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# Accelerating universe as from the evolution of extra dimensions

## 1 Introduction

The recent distance measurements of type Ia supernovae suggest an accelerating expansion of the present universe . In many of the current cosmological models, the present accelerating expansion is driven by an energy source called “dark energy”, with a positive cosmological constant  or the so-called “quintessence” (a slowly evolving scalar field ) as a possible candidate. Instead of attributing this acceleration to the mysterious dark energy, we consider in this paper the possible existence of extra spatial dimensions and explore the feasibility of producing the present accelerating expansion via the evolution of these extra dimensions.

The application of extra dimensions is a general feature in theories beyond the standard model, especially in theories for unifying gravity and other forces, such as superstring theory. These extra dimensions should be “hidden” for consistency with observations. Various scenarios for “hidden” extra dimensions have been proposed, for example, a brane world with large compact extra dimensions in factorizable geometry proposed by Arkani-Hamed *et al.*  (see also ), and a brane world with noncompact extra dimensions in nonfactorizable geometry proposed by Randall and Sundrum . In this paper, we employ the simplest scenario: small compact extra dimensions in factorizable geometry, as introduced in the Kaluza-Klein theories .

We study spatially homogeneous, isotropic, perfect-fluid cosmological models in $`(1+3+n)`$ dimensions where $`n`$ is the number of extra dimensions. In Sec. 2, we first obtain, from the Einstein equations, some general features of the evolution of the higher-dimensional space, especially for a radiation-dominated universe and a (nonrelativistic) matter-dominated universe. In Sec. 3, we then explore the possibility of producing an accelerating expansion of the ordinary three-space via the evolution of ‘extra space’ for a matter-dominated universe. We analyze the Einstein equations to show qualitatively the behavior of this evolution and obtain numerical solutions which illustrate explicitly the accelerating expansion of the ordinary three-space along with the collapse of the extra space. We note that, while the Kaluza-Klein cosmology and inflation in higher dimensional space-time in connection with the early universe were discussed widely in the 1980s  (for a review, see ; for recent work, see ), the focus of this paper has to do with the present accelerating matter-dominated universe.

## 2 Evolution of Spaces in Ordinary Three Dimensions and Extra Dimensions: General Features

We consider a metric of a (3+n+1)-dimensional space-time, in which both the ordinary three-space and the extra (or “hidden”) space are homogeneous and isotropic:

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\left(\frac{dr_a^2}{1k_ar_a^2}+r_a^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_a^2\right)b^2(t)\left(\frac{dr_b^2}{1k_br_b^2}+r_b^2d\mathrm{\Omega }_b^2\right),\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}r_b1$$
(1)
where $`a(t)`$ and $`b(t)`$ are scale factors, and the values of $`k_a`$ and $`k_b`$ are related to the curvatures of the ordinary three-space and the extra space, respectively. Assuming that the matter content in this higher-dimensional space is taken to be a perfect fluid, we can write the Einstein equations, which govern the evolution of the ordinary three-space and the extra space, as

$$3\left[\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}\right]+\frac{n(n1)}{2}\left[\left(\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\right)^2+\frac{k_b}{b^2}\right]+3n\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\frac{\dot{b}}{b}=8\pi \overline{G}\overline{\rho },$$
(2)
$$2\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}+n\frac{\ddot{b}}{b}+\left[\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}\right]+\frac{n(n1)}{2}\left[\left(\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\right)^2+\frac{k_b}{b^2}\right]+2n\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)\left(\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\right)=8\pi \overline{G}\overline{p}_a,$$
(3)
$`3{\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}+(n1){\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}+3\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{k_a}{a^2}}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{(n1)(n2)}{2}}\left[\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{k_b}{b^2}}\right]`$
$`+3(n1)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)=8\pi \overline{G}\overline{p}_b,`$ (4)
where $`\overline{G}`$ and $`\overline{\rho }`$ are the gravitational constant and the energy density in the higher-dimensional world, and $`\overline{p}_a`$ and $`\overline{p}_b`$ are the pressures in the ordinary three-space and the extra space, respectively. Assuming simple equations of state $`\overline{p}_a=\omega _a\overline{\rho }_a`$ and $`\overline{p}_b=\omega _b\overline{\rho }_b`$ with constant state parameters $`\omega _a`$ and $`\omega _b`$, the conservation of stress energy gives rise to

$$\overline{\rho }a^{3(1+\omega _a)}b^{n(1+\omega _b)}.$$
(5)
In this paper we assume $`k_b=0`$ for simplicity and study the evolution of the scale factors $`a(t)`$ and $`b(t)`$ from Eqs. (2)–(4). First of all, we consider a radiation-dominated universe with

$`\overline{p}_a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}\overline{\rho },`$
$`\overline{p}_b`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$
For such a universe, we can read off, from Eqs. (2)–(4), a solution with constant $`b`$ (static extra dimensions), as shown in the following. For constant $`b`$, Eqs. (2)–(4) become

$$\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi \overline{G}}{3}\overline{\rho },$$
(6)
$$2\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}+\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi \overline{G}}{3}\overline{\rho },$$
(7)
$$\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}+\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}=0.$$
(8)
As a consistency check, we note that Eq. (8) can be derived from Eqs. (6) and (7), the latter being the equations that describe the evolution of a four-dimensional radiation-dominated universe in the standard cosmology. In addition, the constant $`b`$ solution is stable under small perturbations of scale factors $`a(t)`$ and $`b(t)`$, a fact that can be shown straightforwardly. In other words, we can retrieve the ordinary evolution path of a radiation-dominated universe within a higher-dimensional space-time with static extra dimensions. On the other hand, for a matter-dominated universe with $`\overline{p}_a=\overline{p}_b=0`$, there is no solution corresponding to constant $`b`$ (unless $`\overline{\rho }=0`$).

As a parenthetical remark, if we wish to obtain a solution with the same evolution path as a four-dimensional matter-dominated universe in the standard cosmology, that is, $`b=`$ const and $`a(t)`$ satisfies

$$\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}=\frac{8\pi \overline{G}}{3}\overline{\rho },$$
(9)
$$2\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}+\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2+\frac{k_a}{a^2}=0,$$
(10)
the matter in the extra space needs to provide negative pressure

$$\overline{p}_b=\frac{1}{2}\overline{\rho },$$

although it provides negligible pressure in the ordinary three-space. It seems unusual to provide pressure in such a strange manner. Nevertheless, it is in fact still possible that, if the nonrelativistic “particles” in the ordinary three-space are in fact extended objects (like strings) in the extra space, they may provide pressure in this manner.

Assuming $`k_a=k_b=0`$ for simplicity and using the simple equations of state $`\overline{p}_a=\omega _a\overline{\rho }`$ and $`\overline{p}_b=\omega _b\overline{\rho }`$ with constant $`\omega _a`$ and $`\omega _b`$, we obtain

$$\alpha (t)\left(13\omega _a+2\omega _b\right)\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\left[1+(n1)\omega _an\omega _b\right]\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\frac{1}{a^3b^n}\frac{1}{V_{3+n}},$$
(11)
where $`\alpha (t)`$ in many cases characterizes roughly the difference between the expansion rates of the ordinary three-space and the extra space, and $`V_{3+n}`$ is the volume of the $`(3+n)`$-dimensional space. It follows from Eq. (11) that the difference $`\alpha (t)`$ will either decrease or grow as the volume $`V_{3+n}`$ of the higher-dimensional world grows or decreases. For a radiation-dominated universe with $`\overline{p}_a=\frac{1}{3}\overline{\rho }`$ and $`\overline{p}_b=0`$, we have

$$\alpha (t)=\frac{n+2}{3}\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\frac{1}{a^3b^n}\frac{1}{V_{3+n}}.$$
(12)
Accordingly, if $`V_{3+n}`$ \[the volume of overall (3+n)-dimensional space\] is growing, the expansion rate of the extra space will drop and approach zero. We note that this feature also indicates the stability of the constant-$`b`$ solution mentioned above in a radiation-dominated universe. On the other hand, for a matter-dominated universe with $`\overline{p}_a=\overline{p}_b=0`$ or for a more general case with $`\omega _a=\omega _b1/3`$, we have

$$\alpha (t)\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\frac{\dot{b}}{b}\frac{1}{a^3b^n}\frac{1}{V_{3+n}}.$$
(13)
Accordingly, if the volume $`V_{3+n}`$ is growing, the expansion rates of the ordinary three-space and the extra space will tend to approach each other. If the volume $`V_{3+n}`$ is decreasing, on the other hand, with one expanding space and one collapsing space, then either $`|\dot{a}/a|`$ or $`|\dot{b}/b|`$ will become larger and larger. We note that an increasing positive expansion rate represents an accelerating expansion. Thus, the accelerating expansion of our universe (the ordinary three-space) may be generated along with the collapse of the extra space, as will be discussed in the next section.

