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# THE IMPLICATIONS FOR HELIOSEISMOLOGY OF EXPERIMENTAL UNCERTAINTIES IN NEWTON’S CONSTANT

## Abstract

The experimental uncertainties in G between different experiments have important implications for helioseismology. We show that these uncertainties for the standard solar model lead to a range in the value of the square of the sound speed in the nuclear region that is as much as $`0.15\%`$ higher than the inverted helioseismic sound speed. While a lower value of G is preferred for the standard model, any definite prediction is masked by the uncertainties in the solar models available in the literature. However future refinements of helioseismology with an accuracy of the order of $`10^3`$ to $`10^4`$ in the square of the sound speed, especially in combination with precision measurements of the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ solar neutrino flux should be capable of independently testing these experimental values of G.

1Department of Physics, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
2Instituto Superior Técnico, Centro Multidisciplinar de Astrofísica, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal 11footnotetext: Inquiries can be sent to lopes@astro.ox.ac.uk and silk@astro.ox.ac.uk

> Subject headings: Key words: stars: oscillations - stars: interiors - Sun: oscillations - Sun: interior: cosmology - dark matter

Newton’s gravitational constant, G, stands apart from all the other constants of physics in that the accepted uncertainty of a few per thousand for G is several orders of magnitude larger than for other fundamental constants (1998 CODATA report; Mohr & Taylor 1999). An accurate determination of G is important for many fields of modern physics, and in particular for the new alternative theories to general relativity that have started to emerge (Forgács & Horváth 1979; Albrecht & Magueijo 1999; Barrow 1999; Barrow & Magueijo 1998; Avelino, Martins, Rocha 2000; Mbelek & Lachièze-Rey 2001). A common consequence of these unified theories, applied to cosmology, is that they allow a space and time dependence of the coupling constants, such as the speed of light and Newton’s gravitational constants. Therefore an accurate determination of G in the laboratory is essential for testing these new theories.

On the experimental side, the current interest in measuring G was stimulated by a publication in 1996 by Michaelis, Haars & Augustin of a value of G that differed by $`0.7\%`$ from the accepted value given in the previous 1986 CODATA report (see table 1; for recent reviews, see Quinn 2001, Mohr & Taylor 1999). To take this difference into account, the 1998 CODATA report recommends a value of G of $`6.673\times 10^8\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{g}^1\mathrm{s}^2`$ with an uncertainty of $`0.15\%`$, some ten times worse than that in 1986. Whereas the other fundamental constants are more accurately known than in 1986, the uncertainty in G has increased drastically. In an attempt to improve the measurement of G, several groups around the world have made new measurements using a range of different experimental methods (see table 1). The experimental targets represent an accuracy of between $`0.01\%`$ and $`0.001\%`$. New results have recently been published, but in spite of the improved accuracy obtained by the recent experiments, the disagreement between the different measurements is still quite large (see table 1). In particular, we refer to the result of Luo et al. (1999), which determines a value of G that is $`0.0026`$ smaller that the adopted value of CODATA in 1986. More recently, Gundlach & Merkowitz (2000) determined a value of G that is $`0.001215`$ above the 1998 CODATA value. Using two independent methods Quinn et al. (2001) found a value of G $`0.0026`$ above the 1998 CODATA value. Even if the two more recent experiments lead to a value above the 1998 CODATA report, both the trend of other experiments (Mohr & Taylor 1999), and the values of Gundlach & Merkowitz (2000) and Quinn et al. (2001), do not seem to agree (see table 1). The accuracy of the experiments has improved by as much as $`\mathrm{1\hspace{0.33em}10}^5`$, but the disagreement between the different results is of the order of $`\mathrm{1.4\hspace{0.33em}10}^3`$, which is quite striking. In general the experimental values of G varies between $`\mathrm{6.669\hspace{0.33em}10}^8\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{g}^1\mathrm{s}^2`$ and $`\mathrm{6.715\hspace{0.33em}10}^8\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{g}^1\mathrm{s}^2`$.

In this Letter we study the consequences of these new measurements of G for the evolution of the Sun. We use the solar seismic data and the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino flux as probes. Furthermore, we confront these results with the recent solar neutrino measurements of Super-Kamiokande (SK; Fukuda et al. 2001) and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO; Ahmad et al. 2001).

The idea of using stellar evolution to constrain the possible value of G was originally proposed by Teller (1948), who stressed that the evolution of a star was strongly dependent on G. The luminosity of a main sequence star can be expressed as a function of Newton’s gravitational constant and its mass by using homology relations (Teller 1948, Gamow 1967, Kippernhahn & Weigert 1994). In the particular case that the opacity is dominated by free-free transitions, Gamow (1967) found that the luminosity of the star is given approximately by $`LG^{7.8}M^{5.5}`$. In the case of the Sun, this would mean that for higher values of G, the burning of hydrogen will be more efficient and the star evolves more rapidly, therefore we need to increase the initial content of hydrogen to obtain the present observed Sun. In a numerical test of the previous expression, Delg’Innocenti et al. (1996) found that low-mass stars evolving from the Zero Age Main Sequence to the red giant branch satisfy $`LG^{5.6}M^{4.7}`$, which agrees to within $`10\%`$ of the numerical results, following the idea that Thomson scattering contributes significantly to the opacity inside such stars. Indeed, in the case of the opacity being dominated by pure Thomson scattering, the luminosity of the star is given by $`LG^4M^3`$. It follows from the previous analysis that the evolution of the star on the main sequence is highly sensitive to the value of G. Following this idea, several attempts to directly check the sensitivity of G to stellar evolution, and in particular its temporal variation, have been previously performed. The effect of a possible time-dependence of G on luminosity has been studied in the case of globular cluster H-R diagrams but has not yielded any stronger constraints than those relying on celestial mechanics (Will 1993, reference therein). In 1998, Guenther and collaborators used solar acoustic oscillation spectra available at that time to constrain the time variation of G, setting an upper limit on the variation of G that was $`1.6\times 10^{12}yr^1`$, almost one order of magnitude smaller than the constraints obtained by binary pulsar timing measurements (Will 1993). In this context, the evolution of main sequence stars like the Sun presents an excellent probe for discussing new experimental values of G. This argument is validated by a strong constraint that can be used to diagnose the internal structure of our star, namely in the nuclear region, through the new results of helioseismology.

A larger value of Newton’s gravitational constant increases the gravitational force, which, for stars on the main sequence in hydrostatic equilibrium, is compensated by an increase in the rate of thermonuclear reactions. This leads to an increase of the central temperature and has two main consequences: since central pressure support must be maintained, the central density is increased in the solar models with G larger than the reference model (in our case CODATA 1986), and since more hydrogen is burnt at the centre of the Sun, the central helium abundance and the central molecular weight are larger than in standard solar models.

The Sun is a unique star for research because its proximity allows a superb quality of solar data, enabling precision measures of its luminosity, mass, radius and chemical composition. Therefore it naturally becomes a privileged tool to be used as a laboratory for physics. In recent years, different groups around the world have produced solar models in the framework of classical stellar evolution, taking into account the best known physics as well as all the available observational seismic data. This has led to the determination of a well-established model for the Sun, the so-called standard solar model (Turck-Chiéze & Lopes 1993; Christensen-Dalsgaard et al. 1996; Brun, Turck-Chièze & Zahn 1999; Provost, Berthomieu & Morel 2000; Turck-Chiéze, Nghiem, Couvidat & Turcotte 2001, Turck-Chiz̀e S. et al. 2001a; Bahcall, Pinsonneault, Basu 2001), for which the acoustic modes are in very good agreement with observation. Furthermore, this model has established considerable consensus among the different research groups, concerning the predictions of the solar neutrino fluxes, and has unambiguously helped define the difference between the theoretical predictions and the experimental results. In this context, we use the standard solar model as a reference to test the new experimental measurements of $`G`$ (see Table 1). We have produced different solar models which are distinguished from the solar standard model by adopting different values of G. As usual, the model starts to evolve from a standard primordial chemical composition star to reach the present Sun with the observed luminosity and radius at its present age 4.6 Gyr, by readjusting the initial helium abundance and the mixing length parameter (Turck-Chièze et al. 2001; Lopes, Silk and Hansen 2001; Lopes, Bertone & Silk 2001). There has been considerable discussion recently regarding the precise value of the solar radius and solar luminosity, therefore in order to obtain the present solar models for different values of $`G`$ we have performed a calibration by choosing the value of mixing-length and the initial content of helium in such a way that the present luminosity and the present solar radius are reproduced with an accuracy better than $`10^7`$(Lopes & Silk 2002, in preparation). This calibration precision is much higher than the precision of the global quantities which is of the order of a few thousand. At this stage, it is worth noticing that the standard evolution of the Sun is independent of the total mass of the star. The observational determination of the product $`GM_{}`$, i.e., the product of Newton’s constant with the total mass of the Sun, the so-called Gaussian constant, is known with an accuracy better than $`10^7`$, therefore the $`GM_{}`$ product can be used to explicitly write the equations of stellar structure as a function of Newton’s constant. Actually, it is this fact that provides us with a possible means of probing the value of G by using the evolution of the Sun and the highly accurate results of helioseismology and solar neutrinos (Lopes & Silk 2002, in preparation).

