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# Inequivalence of pure state ensembles for open quantum systems: the preferred ensembles are those that are physically realizable

## I Introduction

It is well known that there are infinitely many ways to write a given mixed state as a mixture of (in general non-orthogonal) pure states. That is, there are infinitely many ensembles, $`\{(\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k,\mathrm{}_k)\}_k`$, consisting of ordered pairs of pure states (rank-one projectors $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k=|\psi _k\psi _k|`$) and weights $`\mathrm{}_k`$, that represent a given state matrix (density operator) $`\widehat{\rho }`$ according to

$$\widehat{\rho }=\underset{k}{}\mathrm{}_k\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k.$$
(1)
Any such ensemble representation suggests an ignorance interpretation of the state matrix $`\widehat{\rho }`$. That is, one would claim that the system “really” is in one of the pure states $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$, but that one happens to be ignorant of which state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ (i.e. which $`k`$) pertains. The weight $`\mathrm{}_k`$ is interpreted as the probability that the system has state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$.

This interpretation can only be maintained for so-called proper mixtures, i.e. those for which the system is not entangled with its environment . However, an improper mixture may be turned into a proper mixture simply by appropriately measuring the environment, and ignoring the result. The partition ensemble fallacy  or preferred ensemble fallacy is that one may use a particular ensemble to draw inferences about an experiment, even if those inferences depend upon the choice of ensemble. Here we do not deny that this is indeed a fallacy.

Mixed states arise naturally in the description of open quantum systems, in fields as diverse as chemical physics, quantum optics, micromechanics and nano-electronics. It is often possible to approximate the evolution of such systems by a Markovian master equation $`\dot{\widehat{\rho }}=\widehat{\rho }`$, where $``$ is the Lindbladian . Under these conditions, an experimenter may perform continual measurements on the environment with which the system interacts without affecting the master equation evolution . Hence the system state can be considered a proper mixture.

Let us restrict the discussion to a stationary mixed state $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$, assumed unique:

$$\dot{\widehat{\rho }}_{\mathrm{ss}}=\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}=0.$$
(2)
Also, let us consider only stationary ensembles for $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$. Clearly, once the system has reached steady-state then such a stationary ensemble will represent the system for all times $`t`$. Now, if the ignorance interpretation were to hold for such an ensemble then it should be possible, in principle, for the experimenter to know which state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ pertains to the system at any particular time $`t`$. The pertinent index $`k`$ would change stochastically such that the proportion of time the system has state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ is $`\mathrm{}_k`$.

In this letter we show that for some ensembles this ignorance interpretation fails. That is, there is no way that an experimenter can know at all (long) times that the system has some ensemble state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$. We say that such ensembles are not physically realizable (PR). However, there are other stationary ensembles that are PR.

The existence, for a given system, of two non-empty classes of stationary ensembles, those that are PR and those that are not, constitutes a preferred ensemble fact (PE-fact). Note that this fact identifies a preferred class of ensembles (the PR ones), not a unique preferred ensemble. Also note that this fact does not contradict the argument against preferred ensembles in Ref. , because it is a fact about ensembles representing a stationary state for all times. As we will see, the PE-fact has surprising implications for some open quantum systems.

This letter is organized as follows. First we discuss the Hughston-Josza-Wootters theorem  and why it does not contradict the PE-fact. Then we give the necessary and sufficient conditions for an ensemble to be PR for a given system. For linear systems with uniform Gaussian ensembles we show these conditions reduce to a simple inequality. Next we establish the PE-fact for a particular system of interest: a model atom laser. Finally we discuss the implications of our results.

## II The HJW Theorem

We wish to consider a system with state matrix $`\widehat{\rho }`$ which is mixed solely due to its entanglement with a second system, the environment. That is, there is always a pure state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ in a larger Hilbert space of system plus environment such that

$$\widehat{\rho }=\mathrm{Tr}_{\mathrm{env}}\left[|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|\right].$$
(3)
Certainly it is always possible formally to find such a pure state . Also, if the environment is initially not pure then it can be then measured in its diagonal basis so as to make it conditionally pure without affecting its subsequent interaction with the system. Therefore we can assume the existence of $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ without loss of generality.

The Hughston-Jozsa-Wootters (HJW) theorem  says the following. For any ensemble $`\{(\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k,\mathrm{}_k)\}_k`$ that represents $`\widehat{\rho }`$, it is possible to measure the environment such that the system state is collapsed into one of the pure states $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ with probability $`\mathrm{}_k`$. That is, there exists a probability-operator measure $`\{\widehat{F}_k\}_k`$ acting on the environment Hilbert space such that

$$\mathrm{}_k\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k=\mathrm{Tr}_{\mathrm{env}}\left[\widehat{1}_{\mathrm{sys}}\widehat{F}_k^{1/2}|\mathrm{\Psi }\mathrm{\Psi }|\widehat{F}_k^{1/2}\widehat{1}_{\mathrm{sys}}\right].$$
(4)
The HJW theorem gives rigorous meaning to the ignorance interpretation of any particular ensemble. It says that there will be a way to perform a measurement on the environment, without on average disturbing the system state, to obtain exactly the information as to which state the system is “really” in. Of course the fact that one can do this for any ensemble means that no ensemble can be fundamentally preferred over any other one, as a representation of $`\widehat{\rho }`$ at some particular time $`t`$.

The HJW theorem does not contradict the preferred ensemble fact introduced above. This is because the PE-fact refers to the much stronger notion of representing the state of the system obeying a master equation, at steady state, by a stationary ensemble that applies at all times. This extra condition means that the HJW theorem does not apply, and not all ensembles are PR through measuring the environment of the system. We will now give the conditions for an ensemble to be PR.

## III Establishing the Preferred Ensemble Fact

Consider a system obeying the master equation $`\dot{\widehat{\rho }}=\widehat{\rho }`$ in the long-time limit so that it is described by the (assumed unique) stationary state $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$. Now say we wish to give an ignorance interpretation at all long times to a particular stationary ensemble $`\{(\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k,\mathrm{}_k)\}_k`$ satisfying

$$\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}=\underset{k}{}\mathrm{}_k\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k.$$
(5)
At a particular time $`t`$ this is always possible by the HJW theorem. That is, we can measure the environment to find out the pertinent state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$, and, on average, the system remains in state $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$. This may involve measuring parts of the environment that interacted with the system an arbitrarily long time ago, but there is nothing physically impossible in doing this.

Now consider the future evolution of the system state following this measurement. At time $`t+\tau `$, it will have evolved to $`\widehat{\rho }_k(t+\tau )=\mathrm{exp}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$. This is a mixed state because the system has now become re-entangled with its environment. The system state can be repurified by making another measurement on its environment. However, if the same ensemble is to remain as our representation of the system state then the pure system states obtained as a result of this measurement at time $`t+\tau `$ must be contained in $`\{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k\}_k`$. By the HJW theorem, this will possible if and only if $`\widehat{\rho }_k(t+\tau )`$ can be represented as a mixture of these states. That is, for all $`k`$ there must exist a probability measure $`\left\{w_{jk}(\tau )\right\}_j`$ such that

$$\mathrm{exp}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k=\underset{j}{}w_{jk}(\tau )\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j.$$
(6)
If $`w_{jk}(\tau )`$ exists then it is the probability that the measurement at time $`t+\tau `$ yields the state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j`$.

Equation (6) is necessary but not sufficient for the ensemble $`\{(\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j,\mathrm{}_j)\}_j`$ to be PR. We also require that the weights be stationary. That is, that for all $`j`$ and all $`\tau `$,

$$\mathrm{}_j=\underset{k}{}\mathrm{}_kw_{jk}(\tau ).$$
(7)
Multiplying both sides of Eq. (6) by $`\mathrm{}_k`$, and summing over $`k`$, then using Eq. (7) and Eq. (5) gives $`e^\tau \widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}=\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$, as required from the definition of $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$.

If the two conditions (6) and (7) are satisfied for some time $`\tau `$ then they will be satisfied for any multiple of $`\tau `$. Therefore it is sufficient to establish that they are satisfied for $`\tau =dt`$. (Here $`dt`$ is infinitesimal with respect to all relevant system time scales but strictly must be long compared to the environment correlation time; the master equation is not valid on any shorter time scale.) For a bounded Lindbladian superoperator $``$ and distinct states $`\{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k\}_k`$, if $`w_{jk}(dt)`$ exists then it is given by

$$w_{jk}(dt)=\delta _{kj}\delta _{kj}\underset{l}{}\gamma _{kl}dt+\gamma _{kj}dt$$
(8)
with $`\gamma _{kj}`$ finite. The coefficient $`\gamma _{kj}`$ may be interpreted as the rate for the system to jump from state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ to state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_j`$. That is, the quantum master equation is replaced by a classical master equation  for the occupation probabilities $`\left\{p_k\right\}_k`$ for the states $`\{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k\}_k`$ where $`p_j(t+dt)=_kp_k(t)w_{jk}(dt)`$, and so from Eq. (8)

$$\dot{p}_k=p_k\underset{j}{}\gamma _{kj}+\underset{j}{}\gamma _{kj}p_j.$$
(9)
The condition (7) is then equivalent to the condition that $`p_k=\mathrm{}_k`$ be the stationary solution of Eq. (9).

Any stationary scheme of continual rank-one measurements of the environment will produce stochastic dynamics of this sort in the steady state . The ignorance interpretation of the ensemble thus produced is then rigorously justified. The PE-fact follows if, for the given system, there exists at least one ensemble satisfying Eq. (5) for which there does not exist a probability measure $`\left\{w_{jk}(\tau )\right\}_j`$ satisfying conditions (6) and (7).

The replacement of a quantum master equation by a classical master equation where the classical index $`k`$ is associated with a quantum state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ is often used to provide an intuitive picture of irreversible quantum dynamics. A canonical example is Einstein’s description  of an atom driven by a thermal field in terms of jumps from ground to excited states (absorption) and from excited states to ground (emission). Of course Einstein did not know the more general description in terms of the quantum master equation, but it is easy to verify that the the ensemble consisting of atomic energy eigenstates is a PR ensemble. Specifically, to realize this ensemble one must continually measure the environment in the photon number basis.