## 3 Accelerating Expansion of the Ordinary Three-space Generated by the Evolution of Extra Dimensions

In this section, we consider a (1+3+n)-dimensional matter-dominated universe and wish to explore, both analytically and numerically, the possibility of generating the accelerating expansion of the ordinary three-space via the the evolution of the extra space. Assuming $`k_a=k_b=0`$ for simplicity and using the equations of state, $`\overline{p}_a=\overline{p}_b=0`$, we can rearrange Eqs. (3) and (4) to become

$`(n+2){\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}}+(2n+1)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2+n(n1){\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}{\displaystyle \frac{n(n1)}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (14)
$`(n+2){\displaystyle \frac{\ddot{b}}{b}}3\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}\right)^2+6{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{a}}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(n1)(n+4)}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{b}}{b}}\right)^2`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (15)
or, equivalently, with $`u`$ and $`v`$ defined as $`u(t)\dot{a}/a`$ and $`v(t)\dot{b}/b`$,

$`(n+2)\dot{u}+3(n+1)u^2+n(n1)uv{\displaystyle \frac{n(n1)}{2}}v^2`$ $`=`$ $`0,`$ (16)
$`(n+2)\dot{v}3u^2+6uv+{\displaystyle \frac{n(n+5)}{2}}v^2`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (17)
From Eq. (14), we can read off the condition for $`\ddot{a}/a>0`$ (accelerating ordinary three-space),

$$\frac{\dot{b}}{b}>\left[1+\sqrt{\frac{(n+1)(n+2)}{n(n1)}}\right]\frac{\dot{a}}{a}J_+\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right),$$
(18)
or

$$\frac{\dot{b}}{b}<\left[1\sqrt{\frac{(n+1)(n+2)}{n(n1)}}\right]\frac{\dot{a}}{a}J_{}\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right),$$
(19)
and also the condition for $`\ddot{a}/a<0`$ (decelerating ordinary three-space),

$$J_{}\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)<\frac{\dot{b}}{b}<J_+\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right).$$
(20)
We can see that the fraction $`\eta (t)`$\[$`v(t)/u(t)`$\] is the key quantity in the above conditions for swaying the acceleration status of the ordinary three-space. Therefore it is essential to investigate possible evolution paths of the fraction $`\eta (t)`$, i.e., to see the behavior of $`d\eta /dt`$ in different regions of $`\eta `$.

Using Eqs. (16) and (17), we obtain the conditions

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{dt}}>0`$ for $`\eta <K_{att}\text{ or }K_{rep}<\eta <1`$ (21)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\eta }{dt}}<0`$ for $`K_{att}<\eta <K_{rep}\text{ or }\eta >1`$ (22)
where $`K_{att}`$ and $`K_{rep}`$ are defined by

$`K_{att}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3+\sqrt{3(n+2)/n}}{n1}},`$ (23)
$`K_{rep}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\sqrt{3(n+2)/n}}{n1}}.`$ (24)
We note that the subscripts att and rep denote “attractor” and “repeller”, respectively. Their meanings will be described in the following discussion.

The conditions in Eqs. (18)–(22) can be summarized in the “flow diagram” Fig. 1. The upper part of Fig. 1 illustrates the conditions in Eqs. (18)–(20) for the behavior of $`\ddot{a}/a`$, while the lower part illustrates the conditions in Eqs. (21) and (22) for the behavior of $`d\eta /dt`$. We note that $`J_+`$, $`J_{}`$, $`K_{att}`$, and $`K_{rep}`$ always obey the order

$$K_{att}<J_{}<K_{rep}<0<1<J_+$$
(25)
for $`n2`$. In Fig. 1, we can see that there are two “attractors” at $`\eta =K_{att}`$ and at $`\eta =1`$, and one “repeller” at $`\eta =K_{rep}`$. The higher-dimensional world will approach the state at $`\eta =K_{att}`$ for the class of initial conditions satisfying $`\eta <K_{rep}`$, while it will approach $`\eta =1`$ for the other initial-condition class $`\eta >K_{rep}`$. Accordingly, the higher-dimensional world possesses four kinds of evolution path corresponding to different $`\eta _0`$ (the initial value of $`\eta `$):

$`\eta _0>J_+`$ , accelerate first and then decelerate, (26a)
$`K_{rep}<\eta _0<J_+`$ , always decelerate, (26b)
$`J_{}<\eta _0<K_{rep}`$ , decelerate first and then accelerate, (26c)
$`\eta _0<J_{}`$ , always accelerate. (26d)
Consequently, we can see that the situation in Eq. (26c) may properly describe our universe. In this situation, the universe is in the region $`(J_{},K_{rep})`$ initially and the ordinary three-space expands in a decelerating manner during the period when $`\eta `$ evolves within this region, while the extra space always collapses. After some time the ordinary three-space will start to accelerate as $`\eta `$ passes $`J_{}`$ in the collapsing process of the extra space. (Please see the Note added.)

For a concrete illustration, we analyze Eqs. (14) and (15) numerically for the case of $`n=2`$. We consider the initial time to be the moment when the nonrelativistic matter starts to take over and dominate the universe, which is usually denoted by $`t_{EQ}`$ (where EQ means “matter-radiation equality”). The results are demonstrated in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, in which five evolution paths corresponding to various initial conditions are drawn. The five initial conditions we employ are (a) $`(\dot{b}/b)_0=0.500(\dot{a}/a)_0`$, (b) $`(\dot{b}/b)_0=0.550(\dot{a}/a)_0`$, (c) $`(\dot{b}/b)_0=0.551(\dot{a}/a)_0`$, (d) $`(\dot{b}/b)_0=0.552(\dot{a}/a)_0`$, and (e) $`(\dot{b}/b)_0=0.560(\dot{a}/a)_0`$. The plots in the left column of Fig. 2 sketch $`\mathrm{ln}[a(t)/a_0]`$, and the plots in the right column sketch $`\dot{b}(t)/b(t)`$. Figure 3 combines the plots in the left column of Fig. 2 for comparison. The value of $`\dot{b}/b`$ and the time $`t`$ are in units of $`(\dot{a}/a)_0`$ and $`(\dot{a}/a)_0^1`$ (the Hubble time at $`t_0=t_{EQ}`$, which is set to be zero here), respectively. We can see that the evolution path is very sensitive to the initial value of $`\eta `$ and, more importantly, there exists a critical value $`\eta _{cr}`$, which is indeed the parameter $`K_{rep}`$ and is about $`0.55051`$ for $`n=2`$, such that the ordinary three-space will either expand in a decelerating manner for $`\eta _0>\eta _{cr}`$ or accelerate eventually for $`\eta _0<\eta _{cr}`$.

To sum up, the analysis of the matter-dominated case with $`k_a=k_b=0`$ leads to Fig. 1. Four classes of evolution path, as described in Eqs. (26a)–(26d), can be read off from Fig. 1. The situation that may appropriately describe our universe is the one suggested by Eq. (26c), in which the ordinary three-space decelerates first and then accelerates along with the collapse of the extra space. Figures 2 and 3 show five evolution path corresponding to five different initial conditions, where paths (a) and (b) illustrate the situation in Eq. (26b) and paths (c)–(e) illustrate the situation in Eq. (26c). There exists a critical value $`\eta _{cr}`$, which is exactly the parameter $`K_{rep}`$, dividing these two classes of evolution paths. For the case with $`\eta _0<\eta _{cr}`$ corresponding to the situation in Eq. (26c), the period before the acceleration starts is sensitive to the the initial value of $`\eta `$, $`\eta _0`$. If we require the expansion of our universe to decelerate for a long enough period before the acceleration starts in order to conserve the concordance between observations and theories regarding the early universe, the initial value of $`\eta `$ has to be chosen in a delicate way such that it is close enough to $`\eta _{cr}`$. Therefore this scenario so far has a fine-tuning problem.

## 4 Discussion and summary

We have investigated the scenario of producing the accelerating expansion of the present universe via evolving small extra dimensions. For a radiation-dominated universe, such as our early universe, we obtain a stable solution with static extra dimensions. Accordingly, the existence of extra dimensions may have no significant influence on the evolution of the ordinary three-space. This is a good feature which we need for preserving the concordance between observations and current theories regarding the early (radiation-dominated) universe, especially for primordial nucleosynthesis. On the contrary, such a solution with static extra dimensions does not exist for the present matter-dominated universe.