In Fig. 1, we compare the square of the sound speed for different solar models with the new experimental values of $`G`$ and the solar standard model. In the same figure, we show the square of the sound-speed as inferred for the present Sun by using the data from Global Oscillations at Low Frequency (GOLF; Gabriel et al. 1995) and Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI; Scherrer et al. 1995) experiments. It follows from our analysis that the new experimental values of G determined by Michaelis et al. (1996), Schwarz et al. (1999), Richman et al. (1999), produce changes in the profile of the sound speed, compared with the inverted sound speed, that are larger than the differences currently obtained with the solar standard model. Conversely, models computed with lower values of $`G`$, of the order of $`\mathrm{6.63\hspace{0.33em}10}^8\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{g}^1\mathrm{s}^2`$ reproduce the differences observed between the solar standard model and the inverted sound speed from the more recent seismic data. Naturally, the inversion of the sound speed in the center is not totally reliable but we infer that the seismology seems to favor a lower value of G. If we consider that among the present values of $`G`$ the more reliable are those of Quinn et al. (2001) and Gundlach & Merkowitz (2000), than we anticipate that in the coming years solar physics and seismology can progress together to a level such that the accuracy of the square of the sound speed can be obtained with an accuracy of 1 part in $`10^4`$. In this case it follows follows that the standard solar model will be capable of distinguishing between the more likely values of G (see Fig. 2).

Indeed, it is important to remark that the inversion of the sound speed is still uncertain in the central region due to the lack of seismic data, mainly due to the small number of acoustic modes that reach the nuclear-burning region. The inversions are not very reliable at the surface, above $`98\%`$ of the solar radius, due to a poor description of the interaction of acoustic waves with the radiation field and turbulent convection, namely, in the superadiabatic region (Lopes & Gough 2001). In spite of these uncertainties, it is not possible to explain the large differences in the nuclear region obtained by these experimental values of G in the solar standard model. Indeed, a positive difference of as larger as $`0.3\%`$ cannot be accommodated by our present understanding of the internal structure of the Sun. However, a lower value of G, typically of the order of $`\mathrm{6.63\hspace{0.33em}10}^8\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{g}^1\mathrm{s}^2`$, produces changes in the structure comparable to the helioseismic sound speed and accurately reproduces its shape in the nuclear region.

If we believe in the diagnostic capability of the seismic techniques presented here, a lower value of G is better accommodated in the present picture of the evolution of the Sun than the experimental values of $`G`$ measured by Quinn et al. (2001) and Gundlach & Merkowitz (2000), among others. However, we stress that in order to determine with certainty the impact of the new values of $`G`$ on the evolution of the Sun, a more careful analysis of this problem must be made.

The SNO collaboration have published their result for the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ flux measured by neutrino-electron scattering reactions and reported a lower $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ flux as compared to the theoretical predictions of the standard solar model (Bahcall, Pinsonneault and Basu 2001; Turck-Chièze, Nghiem, Couvidat & Turcotte 2001). Furthermore, this result is in agreement with the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ flux measured by Super-Kamiokande detector through the same reaction. Therefore, the experiment confirms the deficit of solar neutrino fluxes of the Chlorine experiment of Davis et al. (1998) and subsequently confirmed by Kamiokande, and by the Gallium experiments SAGE (Abdurashitov et al. 1996), GALLEX (Kirsten et al. 2000) and GNO( Belloti et al. 2000).

The production of $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ takes place in the inner $`2\%`$ of the solar mass core. The $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ decay reaction presents the strongest dependence on the temperature: the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino production is maximum at quite small radii, $`5\%`$ of the solar radius, and its generation is confined to the region between $`2\%`$ and $`7\%`$ of the solar radius. Consequently, this flux of neutrinos becomes the best signature of the temperature at the center of the Sun. Indeed, if the SNO measurement of the $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino fluxes is correct, the central temperature of the standard solar model is within less than $`0.5\%`$ of the temperature deduced from the measured $`{}_{}{}^{8}B`$ neutrino flux (Bahcall 2001, Turck-Chièze 2001). It follows that the high constraint on the solar central temperature imposed by the SNO results can be used to constrain some physical processes occurring in the center of the Sun, or even test some SUSY dark matter particles (Lopes & Silk 2002; Lopes Hansen & Silk 2002; Lopes, Bertone & Silk 2002).

The evolution of the Sun on the main sequence occurs under hydrostatic equilibrium, and accordingly the kinetic energy of electrons and nuclei in the Sun is proportional to the gravitational potential. Therefore the central temperature can be used to measure G. In Fig. 2 we present a solar model for different values of G. At present the error bar of SNO does not allow us to identify which is the best value of G. Nevertheless, SNO is expected to attain an accuracy of $`10\%`$ or even $`5\%`$ in future years (Wark 2001, private communication). With this precision it is not possible to unequivocally determine the best value of G, based solely upon the constraint imposed by SNO neutrinos. However these results, combined with other neutrino experiments and with a better understanding of the mechanisms of neutrino oscillations, will enable us to open a new means of constraining the value of G in the solar interior. The information provided by the neutrino experiments is quite significant because it constitutes an independent test of G complementary to the one provided by helioseismology.

It has been known for the last two hundred years that Newton’s constant is very difficult to measure accurately. Simply stated, G is determined by measuring the gravitational attractive force between two masses at a known distance apart. The problem is that the gravitational attraction between two laboratory-sized masses is simply too small. However, using a very large body like the Sun and the solar acoustic spectrum, it is possible to constrain the gravitational self-attraction and, in so doing, test the new experimental values of $`G`$. It follows from our analysis that the low values of G seem to be favoured. However, the solar standard model is quite complex, and the accurate determination of G can be masked by other uncertainties in the solar model. Only a systematic study of these uncertainties can lead to an accurate determination of G. However, the fact that the neutrino flux measured by SNO (and possibly other neutrino experiments) can be combined with a better model for the oscillation properties of neutrinos will provide a promising means of potentially determining G with improved accuracy, specially if current experimental error bars are significantly reduced.

IPL is grateful for support by a grant from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. The authors thanks S. Turck-Chièze for stimulating discussions. It is a pleasure to thank also H. M. Antia, S. Basu, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, M. Lachièze-Rey, A. Lynas-Gray, J. P. Mbelek, and H. Meyer for informative comments.


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# ∗Fermi and the Elucidation of MatterOpening talk at the celebration of Fermi’s 100th birthday, Chicago, September 29, 2001. To be published in Fermi Remembered, ed. J. Cronin (University of Chicago Press).