## IV Linear Dynamics and Uniform Gaussian Ensembles

The description given above applies most naturally to ensembles with a discrete set of states $`\{\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k\}_k`$. In many cases we wish to consider a continuum of states. In these cases it is convenient to take a limit in which the jump process described by rates $`\gamma _{kj}`$ is replaced by a diffusion process. We restrict ourselves to systems with linear dynamics, and uniform Gaussian ensembles. These terms (defined below) only apply to quantum systems whose state $`\widehat{\rho }`$ can be represented by a Wigner function  on $`2n`$-dimensional Euclidean phase space:

$$W(\stackrel{}{z})=\mathrm{Tr}\left[\widehat{\rho }S\underset{m=1}{\overset{2n}{}}\frac{d\xi _m}{2\pi }\mathrm{exp}\left[i\xi _m(z_m\widehat{z}_m)\right]\right].$$
(10)
Here $`S`$ denotes ordering symmetric in the operators

$$(\widehat{z}_1,\mathrm{}\widehat{z}_{2n})=(\widehat{x}_1,\widehat{p}_1,\widehat{x}_2,\widehat{p}_2,\mathrm{},\widehat{x}_n,\widehat{p}_n),$$
(11)
where the co-ordinates $`\left\{\widehat{x}_n\right\}_n`$ and momenta $`\left\{\widehat{p}_n\right\}_n`$ each form a mutually commuting set of operators with the reals as eigenvalues, but (with $`\mathrm{}=2`$) $`[\widehat{x}_n,\widehat{p}_n^{}]=2i\delta _{n,n^{}}`$.

Such a system has linear dynamics if and only if (for a suitable choice of co-ordinates and momenta) its Wigner function obeys an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck equation

$$\dot{W}(\stackrel{}{z})=\left(\stackrel{}{}^T𝐊\stackrel{}{z}+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{}^T𝐃\stackrel{}{}\right)W(\stackrel{}{z}).$$
(12)
Here $`_m=/z_m`$, $`𝐊`$ is a constant matrix, and $`𝐃`$ is a constant matrix that is symmetric and positive semidefinite. For simplicity we will assume that the eigenvalues of $`𝐊`$ have positive real parts, so that the system has a stationary state

$$W_{\mathrm{ss}}(\stackrel{}{z})=G(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{0},𝐕_{\mathrm{ss}}),$$
(13)
where $`𝐕_{\mathrm{ss}}`$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{𝐊𝐕}_{\mathrm{ss}}+𝐕_{\mathrm{ss}}𝐊^T=𝐃.$$
(14)
Here we are using the notation that $`G(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu },𝐕)`$ is a multivariate Gaussian in $`\stackrel{}{z}`$ parameterized by the mean vector $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ and the covariance matrix $`𝐕`$ .

A uniform Gaussian ensemble of pure states $`\{(\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k,\mathrm{}_k)\}_k`$ comprises states $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Pi }}_k`$ that have Wigner functions $`W_k(\stackrel{}{z})`$ that are Gaussians

$$W_k(\stackrel{}{z})W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu }_k)=G(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu }_k,𝐕)$$
(15)
with mean determined by $`k`$ but variance independent of $`k`$. That is, the states all have the same “shape”, but have different displacements in $`2n`$-dimensional phase space. Since the ensemble represents $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$ we have (converting from the discrete $`k`$ to the continuum variable $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$)

$$W_{\mathrm{ss}}(\stackrel{}{z})=𝑑\mu _1\mathrm{}𝑑\mu _{2n}\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{\mu })W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu }).$$
(16)
Since $`W_{\mathrm{ss}}(\stackrel{}{z})`$ and $`W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu })`$ are Gaussians, $`\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{\mu })`$ is also:

$$\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{\mu })=G(\stackrel{}{\mu };\stackrel{}{0},𝐕_{\mathrm{ss}}𝐕).$$
(17)
Now consider the conditions for the uniform Gaussian ensemble to be PR, starting with Eq. (6). From Eq. (12), if the system begins with Wigner function $`W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu })`$ then after an infinitesimal time $`dt`$ its Wigner function will be

$$G(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu }𝐊\stackrel{}{\mu }dt,𝐕+𝐃dt\mathrm{𝐊𝐕}dt\mathrm{𝐕𝐊}^Tdt).$$
(18)
This can be written as a mixture of the ensemble states

$$𝑑\stackrel{}{\mu }^{}w(\stackrel{}{\mu }^{};\stackrel{}{\mu };dt)W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu })$$
(19)
if and only if the transition probability density is

$$w(\stackrel{}{\mu }^{};\stackrel{}{\mu };dt)=G(\stackrel{}{\mu }^{};\stackrel{}{\mu }𝐊\stackrel{}{\mu }dt,𝐃dt\mathrm{𝐊𝐕}dt\mathrm{𝐕𝐊}^Tdt).$$
(20)
Since the ensemble is specified completely by $`𝐕`$, Eq. (6) turns into the condition on V that

$$𝐁_𝐕𝐃\mathrm{𝐊𝐕}\mathrm{𝐕𝐊}^T0.$$
(21)
An equivalent condition has been considered by Diósi and Kiefer  in a related context, but they did not make the connection with physical realizability and measurements.

Equation (20) implies that the quantum master equation in the Wigner representation (12) is equivalent to a stochastic process for the mean displacements $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ of the uniform Gaussian states with Wigner functions $`W(\stackrel{}{z};\stackrel{}{\mu })`$. The probability distribution for $`\stackrel{}{\mu }`$ is governed by

$$\dot{p}(\stackrel{}{\mu })=\left(\stackrel{}{}^T𝐊\stackrel{}{\mu }+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{}{}^T𝐁_𝐕\stackrel{}{}\right)p(\stackrel{}{\mu }),$$
(22)
where here $`_m=/\mu _m`$. This is analogous to Eq. (9).

To establish that condition (7) is also satisfied we thus have to show that the stationary solution of Eq. (22) is $`p(\stackrel{}{\mu })=\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{\mu })`$. From Eq. (22) we get

$$p_{\mathrm{ss}}(\stackrel{}{\mu })=G(\stackrel{}{\mu };\stackrel{}{0},𝐔),$$
(23)
where $`𝐔`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{𝐊𝐔}+\mathrm{𝐔𝐊}^T=𝐁_𝐕`$. Now using Eqs. (14) and (21) we obtain

$$𝐔=𝐕_{\mathrm{ss}}𝐕.$$
(24)
From Eq. (17) it follows that $`p_{\mathrm{ss}}(\stackrel{}{\mu })=\mathrm{}(\stackrel{}{\mu })`$ as desired.

## V Example: The Atom Laser

We now apply the above formalism to the problem of an atom laser. We consider only a CW atom laser (which has not yet been realized), which would consist of a continuously damped and replenished Bose-Einstein condensate. The damping at rate $`\kappa `$ would produce a continuous beam of coherent atoms . The simplest quantum model for such a device uses a single mode description of the condensate, with annihilation operator $`\widehat{a}=(\widehat{x}+i\widehat{p})/2`$. Assuming a Poissonian pump with rate $`\kappa \mu `$, the stationary state of the laser is

$$\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}=\frac{d\varphi }{2\pi }|\sqrt{\mu }e^{i\varphi }\sqrt{\mu }e^{i\varphi }|=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^\mu \frac{\mu ^n}{n!}|nn|,$$
(25)
Here $`|\sqrt{\mu }e^{i\varphi }`$ is a coherent state (eigenstate of $`\widehat{a}`$) .

Equation (25) shows two of the infinitude of different ensemble representations of $`\widehat{\rho }_{\mathrm{ss}}`$. The number state ensemble $`\left\{|n\right\}_n`$ is clearly PR by making continual measurements of the environment in the atom number basis. On the other hand, to determine the status of the coherent state ensemble $`\left\{|\sqrt{\mu }e^{i\varphi }\right\}_\varphi `$, it is necessary to examine the dynamics of the atom laser.

The simplest reasonable model for an atom laser comes from taking the standard ideal optical laser model  and adding the interaction between condensate atoms , governed by the Hamiltonian $`(\mathrm{}\kappa /4\mu )\chi \widehat{a}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\widehat{a}_{}^{2}`$, with

$$\chi =\frac{8\pi \mu \mathrm{}a_s}{\kappa m}d^3𝐫|\psi (𝐫)|^4.$$
(26)
Here $`\psi (𝐫)`$ is the wavefunction for the condensate mode, and $`a_s`$ is the $`s`$-wave scattering length. This nonlinear Hamiltonian is difficult to treat exactly, so we linearize the Lindbladian evolution about a mean field $`\widehat{a}=\sqrt{\mu }`$ (as appropriate for considering the physical realizability of the coherent state). We have shown elsewhere  that this results in linear quantum dynamics for the Wigner function $`W(x,p)`$ as in Eq. (12) with

$$𝐊=\kappa \left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ \chi & 0\end{array}\right);𝐃=\kappa \left(\begin{array}{cc}2& 0\\ 0& 2+\nu \end{array}\right).$$
(27)
Here $`x`$ and $`p`$ represent amplitude and phase fluctuations respectively, and $`\nu 0`$ is the excess phase diffusion.

To check if the coherent state ensemble is PR we simply need to check the condition (21). We find

$$𝐕=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& 0\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right)𝐁_𝐕=\kappa \left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \chi \\ \chi & 2+\nu \end{array}\right).$$
(28)
The matrix $`𝐁_𝐕`$ is positive semidefinite only for $`\chi =0`$. That is, the coherent state ensemble is not PR for any finite atomic interaction energy.

## VI Discussion

In this letter we have introduced the necessary and sufficient conditions for an ensemble of pure states to be physically realizable (PR) as a stationary description of a Markovian system in the long-time limit. Here physically realizable means that, by measuring the environment of the system, an experimenter could collapse the system state into a stochastically evolving pure state, such that the proportion of time it is in a particular pure state is equal to the weight of that pure state in the ensemble. For uniform Gaussian ensembles for systems with linear dynamics we derive a simple inequality to distinguish PR ensembles from non-PR ensembles. The existence in general of these non-empty classes of ensembles constitutes the preferred ensemble fact.

To illustrate this fact, we have shown that in a simple model for an atom laser, the number state ensemble is preferred over the coherent state ensemble because only the former is PR. This is due to the presence of atomic interactions, described by a Hamiltonian proportional to the $`a^{}{}_{}{}^{2}a_{}^{2}`$. We proved this using a linearized analysis which included the loss and gain processes. However, the result is perhaps not surprising since it is well known in quantum optics that this Hamiltonian will turn a coherent state into a squeezed state , which cannot be described by mixture of coherent states.

This result is interesting because the ignorance interpretation of the coherent state representation (“the laser is really in a coherent state, I just haven’t been bothered to find out which one it is”) is very commonly adopted in quantum optics (see Ref.  for a discussion). Although it is tenable in principle for most optical lasers where $`\chi 1`$, it is not tenable for atom lasers where we expect $`\chi 1`$ . So although atom lasers may give a coherent output, the condensate cannot be meaningfully considered to be in a coherent state. The relation between output coherence, and the physical realizability of states of the condensate, will be explored elsewhere.

HMW gratefully acknowledges conversations with T. Rudolph and R. Spekkens.