The features of the evolution can also be read off from Eq. (11), or Eqs. (12) and (13), which are derived from Eq. (11). Equation (12) shows the decreasing expansion rate of the extra space along with the increase of the $`(3+n)`$-dimensional volume $`V_{3+n}`$. This implies the stability of the solution with static extra dimensions in the radiation-dominated universe for the case of $`k_a=k_b=0`$ as already mentioned above. On the other hand, Eq. (13) shows two possible evolution patterns of the matter-dominated universe: (i) The expansion rates of the ordinary three-space and the extra space tend to catch up with each other along with the increase of the (3+n)-dimensional volume $`V_{3+n}`$. (ii) One of these two expansion rates is positive and increasing, while the other is negative and decreasing, along with the decrease of the (3+n)-dimensional volume $`V_{3+n}`$. We note that an increasing positive expansion rate represents an accelerating expansion.

A quantitative analysis of the matter-dominated case with $`k_a=k_b=0`$ leads to Fig. 1, which indicates four classes of evolution path. A universe that decelerates first and then accelerates is included in one of them. Therefore the accelerating expansion of the present universe may be appropriately described in this scenario. In addition, the case with two extra dimensions is analyzed in detail. The five resultant evolution paths we draw demonstrate the existence of a critical value for the initial condition $`\eta _0`$, which divides two classes of path: the one in which the universe decelerates first and then accelerates and the other in which the universe always decelerates. We note that the critical value $`\eta _{cr}`$ is exactly the parameter $`K_{rep}`$, a “repeller” in the flow diagram. However, the existence of the critical value (or the “repeller”) also implies a fine-tuning problem, i.e., the initial value of $`\eta `$ has to be chosen delicately so that it is close enough to the critical value $`\eta _{cr}`$ in order to possess a long enough decelerating epoch followed by an accelerating epoch.

The existence of extra dimensions is a general feature in theories beyond the standard model in particle physics. It may manifest itself as a source of energy in the ordinary three-space, such as “effective” dark energy or even “effective” dark matter. The geometrical structure and the evolution pattern of extra dimensions therefore may play an important role in cosmology. In this work we study a simple scenario of extra dimensions that is subject to a fine-tuning problem. Nevertheless, other scenarios with richer structures, such as those in  and , may also provide suitable evolution patterns and are worthy of being further investigated.

Note added. For the sake of simplicity, we have in this paper considered only the case with $`k_a=k_b=0`$, i.e., both our ordinary three-space and the extra space are flat. The general situations with nonzero $`k_a`$ or $`k_b`$ clearly may offer many interesting possibilities and are currently under serious investigation.

## Acknowledgements

One of us (Je-An Gu) wishes to thank Professor W. F. Kao for helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, R.O.C. (NSC 90-2112-M-002-028) and by the CosPA project of the Ministry of Education (MOE 89-N-FA01-1-4-3).


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# The 1996–1997 Fading of V651 Mon, the Binary Central Star of the Planetary Nebula NGC 2346

## 1 Introduction

V651 Mon is the binary central star of the bipolar planetary nebula NGC 2346. The 15.991-d binary consists of an A5 V star, which emits most of the visual light, and a hot ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ $``$105 K) subdwarf, which emits the most of the ultraviolet light (Méndez, Niemela, 1981). This binary has received special attention since its fading episode starting in 1981 (Kohoutek, 1982).

The fading initially showed a strong modulation with the orbital period. Subsequent observations led to a picture of a passing cloud (within the planetary nebula) in front of the binary: eclipse-like fadings in the visual light occur when the orbiting A5 V star passes behind the cloud (for a review on this object, see Costero et al. (1986)). Costero et al. (1986) expect, from the amount of dust from IRAS observations, that the probability of such passages is very small. In fact, plate searches could not detect any similar events between 1899 and 1981 (Schaefer, 1983). Further detailed photoelectric observations only caught small variations (Kohoutek et al., 1992), or a transient short fading (Grothues, Kohoutek, 1993).

In spite of a prediction by Costero et al. (1986), the second-ever deep fading was reported in 1996 September (Overbeek, 1996). We started CCD observations upon this alert.

## 2 Observation

The observations were made on 38 nights between 1996 November 14 and 1998 January 2, using a CCD camera (Thomson TH 7882, 576 $`\times `$ 384 pixels, on-chip 2 $`\times `$ 2 binning adopted) attached to the Cassegrain focus of the 60 cm reflector (focal length=4.8 m) at Ouda Station, Kyoto University (Ohtani et al., 1992). An interference filter was used, which had been designed to reproduce the Johnson V band. The exposure time was 20–60 s, depending on the brightness of the object. The frames were first corrected for standard de-biasing and flat fielding, and were then processed by a microcomputer-based photometry package developed by one of the authors (TK). We employed a PSF profile fitting procedure for the central star in order to minimize any contamination from the planetary nebula. The magnitudes were determined relative to GSC 4815.3644 ($`V`$=11.76, VSNET chart), whose constancy during the run was confirmed using GSC 4815.3177. Table 1 lists the log of observations.

## 3 Discussion

Figure 1 presents the overall course of the 1996–1997 fading episode. Visual observations were reported to VSNET111$``$ http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/ $``$. (VSNET is an international network of variable star observers, designed to make collaborative studies on selected variable stars). All observers used comparison stars calibrated in the $`V`$-band. The present CCD $`V`$-band observations are also shown (open circles). The total duration of the event was $``$400 d, which is remarkably shorter than the 1981–1985 event.

Figure 2 shows an overall light curve from our CCD observations. The CCD observation started when the 1996–1997 fading episode reached close to its minimum. The object recovered to its normal magnitude during the latest two observations (at the end of 1997).

Following the interpretation by Costero et al. (1986), the cloud responsible for the fade was either smaller or had a larger tangential velocity. The total depth of the fading ($``$2.7 mag) may be slightly smaller than the extreme value reported in the 1981–1985 event. This difference, however, may be a result of a systematic difference of the measurements: in the 1981–1985 event, the aperture background subtraction technique in photoelectric photometry was employed in order to measure the faint object against the bright nebular background, while the present observations of the 1996–1997 event used PSF fitting of the stellar profile on two-dimensional CCD images. By taking this effect into account, the depth was found to be roughly comparable to that of the 1981–1985 event, implying that the opacity of the cloud is similar.

Another notable feature of the present event is the presence of a sharply defined transient brightening around JD 2450540. The enlarged light curve around this brightening is shown in figure 3. Although visual observations reported to VSNET suggest the presence of a weak 16-d periodicity, as was observed in the 1981–1985 event, no other brightening with a similar amplitude was observed around the binary phase of the brightening. Since the binary motion of the central close binary is expected to be much faster than the tangential velocity of the orbiting cloud \[Costero et al. (1986) proposed 0.14 km s-1 for the 1981–1985 event\], the sharply defined brightening is considered to more reflect the orbital motion of the A5 V star against the foreground cloud. By assuming $`K_1`$=16.4 km s-1 (Méndez, Niemela, 1981), the sharp structure of the light curve corresponds to an upper limit of the projected scale of several times $``$1011 cm. This scale is by a factor of about ten smaller than the entire cloud responsible for the 1981–1985 fade, which was estimated to have a size of 2–5 $`\times `$ 1012 cm (Costero et al., 1986).

This observation not only provides the first evidence for such a sharply defined, small lucent structure within the obscuring body around the central star of NGC 2346, but also the first-ever direct determination of the dimension of a fine structure within a dust cloud of a planetary nebula.

The authors are grateful to VSNET members for providing vital observations.


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# Is 𝐺 a conversion factor or a fundamental unit?

## Abstract

By using fundamental units $`c,\mathrm{},G`$ as conversion factors one can easily transform the dimensions of all observables. In particular one can make them all “geometrical”, or dimensionless. However this has no impact on the fact that there are three fundamental units, $`G`$ being one of them. Only experiment can tell us whether $`G`$ is basically fundamental.

It is well known  that to each mass $`M`$ there corresponds a characteristic length $`r_g`$, the so called gravitational radius (a body with radius $`r=r_g`$ forms a black hole):

$$r_g=2GM/c^2,$$

where $`G`$ is gravitational constant

$$G=6.673(10)\times 10^{11}\text{m}^3/\text{kg s}^2,$$

while $`c`$ is velocity of light. Thus in all physical equations $`M`$ can be substituted by $`r_g`$ so that mass can be “exorcised” from definitions of all physical observables. As a result everything can be measured in “geometrical” units of length $`L`$ and time $`T`$ instead of standard $`L`$, $`T`$, $`M`$ units.

One can use $`M^{}=GM`$ instead of $`M`$ in order to reduce all measurements in physics to measurements of space and time intervals and exorcise $`G`$ from all equations of physics, thus reducing the number of fundamental dimensionful constants. We would like to make a few rather trivial remarks concerning this proposal.

