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# Proper motions of new dust in the colliding-wind binary WR 140

## 1 Introduction

WR 140 is a prototypical colliding wind source consisting of a WC7 Wolf-Rayet and an O4-5 star, and has been extensively studied in the radio, infrared, optical, ultra-violet, and even X-rays (e.g., Moffat et al. 1987; Williams et al. 1990; White & Becker 1995; Setia Gunawan et al. 2001). One of its more remarkable properties is that dust forms over a period of a few months close to periastron passage on each 7.94 yr orbit (Hackwell et al. 1976; Williams et al. 1978, 1990) when the two stars are only a few AU apart. Dust formation is apparently catalyzed at the wind-wind interface in a layer of shock-compressed gas (Usov 1991). In this paper we will use the orbital elements of Williams et al. (1990), a 1985 periastron passage on JD 2446160 and period of 2900 days, for estimating the orbital phases, but we hope refinement of these parameters will be available soon based on data taken during the recent periastron passage.

Recent advances in high-resolution imaging have allowed the dust emission of other colliding wind sources to be resolved for the first time. For WR 104 and WR 98a, continuous spiral plumes of dust were observed, formed by colliding winds situated in approximately face-on orbits with periods of $``$1 year (Tuthill et al. 1999; Monnier et al. 1999). Dust formation around the longer-period system WR 137 was observed to be much more clumpy, but interpretation has been hampered by uncertain orbital elements (Marchenko et al. 1999). The recent periastron passage of WR 140 in 2001 February afforded a unique opportunity to study this prototype by observing the formation and expansion of the transient dust shell, in an attempt to both better understand the 3-dimensional orbital geometry of the binary and to probe exactly how and where dust forms in these colliding wind systems. This knowledge is important for understanding the origins of interstellar dust grains, the physics of strong astrophysical shocks, and the structure of line-driven winds from Wolf-Rayets.

In this Letter, we report first results of our multi-wavelength imaging program of WR 140. We captured images of this dust shell soon after periastron passage at two epochs, allowing the dust morphologies and proper motions to be studied. Our conclusions are preliminary and follow-up observations are needed in order to more precisely interpret these new data.

## 2 Observations

Aperture masking interferometry was performed by placing aluminum masks in front of the Keck-I infrared secondary mirror. This technique converts the primary mirror into a VLA-style interferometric array, allowing the Fourier amplitudes and closure phases for a range of baselines to be recovered with minimal “redundancy” noise (e.g., Baldwin et al. 1986; Jennison 1958). The Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) (Skilling & Bryan 1984; Narayan & Nityananda 1986) has been used to reconstruct diffraction-limited images from the interferometric data, as implemented in the VLBMEM package by Sivia (1987). In order to check the reliability of the reconstructions, the MEM results have been compared with those from the CLEAN reconstruction algorithm (Högbom 1974; Cornwell & Wilkinson 1981; Pearson & Readhead 1984). Further engineering and performance details may be found in Tuthill et al. (2000) and Monnier (1999). In addition, some short-exposure imaging was done without an aperture mask (“Speckle Interferometry”), but the data was of insufficient quality to reconstruct reliable images in most cases.

WR 140 was observed in 1999 July, 2001 June, and 2001 July at Keck-I using the Near Infrared-Camera (Matthews & Soifer 1994; Matthews et al. 1996) in speckle mode, using an integration time of 0.137 s per frame. All important observing information can be found in Table 1. This table also contains photometric information on our multi-wavelength observations, in particular the fraction of the flux in WR 140 from the dust shell for each wavelength and for each epoch. We also report the magnitude difference between WR 140 and its point-source reference star in each case. Unfortunately, there are no published near-IR magnitudes for the most of these calibrators, and so we are unable to convert our relative photometry into absolute photometry at this time. Assuming HD 192867 was constant between epochs, the 1.6 $`\mu `$m and 2.2 $`\mu `$m fluxes of WR 140 did not significantly change between the post-periastron epochs.

Figure 1 shows MEM reconstructions of the WR 140 dust shell at 3 epochs at 2.2 $`\mu `$m with $``$20 mas resolution. The Epoch 0 image was made well before periastron when we expected there to be no circumstellar dust visible at this wavelength. The Epoch 1 image was made by coadding 4 separate images made from independently calibrated observations and has higher dynamic range than the image from Epoch 2. In addition, seeing conditions were worse in Epoch 2, resulting in degraded imaging as evidenced by the higher noise level.

The test observation of WR 140 was taken in 1999 July before the recent dust production episode, and there was no evidence for any extended structure at 1.6 $`\mu `$m and 2.2 $`\mu `$m as expected (see “Epoch 0” in Figure 1). The angular separation of the two components at that epoch could have been as high as $``$14 mas based on Williams et al. (1990), which would have been marginally resolvable with Keck. We inspected our data and found no convincing evidence for a binary but can only set an upper limit of $``$20 mas due to calibration uncertainties. We note that this binary should be easily resolvable with a long-baseline optical interferometer, and apastron in 2005 presents a wide enough target for 8-m class telescopes to resolve.

## 3 Discussion

Tracks of the motion of five dust features, labelled A through E on Figure 1, are compiled in Table 2. The arc of dust to the north-east of the central source (feature A) appears to be moving at an angular velocity of $`1.1\pm 0.2`$ milli-arcseconds per day, similar to the velocity of the eastern features D and E. The western features B and C appear to have slower velocities, perhaps indicating they are moving more out of the plane of the sky. We caution that image reconstructions of weak features from interferometry data can suffer from systematic errors, including apparently clumpy features in place of smooth faint nebulosity. The apparent position angles of each marked feature remained unchanged between epochs (to within errors of a few degrees), giving confidence that we are indeed tracking physical radial motion of dust and are not strongly affected by image fidelity problems. The positions of features of D and E are most uncertain, since the local maxima in Epoch 1 are relatively weak and could be significantly influenced by noise. We have estimated the relative position uncertainty to be $``$10 mas for Features A-C, and $``$20 mas error for Features D & E, and this is reflected in the velocity error compiled in the table.

If we assume that feature A is moving at the WR wind speed ($``$2860km/s; Williams et al. 1990) and in the plane of the sky, then we set a distance upper limit to WR 140 of $``$1.5 kpc, which is close to previous estimates based on the apparent luminosity of the O4-5 companion (Williams et al. 1990, 1.3 kpc for main sequence, 1.7 kpc for supergiant). The uncertainty of 20% on the dust feature velocities can be substantially reduced with continued monitoring using adaptive optics or high SNR mid-IR measurements on an 8-m class telescope.

Estimated times for ejection of dust features from the binary (assuming constant velocity and extrapolating back to the central stars) can be found in Table 2. Dates are consistent with the periastron prediction of Williams et al. (1990): 2001 February 19. This is further borne out by the fact that dust in the partial arc of Feature A is roughly equidistant from the star, as expected if formed over a short period of time as the O-star swung quickly around the WR star just at periastron. If this dust arc was formed in this manner, this would imply that the O-star was located roughly East of the WR star on the sky at periastron. However, it is surprising that Features B and C seem to have also formed close to this time, considering they are moving in very different directions from feature A.

It is tempting to interpret the eastern arc of dust in Figure 1 (comprising features A, E and D) as part of an outward spiraling clockwise plume similar to those seen around pinwheel nebulae, implying that the underlying binary has an counter-clockwise orbit. This orbital motion is difficult to reconcile with preliminary VLBA observations of the non-thermal radio emission by Beasley (2001, private communication) which indicate a clockwise orbit. Furthermore, a simple pinwheel nebula type model (as applicable for WR 104 and WR 98a) can not easily explain the additional emission to the northwest and southwest (features B and C). We must look to a more complex model to understand these observations.

Naively, we expect the dust to form in a thin cone-like layer between the colliding winds, which gets twisted into a spiral with the orbit of the underlying binary (Tuthill et al. 1999). This cone forms because the winds have unequal momenta and the geometry of the interface region asymptotically resembles a cone bending away from the star with the stronger wind (Usov 1991; Canto et al. 1996). For WR 140, the cone (full) opening angle can be estimated to be $``$74° by using estimated wind velocities and densities in Williams et al. (1990) and the analytical formulation of Eichler & Usov (1993). Regarding the orientation of the orbit, we have multiple reasons to think that the inclination of the orbit is large ($``$60°): from time-variable shadowing effects in the radio (White & Becker 1995) and radial velocity measurements combined with the expected masses of the components (Williams et al. 1990).

To understand the difficulty in interpreting the near-infrared morphology under such circumstances, consider Figure 2. This figure shows a portion of the cone interface for a colliding wind binary system with the known (spectroscopic) orbital elements of WR 140 (Williams et al. 1990), an inclination angle 60°, and an observation date about 0.5 yr after periastron. Based on previous findings for WR 140, this model also assumes that dust is only formed during a “trigger”-zone of the orbit, within 0.15 years of periastron passage (before and after), and the conic surface between the two winds is only rendered for this span. This figure also displays what this model might look like on the sky if the dust was optically thin and had constant emissivity; that is, the “cone of dust” has been projected onto the plane of the sky. Arcs, filaments and complex shapes are formed in this manner due, depending on the orbital orientation, cone opening angle, and the span of the trigger-zone.