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# Quasar clustering redshift distortion constraints on dark energy

## 1. Introduction

Following Alcock & Paczyński’s (1979) and Phillipps’ (1994) lead, we extended Popowski et al. (1998) investigation as follows: (1) We performed Monte Carlo simulations to obtain the probability density function and corresponding confidence contours in the parametric plane $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0},\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0})`$, comparing them to other tests; (2) We included a general dark energy component with constant equation of state parameter $`w`$, obtaining, for flat models, the confidence contours in the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0},w)`$ plane; (3) We explicitly took into account the effect of large-scale coherent peculiar velocities (Hamilton 1992; Matsubara & Suto 1996). Our calculations are based on the measured 2QZ distribution function and we consider best fit values for the amplitude and exponent of the correlation function as obtained by Croom et al. (2001).

## 2. Results

Our results are summarized in Fig. 1, where the scattered points represent the maximum likelihood estimates from our simulations and the solid black dots the “true” starting models. The left panel displays typical $`1\sigma `$ confidence contours for a SNAP simulation (dashed line; Goliath et al. 2001) and for the Supernova Cosmology Project (dotted line; Perlmutter et al. 1999), besides our corresponding contour (solid line), all for typical cosmological constant ($`w=1`$) models. The right panel displays two sets of confidence contours, all for typical flat models: the upper ones correspond to $`95\%`$ level for our simulations (solid line) and for DEEP (dotted; Newman & Davis 2000); the lower ones correspond to $`1\sigma `$ level for our simulations (solid lines) and for SNAP (dashed)

## 3. Discussion and conclusion

Fig. 1 shows that the test is quite sensitive (when $`w=1`$) to the difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }:=\mathrm{\Omega }_{m0}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }0}`$; also, for flat models, the constraints are similar to those from SNAP and somewhat better than the ones from DEEP. We have also run simulations where the “true” model takes into account the linear kinematical redshift distortion and the simulated ones do not; it then turns out that the “true” model is not reliably recovered (at $`2\sigma `$ level), demonstrating the importance of taking this effect explicitly into account. In contrast, for different bias functions for the “true” and the simulated models, we were able to faithfully recover $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

We conclude by stressing that this sort of Alcock-Paczyński test is very promising and referring the reader to a more detailed version of this work (Calvão, de Mello Neto & Waga 2001).

## References

Alcock, C. & Paczyński, B. 1979, Nature 281, 358.

Phillipps, S. 1994, MNRAS 269, 1077.

Calvão, M. O., J. R. T. de Mello Neto & Waga, I. 2001, astro-ph/0107029.

Croom, S. M. et al. 2001, MNRAS, in press.

Goliath, M. et al. 2001, astro-ph/0104009.

Hamilton, A. J. S. 1992, ApJ 385, L5.

Matsubara, T. & Suto, Y. 1996, ApJ 518, 24.

Newman, J. F. & Davis, M. 2000, ApJ 534, L11.

Perlmutter, S. et al. 1999, ApJ 517, 565.

Popowski, P. A., Weinberg, D. H., Ryden, B. S. & Osmer, P.S. 1998, ApJ 498, 11.


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# Physics of vacuum at ITEP and around

## Abstract

Recollections about a few episodes from the history of physics of vacuum, connected with the names of Pomeranchuk, Landau, Zeldovich, Sakharov and Kirzhnits. The text of the talk will be published in the Proceedings of the International Conference “From the Smallest to the Largest Distances”, Tribute to Jean Tran-Thanh-Van, May 24-26, 2001 (“Surveys in High Energy Physics”, Taylor and Francis, 2002, v.16, No.3).

The people about whom I will speak – Pomeranchuk, Landau, Zeldovich, Sakharov, Kirzhnits – all of them have passed away. I will also speak about their disciples. I will stress the importance of international exchange of ideas, the crucial role of experiments on P and CP violation, the interconnection of particle physics and cosmology.

These three themes are central for my friend Jean Tran-Thanh-Van whose outstanding contribution to physics we are celebrating. They are also central for ITEP with its unique atmosphere. The walls around us have seen the people about whom I will speak and heard their voices.

Lack of time does not allow me to touch upon other important subjects connected with vacuum. They are partly reflected in the text of my talk “Spacetime and Vacuum as seen from Moscow” which has about 90 references (see “2001: A Spacetime Odyssey”, Proceedings of the Inaugural Conference of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 21-25 May 2001, M.J. Duff and J.T. Liu eds., World Scientific, Singapore, 2002; hep-ph/0112031).

\***

When I became a student of Pomeranchuk in 1950 I heard from him a kind of a joke that the Book of Physics has two volumes: v.1. is “Pumps and Manometers”, v. 2. “Quantum Field Theory”. Also I heard a statement that vacuum is filled with most profound physical content, which for me was absolutely unclear at that time and a little bit more clear now. In the middle of the 1950’s Pomeranchuk formulated his famous theorem about the equality of cross-sections of particles and antiparticles on a given target. In the framework of Regge theory this equality is determined by exchange of a Regge pole with vacuum quantum numbers. This pole was called later on pomeranchukon or pomeron.

In 1956 Pomeranchuk encouraged a group of young people at ITEP to study the paper of T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang on parity non-conservation and to think about it. As a result we (Boris Ioffe, Alexei Rudik and myself) came to the conclusion that the effects predicted by Lee and Yang would mean not only violation of parity, but also violation of charge conjugation invariance between particles and antiparticles. Somewhat later the same result was obtained by Lee, Oehme and Yang.

\***

We discussed our paper with Lev Landau who usually visited ITEP on Wednesdays, while we visited his Institute of Physical Problems on Thursdays. This was a tradition. Landau was extremely skeptical about the possibility of parity violation. That was during the whole year 1956. The reason for him to be skeptical was that he thought that if parity is violated that would have an imprint on vacuum, because whilst vacuum influences particles, the particles influence vacuum. Hence there should be some asymmetry in vacuum, and the main idea of Landau was that vacuum should be completely symmetric. Therefore he resisted all these attempts, though in 1950 he wrote a paper with Ginzburg on superconductivity in which the notion of spontaneous symmetry breaking was brought into condensed matter physics and a phenomenon, which was later discovered in field theory and is called now Higgs mechanism, was suggested. So, for him it would be quite natural to assume that there is a spontaneous symmetry breaking in vacuum. But that’s the life, it is not always logical. Thus the fact is that Landau resisted a vacuum which is not symmetric.

Suddenly, just overnight, he came with an idea that parity could be violated, but it should be violated in such a way that particles and antiparticles contribute with opposite sign to the vacuum. And for that there should exist a CP-symmetry: C for charge conjugation and P for parity mirror reflection. In that way vacuum would be still symmetric and the whole sin of parity violation will be with particles, not with vacuum. There will exist left-handed neutrino and right-handed antineutrino, but there would be no left-handed antineutrinos or right-handed neutrinos. That was his idea.

The idea that CP is an absolute symmetry was widely accepted, it was beautiful. Personally I was extremely impressed by this solution. However I couldn’t understand what’s wrong if I write a Lagrangian and put in some places of the Lagrangian some coefficients which are not real but complex, thus introducing corresponding to CP-violation. Therefore I insisted that experiments should be done looking for CP-violating processes. One of them was proposed by Okubo with sigma and antisigma hyperons.

Another one was $`K_L\pi ^+\pi ^{}`$ an obvious candidate. The search for this decay was undertaken in Dubna in the early 1960s in a bubble chamber. They had about 600 3-body decays of $`K_L^0`$ and they looked for 2-body decays which was quite easy to discriminate because of missing momentum in the 3-body decays. It’s either neutral pion in $`\pi ^+\pi ^{}\pi ^0`$ or neutrino in semileptonic decays. And there would be just 2 charged pions going back to back in the 2-pion decay. They collected 600 decays and there was not a single 2-body decay. Then the Director of the Lab. stopped this experiment as having no prospect, just waste of time.

If you look into the Particle data booklet, you will find that each 350 3-body decays of $`K_L`$ are accompanied by one 2-body decay of $`K_L`$. Thus by collecting 600 events if they were lucky or if the Director were more patient, they would discover CP-violation. But they were unlucky: the discovery came only two years later and it was done by Fitch, Cronin, Turlay and Christensen.

\***

Thus, the absolute CP-conservation was disproved.

However the idea of Landau that vacuum must be symmetric pushed Pomeranchuk, Kobzarev and myself to consider a possibility according to which to each of our particles corresponds another particle with exactly the same properties – same mass, spin, charge – everything. And the difference would be only in the phase of CP-violation for these particles. So, what we postulated is the existence of two terms of Lagrangian. One term is the known particles, the other term is these mirror particles, mirror in the CP sense.

As all interactions between the mirror particles are exactly the same as between our particles, there should be mirror atoms, mirror molecules, mirror condensed matter, mirror stars and even mirror life. And all this would be unobservable, because there was no interaction of the electromagnetic, weak, or strong type which would connect these two worlds. The only interaction which connected them (we were forced to this conclusion) was gravitational one. Because if there were separate gravitons in the two worlds, then it would be not a scientific assumption. It’s just a matter of faith, but not of science. It couldn’t be scientifically proved or disproved.

There were many papers and they still appear now. But I am not especially enthusiastic about it for many years, because it seems to me there are other better ideas: namely, to accept the asymmetry of vacuum and not to insist on the symmetry of it.

\***

My next subject is connected with cosmological term. All of you know that cosmological term was introduced by Einstein in 1916 and that later he considered it as a blunder and there were a lot of discussions whether it should be or should not be. You certainly heard about them.

It is paradoxical, but it took many years before the first paper appeared in which it was proven that it should be (not in a mathematical way, but in physical, by Yakov Zeldovich). If you have quantum mechanics, then there must be in the framework of general relativity a cosmological term due to virtual particles. In other words, due to zero state quantum oscillations.

Zeldovich was the first who published estimates of the cosmological term. His first estimate was that it must be more than 120 orders of magnitude larger than the upper limit on it. Then he tried to invent various expressions which would contain not $`m_{Pl}^4`$, but somehow to get $`m_{Pl}`$ in denominator to make it proportional to the gravitational coupling constant.

Moreover Zeldovich was the first to notice and to publish in 1968 the observation that the contribution of bosons and fermions to the cosmological term are of opposite sign, and therefore in principle if there is boson-fermion symmetry, they would cancel each other. If the symmetry is broken then they would cancel partly.

This was a few years before the time when Yuri Golfand and Evgeny Likhtman suggested that there exists supersymmetry. In 1968 nobody spoke about symmetry between fermions and bosons.

\***

Here I would like to make a digression and to tell you about another piece of work done in an office which is adjacent to my office at ITEP.

There in 1965 Mikhail Terentyev discovered together with Vladimir Vanyashin (Vanyashin is a physicist from Ukrain who still comes from time to time to ITEP, while Terentyev died a few years ago at the age of 60) that, unlike in quantum electrodynamics, in nonabelian theories vacuum polarization has a negative sign. This result has been derived again by Iosif Khriplovich in 1969. There is so called ghost in the gauge theories. If you draw Feynman diagrams, you cannot limit yourself with propagators of usual particles only. You have to add propagators of ghosts which were introduced by Fadeev and Popov in 1966. In 1965 they were not known to Vanyashin and Terentyev. Therefore their result was not 22 in nominator, but 21.