First, it is obvious that in defining $`M^{}`$ one can use $`GMg(L,T)`$ instead of $`GM`$, where $`g`$ is an arbitrary function of geometric units $`L,T`$. In particular, in the standard case of gravitational radius $`g=2/c^2`$.

Second, as is well known (see e.g. ), $`c,\mathrm{},G`$ are fundamental units in the sense that $`c`$ represents relativity, $`\mathrm{}`$ – quantum mechanics, while Planck mass $`m_P=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/G}`$ is connected with the space-time scales $`l_P=\mathrm{}/m_Pc`$ and $`t_P=l_P/c`$ at which gravity must become strong and of quantum character. Contrary to that, the units based on $`M^{}`$ have no fundamental character.

Third, by using any of three fundamental units as a conversion factor one does not reduce the number of fundamental units and dimensions. E.g. when using $`c`$ as a unit of velocity, one obviously preserves it as a fundamental unit. At the same time one can measure time in units of length, or length in units of time. However length remains length, while time remains time. Similar considerations are valid for mass $`M`$, $`G`$ and gravitational radius $`r_g`$ or any combination of the type $`GMg(L,T)`$.

Of course, if $`G`$ turns out to be only an “effective constant” as is the case in theories in which gravity is modified at submillimeters distances (see e.g. ), then new physics will appear well below Planck mass, maybe even at a few TeV, thus changing the value of fundamental mass. In the case that $`G`$ is only an effective constant, a new dimensionless parameter would appear in low-energy physics: $`m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{\mathrm{new}}/m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^{\mathrm{old}}`$. Thus the question posed in the title of this letter could be answered by further study of the nature of gravity.

This work was partly supported by RFBR grant No. 00-15-96562.


text:
# Vacuum polarization on the spinning circle

(December 14, 2001)

## Abstract

Vacuum polarization of a massive scalar field in the background of a two-dimensional version of a spinning cosmic string is investigated. It is shown that when the “radius of the universe” is such that spacetime is globally hyperbolic the vacuum fluctuations are well behaved, diverging though on the “chronology horizon”. Naive use of the formulas when spacetime is nonglobally hyperbolic leads to unphysical results. It is also pointed out that the set of normal modes used previously in the literature to address the problem gives rise to two-point functions which do not have a Hadamard form, and therefore are not physically acceptable. Such normal modes correspond to a locally (but not globally) Minkowski time, which appears to be at first sight a natural choice of time to implement quantization.

The study of quantum fields around cosmic strings is a pertinent issue since such defects may play a role in the cosmological scenario vil94 . Most of the literature concerns spinless cosmic strings (see Ref. vil94  and references therein), and only a few works have considered quantum mechanics and quantum field theory around spinning cosmic strings ger89 ; ger90 ; mat90 ; jen93 ; bez97 ; lor01 .

The locally flat spacetime around an infinitely thin spinning cosmic string vil94  is characterized by the line element

$$ds^2=(d\tau +Sd\phi )^2d\rho ^2\alpha ^2\rho ^2d\phi ^2dz^2$$
(1)
and by the identification $`(\tau ,\rho ,\phi ,z)(\tau ,\rho ,\phi +2\pi ,z)`$, where $`0<\alpha 1`$ is the cone parameter and $`S0`$ is the spin density (clearly the Minkowski spacetime corresponds to $`S=0`$ and $`\alpha =1`$). As the region for which $`\rho <S/\alpha `$ contains closed timelike contours the spacetime is not globally hyperbolic. In other words a global time is not available, so that it is not clear whether quantum theory makes sense in this background ful89 .

The study of a relativistic quantum scalar particle moving on the spinning cone \[the corresponding three-dimensional line element is obtained from Eq. (1) by setting $`dz=0`$\] has shown that a nonvanishing $`S`$ spoils unitarity ger89 . It has been speculated that this sort of first quantized pathology could be eliminated in the second quantized approach. However, Ref. lor01  seems to frustrate this possibility by showing that the vacuum fluctuations of a massless scalar field diverge on concentric cylindrical shells around the spinning cosmic string. These pathological results have been attributed to the nonglobally hyperbolic nature of the background.

In order to exhibit clearly aspects of global hyperbolicity (and related issues) in actual calculations, this work will consider a toy model which consists of a quantum scalar field existing in a two dimensional spacetime whose line element is obtained by truncating Eq. (1) as jen93

$$ds^2=(d\tau +Sd\phi )^2\rho ^2d\phi ^2$$
(2)
($`\alpha `$ was dropped since it can be removed by redefining the parameter $`\rho `$) and observing

$$(\tau ,\phi )(\tau ,\phi +2\pi ).$$
(3)
It is clear that $`S=0`$ corresponds to a cylindrical spacetime of periodicity length $`2\pi \rho `$. The main pedagogical feature of this toy model is that, for a given “radius of the universe” $`\rho >0`$, one can tune the spin $`S`$ such that the background is globally hyperbolic ($`\rho >S`$) or otherwise ($`\rho S`$).

Assuming $`\rho >S`$ and defining new parameters

$`r:=\sqrt{\rho ^2S^2},`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }:={\displaystyle \frac{S}{\rho \sqrt{\rho ^2S^2}}}`$ (4)
and a new time coordinate

$$t:=\frac{\tau }{\sqrt{1\mathrm{\Omega }^2r^2}},$$
(5)
it follows that Eq. (2) can be recast as

$$ds^2=(1\mathrm{\Omega }^2r^2)dt^2+2\mathrm{\Omega }r^2dtd\phi r^2d\phi ^2.$$
(6)
Defining further $`\theta :=\phi \mathrm{\Omega }t`$ Eq. (6) becomes

$$ds^2=dt^2dx^2,$$
(7)
with $`x:=r\theta `$, and Eq. (3) leads to

$$(t,x)(t,x+L),$$
(8)
where

$$L:=2\pi \sqrt{\rho ^2S^2}.$$
(9)
Therefore the spinning circle defined in Eq. (2) is a cylindrical spacetime with the spin $`S`$ encapsulated in the periodicity length $`L`$.

Alternatively, Eq. (6) describes the background as a cylindrical spacetime seen from a rotating frame with angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Noting that $`\rho >S`$ leads to $`r>0`$ and consequently $`\mathrm{\Omega }r<1`$, by requiring global hyperbolicity one ensures that the velocity of the rotating frame is less than the velocity of light. It should also be remarked that as $`S\rho `$, $`r0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }r1`$. That is, on the “chronology horizon” ($`\rho =S`$) the corresponding cylindrical spacetime collapses to its axis and the associated rotating frame reaches the velocity of light.

As long as $`\rho >S`$, i.e. the spacetime is globally hyperbolic, one can implement quantization in any of the frames considered above \[corresponding to Eqs. (2), (6), and (7)\], since the time coordinates are genuine global times (in the sense that they parametrize Cauchy surfaces) and the corresponding time translation Killing vectors are globally timelike. The usual procedure to quantize a scalar field $`\varphi (\mathrm{x})`$ reveals that these frames have identical sets of normal modes, and therefore identical vacuum states (which is not surprising since there is no event horizon involved let81 ). It is clear from Eqs. (7) and (8) that the set of normal modes is that associated with a cylindrical two-dimensional spacetime, which is well known in the literature dav82 ; gri94 .

The Hadamard function corresponding to the field modes appearing in Eq. (4.1) of Ref. dav82  \[with $`\omega =(k^2+m^2)^{1/2}`$\] can be cast as

$$G^{(1)}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{x}^{})=\frac{1}{mL}\frac{1}{4\pi }\mathrm{ln}\left\{4\left[\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }t/L)\mathrm{cos}(2\pi \mathrm{\Delta }x/L)\right]^2\right\},$$
(10)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }t:=tt^{}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x:=xx^{}`$, and a small mass $`m`$ was taken into account to prevent the usual infrared divergence \[in fact $`mL<<1`$ has been considered and, accordingly, higher powers of $`mL`$ were omitted in Eq. (10)\]. Incidentally one may check that the massless contribution in Eq. (10) reproduces Eq. (4.23) in Ref. dav82 .

A quick examination of Eqs. (9) and (10) shows that $`G^{(1)}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{x}^{})`$ diverges when $`\rho =S`$. As the vacuum fluctuations $`\varphi ^2(\mathrm{x})`$ can be formally obtained from the Hadamard function dav82 ; wal94 , i.e.,

$$\varphi ^2(\mathrm{x})=\underset{\mathrm{x}^{}\mathrm{x}}{lim}\frac{1}{2}G^{(1)}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{x}^{}),$$
(11)
one may wonder whether $`\varphi ^2(\mathrm{x})`$ itself diverges on the “chronology horizon”. That is indeed the case as the following calculations show.