For high inclination binaries such as WR 140, arcs of emission might be tracing the limb-brightening of the dust cone with our line-of-sight, giving us a sensitive probe of the dust distribution if the orbit geometry is known from other means. With full orbital elements, hopefully derivable from the VLBA monitoring program or mid-infrared imaging, we expect to be able to invert our images of the dust in order to map out the dust density along the wind-wind interface cone. However without independent constraints on the orbital inclination, trigger zone, and other parameters, we are unable to disentangle orbital effects from uncertainties in the dust density distribution.

Figure 3 shows a schematic of the WR 140 binary orbit and dust shell which is qualitatively consistent with our new results and the orbital elements of Williams et al. (1990). The triggered dust shell is rendered from a top-down perspective with the observer located at the bottom on the image, viewing the dust from some currently unknown inclination angle. This basic picture has the correct orbital rotation as implied by the preliminary VLBA results, and can explain why the projected velocities of the eastern dust features are fast compared to the slower-moving western features that have significant out-of-the-plane motions.

WR 137 is another eccentric WR+O system which episodically produces dust. Marchenko et al. (1999) found evidence for production of a dust “jet” in one direction and dust clouds moving away in the opposite direction around periastron. These authors hypothesized that dust production might occur in localized clumps and not smoothly throughout the wind collision zone. The dust features in the circumstellar environment of WR 140 could be interpreted also as isolated dust clumps, and we require additional orbital information to investigate this further. Such clumps might form through cooling instabilities in the post-shock gas or could be seeded by dense clumps in the WR wind itself (e.g., Moffat & Robert 1994).

Lastly, our interpretation of the WR 140 dust shell is somewhat hindered by the fact that we are not sure if the near-infrared dust opacity is optically thick, although our observations are long enough after periastron that the dust clouds have likely significantly expanded and become optically thinner. Dust emission in the mid-infrared should surely be optically-thin and thus trace out the full volume of the emitted dust. As the dust cools rapidly moving away from the central sources (as carefully shown in Williams et al. 1990), further near-infrared imaging of the thermal emission will be difficult until the next periastron in 2009. However mid-infrared emission is observable for longer than near-infrared, and also scattered light imaging in the near-infrared might be possible using adaptive optics.

## 4 Conclusions

We have presented the first resolved images of the transient dust shell formed around the WR 140 colliding wind binary once every 7.94 years during periastron passage. Our multi-epoch images show clear expansion of the nebula, but resist detailed interpretation due to inadequate knowledge of the orbital geometry. We interpret the emission as indicating a highly inclined view of the dust plume and/or very clumpy and inhomogeneous dust production. We have shown that an optically-thin “cone” of dust generated in a WR 140-like system can indeed show a variety of complex features if viewed near edge-on. With full orbital elements, we may be able to use these images to map out the dust distribution on the surface of the wind-wind interface cone between the colliding winds. Although the near-infrared thermal emission quickly fades, the dust shell will be readily observable in the mid-infrared for years and should be well-resolved from the central source using 8-m class telescopes. We urge the community to take advantage of the unique opportunity to observe this rapidly evolving system for the next few years in order to extract maximal information on this important prototypical colliding wind source.

We wish to thank P. Williams and C. H. Townes for their support of this experiment, and B. Schaeffer for last minute scheduling changes at Keck that were critical. JDM acknowledges support from a Center for Astrophysics Fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. The data presented herein were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation.


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# Chiral symmetry restoration and the Z3 sectors of QCD

## Abstract

Quenched SU(3) lattice gauge theory shows three phase transitions, namely the chiral, the deconfinement and the Z3 phase transition. Knowing whether or not the chiral and the deconfinement phase transition occur at the same temperature for all Z3 sectors could be crucial to understand the underlying microscopic dynamics. We use the existence of a gap in the Dirac spectrum as an order parameter for the restoration of chiral symmetry. We find that the spectral gap opens up at the same critical temperature in all Z3 sectors in contrast to earlier claims in the literature.

One of the most remarkable features of the QCD phase transition is the simultaneous vanishing of confinement and the restoration of chiral symmetry. Although there is much debate about the underlying mechanism which links the two transitions, their coincidence at a common critical temperature is considered a well established fact in lattice simulations (see e.g.  for a review). Interestingly, QCD in the quenched approximation has an additional Z3 symmetry which allows us to obtain additional information. For pure gauge theory the phase transition can be described as spontaneous breaking of the Z3 symmetry . For temperatures larger than $`T_c`$ the Polyakov loop acquires a non-vanishing expectation value with a phase in one of the three sectors. Knowing whether the observed strict correlation between the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions persists in all Z3 sectors could provide important clues for the understanding of confinement.

In  it was claimed on the basis of lattice calculations with staggered fermions, that the restoration of chiral symmetry happens at different temperatures in the real ($`\phi 0`$) and complex sector of the Polyakov loop ($`\phi \pm 2\pi /3`$). Several subsequent articles  analyzed possible mechanisms to explain this observation.

In this letter we reexamine this problem within lattice QCD using chirally improved fermions. In contrast to  we find that the critical $`\beta `$ of the chiral phase transition does not depend on the Z3 sector, but is coincident with the Z3 breaking transition in all three sectors.

Let us note that even if it were irrelevant for full QCD the center symmetry could still lead to fascinating phenomenological consequences in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories . Thus the investigation of its properties is also relevant on more general grounds.

Instead of directly measuring the chiral condensate we analyze in detail the spectrum of the lattice Dirac operator. The density $`\rho (\lambda )`$ of the eigenvalues $`\lambda `$ of the Dirac operator is connected to the chiral condensate via the Banks-Casher formula ,

$$\overline{\psi }\psi =\frac{\pi }{V}\rho (0),$$
(1)
where $`\rho (0)`$ is the eigenvalue density near the origin and $`V`$ is the volume of the box. Note that exact zero-modes which come from isolated instantons do not contribute to the density $`\rho (0)`$ at the origin. The reason is that the number of zero-modes is believed to scale as $`V^{1/2}`$ and thus they do not contribute when performing the thermodynamic limit in Eq. (1). At low temperatures when QCD is in the chirally broken phase the density is non-zero at the origin, while in the high temperature phase $`\rho `$ is zero in a finite region around the origin, i.e. the spectrum develops a gap (up to isolated zero modes) and the chiral condensate vanishes (compare Fig. 1 below). The question whether chiral symmetry is restored at the same critical temperature in all sectors of the Polyakov loop can now be reformulated in terms of the spectral gap: As we increase the temperature, does the gap open up at the same temperature for all three sectors of the Polyakov loop?

Before the advent of chirally symmetric formulations for the lattice Dirac operator such a study was quite awkward. In particular the spectrum of the Wilson lattice Dirac operator shows large fluctuations close to the origin  and the notion of a spectral density is not well defined. The situation has changed, since the re-discovery of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation . Dirac operators $`D`$ which obey the Ginsparg-Wilson equation have eigenvalues which lie on a circle and it is straightforward to identify a spectral density and study the emergence of the spectral gap. However, the only exact solution of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation, the overlap operator , has the drawback of being very expensive in a numerical implementation.

Here we work with the chirally improved operator which is a systematic expansion of a solution of the Ginsparg-Wilson equation . In particular we use an approximation which has 19 terms in the expansion and is described in detail in . The computation of the eigenvalues of the Dirac operator was done with the implicitly restarted Arnoldi method .

For our quenched gauge configurations we use the Lüscher-Weisz action . We work on lattices of size $`L_T\times L^3`$ with the temporal extent $`L_T=6`$ and two values for the spatial extent, $`L=16`$ and $`L=20`$. We use periodic boundary conditions for the gauge fields, while for the fermions the boundary conditions are periodic only for the space directions but anti-periodic for the time direction. Our statistics is 800 configurations for the $`6\times 16^3`$ lattices and 400 for the $`6\times 20^3`$ lattices. We use 6 different values of the inverse coupling $`\beta `$ which gives rise to ensembles on both sides of the phase transition. In Table I we list our values of $`\beta `$, the lattice spacing $`a`$  and the temperature $`T`$. We used the coefficients given by tadpole-improved perturbation theory . Our values for the couplings $`\beta _{rt}`$ and $`\beta _{pg}`$ for the rectangle and parallelogram terms in the Lüscher-Weisz action can be found in .

Let us begin the discussion of the spectral gap with a look at typical spectra of our Dirac operator. In Fig. 1 we show the distribution in the complex plane of the 50 smallest eigenvalues $`\lambda `$ for three different gauge configurations on $`6\times 20^3`$ lattices. The symbols are our numerical results and the full curve is the so-called Ginsparg-Wilson circle, i.e. the circle of radius 1 in the complex plane with center 1. For our approximate Ginsparg-Wilson operator the eigenvalues do not fall exactly on the circle but show small fluctuations around the circle. However, the eigenvalues are sufficiently well ordered to allow for the notion of a spectral density and a clear identification of the spectral gap.

The plot on the left-hand side shows the spectrum for a configuration in the low temperature, chirally broken phase. For this case the eigenvalues extend all the way to the origin and there is a non-vanishing $`\rho (0)`$ such that the Banks-Casher relation (1) gives rise to a non-vanishing chiral condensate.

The central and the right-hand side plots show spectra for configurations in the high-temperature, chirally symmetric phase. The central plot is for a configuration with complex Polyakov loop $`P`$, while the right-hand side result is for real Polyakov loop. Both of these plots have a well pronounced spectral gap. The spectral density at the origin vanishes and so does the chiral condensate. For the complex sector the gap is considerably smaller than for the real sector.