This mistake was corrected by Khriplovich, who again not using the ghost but using the so-called Coulomb gauge derived the correct result. But neither they, nor the people around them realized what a great discovery was made by these people. Personally I didn’t understand and my colleagues didn’t understand, and nobody understood at that time. The discovery became clear after Gell-Mann introduced the notion of color, after QCD was formulated and after Gross, Wilczek and Politzer coined the term “asymptotic freedom”: this negative sign in nonabelian gauge theories leads to decrease of $`\alpha `$, of the square of charge, to zero at large momentum transfers. I have to admit that we were not attentive enough to what was going on at that time in 1969 at SLAC, to deep inelastic scattering, to partons.

\***

Another important contribution which was made at ITEP is the so-called QCD sum rules, sometimes called ITEP sum rules. They were written by Mikhail Shifman, Arkady Vainshtein and Valentin Zakharov in the late 1970s. They exploited the fact that the gauge coupling constant $`\alpha `$ not only decreases at short distances, but also increases at large distances. And as a result at large distances (large means $`10^{13}`$ cm) the strong interaction becomes really strong and nonperturbative. One cannot apply perturbation theory to it. They managed to write QCD sum rules in which vacuum expectation values of gluonic fields and quark fields were introduced. There are now, I believe, a few thousand papers which develop this theoretical discovery.

\***

Sakharov didn’t work at ITEP, he was at Lebedev Institute. And from Lebedev Institute he went to a secret city Arzamas-16 (now it is called Sarov) where he became “the father of the Russian hydrogen bomb”. Then he returned back to Moscow in the 60s, just after the discovery of CP-violation. He was practically uneducated in particle physics, and it was astonishing to see how fast he went to the heart of the subject.

I already mentioned that the decays of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ hyperons and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ hyperons are different when CP is violated. Sakharov used this difference as a prototype. What is the characteristic for these decays? That strangeness is violated: $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ hyperons are strange while the products of their decay (protons and pions) are nonstrange. Sakharov went from weak interactions with strangeness violation directly to the idea of baryon number violation and from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ decays to the Universe. He used a similar mechanism for the early Universe in order to explain why we are built from particles and not antiparticles. Or, better to say, why there is not an equal amount of particles and antiparticles in our world. In the latter case we would not exist at all, because particles and antiparticles would annihilate and there would be nothing to build our matter from. Protons and antiprotons, electrons and positrons would annihilate, and there will be a world full of neutrinos and photons.

Thus, he started with hot symmetric Universe, big bang Universe. And he explained how could it be that from this symmetric Universe in which the number of particles and antiparticles were equal, our world appeared. His idea was that this occurred due to CP-violation, to baryon number nonconservation and to non-equilibrium state in which this primordial soup was cooling due to the expansion of the Universe. Because of these three reasons there appeared a tiny excess of baryons compared to antibaryons. This tiny excess survived because there were baryons to which there was no match to annihilate with. While the majority ((majority means a billion of baryons and antibaryons) would annihilate, one baryon would stay alone and survive. And that’s how he explained our existence.

I believe, this paper, only a few pages, is one of the most daring papers of the last century.

The idea of baryon number nonconservation was necessary for Sakharov, but it was not provided by the theory which existed at that time. Later on a number of mechanisms were theoretically discovered which lead to baryon number nonconservation. At present there are several mechanisms, how to violate baryon number conservation. But unfortunately they create new problems because through them the asymmetry which could be produced at the early stages of the Universe could be destroyed at the late stages.

\***

The name Sakharov is quite famous and the name Kirzhnits is not so famous. David Kirzhnits was a colleague of Sakharov also at Lebedev Institute. I remember how in 1972 he told me (we were at the Conference in Tashkent) about his idea of phase transitions in vacuum. That was absolutely new to me. I could understand face transition in some material medium, but not in vacuum. At that time the gauge symmetry $`SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)`$ broken by Higgs mechanism was already known. And the idea of Kirzhnits was that if we go backward in time, then at the stage of hot Universe, at very high temperatures, the symmetry would be restored and all massive particles would become massless. There would be no Higgs vacuum expectation value in vacuum. This idea was further developed later on by Kirzhnits and his student Andrei Linde.

A few years later Igor Kobzarev, Yakov Zeldovich and myself used this idea of phase transitions when considering a model of CP-violation proposed by T.D. Lee. In this model CP is spontaneously broken. The Lagrangian is CP-invariant. However, its potential has two minima: at one of them a neutral pseudoscalar field $`\varphi `$ has a classical solution $`\varphi =+\varphi _0`$ while another one $`\varphi _0`$. This expectation values lead to CP-violation with the sign of CP-violation being different in these two minima. Thus, if the Universe chooses the first minimum, when it cools down, the phase would be plus in all CP-violating effects; if it chooses the second minimum, the phase would be minus. But various parts of the Universe at early stages are not casually connected, they cannot “talk” to each other. Therefore, each point has to choose its sign for himself (or itself, herself \- I don’t know). As a result you get a kind of a chessboard: you have regions with plus sign and regions with minus sign. More precisely it looks like a continent in which there are sees and there are islands in the sees and there are lakes on the islands and islands in the lakes and so on. All these different vacuum domains are separated by walls. It’s very easy to understand: if you have in one point the first vacuum and in another point the second one, you will get large potential energy between them. If the border region is thick enough, you will have a lot of energy in the border. If you try to squeeze this border, you will find that you cannot squeeze it too much due to uncertainty principle. You end up with an absolutely new kind of a solution in field theory.

We are used to consider field theory in terms of particles, microscopic objects. These borders, these walls, how we called them, were even not macroscopic objects, they were megascopic objects, they were huge. We considered the cosmology of Universe filled with such walls and the cosmology turned out to be very unusual: the expansion of the Universe was much faster than in the Friedmann model: the wall which is the closest to us had to go far behind the horizon. But it could manifest itself by perturbing the black body radiation. We don’t seat in the center of our domain, there is no reason for us to be at the center, we are ordinary people. Therefore we are closer to one of the walls and then there must be an asymmetry of black body radiation. But there is no such symmetry in Nature.

The domain wall was the first megascopic solution in quantum field theory. Soon afterwards other solutions appeared. A.Polyakov and G.’t Hooft discovered monopoles in SU(2), T.W.B.Kibble discovered strings, not microscopic strings, not superstrings, but cosmological strings which go through the whole Universe. And there is a whole theoretical industry of such solutions.

\***

In 1974 T.D.Lee and G.C.Wick considered another model in which the potential of the field $`\varphi `$ was slightly asymmetric. Therefore one of the two minima was lower and stable, while the other one was higher and metastable. If the Universe were in higher place, it could tunnel to lower place.

What does it mean: the Universe can tunnel? Assume that at a given place you have the upper vacuum; then you will gain energy, if you go at that place to the lower vacuum. Thus, at first sight a simple question arises: Why not to go to a lower vacuum here and now? The answer is that between two vacua there is a wall which I’ve already described before: a material wall, very heavy, very dense. You need energy to create it. Therefore there exists a critical radius $`R_c`$ at which the gain in energy in volume of a bubble is becoming larger than the loss of energy used for creation of the surface of the bubble.

It was a very frightening experience which I had when I first thought about these bubbles. I thought about the possibility that at some collider the collision of two particles would enhance the probability of creating such a microbubble. And if a bubble of critical dimension is produced, then it can expand infinitely, because the volume energy goes like $`r^3`$ and the surface energy – like $`r^2`$. Thus, for large $`r`$ volume will predominate. And very soon the wall of the bubble would move with a velocity of light, and the bubble would expand and destroy the whole world. I really shivered when I thought about this. But then I somehow relaxed by thinking about the past: that Universe was hot, there was a lot of various collisions in it. Therefore if bubbles could be produced by collisions, then they already were produced and we are living in a true vacuum now.

A few months later I told Andrei Sakharov about these bubbles. I vividly remember his reaction. He said: “Such theoretical work should be forbidden. It’s too dangerous”. I tried to persuade him with arguments about past of the Universe and all that. And he said: “Nobody had collided two lead nuclei in the Universe”. I took this quite seriously.

But in 1984 a paper by P. Hut appeared, who considered the same problem. Our conversation was in 1974 and 10 years later this paper appeared. Hut had estimated a number of uranium-uranium collisions in the Universe during all these billions of years of its existence. Then other people estimated. They found (this was done when RHIC at Brookhaven started to be discussed) that during the existence of Universe there were enough lead-lead, iron-iron, uranium-uranium and even gold-gold collisions. There were about $`10^{47}`$ iron-iron collisions, while RHIC would produce at most $`10^{12}`$ through its lifetime. Thus, we are 30 orders of magnitude safe.

I would like to conclude by saying that there was an enormous progress during last 50 years in the understanding of physics in general and physics of vacuum in particular. As a result of this progress important problems have been solved, but the number of unsolved problems facing us has increased immensely. I hope that there will be even greater progress in the next 50 years.

Thank you.


text:
# Comparing fragmentation of strange quark in 𝒁^𝟎 decays and 𝑲⁺𝒑 reactions

## Acknowledgements

It is a great pleasure to thank my colleagues in the Mirabelle, BEBC and DELPHI experiments with whom many results considered in this paper were obtained and discussed.


text:
# QUANTUM SPIN CHAINS WITH REGULARLY ALTERNATING BONDS AND FIELDS

## Abstract

We consider the spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ chain in a transverse field with regularly varying exchange interactions and on-site fields. In two limiting cases of the isotropic ($`XX`$) and extremely anisotropic (Ising) exchange interaction the thermodynamic quantities are calculated rigorously with the help of continued fractions. We discuss peculiarities of the low-temperature magnetic properties and a possibility of the spin-Peierls instability.

PACS numbers: 75.10.-b

Keywords: $`XX`$ chain, Ising chain in a transverse field, regularly alternating spin chain

It is generally known that there are a number of one-dimensional spin models for which in the translationally invariant (uniform) case an exact calculation of the thermodynamic quantities is possible. To this class belong the spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ models proposed by Lieb, Schultz and Mattis . At present there are relatively large number of magnetic and ferroelectric compounds which may be described by these models. On the other hand, due to the progress in material sciences a study of the properties of quantum spin chains with regularly varying parameters (e.g., exchange interactions or on-site fields) attracts much interest during last years. As an example one may mention the layered materials with the well-pronounced one-dimensional character in their properties known as superlattices, which can be viewed as chains with regularly varying exchange interactions (see, e.g., ). In what follows we show how the thermodynamic properties of the regularly alternating one-dimensional spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ model in a transverse field can be examined rigorously in two limiting cases of the isotropic exchange interaction (transverse $`XX`$ chain) and of the extremely anisotropic exchange interaction (transverse Ising chain). We discuss briefly the effects of regular alternation on the magnetic properties of the chains at zero temperature. We also comment on a possibility of the spin-Peierls instability in the considered chains.