As the background is flat, the ultraviolet divergence arising in Eq. (11) can be cured simply by removing the contribution in Minkowski spacetime. It follows from Eq. (10) that its short distance behavior is given by

$$G^{(1)}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{x}^{})=\frac{1}{mL}\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{ln}(4\pi ^2|\sigma |/L^2),$$
(12)
where $`\sigma :=(\mathrm{\Delta }t)^2(\mathrm{\Delta }x)^2`$. The Minkowski contribution is given by dav82

$$G_0^{(1)}(\mathrm{x},\mathrm{x}^{})=\frac{1}{2\pi }\left[\mathrm{ln}(m^2|\sigma |/4)+2\gamma \right],$$
(13)
with $`\gamma `$ denoting the Euler constant. By subtracting Eq. (13) from Eq. (12) before taking the limit in Eq. (11), one finds that

$$\varphi ^2(\mathrm{x})=\frac{1}{2mL}+\frac{1}{2\pi }\left[\mathrm{ln}(mL/4\pi )+\gamma \right],$$
(14)
where the usual infrared divergence ($`m=0`$) and the chronology divergence ($`L=0`$) have identical structures. It should also be pointed out that the vacuum fluctuations lose reality when Eq. (14) is naively used when $`\rho <S`$ \[cf. Eq. (9)\].

The procedure outlined above can be extended to evaluate vacuum expectation values of other quantities such as the components of the energy momentum tensor. The energy density, the pressure, and the momentum density are given, respectively, by $`\pi /6L^2+m/2L`$, $`\pi /6L^2`$, and $`0`$, with respect to the frame corresponding to Eq. (7) dav82 ; gri94 . By evoking Eq. (9) one sees that the energy momentum tensor also diverges on the “chronology horizon”. (It is worth remarking that the spin $`S`$ does not induce momentum density, which is reasonable since $`S0`$ affects $`L`$ only.)

Considerations on a certain “time-helical” structure des84  are in order. By redefining the time coordinate according to

$$T:=\tau +S\phi $$
(15)
Eq. (2) can be recast in Minkowski form,

$$ds^2=dT^2dX^2,$$
(16)
where $`X:=\rho \phi `$. Observing Eqs. (3) and (15), it follows that

$$(T,X)(T+2\pi S,X+\mathrm{L}),$$
(17)
with $`\mathrm{L}:=2\pi \rho `$. Equations (16) and (17) should be compared with Eqs. (7) and (8), respectively. The main difference is that $`T`$ satisfies an unusual identification, giving rise to a “time-helical” structure.

The time coordinates $`T`$ and $`t`$ are related by \[cf. Eq. (5)\]

$$T=\frac{tVx}{\sqrt{1V^2}},$$
(18)
where $`V:=\mathrm{\Omega }r`$. If $`x`$ were to label points on the line Eq. (18) would be identified as a genuine Lorentz transformation. Nevertheless, $`x`$ labels points on the circle \[cf. Eq. (8)\] and Eq. (18) can only be considered as a Lorentz transformation locally, i.e., when $`T`$, $`t`$, and $`x`$ are replaced by $`dT`$, $`dt`$, and $`dx`$, respectively. It turns out that (when $`V0`$) the “helical time” $`T`$ is locally Minkowski only, whereas $`t`$ is globally Minkowski.

The time coordinate $`T`$ has been used in Ref. jen93  to quantize a scalar field on the spinning circle. Although the background is flat, the corresponding two-point function presents (in addition to the usual flat divergence) short distance divergences containing the spin $`S`$ as a factor. Such divergences certainly cannot be renormalized away by subtracting the Minkowski contribution, and one says that the two-point function does not have the Hadamard form wal94 . This unphysical feature is not surprising if one recalls that the standard knowledge requires a global time in implementing quantization. In fact, $`T`$ is not a global time, since constant values of $`T`$ do not parametrize Cauchy surfaces as long as $`S0`$ \[cf. Eq. (17)\]. Therefore the results in Ref. jen93  are spoiled by improper use of $`T`$ as a global time. \[It should be mentioned that improper use of “helical times” as global times may also spoil results in other contexts. For instance, the use of $`T`$ as given by Eq. (18) to study the propagation of light in a rotating frame yields results that contradict well established experimental facts gro77 .\]

Summarizing, this toy model illustrated in actual calculations the relevance of global hyperbolicity for a consistent quantization, and some consequences of the improper use of “helical times” to address global issues.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to George Matsas, Raphael De Paola, Renato Klippert, and Ricardo Medina for useful discussions. This work was partially supported by the Brazilian research council CNPq.


text:
# Photometric study of radio galaxies in RATAN–600 “Cold” survey

## Abstract

About 100 steep spectrum radio sources from the RATAN–600 RC catalog were mapped by the VLA and identified with optical objects down to 24m–25m in the R band using the 6 m telescope. An updated list of calibrators with known redshifts of the same class RGs was compiled to evaluate the accuracy of photometric redshifts estimates. BVRI photometry for 60 RC objects was performed with the 6 m telescope, and by standard model fitting we have estimated colour redshifts and ages of stellar population of host gE galaxies. The mean redshift of FRII RGs from the RC list happened to be $``$1. Several objects were found in which active star formation began in the first billion years after the Big Bang.

Special Astrophysical Observatory, Nizhnij Arkhyz, Russia

National Radio Astronomical Observatory, Socorro, NM, USA

Catalogue of 1145 radio sources has been obtained in the RATAN–600 “Cold” (RC) survey carried out in 1980–1988 with the radio telescope RATAN–600 in a strip of sky, $`24^h`$ long and $`0^{}.6`$ wide ($`\delta +5^{}`$), at 6 frequencies from 1 to 22 GHz with a sensitivity of about 3 mJy at 3.9 GHz.

To select candidates to distant radio galaxies (RGs) in the “Big Trio” project (RATAN$``$VLA$``$SAO 6 m) we used the most distant population of radio sources in the 10–50 mJy range, where the $`log(N/N_0)log(S)`$ curve has a maximum slope, and did selection of about 100 steep spectrum (SS) radio sources ($`\alpha 0.9`$).

At the following stages we did selection of the FRII type RGs with the VLA maps and optical identification and photometry with the 6 m telescope. 65 objects look like FRII and about 20 of them belong presumably to the most distant generation of RGs. 19 objects were classified as quasars by their stellar appearance on CCD images. Apart from the normal FRII RG class, some objects with SS happened to be of quite different nature. 16 were not resolved even with VLA in “A” configuration at 3.7 cm, being less than 0′′.2 –1′′.0 (CSS class). 16 “subgalactic” doubles, with sizes less than 4′′, are of separate interest. A few of them are very complex and can not be considered as young progenitors of FRII objects.

The technique of multicolour photometry has became in the past few years as the main method in selecting candidates to distant galaxies, and the only approach at very high redshifts. Determination of the age of high redshift stellar systems may be the only way of estimation of first galaxies formation redshift if star formation begins at redshifts larger than $`z`$ of secondary ionization. Direct observation of protogalaxies predicted by some recent computer simulations is not possible.

The method of multicolour photometry was checked on a sample of 45 radio galaxies published in literature and carefully selected as steep spectrum high $`z`$ objects of the FRII type (Verkhodanov et al., 1999). It was shown that $`BVRI`$ colours are sufficient for accurate estimation of $`z`$ and age in the redshift range of 0.5–3.5.

We have implemented this approach for 60 FRII and CSS radio galaxies of the RC catalogue that had been observed in $`B,V,R_c,I_c`$ bands in 1994–1998 with CCD camera on the 6 m telescope. (Our sample of SS radio galaxies is now the largest one with the four-band optical photometry.) The data were used to estimate colour photometric redshifts and ages of host galaxies by comparison with the PEGASE (Fioc and Rocca-Volmerange, 1997) and GISSEL’98 (Bruzual and Charlot, 1993) models of evolution of spectral energy distribution (SED). For few typical cases the reality of the colour $`z`$ determinations was confirmed spectroscopically (Dodonov et al., 1999).

* It was shown photometric redshifts give tolerable (10–20% err) agreement with spectral ones for powerful RGs.
* A redshift–magnitude diagram shows much larger dispersion at $`m_R`$$``$22m.
* Distribution by $`z`$ of our objects has a maximum at $`z1`$, i.e. near the maximum Universe activity stage, and $``$10 objects at $`z`$$`>`$2.5.
* A galaxy age is model-dependent and detected uncertainly (in limits of 0.5–10 Gyr). One can point a low limit of galaxy age and, since, $`z`$ of its formation. This age is always larger than standard estimation of radio source lifetime.

