is the difference $`N_5(right)N_5(left)`$ of invariants on both sides of the domain wall (extension of $`N_3(right)N_3(left)`$), which must give rise to the 3+1 fermion zero modes within the brane.

The relativistic example of the propagator with nontrival invariant $`N_5`$ is provided by $`𝒢^1=ip_0`$, where the Hamiltonian in the 4D space is $`=M\mathrm{\Gamma }^5+_{i=1}^4\mathrm{\Gamma }^ip_i`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{15}`$ are $`4\times 4`$ Dirac matrices satisfying the Clifford algebra $`\{\mathrm{\Gamma }^a,\mathrm{\Gamma }^b\}=2\delta ^{ab}`$. In this example the proper domain wall, which contains the fermion zero modes, separates the domains with opposite signs of the mass parameter $`M`$, since for such wall $`N_5(right)=N_5(left)`$. The existence of fermion zero modes in such domain wall is a well known fact in relativistic theories. We would like to stress, however, that the existence of fermion zero modes does not require the relativistic theory in the bulk. It is enough to have the nontrivial invariant $`N_5`$, which determines the universality class of fermionic vacuum.

In the 1+1 wall the energy spectrum of fermion zero modes in the wall crosses zero at points in 1D momentum space. Thus the energy spectrum of fermion zero modes in the 3+1 brane must be zero at points in 3D momentum space. This means that the spectrum has Fermi points. Fermi points are described by the momentum- space topological invariant $`N_3`$, which is now the difference between the number of right-handed and left-handed fermions :

$$N_3=\frac{1}{24\pi ^2}e_{\mu \nu \lambda \gamma }\mathrm{𝐭𝐫}_{\sigma _3}𝑑S^\gamma 𝒢_{p_\mu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\nu }𝒢^1𝒢_{p_\lambda }𝒢^1.$$
(9)
Here the integral is over the 3-dimensional surface $`\sigma _3`$ embracing the singular points $`(p_0=0,𝐩=𝐩_a)`$ of the spectrum. This is the analog of invariant $`N_1`$ in Eq.(6). Close to the $`a`$-th Fermi point the fermion zero modes represent 3+1 chiral fermions, whose propagator has the general form expressed in terms of the tetrad field:

$$𝒢^1=\sigma ^\nu e_{\nu a}^\mu (p_\mu p_{\mu a}).$$
(10)
Here $`\sigma ^\nu =(1,\sigma )`$, and $`\sigma `$ are Pauli matrices.

In the same manner as in Eqs.(5) and (6) which relate the number of fermion zero modes with the topological invariants in bulk 2+1 domains, the total topological charge of the Fermi points within the domain wall is expressed through the difference of the topological invariants in bulk 4+1 domains:

$$N_3=N_5(right)N_5(left).$$
(11)
The quantites $`e_{\nu a}^\mu `$ and $`p_{\mu a}`$, which enter the fermionic spectrum, are dynamical variables. These are the low energy collective bosonic modes which play the part of the effective gravitational and gauge fields correspondingly acting on chiral fermion . These fields emergently arise in the fermionic vacuum with nontrivial momentum-space topology. The brane between the topologically different vacua thus represents one more universality class of the ‘emergent behavior’ .

In a similar manner the gauge and gravity fields arise as collective modes on the boundary of the 4+1 system exhibiting the quantum Hall effect . Both systems have similar topology: in Ref. the nontrivial topology is provided by the external field, while in our case it is assumed that the vacuum itself has a nontrivial topology, $`N_50`$, even without the gauge field.

Conclusion. We showed that if the momentum-space topology of the fermionic vacuum in 4+1 spacetime is nontrivial, the 3+1 domain wall between the two such vacua contains chiral fermions, while bosonic collective modes in the wall are the gauge and gravitational fields. This emergent behavior does not depend on details of the action in the bulk 4+1 systems, or on details of the structure of the brane. Neither Lorentz invariance, nor the gravity in 4+1 bulk system are required for emergency of chiral fermions and collective fields in the brane. However, the nontrivial topology alone does not guarantee that the gravitational field will obey Einstein equations: the proper (maybe discrete) symmetry and the proper relations between different ”Planck” scales in the underlying fermionic system are required . The energy scale which marks the cut-off of the integrals over fermions must be much smaller than the energy scale at which the Lorentz invariance is violated. We hope that within this universality class one can obtain all the ingredients of the Standard Model and gravity.