We consider a ring of $`N\mathrm{}`$ spins $`\frac{1}{2}`$ described by the Hamiltonian

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\mathrm{\Omega }_ns_n^z+2{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\left(I_n^xs_n^xs_{n+1}^x+I_n^ys_n^ys_{n+1}^y\right)`$ (1)
concentrating on two limiting cases 1) of the isotropic exchange interaction $`I_n^x=I_n^y=I_n`$ (transverse $`XX`$ chain) and 2) of the extremely anisotropic exchange interaction $`I_n^x=I_n`$, $`I_n^y=0`$ (transverse Ising chain). We assume that the exchange interactions $`I_n`$ and the on-site (transverse) fields $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ vary regularly along the chain with period $`p`$ ($`N`$ is a multiple of $`p`$), i.e., $`I_1\mathrm{\Omega }_1I_2\mathrm{\Omega }_2\mathrm{}I_p\mathrm{\Omega }_pI_1\mathrm{\Omega }_1I_2\mathrm{\Omega }_2\mathrm{}I_p\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{}`$. To calculate the thermodynamic quantities of the spin model we map it onto a system of spinless (Jordan-Wigner) fermions with the Hamiltonian

$`H={\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\mathrm{\Omega }_n\left(c_n^+c_n{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \underset{n}{}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{I_n^x+I_n^y}{2}}\left(c_n^+c_{n+1}c_nc_{n+1}^+\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{I_n^xI_n^y}{2}}\left(c_n^+c_{n+1}^+c_nc_{n+1}\right)\right).`$ (2)
The Hamiltonian (2) can be brought into the diagonal form $`H=_k\mathrm{\Lambda }_k\left(\eta _k^+\eta _k\frac{1}{2}\right)`$ where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_k`$ is the elementary excitation energy and $`\eta _k^+`$, $`\eta _k`$ are Fermi operators. Obviously, the diagonalization of the Hamiltonian for $`p>1`$ becomes not trivial.

To find the thermodynamic quantities of the spin model it is sufficient to know either $`\rho (E)=\frac{1}{N}_k\delta (E\mathrm{\Lambda }_k)`$ or $`R(E^2)=\frac{1}{N}_k\delta (E^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_k^2)`$ since the Helmholtz free energy per site can be written as follows

$`f={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\beta }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}E\rho (E)\mathrm{ln}\left(2\mathrm{cosh}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{2}{\beta }}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}\text{d}EER(E^2)\mathrm{ln}\left(2\mathrm{cosh}{\displaystyle \frac{\beta E}{2}}\right).`$ (3)
Consider first the transverse $`XX`$ chain. We introduce the one-fermion Green functions $`G_{nm}=G_{nm}(E)`$ which satisfy the set of equations

$`(E\mathrm{\Omega }_n)G_{nm}I_{n1}G_{n1,m}I_nG_{n+1,m}=\delta _{nm}`$ (4)
and yield the required density of states $`\rho (E)=\frac{1}{\pi N}_n\text{Im}G_{nn}^{}`$, $`G_{nm}^{}=G_{nm}(E\pm \text{i}ϵ)`$, $`ϵ+0`$. One immediately notes that the continued fraction representation for the diagonal Green functions which follows from (4)

$`G_{nn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{E\mathrm{\Omega }_n\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+}},`$ (5)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}={\displaystyle \frac{I_{n1}^2}{E\mathrm{\Omega }_{n1}\frac{I_{n2}^2}{E\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}_{\mathrm{}}}}},\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+={\displaystyle \frac{I_n^2}{E\mathrm{\Omega }_{n+1}\frac{I_{n+1}^2}{E\mathrm{\Omega }_{n+2}_{\mathrm{}}}}}`$
is extremely useful in the case of regularly varying parameters $`I_n`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ since $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+`$ in (5) become periodic and can be evaluated exactly by solving quadratic equations.

We cannot proceed in the described manner for the transverse Ising chain because of terms $`c_n^+c_{n+1}^+`$, $`c_nc_{n+1}`$ in (2). However, from  we know that to find the (real) coefficients $`g_{kn}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_{kn}+\mathrm{\Psi }_{kn}\right)`$, $`h_{kn}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\mathrm{\Phi }_{kn}\mathrm{\Psi }_{kn}\right)`$ of the canonical transformation $`\eta _k=_n\left(g_{kn}c_n+h_{kn}c_n^+\right)`$ which diagonalizes the Hamiltonian (2) one should solve the set of equations

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n1}I_{n1}\mathrm{\Phi }_{k,n1}+\left(\mathrm{\Omega }_n^2+I_{n1}^2\mathrm{\Lambda }_k^2\right)\mathrm{\Phi }_{kn}+\mathrm{\Omega }_nI_n\mathrm{\Phi }_{k,n+1}=0`$ (6)
(and a similar set of equations for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{kn}`$). Eq. (6) coincides with a set of equations describing displacements of particles in a nonuniform harmonic chain with nearest neighbour interactions and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_k`$ plays a role of oscillator frequency. We can find the distribution of oscillator frequencies squares $`R(E^2)`$ from the relation $`R(E^2)=\frac{1}{\pi N}_n\text{Im}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nn}^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}(E^2\pm \text{i}ϵ)`$, $`ϵ+0`$ where the Green functions $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}(E^2)`$ satisfy the set of equations

$`\left(E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_n^2I_{n1}^2\right)\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}\mathrm{\Omega }_{n1}I_{n1}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n1,m}\mathrm{\Omega }_nI_n\mathrm{\Gamma }_{n+1,m}=\delta _{nm}.`$ (7)
From (7) the following representation for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nn}`$ may be derived

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nn}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_n^2I_{n1}^2\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+}},`$ (8)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{n1}^2I_{n1}^2}{E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n1}^2I_{n2}^2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}^2I_{n2}^2}{E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n2}^2I_{n3}^2_{\mathrm{}}}}},`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_n^2I_n^2}{E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n+1}^2I_n^2\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_{n+1}^2I_{n+1}^2}{E^2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n+2}^2I_{n+1}^2_{\mathrm{}}}}}.`$
Again for a periodic sequence of parameters $`I_n`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$ the continued fractions $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+`$ in (8) become periodic and can be evaluated exactly by solving quadratic equations.

To illustrate how the described approach works we consider the chains of period 1 (uniform chains). Then for the transverse $`XX`$ chain one finds

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(E\mathrm{\Omega }\pm \sqrt{\left(E\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^24I^2}\right),`$
$`\rho (E)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\left(E\mathrm{\Omega }2I\right)\left(E\mathrm{\Omega }+2I\right)}},\hfill & \text{if}\left(E\mathrm{\Omega }\right)^2<4I^2,\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}`$ (11)
For the transverse Ising chain the corresponding results read

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_n^{}=\mathrm{\Delta }_n^+={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(E^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2I^2\pm \sqrt{\left(E^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2I^2\right)^24\mathrm{\Omega }^2I^2}\right),`$
$`R(E^2)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{\pi }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\left(E^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega }I\right)^2\right)\left(E^2\left(\mathrm{\Omega }+I\right)^2\right)}},\hfill & \text{if}\left(E^2\mathrm{\Omega }^2I^2\right)^2<4\mathrm{\Omega }^2I^2,\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \text{otherwise}.\hfill \end{array}`$ (14)
Formulas (3), (9), (10) reproduce the long known results, however, the described approach (formulas (3), (5), (8)) yields new results for the chains of longer periods. These calculations are more lengthy (although transparent) and therefore are omitted here (see ).

Let us discuss the effects caused by regular nonuniformity which can be studied rigorously within the framework of the elaborated approach. We start from the transverse $`XX`$ chain. Regular alternation of the Hamiltonian parameters leads to a splitting of the fermion band (see (2)) into several subbands. Since the (transverse) magnetization per site is $`m=\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}E\rho (E)\mathrm{tanh}\frac{\beta E}{2}`$ one immediately observes the plateaus in the dependence $`m`$ vs. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at zero temperature $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ (we assume $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n=\mathrm{\Omega }+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$) which are accompanied by the square-root singularities in the zero-temperature dependence (transverse) susceptibility $`\chi `$ vs. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The number of plateaus does not exceed the period of alternation, the characteristic fields at which the plateaus start and end up (and the singularities of $`\chi `$ occur) can be easily calculated from the density of states $`\rho (E)`$. Consider further the case of modulated exchange interactions $`|I_{1,2}|=|I|(1\pm \delta )`$ ($`0\delta 1`$ is the dimerization parameter) and constant field $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. One may easily convinced himself that the ground-state energy per site $`e_0=\frac{1}{2}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}E\rho (E)|E|`$ for $`|\mathrm{\Omega }|<2|I|`$ decreases sufficiently rapid with increasing of $`\delta `$ to provide a spin-Peierls dimerization. Moreover, the ground-state energy of the chains having longer periods of exchange interaction modulation obtained with the help of continued fractions allows one to examine the stability of the transverse $`XX`$ chain with respect to more complicated lattice distortions.

Let us pass to the transverse Ising chain. Considering the case of modulated exchange interactions (e.g., of period 2) and constant field and using the strong-coupling approach arguments (i.e., assuming the smallest interaction to be equal to $`0`$)  one immediately notes that no magnetization plateaus should be expected. However, using the continued fraction approach results one may show that a logarithmic singularity of $`\chi `$ may occur if $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\pm I`$ ($`p=1`$), $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1\mathrm{\Omega }_2=\pm I_1I_2`$ ($`p=2`$) etc. As a result the transverse Ising chain may exhibit ‘plateaus’ in the dependence $`m`$ vs. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for sufficiently large deviations of fields $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_n`$. Moreover, in contrast to $`XX`$ chain, the number of singularities of $`\chi `$ (and the number of ‘plateaus’) for given $`p`$ depends on the values of Hamiltonian parameters. The direct calculation of the ground-state energy of the dimerized Ising chain in a constant transverse field shows that no spin-Peierls instability should be anticipated that is in agreement with general arguments about the Peierls mechanism. Note, however, that the transverse Ising chain is unitarily equivalent to the anisotropic $`XY`$ chain without field . The latter model for a special choice of parameters may become the isotropic $`XY`$ model for which, as we know from the rigorous calculation, the spin-Peierls instability does occur.

To summarize, we have discussed an application of continued fractions for calculation of the thermodynamic quantities of the regularly alternating spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ transverse $`XX`$ and Ising chains. We have briefly discussed the magnetic properties of such chains as well as their stability with respect to a lattice distortion due to the spin-Peierls mechanism.


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# The primordial baryonic clouds and their contribution to the CMB anisotropy and polarization formation.