One can understand this difference between the sectors by considering the fermion boundary conditions. In the real sector the boundary condition

$$\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t+1/T)=\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t)$$
(2)
gives a Matsubara frequency $`\pi T`$ to the fermions. In the complex Z3 sectors the boundary condition is effectively

$$\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t+1/T)=e^{\pm i\pi /3}\psi (\stackrel{}{x},t),$$
(3)
giving a Matsubara frequency $`\pi T/3`$. In the free-field case (i.e. $`\beta \mathrm{}`$) the smallest eigenvalue is equal to the Matsubara frequency, giving a gap 3 times larger in the case of (2) compared with (3). It is thus reasonable that the real sector gap is considerably larger than the complex sector gap in the interacting case too.

In quenched QCD the finite temperature phase transition appears to be a weak first order phase transition . A first order phase transition is governed by the mixing of two phases and the behavior of their free energies. In our particular example we have a low temperature phase characterized by a vanishing spectral gap and a high temperature phase with a finite spectral gap. For temperatures sufficiently below or above the critical temperature the system is in only one of the two phases while near the critical temperature the system shows mixing of the two phases.

We demonstrate this mixing in Fig. 2 where we show histograms for the distribution of the spectral gap at three different values of the temperature. We define the spectral gap $`g_\lambda `$ to be the imaginary part of the smallest eigenvalue which is not a zero-mode (as remarked above, zero-modes do not contribute to the spectral density). Zero-modes can be identified uniquely since for our chirally improved operator it can be shown that they have exactly vanishing imaginary part and the corresponding eigenstates have a non-vanishing matrix element with $`\gamma _5`$, while this matrix element vanishes identically for non-zero-modes.

We show histograms for the distribution of $`g_\lambda `$ for $`T<T_c,TT_c`$ and for $`T>T_c`$. The top row displays the results for the complex sector of the Polyakov loop $`P`$, while the bottom row is for real Polkyakov loop. The data were computed on $`6\times 20^3`$ lattices. Since for the real sector ($`\phi 0`$) the statistics is only half of the statistics for the complex sector ($`\phi +2\pi /3`$ and $`2\pi /3`$) we doubled the bin size for the two histograms in the real sector at $`TT_c`$ and $`T>T_c`$.

At $`T<T_c`$ we find for all sectors a single peak near the origin. This peak is not located exactly at 0 since also in the chirally broken phase the Dirac operator of a finite system has a microscopical gap which vanishes as $`L^3`$ . For temperatures near $`T_c`$ the histograms show a clear double peak structure characteristic for the first order transition. The left peak corresponds to the chirally broken phase with a vanishing gap and the right peak is from the chirally symmetric phase with non-vanishing gap. As one increases the temperature further, only the right peak survives. As already noted in the discussion of Fig. 1 the gap is larger in the real sector, i.e. the right peak sits at larger values of $`g_\lambda `$ for the real sector. In addition this peak is wider than the corresponding peak in the complex sector, i.e. the gap fluctuates more strongly around its mean value in the real sector.

In order to describe the first order transition we use a simple ansatz for the behavior of observables. Let us first discuss the somewhat simpler case of the Polyakov loop. In an infinite system the Polyakov loop $`P`$ vanishes below $`\beta _c`$ and has a non-vanishing modulus $`|P|`$ above $`\beta _c`$. On a finite lattice the Polyakov loop does not vanish exactly below $`\beta _c`$ but disappears like $`V^{1/2}`$, i.e. like $`cL^{3/2}`$ with some constant $`c`$. Above $`\beta _c`$ the dependence on $`L`$ is negligible and to leading order $`P`$ is linear in $`\beta `$, i.e. described by $`d+k(\beta \beta _c)`$. Following the ideas in  one arrives at the conclusion that near the transition the expectation value of the modulus of the Polyakov loop should be given by:

$$|P|=\frac{cL^{3/2}e^{\mathrm{\Delta }fL^3(\beta \beta _c)}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}[d+k(\beta \beta _c)]}{e^{\mathrm{\Delta }fL^3(\beta \beta _c)}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}3}}.$$
(4)
The term $`\mathrm{\Delta }fV(\beta \beta _c)`$ is the difference in the free energies of the two phases. At $`\beta =\beta _c`$ the two free energies are equal while below $`\beta _c`$ the free energy of the chirally broken phase is smaller than the free energy of the chirally symmetric phase and vice-versa above $`\beta _c`$. The factors 3 in the second terms in the numerator and denominator come from the three possible values for the phase of the Polyakov loop.

In Fig. 3 we show a fit of Formula (4) (full curves) to our numerical data (symbols). In particular we present a common fit to both the $`6\times 16^3`$ and $`6\times 20^3`$ ensembles. This is possible since the parameters $`d`$ and $`k`$ are essentially independent of $`L`$. The fit result for $`\beta _c`$ is given in Table II below. The fit demonstrates that both the $`L`$ and the $`\beta `$ dependence are well described by Formula (4).

For the expectation value of the spectral gap $`g_\lambda `$ we use a similar ansatz.

$`g_\lambda _{r,c}=`$ (5)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{c^{}L^3e^{\mathrm{\Delta }fL^3(\beta \beta _c)}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}[d_{r,c}(L)+k_{r,c}(L)(\beta \beta _c)]}{e^{\mathrm{\Delta }fL^3(\beta \beta _c)}+\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}}}.`$ (6)
The subscripts $`r`$ and $`c`$ indicate the real respectively complex sectors of the Polyakov loop. Note that now we use the known $`L^3`$ behavior of the microscopical spectral gap in the chirally broken phase . In the chirally symmetric phase the gap is essentially linear in $`\beta `$ but the coefficients $`d_{r,c}`$ and $`k_{r,c}`$ turn out to be $`L`$-dependent. Thus in a common fit to the $`6\times 16^3`$ and $`6\times 20^3`$ ensembles these parameters had to be varied independently. Again the fit results for $`\beta _c`$ are given in Table II. In Fig. 4 we plot our numerical data for the gap together with the curves (5). The top plot gives the results for the complex sector while the bottom plot shows the real sector. As for the Polyakov loop we find that the numerical data are reasonably well described by the simple first order transition formula.

When comparing the results for the critical beta as given in Table II we find that within the accuracy we achieved the spectral gap vanishes at the same $`\beta _c`$ for both the real and the complex sectors of the Polyakov loop. Furthermore this value is compatible with $`\beta _c`$ as obtained from the analysis of the Polyakov loop. Combining the three methods we find a critical temperature of $`300\pm 3`$ MeV for the Lüscher-Weisz action which is slightly larger than the result for Wilson’s gauge action.

Acknowledgements: The numerical calculations were done on the Hitachi SR8000 of the Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Munich. We thank the staff of the LRZ for training and support. C. Gattringer acknowledges support by the Austrian Academy of sciences (APART 654).


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# Results from FOPI on strangeness production and propagation at SIS energies

## 1 Introduction

For the last two decades, strangeness production has played a very important role in nuclear physics. Strangeness enhancement was proposed as a signature of the quark gluon plasma in the early 80’s . At the same time, lots of efforts have been devoted to the investigation of hadron properties in a hot and dense medium, both on the theoretical and experimental side, leading to the dropping mass scenario .
Kaons are of particular interest due to the sensitivity of their properties and propagation to the state of the nuclear matter in which they have been produced. Their properties may reflect the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry and its restoration.
Due to the presence of a repulsive kaon-nucleon potential and an attractive antikaon-nucleon potential, kaon and antikaon masses vary differently as a function of the nuclear matter density. The kaon mass increases with the density whereas the antikaon mass decreases. As a consequence, it becomes energetically more difficult to produce a kaon and easier to produce an antikaon in a dense medium. This property can be observed by measuring kaon and antikaon yields in heavy ion collisions and comparing the results to theoretical predictions. Strangeness exchange reactions such as $`\mathrm{K}^{}\mathrm{N}\pi \mathrm{\Lambda }`$ seem to play an important role in kaon production and have therefore to be taken into account.
The kaon-nucleon potential also influences kaon propagation which is measured in terms of flow .
This contribution is organized as follows: the method and quality of particle identification with the FOPI detector is presented in the next section. Section 3 concerns strangeness production. $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ production has been measured as a function of the system size. $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ rapidity distributions are presented as well as $`\mathrm{K}^{}/\mathrm{K}^+`$ ratio. In section 4, results on the sideward flow of charged and neutral strange particles are summarized.

## 2 FOPI detector and particle identification

The FOPI detector , installed at SIS/GSI (Darmstadt) has a relatively large coverage of the phase space and is composed of several sub-detectors. The central part is placed in a solenoid providing a magnetic field of 0.6 T and consists of a drift chamber (CDC) and a barrel of plastic scintillators. The forward part consists of a second drift chamber (HELITRON) and a wall of plastic scintillators. The later provides a measurement of the charged particle multiplicity in the forward hemisphere, used for centrality selection.
The results presented in this contribution have been measured in the central part of the FOPI detector (CDC + BARREL). The measurement of the track curvature in CDC due to the magnetic field is combined with the energy loss of particles and provides a first mass identification (Bethe-Bloch) as well as a charge sign identification. A second mass identification is obtained when a track in the CDC can be matched to a hit in the BARREL that provides a time-of-flight measurement.
An upper momentum cut of 0.5 GeV/c is needed to properly separate charged kaons from pions and protons. A mass distribution is presented on figure 1 (left panel) for Ru+Ru collisions at 1.69 AGeV.

Neutral kaons and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are reconstructed from their decay into $`\pi ^+`$ $`\pi ^{}`$ and p $`\pi ^{}`$, respectively. Only the short component $`\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}^0`$ with a c$`\tau `$ of 2.68 cm can be measured in the FOPI detector, the $`\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{L}^0`$ decaying outside of the apparatus. Invariant mass spectra are shown on figure 1 for $`\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{S}^0`$ (middle panel) and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (right panel). The dark area represents the combinatorial background obtained from event mixing.
The results presented in what follows have been corrected for matching and cut efficiencies using protons with the same momentum for $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ corrections and a detailed GEANT-based simulation for neutral strange particles.
Figure 2 shows the acceptance for $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ (left panel) and $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ (right panel) in terms of transverse momentum as a function of rapidity. For charged kaons, the acceptance is limited by the polar angle coverage of the central barrel ($`40^{}<\theta _{\mathrm{lab}}<130^{}`$) and by the upper momentum cut of 0.5 GeV/c needed to properly identify kaons. In addition, a transverse momentum of at least 0.1 GeV/c is needed for the particles to reach the time-of-flight barrel. In the case of neutral particles, the acceptance is larger due to the kinematics of the decay and covers the whole backward hemisphere.

## 3 Strangeness production

As already mentioned, strangeness production is connected to fundamental aspects of nuclear physics and appears as a promising tool to probe the modification of hadron properties in-medium. However, those properties may depend as well on the nuclear equation of state. For this reason, it is necessary to perform systematic analysis of various systems and to compare those results to theoretical predictions. This has been investigated by the KaoS collaboration .

### 3.1 Dependence of $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ production on the system size

The FOPI collaboration has recently investigated the $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ production as a function of the system size at a beam energy of 1.5 AGeV. The number of charged kaons has been measured in the acceptance of the FOPI central part in central Ca+Ca, Ru+Ru and Au+Au collisions . An older point for Ni+Ni collisions has been included . Data are corrected for cut and matching efficiencies. Results are presented on figure 3 (squares). The calcium point has been obtained with a very poor statistics. A slight increase from the Ni system to the Au system is observed. This increase is predicted by transport calculations (BUU (Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck)  and IQMD (Isopin Quantum Molecular Dynamic) ). The data seem to favor the version with in-medium effects for the IQMD model (open triangles). It is hard to draw any conclusion for the BUU model.

### 3.2 $`K^+`$ and $`K^0`$ rapidity distribution

Rapidity distributions are obtained by fitting transverse mass spectra in narrow rapidity windows by a Boltzmann function. The integral of the fit function between $`m_0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ gives the yield. Results for central Ru+Ru collisions at 1.69 AGeV are presented on figure 4. $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ ($`\mathrm{K}^0`$) data are shown by the squares (dots). $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ yields have been multiplied by a factor of 2 to account for the $`\mathrm{K}_\mathrm{L}^0`$ component that is not measured with our apparatus. Charged and neutral kaon yields agree with each other within error bars.
Solid (dashed) lines show the results of transport calculations without (with) in-medium effects for BUU (thin lines) and IQMD (thick lines). The largest effect appears in the mid-rapidity region where the densities are the highest. This shows the importance of measuring strangeness production close to mid-rapidity. For the first time, the FOPI collaboration presents kaon data in this region of phase space.
The IQMD model overestimates the data with the two different scenarios whereas the version of BUU without in-medium effects agrees with the data over the whole rapidity range.
The differences between the models is due to different elementary cross sections used as input. It has been checked that the same cross sections lead to the same results with both models .

### 3.3 $`\mathrm{K}^{}`$/$`\mathrm{K}^+`$ ratio

The FOPI collaboration has also investigated the $`\mathrm{K}^{}`$/$`\mathrm{K}^+`$ ratio as a function of rapidity in Ru+Ru collisions at 1.69 AGeV and Ni+Ni collisions at 1.93 AGeV . Results are presented on figure 5 for central collisions. Experimental data are shown by the dots. The ratio increases from target rapidity to mid-rapidity reflecting the fact that the kaon production in a dense medium is reduced due to the repulsive potential whereas the antikaon production is enhanced due to the presence of an attractive antikaon-nucleon potential.
Data are compared to the predictions of the BUU model without in-medium effects (solid line) and with two different $`\mathrm{K}^{}`$ potentials (dotted and dashed lines). The version without in-medium modifications of kaon masses fails to reproduce the trend observed in the data. The calculations including in-medium potential show the same trend as the experimental data, which seem to favor the smaller antikaon potential. This corresponds to a $`\mathrm{K}^{}`$ mass reduction by 12$`\%`$ at normal nuclear matter density.

## 4 Strangeness propagation

The differential sideward flow of strange particles is presented on figure 6 for Ru+Ru central and semi-central collisions at 1.69 AGeV in terms of the first Fourier coefficient ($`\mathrm{v}_1=<\mathrm{cos}(\varphi )>`$ where $`\varphi `$ is the angle between the particle and the reaction plane) as a function of the transverse momentum. The upper panel shows the results for $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ (dots) and protons (triangles) . The kaon sideward flow varies with the transverse momentum from positive values of $`\mathrm{v}_1`$ to negative values. The shaded area shows the BUU calculations for protons. The dotted line shows BUU calculations without in-medium modifications. The solid and dashed lines show the calculations for two potentials. The kaon data clearly favor the versions with in-medium potential. Note that the sensitivity to in-medium effects is the largest at low transverse momenta.

The middle panel shows results for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (open squares) compared to protons (open triangles) . Although $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are produced with the same mechanism as $`\mathrm{K}^+`$, their flow pattern is very different. Their flow follows the one of the protons although the magnitude is a little lower.
Results for $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ (open circles)  are compared to $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ flow (squares) in the lower panel. Within error bars, neutral kaon flow is compatible with charged kaon flow which evidences a very weak effect of the Coulomb potential.

## 5 Summary

The FOPI collaboration has measured strangeness production and propagation in nuclear matter at SIS energies. Results on $`\mathrm{K}^+`$ and $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ rapidity distributions as well as $`\mathrm{K}^{}`$/$`\mathrm{K}^+`$ ratio in Ru+Ru collisions at 1.69 AGeV have been presented. The differential sideward flow of $`\mathrm{K}^+`$, $`\mathrm{K}^0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ has been measured in Ru+Ru collisions at 1.69 AGeV and Ni+Ni collisions at 1.93 AGeV.
Experimental data are compared to the predictions of transport model calculations (BUU and IQMD). Although the set of available data is quite large, it is still not possible to draw definitive conclusions on the presence of in-medium modifications of hadron properties. Some observables, like rapidity distributions, seem to favor a scenario where kaon masses are not modified in-medium whereas others, like the flow, favor calculations including in-medium modification of hadron masses. It appears that none of the models used in this work is able to reproduce all observables with one set of parameters.

## References


text:
# Dynamical friction on cold fractal gas clouds applications to disc formation

## 1 Introduction

Our goal in this work is to investigate the consequences of including cold fractal gas in galaxy formation, with a focus on the angular momentum problem.

In the context of galaxy evolution, the importance of considering a multiphase medium for a realistic description of the interstellar medium has been first established by Cox & Smith (1974) and McKee & Ostriker (1977). They showed that the temperature range relevant to galactic gas dynamics extend from 10 K up to $`10^6`$ K. As for the density range, it extends from $`10^2`$ cm-3 in hot regions to possibly $`10^6`$ cm-3 or more in the cores of molecular clouds (see, e.g., Faison et al. (1998) for detection of small dense structures). At each end of these ranges, hot plasma and cold molecular clouds are driven by very different and complex physical processes, and cannot be numerically described in a single phase. For examples of simulations with multiphase descriptions of the interstellar medium on full galactic scale see Rosen & Bregman (1995), Gerritsen & Icke (1997) and Wada & Norman (1999). These works focus on star formation and interstellar medium morphology, but not on galaxy formation.

Until now, most numerical studies of galaxy formation have considered a single gas phase, treated through SPH dynamics, cooling being artificially stopped at $`10^4`$ K (e.g., Weil et al. 1998, Thacker & Couchman 2000 or Kay et al. 2000). Some authors have considered simple multiphase models (Yepes et al. 1997, Hultman & Pharasyn 1999) including cold gas. However, they chose to run simulations on scales of several Mpc, which limits the resolution to $``$ 1 kpc. Important differences in the physics of cold and hot gas appear below this scale. This is the case for the fractal structure of cold gas clouds, which we focus on in this work.

In simulations of galaxy formation, one of the main difficulties arises from the ”angular momentum problem”. During infall, the gas loses angular momentum through dynamical friction on the surrounding dark matter halo: the resulting angular momentum of the disc is too small by a factor of 10, compared to typical values for present days galaxies (Navarro et al. 1995). Various solutions have been investigated to alleviate the problem. For example, Navarro & Steinmetz (1997) used a photo-ionizing UV background to heat the gas in order to limit the collapse of the disc. They found out however that this actually exacerbates the angular momentum problem, since UV heating mostly prevents late infall of matter, which otherwise supplies most of the angular momentum. Along the same line, Weil et al. (1998) showed that the angular momentum problem can be avoided if the gas is prevented from cooling at early epochs and until z=1. However, they do not specify what process is responsible for suppressing the cooling. Dominguez-Tenreiro et al. (1998) included simple star formation without feedback. They showed that the formation of a stellar bulge stabilizes the disc and reduces the infall of gas, thus limiting the loss of angular momentum. Thacker & Couchman (2000) implement feedback from supernovae in galaxy formation. They find that the final angular momentum can be increased through feedback, but this effect may be insufficient to reach observed values. Consequently, the solution of the problem is still a matter of debate. Moreover, the mass resolution is at best $`10^6`$ solar masses per particle in usual galaxy formation simulations. This is not enough to take into account the fractal structure of cold gas and how dynamical friction acts on it. A local study of this phenomenon is needed.

Our approach is to consider the possibility of disc formation by the accretion of cold fractal gas. It is likely that clumps of molecular gas and GMCs form very early, even before galaxies (Combes & Pfenniger 1998). The formation of such structures requires two conditions: efficient early cooling leading to quasi-isothermal collapse of primordial density inhomogeneities; and inefficient star formation. Indeed, the so called over-cooling problem is actually a problem only if the cooling of the gas results in over production of stars at high redshift, which is inconsistent with observations. Evidence for both factors is presented in Combes & Pfenniger (1998) and references therein. In the formation of discs from cold fractal gas, one essential process to study is the loss of angular momentum through dynamical friction.

Dynamical friction is a complex non-linear phenomenon, and it is a challenge to predict its effect on a fractal medium. Chandrasekhar (1943) gives the first evaluation of the friction on a test point-particle in a non self-gravitating background. If $`M`$ is the mass of a test particle, $`v_M`$ its velocity, $`m`$ the mass of the background particles and $`f(v_m)`$ an isotropic distribution function for background particle velocities, the test particle velocity changes according to

$$\frac{d\text{v}_M}{dt}=16\pi ^2G^2\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{\Lambda }m(M+m)_0^{v_M}f(v_m)v_m^2𝑑v_m\frac{\text{v}_M}{v_M^3}$$

where

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{b_{max}V_0^2}{G(M+m)}.$$

Here $`b_{max}`$ is the maximum impact parameter (often the typical size of the background medium) and $`V_0`$ is the typical velocity difference between background and test particle. There is an amount of uncertainty when assigning a value to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ for a given physical application. In the case of an extended body, Chandrasekhar’s formula overestimates the friction since background particles with small impact parameter are not as much deflected as in the case of a point test particle. For an extended body, it is possible to define a minimum impact parameter $`b_{min}`$ and redefine the Coulomb parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$:

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{b_{max}}{b_{min}}$$

See Binney & Tremaine (1987) for more details. In the Chandrasekhar definition, dynamical friction is an acceleration. In this work, we will measure the dynamical friction on a given body as the net acceleration from gravitational forces exerted on this body by the background. We will refer to the norm of this acceleration as the intensity of the friction.

Binney & Tremaine (1987) review various applications of the dynamical friction. Important issues have been to determine whether the effect is local or global, and whether the self-gravity of the response is important or not. Chandrasekhar’s approach has a pure local formulation, which does not explain the friction at a distance (Leeuwin & Combes 1997). This is essential in the braking of two interacting galaxies, for example. In the case of a sinking sattelite, including the barycentric motion of the primary body which acts as a background significantly reduces the dynamical friction (Weinberg, 1989). Including also the self-gravitation of the primary body does not appear to produce large corrections (Bontekoe & van Albada 1987; Zaritsky & White 1988), Another important point, rarely taken into account, is the tidal deformation of the secondary component, the component moving among the primary (background) particles. Since the friction is due to the deformation of the interacting bodies, the freezing of the smallest one leads to an underestimate of the friction; indeed it is the one which actually undergoes the largest deformation (cf Prugniel & Combes 1992). The Chandrasekhar formula can be used in many circumstances for dimensional relevance, but its quantitative value can be off by more than an order of magnitude, and this uncertainty is hidden in the Coulomb parameter $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ (e.g. Bontekoe & van Albada 1987). Most frequently, a collisionless background is assumed to estimate the friction, although recently Ostriker (1999) has estimated that the friction against a gaseous medium (collisional) is much stronger. Her treatment is from linear perturbation theory and does not take the self-gravity of the wake fully into account.

Our aim is to establish whether new parameters affect the intensity of the friction when it acts on a fractal body. We consider only a collisionless background, i.e. composed of dark matter particles. Our approach is through numerical simulations.

In section 2 we briefly present the code and numerical methods. In section 3, 4 and 5 we present the results from our simulations. We give our conclusions in section 6.

## 2  Numerical techniques and general setting

### 2.1 The code

The code used to run the simulations is a parallel version of the tree-code (Barnes & Hut 1986) running on a Cray T3E at IDRIS. The present version is a MPI-MPI2 adaptation of the original PVM-SHMEM version developed by S. Ninin (1999). The code uses a binary tree technique and the associated natural domain decomposition (Ninin 1999). All simulations are run with an opening angle $`\theta =0.8`$, governing the use of multipole expansion for a group of particles, or their splitting in sub-groups . This version of the code uses a single time-step. Our simulations require two types of particles: dissipative gas particles and collision-less dark matter particles. Dissipation, included in the simulations of section 3 only, is implemented by inelastic collisions, using the sticky-particle model (Levinson & Roberts 1981). We use periodic boundary conditions throughout the paper, the potential being computed with Ewald method (Ewald 1921). No cosmological expansion effect is included.

### 2.2  Geometry and scales: simulation setup

Our goal is to reassess the angular momentum problem when the basic proto-galactic material is a distribution of cold fractal gas clouds. Studying such a system presents a major difficulty from the computational point of view: the relevant scale range goes from $`10^4`$ pc (the size of the smallest structures in giant molecular clouds, Faison et al. 1998) to $`10^5`$ pc, a possible value for the size of the local proto-galactic halo. We have to reduce this range drastically in the simulations. The fractal structure of the cold gas mostly appears at scales smaller than 1 Kpc; at larger scales it is broken by the shear arising from the global geometry of the system (for example in differentially rotating discs). Is dynamical friction on structures at this scale likely to be a large part of the overall loss of angular momentum? It depends on the merging history of the forming galaxy. Indeed, dynamical friction is proportional to the mass of the body. So, if the galaxy formed through the merging of a few large bodies, the friction at small scales will not play a large part in the total angular momentum loss. However, if the merging history is quiet, and the galaxy acquires matter mainly through accretion, then small-scale friction must be evaluated as it may play an important part in angular momentum loss. Consequently, we focus on the scale of a single, or a few molecular clouds; that is, a value of the order of 1 kpc for the simulation box size. Accordingly the baryonic mass in the box will be around $`10^7`$ solar masses, and the dynamical time around 10 Myr. In the simulations these quantities are normalized to 1.

The main effect of this zoom-in is that the loss of angular momentum will actually be studied as a loss of linear momentum, as the difference in in the bulk motion of the dark matter halo and the proto-galactic gas cloud translates, on small scales, into a uniform drift between the two components. Since we do not take the global dynamics into account, the drift between dark matter and gas must be artificially sustained. The drifting speed must be chosen of the same order as the virial velocity of the system ( $`100`$ km.s-1 for a typical galaxy).

At the chosen scales (between 10 pc and 1 kpc), the gas has already collapsed in dense clumps, raising the density ratio between gas and dark matter above one.

### 2.3 Periodicity and reference frame

Since we set the simulation box size to sub-galactic scale, two questions arise: how is the matter outside the simulation box taken into account, and what kind of reference frame is associated with the simulation box, given the globally rotating nature of the proto-galactic cloud?

First, let us sum up our approach for the forming galaxy. We consider a large number of fractal clumps of cold gas, accreting to form a disc, and we investigate the effect of dynamical friction over scales smaller than 1 Kpc. In this picture, the dynamical friction on each clump is local.

The presence of matter (both gas and dark matter) outside the box is taken into account by using periodic boundary conditions. This recreates the distribution of clumps, albeit with an artificially regular pattern.

For a fully self-consistent simulation, a non-inertial frame should be used. There is a well known procedure, for example, when simulating a small piece of a rotating disc ( Wisdom & Tremaine 1998, Semelin & Combes 2000). However, we believe that in our study, Coriolis forces and drag from differential rotation are secondary processes since the dynamical friction arises from local gravitational effects. The centrifugal force is of course balanced by the global gravitational field of the forming galaxy. Consequently we use an inertial frame.

## 3 Dynamical simulations

### 3.1 Initial conditions

In this first set of simulations, we study the general case, a collapsing gas medium within a drifting dark matter background.

The average ratio of the density of the gas to the density of the dark matter is set to 9. We use 64000 particles for each component.

We want an homogeneous initial gas density field with fluctuations whose power spectrum follows a power law of index -2. Using the continuity equation in the linear regime, we can find the correct power law for the power spectrum of the velocity field which produces the desired density fluctuations. We use this field to assign velocities to the particles initially distributed on a regular grid. The velocity field amplitude is set such that the simulation box includes several tens of Jeans masses for the gas, allowing for efficient fragmentation. Furthermore, the gas undergoes dissipation in inelastic collisions. The dissipation is strong enough to absorb the potential energy released in the collapse (isothermal collapse condition). This means that at least half of the kinetic energy of the gas is dissipated within 1 free fall time.