I thank V.A. Rubakov and S. Zhang for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by ESF COSLAB Programme and by the Russian Foundations for Fundamental Research.


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# The longitudinal spin relaxation of 2d electrons in Si/SiGe quantum wells in a magnetic field

## I Introduction

Looking for spin systems suitable for spintronics or quantum computing devices, the longitudinal spin relaxation time, $`T_1`$, is of basic importance. $`T_1`$ is ruled by spin-flip processes and it corresponds to the characteristic spin memory time. In this paper we investigate $`T_1`$ in the high mobility 2d electron gas in a Si/SiGe quantum well, where electrons can be easily manipulated by illumination with light and by an electric field R1 ; R2 . We show that for this material system, which magnetically is one of the cleanest, $`T_1`$ is of the order of microseconds whereas the time needed for a spin manipulation by a microwave magnetic field is by more than two orders of magnitude shorter.

We also investigate the mechanism for spin relaxation. Analyzing the spin relaxation rate as a function of the momentum scattering rate, $`\tau _k^1`$, allows to distinguish the Elliott-Yaffet (EY) mechanism R3  and the D’yakonov-Perel (DP) mechanism R4 ; R5 . The EY mechanism describes the probability of a spin-flip in a momentum scattering event. This probability is ruled by spin-orbit coupling and the resulting admixture of a state with opposite spin projection R3 ; R10 :

$$(T_1^1)_{EY}=\alpha _{EY}\tau _k^1$$
(1)
The DP relaxation, in contrast, originates from a zero field spin splitting of the conduction band states R4 ; R5 ; R10 . For a Si quantum well the zero field splitting is described by the Bychkov-Rashba (BR) term R3 ; R10 :

$$_{BR}=\alpha _{BR}(𝐤\times \sigma )\widehat{𝐞}_𝐳$$
(2)
which was shown to exist also for single sided modulation doped Si quantum wells R7 .

Here $`\sigma `$ stands for the vector of a Pauli spin-matrix of a conduction electron R8 , $`𝐤`$ is the k-vector proportional to the electron momentum, $`\widehat{𝐞}_z`$ is a unit vector perpendicular to the 2d layer and $`\alpha _{BR}`$ is the Rashba parameter that depends on the spin-orbit coupling and details of the interface R9 . Momentum scattering causes also a time dependent modulation of the BR interaction. As a consequence, the probability for spin-flips becomes finite. For non-quantizing magnetic field, the DP mechanism R5 ; R10  is expected to be proportional to the momentum scattering time:

$$(T_1^1)_{DP}=\mathrm{\Omega }_{BR}^2\tau _k$$
(3)
where the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{BR}`$ is proportional to the k-vector and the BR parameter $`\alpha _{BR}`$:

$$𝛀_{\mathrm{𝐁𝐑}}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=\alpha _{BR}𝐤/2\mathrm{}$$
(4)
In this paper we present results obtained from conduction electron spin resonance (CESR) spectroscopy. Simultaneous measurements of CESR, which allows to evaluate $`T_1`$, and cyclotron resonance (CR), which allows R1 ; R2  to estimate $`\tau _k`$, permit the evaluation of $`T_1`$ as a function of $`\tau _k`$. Such data are obtained from samples with different donor and electron concentrations.

## II Samples and experimental results

Samples were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on 1000 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$cm Si(001) substrates, which show complete carrier freeze-out below 30 K. A 20 nm thick Si channel with tensile in- plane strain was deposited on a strain-relaxed Si0.75Ge0.25 buffer layer, which consists of a 0.5 $`\mu `$m thick Si0.75Ge0.25 layer on top of a 2 $`\mu `$m thick Si1-xGex layer with compositional grading. The upper Si0.75Ge0.25 barrier was modulation doped with a 12.5 nm thick, nominally undoped spacer layer, and capped with 5 nm of Si. Three modulation doped Si/SiGe structures with different donor concentrations were examined. The electron concentration was changed by the light illumination.

All measurements were performed with a the standard X-band ESR spectrometer, at a microwave frequency 9.4 GHz. The sample were situated in the center of the rectangular TM201 cavity, at the maximum of the magnetic component of microwave field (which is perpendicular to the applied magnetic field). The sample layer was oriented to be perpendicular to the applied magnetic field (and to electric component of microwave field).

The spin resonance has an exceedingly narrow linewidth in the range $`3÷10\mu `$T. In spite of the fact that the sample was situated in the minimum of the electric microwave field and perpendicular to it, the strong absorption due to CR was well observed allowing for to monitor the carrier density from the integral absorption and the momentum scattering rate from the CR linewidth R2 .

In Fig. 1 the longitudinal spin relaxation time, $`T_1`$, and the momentum relaxation rate, $`\tau _k^1`$, are plotted as a function of the electron concentration, $`n_s`$. The parameter $`T_1`$ has been evaluated from the saturation of the ESR signal amplitude and the ESR line broadening at high microwave power R12 ; R13 . Estimating the quality factor of the loaded cavity from the resonance dip width, we obtain the amplitude of the magnetic component of the microwave field of 1.1 G at a microwave power of 200 mW. The data for different samples are marked by different symbols. The results for the spin relaxation time, $`T_1`$, vary in the range of 1 to 5 $`\mu `$s. For different samples $`T_1`$ is different and it depends on the electron concentration. The momentum scattering rate varies with $`n_s`$ by an order of magnitude. The increase of the momentum scattering is related to the screening breakdown and an increase of the potential fluctuations at low Fermi energy R1 . Samples with a higher doping level show also a higher $`\tau _k^1`$.

The dependence of $`T_1`$ on $`n_s`$ is governed by the complex dependence of the relaxation rate on the Fermi k-vector and of the dependence of $`\tau _k^1`$ on the electron concentration. In order to follow the dependence of the spin relaxation rate, $`T_1^1`$, on the momentum relaxation, $`\tau _k^1`$, our data are plotted in Figs. 2a and 2b in two different ways. In Fig. 2a the spin relaxation rate, $`T_1^1`$, is given as a function of the momentum scattering rate, $`\tau _k^1`$. In Fig. 2b, the spin relaxation rate, $`T_1^1`$, is normalized by the electron concentration, $`n_s`$. This normalization allows to account for the dependence of $`T_1^1`$ on the BR parameter, $`\alpha _{BR}`$, and to study the dependence of the DP rate $`T_1^1`$ on $`\tau _k^1`$.

## III The spin relaxation caused by the Elliott-Yafet mechanism

Comparison of the data in the two figures demonstrates the existence of two different ranges with different spin relaxation behavior. For high scattering rate, $`\tau _k^1>310^{11}`$ s-1, the spin relaxation is simply proportional to the momentum scattering rate indicating the EY process as the dominating one. The EY coefficient is independent both of the electron concentration and the doping level within the experimental error. The solid line in Fig. 2a corresponds to $`\alpha _{EY}=1.010^6`$.

For low momentum scattering rate, $`\tau _k^1<310^{11}`$ s-1, the spin relaxation rate is bigger than expected from the EY mechanism. Moreover, $`T_1^1`$ depends on the electron concentration in the high electron mobility range. On the other hand, the normalized spin relaxation (see Fig. 2b) is characterized by a systematic dependence, common for all investigated samples. As we argue below the observed dependence in the high mobility range is well described by the DP mechanism.

## IV The D’yakonov-Perel mechanism of the relaxation

The prediction of the DP scattering rate, as described by Eqs. (3) and (4) is marked by the dashed line in Fig. 2. For the BR parameter we took the value $`\alpha _{BR}=0.5510^{12}`$ eV cm evaluated earlier from the analysis of the linewidth and g-factor anisotropy in the same samples R7 . No correlation between the dashed line and the experimental data is recognizable. Eq. (3) stands, however, for the case of a weak external magnetic field, when the momentum scattering rate is much smaller as compared to the Zeeman frequency, and it does not consider cyclotron motion and Landau quantization. In an external magnetic field, because of the cyclotron motion, the electron velocity changes its direction all the time. The time correlation function of the k-vector, and consequently the correlation function of the effective BR field seen by an electron, is describes by:

$$𝐤𝐤(t)𝛀_{BR}𝛀_{BR}(t)=\mathrm{\Omega }_{BR}^2e^{i\omega t\tau _k^1t}$$
(5)
The corresponding probabilities of spin-up and down flips are obtained by the Fourier component of the correlation function (Eq.(5)) at the Zeeman frequency $`\omega _o`$:

$$W_\pm =\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{BR}^2}{2}\frac{\tau _k}{1+(\omega _c\pm \omega _o)^2\tau _k^2}$$
(6)
The longitudinal spin relaxation time for a single electron is equal to:

$$(T_1^1)_{DP}=W_++W_{}$$
(7)
Eqs. (6) and (7) describe the DP relaxation in an external magnetic field. For a short momentum relaxation time, Eq.(7) becomes equivalent to Eq.(3). But for quantizing magnetic field, where $`\omega _c\tau _k>1`$ , the DP relaxation rate is expected to be reduced by the denominator in Eq. (6). The dependence corresponding to Eqs. (6-7) is shown in Fig. 2 by the dash-dotted line. The reduction of the spin relaxation caused by the external magnetic field is well visible. Moreover, for low scattering rate, $`\omega _c\tau _k1`$ , the DP relaxation rate is expected to be proportional to the momentum scattering.

For an electron gas, in which the final states to which electron can be scattered, are partially occupied the evaluation of the mean spin relaxation rate of the whole electron system requires thermodynamic averaging. The scattering probability and the momentum relaxation rate depend on energy. These quantities are proportional to the population of empty states: $`\tau _k^1(\epsilon )=\tau _{ko}^1[1f_{FD}(\epsilon )]`$ where $`\tau _{ko}^1`$ is the momentum relaxation rate (as used in the Boltzmann equation approach) and $`f_{FD}(\epsilon )`$ is the Fermi-Dirac distribution function. For moderate magnetic field, where $`\mathrm{}\omega _c<k_BT<E_F`$ the dependence of the BR frequency on energy can be neglected and the mean value of the transition probability, $`W_\pm `$, weighted by the derivative of the Fermi-Dirac distribution function, is described by:

$$W_\pm =\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{BR}^2}{2}f_{FD}^{}(\epsilon )\frac{\tau _k(\epsilon )}{1+(\omega _c\pm \omega _o)^2\tau _k^2(\epsilon )}𝑑\epsilon $$
(8)
The solid line in Fig. 2b corresponds to the DP scattering rate as described by Eqs. (7) and (8). For the BR parameter again a value of $`0.5510^{12}`$ eV cm has been taken. The theoretical curve, without any other fitting parameter, fits well to the experimental points for high electron mobility. For the highest mobility the effect of a moderate magnetic field (B=0.34 T) is the reduction of the DP mechanism by about two orders of magnitude. In the limit of very high electron mobility, the DP relaxation rate for degenerate statistics (Eq. (7-8)) is by a factor 2 smaller as compared to the non-degenerate case described by Eqs. (6-7)

For the high momentum scattering rate the DP relaxation rate is expected to tend to the solution for weak magnetic field. But for degenerate statistics (solid line), where the final states are partially occupied, the spin relaxation rate is by a factor 2 bigger as compared to the non-degenerate case (dashed and dash-dotted lines) for a given momentum relaxation rate.

## V Conclusions

In conclusion, we have shown that:

* the DP mechanism dominates for high mobility structures but the quantization due to the applied magnetic field leads to a considerable reduction of the DP relaxation rate. In Eq. (3) a reduction factor of about $`1+\tau _k^2\omega _c^2`$ must be introduced, where $`\omega _c`$ is the cyclotron frequency (compare Eq. (3) and Eqs. (6-7)). As a consequence, for weak momentum scattering the reduced DP spin relaxation rate is proportional to $`\tau _k^1`$, in contrast to Eq. (3).
* the value of the BR parameter, $`\alpha _{BR}`$, as determined from $`T_1`$ turns out to be the same within the experimental accuracy as previously evaluated from the anisotropy of the CESR linewidth (dephasing time, $`T_2`$) and the g-factor R7 .
* for low mobility samples the spin relaxation is dominated by the EY mechanism. We find an EY coefficient of: $`\alpha _{EY}=1.010^6`$, which is common for all samples and, for the investigated range of parameters (the Fermi energy does not exceed 2.5 meV), $`\alpha _{EY}`$ does not depend on the electron concentration.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank F. Schäffler (JKU) for generously providing samples and for helpful discussions. Work supported within the KBN grant 2 P03B 007 16 in Poland and in Austria by the Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, and ÖAD, both Vienna.


text:
# 1 The plot of the displacement at various times (t = 5, 10, 15, 20 seconds) with the initial displacement, 𝜔=4

## Conclusion

In summary we have shown the difference in the results when we use the linear EOM (eq.(3) and non-linear EOM (eq.(4) for describing a pendulum. The time taken to complete an oscillation decreases with successive oscillations for a pendulum whose initial displacement is large. In short it seems that under this condition the oscillator will oscillate more rapidly. Thus, in case of a pendulum oscillating under the non-linear EOM condition, a modified value of $`\omega `$ has to be considered which is a function of the initial displacement. Apart from this modification the solution of non-linear EOM can also be taken to be harmonic.