## 1 Introduction.

One of the most important problems of the modern cosmology is the determination of the density and spatial distribution of the baryonic fraction of the matter.

There are several sources of information about $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=\rho _b/\rho _{cr}`$ parameter, where $`\rho _b`$ and $`\rho _{cr}`$ are the present values of the baryonic and critical densities and $`h`$ is the Hubble constant normalized to 100 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$. Firstly, the baryonic fraction of the matter manifests itself in the well known mass -luminosity relation for galaxies and cluster of galaxies which leads to the following value of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ parameter: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.028_{0.008}^{+0.009}`$ (see for the review by Freedman et al. 2001). Another one comes from the confrontation of the Standard Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (SBBN) theory and observational data (see for the review by Fukugita, Hogan & Peebles 1998). The corresponding value of the baryonic density from this method is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.019\pm 0.001.`$ An additional empirical relation between baryonic and dark matter fractions $`F_{b,m}=\mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.1`$ at $`h=0.65`$ comes from X-ray data on clusters of galaxies (Carlberg et al. 1996; Ettori & Fabian 1999). For the most popular $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmological model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$, the corresponding value of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ parameter is $`0.02`$ in agreement with the SBBN predictions.

An independent important information about the baryonic fraction of the matter in the Universe comes from the recent CMB experiments such as BOOMERANG (de Bernardis et al. 2000) and MAXIMA-1 (Hanany et al. 2000). Fitting the CMB anisotropy power spectrum to the above mentioned observational data (Tegmark & Zaldarriaga 2000; White et al. 2000 and Lesgourgues & Peloso 2000) indicates that a baryon fraction parameter should be significantly larger than the SBBN expected value, namely, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.03`$. However, recently Bond & Critteden (2001) show that new BOOMERANG, MAXIMA-1 and DASI data do not contradict to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.022\pm 0.004`$.

It is worth noting that the above mentioned methods of the baryonic fraction density estimation from the CMB and SBBN predictions are based on the simple idea that the distribution of matter (including dark matter particles and baryons) is practically homogeneous for all scales, except some fluctuations leading to the galaxy and large-scale structure formation. Typically, they are assumed to be adiabatic one. One can ask, how sensitive are the CMB data themselves to the presence of the small– scale baryonic (non-linear) clouds before cosmological recombination and how can they transform the standard schemes of the cosmological parameter extraction from the CMB data? Definitely, this possibility is related to the isocurvature perturbations of the composite fluid which contains baryons, CDM particles, photons and neutrinos at very high redshift $`z10^3`$. There are a lot of modes of perturbations in the composite fluid, which is discussed by Riazuelo & Langlos (2000), Bartolo, Matarrese & Rioto (2001), Polarski & Starobinsky (1994), Abramo & Finelli (2001), Bucher, Moodley & Turok (2000) and others. The general idea about classification of modes of perturbations is based on a very simple definition of the isocurvature modes. They do not perturb the gravitational potential. This means that the fluctuations of the total matter density $`\rho _{tot}`$ are zero (see Burns 2001),

$$\delta \rho _{tot}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N}{}}\rho _i\delta _i+4\rho _\gamma (1+R_{\nu \gamma })\frac{\delta T}{T}=0,$$
(1)
where $`\rho _i`$ denotes the density of each massive species including baryons and different kinds of the CDM particles, $`\delta _i=\delta \rho _i/\rho _i`$ is the density contrast for each massive component, $`R_{\nu \gamma }`$ is the density ratio between neutrinos $`\rho _\nu `$ and black body radiation $`\rho _\gamma `$, and $`\delta T/T`$ is the CMB temperature perturbations.

We would like to point out that in the definition of the isocurvature perturbations in Eq. (1) one can find some peculiar mode (or modes) which compensates the baryonic perturbations potential, i.e., it corresponds to the condition $`\rho _b\delta _b=\rho _x\delta _x`$ for some $`x`$ component of the CDM particles mixture. We call below this mode as a compensate isocurvature mode (CIM) for the $`x`$-component of the dark matter particles. If several components of the dark matter particles take part in the CIM formation, we will continue to call them as $`x`$\- component.111 As one can see this mode corresponds to $`\delta T/T=0`$. This means that the CIM are equivalent to an isotemperature perturbations. Note, that exactly the same mode was described by Abramo & Finelli (2001), but for compensation between quintessence scalar field perturbations and some kind of the CDM-particles.

In principle, for the CIM perturbations it is possible to assume that the amplitudes $`\delta _x`$ and $`\delta _b`$ are less than unity or $`|\delta _x|1`$ and $`|\delta _b|(\rho _x/\rho _b)|\delta _x|1`$. One of the most interesting cases corresponds to the model with $`\delta _x1`$, which means that some patches of the cosmological matter do not contain the CDM $`x`$-particles, but at the same patches there are non-linear clouds of the baryonic matter which compensate the perturbations of the gravitational potential. Below we will assume that a typical mass scale of the CIM perturbations is smaller than the typical galactic mass scale. This means that CIM perturbations do not influence on the CMB anisotropy formation as the additional sources of perturbations, but they can transform the kinetics of the hydrogen recombination. This leads to the transformation of the corresponding $`C_l`$ power spectrum of the CMB for the adiabatic fluctuations at the scales above a few Mpc.

It is necessary to note that the idea about non-homogeneous distribution of the baryonic matter at small scales is not new. The importance of the entropic perturbations in the history of the cosmological expansion was ad hoc demonstrated by Doroshkevich, Zel’dovich and Novikov (1967) and Peebles (1967,1994) and recently was generalized taking into account multi-species structure of the cosmological plasma by Gnedin & Ostriker (1992), Hogan (1993) & Loeb (1993), Peebles & Juszkiewich (1998). The possible inhomogeneities of the baryon fraction distribution in the epoch of the nucleosynthesis (Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis -IBBS) was widely discussed in the literature (see for the review by Jedamzik & Rehm 2001) in connection with quark-hadron phase transition. But the typical scales of such kind of peculiarities are extremely small compared to the typical mass scale $`M10^510^6M_{}`$ for the isocurvature perturbations. Other events or processes have been suggested as possible sources of the isocurvature perturbations partly connected with the baryon re-distribution in the space. For example, cosmic strings and corresponding currents and magnetic fields could generate specific features in the baryonic matter (Malaney & Butler 1989). Yokoyama & Sato (1991), Dolgov & Silk (1993), Polarsky & Starobinsky (1994), Novikov, Schmalzing & Mukhanov (2000) have shown a few different ways for the generation of the isocurvature perturbation in the framework of the inflation theory.

In connection with the above–mentioned problem of the baryonic fraction determination from the cosmological nucleosynthesis and the CMB anisotropy data we dedicate our paper to the re-examination of the models with non-linear sub-horizon-scale (at the epoch of the hydrogen recombination) baryonic clouds with $`\delta _b1`$. Such inhomogeneities do not manifest in the CMB anisotropy( because of the extremely small scales) but manifest themselves by the transformation of the ionization history of the primeval hydrogen-helium plasma at redshift $`z10^3`$. All these factors should be taken into account in the reconstruction of the ionization history of the Universe especially at the period of the cosmological hydrogen recombination . The reason for importance of the possible very small scale entropy perturbations at the epoch of recombination is connected with the very small mean free path of the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons at $`z10^3`$: $`l_{L\alpha }3\times 10^{10}((1+z)/1000)^{5/2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2/0.02)^1`$ cm which corresponds to the baryon mass $`M_{L\alpha }=4\pi /3\rho _bl_{L\alpha }^32\times 10^{23}((1+z)/1000)^{9/2}(\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2/0.02)^2M_{}`$ where $`M_{}`$ is the Solar mass. High amplitude baryonic clouds with masses $`MM_{L\alpha }`$ could transform the process of recombination at the beginning and dissipate during recombination up to the crucial masses $`M_{diss}10^5M_{}`$ (Liu et al. 2001). We will show that if the typical masses of the clouds $`M`$ are $`M>M_{diss}`$ the hydrogen and helium recombination inside and outside clouds goes independently. Due to non-linear dependency of the electronic ionization fraction $`x_e`$ on the baryon density the hydrogen and helium inside the clouds recombine faster than outside them. Thus the dynamics of the mean value of the electronic ionization fraction $`x_e`$ which plays a crucial role in the CMB anisotropy and polarization formation decreases slower than, for example, in the uniform model with the mean value of the baryonic fraction of the matter. We will show that in the cloudy baryonic plasma the kinetics of the $`HHe^4`$ recombination is closer to the delayed recombination model by Peebles et al. (2000) with concrete relation between $`ϵ_\alpha `$ and $`ϵ_i`$ parameters of their model and amplitudes of perturbations and the filling factor of the baryonic clouds. We will show how sensitive the $`C_l`$ power spectrum of the CMB anisotropy is to the mentioned above parameters of the baryonic clouds. We will discuss possible manifestation of the small scale perturbations in the MAP and upcoming PLANCK observational data.

## 2 Basic definitions and modifications of the hydrogen-helium ionization history.

We consider a model with non-linear baryonic perturbations at the small scales ($`M10^{10}M_{}`$). In the analysis of the kinetics of recombination we will take into account electrons, protons, ionized and neutral hydrogen and helium. For simplicity we suppose that all baryonic clouds have the same characteristic sizes $`R_{cl}`$, which are much smaller than the size of the horizon $`R_{rec}`$ close to the period of recombination ($`z10^3`$), $`R_{cl}R_{rec}`$. We denote $`\rho _{b,in}`$, $`\rho _{b,out}`$ and $`\rho _{b,mean}`$ the baryon density inside the clouds, outside of them and the mean density at the scales much greater than $`R_{cl}`$ and distances between them, respectively. We have the following relations

$$\rho _{b,mean}=\rho _{b,in}f+\rho _{b,out}(1f),$$
(2)
where $`f`$ is the volume fraction of the clouds. We denote

$$\xi =\frac{\rho _{b,in}}{\rho _{b,out}}.$$
(3)
We can write down the following relations between mean value of the baryon density and inner and outer values

$$\rho _{b,in}=\frac{\xi \rho _{b,mean}}{1+f(\xi 1)},$$
(4)
and

$$\rho _{b,out}=\frac{\rho _{b,mean}}{1+f(\xi 1)}.$$
(5)
As mentioned in Introduction the presence of the baryonic clouds in the primordial hydrogen-helium plasma at redshift $`z10^3`$ changes the dynamics of the recombination due to non-linear dependence $`x_e`$ on the baryon density. Below we will describe the kinetics of the recombination in a cloudy baryonic fraction of the Universe taking into account that the diffusion damping is not important for the clouds with $`M>M_j`$. As it was shown by Liu et al. (2001), during the period of recombination diffusion of baryons from inner to outer regions of the clouds can suppress any small scale irregularities inside the clumps. The natural length of this process is close to the Jeans length $`R_Jc_s\eta _{rec}`$ where $`c_s`$ is the baryonic speed of sound and $`\eta _{rec}`$ is the corresponding time when the plasma became transparent for the CMB radiation. Note that our aim is to predict some possible observational features in the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectrum connected with possible non-uniform distribution of baryons on very small scales: much smaller than $`R_{rec}`$, but greater than the Jeans scale $`R_J`$. That means that for all adiabatic perturbations at the scales $`M10^{13}M_{}`$ ( which are the source of the Doppler peaks in the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectra ) the evolution during the period of recombination depends not on the ionization fraction inside or outside the clouds but rather on the mean value of ionization fraction over the scales of adiabatic perturbations. As we mentioned above this mean ionization fraction does not correspond to the ionization fraction for the mean value of the baryonic density due to non-linear effects. For our analysis we use two basic software packages, RECFAST (Seager et al. 2000) and CMBFAST (Seljak & Zaldarriaga 1996) with modification for the cloudy baryonic model. Let us start from CMBFAST modification because the calculation of the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectra depends on the number density of free electrons.