## 1 Atomism Transformed

Since the days of Galileo and Newton, the goal of physics – rarely articulated, but tacit in its practice – was to derive dynamical equations so that, given the configuration of a material system at one time, its configuration at other times could be predicted. The description of the Solar System, based on Newtonian celestial mechanics, realzed this goal. This description excellently accounts for Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and much else, but it gives no a priori predictions for such things as the number of planets and their moons, their relative sizes, or the dimensions of their orbits. Indeed, we now know that other stars support quite different kinds of planetary systems. Similarly, the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century discoveries in electricity, magnetism, and optics, synthesized in Maxwell’s dynamical equations of electromagnetism, provided a rich description of the behavior of given distributions of charges, currents, and electric and magnetic fields, but no explanation of why there should be specific reproducible forms of matter.

More specifically, nothing in classical physics explains the existence of elementary building blocks with definite sizes and properties. Yet one of the most basic facts about the physical world is that matter is built up from a few fundamental building blocks (e.g., electrons, quarks, photons, gluons), each occurring in vast numbers of identical copies. Were this not true there could be no lawful chemistry, because every atom would have its own quirky properties. In Nature, by contrast, we find accurate uniformity of properties, even across cosmic scales. The patterns of spectral lines emitted by atoms in the atmospheres of stars in distant galaxies match those we observe in terrestrial laboratories.

Qualitative and semiquantitative evidence for some form of atomism has been recognized for centuries . Lucretius gave poetic expression to ancient atomism and Newton endorsed it in his famous Query 31, beginning

> It seems probable to me, that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the ends for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God Himself made one in the first creation.

In the nineteenth century Dalton, by identifying the law of definite proportions, made atomism the basis of scientific chemistry. Clausius, Maxwell, and Boltzmann used it to construct successful quantitative theories of the behavior of gases. But in these developments the properties of atoms themselves were not derived, but assumed, and their theory was not much advanced beyond Newton’s formulation. In particular, two fundamental questions went begging.

#### Question 1:

Why is matter built from vast numbers of particles that fall into a small number of classes? And why do all particles of a given class rigorously display the same properties?

The indistinguishability of particles is so familiar and so fundamental to all of modern physical science that we could easily take it for granted. Yet it is by no means obvious. For example, it directly contradicts one of the pillars of Leibniz’s metaphysics, his “principle of the identity of indiscernibles,” according to which two objects cannot differ solely in number, but will always exhibit some distinguishing features. Maxwell thought the similarity of different molecules so remarkable that he devoted the last part of his Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Atoms – well over a thousand words – to discussing it. He concluded

> the formation of a molecule is therefore an event not belonging to that order of nature in which we live . . . it must be referred to the epoch, not of the formation of the earth or the solar system . . . but of the establishment of the existing order of nature. . . .

#### Question 2:

Why are there different classes of particles? And why do they exist in the proportions they do?

As we have just seen, both Newton and Maxwell considered this question, but thought that its answer laid beyond the horizon of physics.

By the end of the twentieth century, physics had made decisive progress on these questions. From a science of “how”, it had expanded into a science of “what” that supported a much deeper appreciation of “why”. A radically new model of matter had been constructed. The elementary building-blocks had been inventoried, the equations for their behavior had been precisely defined. The building-blocks of our transformed atomism are, paradoxically, both far more reproducible and far more fluid in their properties than classically conceived atoms. Fermi was a chief architect of this construction, contributing to the design at many levels, as I shall now discuss.

## 2 The Identical and the Indistinguishable

From the perspective of classical physics the indistinguishability of electrons (or other elementary building blocks) is both inessential and surprising. If electrons were nearly but not quite precisely identical, for example, if their masses varied over a range of a few parts per billion, then according to the laws of classical physics different specimens would behave in nearly but not quite the same way. And since the possible behavior is continuously graded, we could not preclude the possibility that future observations, attaining greater accuracy than is available today, might discover small differences among electrons. Indeed, it would seem reasonable to expect that differences would arise, since over a long lifetime each electron might wear down, or get bent, according to its individual history.

The first evidence that the similarity of like particles is quite precise, and goes deeper than mere resemblance, emerged from a simple but profound reflection by Josiah Willard Gibbs in his work on the foundations of statistical mechanics. It is known as “Gibbs’ paradox”, and goes as follows. Suppose that we have a box separated into two equal compartments A and B, both filled with equal densities of hydrogen gas at the same temperature. Suppose further that there is a shutter separating the compartments, and consider what happens if we open the shutter and allow the gas to settle into equilibrium. The molecules originally confined to A (or B) might then be located anywhere in A + B. Thus, since there appear to be many more distinct possibilities for distributing the molecules, it would seem that the entropy of the gas, which measures the number of possible microstates, will increase. On the other hand, one might have the contrary intuition, based on everyday experience, that the properties of gases in equilibrium are fully characterized by their volume, temperature, and density. If that intuition is correct, then in our thought experiment the act of opening the shutter makes no change in the state of the gas, and so of course it generates no entropy. In fact, this result is what one finds in actual experiments.

The experimental verdict on Gibbs’ paradox has profound implications. If we could keep track of every molecule we would certainly have the extra entropy, the so-called entropy of mixing. Indeed, when gases of different types are mixed, say hydrogen and helium, entropy is generated. Since entropy of mixing is not observed for (superficially) similar gases, there can be no method, even in principle, to tell their molecules apart. Thus we cannot make a rigorous statement of the kind, “Molecule 1 is in A, molecule 2 is in A, . . . , molecule $`n`$ is in A”, but only a much weaker statement, of the kind, “There are $`n`$ molecules in A”. In this precise sense, hydrogen molecules are not only similar, nor even only identical, but beyond that, indistinguishable.

Fermi motivated his concept of state-counting  through a different, though related, difficulty of classical statistical mechanics, namely its failure to account for Nernst’s law. This law, abstracted from empirical data, implied that the entropy of a material vanishes at the absolute zero of temperature. Like Gibbs’s paradox it indicates that there are far fewer states than appear classically, and in particular no entropy of mixing. Fermi therefore proposed to generalize Pauli’s exclusion principle from its spectroscopic origins to a universal principle, not only for electrons but as a candidate to describe matter in general:

> We will therefore assume in the following that, at most, one molecule with given quantum numbers can exist in our gas: as quantum numbers we must take into account not only those that determine the internal motions of the molecule but also the numbers that determine its translational motion.

It is remarkable, and perhaps characteristic, that Fermi uses the tested methods of the old quantum theory in evaluating the properties of his ideal gas. He places his molecules in an imaginary shallow harmonic well, identifies the single-particle energy levels the levels by appeal to the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rules, and assigns one state of the system to every distribution of particles over these levels. (Of course, he does not fail to remark that the results should not depend on the details of this procedure.) All the standard results on the ideal Fermi-Dirac gas are then derived in a few strokes, by clever combinatorics.

Indeed, after a few introductory paragraphs, the paper becomes a series of equations interrupted only by minimal text of the general form, “now let us calculate. . . . ” So the following interpolation, though brief, commands attention:

> At the absolute zero point, our gas molecules arrange themselves in a kind of shell-like structure which has a certain analogy to the arrangement of electrons in an atom with many electrons.

We can see in this the germ of the Thomas-Fermi model of atoms , which grows very directly out of Fermi’s treatment of the quantum gas, and gives wonderful insight into the properties of matter . Also, of course, the general scheme of fermions in a harmonic well is the starting point for the nuclear shell model – of which more below.

The successful adaptation of Fermi’s ideal gas theory to describe electrons in metals, starting with Sommerfeld and Bethe, and many other applications, vindicated his approach.

## 3 The Primacy of Quantum Fields 1: Free Fields

As I have emphasized, Fermi’s state-counting logically requires the radical indistinguishability of the underlying particles. It does not explain that fact, however, so its success only sharpens the fundamental problem posed in our Question 1. Deeper insight into this question requires considerations of another order. It comes from the synthesis of quantum mechanics and special relativity into quantum field theory.