The mean multicolour $`(BVRI)`$ age of the stellar population of the RC radio source host galaxies is of order of 1 Gyr, and at least in some objects active star formation had begun in the first Gyr after the Big Bang. Such distant objects must be of high density contrast and modern cosmology has to explain this very early appearance of dense and massive (Tera–solar masses) protogalaxies, with quickly formed massive black holes inside them to produce FRII structures. ¿From our 100 square degree area sample we can estimate that more than 10000 very early objects, born before the QSO epoch, are available on the sky and accessible for present-day optical and radio facilities. They can help us to penetrate into the “Dark Age” of the Universe, between the recombination epoch and the epoch of appearance of QSOs.

Future activity connected with the “Big Trio” project will be concentrated on the direct spectroscopy of the most probable candidates to the first galaxy generation selected from our RC list.


text:
# THE SIMULATION OF ASTROPARTICLE EXPERIMENTS AND THE GEANT4 TOOLKIT

## 1 Introduction

Monte Carlo simulation is nowadays an essential tool in the project of experiments. It is so common for physicists that one could think that such a technique is in use since ages; but indeed it is quite young, around 50 years. It was suggested by Ulam and von Neumann in 1947 and first used for particle transport by Wilson, in the context of the the problem of electromagnetic showers. Such a problem had an elegant solution by Rossi and Greisen, although based on approximations valid beyond energies of a few MeV.

To solve the integro-differential equations of showers in lead, Wilson in 1952 uses the following procedure.

“The procedure used was a simple graphical and mechanical one. The distance into the lead was broken into intervals of one-fifth of a radiation length (about 1 mm). The electrons or photons were followed through successive intervals and their fate in passing through a given interval was decided by spinning a wheel of chance; the fate being read from one of a family of curves drawn on a cylinder (…) A word about the wheel of chance. The cylinder, 4 in. outside diameter by 12 in. long is driven by a high speed motor geared down by a ratio 20 to 1. The motor armature is heavier than the cylinder and determines where the cylinder stops. The motor was observed to stop at random and, in so far as the cylinder is concerned, its randomness is multiplied by the gear ratio (…)”

What are the requirements of a general-purpose simulation software for particle transport? To start, one has to take care in an adequate way of the physics, i.e., of the interactions: both for what is related to the probability of occurrence (i.e., to the cross section) and to the modelling of the final state. The physics of electromagnetic interactions is based on QED, and thus it is in principle well known. Electromagnetic interactions should be well modelled down to low energies (how low depends on the geometry and on the physics of the detector). The theory of hadronic interactions, QCD, is not in a status comparable with QED; as a consequence the simulations of hadronic interactions relies in general on QCD-inspired models rather than on the theory itself, and in general a reasonable simulation of hadronic interactions is good enough.

For a software to be used in the context of detector project and data analysis, however, the physics requirements are not the full story, and maybe they are not even the most important part. Technical requirements rely mostly on a well written code, with characteristics of

* modularity;
* easiness to add different generators;
* easiness to add new physics routines;
* friendly interfaces;
* good documentation;
* maintenability;
* support on different platforms;
* last but not least, a term taken from industry: customer care.

## 2 The shop-list before Geant4

Most of the large experiments ’90s were basing their simulation on the Geant3 package. The Geant3 code comes from a long program of development based at CERN between 1982 and 1994. Geant3 is written in FORTRAN; among his strong points, compared to the other simulations, are user-friendly packages for geometry description and visualization, and an overall easiness-of-use. Geant3 has proprietary routines for electromagnetic physics, and can bind several hadronic codes (GHEISHA is the most common).

However, a different package was and still is the reference for electromagnetic physics: EGS, a package which had a very long development and debugging at SLAC, LNL and KEK in the period between 1966 and 1985. EGS, presently at the version 4 (EGS4), is still the reference now for dosimetry, where definetly one should not be wrong. EGS4 has proprietary routines for electromagnetic physics; it is most commonly used in couple with FLUKA for hadronic interactions. EGS4 is written in MORTRAN, a pre-processor of FORTRAN, although several FORTRAN and C++ versions circulate on the Web. The code is overall a bit unfriendly: the geometry is difficult to define (it must be put in by means of a subroutine); few facilities, in particular for visualization, are available. The cross sections are computed by an offline preprocessor, PEGS, which must be run separately.

Besides Geant3 and EGS4, very little room was available for other products (DELSIM, GISMO etc.); and the success of a simulation code is boosted by the widespread use (which guarantees updating, debugging, availability on different platforms, interfaces).

## 3 The Geant4 toolkit

At the end of the ’90s most of the simulation programs in High Energy Physics were based on Geant3. Several reasons however pushed the community to start a new project, aimed to improve Geant3. Among such reasons:

* limitations of Geant3 maintenance; in particular, because of too complex structure driven by historical reasons, it was almost impossible to add a new feature or to hunt a bug;
* limitation of FORTRAN, and choice of object orientation and C++ by the physics community;
* shortage of man power at CERN;
* limitation of “central center” supports.

Such reasons convinced a group of physicists and computer scientists at CERN to start a world-wide collaboration for a new simulation project. Such a project was based on the most recent software engineering methodologies and, from an organizational point of view, on a world-wide collaboration.

### 3.1 Geant4: philosophy, history, future

Geant4 aims to be the successor of Geant3 by re designing a major package of CERN software for the next generation of HEP experiments using an Object Oriented philosophy. The final aim of the project is to build a simulation more precise than EGS, and more friendly than Geant3.

A variety of new requirements also came from heavy ion physics, CP violation physics, cosmic ray physics, medical applications and space science applications In order to meet such requirements, a large degree of functionality and flexibility are provided: Geant4 is not only for High Energy Physics.

The main steps of the history of Geant4 are, for the time being:

* Project starts
* First alpha release
* First beta release
* Release 0.0
* Release 3.2 (with a complete list of physics processes)

Maintainment and upgrade are expected for at least 10 years; development is continuous, with two major releases each year plus a monthly internal tag (frequent bug fixes, new features, new examples).

Geant4 is presently based on more than 700,000 lines of code.

For more details on the collaboration and an updated status, see the very well done and maintained web pages.

### 3.2 The physics of Geant4

The library proposes several models for the most important interactions of particles with matter.

In particular for electromagnetic interactions one can use a “standard” package with at least all the features of Geant3, or call a package specialized in the low energy part (which aims to an accurate modelling of physics down to 250 eV and below, based on an important use of experimental tables). On the other direction Geant4 should be able to reproduce interactions up to the PeV and beyond: Geant4 is developed by people involved in fields other than High Energy Physics (e.g. medical physics, astroparticle physics).

All processes are already at least at level of Geant3, and in addition there are new processes (transition radiation, optical processes) and substantial improvements have been done in particular on the multiple scattering (new model, without path length restriction and with lateral displacement), on energy loss and on hard processes: in the future also the photoproduction of hadronic resonances will be modelled.

The electromagnetic processes are going through extensive tests, comparing both with data and with Geant3-based and EGS4-based simulations. Very good agreement with the data is seen on the simulation of electromagnetic showers.

For what is related to hadronic interactions one can bind GHEISHA, but more performant models have just been released for the Geant4 code and are under test. There is a large variety of models according to the energy, including string models (Geant4 is interfaced with Pythia7 for hard scattering), cascade models, evaporation and break-up.

In any case Geant4 is an open system to new inputs: the framework is such that different models can be easily integrated.

#### 3.2.1 Confrontation with data

Facing such a huge development effort, debugging and tests is a major enterprise.

Fortunately, the distributed organization helps in boosting the manpower. Many comparisons have been done, and results published; a lot more are ongoing or starting within the collaborations using Geant4, in particular the LHC collaborations (ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, ALICE), BaBar (migrating from Geant3) and GLAST.

Again the most important results are summarized in the Geant4 web page.

### 3.3 Miscellaneous features

Geant4 includes several features goring in the direction of functionality and easiness of use; many such features come from comments originated from Geant3 users.

In particular such improvements affect the definition of cutoffs, geometry and utilities, hits and digitizations, fast simulation, visualization.

#### 3.3.1 Cutoffs

Contrary to what done in Geant3, cuts in Geant4 are done in range rather than energy. It makes poor sense to use the energy cut off: for example the range of a10 keV gamma in Si is a few cm, while the range of 10 keV electron is a few micron.

This modification causes a significant gain in results quality versus CPU usage; however, users can override the default and impose a cut in energy, track length, or time-of-flight. Physics processes can also ask to override the default when they need to (for example for a better treatment of boundary effects).

#### 3.3.2 Geometry

Like in the philosophy of Geant3, Geant4 pre-defines basic geometries. The user can build new solids from union, intersection, subtraction of two solids (boolean solids) plus a transformation.

A utility g3tog4 is provided to convert a Geant3 geometry into Geant4.

An interface with XML is in progress.

#### 3.3.3 Hits and digits

Each logical volume can have a pointer to a sensitive detector; a hit is a snapshot of the physical interaction of a track or an accumulation of interactions of tracks in the sensitive detector.

A sensitive detector creates hit(s) using the information given in a tracking step; the user has to provide his/her own implementation of the detector response. A digitization is created with one or more hits and/or other digits by an explicit implementation by the user.

#### 3.3.4 Fast simulation

Geant4 allows to perform full simulation and fast simulation (based on shower parametrizations, less accurate cutoffs etc.) in the same environment. The fast simulation produces the same objects as the full simulation (tracks, clusters etc.)

The full design is such to guarantee flexibility: the user can activate fast/full simulation by detector and/or by particle type, and use parallel geometries.

#### 3.3.5 Visualization

Geant4 provides interfaces to graphics drivers (DAWN, RayTracer, OPACS, OpenGL, OpenInventor, VRML) such that one can visualize detector, hits and trajectories.

### 3.4 Things one has to do to run Geant4

Documentation (Getting started and installation guide, User guide for application and toolkit developer Software and physics reference manuals) is available at the Geant4 web site.

For many users, however, starting from the study of a manual is not the most effective way. For such users examples are provided: they can go to the Geant4 Web site, run an example and see how it is done.

Six novice examples are available with simple detectors and different experiment types to demonstrate the essential capabilities of Geant4: transport of a non-interacting particle through a slab, track in a simplified tracking detector, electromagnetic shower (full), particle collision, parametrised electromagnetic shower, optical photon.

In addition advanced examples are available, two of which are relevant for astroparticle:

* xray\_telescope, illustrating an application for the study of the radiation background in a typical X-ray telescope;
* gammaray\_telescope, illustrating a gamma satellite-based detector of the new generation, similar to AGILE and GLAST.

### 3.5 Experience with Geant4

The production release is in use by many experiments in High Energy Physics and Astroparticle and by groups involved in medical physics.

Thanks to the wide use, the Geant4 developers got feedback. The first results confirm some of the Geant4 strengths in performance, simplicity of use, electromagnetic physics.

Benchmarks between Geant3 and Geant4 in electromagnetic showers demonstrate that Geant4 gives better physics at the same speed (and better speed for same physics).

The tests evidence also some weaknesses; reaction is fast.

## 4 The simulation of GLAST

An example of implementation for space applications is the simulation of the GLAST gamma-ray telescope.

GLAST has a wide range of physics objectives, from gamma astrophysics to fundamental physics. Correspondingly, the simulation should have an easy interface to the simulation of different sources, and be adequate both for the design and the physics analysis.

In addition, the gamma simulation in the tracker and in the calorimeter needs different details, and in particular a fast simulation should be available for the huge hadron background.

The GLAST simulation has been done, from the beginning, using C++ and with OO technologies in mind (GISMO was the choice, also because no other candidate present at that moment apart from standard FORTRAN simulations).

The migration of the GLAST simulation to Geant4 is now almost complete; it uses a prototype of the XML interface for geometry description.

## 5 Conclusions

Geant4 has demonstrated to be suitable as a Monte Carlo toolkit, in particular for applications in astroparticle physics and High Energy Physics. Among its strong points are the open structure (making it easy to integrate with specialized software) and the easiness of use.

The communities of astroparticle physics and High Energy Physics are quickly acquiring a good experience, and the validation with data, formulae and standard simulations is progressing fast.

In conclusion, Geant4 is becoming the standard de facto both for the simulation of detectors and for particle and radiation transport.

## Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Riccardo Giannitrapani, Francesco Longo and Maria Grazia Pia for material and useful discussions.


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# An Analysis of BeppoSAX LECS Observations of EUV Emission in Clusters of Galaxies

## 1 Introduction

The discovery of Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) emission in clusters of galaxies with the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) has provoked considerable controversy. While there is no doubt about the detection of the EUV emission in excess of that produced by the well-studied X-ray emitting cluster gas in Virgo (Berghöfer, Bowyer, & Korpela 2000a) and in Coma (Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela 1999), many clusters do not exhibit an EUV excess at least at current sensitivity levels. In a series of publications (Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela, 1999; Berghöfer, Bowyer, & Korpela 2000a,b; Bowyer, Korpela, & Berghöfer 2001) we have demonstrated that the EUVE results are strongly affected by the variation of the telescope sensitivity over the field of view and upon the details of the subtraction of the EUV emission from the X-ray contribution.

Kaastra et al. (1999) have analyzed BeppoSAX data obtained with the Low-Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS) to search for EUV emission in the Abell 2199 cluster of galaxies. Unfortunately, the telescope sensitivity profile used in this work is likely to be incorrect. Quoting from their work, Kaastra et al. (1999) state, ”The vignetting correction for the LECS was derived from the SAXDAS/LEMAT ray-trace code, assuming azimuthal symmetry around the appropriate center. The correction for the support grid was also derived from that package.” We note that ground based simulations of the large scale sensitivity of EUV and X-ray instrumentation are extraordinarily difficult to construct and are notorious for being an inappropriate representation of the true sensitivity functions. In fact, a comparison of ground based calibration measurements with ray-tracing simulations for BeppoSAX clearly demonstrated a discrepancy by a factor of $``$1.5 at low energies (Parmar et al. 1997).

In order to test the claim of an EUV excess in Abell 2199 by Kaastra et al. (1999) we have reanalysed BeppoSAX LECS observations of this cluster of galaxies. We also searched for excess EUV emission in Abell 1795 using archival BeppoSAX data on this cluster. In Section 2 we describe the data and reduction applied to obtain the clusters’ EUV emission. Section 3 provides the results of our investigations, and a summary is presented in Section 4.

## 2 BeppoSAX LECS Data and Data Reduction

For our investigations we have employed BeppoSAX LECS archival data of the two clusters Abell 2199 and Abell 1795. Table 1 provides an observation log of the analysed data sets. The LECS instrument aboard of BeppoSAX is a gas scintillation proportional counter especially designed to perform low-energy X-ray spectroscopy. A detailed description of this detector can be found in Parmar et al. (1997). Here we summarize the performance of this detector relevant for the study of diffuse sources in the low energy regime. The LECS has at least some sensitivity in the energy range 0.1–10 keV. Its circular field of view with a radius of about 18′ is relatively small for cluster studies. At 3 keV the on-axis angular resolution is roughly 3′ (FWHM), which significantly drops to 9.7′ (FWHM) at 0.28 keV. At these low energies the resolution is dominated by the detector and is almost constant across the field of view. At low energies the LECS effective area peaks near 0.2 keV. For our investigations we have selected all events in the detector channels 10–30 ($``$0.1–0.3 keV) and produced images of the clusters. The raw azimuthally averaged surface profiles of Abell 2199 and Abell 1795 and their statistical uncertainties are shown in Figures 1 and 2 (solid lines); in the case of Abell 1795 the plot is the combined profile of the three distinct LECS observations of this cluster.

In order to determine the contribution of the X-ray emitting cluster gas in the 0.1–0.3 keV band of the BeppoSAX LECS we also computed a radial surface brightness profile at detector channels 50–200 ($``$0.5–2.2 keV). Events at higher energies have been ignored due to the substantial drop in effective area at energies E $`>`$ 2.5 keV and the increase in telescope vignetting at higher energies, which might affect the clusters’ X-ray profiles. In order to compensate for the substantially lower detector resolution at low energies, we convolved the source images in the 0.5–2.2 keV band with a 9.7′ wide Gaussian. The derived radial emission profiles of the two clusters in the 0.5-2.2 keV band and its statistical errors are shown as dashed lines in Figures 1 and 2.

For an appropriate background and sensitivity correction we obtained background files from the BeppoSAX data archive. In the case of the LECS detector the standard background data consist of an assemblage of blank field observations with a total integration of 568562.8 seconds. The dotted and dashed-dotted lines in Figures 1 and 2 provide the radial profiles obtained from the standard background data at the detector positions of Abell 2199 and Abell 1795, respectively, in the 0.1-0.3 keV and 0.5–2.2 keV band.

Using procedures similar to the background subtraction method developed for the EUVE Deep Survey instrument (cf. Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela 1999), we adopted a two-parameter profile for the background. One profile is a flat background reflecting the time-dependent charged particle background. This has been determined from highly obscured regions at the outer most parts of the field of view. The count rates in units of $`10^6`$cts s-1 arcmin2 are 3.5, 5.1, and 6.3, respectively, for the background field and the science exposures for Abell 2199 and Abell 1795. The other profile reflecting all sensitivity changes over the detector field and telescope vignetting has been constructed from the standard background field. We subtracted the appropriate flat background and convolved the data with a 9.7′ wide Gaussian corresponding to the instrument resolution; using the telescope point spread function from ground based calibration measurements instead of a Gaussian has no significant effect. Scaling factors of 4.4 and 3.9 have been applied to the derived sensitivity profile to subtract this part of the background from the science exposures of Abell 2199 and Abell 1795. Note that this part of the background is dominated by scattered solar X-ray radiation, which varies in time. Furthermore, the BeppoSAX observations used to construct the standard background data were taken at the beginning of the mission, whereas the cluster observations have been carried out closer to solar maximum. This explains the relatively large scaling factors. The given scaling factors and constant background rates result in the best representation of the background in the profiles. A large range of combinations of scaling factors and constant background rates were explored which were consistent with acceptable fits to the data, and even allowed for a possible contribution of an X-ray signal at larger radii. None of these variations changed our overall findings.

## 3 Results

In Figure 3 we show the EUV emission in the Abell 2199 cluster of galaxies obtained from BeppoSAX LECS data using the correct sensitivity profile (solid line). The EUV emission produced by the diffuse X-ray emitting cluster gas is shown by a dashed line. To transform the 0.5–2.2 keV band profile to the 0.1–0.3 keV band we used XSPEC and the detector response matrix of the LECS to simulate conversion factors for these two energy bands of the BeppoSAX LECS. Adopting the set of parameters and models for the X-ray emitting plasma and the absorption by the intervening interstellar medium as described in Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela (1999) we found conversion factors of 10.6 and 9.9, respectively, for the 4.08 keV and 2.9 keV gas components.

Figure 3 demonstrates that the BeppoSAX LECS does not detect an EUV excess in the cluster Abell 2199 when the data are analyzed correctly. We note that there is a deficit of EUV emission in the central core region (R $`<`$ 4′) of the cluster. However, with respect to the uncertainties in the cluster profiles, this is a small effect and may be a result of imperfect detector calibration. On the other hand, such deficits has been observed in other clusters of galaxies and have been attributed in the past to the effects of cooling flows; in light of current results from XMM-Newton and Chandra, this effect must now be ascribed to some other cause (e.g., Böhringer et al. 2001, Tamura et al. 2001).

The BeppoSAX LECS results on Abell 1795 are shown in Figure 4. The solid line in this figure shows the background subtracted EUV emission profile of this cluster. The comparison with the expected contribution of the low energy tail of the X-ray emitting gas (dashed line in this figure) demonstrates that this cluster does not exhibit EUV excess emission at least at the BeppoSAX LECS level of sensitivity. Using appropriate model parameters for the X-ray emitting cluster gas and appropriate corrections for the interstellar absorption in the direction of Abell 1795 (see Bowyer, Bergöfer, & Korpela 1999), we applied conversion factors of 12.5 and 10.5, respectively, for the 6.7 keV and 2.9 keV gas components. Again, the cluster center shows a small deficit in EUV radiation in the 2–4′ radial bin when compared to the expected cluster X-ray emission in the 0.1–0.3 keV band.

## 4 Discussion and Conclusion

A search for excess EUV emission has been carried out in a substantial number of clusters observed with EUVE. Bowyer, Berghöfer & Korpela (1999) have shown that all but two of the reported detections were the product of the use of an incorrect detector sensitivity function. However, this conclusion has been questioned because Kaastra et al. (1999) claimed to have found an excess EUV emission in Abell 2199 using BeppoSAX LECS observations. These findings appeared to support the (incorrect) finding of an excess in this cluster using EUVE data. However, this result was based upon ground-based estimates of the LECS detector sensitivity function. Using a procedure better suited to the analysis of extended sources that avoids the known uncertainties in the telescope sensitivity function, we show that there is no excess in Abell 2199. We also searched for excess EUV emission in Abell 1795 using archival BeppoSAX observations. No EUV excess was found.

The results obtained here for Abell 2199 and Abell 1795 are fully consistent with the results obtained on these clusters using EUVE data (Bowyer, Berghöfer, & Korpela 1999). The only clusters of galaxies that have been found to exhibit an excess EUV emission are the Virgo and Coma clusters (Bowyer, Korpela, & Berghöfer 2001). It is possible that these are the only clusters that exhibit this effect, but it may be that both EUVE and BeppoSAX LECS are insufficiently sensitive to detect an EUV excess in other clusters of galaxies.

Since the only clusters with a confirmed EUV excess are Virgo and Coma, it is useful to reconsider candidates for the underlying source of the EUV excess. The original proposal was that this emission is thermal emission from a “warm” (106 K) gas (Lieu et al. 1996a,b; Bowyer et al. 1996). Claims of “proof” of this proposition have been advanced by Mittaz, Lieu, & Lockman (1998), Lieu, Bonamente, & Mittaz (1999a), Lieu et al. (1999b), Lieu, Bonamente, & Mittaz (2000), and Bonamente, Lieu, & Mittaz (2001a,b). Lieu et al. (2000) misinterpreted small scale detector structures in the EUVE data on Abell 2199 as cluster EUV emission absorbed by clumps of neutral hydrogen in the cluster. A difficulty with this interpretation which is independent of the data analysis problem is that the hydrogen required is ”… $``$43 times more massive than the hot ICM in this region … (and) … implies 3 times more missing baryons than expected”(op. cite).

The maintenance of a warm intracluster gas is quite difficult to understand since gas at this temperature is at the peak of its cooling curve and would cool in less than 0.5 Gyr, and on these grounds alone it was generally believed that a thermal source was untenable. Observational evidence relevant to this issue was obtained with the Hopkins Ultraviolet telescope (Dixon et al. 1996), and FUSE (Dixon et al. 2001a,b). No Far UV line emission from gas at 106 K was detected. More recently, observations of a large number of clusters with XMM have been carried out. Kaastra et al. (2001) found no gas at T $`<`$ 1 keV in Sersic 159-03, Peterson et al. (2001) found no gas at T $`<`$ 2.7 keV in Abell 1835, and Tamura et al. (2001) found no gas at T $`<`$ 4 keV in Abell 1795. All other clusters observed with XMM showed no evidence of a cooler EUV emitting gas (Steve Kahn, private communication). The sum of this evidence seems overwhelming: a thermal mechanism for the EUV excess can be ruled out.

Since the underlying source mechanism is not thermal, it must be the product of some non-thermal process. Inverse Compton scattering of cosmic rays with the 2.7 K background was suggested early-on as a possible source mechanism (Hwang 1997, Enßlin & Biermann 1998). Sarazin & Lieu (1998) suggested a model in which a population of cosmic rays produced several Gyr ago would have degraded over time and would now be unobservable as radio synchrotron emission even at very low frequencies. This population would produce an EUV flux by inverse Compton scattering. Sarazin & Lieu derived the ratio between the azimuthally averaged total EUV emission and the azimuthally averaged soft X-ray flux predicted by their model; this ratio increases with increasing distance from the center of the cluster. Berghöfer et al. (2000) derived this ratio for the Virgo cluster as a test of the Sarazin & Lieu model. They found this ratio was flat with increasing distance from the center of the cluster in contradiction to the prediction of the model.

Bowyer et al. (in progress) derived this ratio for the Coma cluster using data on the cluster that had been analyzed correctly. They found this ratio was flat with increasing distance from the center again contradicting the predictions of the Sarazin & Lieu model.

Despite the failure of the Sarazin & Lieu model, the inverse Compton mechanism remains as the only candidate for the source mechanism for the EUV excess. However, a new difficulty for this hypothesis has recently appeared. Virtually all models invoking the inverse Compton mechanism require the intracluster magnetic field to be $`<<`$1$`\mu `$G. However, recent results show that cluster magnetic fields are quite large. Clarke, Kronberg, & Böhringer (2001) studied 16 clusters with very high spatial resolution and have shown that all of these clusters have B fields of 4 to 7$`\mu `$G. Unless this result is somehow incorrect, the vast majority of models proposed for the production of the EUV excess are incorrect. The only exceptions to the low field models (Enßlin, Lieu, & Biermann 1999; Atoyan & Völk 2000) are unlikely to be appropriate (Ming, Hwang, & Bowyer 2001).

It is not clear whether this is a fundamental obstacle for the inverse Compton scattering hypothesis or if it is simply a failure of existing models. Irrespective of how widespread the occurrence of EUV excess in clusters of galaxies may be, the underlying source mechanism for this emission remains a mystery.

This work was supported in part by a University of California grant. TWB was supported in part by a Feodor-Lynen Fellowship of the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung.