text:
# Multifractal Behavior of the Two-Dimensional Ising Model at small spatio-temporal scales [1]

## Abstract

The distribution of the fractal dimension of the two-dimensional Ising model at the critical temperature measured by the Monte-Carlo simulation is discussed. At small spatio-temporal scales it exhibits a multifractal behavior and is well fitted by a non-Gaussian distribution derived from the Rényi or Tsallis entropy. Keywords: multifractal, non-equilibrium, large deviation, Rényi entropy, Tsallis entropy

Recently a large-deviation analysis for the Monte-Carlo data of the two-dimensional Ising model at the critical temperature has been attempted. Inspired by this attempt we perform a multifractal analysis for the same model in this Short Note. Here we do not distinguish the large-deviation and the multifractal schemes.

Multifractal behaviors of the Ising model are expected for random or chaotic lattices, while the model on a regular lattice is understood in terms of the mono-fractal analysis. Even for the model on a regular lattice, we can expect multifractal behaviors when we observe it at small spatio-temporal scales. This is a view point of the large-deviation scheme.

In the following we measure the distribution of the fractal dimension of the model on the square lattice at the critical temperature and show that the data is fitted by a non-Gaussian distribution derived from the Rényi or Tsallis entropy. Such a non-Gaussian behavior originates from the multifractality of the spin states and the $`q`$-index appearing in the distribution serves as a measure for the multifractality. On the other hand the non-Gaussian behavior is observed at small spatio-temporal scales as expected from the large-deviation scheme so that the $`q`$-index also serves as a measure for the degree of non-equilibrium.

We measure the fractal dimension of the Ising model on the square lattice,

$$H=J\underset{<ij>}{\overset{L\times L}{}}\sigma _i\sigma _j,$$
(1)
where we adopt the ordinary notation, $`<ij>`$ means the nearest neighbor bond and $`L`$ is the number of the spins in $`x`$\- or $`y`$-direction. The fractal dimension,

$$D=\mathrm{ln}[M(1)/M(b)]/\mathrm{ln}(b),$$
(2)
is determined by the Monte-Carlo data at the critical temperatute, $`T_\mathrm{c}=2J/\mathrm{ln}(1+\sqrt{2})k_\mathrm{B}`$. Here $`b`$ is the scaling parameter for the coarse-graining and $`L\times L`$ spins are transformed into $`(L/b)\times (L/b)`$ block spins. $`M(b)`$ is the total spin at the level of $`b`$ of the coarse-graining. The Monte-Carlo up-dating is done with the Metropolis algorithm. The simulation time, $`t`$, is represented by the unit of the usual Monte-Carlo step (MCS). In the following the measurement is done during $`\tau <t<\tau +T`$. The simulation is performed on our personal computer with Pentium-4 CPU.

Some typical data for the unnormalized distribution of the fractal dimension are shown in Fig. 1 where $`D`$ is measured at each Monte-Carlo steps and the total number of the measurement is $`T`$. The simulation data are well fitted by the distribution function,

$$P(D)=P_0[1+(q1)(DD_0)^2/2\sigma ^2]^{1/(1q)},$$
(3)
which is derived by the maximum-entropy principle using the Rényi or Tsallis entropy so that the distribution exhibits a multifractality of the system. The Tsallis entropy is non-extensive, while the Rényi entropy is extensive. The functional form of the distribution is independent of the choice of the entropy, the Rényi or Tsallis, so that our result is independent of the extensivity of the entropy. Here $`q`$ represents the multifractality of the system investigated and the mean value, $`D_01.875`$, is the one expected from the mono-fractal analysis. The limiting case with $`q1`$ corresponds to the Gaussian distribution which is parabolic in the $`D`$-$`\mathrm{ln}P`$ plane. The $`q`$-index for the solid curve is determined by the least-square fitting. In our scheme $`\sigma `$ is also determined by the data fitting. The peak value of the unnormalized distribution is $`P_0`$.

In Fig. 2 the system-size dependence of the $`q`$-index is shown.

In Fig. 3 the simulation-time dependence of the $`q`$-index is shown.

From the data in Figs. 2 and 3 we can read a tendency that $`q1`$ at large spatio-temporal scales. The value, $`q=1`$, is expected for the equilibrium state in the thermodynamic limit. Our data at small spatio-temporal scales reflect a deviation from this limit and exhibit non-equilibrium nature. A similar analysis has already been done for the experimantal data for turbulene.

In conclusion we numerically observed a multifractal behavior of the two-dimensional Ising model at small spatio-temporal scales. The $`q`$-index serves as a measure not only for multifractality but also non-equilibrium in this case.


format: text

text:
# Failed gamma-ray bursts and orphan afterglows

## 1 Introduction

The detection of X-ray, optical and radio afterglows from some well-localized gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) definitely shows that at least most long GRBs are of cosmological origin (e.g., Costa et al. 1997; Frail et al. 1997; Galama et al. 1998; Akerlof et al. 1999; Zhu et al. 1999). The so called fireball model is thus strongly favoured. However, we are still far from resolving the puzzle of GRBs (Piran 1999; van Paradijs, Kouveliotou & Wijers 2000). A major problem is that we do not know whether GRBs are due to highly collimated jets or isotropic fireballs, so that the energetics involved cannot be determined definitely (e.g., Pugliese, Falcke & Biermann 1999; Kumar & Piran 2000; Dar & Rújula 2000; Wang & Loeb 2001; Rossi, Lazzati & Rees 2002). This issue has been extensively discussed in the literature.

Generally speaking, three methods may help to determine the degree of beaming in GRBs. First, based on analytic solutions, it has been proposed that optical afterglows from a jetted GRB should be characterized by a break in the light curve during the relativistic phase, i.e., at the time when the Lorentz factor of the blastwave is $`\gamma 1/\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the half opening angle (Rhoads 1997; Kulkarni et al. 1999; Mészáros & Rees 1999). Some GRBs such as 990123, 990510 are regarded as good examples (Castro-Tirado et al. 1999; Wijers et al. 1999; Harrison et al. 1999; Halpern et al. 2000; Pian et al. 2001; Castro Ceron et al. 2001; Sagar et al. 2001). However, detailed numerical studies show that the break is usually quite smooth (Panaitescu & Mészáros 1998; Moderski, Sikora & Bulik 2000), and Huang et al. went further to suggest that the light curve break should in fact occur at the trans-relativistic phase (Huang et al. 2000a, b, c, d). Additionally, many other factors can also result in light curve breaks, for example, the cooling of electrons (Sari, Piran & Narayan 1998), a dense interstellar medium (Dai & Lu 1999), or a wind environment (Dai & Lu 1998a; Chevalier & Li 2000; Panaitescu & Kumar 2000). All these facts combine together to make the first method not so conclusive. Second, Gruzinov (1999) argued that optical afterglows from a jet can be strongly polarized, in principle up to tens of percents. Some positive observations have already been reported (Wijers et al. 1999; Rol et al. 2000). But polarization can be observed only under some particular conditions, i.e., the co-moving magnetic fields parallel and perpendicular to the jet should have different strengths and we should observe at the right time from the right viewing angle (Gruzinov 1999; Hjorth et al. 1999; Mitra 2000).

The third method was first proposed by Rhoads (1997), who pointed out that due to relativistic beaming effects, $`\gamma `$-ray radiation from the vast majority of jetted GRBs cannot be observed, but the corresponding late time afterglow emission is less beamed and can safely reach us. These afterglows are called orphan afterglows, which means they are not associated with any detectable GRBs. The ratio of the orphan afterglow rate to the GRB rate might allow measurement of the GRB collimation angle. Great expectations have been put on this method (Rhoads 1997; Mészáros, Rees & Wijers 1999; Lamb 2000; Paczyński 2000; Djorgovski et al. 2001). In fact, the absence of large numbers of orphan afterglows in many surveys has been regarded as evidence that the collimation cannot be extreme (Rhoads 1997; Perna & Loeb 1998; Greiner et al. 1999; Grindlay 1999; Rees 1999).

Recently Dalal, Griest & Pruet (2002) argued that measurement of the GRB beaming angle using optical orphan searches is extremely difficult. The main reason is that when the afterglow emission from a jet begins to go into a much larger solid angle than the initial burst does, the optical flux density usually becomes very low. Generally speaking, this problem can be overcome by improving the detection limit. In fact, an interesting result was recently reported by Vanden Berk et al. (2002), who discovered a possible optical orphan at $`z=0.385`$. They suggested that GRBs should be collimated.

In this article, we will point out another difficulty associated with the third method: there should be many “failed gamma-ray bursts (FGRBs)”, i.e., baryon-contaminated fireballs with initial Lorentz factor $`\gamma _0100`$. FGRBs cannot be observed in gamma-rays, but their long-lasting afterglows are detectable, thus they will also manifest themselves as orphan afterglows. Our paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we explain the concept of FGRBs. Section 3 describes the difficulty in distinguishing an FGRB orphan and a jetted GRB orphan. Some possible solutions that may help to overcome the difficulty are suggested. Section 4 is a brief discussion.

## 2 Failed Gamma-Ray Bursts and Their Afterglows

Occurring in the deep Universe, GRBs are the most relativistic phenomena ever known. The standard fireball model (Mészáros & Rees 1992; Dermer, Böttcher & Chiang 1999) requires that to successfully produce a GRB, the initial Lorentz factor of the blastwave should typically be $`\gamma _0100`$ — 1000 during the main burst phase (Piran 1999; Lithwick & Sari 2000). Generally speaking the requirement of ultra-relativistic motion is to avoid the so called “compactness problem”. A modest variation in the Lorentz factor will result in a difference of the opacity of the high-energy $`\gamma `$-ray photons by a factor of $`10^3`$ (Totani 1999). Additionally, assuming synchrotron radiation, the observed peak frequency is strongly dependent on $`\gamma `$, $`\nu _\mathrm{m}\gamma ^4`$ (Mészáros, Rees & Wijers 1998). Thus a Lorentz factor of $`\gamma _050`$ makes the blastwave very inefficient in emitting $`\gamma `$-ray photons.

So, to successfully produce a GRB, we need $`\gamma _0100`$ — 1000. However, theoretically it is not easy to construct a model to generate such ultra-relativistic motions. Currently there are mainly two kinds of progenitor models, the collapse of massive stars (with mass $`M40M_{}`$), or the collision of two compact stars (such as two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole). Since a baryon-rich environment is involved in all these models, some researchers are afraid that the baryon-contamination problem may exist. But this problem maybe is not as serious as we previously expected.

Let us first take the collapsar model (MacFadyen & Woosley 1999) as an example. We can imagine that the baryon mass and energy released in different collapsar events should vary greatly, then $`\gamma _0`$ of the resultant fireballs may also vary in a relatively wide range. In most cases, $`\gamma _0`$ should be very low (i.e., $`\gamma _0100`$), but there still could be a few cases (e.g., one percent or even one in a thousand) in which the fireball is relatively clean so that the blastwave can be successfully accelerated to $`\gamma _0100`$ — 1000 and produces a GRB. Since the collapsar rate is high enough in a typical galaxy, there should be no problem that such collapsars can meet the requirement of GRB rate (i.e., $`10^7`$$`10^6`$ event per typical galaxy per year, under isotropic assumption). Cases are similar in the collisions of two compact stars.

In short, we cannot omit an important fact: if GRBs are really due to isotropic fireballs, then there should be much more failed GRBs (i.e., fireballs with Lorentz factor much less than one hundred, but still much greater than unity). These FGRB fireballs can contain similar initial energy as normal GRB fireballs, i.e., $`E_010^{51}`$$`10^{53}`$ ergs, but they are polluted by baryons with mass $`M_010^5`$$`10^3M_{}`$. Radiation from these FGRBs should mainly be in x-ray bands in the initial bursting phase, not in $`\gamma `$-ray bands. In fact, BeppoSAX team has reported the discovery of several anomalous events named as fast X-ray transients, X-ray rich GRBs, or even X-ray-GRBs. They resemble usual GRBs except that they are extremely X-ray rich (Frontera et al. 2000; Kippen et al. 2001; Gandolfi & Piro 2001). Observational data on this kind of events are being accumulated rapidly. Recent good examples include GRBs 011030, 011130 and 011211 (Gandolfi et al. 2001a, b; Ricker et al. 2001). We propose that these events are probably just FGRBs.

Huang et al. (1998) and Dai, Huang & Lu (1999) have pointed out that for afterglow behaviour, the parameter $`E_0`$ is decisive, while $`M_0`$ is only of minor importance, especially at late stages. So, FGRBs should also be associated with prominent afterglows. In Figure 1 we compare the theoretical optical afterglows from FGRBs with those from isotropic GRBs and jetted GRBs. We can see that the light curve of an FGRB afterglow differs from that of a successful isotropic burst only slightly, i.e., only notable at early stages. In our calculations, we have used the methods developed by Huang et al.(1999a, b, 2000b, d), i.e., for the dynamical evolution of isotropic fireballs we use

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\gamma }{\mathrm{d}m}=\frac{\gamma ^21}{M_0+ϵm+2(1ϵ)\gamma m},$$
(1)
where $`m`$ is the swept-up mass and $`ϵ`$ is the radiation efficience. Eq. (1) has been proved to be proper in both ultra-relativistic phase and non-relativistic phase (Huang, Dai & Lu 1999a, b). For jetted ejecta, the following equation is added (Huang et al. 2000b, d),

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\theta }{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{c_\mathrm{s}(\gamma +\sqrt{\gamma ^21})}{R},$$
(2)
where $`R`$ is the blastwave radius, and the co-moving sound speed $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ is given realistically by

$$c_\mathrm{s}^2=\widehat{\gamma }(\widehat{\gamma }1)(\gamma 1)\frac{1}{1+\widehat{\gamma }(\gamma 1)}c^2,$$
(3)
with $`\widehat{\gamma }=(4\gamma +1)/(3\gamma )`$ the adiabatic index.

In fact, in beamed GRB models, there should also be many FGRBs, i.e., beamed ejecta with $`1\gamma _0100`$. We call them beamed FGRBs. Afterglow from beamed FGRBs has also been illustrated in Figure 1. In this article emphasises will be put on isotropic FGRBs, so by using “FGRBs” we will only mean isotropic FGRBs unless stated explicitly.

## 3 Orphan Afterglows

Both FGRBs and jetted but off-axis GRBs can produce isolated fading objects, i.e., orphan afterglows. Theoretically, when orphan afterglows are really discovered observationally, it is still risky to conclude that GRBs are beamed. We should study these orphans carefully to determine whether they come from FGRBs or Jetted GRBs. However, we will show below that it is not an easy task.

### 3.1 Difficulty in using orphan afterglows

Usually the light curve of GRB afterglows is plotted as $`\mathrm{log}S_\nu `$ vs. $`\mathrm{log}t`$, where $`S_\nu `$ is the flux density at observing frequency $`\nu `$ and $`t`$ is observer’s time measured from the burst trigger. In such plots, the behaviour of afterglows from isotropic GRBs and jetted ones are possibly quite different. The former is generally characterized by a simple flat straight line with slope $`1.0`$$`1.3`$ and the latter can be characterized by a break in the light curve or by a steep straight line with a slope sharper than $`2.0`$ (Figure 1, also see Huang et al. 2000a, b, c, d). But for orphan afterglow observations, the derivation of such a $`\mathrm{log}S_\nu `$$`\mathrm{log}t`$ light curve is not direct: we do not know the trigger time so that the exact value of $`t`$ for each observed data point cannot be determined.

As the first step, the best that we can do is to produce a light curve with a linear time axis, which, however, is of little help for unveiling the nature of the orphan. Figure 2 illustrates the matter. In this figure we plot $`\mathrm{log}S_\nu `$ vs. $`t`$ for the two kinds of orphans theoretically. The uncerntainty in trigger time means the observed light curve can be shifted along X axis, while the unknown distance results in a shift along Y axis. We see that after some simple manipulations, the segment AB on the dashed curve (i.e., from $`t=18`$ d to $`t=55`$ d) can be shifted to a place (AB) that differs from the solid line only slightly. It hints that a linear light curve as long as $`37`$ days is still not enough. Note that the solid and the dashed curves in Figure 2 are only two examples. The variation of some intrinsic parameters, such as $`E_0`$, $`n`$, $`\gamma _0`$, $`\xi _\mathrm{e}`$, $`\xi _\mathrm{B}^2`$, $`p`$, $`\theta _0`$ and $`\theta _{\mathrm{obs}}`$ as defined in the caption of Figure 1, can change the shape of the two curves notably, thus brings in much more difficulties.

In Figure 3, we compare the theoretical $`\mathrm{log}S_\nu `$$`\mathrm{log}t`$ light curves of optical afterglows from FGRBs and jetted but off-axis GRBs directly. To investigate the influence of the uncertainty in trigger time, we also shift the light curve of FGRBs by $`t\pm 3`$ d, $`t\pm 10`$ d and $`t\pm 30`$ d intentionally. From the dashed curves, we can see that the shape of the FGRB afterglow light curve is seriously affected by the uncertainty of the trigger time. But fortunately, these dashed curves still differ from the theoretical light curve of the jetted GRB orphan markedly, i.e., they are much flatter at very late stages. This means it is still possible for us to discriminate them. In Figure 4, similar results to Figure 3 are given, but this time the light curve of the jetted GRB orphan is shifted. Again we see that the two kinds of orphans can be discriminated by their late time behaviour.

Figures 3 and 4 explain what we should do when an orphan afterglow is discovered. First, we have to assume a trigger time for it arbitrarily, so that the logarithmic light curve can be plotted. We then need to change the trigger time to many other values to see how the light curve is affected. In all our plots, we should pay special attention to the late time behaviour, which will be less affected by the uncertainty in the trigger time. If the slope tends to be $`1.0`$$`1.3`$, then the orphan afterglow may come from an FGRB event. But if the slope tends to be steeper than $`2.0`$, then it is very likely from a jetted but off-axis GRB.

In fact, from Figure 1, we know that for all kinds of GRBs, either successful or failed, the optical afterglow approximately follows a simple power-law decay at late stages (i.e., $`S_\mathrm{R}kt^\alpha `$) so that the light curve is a straight line. In such a relation, if we shift the time by $`T`$,

$$S_\mathrm{R}k(t+T)^\alpha ,$$
(4)
then the line would become curved. The slope at each point on the curve is

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{log}S_\mathrm{R}}{\mathrm{d}\mathrm{log}t}=\alpha (\frac{t}{t+T}).$$
(5)
For positive $`T`$ values the lines bend up-ward, while for negative values the lines bend down-ward. It hints that in plotting the orphan afterglow light curve, we could select the trigger time properly to get a straight line at late stages, then we can determine not only the late time slope, but also the true trigger time. In other words, we can use

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}^2\mathrm{log}S_\mathrm{R}}{\mathrm{d}(\mathrm{log}t)^2}0$$
(6)
as the condition to determine the trigger time and to get the straight line at late stages.

However, we must bear in mind that it is in fact not an easy task. First, to take the process we need to follow the orphan as long as possible, and the simple discovery of an orphan is obviously insufficient. Note that currently optical afterglows from most well-localized GRBs can be observed for only less than 100 days. It is quite unlikely that we can follow an orphan for a period longer than that. Second, since the orphan is usually very faint, errors in the measured magnitudes will seriously prevent us from deriving the straight line. Due to all these difficulties, a satisfactory light curve is usually hard to get for most orphans.

We see that measurement of the GRB beaming angle using orphan searches is not as simple as we originally expected. In fact, it is impractical to some extent. Recently it was suggested by Rhoads (2001) that GRB afterglows can be effectly identified by snapshot observations made with three or more optical filters. The method has been successfully applied to GRB 001011 by Gorosabel et al. (2001). It is believed that this method is also helpful for orphan afterglow searches. However, please note that a jetted GRB orphan and an FGRB one still cannot be discriminated directly.

### 3.2 Possible solutions

We have shown that the derivation of a satisfactory light curve for an orphan afterglow is difficult. The major problem is that we do not know the trigger time. Anyway, there are still some possible solutions that may help to determine the onset of an orphan afterglow.

Firstly, of course we should improve our detection limit so that the orphan afterglow could be followed as long as possible. The longer we observe, the more likely that we can get the true late-time light curve slope. Secondly, we know that FGRBs usually manifest themselves as fast X-ray transients or X-ray-GRBs. If an orphan can be identified to associate with such a transient, then it is most likely an FGRB one. In this case, the trigger time can be well determined.

Thirdly, maybe in some rare cases we are so lucky that the rising phase of the orphan could be observed. For a jetted GRB orphan the maximum optical flux is usually reached within one or two days and for an FGRB orphan it is even within hours. Then the uncertainty in trigger time is greatly reduced. Additionally, a jetted GRB orphan differs markedly from an FGRB one during the rising phase. The former can be brightened by more than one magnitude in several hours (see Figures 1 — 4), while the brightening of the latter can hardly be observed. So, if an orphan afterglow with a short period of brightening is observed, then it is most likely a jetted GRB orphan. Of course, we should first be certain that it is not a supernova.

Fourthly, valuable clues may come from radio observations. In radio bands, the light curve should be highly variable at early stages due to interstellar medium scintillation, and it will become much smoother at late times. So the variability in radio light curves provides useful information on the trigger time. And fifthly, in the future maybe gravitational wave radiation or neutrino radiation associated with GRBs could be detected due to progresses in technology, then the trigger time of an orphan could be determined directly and accurately. In fact, with the successful detection of gravitational waves or neutrino emission, our understanding on GRB progenitors will surely be promoted greatly (Paolis et al. 2001).

Sixthly, the redshift of the orphan afterglow can help us greatly in determining the isotropic energy involved, which itself is helpful for inferring the trigger time. Seventhly, the microlensing effect may be of some help. Since the size of the radiation zone of a jetted GRB orphan is much smaller than that of an FGRB one, they should behave differently when microlensed.

Finally, although a successful detection of some orphan afterglows does not directly mean that GRBs be collimated, the negative detection of any orphans can always place both a stringent lower limit on the beaming angle for GRBs and a reasonable upper limit for the rate of FGRBs.

## 4 Conclusion and Discussion

To successfully produce a GRB, the blastwave should be ultra-relativistic, with Lorentz factor typically larger than 100 — 1000. However, in almost all popular progenitor models, the environment is unavoidably baryon-rich. We believe that only in very rare cases can an ultra-relativistic blastwave successfully break out to give birth to a GRB, and there should be much more failed GRBs, i.e., fireballs with Lorentz factor much less than 100 but still much larger than unity. In fact, this possibility has also been mentioned by a number of authors, such as Mészáros & Waxman (2001).

Owing to the existence of FGRBs, there should be many orphan afterglows even if GRBs are due to isotropic fireballs. Then the simple discovery of orphan afterglows does not necessarily mean that GRBs be highly collimated. To make use of information from orphan afterglow surveys correctly, we should first know how to discriminate a jetted GRB orphan and an FGRB one. This can be done only by checking the detailed afterglow light curve. However, we have shown that the derivation of a satisfactory light curve for an orphan afterglow is difficult. The major problem is that we do not know the trigger time.

In Section 3.2, some possible solutions to the problem are suggested. Unfortunately many of these solutions are still quite impractical in the foreseeable future, which means measure of GRB beaming angle using orphan afterglow searches is extremely difficult currently. However, special attention should be paid to the second solution. Usually, FGRBs manifested themselves as fast X-ray transients during the main burst phase, while jetted but off-axis GRBs went unattended completely. If the fast X-ray transients (or X-ray-GRBs) observed by BeppoSAX are really due to FGRBs, then afterglows should be detectable. We propose that this kind of events should be followed rapidly and extensively in all bands, just like what we are doing for GRBs. If observed, afterglows from these anomalous events can be used to check our concept of FGRBs, and even to test the fireball model under quite different conditions (i.e., when $`\gamma _0100`$). Also, these FGRBs can provide valuable information for our understanding of GRBs, especially on the progenitor models. Note that beamed FGRBs can also give birth to fast X-ray transients if they are directed toward us, but afterglows from such a beamed FGRB and an isotropic FGRB can be discriminated easily from the light curves (see Figure 1).

It is very interesting to note that optical afterglows from two X-ray-GRBs, 011130 and 011211, have been observed (Garnavich, Jha & Kirshner 2001; Grav et al. 2001). Their redshifts were measured to be $`z=`$ 0.5 and 2.14 respectively (Jha et al. 2001; Fruchter et al. 2001), eliminates the possibility that they were ordinary classic GRBs residing at extremely high redshifts ($`z10`$). We propose that they should be FGRBs (either isotropic or beamed) or just jetted GRB “orphan”. However, the observational data currently available are still quite poor so that we could not determine their nature definitely. As for other X-ray-GRBs without a measured redshift, the possibility that they were at redshifts of $`z10`$ can not be excluded.

Finally, the concept of FGRBs is based on the fact that most popular progenitor models for GRBs are baryon-rich. But cases are quite different for another kind of progenitor models where strange stars are involved. Strange stars, composed mainly of u, d, and s quarks, are compact objects which are quite similar to neutron stars observationally (Alcock, Farhi & Olinto 1986). A typical strange star (with mass $`1.4M_{}`$) can have a normal matter crust of less than $`2\times 10^5M_{}`$ (Alcock, Farhi & Olinto 1986), or even as small as $`3\times 10^6M_{}`$ (Huang & Lu 1997a, b). Then baryon contamination can be directly avoided if GRBs are due to the phase transition of neutron stars to strange stars (Cheng & Dai 1996; Dai & Lu 1998b) or collisions of binary strange stars. In these models, there should be very few FGRBs.

## Acknowledgments

We thank an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions. YFH thanks L. J. Gou and X. Y. Wang for helpful discussion. This research was supported by the Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Projects, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 10003001, 19825109, and 19973003), and the National 973 Project (NKBRSF G19990754).

Note added after acceptance (this paragraph might not appear in the published version): The optical orphan at z=0.385 reported by Vanden Berk et al. (2002) has recently been proved to be an unusual radio-loud AGN (Gal-yam et al. 2002, astro-ph/0202354), and X-ray GRB 011211 was found to be in fact an ordinary classic GRB (Frontera et al., GCN 1215). Additionally, the optical identification of X-ray GRB 011130 might also be incorrect (Frail et al., GCN 1207). We sincerely thank Nicola Masetti for private communication.


text:
# Photoconductance Quantization in a Single-Photon Detector

## Abstract

We have made a single-photon detector that relies on photoconductive gain in a narrow electron channel in an AlGaAs/GaAs 2-dimensional electron gas. Given that the electron channel is 1-dimensional, the photo-induced conductance has plateaus at multiples of the quantum conductance 2e2/h. Super-imposed on these broad conductance plateaus are many sharp, small, conductance steps associated with single-photon absorption events that produce individual photo-carriers. This type of photoconductive detector could measure a single photon, while safely storing and protecting the spin degree of freedom of its photo-carrier. This function is valuable for a quantum repeater that would allow very long distance teleportation of quantum information.

The detection of individual photons has become common in the last few decades with the proliferation of avalanche photodetectors, Yoshizawa01  and negative electron affinity Antypas74  photocathode photomultipliers. However, it is becoming desirable now to transmit something more sophisticated than single-photon states. Namely, we want to distribute quantum entanglement information over long distances to enable teleportation Bennett93  and other forms of advanced telecommunication. For this, single-photon sensitivity is not enough. New types of single-photon photodetectors are needed, which preserve the spin information of the photo-carrier.

New selection rules have been identified in the III-V semiconductor photodetectors, that permit the transfer Vrijen01  of photon polarization information directly to photo-electron spin. Unfortunately, the avalanche multiplication process is relatively violent, of necessity, and it destroys any spin information that might have been present on the original photo-electron. New forms of single-photon detection have been developed recently, that are gentle enough to preserve the photo-electron spin state, while providing the gain needed to detect a single photon. For example photoconductive gain can provide for single-photon detection.

Shields et al.Shields00  recently demonstrated single-photon sensitivity in a two-dimensional (2D) electron channel controlled by photoelectric charge trapped on adjacent InxGa1-xAs precipitates in AlGaAs. In photoconductive gain, electric charges become trapped for long periods, and while trapped, their electric charge can influence the channel conductivity. Over time, vast amounts of electric charge can be transferred in the channel current, far more than the original trapped charge, creating a huge photoconductive gain. Trapping of an individual photo-carrier produces a step function in current that can persist for long periods. In AlGaAs alloys at low temperature this is called persistent photoconductivity, and the current can last for weeks. An analogous electrical transport sensitivity enhancement was spectacularly used to detect individual far-infrared photons by Komiyama et al.Komiyama00

In this report, we demonstrate that an ordinary, conventional, AlyGa1-yAs/GaAs modulation-doped field effect transistor, in a 2D electron gas quantum point contact configuration, can already detect single-photon events. InxGa1-xAs precipitates in GaAs are unnecessary, as the ordinary defect centers that are already present in AlyGa1-yAs/GaAs can trap photo-carriers successfully. Furthermore, the trapped photocharge has the same effect as a positive external gate in un-pinching the channel, leading to conductance quantization steps. Thus we are in the interesting situation where individual single-photon-conductivity steps are superimposed on the 1D channel conductance quantization steps associated with a variable width point contact channel. As an aside, this may also be the first observation of photo-induced 1D channel conductance quantization.

The sample used for these experiments is a modulation-doped heterostructure with a quantum point contact defined by a pair of split gates on Al0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs, as illustrated in Fig. 1. All layers are grown by molecular beam epitaxy on semi-insulating GaAs, consisting of a nominally undoped GaAs buffer layer, an i-Al0.3Ga0.7As spacer layer 30 nm thick, a Si-doped (1$`\times `$1018cm-3) n-Al0.3Ga0.7As layer 60 nm thick, and a Si-doped GaAs cap layer, 5 nm. The 2D electron gas in the heterointerface has a carrier density of 3.3$`\times `$1011 cm-2, a mobility of 1.1$`\times `$106 cm2/V s and a Fermi energy (EF) of 1.8 meV. The Ti/Au split gate, of lithographic length 0.1 $`\mu `$m, and spacing 0.3 $`\mu `$m, is fabricated on the heterostructure using electron-beam lithography and electron-gun evaporation. The 1D channel is formed as a line by depletion in the 2DEG between the two gates.

The sample is illuminated by monochromatic light through a large-core glass fiber, that is carefully shielded to block any photons from the outer jacket. The light is created by a tungsten lamp and then filtered by a monochromator, a long-pass filter passing wavelengths $`\lambda `$ $`>`$530 nm, and a 20 dB neutral density filter. The optical power at the end of the fiber measured by a Si detector is $``$ 9 pico-Watts. The area of illumination at the device is about 1 mm in diameter due to end-fire coupling from the fiber. Given the small device area 3$`\times `$10-10 cm2 defined by the gates, we estimate the actual light power in the active area to be 7$`\times `$10-9 times smaller. Thus the incident photon flux is estimated to be 0.1 photon per second on the effective device area.

The source/drain current is measured at a constant voltage drop (VSD) of 0.5 mV, at a temperature of 4.2 K. Figure 2A shows the corresponding source/drain conductance, as a function of either gate voltage, or of the light exposure time. As the channel is opened up, a series of electron wave-guided modes successively contribute conductance steps,van Wees88 ; Wharam88  in units of the conductance quantum, 2e2/h $``$ 1/13,000 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, where e is the electronic charge, the factor 2 accounts for spin, h is Planck’s constant, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is Ohms. The first two steps are shown in Fig. 2A, and their sharpness is consistent with the temperature, 4.2 K. In addition there is a well-known Thomas96  shoulder at conductance 0.7 (2e2/h) thought to be associated with electron spin exchange interaction Wang98  effects.

What is remarkable about Fig. 2A is that there are two different physical phenomena, producing almost identical source/drain conductance on the vertical axis. The curve labeled “gate only” shows that positive gate voltage, above the -1.5 Volt gate threshold, opens up the electron channels producing conductance steps. Likewise, exposure to a weak light source of wavelength $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm, at a fixed bias voltage produces trapped positive charge that also opens up the electron waveguide channels, producing exactly the same conductance steps. In fact the processes are the same. In either case, positive net charge opens up the source/drain electron current channels, leading to the observed electron conductance steps.

An enduring, photo-induced, increase in conductivity has been well known Nelson77 ; Kastalsky84 ; Wei84  in III-V semiconductors, and is called persistent photoconductivity. At temperatures much lower than 100K the net positive trapped charge, is known to persist for weeks. The photo-exposure begins at time t = 0 in Fig. 2A, to the right of the crosshatched dark region where the conductivity begins as a constant. If the photo-exposure is prematurely terminated, the conductance becomes constant again in Fig. 2A, persisting at the new value for weeks.

Photoconductivity in an electron channel requires fixed positive charge from trapped photo-holes. The hole trapping centers can be either neutral donors d0, that become ionized undergoing the transition d0 \+ h+ $``$ d+, or they can be DX- centers Lang77 ; Lang79 ; Chadi88 ; Chadi89 ; Linke98  that become neutralized by hole capture,Brunthaler89  DX- \+ h+ $``$ d0. In any case, the net trapped positive charge has the same effect on the source/drain electron channel as positive gate increments do. The only difference in Fig. 2A is that the horizontal axis at the top measures the net positive charge in terms of optical exposure time from a weak $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm beam, and the horizontal axis at the bottom measures positive increase of gate voltage. The same quantum conductance plateaus are produced in either case.

When the photon wavelength is reduced to $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm, well beyond the Al0.3Ga0.7As bandgap, an additional phenomenon appears, that is plotted in Fig. 2A, as the curve labeled “$`\lambda `$ = 550 nm”. That curve still follows the overall shape of the quantized conductance steps, but the curve itself consists of many smaller steps that, in aggregate, produce the quantized conductance shape, including the 0.7 (2e2/h) feature. The smaller steps, we attribute to absorption of individual photons, and the corresponding capture of a single photo-hole. Since the traps are at variable distances from the source/drain channel, each photon produces a different step height. This is different from the Millikan oil-drop experiment, but similar to the observations by Shields et al.,Shields00  who trapped photo-holes on InGaAs islands.

The photon steps for $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm in Figs. 2A seem to be taller where the conductance curve is steeper, due to greater sensitivity to electrostatic charge changes when dG/dVg is larger. This point is illustrated in Fig. 2B, that plots: (1) dG/dVg versus gate voltage on the left and bottom axes, and on the same graph, (2) $`\delta `$G, single-photon step height versus photon exposure time on the right and top axes, respectively.

The $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm “curve” in Fig. 2A is seen in Fig. 2B to consist of about 70 individual photon steps. We can test for proper photon statistics by plotting a histogram of the time intervals between photon events, as illustrated in Fig. 3. The intervals should fall on a decaying exponential for random photon events, as is appropriate for un-squeezed photon statistics, with the average interval between photon events being 18 seconds in this case. This low photon detection rate is consistent with an active area of 3$`\times `$10-10 cm2, and a quantum efficiency of around 30%. The monotonic upward conductance changes are to be distinguished from “random telegraph signal”, Ralls84  that fluctuates in either direction.

The wavelength dependence of the onset of the single-photon-conductivity steps is correlated with the 1.9 eV bandgap of the Al0.3Ga0.7As layer, on top of the 2D electron gas. The onset of single-photon steps begins at wavelengths shorter than $`\lambda `$ $`<`$650 nm, becoming more pronounced at $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm where the Al0.3Ga0.7As is more absorbing. By contrast, the single-photon steps are not seen at $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm. A corresponding model of the photo-conductive process at $`\lambda `$ = 550 nm is illustrated in Fig. 4. A photon is absorbed in the Al0.3Ga0.7As layer, with the photo-hole being trapped at DX- centers that are associated with the n-type doping. Alternately the photo-hole can be trapped at neutral donors, d0, though none are shown in Fig. 4. (According to the negative-U property DX  of DX- centers, neutral donors segregate into ionized donors d+ and DX- centers.) Regardless, in either case, the net increase in positive charge among the donor defects opens up the source/drain channel creating a permanent increase in electron current.

In converse, at $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm, photons are absorbed in the nominally undoped GaAs buffer layer, which is usually weakly n-type. Thus the photo-hole recombination centers, residual neutral donors d0, are very dilute. They are too far away from the source/drain channel to produce noticeable discrete jumps in current for single-photon events at $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm. Nonetheless, the smooth photoconductance channel quantization steps are still observed at $`\lambda `$ = 700 nm, as shown in Fig. 2A.

The photo-electron plays a lesser role. It usually ends up in the channel, and then becomes swept away in the source and drain electrodes. Since those are ohmic contacts, they can continue to inject replacement electrons indefinitely. This is essentially the mechanism Rose78  of secondary photoconductivity and photoconductive gain that is responsible for the single-photon sensitivity.

The conductance curve in Fig. 2A ends at the 2 conductance units (2e2/h) plateau. Above this conductance level, the gate-induced and photo-induced conductance changes no longer match. The photo-induced conductance change tends to saturate above 2 conductance units (2e2/h), after about 70 discrete photon conductance steps, but the gate-induced change continues to higher conductance. We attribute the saturation of the photo-induced conductance to saturation of the doping-induced trapping centers. Within the active area of 3$`\times `$10-10 cm2 there are 3.3$`\times `$1011 carriers/cm2 or only about 100 carriers, explaining the saturation in photoconductance. At a channel capacitance of $``$ 0.1 femto-Farad, the 70 charges produce about the same electric field as the gate voltage change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$Vg = 0.2 Volt that was required to reach the 2 (2e2/h) conductance plateau.

In this photoconductive single-photon detector, a photo-hole is trapped, producing a discrete change in source/drain channel conductance. If the photosensitive layer were strained, the light/heavy hole degeneracy would be lifted, and the hole spin degree of freedom might be a viable long-lived qubit. Strained hole spin coherence has been maintained Feher60  for about 100 nsec in p-Silicon. In n-type material however, trapped holes are subject to electron/hole recombination. It is generally accepted Awschalom99  that a trapped photo-electron spin is the preferred qubit compared to a photo-hole spin. Electron traps may require artificial engineering, for example, they could be electron potential wells created by electrostatic gates above a heterointerface.

In addition to changing the sign of the trapped carrier, a further change may be needed to increase the quantum efficiency. Photoconductive detectors can inherently be quite efficient, since the photo-carriers are produced by band-to-band absorption in a direct bandgap semiconductor. Nonetheless, it might be desirable in practice to incorporate the absorbing region into an optical cavity to make it a cavity-enhanced photodetector.

In principle, a photoconductive detector can store and detect an optically injected photo-carrier charge, preserving its quantum mechanical spin information. This would safely prevent the charge measurement from disturbing the spin. We have demonstrated single photo-carrier charge sensitivity, but we have used naturally occurring defect centers that are subject to carrier recombination. It remains yet to create an artificial potential well that would safely trap and store the spin.

We thank HongWen Jiang, James Chadi, and Mineo Saito for helpful discussions. The project is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency & Army Research Office Nos. MDA972-99-1-0017 and DAAD19-00-1-0172. The content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.


text:
# The Cut & Enhance method : selecting clusters of galaxies from the SDSS commissioning data.

## 1 Introduction

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive virialized systems known and provide powerful tools in the study of cosmology and extragalactic astronomy. For example, clusters are efficient tracers of the large–scale structure in the Universe as well as determining the amount of dark matter on Mpc scales (Bahcall 1998; Carlberg et al. 1996; Borgani & Guzzo 2000 and Nichol 2001 and references therein). Furthermore, clusters provide a laboratory within which to study a large number of galaxies at the same redshift and thus assess the effects of dense environments on galaxy evolution e.g. morphology–density relation (Dressler et al. 1980, 1984, 1997), Butcher–Oemler effect (Butcher & Oemler 1978, 1984) and the density dependence of the luminosity function of galaxies (Garilli et al. 1999). In recent years, surveys of clusters of galaxies have been used extensively in constraining cosmological parameters such as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, the mass density parameter of the universe, and $`\sigma _8`$, the amplitude of mass fluctuations at a scale of 8 $`h^1`$ Mpc (see Oukbir & Blanchard 1992; Viana & Liddle 1996, 1999; Eke et al. 1996; Bahcall, Fan & Cen 1997; Henry 1997, 2000; Reichart et al. 1999 as examples of an extensive literature on this subject). Such constraints are achieved through the comparison of the evolution of the mass function of galaxy clusters, as predicted by the Press-Schechter formalism (see Jenkins et al. 2001 for the latest analytical predictions) or simulations (e.g. Evrard et al. 2001 and Bode et al. 2001), with the observed abundance of clusters with redshift. Therefore, to obtain robust constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\sigma _8`$, we need large samples of clusters that span a large range in redshift and mass as well as possessing a well–determined selection function (see Nichol 2001).

Despite their importance, existing catalogs of clusters are limited in both their size and quality. For example, the Abell catalog of rich clusters (Abell 1958), and its southern extension (Abell, Corwin and Olowin 1989), are still some of the most commonly used catalogs in astronomical research even though they were constructed by visual inspection of photographic plates. Another large cluster catalog by Zwicky et al. (1961-1968) was similarly constructed by visual inspection. Although the human eye can be efficient in detecting galaxy clusters, it suffers from subjectivity and incompleteness. For cosmological studies, the major disadvantage of visually constructed catalogs is the difficulty to quantify selection bias and thus, the selection function. Furthermore, the response of photographic plates is not uniform. Plate-to-plate sensitivity variations can disturb the uniformity of the catalog. To overcome these problems, several cluster catalogs have been constructed using automated detection methods on CCD imaging data. They have been, however, restricted to small areas due to the lack of large–format CCDs. e.g. the PDCS catalog (Postman et al. 1996) only covers 5.1 deg2 with 79 galaxy clusters. The need for a uniform, large cluster catalog is strong. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000) data offer the opportunity to produce the largest and most uniform galaxy cluster catalog in existence because the SDSS is the largest CCD imaging survey currently underway scanning 10,000 deg2 centered approximately on the North Galactic Pole.

The quantity and quality of the SDSS data demands the use of sophisticated cluster finding algorithms to help maximize the number of true cluster detections while suppressing the number of false positives. The history of the automated cluster finding methods goes back to Shectman’s count-in-cell method (1985). He counted the number of galaxies in cells on the sky to estimate the galaxy density. Although this provided important progress over the visual inspection, the results depend on the size and position of the cell. Currently the commonly used automated cluster finding method is the Matched Filter technique (MF) (Postman et al. 1996, Kawasaki et al. 1998, Kepner et al. 1999, Schuecker & Bohringer 1998, Bramel et al. 2000, Lobo et al. 2000, da Costa et al. 2000 and Willick et al. 2000). The method assumes a filter for the radial profile of galaxy clusters and for the luminosity function of their members. It then selects clusters from imaging data by maximizing the likelihood of matching the data to the cluster model. Although the method has been successful, galaxy clusters that do not fit the model assumption (density profile and LF) may be missed. We present here a new cluster finding method called the Cut  and Enhancement  method, or CE. This new algorithm is semi–parametric and is designed to be as simple as possible using the minimum number of assumptions possible about cluster properties. In this way, it should be sensitive to all types of galaxy overdensities even those that may have recent under–gone a merger and therefore, are highly non–spherical. One major difference between CE and previous cluster finders is that CE makes full use of colors of galaxies, which become available due to the advent of the accurate CCD photometry of the SDSS data. We apply this detection method on 350 deg2 of the SDSS commissioning data and construct the large cluster catalog. The catalog ranges from rich clusters to the more numerous poor clusters of galaxies over this area. We also determine the selection function of the CE method.

In Sect. 2, we describe the SDSS commissioning data. In Sect. 3, we describe the detection strategy of Cut & Enhance method. In Sect. 4, we present the performance test of the Cut & Enhance method and selection function using Monte Carlo simulations. In Sect. 5, we visually check the success rate of the Cut & Enhance method. In Sect. 6, we compare Cut & Enhance method with the other detection methods applied to the SDSS data. In Sect. 7, we summarize the results.

## 2 The SDSS commissioning data

The data we use to construct the SDSS Cut & Enhance galaxy cluster catalog are equatorial scan data taken in September 1998 and March 1999 during the early part of the SDSS commissioning phase. A contiguous area of 250 deg2 (145.1$`<`$RA$`<`$236.0, -1.25$`<`$DEC$`<`$+1.25) and 150 deg2 (350.5$`<`$RA$`<`$56.51, -1.25$`<`$DEC$`<`$+1.25) were obtained during four nights, where seeing varied from 1.1” to 2.5”. Since we intend to use the CE method at the faint end of imaging data, we include galaxies to $`r^{}`$=21.5 (petrosian magnitude), which is the star/galaxy separation limit. Since the SDSS photometric system is not yet finalized, we refer to the SDSS photometry presented here as $`u^{},g^{},r^{},i^{}`$ and $`z^{}`$. The technical aspects of the SDSS camera are described in Gunn et al. (1998). Fukugita et al. (1996) describe the color filters of SDSS. The details about SDSS commissioning data are described in Stoughton et al. (2001).

## 3 Cut & Enhance cluster detection method

### 3.1 Color cut

The aim of the Cut & Enhance method is to construct a cluster catalog that has little bias as possible by minimizing the assumptions about cluster properties. If a method assumes a luminosity function or radial profile, for example, the resulting clusters will be biased to the detection model used. We thus exclude all such assumptions except for a generous color cut. The assumption on colors of cluster galaxies appears to be robust, as all the galaxy clusters appear to have the same general color-magnitude relation (Gladders et al. 2000). Even a claimed “dark cluster” (Hattori et al. 1997) was found to have a normal color magnitude relation. (Benitez et al. 1999, Clowe et al. 2000, Soucail et al. 2000).

Galaxy clusters are known to have a tight color-magnitude relation; among the various galaxy populations within a cluster, (i.e. spiral, elliptical, dwarf, irregular), bright red elliptical galaxies have similar color and they populate a red ridge line in the color-magnitude diagram (called the color-magnitude relation). Bower, Lucey, & Ellis (1992) obtained high precision $`U`$ and $`V`$ photometry of spheroidal galaxies in two local clusters, Virgo and Coma. They observed a very small scatter, $`\delta (UV)<0.035`$ rms. Ellis et al. (1997) studied the $`UV`$ color-magnitude relation at high redshift ($`z`$0.54) and found a scatter of $`<`$ 0.1 mag rms. Similarly, Stanford et al. (1998) studied optical-infrared colors ($`RK`$) of early-type (E+S0) galaxies in 19 galaxy clusters out to $`z`$=0.9 and found a very small dispersion in the optical-infrared colors of $``$0.1 mag rms. Fig. 1 shows the color-magnitude diagram in ($`r^{}i^{}`$ vs. $`r^{}`$) using SDSS data for galaxy members in the cluster A168 ($`z`$=0.044). The member galaxies are identified by matching the positions of galaxies in the SDSS commissioning data with the spectroscopic observation of Katgert et al. (1998). The error bars show the standard errors of $`r^{}i^{}`$ color estimated by the SDSS reduction software (Lupton et al. 2001). The red ridge line of the color-magnitude relation is seen at $`r^{}i^{}`$0.4 from $`r^{}=17.5`$ to $`r^{}=20`$. The scatter is 0.08 mag from the brightest to $`r^{}=18`$. Fig. 2 shows the color-magnitude diagram (in $`g^{}r^{}`$ vs $`r^{}`$) for all galaxies in the SDSS fields ($`8.3\times 10^2`$ deg2) that contain Abell 1577. A1577 has a redshift of $`z0.14`$ and Abell richness class $`1`$. Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 show color-magnitude diagrams for the same field in $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ colors, respectively. All the galaxies in the region are included. Even without spectroscopic information, the red ridge of the color-magnitude relation is clearly visible as the horizontal distribution of galaxy colors. The scatter in the color-magnitude relation is the largest in $`g^{}r^{}`$ because the difference of the galaxy SED due to the age or metallicity difference is prominent around $`35005000`$Å. The color distribution is much wider at faint magnitudes, partly because fainter galaxies have larger color errors, and partly because of the increase in the number of background galaxies.

The color-magnitude relation is known to have a slight tilt (Kodama et al. 1998). The tilt is small in the SDSS color bands. The tilt and its scatter in the case of A1577 (Fig. 2) is summarized in Table 1. The tilt is small in $`g^{}r^{}`$ and $`r^{}i^{}`$ ($``$0.08), and even smaller in $`i^{}z^{}`$ (0.0018). These values are much smaller than the color cuts of CE. The scatters are also small: 0.081, 0.040 and 0.033 in $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$, well smaller than the color cuts of CE. The small scatter of $`<`$0.1 mag is consistent with the previous works (Bower et al. 1992; Ellis et al. 1997; Stanford et al. 1998). The tilt of the color-magnitude relation is smaller than the scatter in the SDSS color bands.

We use the color-magnitude relation to enhance the detection signal of galaxy clusters. Such a use of colors of galaxies become possible only recently due to the appearance of large CCD based data ($`e.g.`$ SDSS). Since cluster members have similar colors, we use specific but generous color cuts, to enhance the contrast of galaxy clusters. The colors of red elliptical galaxies change as a function of redshift. Fig. 5 presents the color-color diagram, $`g^{}r^{}`$ vs $`r^{}i^{}`$, for all galaxies brighter than $`r^{}`$=22 in the SDSS fields that covers A1577, as well as the color predictions of elliptical galaxies at different redshifts (shown by the triangles; Fukugita et al. 1995). The $`g^{}r^{}`$ color becomes redder from $`z`$=0 to $`z`$=0.4 and $`r^{}i^{}`$ reddens monotonously. At $`z0.4`$, the 4000 $`\AA `$ break of an elliptical galaxy crosses the border between $`g^{}`$ and $`r^{}`$ bands, and appears as a sharp turn in the color at this redshift (Fig. 5). By using this color change, we can reject foreground and background galaxies and can select galaxies likely to be in a certain redshift range in the following way. This is a big advantage of having multi-color data since optical cluster finders have suffered chance projections of galaxies in the sky. To select galaxies with similar colors, we divide the $`g^{}r^{}`$ vs. $`r^{}`$ color-magnitude diagram into eleven bins. The bins are shown in Fig. 2 as horizontal dashed lines. The bins are not tilted because the tilt is almost negligible in the SDSS bands (see above), and because we wish to minimize the assumptions used for cluster selection. Any specific color bin reflects the redshifts of the cluster: Blue color bins represent low redshift clusters while red bins represent higher redshift clusters. We use two bins as one color cut in order to produce overlap in the color cuts; the cut is shifted by one bin each time we step to a higher redshift (redder cut).

Similarly, we use ten color cuts in both $`r^{}i^{}`$ (shown in Fig. 3 as dashed lines) and ten color cuts in $`i^{}z^{}`$ (shown in Fig. 4 as dashed lines). The width of the bins in $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ color are 0.2 mag, 0.1 mag and 0.1 mag, respectively. The width of the $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ bins is smaller than the $`g^{}r^{}`$ width because the colors of elliptical galaxies have less scatter in $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ than in $`g^{}r^{}`$. The above color cuts, in the three colors, are applied independently. Galaxies which have color errors larger than the size of the color bin are rejected. The standard color error estimated by the SDSS reduction software at $`r^{}=21.5`$ (the limiting magnitude used in the Cut & Enhance method.) is 0.20$`\pm `$0.09, 0.16$`\pm `$0.06 and 0.26$`\pm `$0.1 in $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$, respectively. In $`g^{}r^{}`$ and $`r^{}i^{}`$, the color error is smaller than the size of the color cut box. In $`i^{}z^{}`$, the color error at $`r^{}=21.5`$ is slightly larger than the size of the color cut boxes (0.2 mag), at $`r^{}`$=20.5 , however, the errors of $`i^{}z^{}`$ is 0.11$`\pm `$0.05.

In Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, we demonstrate the effect of the color cut. Black dots are the galaxies within 2.7’ (1.5$`h^1`$Mpc at $`z`$=0.37) from the center of RXJ0256.5+0006 (Romer et al. 2001) . No background and foreground correction are applied. Contours represent the distribution of all the galaxies of the SDSS imaging data. The corresponding color cuts to the redshift of the cluster are drawn in each figure. In each case, the color cuts capture the red-sequence of RXJ0256.5+0006 successfully and reject foreground galaxies as designed. In fact, we show in Table 2, the fraction of galaxies inside of the color cut for both in cluster region and outside of cluster region. As shown in the Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, indeed the fraction in the color cut increases dramatically from 13.5% to 36.9% in $`g^{}r^{}`$ cut and from 42.4% to 62.1% in $`r^{}i^{}`$ cut. The efficiency of color cut increases as we see higher redshift apart from the foreground color distribution of galaxies. The upper left panel in Fig. 8 shows the galaxy distribution of the SDSS commissioning data around RXJ0256.5+0006 before applying any cut. The upper right panel shows the galaxy distribution after applying the $`g^{}r^{}`$ color cut at the cluster redshift, it illustrates the color cut enhancement of the cluster.

### 3.2 Color-color cut

When more than two colors are available, it is more effective to select galaxies in color-color space. We thus added four additional color-color-cut boxes to enhance the contrast of galaxy clusters. The cuts are low-$`z`$ and high-$`z`$ boxes in $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ space and in $`r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ space, as shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11. These color boxes are based on the fact that cluster galaxies concentrate in specific regions in color-color space (Dressler & Gunn 1992). In Fig. 10, we show the $`g^{}r^{}`$ vs. $`r^{}i^{}`$ color-color diagram of A168 for spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies (Katgert et al. 1998) brighter than $`r^{}`$=21. The low-$`z`$ $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ color-color-cut box is shown with dashed lines and the high-$`z`$ $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ color-color-cut box is shown by the dotted lines. The triangles present the color prediction as a function of redshift for elliptical galaxies ($`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$=0.1; Fukugita et al. 1995). The scatter in the plots comes from the mixture from the different type of morphology. Similar results are shown in Fig. 11 for the $`r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ color-color diagram of A168. Member galaxies of A168 ($`z`$=0.044, Struble & Rood 1999) are well centered in the low-$`z`$ $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ and $`r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ boxes.

Fig. 5 is the $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ color-color diagram of galaxies (brighter than $`r^{}`$=22) in the SDSS fields covering A1577 ($`z`$=0.14). The low-$`z`$ and high-$`z`$ color-color-cut boxes are also shown. The triangle points show the color prediction for elliptical galaxies. Fig. 12 represents similar results in the $`r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ color-color space for the same field. Even though both cluster members and field galaxies are included in the plot, the concentration of cluster galaxies inside the low-$`z`$ boxes is clearly seen.

The color-color cuts are made based on the spectroscopic observation of Dressler & Gunn (1992) and the color prediction of elliptical galaxies (Fukugita et al. 1995). We reject galaxies that have standard color errors larger than the size of the color-color boxes. The standard color error at $`r^{}`$=21.5 (the limiting magnitude of CE method.) is 0.20$`\pm `$0.09, 0.16$`\pm `$0.06 and 0.26$`\pm `$0.1 in $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$, respectively. The smallest size of the color-color boxes is the $`r^{}i^{}`$ side of the low-$`z`$ $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ box, which is 0.34 in $`r^{}i^{}`$. The standard color error is well within the color cut boxes even at $`r^{}`$=21.5. In Fig. 8, the upper left panel shows the galaxy distribution of the SDSS commissioning data in 23.75 deg2 before applying any cut. The upper right panel shows the galaxy distribution after applying the $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ color-color cut. Abell clusters in the region are shown their position as numbers. It illustrates the color cut enhancement of nearby clusters. We used RXJ0256.5+0006 ($`z`$=0.36) to numerate the fraction of inside of the color cut for both in cluster region and outside of cluster region in Table 2. Indeed, the fraction of galaxies in the color cut increases from 48.8% to 58.3% in $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ cut and from 65.7% to 76.7% in $`r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ cut. Since the color cuts has overlaps at $`z`$0.4, $`g^{}r^{}i^{}`$ high$`z`$ cut also increases somewhat.

We thus use 30 color cuts and four color-color cuts independently to search for clusters. We then merge 34 cluster candidate lists into a final cluster catalog. Because of star/galaxy separation limit, we do not use galaxies fainter than $`r^{}`$=21.5 . The only main assumption made in the Cut & Enhance detection method is the above color cuts.

In Fig. 13, we plot the color prediction of galaxies with evolving model with star formation (open triangle) and the same model without star formation (open square) from $`z`$=0 to $`z`$=0.6 (PEGASE model, Fioc, M., & Rocca-Volmerange 1997). Filled triangles show the color prediction of elliptical galaxies ($`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$=0.1;Fukugita et al. 1995). The model galaxies with star formation are the extreme star forming galaxies. We plot spectroscopic galaxies as gray dots. Black dots are the galaxies around Abell 1577, for reference. Although the evolving model goes outside of the high-$`z`$ color cut box at $`z`$0.6, CE is designed to detect galaxy clusters if enough red galaxies (shown as triangles) are in the color cut by weighting the galaxies with similar color. In fact, spectroscopic galaxies (shown as green dots, 0.4$`<z`$0.5 ) are well within the high-$`z`$ box (100 galaxies with $`z>`$0.4 are randomly taken from the SDSS spectroscopic data). As seen in the real catalog in Sec. 3.6 , due to the magnitude limit of SDSS, it is difficult to find many clusters beyond $`z`$0.4 . On the other hand, if we move the color cut bluer, we increase the contamination from $`z`$0.3 galaxies (which are well within the magnitude limit of SDSS). This is how the color cut box was optimized.

### 3.3 Enhancement Method

After applying the color cuts, we use a special enhancement method to enhance the signal to noise ratio of clusters further. First, we find all pairs of galaxies within five arcmin, this scale corresponds to the size of galaxy clusters at $`z`$0.3 . Selecting larger separations blurs high $`z`$ clusters, while smaller separations weaken the signal of low $`z`$ clusters. We empirically investigated several separations and found 5’ to be a good mean value. We then calculate the angular distance and color difference of each pair of galaxies. We distribute a Gaussian cloud around the center position of each pair. The width of a Gaussian cloud is the angular separation of the pair and the volume of a Gaussian cloud is given by its weight ($`W`$), which is calculated as:

$$W=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }r+1^{\prime \prime }}\times \frac{1}{\mathrm{\Delta }(g^{}r^{})^2+2.5\times 10^3}$$
(1)
,where $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the angular separation between the two galaxies and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$($`g^{}r^{}`$) is their color difference. Small softening parameters (empirically determined) are added in the denominator of each term to avoid values becoming infinity. This enhancement method provides stronger weights to pairs which are closer both in angular space and in color space, thus are more likely to appear in galaxy clusters. Gaussian clouds are distributed in 30”$`\times `$30” cells on the sky. The 30” cells are small compared to sizes of galaxy clusters (several arcmins at $`z`$0.5) .

An enhanced weighted map of high density regions is obtained by summing up the Gaussian clouds. The lower panels in Fig. 8 and 9 present such enhanced maps of the region in their upper panels. RXJ0256.5+0006 is successfully enhanced in Fig. 8. Fig. 9 illustrates how the CE method finds galaxy clusters. The advantage of this enhancement method in addition to the color cuts is that it makes full use of color concentration of cluster galaxies. The color cuts are used to reduce foreground and background galaxies and to enhance the signal of clusters. Since the color-magnitude relation of cluster galaxies is frequently tighter than the width of our color cuts, the use of the second term in equation (1) \- the inverse square of the color difference - further enhances the signal of cluster, in spite of the larger width of the color cuts. Another notable feature is that the enhancement method is adaptive. i.e. Larger separation pairs have large gaussian and small separation pairs have sharp, small gaussian. In this way, the enhancement method naturally fit to the any region with any number density of galaxies in the sky. It is also easy to apply it to data from another telescope with different depth and different galaxy density. Another benefit of the enhancement method is that it includes a smoothing scheme and thus conventional detection methods commonly used in astronomical community can be used to detect clusters in the enhanced map. The enhancement method uses the angular separation in the $`W`$. This might bias our catalog against nearby clusters ($`z<`$0.1), which have a large angular extent (and thus are given less $`W`$). However these nearby clusters already well documented in existing catalogs; these nearby clusters will also be well sampled in the SDSS spectroscopic survey with fiber redshifts, and will thus be detected in the SDSS 3D cluster selection. (Cut & Enhance cluster detection method is intended to detect clusters using imaging data only). These nearby clusters do not have a significant effect on angular or redshift-space correlations because the number of such clusters is a small fraction of any large volume-limited sample.

### 3.4 Detection

We use SourceExtractor (Bertin et al. 1996) to detect clusters from the enhanced map discussed in Sect.3.3. SourceExtractor identifies high density peaks above a given threshold measuring the background and its fluctuation locally. The threshold selection determines the number of clusters obtained. A high threshold selects only the richer clusters. We tried several thresholds, examining the colored image, color-magnitude and color-color diagrams of the resulting cluster catalog. The effect of changing threshold is summarized in Table 3. The numbers of clusters detected are not very sensitive to the threshold111The numbers of detection go up and down with increasing sigma because the following two effects cancel out each other. 1, Lower threshold detects faint sources and thus increases the number of detections. 2, Higher threshold deblends the peaks and increases the number of the detections.. Based on the above, we have selected the threshold to be six times the background fluctuation, it is the threshold which yields a large number of clusters while the spurious detection rate is still low.

Monte Carlo simulations are sometimes used to decide the optimal threshold, where most true clusters are recovered while the spurious detection rate is still low. However the simulations reflect an ideal situation, and they are inevitably different from true data; for example, a uniform background cannot represent the true galaxy distribution with its large scale structure. There are always clusters which do not match the radial profile or luminosity function assumed in Monte Carlo simulations and this may affect the optimization of the threshold. The optimal threshold in Monte Carlo simulation differs from the optimal threshold in the real data. Therefore, we select the threshold empirically using the actual data and later derive the selection function using Monte Carlo simulation.

At high redshifts ($`z>`$0.4), the number of galaxies within the color cuts is small; therefore the rms of the enhanced map is generally too low and the clusters detected at high redshift have unusually high signal. To avoid such spurious detections, we applied another threshold at maximum absolute flux=1000222FLUX\_MAX+BACKGROUND=1000, where FLUX\_MAX and BACKGROUND are the parameters of Source Extractor. FLUX\_MAX+BACKGROUND is the highest value in the pixels within the cluster. It is an absolute value, and not affected by rms value. in the enhanced map. Spurious detections with high signal would generally have low values because they are not true density peaks. The maximum absolute flux=1000 threshold can thus reject spurious detections. The value is determined by investigating the image, color-magnitude and color-color diagrams of the detected clusters and iterating the detection with different values of the maximum absolute flux threshold. The effect of changing the absolute flux threshold is summarized in Table 4

To secure the detection further, at all redshifts, we demand at least two detections in the 34 cuts. This is demanded because the cluster galaxies have color concentrations in all $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ colors; real clusters should thus be detected in at least two color cuts.

### 3.5 Merging

We apply the procedure of cut, enhance and detect to all of the 34 color cuts (30 color cuts + four color-color cuts) independently. After creating the 34 cluster lists, we merge them into one cluster catalog. We regard the detections within 1.2 arcmins as one cluster. To avoid two clusters with different redshifts being merged into one cluster due to the chance alignment, we do not merge clusters that are detected in two color cuts of the same bands unless the successive color cuts both detect it.

An alternative way to merge clusters would be to merge only those clusters which are detected in the consistent color cut in all $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ colors, using the model of the elliptical galaxy colors. However, the catalog will be biased against clusters which have different colors than the model ellipticals. In order to minimize the assumptions on cluster properties we treat the three color space, $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$ , independently.

### 3.6 Redshift and Richness Estimation

We estimate the redshift and richness of each cluster as follows. In stead of the same richness estimator as Abell’s, we count the number of galaxies inside the detected cluster radius which lie in the two magnitude range ($`r^{}`$ band) from $`m_3`$ (the third brightest galaxy) to $`m_3`$+2 (CE richness). The difference from Abell’s estimation is that he used a fixed 1.5 $`h^1`$Mpc as a radius. Here we use the detection radius of the cluster detection algorithm which can be larger or smaller than Abell radius, typically slightly smaller than 1.5 $`h^1`$Mpc. The background galaxy count is subtracted using the average galaxy counts in the SDSS commissioning data.

For the redshift estimates, we use the strategy of the redshift estimation of the maxBCG technique (Annis et al. 2001). We count the number of galaxies within the detected radius that are brighter than $`M_r^{}^{}`$=-20.25 for a given redshift assumed and are within a color range of $`\pm `$1 mag in $`g^{}r^{}`$ around the color prediction for elliptical galaxies (Fukugita et al. 1995). This is determined in estimated redshift step of $`\delta z`$= 0.01. After subtracting average background number counts from each bin, the redshift of the bin that has the largest number of galaxies is taken as the estimated cluster redshift. The estimated redshifts are calibrated using the spectroscopic redshifts from the SDSS spectroscopic survey. Our redshift estimation depends on the model of Fukugita et al. (1995), but the difference from other models are not so significant, as seen in the difference between open triangles (PEGASE model) and filled triangles (Fukugita et al. 1995) of Fig. 13. If a cluster has enough elliptical galaxies, the redshift of the cluster is expected to be well measured. If a cluster is , however, dominated only by spiral galaxies, as seen in the difference between triangles and squares, the redshift of the cluster will be underestimated.

Fig. 14 shows the redshift accuracy of the method. The estimated redshifts are plotted against observed redshifts from the spectroscopic observation. The redshift of the SDSS spectroscopic galaxy within the detected radius and with nearest spectroscopic redshift to the estimation is adopted as the real redshift. In the fall equatorial region, 699 clusters have spectroscopic redshifts. The correlation between true and estimated redshifts is very good: the rms scatter is $`\delta z`$=$`\pm `$0.0147 for $`z<`$0.3 clusters, and $`\delta z`$=$`\pm `$0.0209 for $`z>`$0.3 clusters. Triangles show 15 Abell clusters measured with available spectroscopic redshifts, there are three outliers at low spectroscopic redshifts. CE counterparts for these three clusters all have very small radii of several arcmin. Since these Abell clusters are at $`z<`$0.1, the discrepancy is probably not in the redshift estimation but rather in the detection radius. We construct the SDSS Cut & Enhance galaxy cluster catalog containing 4638 galaxy clusters. The catalog is available at the following website. http://astrophysics.phys.cmu.edu/$``$tomo

## 4 Monte Carlo Simulation

In this section, we examine the performance of the Cut & Enhance method and determine the selection function using Monte Carlo simulations. We also perform false positive tests.

### 4.1 Method

We perform Monte Carlo simulations both with a real background using the SDSS commissioning data and with the shuffled background. (We explain these below.) For the real background, we randomly choose a 1 deg2 region of the SDSS data with seeing better than 1.7”.333 Though the SDSS survey criteria for seeing is better than 1.5”, some parts of the SDSS commissioning data have seeing worse than 2.0”. It is expected that the seeing is better than 1.5” for all the data after the survey begins. For the shuffled background, we re-distribute all the galaxies in the above 1 deg2 of SDSS data randomly in position , but keep their colors and magnitudes unchanged.

Then, we place artificial galaxy clusters on these backgrounds. We distribute cluster galaxies randomly using a King profile (King 1966; Ichikawa 1986) for the radial density, with concentration index of 1.5 and cut off radius of $`2.1h^1`$Mpc, which is the size of Abell 1577 (Struble & Rood 1987). For colors of the artificial cluster galaxies, we use the color and magnitude distribution of Abell 1577 (at $`z0.14`$, Richness$`1`$) as a model. We choose the SDSS fields which cover the entire Abell 1577 area and count the number of galaxies in each color bin. The size of the bins is 0.2 magnitude in both colors and magnitude. The color and magnitude distribution spans in four dimension space, $`r^{}`$, $`g^{}r^{}`$, $`r^{}i^{}`$ and $`i^{}z^{}`$. We count the number of field galaxies using the same size fields near Abell 1577 and subtracted the distribution of field galaxies from the distribution of galaxies in the Abell 1577 fields. The resulting color distribution is used as a model for the artificial galaxy clusters. Galaxy colors are selected randomly so that they reproduce the overall color distribution of Abell 1577. The distribution is linearly interpolated when allocating colors and magnitudes to the galaxies.

For the high redshift artificial clusters, we apply k-correction and the color prediction of elliptical galaxies from Fukugita et al. (1995). For the color prediction, only the color difference, not the absolute value, is used. Galaxies which become fainter than $`r^{}`$=21.5 are not used in the Cut & Enhance method.

### 4.2 Monte Carlo Results

First, we run a Monte Carlo simulation with only the background, without any artificial clusters, in order to measure the detection rate of the simulation itself. The bias detection rate is defined as the percentile in which any detection is found within 1.2 arcmins from the position where we later place an artificial galaxy cluster. The main reason for the false detection is that a real cluster sometimes comes into the detection position, where an artificial cluster is later placed. This is not the false detection of the Cut & Enhance method but rather the noise in the simulation itself. The bias detection rate with the real SDSS background is 4.3%. This is small relative to the actual cluster detection rate discussed below. The bias detection rate using the shuffled background is lower, as expected. It is 2.4%. We run Monte Carlo simulations with a set of artificial clusters with redshifts ranging from $`z`$=0.2 to $`z`$=0.6, and with richnesses of $`Ngal`$= 40, 60, 80 and 100, at each redshift. ($`Ngal`$ is the number of galaxies within $`2.1h^1`$Mpc inputted into a cluster, whose magnitudes are $`r^{}<`$21.5 at the redshift of A1577.) If a galaxy becomes fainter than $`r^{}=21.5`$, it is not counted in the Cut & Enhance detection method even if it is included in $`Ngal`$). For each set of parameters, the simulation is iterated 1000 times.

In Fig. 15, we compare $`Ngal`$ with cluster richness where richness is defined (Sect.3) as the number of galaxies within the two magnitude range below the third brightest galaxy, located within the cluster radius that the Cut & Enhance method returns. The error bars are $`1\sigma `$ standard error. $`Ngal`$=50 corresponds to Abell richness class $``$1.

Fig. 16 shows the recovery rate in the Monte Carlo simulations on the real background. The percentage recovery rate is shown as a function of redshift. Each line represents different richness input clusters, $`Ngal`$=100, 80, 60 and 40, from top to bottom. Because the false detection rate in the simulation with real background is 4.3%, all the lines converges to 4.3% at high redshift. The detection rate drops suddenly at $`z`$=0.4 because At this point, a large fraction of the cluster member galaxies are lost due to the magnitude limit of $`r^{}=21.5`$. Roughly speaking, it determines the depth of a SDSS cluster catalog. The $`Ngal`$=80 clusters are recovered $``$80% of the time to $`z<`$0.3 dropping to $``$40% beyond $`z`$0.4. Clusters of the lowest richnesses, $`Ngal`$=40 clusters are more difficult to detect, as expected. The detection rates of $`Ngal`$=40 clusters are less than 40% even at $`z`$=0.3. The recovery rate for $`Ngal`$=100 at $`z=0.2`$ is not 100%. If we widen the detection radius from 1’.2 to 5’.4, the recovery rate increases to 100%. Note that the radius of 5’.4 is still small in comparison with the size of A1577: 11’ at $`z`$=0.2 (Struble & Rood 1987). The reason may be that a real cluster (in the real background) is located close to the artificial cluster, and the detected position may then be shifted by more than the detection radius (1’.2) away from the cluster.

Fig. 17 shows the positional accuracy of the detected clusters in the Monte Carlo simulation with the real SDSS background, as a function redshift and richness. The 1$`\sigma `$ positional errors of the detected clusters is shown. Note that since CE does not detect much fraction of clusters beyond $`z`$=0.4, there is not much meaning in discussing the position accuracy of beyond $`z`$=0.4. The positional accuracy is better than 1’ until $`z`$=0.4 in all richness ranges used. The deviation is nearly independent of the redshift because the high redshift clusters are more compact than the low redshift ones. This partially cancels the effect of losing more galaxies at high redshift due to the flux limit of the sample. The positional accuracy roughly corresponds to the mesh size of the enhancement method, 30”. As expected, the positional accuracy is worse for high redshift poor clusters ($`z`$=0.4 and $`Ngal`$60). The statistics for these objects are also less good; the detection rate of $`Ngal`$=60 and 40 clusters are less than 20% at $`z`$=0.4.

Fig. 18 presents the recovery rate of artificial clusters in Monte Carlo simulations with the shuffled background. The recovery rates are slightly better than with the real background. Again, the recovery rates drop sharply at $`z`$=0.4. The $`Ngal`$=100 clusters are recovered with $``$90% probability to $`z`$0.3 and $``$40% at $`z`$0.4. The detection rate is slightly higher than with the real background. At $`z`$0.3, $`Ngal>`$40 clusters are recovered at $`>`$40%. Fig. 19 shows the positional accuracy of the detected clusters in the simulations (with shuffled background). The results are similar to these with the real data background. The positional accuracy is better than 40” until $`z`$=0.3 for all richnesses.

### 4.3 False Positive test

In order to test false positive rate, we prepared four sets of the data: 1) Real SDSS data of 25 deg2. 2) Position of galaxies in the same 25 deg2 are randomized (galaxy colors untouched.) 3) Colors of galaxies are shuffled. (galaxy position untouched.) 4) Color is shuffled and position is smeared (5’). Galaxy colors are randomized and positions are randomly distributed in the way that galaxies still lie within 5’ from its original position. This is intended to include large scale structure without galaxy clusters. The results are shown in Fig. 20. Solid line represents the results with real data. Dotted line represents the results with position shuffled data. Long dashed line is for color shuffled data. For color shuffled data, we subtracted the detections in real data, because it still contains real clusters there. The fact that color shuffled data still detects many clusters are consistent with the generous color cuts of CE. Short dashed line is for color shuffled smearing data. In Fig. 21, the ratio to the real data is plotted against CE richness. The promising fact is that not so many sources are detected from position shuffled data. The rate to the real data is below 20% at CE richness $`>`$20. More points are detected from color shuffled data and smearing data but this does not mean the false positive rate of CE is as high as those values. Smearing data still has a structure bigger than 5’, and they can be real clusters. Overall, our simulations show that for richness $`>`$10, over 70% of CE clusters are likely to be real systems (as shown by the color & position shuffled simulations.)

## 5 Visual inspection

To investigate whether the detected clusters are true clusters or spurious detection, spectroscopic observations are necessary. Although large spectrometers which can observe the spectra of many galaxies at one time are becoming available ($`e.g.`$ SDSS, 2dF), it is still time consuming. Since the SDSS Cut & Enhance cluster catalog will have more than 100,000 galaxy clusters when the survey is complete, it is in fact impossible to spectroscopically confirm all the clusters in the SDSS Cut & Enhance cluster catalog. As a preliminary check of our method, we visually inspect all the Cut & Enhance clusters within a given area (right ascension between 16 deg and 25.5 deg and declination between -1.25 deg and +1.25 deg, totaling 23.75 deg2. The region in Fig. 9). A total of 278 CE galaxy clusters are located within this area ( after removing clusters touching the region’s borders). Out of the 278 CE galaxy clusters, we estimate that 10 are false detections. Since the strategy of the Cut & Enhance method is to detect every clustering of galaxies, we call every angular clustering of galaxies with the same color a successful detection here. (As we show in Sect. 4.3, 30% of clusters could be false detections, such as chance projections.)

Among the 10 false detections, three are bright big galaxies deblended into several pieces. In the other cases, a few galaxies are seen but not an apparent cluster or group. (In one case a rich cluster exists about six arcmin from the false detection). The 10 false detections are summarized in Table 5. $`\sigma `$ (column) is the significance of the detection; CE richness (column) is its richness; $`z`$ (column) is the color estimated redshift; and comments are given in column.

As the successful examples, we show two typical examples of clusters detected only with the Cut & Enhance method but not with the other methods (discussed below). One is a clustering of blue galaxies. Since the Cut & Enhance method does not reject blue spiral galaxies, it can detect clustering of several blue spiral galaxies. Indeed, some of the detected clusters that we visually inspected are clustering of blue galaxies. The other is a clustering of numerous faint elliptical galaxies; in these regions faint elliptical galaxies spread out over a large area ($``$ 0.01 deg2) but with no bright cluster galaxies. Cut & Enhance method detects these regions successfully with a large radius. Fig. 22 shows the true color image of one of these clusters with numerous faint elliptical galaxies. Fig. 23 shows a typical galaxy cluster successfully detected with Cut & Enhance method.

## 6 Comparison with other methods

At the time of writing, the SDSS collaboration has implemented several independent cluster finding methods and have run these algorithms on the SDSS commissioning data. These methods include the Matched Filter (MF; Kim et al. 2001), Voronoi Tessellation (VTT; Kim et al. 2001), and maxBCG technique (Annis et al. 2001). Therefore, we have the unique opportunity to compare the different catalogs these algorithms produce to further understand each algorithm and possible differences between them. (also see Bahcall et al. 2002 for comparisons of SDSS cluster catalogs.)

Here we provide a comparison between the CE method and the MF, VTT and maxBCG techniques using a small sub–region of the SDSS data i.e. 23.75 deg2 of commissioning data with RA between 16 and 25.5 degrees and Declination between -1.25 and +1.25 degrees (The region in Fig. 9). We first matched the CE catalog with each of the other three catalogs using a simple positional match criterion of less than six arcminutes. The number of matches between the CE and other catalogs varies significantly because each cluster–finding algorithm has a different selection function. At present, the selection functions for all these algorithms are not fully established so we have not corrected for them in this comparison. Although each algorithm measures cluster richness and redshift in its own way, the scatter between the measurement is large and it makes the comparison difficult. Therefore, we re-measured richness and redshift of the MF, VTT and maxBCG clusters using CE method to see the richness and redshift dependence of the comparison.

In Table 6, we list the number of clusters each method finds in our test region (Column 2 called “N detection”). We also list in column 3 the number of the clusters found in common between the CE method discussed herein and each of other method discussed above. For comparison, in Table 7, we also compare the number and percentage of matches found between the VTT, MF and maxBCG technique. These two tables illustrate that the overlap between all four algorithms is between 20 to 60% which is simply a product of their different selection functions. Furthermore, we note we have used a simplistic matching criteria which does not account for the cluster redshift or the errors on the cluster centroids. Future SDSS papers will deal with these improvements (Bahcall et al. 2002). Tables 6 & 7 show that the CE and maxBCG methods detect overall more clusters than the other methods i.e. 363 and 438 clusters respectively, compared with 152 and 130 clusters for MF and VTT respectively. This difference in the number of clusters found is mainly due to differences in the thresholds used for each of these algorithms. As illustrated in Fig. 24, a majority of the extra clusters in the maxBCG and CE catalogs are lower richnesses systems. As seen in Fig. 25, these extra, lower richness, systems appear to be distributed evenly over the entire redshift range of the CE catalog (i.e. out to $`z0.4`$).

### 6.1 Comparison of Matched Filter and Cut & Enhance Methods

We focus here on the comparison between CE and the MF (see Kim et al. 2001). In Fig. 26, we show the fraction of MF clusters found in the CE catalog. We also split the sample as a function of CE richness. In Fig. 27, we show the reverse relationship i.e. the fraction of CE clusters found by MF as a function of estimated redshift and CE richness. These figures show that there is almost complete overlap between the two catalogs for the highest redshift and richnesses systems in both catalogs (there are however, only 5 $`z>0.3`$ systems in the MF catalog). At low redshifts ($`z<0.3`$), the overlap decreases e.g. only 60% of MF clusters are found in CE catalog. To understand this comparison further, we visually inspected all the clusters found by the CE method that were missing for the MF catalog. As expected, most of these systems were compact ($``$ 1 arcminute) groups of galaxies.

Finally, in Fig. 28, we plot the distribution of axes ratios (the major over the minor axis of the cluster) for both the whole CE catalog as well as just the CE clusters found in MF catalog. This plot shows that a majority of clusters in both samples have nearly spherical morphologies with the two distributions in good agreement up to an axes ratio of 3 to 1. However, there is a tail of 11 CE clusters which extends to higher axes ratios that is not seen in the CE plus MF sub–sample. However, this is only $``$3% of the CE clusters.

### 6.2 Comparison of maxBCG and Cut & Enhance Methods

In Fig. 29, we show the fraction of maxBCG clusters which are found in the CE catalog, while in Fig. 30, we show the reverse relationship i.e. the fraction of CE clusters found in the maxBCG catalog. In both figures, we divide the sample by estimated redshift and observed CE richness. First, we note that the matching rate of maxBCG clusters to CE is $`70`$% or better for clusters with a richness of $`>20`$ at all redshifts. For the lower richnesses systems, the matching rate decreases for all redshifts. To further understand the comparison between these two samples of clusters, we first visually inspected all clusters detected by the CE method but were missing from the maxBCG sample and found them to be blue, nearby poor clusters. This is a reflection of the wider color cuts employed by the CE method which allows the CE algorithm to include bluer, star–forming galaxies into its color criterion. The maxBCG however is tuned specifically to detect the E/S0 ridge–line of elliptical galaxies in clusters. We also visually inspected all maxBCG clusters that were not found by the CE method and found these systems to be mostly faint higher redshift clusters whose members mostly have fallen below the magnitude limit used for CE method ($`r^{}`$=21.5).

### 6.3 Comparison of VTT and the CE Methods

In Fig. 31, we show the fraction of VTT clusters which were found by the CE as a function of estimated redshift and CE richness. Fig. 32 shows the fraction of CE found by VTT catalog as a function of estimated redshift and CE richness. Because CE method detects twice as many clusters as does VTT, the matching rate is higher in Fig. 31 than in Fig. 32, showing that the CE catalog contains a high fraction of VTT clusters. In Fig. 32, the matching rate of low richness clusters improves at higher redshift because the poor clusters, which VTT does not detect become fainter and therefore both methods can not detect these clusters at high redshift.

## 7 Summary

We have developed a new cluster finding method, the Cut & Enhance method. It uses 30 color cuts and four color-color cuts to enhance the contrast of galaxy clusters over the background galaxies. After applying the color and color-color cuts, the method uses the color and angular separation weight of galaxy pairs as an enhancement method to increase the signal to noise ratio of galaxy clusters. We use the Source Extractor to detect galaxy clusters from the enhanced maps. The enhancement and detection are performed for every color cut, producing 34 cluster lists, which are then merged into a single cluster catalog.

Using the Monte Carlo simulations with real SDSS background as well as shuffled background, the Cut & Enhance method is shown to have the ability to detect rich clusters ($`Ngal`$=100) to $`z0.3`$ with $``$80% probability. The probability drops sharply at $`z`$=0.4 due to the flux limit of the SDSS imaging data. The positional accuracy is better than 40” for all richnesses examined at $`z`$0.3. The false positive test shows that over 70% of clusters are likely to be real systems for CE richness $`>`$10. We apply Cut & Enhance method to the SDSS commissioning data and produce an SDSS Cut & Enhance cluster catalog containing 4638 galaxy clusters in $``$350 deg2. We compare the CE clusters with other cluster detection methods: MF, maxBCG and VTT. The SDSS Cut & Enhance cluster catalog developed in this work is a useful tool to study both cosmology and property of clusters and cluster galaxies.

## 8 Acknowledgments

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Wataru Kawasaki, Kazuhiro Shimasaku, Sadanori Okamura, Mamoru Doi, Chris Miller, Francisco Castander and Shang-Shan Chon for their suggestions and discussions to improve the work. We would like to thank anonymous referee whose comments significantly improved the paper. We are grateful to all the people who helped to build the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. T. G. acknowledges financial support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through JSPS Research Fellowships for Young Scientists.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a joint project of The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Apache Point Observatory, site of the SDSS telescopes, is operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC).

Funding for the project has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/.