For the cloudy baryonic model we introduce the mean value of the electron density

$$n_e=n_{e,in}f+n_{e,out}(1f),$$
(6)
where $`f`$ is the fraction of volume with clouds from Eq.(2). For the baryonic clouds with scales $`R>R_J`$ we can neglect diffusion of baryons and $`Ly\alpha `$ photons and describe the recombination process inside and outside the clouds separately. In such a case we can write down

$`n_{e,in}`$ $`=`$ $`x_{e,in}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{Y_{He,in}}{2}}\right)n_{b,in};`$
$`n_{e,out}`$ $`=`$ $`x_{e,out}\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{Y_{He,out}}{2}}\right)n_{b,out},`$ (7)
where $`x_{e,in}`$, $`x_{e,out}`$, $`Y_{He,in}`$ and $`Y_{He,out}`$ are the ionization fraction and helium mass fractions for inner and outer regions. Note that by definition $`x_e=n_e/n_H`$, where $`n_H`$ is the number density of neutral and ionized hydrogen. Let us introduce the mean value of the ionization fraction $`x_e`$,

$$x_e=\frac{n_e}{n_b}\left(1\frac{Y_{He}}{2}\right)^1,$$
(8)
then

$$x_e=x_{e,in}G_{in}+x_{e,out}G_{out},$$
(9)
where

$`G_{in}={\displaystyle \frac{\xi f}{1+f(\xi 1)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1Y_{He,in}/2}{1Y_{He}/2}}\right);`$
$`G_{out}={\displaystyle \frac{1f}{1+f(\xi 1)}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1Y_{He,out}/2}{1Y_{He}/2}}\right),`$ (10)
and $`Y_{He}`$ denotes the mean mass fraction of helium.

The second remark is related with the modification of the CMBFAST code, particularly with the characteristic time of friction $`\tau _D`$ between electron and radiation fluids before and at the period of the recombination. Let us consider the hydrodynamic equations for baryon-electron fluid and radiation using the Newtonian approximation . Following Liu et al. (2001), we have

$`\rho _b^{}+3H\rho _b+_i(\rho _bV_{i,b})=0,`$ (11)
$`V_{i,b}^{}+HV_{i,b}+V_{j,b}(_jV_{i,b})+_iP_b/\rho _b+_i\mathrm{\Psi }`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\rho _\gamma an_e\sigma _T}{3\rho _b}}(V_{i,\gamma }V_{i,b}),`$
where $`H=a^{}/a`$, $`a`$ is the scale factor of the Universe, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the gravitational potential, dot denotes the derivative with respect to time $`\eta `$ ($`d\eta =dt/a`$ , the speed of light $`c=1`$), $`\rho _\gamma `$ is the density of the CMB, $`n_e`$ is the local concentration of electrons, $`V_{i,\gamma }`$ is hydrodynamic velocity of radiation ( dipole moment) and $`\sigma _T`$ is the Thompson cross-section. In our cloudy baryonic model we can define the large scale adiabatic tail of the perturbations of the matter and the small scale CIM tail as follows,

$`\rho _b`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{b,s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)+\rho _{b,l}(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$
$`V_{i,b}`$ $`=`$ $`V_{i,b}^{(s)}(\stackrel{}{r},t)+V_{i,b}^{(l)}(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_s(\stackrel{}{r},t)+\mathrm{\Psi }_l(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$ (12)
where

$`\rho _b`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{b,s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)+\rho _{b,l}(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$
$`\rho _{b,s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{b,mean}(t),`$
$`\rho _{b,l}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{b,mean}(t)\left(1+\delta (\stackrel{}{r},t)\right),`$
$`V_{i,b}`$ $`=`$ $`V_{i,b}^{(s)}(\stackrel{}{r},t)+V_{i,b}^{(l)}(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$
$`V_{i,b}^{(s)}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ $`=`$ $`Hr_i,`$
$`\mathrm{\Psi }_l(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Psi }_s(t)+\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_l(\stackrel{}{r},t),`$ (13)
and $`\delta (\stackrel{}{r},t)`$, $`V_{i,b}^{(l)}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ and $`\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_l(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ are the linear adiabatic perturbation of the hydrodynamic quantities. By the definition $`\mathrm{}`$ means average over the scales $`|\stackrel{}{r}|R_{cl}`$ but $`R_{cl}|\stackrel{}{k}|1`$ for all $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ Fourier harmonics of the adiabatic perturbations. Using Eq. (12) and (13) we can describe the evolution of the velocity perturbations for the adiabatic modes

$`{\displaystyle \frac{V_{i,b}^l}{\eta }}+HV_{i,b}^l+\delta (_iP_{tot}/\rho _{tot})+_i\delta \mathrm{\Psi }_l`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4\rho _\gamma an_e\sigma _T}{3\rho _b}}(V_{i,\gamma }^lV_{i,b}^l),`$
where $`P_{tot}`$ and $`\rho _{tot}`$ are the pressure and the density of the baryon-photon fluid and $`\delta (_iP_{tot}/\rho _{tot})`$ means a linear part of the perturbations. As one can see from Eq. (14) in the cloudy baryonic matter the characteristic time of baryon-radiation friction is

$$\tau _D^1=\frac{4\rho _\gamma an_e\sigma _T}{3\rho _b}=\frac{4\rho _\gamma ax_e^{}\sigma _T}{3m_p},$$
(15)
where $`m_p`$ is the proton mass. This time $`\tau _D`$ depends on the local ratio $`x_e^{}=n_e(\stackrel{}{r})/n_H(\stackrel{}{r})`$. The ionization fraction $`x_e^{}`$ could be written down in the following form,

$$x_e^{}=x_{e,in}g_{in}+x_{e,out}g_{out},$$
(16)
where

$`g_{in}`$ $`=`$ $`f\left({\displaystyle \frac{1Y_{He,in}/2}{1Y_{He}/2}}\right);`$
$`g_{out}`$ $`=`$ $`(1f)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1Y_{He,out}/2}{1Y_{He}/2}}\right).`$ (17)
Thus Eq. (16) and Eq. (17) generalize the standard homogeneous model of the CMB anisotropy and polarization formation on the cloudy baryonic model of the Universe. Note the difference between Eq. (14) and the standard kinetic equation for the CMB anisotropy formation. Whereas Eq. (14) depends on $`x_e^{}`$, the standard equation depends on $`x_e`$,(see Eq.(8) and (9)). The corresponding modification of the CMBFAST code leads to modification of RECFAST programme which calculates the kinetics of recombination inside and outside the small-scale baryonic clouds as a function of cosmological parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=\rho _{b,mean}/\rho _{cr}`$, density contrast $`\xi `$ and volume fraction $`f`$. In Fig.1 and Fig.2 we plot the functions $`x_{e,in}`$, $`x_{e,out}`$, $`x_e`$, and $`x_e^{}`$ for different mean values of the baryonic density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ and $`h=0.65`$, $`\xi =11`$, and $`f=0.1`$. As one can see from these figures the fractions of ionization $`x_e`$ and $`x_e^{}`$ have different shapes and different asymptotic at low redshifts.

In the next section we describe the results of the corresponding numerical computations. However, some preliminary discussions could be very useful for understanding of the most important peculiarities connected with two characteristic functions of ionization $`x_e`$ and $`x_e^{}`$. Firstly we would like to point out that in the case when the volume fraction $`f`$ is small ($`f1`$, but $`\xi f1`$!) the function $`x_e^{}`$ should be very close to $`x_{e,out}g_{out}`$ while $`x_e`$ practically does not change. From Eq. (16) and Eq. (17) we can immediately find an asymptotic of the function $`x_e`$ at low redshifts: $`x_ex_e^{}G_{out}/g_{out}=x_e^{}/(1+f(\xi 1))<x_e^{}`$. That means that the Silk damping scale which is very sensitive on the parameter $`\tau _D^1`$, which is proportional to $`x_e^{}`$, should increase due to the increasing of the effective ionization ratio $`x_e^{}`$. Thus we can conclude that in cloudy baryonic model the position and amplitudes of the Doppler peaks in the $`C_l`$ power spectrum differ from the same values in the standard non- cloudy model with the same mean value of the baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$.

Secondly, it is well known that the so-called “visibility function” $`g(\tau )=\tau ^{}\mathrm{exp}(\tau )`$, where $`\tau `$ is the Thompson optical depth, depends on the function $`x_e`$. Because $`x_e<x_e^{}`$, and $`x_e^{}x_{out}`$ we can conclude that in our model the kinetics of recombination is similar (in general) to the models with additional sources of the ionization.

One additional comment is related with the delayed recombination model by Peebles et al. (2000) mentioned in Introduction. We would like to note, that the physical basis of their model and our cloudy baryonic model are completely different, but the numerical data for the corresponding function $`x_e`$ in the model by Peebles et al. (2000) and $`x_e`$ in our model are close to each other. If we compare the solid lines with the marked lines in Fig.1, we can conclude that change of the ionization fraction $`x_e`$ plays a role in the corresponding delay of the recombination with respect to the recombination inside the clouds. To understand the change of the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectra we need to compare the ionization fraction for outer regions and $`x_e`$. From Fig.1 it is clearly seen that in such a case we can introduce the term “accelerated recombination” because the mean ionization $`x_e0`$ faster then $`x_e0`$ for the outer regions at the same values of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ parameter. In both cases, following Peebles et al. (2000), we can describe the number of additional resonance $`Ly\alpha `$ quanta produced at the epoch of the hydrogen recombination by the sources of ionization

$$\frac{dn_{res}}{dt}=\epsilon H(t)n_b,$$
(18)
where $`\epsilon `$ is the efficiency of the $`Ly\alpha `$ quanta production, $`H(t)`$ is the Hubble parameter and $`n_b`$ is the number density of baryons. According to Peebles et al. (2000), $`\epsilon >0`$ describes the productivity of the sources of additional resonance quanta, which leads to the delay of the hydrogen recombination. Formally, if $`\epsilon <0`$ then recombination goes faster and we have “accelerated recombination” regime. Thus, the difference between these two situations is related to the definition of the background state (inner or outer parts of the clouds). Note that for the CMB power spectrum calculations the term “accelerated recombination” is preferable because it depends mainly on the characteristics of the outer zones.