The field concept came to dominate physics starting with the work of Faraday in the mid-nineteenth century. Its conceptual advantage over the earlier Newtonian program of physics, to formulate the fundamental laws in terms of forces among atomic particles, emerges when we take into account the circumstance, unknown to Newton (or, for that matter, Faraday) but fundamental in special relativity, that physical influences travel no faster than a finite limiting speed. For this implies that the force on a given particle at a given time cannot be inferred from the positions of other particles at that time, but must be deduced in a complicated way from their previous positions. Faraday’s intuition that the fundamental laws of electromagnetism could be expressed most simply in terms of fields filling space and time was of course brilliantly vindicated by Maxwell’s mathematical theory.

The concept of locality, in the crude form that one can predict the behavior of nearby objects without reference to distant ones, is basic to scientific practice. Practical experimenters – if not astrologers – confidently expect, on the basis of much successful experience, that after reasonable (generally quite modest) precautions isolating their experiments, they will obtain reproducible results.

The deep and ancient historic roots of the field and locality concepts provide no guarantee that these concepts remain relevant or valid when extrapolated far beyond their origins in experience, into the subatomic and quantum domain. This extrapolation must be judged by its fruits. Remarkably, the first consequences of relativistic quantum field theory supply the answer to our Question 1, in its sharp form including Fermi’s quantum state-counting.

In quantum field theory, particles are not the primary reality. Rather, as demanded by relativity and locality, it is fields that are the primary reality. According to quantum theory, the excitations of these fields come in discrete lumps. These lumps are what we recognize as particles. In this way, particles are derived from fields. Indeed, what we call particles are simply the form in which low-energy excitations of quantum fields appear. Thus all electrons are precisely alike because all are excitations of the same underlying Ur-stuff, the electron field. The same logic, of course, applies to photons or quarks, or even to composite objects such as atomic nuclei, atoms, or molecules.

Given the indistinguishability of a class of elementary particles, including complete invariance of their interactions under interchange, the general principles of quantum mechanics teach us that solutions forming any representation of the permutation symmetry group retain that property in time. But they do not constrain which representations are realized. Quantum field theory not only explains the existence of indistinguishable particles and the invariance of their interactions under interchange, but also constrains the symmetry of the solutions. There are two possibilities, bosons or fermions. For bosons, only the identity representation is physical (symmetric wave functions); for fermions, only the one-dimensional odd representation is physical (antisymmetric wave functions). One also has the spin-statistics theorem, according to which objects with integer spin are bosons, whereas objects with half odd-integer spin are fermions. Fermions, of course, obey Fermi’s state-counting procedure. Examples are electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, and other charged leptons and neutrinos.

It would not be appropriate to review here the rudiments of quantum field theory, which justify the assertions of the preceding paragraph. But a brief heuristic discussion seems in order.

In classical physics particles have definite trajectories, and there is no limit to the accuracy with which we can follow their paths. Thus, in principle, we could always keep tab on who’s who. Thus classical physics is inconsistent with the rigorous concept of indistinguishable particles, and it comes out on the wrong side of Gibbs’ paradox.

In the quantum theory of indistinguishable particles the situation is quite different. The possible positions of particles are described by waves (i.e., their wave-functions). Waves can overlap and blur. Related to this, there is a limit to the precision with which their trajectories can be followed, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. So when we calculate the quantum-mechanical amplitude for a physical process to take place, we must sum contributions from all ways in which it might have occurred. Thus, to calculate the amplitude that a state with two indistinguishable particles of a given sort – call them quants – at positions $`x_1,x_2`$ at time $`t_i`$, will evolve into a state with two quants at $`x_3,x_4`$ at time $`t_f`$, we must sum contributions from all possible trajectories for the quants at intermediate times. These trajectories fall into two distinct categories. In one category, the quant initially at $`x_1`$ moves to $`x_3`$, and the quant initially at $`x_2`$ moves to $`x_4`$. In the other category, the quant initially at $`x_1`$ moves to $`x_4`$, and the quant initially at $`x_2`$ moves to $`x_3`$. Because (by hypothesis) quants are indistinguishable, the final states are the same for both categories. Therefore, according to the general principles of quantum mechanics, we must add the amplitudes for these two categories. We say there are “direct” and “exchange” contributions to the process. Similarly, if we have more than two quants, we must add contributions involving arbitrary permutations of the original particles.

Since the trajectories fall into discretely different classes, we may also consider the possibility of adding the amplitudes with relative factors. Mathematical consistency severely limits our freedom, however. We must demand that the rule for multiplying amplitudes, when we sum over states at an intermediate time, is consistent with the rule for the overall amplitude. Since the final result of double exchange is the same as no exchange at all, we must assign factors in such a way that direct $`\times `$ direct = exchange $`\times `$ exchange, and the only consistent possibilities are direct/exchange $`=\pm 1`$. These correspond to bosons ($`+`$) and fermions ($``$), respectively. The choice of sign determines how the interference term between direct and exchange contributions contributes to the square of the amplitude, that is the probability for the overall process. This choice is vitally important for calculating the elementary interactions even of short-lived, confined, or elusive particles, such as quarks and gluons, whose equilibrium statistical mechanics is moot .

## 4 The Centerpiece: Beta Decay

The preceding consequences of quantum field theory follow from its basic “kinematic” structure, independent of any specific dynamical equations. They justified Fermi’s state-counting, and rooted it in a much more comprehensive framework. But Fermi’s own major contributions to quantum field theory came at the next stage, in understanding its dynamical implications.

Fermi absorbed quantum electrodynamics by working through many examples and using them in teaching. In so doing, he assimilated Dirac’s original, rather abstract formulation of the theory to his own more concrete way of thinking. His review article  is a masterpiece, instructive and refreshing to read even today. It begins

> Dirac’s theory of radiation is based on a very simple idea; instead of considering an atom and the radiation field with which it interacts as two distinct systems, he treats them as a single system whose energy is the sum of three terms: one representing the energy of the atom, a second representing the electromagnetic energy of the radiation field, and a small term representing the coupling energy of the atom and the radiation field. . . .

and soon continues

> A very simple example will explain these relations. Let us consider a pendulum which corresponds to the atom, and an oscillating string in the neighborhood of the pendulum which represents the radiation field. . . . To obtain a mechanical representation of this \[interaction\] term, let us tie the mass $`M`$ of the pendulum to a point $`A`$ of the string by means of a very thin and elastic thread $`a`$. . . \[I\]f a period of the of the string is equal to the period of the pendulum, there is resonance and the amplitude of vibration of the pendulum becomes considerable after a certain time. This process corresponds to the absorption of radiation by the atom.

Everything is done from scratch, starting with harmonic oscillators. Fully elaborated examples of how the formalism reproduces concrete experimental arrangements in space-time are presented, including the Doppler effect and Lippmann fringes, in addition to the “S-matrix” type scattering processes that dominate modern textbooks.

Ironically, in view of what was about to happen, Fermi’s review article does not consider systematic quantization of the electron field. Various processes involving positrons are discussed on an ad hoc basis, essentially following Dirac’s hole theory.

With hindsight, it appears obvious that Chadwick’s discovery of the neutron in early 1932 marks the transition between the ancient and the classic eras of nuclear physics. (The dominant earlier idea, consonant with an application of Occam’s razor that in retrospect seems reckless, was that nuclei were made from protons and tightly bound electrons. This idea is economical of particles, of course, but it begs the question of dynamics, and it also has problems with quantum statistics – N<sup>14</sup> would be 21 particles, and a fermion, whereas molecular spectroscopy shows it is a boson.) At the time, however, there was much confusion .

The worst difficulties, which brought into question the validity of quantum mechanics and energy conservation in the nuclear domain, concerned $`\beta `$ decay. On the face of it, the observations seemed to indicate a process $`np+e^{}`$, wherein a neutron decays into a proton plus electron. However, this would indicate boson statistics for the neutron, and it reintroduces the spectroscopic problems mentioned above. Moreover, electrons are observed to be emitted with a nontrivial spectrum of energies, which is impossible for a two-body decay if energy and momentum are conserved. Bohr in this context suggested abandoning conservation of energy. However, Pauli suggested that the general principles of quantum theory could be respected and the conservation laws could be maintained if the decay were in reality $`np+e^{}+\overline{\nu }`$, with a neutral particle $`\overline{\nu }`$ escaping detection.

Fermi invented the term “neutrino” for Pauli’s particle. This started as a little joke in conversation, *neutrino* being the Italian diminutive of *neutrone*, suggesting the contrast of a little neutral one versus a heavy neutral one. It stuck, of course. (Actually, what appears in neutron decay is what we call today an antineutrino.)

More importantly, Fermi took Pauli’s idea seriously and literally, and attempted to bring it fully into line with special relativity and quantum mechanics. This meant constructing an appropriate quantum field theory. Having mastered the concepts and technique of quantum electrodynamics, and after absorbing the Jordan-Wigner technique for quantizing fermion fields, he was ready to construct a quantum field theory for $`\beta `$ decay. He chose a Hamiltonian of the simplest possible type, involving a local coupling of the four fields involved, one for each particle created or destroyed. There are various possibilities for combining the spinors into a Lorentz-invariant object, as Fermi discusses. He then calculates the electron emission spectrum, including the possible effect of nonzero neutrino mass.

It soon became apparent that these ideas successfully organize a vast wealth of data on nuclear $`\beta `$ decays in general. They provided, for forty years thereafter, the ultimate foundation of weak interaction theory, and still remain the most useful working description of a big chapter of nuclear and particle physics. Major refinements including the concept of universality, parity violation, V-A theory – which together made the transition to a deeper foundation, based on the gauge principle compelling – not to mention the experimental investigation of neutrinos themselves, were all based firmly on the foundation supplied by Fermi.

## 5 The Primacy of Quantum Fields 2: <br>From Local Interactions to Particles/Forces <br>(Real and Virtual)

Although Fermi’s work on $`\beta `$ decay was typically specific and sharply focused, by implication it set a much broader agenda for quantum field theory. It emphasized the very direct connection between the abstract principles of interacting quantum field theory and a most fundamental aspect of Nature, the the ubiquity of particle creation and destruction processes.

Local interactions involve products of field operators at a point. When the fields are expanded into creation and annihilation operators multiplying modes, we see that these interactions correspond to processes wherein particles can be created, annihilated, or changed into different kinds of particles. This possibility arises, of course, in the primeval quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, where the primary interaction arises from a product of the electron field, its Hermitean conjugate, and the photon field. Processes of radiation and absorption of photons by electrons (or positrons), as well as electron-positron pair creation, are encoded in this product. But because the emission and absorption of light is such a common experience, and electrodynamics such a special and familiar classical field theory, this correspondence between formalism and reality did not initially make a big impression. The first conscious exploitation of the potential for quantum field theory to describe processes of transformation was Fermi’s theory of beta decay. He turned the procedure around, inferring from the observed processes of particle transformation the nature of the underlying local interaction of fields. Fermi’s theory involved creation and annihilation not of photons but of atomic nuclei and electrons (as well as neutrinos) – the ingredients of “matter”. It thereby initiated the process whereby classical atomism, involving stable individual objects, was replaced by a more sophisticated and accurate picture. In this picture only the fields, and not the individual objects they create and destroy, are permanent.

This line of thought gains power from its association with a second general consequence of quantum field theory, the association of forces and interactions with particle exchange. When Maxwell completed the equations of electrodynamics, he found that they supported source-free electromagnetic waves. The classical electric and magnetic fields took on a life of their own. Electric and magnetic forces between charged particles are explained as due to one particle acting as a source for electric and magnetic fields, which then influence others. With the correspondence of fields and particles, as it arises in quantum field theory, Maxwell’s discovery corresponds to the existence of photons, and the generation of forces by intermediary fields corresponds to the exchange of virtual photons.

The association of forces (or more generally, interactions) with particles is a general feature of quantum field theory. “Real” particles are field excitations that can be considered usefully as independent entities, typically because they have a reasonably long lifetime and can exist spatially separated from other excitations, so that we can associate transport of definite units of mass, energy, charge, etc., with them. But in quantum theory all excitations can also be produced as short-lived fluctuations. These fluctuations are constantly taking place in what we regard as empty space, so that the physicists’ notion of vacuum is very far removed from simple nothingness. The behavior of real particles is affected by their interaction with these virtual fluctuations. Indeed, according to quantum field theory that’s all there is! So observed forces must be ascribed to fluctuations of quantum fields – but these fields will then also support genuine excitations, that is, real particles. Tangible particles and their “virtual” cousins are as inseparable as two sides of the same coin. This connection was used by Yukawa to infer the existence and mass of pions from the range of nuclear forces. (Yukawa began his work by considering whether the exchange of virtual electrons and neutrinos, in Fermi’s $`\beta `$ decay theory, might be responsible for the nuclear force! After showing that these virtual particles gave much too small a force, he was led to a new particle.) More recently it has been used in electroweak theory to infer the existence, mass, and properties of $`W`$ and $`Z`$ bosons prior to their observation, and in QCD to infer the existence and properties of gluon jets prior to their observation.

This circle of ideas, which to me forms the crowning glory of twentieth-century physics, grew around Fermi’s theory of $`\beta `$ decay. There is a double meaning in my title, “Fermi and the Elucidation of Matter”. For Fermi’s most beautiful insight was, precisely, to realize the profound commonality of matter and light.

## 6 Nuclear Chemistry

The other big classes of nuclear transformations, of quite a different character from $`\beta `$ decay, are those in which no leptons are involved. In modern language, these are processes mediated by the strong and electromagnetic interactions. They include the fragmentation of heavy nuclei (fission) and the joining of light nuclei (fusion). These processes are sometimes called nuclear chemistry, since they can be pictured as rearrangements of existing materials – protons and neutrons – similar to how ordinary chemistry can be pictured as rearrangements of electrons and nuclei. In this terminology, it would be natural to call $`\beta `$ decay nuclear alchemy.

Fermi discovered the technique that above all others opened up the experimental investigation of nuclear chemistry. This is the potent ability of slow neutrons to enter and stir up nuclear targets. Fermi regarded this as his greatest discovery. In an interview with S. Chandrasekhar, quoted in , he described it:

> I will tell you now how I came to make the discovery which I suppose is the most important one I have made. We were working very hard on the neutron-induced radioactivity and the results we were obtaining made no sense. One day, as I came to the laboratory, it occurred to me that I should examine the effect of placing a piece of lead before the incident neutrons. Instead of my usual custom, I took great pains to have the piece of lead precisely machined. I was clearly dissatisfied with something: I tried every excuse to postpone putting the piece of lead in its place. When finally, with some reluctance, I was going to put it in its place, I said to myself: “No, I do not want this piece of lead here; what I want is a piece of paraffin.” It was just like that, with no advance warning, no conscious prior reasoning. I immediately took some odd piece of paraffin and placed it where the piece of lead was to have been.

There are wonderful accounts of how he mobilized his group in Rome to exploit, with extraordinary joy and energy, his serendipitous discovery .

I will not retell that story here, nor the epic saga of the nuclear technology commencing with the atomic bomb project . We are still coming to terms with the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, and we have barely begun to exploit the resource of nuclear energy.

From the point of view of pure physics, the significance of Fermi’s work in nuclear chemistry was above all to show that in a wealth of phenomena nuclei could be usefully described as composites wherein protons and neutrons, though in close contact, retain their individual identity and properties. This viewpoint reached its apex in the shell model of Mayer and Jensen . Famously, Fermi helped inspire Mayer’s work, and in particular suggested the importance of spin-orbit coupling, which proved crucial. The success of Mayer’s independent-particle model for describing quantum systems in which the interactions are very strong stimulated deep work in the many-body problem. It also provided the intellectual background for the quark model.

## 7 Last Insights and Visions

With developments in nuclear chemistry making it clear that different nuclei are built up from protons and neutrons, and developments in beta-decay theory showing how protons and neutrons can transmute into one another, our Question 2, to understand the constitution of the world, came into sharp focus. Specifically, it became possible to pose the origin of the elements as a scientific question. Fermi was very much alive to this possibility that his work had opened up. With Turkevich he worked extensively on Gamow’s “ylem” proposal that the elements are built up by successive neutron captures, starting with neutrons only in a hot, rapidly expanding Universe. They correctly identified the major difficulty with this idea, that is, the insurmountable gap at atomic number 5, where no suitably stable nucleus exists. Yet a rich and detailed account of the origin of elements can be constructed, very nearly along these lines. The Fermi-Turkevich gap at $`A=5`$ is reflected in the observed abundances, in that less than 1% of cosmic chemistry resides in such nuclei, the astronomers’ “metals”. Elements beyond $`A=5`$ (except for a tiny amount of Li<sup>7</sup>) are produced in a different way, in the reactions powering stars, and are injected back into circulation through winds or, perhaps, with additional last-minute cooking, during supernova explosions. Also, the correct initial condition for big-bang nucleosynthesis postulates thermal equilibrium at high temperatures, not all neutrons. Though he didn’t quite get there, Fermi envisioned this promised land.

All this progress in observing, codifying, and even controlling nuclear processes was primarily based on experimental work. The models used to correlate the experimental data incorporated relativistic kinematics and basic principles of quantum mechanics, but were not derived from a closed set of underlying equations. The experimental studies reveal that the interaction between nucleons at low energy is extremely complex. It depends on distance, velocity, and spin in a completely entangled way. One could parametrize the experimental results in terms of a set of energy-dependent functions – “phase shifts” – but these functions displayed no obvious simplicity.

The lone triumph of high-energy theory was the discovery of Yukawa’s pion. This particle, with the simple local coupling postulated by Yukawa’s theory, could account semiquantitatively for the long-range tail of the force. Might it provide the complete answer? No one could tell for sure – the necessary calculations were too difficult.

Starting around 1950 Fermi’s main focus was on the experimental investigation of pion-nucleon interactions. They might be expected to have only the square root of the difficulty in interpretation, so to speak, since they are closer to the core-element of Yukawa’s theory. But pion-nucleon interactions turned out to be extremely complicated also.

With the growing complexity of the observed phenomena, Fermi began to doubt the adequacy of Yukawa’s theory. No one could calculate the consequences of the theory accurately, but the richness of the observed phenomena undermined the basis for hypothesizing that with point-like protons, neutrons, and pions one had reached bottom in the understanding of strongly interacting matter. There were deeper reasons for doubt, arising from a decent respect for Question 2. Discovery of the $`\mu `$ particle, hints of more new particles in cosmic ray events (eventually evolving into our $`K`$ mesons), together with the familiar nucleons, electrons, photons, plus neutrinos and the pions, indicated a proliferation of “elementary” particles. They all transformed among one another in complicated ways. Could one exploit the transformative aspect of quantum field theory to isolate a simple basis for this proliferation – fewer, more truly elementary building blocks?

In one of his late theoretical works, with Yang, Fermi proposed a radical alternative to Yukawa’s theory, that might begin to economize particles. They proposed that the pion was not fundamental and elementary at all, but rather a composite particle, specifically a nucleon-antinucleon bound state. This was a big extrapolation of the idea behind the shell model of nuclei. Further, they proposed that the primary strong interaction was what we would call today a four-fermion coupling of the nucleon fields. The pion was to be produced as a consequence of this interaction, and Yukawa’s theory as an approximation – what we would call today an effective field theory. The primary interaction in the Fermi-Yang theory is of the same form of interaction as appears in Fermi’s theory of $`\beta `$ decay, though of course the strength of the interaction and the identities of the fields involved are quite different. In his account of this work  Yang says

> As explicitly stated in the paper, we did not really have any illusions that what we suggested may actually correspond to reality. . . . Fermi said, however, that as a student one solves problems, but as a research worker one raises questions. . . .

Indeed, the details of their proposal do not correspond to our modern understanding. In particular, we have learned to be comfortable with a proliferation of particles, so long as their fields are related by symmetries. But some of the questions Fermi and Yang raised – or, I would say, the directions they implicitly suggested – were, in retrospect, fruitful ones. First, the whole paper is firmly set in the framework of relativistic quantum field theory. Its goal, in the spirit of quantum electrodynamics and Fermi’s $`\beta `$ decay theory, was to explore the possibilities of that framework, rather than to overthrow it. For example, at the time the existence of antinucleons had not yet been established experimentally. However, the existence of antiparticles is a general consequence of relativistic quantum field theory, and it is accepted with minimal comment. Second, building up light particles from much heavier constituents was a liberating notion. It is an extreme extrapolation of the lowering of mass through binding energy. Nowadays we go much further along the same line, binding infinitely heavy (confined) quarks and gluons into the observed strongly interacting particles, including both pions and nucleons. Third, and most profoundly, the possibility of deep similarity in the basic mechanism of the strong and the weak interaction, despite their very different superficial appearance, is anticipated. The existence of just such a common mechanism, rooted in concepts later discovered by Fermi’s co-author – Yang-Mills theory – is a central feature of the modern theory of matter, the so-called Standard Model.

In another of his last works, with Pasta and Ulam , Fermi enthusiastically seized upon a new opportunity for exploration – the emerging capabilities of rapid machine computation. With his instinct for the border of the unknown and the accessible, he chose to revisit a classic, fundamental problem that had been the subject of one of his earliest papers, the problem of approach to equilibrium in a many-body system. The normal working hypothesis of statistical mechanics is that equilibrium is the default option and is rapidly attained in any complex system unless some simple conservation law forbids it. But proof is notoriously elusive, and Fermi thought to explore the situation by controlled numerical  experiments, wherein the degree of complexity could be varied. Specifically, he coupled together various modest numbers of locally coupled nonlinear springs. A stunning surprise emerged: The approach to equilibrium is far from trivial; there are emergent structures, collective excitations that can persist indefinitely. The topic of solitons, which subsequently proved vast and fruitful, was foreshadowed in this work. And the profound but somewhat nebulous question, central to an adequate understanding of Nature, of how ordered structures emerge spontaneously from simple homogeneous laws and minimally structured initial conditions, spontaneously began to pose itself.

Not coincidentally, the same mathematical structure – locally coupled nonlinear oscillators – lies at the foundation of relativistic quantum field theory. Indeed, as we saw, this was the way Fermi approached the subject right from the start. In modern QCD the emergent structures are protons, pions, and other hadrons, which are well hidden in the quark and gluon field “springs”. Numerical work of the kind Fermi pioneered remains our most reliable tool for studying these structures.

Clearly, Fermi was leading physics toward fertile new directions. When his life was cut short, it was a tremendous loss for our subject.

## 8 Fermi as Inspiration: Passion and Style

Surveying Fermi’s output as a whole, one senses a special passion and style, unique in modern physics. Clearly, Fermi loved his dialogue with Nature. He might respond to her deepest puzzles with queries of his own, as in the explorations we have just discussed, or with patient gathering of facts, as in his almost brutally systematic experimental investigations of nuclear transmutations and pion physics. But, he also took great joy in solving, or simply explicating, her simpler riddles, as the many Fermi stories collected in this volume attest.

Fermi tackled ambitious problems at the frontier of knowledge, but always with realism and modesty. These aspects of his scientific style shine through one of Fermi’s rare “methodological” reflections, written near the end of his life :

> When the Yukawa theory first was proposed there was a legitimate hope that the particles involved, protons, neutrons, and pi-mesons, could be legitimately considered as elementary particles. This hope loses more and more its foundation as new elementary particles are rapidly being discovered.
>
> It is difficult to say what will be the future path. One can go back to the books on method (I doubt whether many physicists actually do this) where it will be learned that one must take experimental data, collect experimental data, organize experimental data, begin to make working hypotheses, try to correlate, and so on, until eventually a pattern springs to life and one has only to pick out the results. Perhaps the traditional scientific method of the text books may be the best guide, in the lack of anything better. . . .
>
> Of course, it may be that someone will come up soon with a solution to the problem of the meson, and that experimental results will confirm so many detailed features of the theory that it will be clear to everybody that it is the correct one. Such things have happened in the past. They may happen again. However, I do not believe that we can count on it, and I believe that we must be prepared for a long, hard pull.

Those of you familiar with the subsequent history of the strong-interaction problem will recognize that Fermi’s prognosis was uncannily accurate. A long period of experimental exploration and pattern-recognition provided the preconditions for a great intellectual leap and synthesis. The process would, I think, have gratified Fermi, but not surprised him.

The current situation in physics is quite different from what Fermi lived through or, at the end, described. After the triumphs of the twentieth century, it is easy to be ambitious. Ultimate questions about the closure of fundamental dynamical laws and the origin of the observed Universe begin to seem accessible. The potential of quantum engineering, and the challenge of understanding how one might orchestrate known fundamentals into complex systems, including powerful minds, beckon. Less easy, perhaps, is to remain realistic and (therefore) appropriately modest – in other words, to craft important subquestions that we can answer definitively, in dialogue with Nature. In this art Fermi was a natural grand master, and the worthy heir of Galileo.

### Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by funds provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.) under cooperative research agreement #DF-FC02-94ER40818.

I would like to thank Marty Stock for help with the manuscript.


text:
# Astrometric Detection of Double Gravitational Microlensing Events

## 1 Introduction

One of the most important characteristics of microlensing light curve is that it does not repeat. However, if an event is caused by a widely separated binary lens and the source approaches both lens components, the source flux is successively magnified by the individual lenses: double microlensing events (Di Stefano & Mao, 1996). Due to the special geometric condition, however, the chance to become a double lensing event is rare. Therefore, double lensing events have been neglected in the previous and current microlensing searches (Udalski et al., 2000; Alcock et al., 2000; Derue et al., 2001; Bond et al., 2001).

Although lensing events have until now been observed only photometrically, they can also be observed astrometrically by the use of high precision interferometric instruments that will be available in the near future, such as those to be mounted on space-based platforms, e.g. the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and the Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics (GAIA), and those to be mounted on 10m class ground-based telescopes, e.g. Keck and VLT. If an event is astrometrically observed by using these instruments, one can measure the displacement of the source star image centroid position with respect to its unlensed position (centroid shifts, $`𝜹`$). Once the trajectory of $`𝜹`$ is measured, the lens mass can be better constrained (Miyamoto & Yoshii, 1995; Hog, Novikov & Polanarev, 1995; Walker, 1995; Paczyński, 1998; Boden, Shao & Van Buren, 1998; Han & Chang, 1999). Recently, astrometric microlensing observation is accepted as one of the SIM long term projects (A. Gould, private communication), and thus astrometric followup observations of events detected from the ground-based photometric surveys will become a routine process.

One important characteristic of astrometric lensing behavior is that the astrometric effect endures to a large lens-source separation where the photometric effect is negligible (Miralda-Escudé, 1996). Then, it is expected that the chance for the source trajectory to enter the astrometrically effective lensing region of the companion will be larger, and thus the probability of detecting astrometric double lensing events111We define the “astrometric double lensing event” as “the event where the path of the source star passes through both of the astrometrically effective lensing regions of the individual lens components”. will also be larger. In this paper, we investigate the general properties of astrometric double lensing events and estimate and compare the probabilities of detecting double lensing events from both photometric and astrometric lensing observations.

The paper is organized as follows. In § 2, we investigate the general properties of double lensing events by presenting and comparing the centroid shift trajectories and the light curves of events caused by an example wide separation binary. In § 3, we derive analytic expressions for the relations between binary lensing parameters to become photometric and astrometric double lensing events and estimate the detection probabilities by using these relations. In § 4, we summarize new findings and conclude.

## 2 Properties of Double Lensing Events

The region of photometrically effective lensing region is usually expressed in terms of the Einstein ring radius (Vietri & Ostriker, 1983; Turner, Ostriker & Gott, 1984), which is related to the lens parameters by

$$\theta _\mathrm{E}=\sqrt{\frac{4Gm}{c^2}}\left(\frac{1}{D_{\mathrm{ol}}}\frac{1}{D_{\mathrm{os}}}\right)^{1/2},$$
(1)
where $`m`$ is the lens mass and $`D_{\mathrm{ol}}`$ and $`D_{\mathrm{os}}`$ are the distances to the lens and the source, respectively. If an event is caused by a binary where the projected separation between the lens components is significantly larger than the sum of the Einstein ring radii of the individual lens components, the resulting light curve is approximated by the superposition of those of the events where the individual lens components work as independent single lenses, i.e.

$$AA_1+A_21.$$
(2)
Here $`A_i`$ represents the magnification of each single lens event and the subscripts $`i=1`$ and 2 are used to denote the quantities involved with the primary222Here the primary denotes the binary component that causes earlier magnification of the source flux and the companion is reserved for the other component causing later magnification. and the companion, respectively. Each single lens event light curve is related to the lensing parameters by

$$A_i=\frac{u_i^2+2}{u_i\sqrt{u_i^2+4}};𝒖_i=\left(\frac{tt_{0,i}}{t_{\mathrm{E},i}}\right)\widehat{𝒙}+\beta _i\widehat{𝒚},$$
(3)
where $`𝒖_i`$ represents the separation vector between the source and the lens normalized by the Einstein ring radius of the related lens, $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},i}`$, $`t_{\mathrm{E},i}`$ is the time required for the source to cross $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},i}`$ (Einstein time scales), $`t_{0,i}`$ is the time of the source’s closest approach to each lens, and $`\beta _i`$ is the lens-source separation (normalized by $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},i}`$) at that moment (impact parameter). The units vectors $`\widehat{𝒙}`$ and $`\widehat{𝒚}`$ are parallel with and normal to the lens-source transverse motion. By entering the Einstein ring (i.e. $`u_i1.0`$), the source flux is magnified by $`A_i3/\sqrt{5}1.34`$.

Similar to the light curve, the centroid shift of the wide binary event is approximated by the superposition of the centroid shift vectors induced by the individual single lenses (An & Han, 2001), i.e.,

$$𝜹𝜹_1+𝜹_2,$$
(4)
where the individual centroid shift vectors are represented by

$$𝜹_i=\frac{𝒖_i}{u_i^2+2}\theta _{\mathrm{E},i}.$$
(5)
For a single lens event, the centroid shift follows an elliptical trajectory (astrometric ellipse), whose shape (eccentricity) is determined by the impact parameter and the size (semi-major axis) is directly proportional to the angular Einstein ring radius (Walker, 1995; Jeong, Han & Park, 1999).

To show the properties of astrometric double lensing events, in Figure 1, we present several example centroid shift trajectories of events caused by a widely separated binary lens system. To compare with the photometric lensing behavior, we also present the light curves for the corresponding events. In each panel, we present three different curves, where the solid curve is that of the exact binary lens event, the dotted curve is that obtained by the single lensing superposition, and the dashed curve is that expected without the presence of the companion. The lens system has a mass ratio between the components of $`q=m_2/m_1=0.5`$ and they are separated by $`d=7.35`$ in units of $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$. The source trajectory responsible for each event is marked in Figure 2. To show the astrometrically effective region of the companion, we also present the excess centroid shift vectors of the binary lens system from the centroid shifts induced by the primary lens alone, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝜹=𝜹𝜹_1`$. Greyscales are used to show the regions where the amount of excess is greater than $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta =5\%`$, 10%, 15% and 20% of $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$, respectively. We note that time and lengths are expressed in units of $`t_{\mathrm{E},1}`$ and $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$ because the event involved with the primary lens will be the standard of all measurements. To show the changing rate of the centroid position, we mark the centroid positions (‘x’ symbol) measured with a time interval of $`t_{\mathrm{E},1}/4`$. For an event with $`t_{\mathrm{E},1}/4`$ is a month, therefore, this time interval corresponds to a week.

From Fig. 1 and 2, one finds the following three important characteristics of astrometric double lensing events.

1. First, unlike the light curve which is composed of two well separated light curves induced by the individual lens components, the centroid shift trajectory is not simply composed of two separated astrometric ellipses, but has a distorted shape from both of the elliptical trajectories. This is because the centroid shift results from the vector sum of those induced by the individual lenses, while the magnification results from the scalar sum of the individual magnifications.
2. Second, despite the distorted shape of the centroid shift trajectory, event duplication can be readily identified by the characteristic loop in the trajectory of $`𝜹`$ formed during the source’s passage close to the companion.
3. Third, due to the long range astrometric effect of the companion, as expected, astrometric detection of the event duplication will be possible even when the separation between the source trajectory and the companion is considerable. By contrast, photometric detection of a double lensing event will be possible only when the source approaches very close to the companion.

## 3 Probabilities of Double Lensing Events

In the previous section, we have investigated the general properties of astrometric double lensing events. In this section, we derive analytic expressions for the relations between the binary lensing parameters to become photometric and astrometric double lensing events. By using these relations, we then determine and compare the probabilities of detecting double lensing events from both photometric and astrometric lensing observations.

### 3.1 Photometric Double Lensing Events

If $`b_1`$ and $`b_2`$ represent the smallest separations from the source trajectory to the individual lens components, where projected separation between them is $`\mathrm{}\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}+\theta _{\mathrm{E},2}`$, the orientation angle of the source trajectory with respect to the binary axis is represented by

$$\alpha _\pm =\mathrm{sin}^1\left(\frac{b_1\pm b_2}{\mathrm{}}\right)$$
(6)
(Di Stefano & Scalzo, 1999). Here the sign “$``$” is for the case when the the closest points on the source trajectory from the individual lenses are located on the same side of the binary axis and the “$`+`$” sign is when the points are located on the opposite sides (see Figure 3). When all lengths are normalized in units of $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$, equation (6) is expressed by

$$\alpha _\pm =\mathrm{sin}^1\left(\frac{\beta _1\pm \sqrt{q}\beta _2}{d}\right),$$
(7)
where $`d=\mathrm{}/\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$. Let us define $`\beta _{\mathrm{th}}`$ as the threshold impact parameter to the companion such that among events for which the light variation induced by the primary is detected, only a fraction of events whose source trajectories approaching the companion closer than $`\beta _{\mathrm{th}}`$ will become double lensing events. Then, under the definition of a photometric double lensing event as “the event where the source trajectory enters both of the Einstein ring radii of the individual binary lens components”, the condition to become a photometric double lensing event is $`\beta _2\beta _{\mathrm{th}}=1.0`$, and thus the detection probability is computed by

$$P_{\mathrm{ph}}=\frac{\alpha _{\mathrm{ph},+}\alpha _{\mathrm{ph},}}{\pi },$$
(8)
where

$$\alpha _{\mathrm{ph},\pm }=\mathrm{sin}^1\left(\frac{\beta _1\pm \sqrt{q}}{d}\right).$$
(9)
### 3.2 Astrometric Double Lensing Events

Astrometrically, lensing has a longer range effect than the photometric effect, and thus a new definition of the threshold impact parameter is required. Let us define $`\delta _{\mathrm{th}}`$ as the threshold amount of the centroid shift induced by the companion that is required for an event to be identified as an astrometric double lensing event. Then, the threshold impact parameter corresponding to $`\delta _{\mathrm{th}}`$ is obtained by solving equation (5) with respect to the lens-source separation, resulting in

$$\beta _{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{1}{\delta _{\mathrm{th}}/\theta _{\mathrm{E},2}}+\sqrt{\frac{1}{(\delta _{\mathrm{th}}/\theta _{\mathrm{E},2})^2}8}\right).$$
(10)
Note that equation (5) is a quadratic equation of $`u`$ and thus solving the equation results in two values of $`\beta _{\mathrm{th}}`$. The two solutions correspond respectively to the lens-source separations that are smaller and larger than $`u=\sqrt{2}`$, at which $`\delta _2`$ becomes maximum. Since we are interested only in the maximum allowed lens-source separation for the event to be identified as a double lensing event, we take the larger value. If we define a detectable astrometric double lensing event as “an event with centroid shift induced by the companion larger than $`f`$ fraction of the Einstein ring radius of the primary lens”, i.e. $`\delta _{\mathrm{th}}/\theta _{\mathrm{E},2}=f\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}/\theta _{\mathrm{E},2}=f/\sqrt{q}`$, equation (10) is expressed in terms of $`f`$ by

$$\beta _{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\sqrt{q}}{f}+\sqrt{\frac{q}{f^2}8}\right).$$
(11)
Then the probability of detecting astrometric double lensing event is represented by

$$P_{\mathrm{ast}}=\frac{\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},+}\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},}}{\pi },$$
(12)
where

| $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},+}=\mathrm{sin}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta _1+\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}}{d}}\right),`$ |
| --- |
| $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},}=\mathrm{sin}^1\left({\displaystyle \frac{\left|\beta _1\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}\right|}{d}}\right),`$ |

(13)
for $`d>\beta _1+\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}`$,

$$\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},+}=\frac{\pi }{2},\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},}=\mathrm{sin}^1\left(\frac{\left|\beta _1\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}\right|}{d}\right),$$
(14)
for $`\left|\beta _1\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}\right|<d\beta _1+\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}`$, and

$$\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},\pm }=\pm \frac{\pi }{2},$$
(15)
for $`d\left|\beta _1\sqrt{q}\beta _{\mathrm{th}}\right|`$. We note that since the astrometrically effective lensing region of the companion can be large enough to extend to or even beyond the position of the primary, the threshold orientation angles $`\alpha _{\mathrm{ast},\pm }`$ have different sets of values depending on the relative size of the astrometrically effective region of the companion to the binary separation.

In Figure 4, we present the probabilities of detecting astrometric and photometric double lensing events as contour maps in the parameter space of the binary separation (in units of $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}`$) and the mass ratio, $`(d,q)`$. For the computation $`P_{\mathrm{ast}}`$, we set $`f=0.1`$. If the mass and the location of the primary lens are $`m=0.3M_{}`$ and $`D_{\mathrm{ol}}=4\mathrm{kpc}`$, the Einstein ring radius is $`\theta _{\mathrm{E},1}500`$ $`\mu `$-arcsec, and thus the imposed threshold centroid shift induced by the companion corresponds to $`\delta _{\mathrm{th}}50`$ $`\mu `$-arcsec. We note that the astrometric precision of the SIM will be as low as several $`\mu `$-arcsec, and thus this amount of shift can be easily detected. Since astrometric followup will be performed only for events where the source flux variation is identified by the photometric surveys, we compute the probabilities by setting the range of the impact parameter to the primary lens to be $`0<\beta _11.0`$, and the presented probabilities are the mean values. Note that since the lens causing later magnification (companion) can be heavier than the lens causing earlier magnification (primary), the mass ratio can be larger than $`q=1.0`$. To locate the unlensed source position, which is the reference position of $`𝜹`$ measurements, astrometric followup observations of each event will be performed for a long period of time, and thus event duplication can be identified for events caused by a considerably wide separation binary. For an event with $`t_{\mathrm{E},1}20`$ days, the time required to identify the duplication caused by a companion with $`d20`$ will be slightly more than a year. From the figure, one finds that for a given set of $`d`$ and $`q`$, the astrometric probability is roughly an order higher than the photometric probability.

## 4 Conclusion

We have investigated the properties of double lensing events expected to be identified from future astrometric lensing observations. From this investigation, we find that although the centroid shift trajectory of an astrometric double lensing event has a distorted shape from those of the elliptical ones induced by the individual lens components, the event duplication can be readily identified from the characteristic loop formed during the source’s approach close to the companion. We have also determined and compared the probabilities of detecting double lensing events from both photometric and astrometric lensing observations by deriving analytic expressions for the relations between the binary lensing parameters to become double lensing events. From this determination, we find that for a given set of the binary separation and the mass ratio, the probability to detect astrometric double lensing events is roughly an order high than the probability to detect photometric double lensing events. Therefore, we predict that a significant fraction of events that will be followed up by using future high precision interferometeric instruments will be identified as double lensing events.

This work was supported by the National Research Laboratory (NRL) fund.