The dark matter density field is homogeneous, and the thermal motion strong enough to prevent collapse on the box scale. We run two simulations. In the second simulation, an additional uniform velocity field is added to the dark matter to account for the drift between dark matter and gas responsible for the dynamical friction. Initially the dark matter ,not the gas, is drifting since our frame is attached to the gaseous component. Consequently we expect the dark matter to slow down and the gas to accelerate until the drift is canceled as an effect of dynamical friction. The global drift velocity of the dark matter is chosen of the same order as the ratio between box size over dynamical time (1 in the simulation dimensionless units, and of the order of $`100`$ km s-1 in physical units). This is also the order of magnitude of the virial speed for the dark matter component. According to Chandrasekhar’s formula, it is the range where the friction is maximal (see also Ostriker 1999).

We run the two simulations over 1 dynamical time (typically 10 Myr) using 400 time-steps, keeping energy conservation within 1 %.

### 3.2 Results

Fig. 1 shows plots of the gas component after 0.45 dynamical time for both simulations. The plots are remarkably similar. To quantify this, we have binned the density field on a $`16^3`$ grid (each cell contains 15.6 gas particles on average). Then, we define the usual mathematical norm:

$$\rho =\left(\rho ^2\text{}\text{x}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$

If we call $`\rho _0`$ the initial density field, $`\rho _1`$ the final density field without dynamical friction, and $`\rho _2`$ the final density field with dynamical friction, we have computed:

$$\frac{\rho _2\rho _0}{\rho _0}=1.90\mathrm{}$$

$$\frac{\rho _2\rho _1}{\rho _0}=0.091\mathrm{}$$

For comparison we started from different initial conditions and called $`\rho _3`$ the collapsed state at t=0.45. We get:

$$\frac{\rho _3\rho _1}{\rho _0}=2.52\mathrm{}$$

This shows that the two configurations in Fig. 1 are indeed similar. The effect of dynamical friction on the gas component is obviously negligible at this stage. Later times in the integration do not show much more effect, while the fractal structure begins to be broken by the lack of energy input and merges to a few ”black holes”. This does not mean that friction does not operate.

Fig. 2 shows a noticeable effect on the dark matter, which loses a sizeable fraction of its initial momentum in the simulation including a drift of the background over 0.8 tdyn. At $`t=0.45t_{dyn}`$, however, the dark matter has lost only a few percent of its momentum. The dynamical friction acts, but not soon enough to affect the collapse of the gas. On the chosen scale, the dynamics of the gas cloud is dominated by its self-gravity which acts on much shorter time scales than the dynamical friction. Therefore, to study the effect of the dynamical friction, it is necessary to explore longer time scales in a quasi-stationary regime.

In this regard, the main difficulty is to obtain a long lived fractal structure self-consistently. It requires full modeling of the interstellar medium physics over a large range of scales, including complex processes for the dissipation and the energy input. See, for example, Semelin & Combes (2000) and Huber & Pfenniger (2001). Work is still going on in this area. In this work, we will follow a simple approach. We freeze the fractal and run a semi-dynamical simulation. Since the internal dynamics of the fractal are dominated by its self-gravity, dynamical friction should not strongly affect the morphology of the fractal, and little physical significance is lost in a semi-dynamical simulation, as far as evaluating the intensity of the dynamical friction is concerned. In section 5 we will follow another possible approach: imposing artificial dynamics on the fractal.

## 4 Dynamical friction on a frozen fractal body

In this section we focus our attention on an individual structure in the cold gas halo. This structure may be considered either as an individual giant molecular cloud or as a substructure embedded in a larger fractal structure. In both cases periodicity provides the neighboring gas structures. In physical systems, the slow decay of the orbit of the structure during disc formation sustains the drift between gas and dark matter, and produces a local quasi-stationary state for the structure. Consequently, in the simulation we can attach the frame to the center of gravity of the structure and get an almost inertial frame (centrifugal force is balanced by gravity and Coriolis forces are negligible). Since our simulation is local, the drift has to be artificially sustained.

In the following simulations, a rigid, motionless multi-particle body of typical radius 0.1 (box size equal 1) and mass 0.2 (total mass equal 1) is subject to dynamical friction from a collisionless background. We give to this central body an artificial fractal structure (described below). This permits a meaningful comparison with an equivalent homogeneous body and a fine control over the characteristic parameters of the fractal structure. Because of the periodic boundary conditions the maximal impact parameter is intentionnally much smaller than in usual studies of the dynamical friction: around 3 to 4 times the value of the minimal impact parameter depending on exact definitions. This value is consistent with both possibilities for the central body: if it is a giant molecular cloud, neighboring clouds are likely to be close by as observed in galactic discs, and if it is a substructure within a fractal clump, typical substructure separation is also quite small.

The central body is much more dense (50 times) than the background dark matter, as can be expected for a dense molecular cloud. The total integration time of the simulations is about 40 times the dynamical time the central body would have if it could evolve.

### 4.1 Building an artificial fractal body

There are many possible procedures for building a fractal set of point particles. A simple approach is to build a hierarchy of structures recursively. In this work we use a hierarchy of spheres. At level 0 of the hierarchy, the basic sphere has radius $`r_0`$. Then we define two parameters. The branching ratio $`a`$ specifies the number of sub-spheres we will include in each sphere. The scale ratio $`b`$ defines the radii of the sub-spheres: at level $`n`$ spheres will have a radius $`r_0b^n`$. To avoid a strong scale periodicity (see appendix A in Semelin & Combes 2000), we introduce a variance when assigning the radius of each sub-sphere, equal to $`\frac{1}{3}`$ of the average radius at this level. Given these two parameters, $`a`$ and $`b`$, the recursive procedure is the following: each sphere is subdivided into $`a`$ sub-spheres of radii $`b`$ time smaller. We place the center of each sub-sphere at random on the surface of the initial sphere. Different choices are possible here. For example using a probability function ($`\frac{1}{r^2}`$, constant, etc) to distribute the centers of the sub-spheres inside the sphere. However, the branching ratio being usually smaller than 10, the statistical realization of the probability law is noisy, and different laws produce similar fractals. When the center and radii of the spheres at the last level of the hierarchy have been defined, we distribute particles in these spheres evenly. We divide each structure into substructures of equal mass. Here again different choices can be made, for example using a Gaussian probability function to determine the mass of each sub-sphere. Following this procedure, we build a fractal whose fractal dimension is defined by $`a`$ and $`b`$ according to: $`D_f=\frac{\mathrm{ln}(a)}{\mathrm{ln}(b)}`$.

### 4.2 Conditions of the simulation

The central body is typically made of 16000 particles. Its structure ranges from a simple spherical distribution to an artificial fractal based on spheres with a 5 level hierarchy of structures, built using the procedure described in sec. 4.1 . Since the body is frozen, velocities are zero at all times.

The drifting dark matter background is made of collisionless particles. Two sets of simulations have been run, the first with $`\mathrm{30\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ background particles, the second with 1 million background particles. Initially, particles are distributed homogeneously with enough thermal motion to prevent collapse, and an additional drifting speed in the $`x`$ direction with a value of $`0.5`$. To reach a stationary state, it is necessary to sustain the drifting speed of the background against slowdown caused by dynamical friction. This is done in two steps. First, particles exiting the simulation box at $`x=0.5`$ reenter at $`x=0.5`$ with random $`y`$ and $`z`$ coordinates, and a regenerated momentum. However, simulations show that this is not enough to reach stationarity. It is necessary to add the second factor, an uniform force field which maintains the overall momentum of the background. The norm of the force is proportionnal to the difference beetwen the actual background total momentum and the desired value. This field accounts for the external large scale phenomena which sustain the drift. Our simulations run over 2.5 box-crossing times for the background.

### 4.3 Morphology of the wake

Fig. 3 shows simulations with a one million particle background, and two different central bodies: a homogeneous sphere and a fractal of dimension $`D=1.75`$ (typical observed value for the interstellar medium, see Combes 1999), branching ratio $`a=7`$, and a scale ratio $`b=3`$. The density and velocity fields of the background are binned on a $`32^3`$ grid, then averaged over one crossing time. Then we compute the density contours and the streamlines of the central slice (x-y plane), and plot them on Fig. 3. The complete central body is projected on the slice. In the case of the fractal body, the density contours of the background show two local maxima, connected to substructures in the fractal. These denote the existence of secondary gravitational wakes around the clumps within the central body. Different slices (not plotted here), centered on different substructures in the z direction show different maxima in the density contours of the background, denoting more “sub-wakes”. These secondary wakes underline the fact that temporary structures form in the dark matter around the density structure of the fractal body at all scales. These density structures are connected with perturbations in the velocity field, stirring velocity dispersion at all scales. Confirmation of this effect is shown in Fig. 4, which plots the average difference of the friction intensity between two particles in the central body as a function of their distance. This diagnosis is plotted for both the spherical body and a 5 level fractal. Obviously, in the case of the fractal, the spatial fluctuations of the friction remain strong at small scales, whereas they decrease in the case of the sphere. This is again due to the presence of density structures producing secondary wakes at all scales in the case of a fractal body. It is however obvious in Fig. 3 that the large-scale shape of the wake is very similar for the two kinds of bodies.

### 4.4 Total intensity of the dynamical friction

We now assess the influence of the various parameters of the fractal body on the total intensity of dynamical friction, since it could affect the loss of angular momentum in galaxy formation.

The most significant parameter is the scale range of structures present in the fractal. Does the presence of substructures affects the global intensity of the friction ? In the case of our artificially constructed fractal, the scale range of the structures is controlled by the number of levels in the hierarchy, from 1, the homogeneous sphere, to 5 levels for a fractal extending over two orders of magnitude in scale.

Fig. 5 shows plots of the intensity of the dynamical friction as a function of time. The dynamical friction is evaluated by summing the accelerations of the particles in the central body. The self-gravity of the body cancels out. The two curves correspond to a 1 million and a 30 000 particle background. An important noise reduction can be observed, calling for the use of 1 million particle simulations. As can be expected, the observed damped oscillations have a period similar to the free fall time of the background. We can see that stationarity is not fully reached after 2.5 crossing times. However, because of the computation cost of the 1 million particles simulations, we will be satisfied to evaluate an average value for the friction by smoothing the later parts of the curves.

Fig. 6 presents smoothed plots of the intensity of the friction as a function of time for 5 different simulations. All simulations use a 1 million particle background, and extend over 2.5 crossing times with 1000 time steps per simulation. The two thick full lines correspond to spherical central bodies with radii 0.1 and 0.13, bracketing the values of the effective radii of the other bodies. Indeed, when applying the Chandrasekhar formula to an extended body, the effective radius determines the minimal impact parameter, and thus the intensity of the friction. We must keep track of the variation due to this parameter. The thin lines correspond to fractal bodies with 2, 4 and 5 levels in the hierarchy. The obvious conclusion is that the presence of substructures has little effect on the total intensity of the friction. Moreover, we have been able to verify that what little dispersion in the intensity of the friction can be seen between the 2, 4 and 5 level fractal has a simple orgin, for the most part. It can be partly accounted for using Chandrasekhar’s formulav by a variation of the total effective radius, i.e. a variation in the minimal impact parameter. Let us emphasize again that the ratio of maximal to minimal impact parameter is small, so inhomogeneities in the central body can be felt throughout the simulation box, and this absence of measurable effect was not expected.

Complementary simulations have been run with 30 000 particle backgrounds to evaluate the influence of parameters such as the branching rate in the fractal and the value of the fractal dimension. As can be expected from the previous result, no systematic effect has been detected other than from a variation of the minimal impact parameter.

## 5 Dynamical friction on a fractal with an artificial dynamics

In the previous section we established that, beyond its size, the specific spatial structure of a body submitted to dynamical friction has little effect on the intensity of the friction. However, in addition to the fractal structure, cold molecular gas has another important property: the structures evolve and change shape constantly, as a result of dissipation and energy input processes. We will now investigate the impact of this behavior on the dynamical friction.

### 5.1 Conditions of the simulations

As already stated, modeling the long-lived dynamical fractal structure of molecular clouds self-consistently is still a challenge. Since our focus is on dynamical friction, we choose to impose artificial dynamics on the fractal structure. Using the setup described in section 3, we run two simulations, with two different random realizations of the initial conditions. We record the fractal structure of the gas component at $`t=0.5t_{dyn}`$. These two self-consistently built fractal configurations are the basis of our artificial motion.

One of the configurations is used for the initial positions of the gas particles. Then, each particle moves in a straight line with an individual constant speed toward its position in the second fractal. All particles reach the second fractal configuration at the same time. The process is then repeated toward a globally translated version of the first fractal, and so on if necessary. Fig. 7 shows the two fractal states and one intermediate state. Although the intermediate state is less clumpy, it retains some definite structures. The fact that the intermediate states do not come closer to homogeneity is due to the relation between the positions of a given particle in the two extremal fractal states. Indeed, the simulations producing these states start from particles on a grid with a specified velocity field. In most cases closeness on the grid implies closeness of the positions in the final fractals. This closeness is retained in part in the transition between the two configurations.

The characteristics of the background are the same as in section 3.

### 5.2 Results

We want to evaluate the effect of a shifting fractal structure on the friction exerted by the background.

First, we run two reference simulations with two different frozen structures: one with the initial, fully fractal configuration and the other with the intermediate, less-clumpy state. Then we run two simulations with an evolving fractal structure, following the procedure described in sec. 5.1 for the gas motion. We choose two different values, 0.5 and 1, for the time required to shift from one fully fractal structure to the other. The dynamics of the background is self-consistently computed under the gravitational potential of the gas.

Fig. 8 shows plots of the total dynamical friction exerted on the gas by the background for the four simulations. As can be expected, the friction on the frozen less-clumpy intermediate state is weaker than on the frozen, clumpy, initial state. In both cases, the friction builds up until $`t=0.5`$, then decays because of the heating-up of the wake. By comparison, the friction is weaker for both simulations involving a shifting fractal. Indeed the friction does not have time to build up around clumps as they move, dissolve and collapse constantly. As the curves show, the faster the evolution, the weaker the friction. In the limit of very slow evolution, the friction intensity would reach the same value as for the frozen states.

In actual situations, this effect is relevant if the typical formation time of the wakes, which is of the order of $`\frac{b_{\text{ max}}}{v_{\text{ }\text{drift}}}`$ , is of the same order or longer than the typical evolution time of the structure ( $`b_{\text{ max}}`$ is the maximal impact parameter and $`v_{\text{ drift}}`$ is the drifting speed between the background and the body). If we consider an average GMC of size 100 pc and speed dispersion 10 km s-1, the typical deformation time is 10 My. In the case of either galaxy mergers or accretion of cold fractal clumps during disc formation we can evaluate $`v_{\text{drift}}=100\text{km.s}^1`$ and $`b_{\text{max}}`$ is a few times the size of the clumps, for example 500 pc. This gives a typical build-up time of the gravitational wakes of 5 My. For these values, the weakening of the dynamical friction described above is relevant. The most direct application is to the angular momentum problem in galaxy formation, which will not be worsened by the presence of fluctuating small scale structures in the cold fractal gas.

## 6  Conclusion

In this work, we have investigated dynamical friction acting on fractal structures such as can be found in molecular clouds. We have argued that this process can be relevant to galaxy formation, and more specifically to the angular momentum problem. Indeed GMCs are likely to form at high $`z`$ and play an important part in the formation of galactic discs, during which angular momentum is lost through dynamical friction between the gas and the dark matter halo. Due to their different physics, the dissipative gas and the collisionless dark matter particles have different dynamics, and relative bulk motions between these two components are expected to be of the order of the virial velocities in galactic systems. These relative motions should apply to galaxy formation conditions, gravitational collapse or galaxy mergers as well.

We have first established that, for relevant values of the parameters, the fractal structure of the gas is driven by internal processes including self-gravity, and that dynamical friction is not likely to be strong enough to affect GMC morphology. Then we examined if and how GMC morphology could affect the intensity of the friction. Using a frozen central structure, we have established that the presence of inhomogeneities and substructures has little effect on the intensity of the friction. This holds down to small values of the maximum impact parameter, for which inhomogeneities are most likely to affect the global shape of the gravitational wake. What we did find, however, is the presence of secondary wakes connected to substructures. This shows that friction on a fractal body stirs velocity dispersion on all scales in the drifting background.

To complete the study, we have evaluated the response of the friction to changes in the shape of the fractal structure with time, as happens in molecular clouds. We have shown that if the typical formation time of the gravitational wake is longer or of the same order as the deformation time of the structures, the friction is weakened. This effect can have important consequences for the dynamics of galactic discs. If we consider the formation of galactic discs from an assembly of fractal clumps, the weakened friction on the dark matter means a smaller loss of angular momentum for the gaseous disc.

In numerical simulations of galaxy mergers or galaxy formation, particles representing gas clouds have very large mass, due to the lack of resolution and the small number of particles. Typically, a gas cloud is of the order of a GMC mass or bigger (Barnes & Hernquist 1992). The same is true for particles representing stars, that are as massive as globular clusters. Since the dark matter particles are of comparable mass, friction at small scale cannot be computed and is ignored. However, the friction is important at all scales; and the results presented here show that the fine structure of the interstellar medium does not lead to a worsening of the problem.

Most computations in this work have been realized on the Cray T3E of the CNRS computing center, at IDRIS. The work of B. Semelin was supported by a JSPS grant.


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# Untitled Document

Holonomy invariance, orbital resonances, and kilohertz QPOs

M.A. Abramowicz, Chalmers University, Sweden; and SISSA, Italy

G.J.E. Almergren, SISSA, Italy

W. Kluźniak, Zielona Góra University, Poland; and SISSA, Italy

A.V. Thampan, SISSA, Italy

F. Wallinder, Örebro University, Sweden

marek@fy.chalmers.se

joal@sissa.it

wlodek@camk.edu.pl

thampan@sissa.it

fredrik.wallinder@nat.oru.se

Abstract

Quantized orbital structures are typical for many aspects of classical gravity (Newton’s as well as Einstein’s). The astronomical phenomenon of orbital resonances is a well-known example. Recently, Rothman, Ellis and Murugan (2001) discussed quantized orbital structures in the novel context of a holonomy invariance of parallel transport in Schwarzschild geometry. We present here yet another example of quantization of orbits, reflecting both orbital resonances and holonomy invariance. This strong-gravity effect may already have been directly observed as the puzzling kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the X-ray emission from a few accreting galactic black holes and several neutron stars.

1. Quantization of circular orbits: holonomy invariance

In a curved spacetime, consider a vector under parallel transport along a closed curve. The initial and final direction of the vector are not holonomy invariant: in general they will be different after one loop. But could they be holonomy invariant after $`N`$ loops? Rothman, Ellis and Murugan  show that for geodesic motion along an $`r=`$ const circle in Schwarzshild geometry ($`r`$ is the standard Schwarzschild radial coordinate) the holonomy invariance occurs after $`N`$ loops if and only if

$$r=r_{\mathrm{holonomy}}=\frac{3r_G}{2}\frac{1}{1n^2/m^2},$$
$`(1)`$
where $`r_G`$ is the gravitational radius, $`N=nm`$, and $`1n<m`$ are two integer numbers. It is clear that the holonomy invariance condition leads to a “quantization” of orbits.

2. Quantization of circular orbits: the closure condition

Consider now a slightly perturbed circular orbit, $`r+\xi (t)`$, where $`\xi r`$, and $`t`$ is the standard Schwarzschild time coordinate. The equation that governs the perturbation is that of a harmonic oscillator (see e.g. ),

$$\ddot{\xi }+\omega _r^2\xi =0,$$
$`(2)`$
where a dot means $`d/dt`$, and $`\omega _r`$ is the radial epicyclic frequency. For stable oscillations $`\omega _r^2>0`$, while for $`\omega _r^2<0`$ perturbations are clearly exponential in time and thus unstable.

With Euclidean geometry of space (which is assumed in Newton’s theory), and for a spherically symmetric gravitational potential, orbital frequency and radial epicyclic frequency are always real and equal, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=\omega _r^2>0`$. Therefore, all slightly perturbed circular orbits close after exactly one loop, and they are all stable. This conclusion, of course, holds not only for slightly perturbed orbits which we are now discussing, but for all bound, i.e., with negative energy, Newtonian orbits in a spherical potential—they all are stable ellipses, as was known already by Kepler.

However, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2\omega _r^2`$ if the gravitational potential is non-spherical, or the geometry is non-Euclidean, which means that, in general, perturbed circular orbits do not close after one loop. It may be in addition that for a range of radii $`\omega _r^2<0`$, which means that orbits are unstable in this range. These facts are well-known in the context of Schwarzschild geometry, where ,

$$\omega _r=\left(1\frac{3r_G}{r}\right)^{1/2}\mathrm{\Omega },$$
$`(3a)`$
$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\left(\frac{r_G}{2r}\right)^{1/2}\frac{c}{r}.$$
$`(3b)`$
and therefore the slightly perturbed circular orbits do not close after one loop (this is the reason for the relativistic advance of the perihelion of Mercury). In addition the perturbations are unstable in the region $`r<r_{ms}=3r_G`$, with $`r_{ms}`$ being known as the marginally stable orbit radius.

It is perhaps less known, however, that the same effects do happen also according to Newton’s theory in a gravitational field of a sufficiently non-spherical body. It has been recently demonstrated  that the marginally stable orbit exists outside rapidly rotating Maclaurin spheroids, as well as outside strange stars (quark stars with an equation of state comfortably consistent with the main-stream views on super-dense matter) with a very large quadrupole moment, but well in the Newtonian regime ($`r_{ms}>R_{}>>r_\mathrm{G}`$). Here $`R_{}`$ is the stellar radius.

Returning to the Schwarzschild geometry, let us state some obvious consequences of Eqs. (3). The slightly perturbed circular orbits close after an integral number of loops if and only if $`n\mathrm{\Omega }=m\omega _r`$, or (which is the same) if and only if the closure condition is fulfilled,

$$r=r_{\mathrm{closure}}=\frac{3r_G}{1n^2/m^2},$$
$`(4)`$
where $`1n<m`$ are two integer numbers.

We see that the closure condition (4) leads to a similar (but different) quantization of circular orbits as does the holonomy invariance condition (1). Rothman et al. noticed that holonomy invariance occurs at circles outside of the free circular photon orbit, $`r>r_{\mathrm{ph}}=(3/2)r_G`$. They stressed that this could be intuitively understood in terms of the optical geometry, i.e., 3-space conformally rescaled in such a way that light trajectories are geodesic in it . The fact, most relevant in the context of holonomy on timelike circular geodesics, that $`r_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ coincide with the circle of a minimal circumference length, is an obvious triviality in optical geometry. Similarly, the closure condition can only be fulfilled for circles outside the marginally stable orbit for test particles, $`r>r_{\mathrm{ms}}=3r_G`$. The innermost orbit for which the closure is possible has a minimal curvature radius, a fact which again is most relevant, and trivial to understand in optical geometry.

3. Quantization of orbits in accretion disks: resonances and kHz QPOs

In numerous sources that astronomers directly observe, matter is being accreted onto the central black black hole through a vertically thin accretion disk: the vertical thickness $`H`$ is much smaller than the corresponding radius $`r`$. For inner parts of accretion disks that are relevant in the present context, typically $`h=H/r0.1`$. In such disks, and in the relevant range of radii (a few times $`r_{ms}`$), matter moves on orbits not much different from circular geodesics: pressure, viscosity, radiation, magnetic field, and other effects could be considered as being very small perturbations. Therefore, in thin accretion disks, there should be present oscillation modes whose frequencies (in the considered range of radii) are very close to $`\omega _r`$, as well as other modes whose frequencies are close to the meridional epicyclic frequency $`\omega _\theta `$, i.e., the frequency of oscillatory motion of a test particle about the orbital plane. In Schwarzschild geometry, $`\omega _\theta =\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and in Kerr geometry $`\omega _\theta `$ is somewhat smaller than $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The functions $`\mathrm{\Omega }(r)`$, $`\omega _r(r)`$, $`\omega _\theta (r)`$ are explicitly known for both Schwarzschild and Kerr geometry (see e.g. ).

The general statement that the frequencies of global modes in thin accretion disks should be determined by the space-time metric is well supported by detailed studies of thin accretion disk oscillatory modes, or as it is called “diskoseismology”, pioneered by Kato and developed by Wagoner and collaborators . It has been suggested that prominent $`g`$modes and $`c`$-modes can be identified with the “stable” frequencies observed in black hole candidates , but the frequencies of these modes are not expected to be in rational ratios. Other frequencies have also been investigated . The well-known and important global $`p`$-modes have frequencies close to $`\omega _r`$. Other, local, modes have frequencies close to $`\omega _\theta `$ . In these cases, pressure and other non-geodesic effects contribute only to a small shift of the two frequencies.

Our suggestion, is that the two frequencies could be in a rational ratio, $`n\omega _\theta =m\omega _r`$, and when this happens, a resonance may occur and the resulting oscillation is prominent (and relatively easily detectable) for some, but not all, values of $`n/m`$. Two of us have previously pointed out  that such resonant frequencies may indeed be observed as kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in X-ray emission of accreting black holes and neutron stars (for a review of QPOs properties see ), and show elsewhere  that it follows naturally from this rational-ratio constraint and from fundamental properties of the relevant nonlinear oscillators that 3:2 and 5:3 ratios are expected among the observed frequencies, as those connected with the fastest growing modes. In the black hole source GRO J1655-40 the two high frequencies observed are 450 Hz and 300 Hz , i.e., they are in a 3:2 ratio , as expected in our theory. The same 3:2 ratio of frequencies may have also been observed in the black hole source XTE J1550-564 . In the black hole source GRS 1915+105 the two frequencies observed are 70 Hz and 42 Hz , i.e., they are in the also expected 5:3 ratio .

We will not further discuss here our theory of excitation of such coherent perturbations in accretion disks. We only point out that, most typically, the relative size of the perturbation is of the order of $`h`$ and therefore its relative surface of the order $`h^20.01`$. If the resonant modes are excited, all properties of thin accretion disks should oscillate, and in particular there should be an oscillatory part to the emitted X-ray flux, of fractional amplitude $`h^2`$ i.e., a few percent, as observed. The lifetime of the perturbation is regulated not only by shear and dissipation in the disk, but also by the resonance itself, and therefore it need not be of the order of the orbital period, but could be much longer.

Note, that in the case of Schwarzschild geometry one has  $`\omega _\theta =\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and therefore the resonances occur at the “quantized” orbits of radius given by Eq. (4). For the Kerr black holes $`\omega _\theta \mathrm{\Omega }`$. This is good news: the Kerr angular momentum parameter $`a`$ appears directly in theory (governing some of its quantitative aspects), and thus could be estimated from fitting theory to observations .

At present, the QPO phenomenon is the only known strong-field consequence of Einstein’s relativity that could have been already directly observed (with an adequate precision), and not mixed up with other effects that are difficult to follow in all relevant details. No other observed phenomenon could rival QPOs in this respect. In particular, the oft-discussed profiles of the Fe fluorescent line seen in X-ray spectra of some active galactic nuclei, and believed to originate close to black holes , in fact depend on many “dirty astrophysics” factors that are difficult to estimate . The brilliant idea of Narayan, Lasota and others (see e.g. ) that the observational fact that accreting black holes sources are dimmer than accreting neutron stars  is a direct evidence for the event horizon, suffers from the same difficulty—unknown factors enter relevant details in a way impossible to control today .

4. Conclusions

Natural frequencies of oscillation of fluid on nearly circular orbits close to black holes (and neutron stars) are a clean property of the strong gravity alone—as is the closely related property of holonomy invariance. If Einstein was right, they simply are there, and the theory of gravity need not be supplemented by assumptions on the equation of state, turbulence, magnetic field value, opacity, or any other special conditions, in order to explain the values of fundamental frequencies in oscillatory behaviour of matter near black holes. There is a very serious possibility that the observed QPOs reflect directly these frequencies. The QPO phenomenon is unique in its importance for testing strong gravity.

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