## 3  Anisotropy and polarization power spectra in a cloudy baryonic Universe.

For numerical calculations of the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectra we will use the modified CMBFAST code taking into account the above-mentioned peculiarities of the ionization history of the plasma. We take into account the difference of the $`He^4`$ mass fractions $`Y_{He}`$ for inner and outer zones into account, using well estimated dependence of $`Y_{He}`$ on ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$) parameter (Olive, Steigman & Walker 2000). For illustration of the importance of the cloudy structure at small scales on the CMB anisotropy formation in Fig.3 we plot the function $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2T(l)=l(l+1)C_l/2\pi `$ ($`\mu K^2`$), where $`C_l`$ is the anisotropy power spectrum, for the cosmological model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{cdm}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\lambda 0.65`$, $`h=0.65`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.02`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2T(l)`$ for the corresponding model with the uniform baryonic matter distribution and scale invariant power spectrum of the initial adiabatic perturbations. We choose $`f=0.1`$, and density contrast between inner and outer zones $`\xi =11`$.

As one can see from Fig.3, the presence of the clouds before and during the period of the hydrogen and helium recombination significantly perturbed the corresponding $`\mathrm{\Delta }T^2(l)`$ function. The same conclusion follows from Fig.4 for the polarization of the CMB in the cloudy baryonic model.

As it is seen from Fig.4 the more complicated ionization history of the plasma in the cloudy model leads to the decreasing of the corresponding power spectrum of the polarization at $`l900`$ due to the increasing of the effective dissipation scale. It is worth noting that in our cloudy model we do not take into account the possible reionization of the hydrogen at low redshift ($`z<20`$) due to the influence of the additional sources on the ionization balance. This modification is the standard part of the CMB anisotropy and polarization spectrum calculations using CMBFAST codes. But it is clear that in cloudy baryonic Universe the mean value of the optical depth must be related to the mean ionization fraction $`x_e`$ for corresponding values of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ parameters.

## 4 Conclusion.

As it was mentioned in Introduction, the baryonic fraction of the matter is one of the most important cosmological parameters, which determines the most preferable model of the Universe. Two crucial parameters of the theory are now under discussion, i.e., the light chemical elements abundance, which is related directly to the SBBN predictions, and the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ parameter which can be determined from the current and future CMB observations. In both cases the determination of the parameters depends on the hypothesis about the spatial distribution of the baryonic fraction of the matter and can be tested by the CMB experiments such as the launched MAP and the future PLANCK missions.

In our paper we have shown how important it is the possible baryonic inhomogeneity at small scales ($`M10^{13}M_{}`$) in the CMB anisotropy and polarization formation through distortions of the cosmological recombination. The extremal case, when the density contrast $`\xi 10`$, shows that the clumps in the baryon fraction of the matter can significantly change the amplitudes and positions of the Doppler peaks in the CMB anisotropy and polarization power spectrum. For example in the above mentioned $`\xi 10`$ model the differences between $`C_l`$ for the anisotropy and for the polarization in the models with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.02`$ ( no clouds) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.02`$ (with clouds) are presented in Fig.5 in a form of the following the functions. For the anisotropy

$$D_a(l)=2(C_{a,nc}(l)C_{a,c}(l))/(C_{a,nc}(l)+C_{a,c}(l)),$$
(19)
where $`C_{a,nc}(l)`$ and $`C_{a,c}(l)`$ denote the non-cloudy and cloudy model, respectively, and the index $`a`$ corresponds to the anisotropy spectrum. The analogous definition of the $`D_p(l)`$ function is used in Fig.5 for the CMB polarization. As one can see from Fig.5, practically for all ranges of multipoles the differences between cloudy and non-cloudy models are observable for the PLANCK mission. Moreover, if the parameter $`\xi 1`$, then we need to include the possible cloudy baryonic model in the schemes of the cosmological parameter extractions from the current and future CMB anisotropy and polarization data. As one can see from Eq.(4) and Eq.(5), if $`f(\xi 1)1`$, then the difference between $`\rho _{b,out}`$ and mean baryon density is $`f(\xi 1)`$. According to the predicted accuracy of the cosmological parameter extraction from the PLANCK mission, the corresponding uncertainties for the baryonic fraction of the matter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_b=\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_b/\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ must be less then a few percents. Taking conservative limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }_bf(\xi 1)0.1`$ and $`\xi 11`$ we can obtain that the corresponding fraction $`f`$ should be detectable by the PLANCK satellite, if $`f0.1`$.

We would like to point out that our simple model of the baryonic clouds is based on the one possible modes of the isocurvature perturbations at the small scales. It would be interesting to investigate the more complicated models of the initial perturbations. This program is in progress.

## Acknowledgments.

Authors are grateful to A. Doroshkevich, J. Sommer-Larsen and J. Schmalzing for discussions. This paper is supported in part by Danmarks Grundforskningsfond through its support for the establishment of the Theoretical Astrophysics Center, by grants RFBR 17625 and INTAS 97-1192.


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# The Central Kiloparsec of Starbursts and AGN: The La Palma Connection1footnote 11footnote 1Conference was held in La Palma, Spain in May 2001. Proceedings have been edited by J.H. Knapen, J.E. Beckman, I. Shlosman, & T.J. Mahoney and published in the ASP Conference Series., Vol. 249 (2001)

Conference Highlights

From May 7 to 11, 2001, the Hotel Hacienda San Jorge in the small resort town of Los Cancajos on La Palma was filled with astronomers studying the central kiloparsec regions of starbursts and AGN. La Palma is one of the smallest of the Spanish Canary Islands and is well known for its world-class astronomical observatory at the Roque de los Muchachos. The main telescopes operated there are the Isaac Newton Group’s 4.2m William Herschel Telescope and the Italian 3.5m National Telescope, while Spain is presently constructing its 10.4m telescope, Grantecan. In spite of a strong astronomical presence of at least two decades, this was the first scientific astronomy conference organized completely on La Palma. The fact that many high-resolution studies of galaxies have been made using data obtained on La Palma makes the island a fitting “connection” to the field of study. The meeting was attended by 120 astronomers from 15 countries, while a number of people had to be disappointed because the capacity of the hotel and conference room would not allow more attendees. The program was full and included nine oral and two poster sessions, long lunch breaks, which were often used for further discussions or collaborative work, and a number of social events. Most of those attending participated in a guided tour of the telescopes at the Observatory on the Wednesday afternoon.

Recent advances in high-resolution observations, theory and modeling have focused our attention on the central kiloparsec regions of nearby disk galaxies, which often show profound starburst and/or nonstellar (AGN) activity, accompanied by intricate gas and dust morphologies and kinematics. The origin and evolution of the phenomena occurring in these central regions, their possible causal interrelationships, links to the host galaxies, and the role the central regions play in galaxy evolution, were the main topics under consideration.

The meeting brought together researchers in a variety of specialties, who could concentrate on a relatively restricted part of the complete field. This focused the discussions and led to a very productive exchange of ideas. One of the topics covered in detail was the connection between an AGN and a starburst, which are present simultaneously in a sufficient fraction of cases to have stimulated the hypothesis that if they are not the same phenomenon, at least there might be a causal relation between them. There is now convincing evidence from observations across the spectrum for this, and the meeting brought to bear many new examples, including beautiful new results obtained with orbiting X-ray observatories. It is now accepted that AGN and starburst activity often occur together, and this strengthens the view that the two phenomena are triggered and fueled by common mechanisms. No direct causal relationships or clear evolutionary scenarios between AGN and starbursts have yet emerged, but we are progressing quickly and can expect to find them if they are in fact present.

Many detailed studies of the physics of star formation and non-stellar activity were presented during the meeting, both theoretical and observational, the latter using tracers at wavelengths ranging from the X-ray to radio domains. These included investigations of the mechanisms which form jets in disks, of the torus and narrow- and broad-line regions in AGN, of the role of magnetic fields in the central kiloparsec, and of the mechanisms leading to enhanced star formation at specific locations and times. Important new results, both from observations and from population synthesis modeling, were presented on the properties and especially the ages of the stellar clusters found in starburst regions, either central or circumnuclear.

The relations between an AGN and the properties of its host galaxy were explored at length, albeit without reaching clear conclusions. There is now further evidence for a significant though weak trend for Seyfert galaxies to be more often barred than non-Seyfert galaxies. Many beautiful and detailed numerical and observational studies of the morphology and kinematics of nuclear bars, rings and spiral arms were presented, but, perhaps disappointingly, no direct links to AGN fueling were discovered. It is possible, and theoretically quite plausible, that any relation between circumnuclear and host galaxy structure and the presence or properties of an AGN may be weakened by the tendency of a central, or circumnuclear, mass concentration to dissipate the bar which originally induced it.

Following notable recent observational advances, the relationship between supermassive black holes, which are assumed to drive the AGN, and their surrounding spheroidal component structures (the whole galaxy for an elliptical, and the bulge for a spiral) received considerable attention. A related topic, the relation between local gas density and star formation rate, was discussed starting from conclusions based on its conventional context: galactic disks, and going on to discuss the implications for circumnuclear zones. A theoretical and observational attack on this problem would in all probability go a long way to explaining why there is AGN activity around some supermassive black holes, but less or none around others.

In general, it was heartening to see real progress being made across the field thanks notably to a continuing stream of Hubble Space Telescope observations, to X-ray results obtained with new orbiting observatories, but also to imaging and spectroscopy from ground-based optical/near-infrared telescopes, such as those on La Palma. In addition, numerical simulations of gas dynamics are progressing quickly, reaching higher dynamical and spatial resolution and deepening our insight into a range of physical processes.

Any conference proceedings necessarily provides a snapshot of the state of a given field, which makes it appear perhaps more static than it really is. In this field, we do foresee a continuing, even increasing, high rate of research leading to important breakthroughs both observationally, due to new instrumental opportunities allowing observation at higher angular resolution, sensitivity, area coverage, and wavelength coverage, and theoretically, due to continuing major refinements in modeling. We trust that the proceedings of the present conference will, then, offer not only a fixed photograph of the present, but a useful, even prophetic guide to the future of this exciting and changing subject.

Financial support for the conference was given by the Excelentísimo Cabildo Insular de La Palma (Island Government), its Patronato de Turismo (Tourist Board), and the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, for which we are very grateful.

Johan H. Knapen

Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain, and University of Hertfordshire, U.K.

John E. Beckman

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain

Isaac Shlosman

Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, and University of Kentucky

Terry J. Mahoney

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain