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# The Pattern Speed of the OH/IR Stars in the Milky Way

## 1 Introduction

Our position within the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) has made study of its large-scale structure and dynamics difficult. This is partly due to the Sun’s position within the dust layer of the MWG, as well as the difficulty of determining distances. Nevertheless, in recent years, considerable progress has been made in understanding our Galaxy.

It is now clear that the MWG is a barred galaxy, as was first proposed by de Vaucouleurs (1964). Evidence of this comes from the COBE/DIRBE near infrared light distribution (Weiland et al. 1994; Dwek et al. 1995; Binney et al. 1997), star count asymmetries (Nakada et al. 1991; Whitelock & Catchpole 1992; Sevenster 1996; Nikolaev & Weinberg 1997; Stanek et al. 1997; Hammersley et al. 2000), gas dynamics (Peters 1975; Cohen & Few 1976; Liszt & Burton 1980; Gerhard & Vietri 1986; Mulder & Liem 1986; Binney et al. 1991) and the large microlensing optical depth towards the bulge (Paczynski et al. 1994; Zhao et al. 1996). A recent review of the structure of the bulge and disc can be found in Gerhard (2001).

The principle dynamical parameter of a bar is its pattern speed, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$, since it determines the orbital structure of stars in the disc. Bar pattern speeds can be parametrized by the distance-independent ratio $`D_L/a_B`$, where $`D_L`$ is the Lagrangian radius at which the gravitational and centrifugal forces cancel out in the bar rest-frame ($`D_L`$ is usually approximated by the axisymmetric corotation radius) and $`a_B`$ is the bar semi-major axis. A bar is termed fast when $`1.01.4`$. Knowledge of bar pattern speeds constrains the dark matter (DM) content of disc galaxies: Debattista & Sellwood (1998, 2000) argue that fast bars require that the disc they inhabit must be maximal, in the sense that the luminous disc provides most of the rotational support in the inner galaxy. Some evidence for fast bars comes from hydrodynamical models of gas flow, particularly at the shocks. Three such studies are: NGC 1365 ($`=1.3`$, Lindblad et al. 1996), NGC 1300 ($`=1.3`$, Lindblad & Kristen 1996), and NGC 4123 ($`=1.2`$, Weiner et al. 2001).

In the MWG, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ can be estimated by comparing hydrodynamical models of the inner MWG with the observed longitude-velocity, ($`l,v`$), diagram. Several such studies have been carried out: Englmaier & Gerhard (1999) found $`D_L=3.5\pm 0.5`$ kpc, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=59\pm 2`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ and $`=1.2\pm 0.2`$, while Fux (1999) found $`D_L=44.5`$ kpc and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=3545`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ and the preferred model of Weiner & Sellwood (1999) had $`D_L=5.0`$ kpc, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=41.9`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ and $`=1.4`$. Binney et al. (1991) interpreted the ($`l,v`$) diagram for HI, CO and CS emission using orbits in a barred potential with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=63`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$. Another method for measuring $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ in the MWG involves the identification of the action of resonances: Binney et al. (1997) suggested that a local density maximum along the minor axis seen in the dust-corrected infrared COBE/DIRBE data could be identified with the location of a Lagrange point, which gave $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=65\pm 5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, having assumed $`1.2`$ and given the value of $`a_B`$ from the deprojection. Dehnen (1999) argued that the bimodal distribution of stellar velocities in the solar neighborhood, as observed by HIPPARCOS, is due to the action of the outer Lindblad resonance (OLR), whereby he obtained $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=53\pm 3`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$. Sevenster (1999) suggested that features in the distribution of OH/IR stars can be used to locate the corotation and inner Lindblad resonances, giving $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p60`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ ($`\mathrm{}>1.4`$). The differences in these pattern speed measurements reflect uncertainties in viewing geometry, $`a_B`$, rotation curve and bar axis ratio.

The MWG also has spiral structure in it, which is less well constrained. Even the number of arms, whether two or four, continues to be an issue of some discussion. Vallée (1995) reviews a variety of different observational tracers, and concludes that the spirals are four-armed, logarithmic and have a pitch angle, $`p12^{}\pm 1^{}`$. More recently, Drimmel & Spergel (2001) found that a two arm spiral structure dominates the non-axisymmetric near-infrared emission.

The pattern speeds of spirals are generally quite poorly constrained. When a bar is present, as in the MWG, the expectation that spirals are driven by it (e.g. Sanders & Huntley 1976) would seem to require that the bar and spirals share a common pattern speed. This idea appears to be further reinforced by the observation that many such spirals connect with the bar ends. Sellwood & Sparke (1988), however, presented $`N`$-body simulations in which bars and spirals had different pattern speeds, but with the spirals still generally connected to the bar ends. Tagger et al. (1987) and Sygnet et al. (1988), proposed that the pattern speeds of the bar and spirals are non-linearly resonantly coupled, with the corotation of the bar marking the inner Lindblad resonance of the spiral. Toomre’s (1981) swing amplification theory of spiral structure formation requires a radially (and possibly temporally) varying pattern speed. Modal theories of spiral formation, on the other hand, depend on a (nearly) constant spiral pattern speed in space (but not necessarily in time, see Bertin & Lin 1996). Measurements of spiral pattern speeds in external galaxies are still quite few, generally assume a radially constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ and tend to give conflicting results. For example, the spiral pattern speed in M81 has been measured in a variety of ways but so far no unique pattern speed has been found (see discussion in Canzian 1993).

The situation is not much better in the MWG. Morgan (1990) was able to model the distribution of pulsars within roughly 10 kpc of the Sun with spirals of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=13.5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, regardless of the arm multiplicity. On the other hand, Amaral & Lépine (1997), using the positions and ages of young open clusters within $`5`$ kpc of the Sun, estimated $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p20`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$. Mishurov & Zenina (1999) used the velocity field of a sample of Cepheids which were less than 5 kpc from the Sun to conclude that the Sun is displaced outwards from the corotation by $`0.1`$ kpc (then $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{\Omega }_{}27`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$).

A direct method for measuring $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ in systems satisfying the continuity equation was developed by Tremaine & Weinberg (1984). This method has successfully been applied to four barred galaxies so far: NGC 936 ($`=1.4\pm 0.3`$, Merrifield & Kuijken 1995), NGC 4596 ($`=1.15_{0.23}^{+0.38}`$, Gerssen et al. 1998), NGC 7079 ($`=0.9\pm 0.15`$, Debattista & Williams 2001) and NGC 1023 ($`=0.77_{0.22}^{+0.43}`$, Debattista et al. 2002). In view of the spread in previous measurements of pattern speeds in the MWG, it is worth considering whether this method may not also be applied it. Kuijken & Tremaine (1991) have already derived an equivalent of the Tremaine-Weinberg method for the MWG; their main goal was to constrain the radial motion of the local standard of rest (LSR). Applying this method to the HI distribution, they found that pattern speeds from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=0`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$ are possible for an LSR with a radial velocity, $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=4`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to 8 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

In this paper, we explore the Tremaine-Weinberg method for the MWG. This method, unlike others, has the considerable advantage of being model independent. In the general case, the only assumption made is that the non-axisymmetric density distribution is in stationary cylindrical rotation (i.e. $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=\mathrm{\Omega }_p(\rho )`$, where $`\rho `$ is the distance from the Galactic centre). While this assumption breaks down in some cases (e.g. if the MWG disc is strongly interacting with a companion), it is expected to be a very good approximation inside the solar circle. Since we also wish to apply the method to real data, we have made a number of simplifying assumptions. For example, we assume that there is one unique pattern speed in the inner MWG; if this is not the case, then some density and asymmetry weighted average pattern speed is measured. The value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ obtained depends sensitively on the assumed radial velocity of the LSR; however this dependence can be stated explicitly. The method requires complete samples of tracers: one such sample is obtained from the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey of OH/IR stars.

In §2, we derive the three-dimensional version of the Tremaine-Weinberg method for the MWG, with the solar and LSR motion taken into account. We test the method in §3, using simple models, exploring under what circumstances the method works best. In §4, we introduce the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey, and describe how we selected a sample of older, relaxed OH/IR stars from it. We also discuss our completeness corrections for the survey data. Then in §5, we present the pattern speed analysis for our sample of OH/IR stars. Since the integrals in the Tremaine-Weinberg method measure asymmetries between positive and negative longitude, they are susceptible to noise and/or observational bias; therefore in §5, we present corroborating evidence for the signal we find. Finally, in §6, we discuss our results in terms of MWG structure and prospects for using the same method with future data sets.

## 2 The Tremaine-Weinberg Method for the Milky Way

Starting from the continuity equation and the assumption that the visible surface density, $`\mu `$, of a barred (or otherwise non-axisymmetric) disc depends on time, $`t`$, in the following simple way:

$$\mu (x,y,t)=\mu (\rho ,\psi \mathrm{\Omega }_pt),$$
(1)
where $`(x,y)`$ are arbitrary cartesian coordinates in the plane of the disc, and $`(\rho ,\psi )`$ the corresponding polar coordinates, Tremaine & Weinberg (1984) showed that the pattern speed, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$, can be written as:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{sin}i=\frac{_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}h(Y)_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}V_{los}(X,Y)\mu (X,Y)𝑑X𝑑Y}{_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}h(Y)_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}X\mu (X,Y)𝑑X𝑑Y}.$$
(2)
Here, $`V_{\mathrm{los}}`$ is the line-of-sight (minus the systemic) velocity, $`h(Y)`$ is an arbitrary continuous weight function, $`i`$ is the inclination angle and $`(X,Y)`$ are galaxy-centered coordinates along the disc’s apparent major and minor axis respectively. The Tremaine-Weinberg (TW) method needs a tracer of the non-axisymmetric feature which satisfies the continuity equation. The old stellar population in undisturbed SB0 type disc galaxies provides an ideal tracer of the surface density. The short lifetimes of massive stars precludes their use as tracers. Moreover, gas cannot be used as a tracer because of its conversion between atomic and molecular states, although modelling may be used to describe such conversions (Bienaymé et al. 1985).

### 2.1 Two dimensions

We now seek to derive an equivalent to the TW method for the MWG. Our position within the MWG disc gives a unique viewing geometry which does not permit the standard TW method of Equation (2) to be used. As shown by Kuijken & Tremaine (1991), however, it is still possible to use the continuity equation to derive an expression for a pattern speed in the MWG. Here, we re-derive their two-dimensional expression before considering the three-dimensional case. Assuming Equation (1) holds, the continuity equation in the plane of the disc can be written:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_p\left(y\frac{\mu }{x}x\frac{\mu }{y}\right)+(\mu 𝐯)=0.$$
(3)
Switching to Sun-centered cylindrical coordinates $`(R,l)`$, (where $`l`$ is the usual Galactic longitude and $`R`$ is the distance from the Sun), this becomes:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_p\left[R_0\mathrm{sin}l{\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{R}}+\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{R_0\mathrm{cos}l}{R}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{l}}\right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{(R\mu v_R)}{R}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{(\mu v_l)}{l}}=0.`$ (4)
In this equation, $`(v_R,v_l)`$ is the velocity in the $`(R,l)`$ frame and $`R_0`$ is the distance of the Sun from the Galactic centre. Typically, the component $`v_l`$ is not available; fortunately, this term drops out after an integration over $`l`$:

$`\mathrm{\Omega }_p\left(R_0{\displaystyle \frac{}{R}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}\mu \mathrm{sin}ldl{\displaystyle \frac{R_0}{R}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}\mu \mathrm{sin}ldl\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{R}}{\displaystyle _0^{2\pi }}\mu v_RR𝑑l=0.`$ (5)
If we now multiply by $`Rg(R)`$, where $`g(R)`$ is an arbitrary function vanishing at the Sun, and integrate over $`R`$, we obtain, after some rearrangement:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0=\frac{_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{2\pi }\mu f(R)v_R𝑑l𝑑R}{_0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{2\pi }\mu f(R)\mathrm{sin}ldldR},$$
(6)
where we have assumed that $`\mu g(R)`$ goes to zero at infinity and $`f(R)Rg/R`$. All the quantities on the right hand side of the above equation are observable.

In the case of discrete tracers, the surface density gets replaced by a sum over delta functions and the above expression is replaced by:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0=\frac{_if(R_i)v_{R,i}}{_if(R_i)\mathrm{sin}l_i}.$$
(7)
Thus $`f(R)`$ can be thought of as a detection probability for the discrete tracers.

In Equation (6) above, we integrated $`l`$ from $`0`$ to $`2\pi `$. But if the non-axisymmetric part of $`\mu `$ is limited to the range $`[l_0,l_0]`$, it is then trivial to show that these integration limits are sufficient, since axisymmetric components do not contribute to the integrals, and all surface terms resulting from the $`l`$ integrals vanish by symmetry. It is necessary, however, that the integrals extend from $`l_0`$ to $`l_0`$ (i.e. integration in the range $`[l_1,l_2]`$, with $`l_1l_2`$ gives incorrect results.)

When the bar is either along or perpendicular to the line of sight, the numerator and denominator of Equation (7) are zero, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0`$ cannot be determined. This is to be compared with the standard TW equation, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ cannot be measured for a bar along the apparent major or minor axis of the disc.

### 2.2 Three dimensions

In 3D, the derivation is more or less the same. The Sun-centered spherical polar coordinates are now $`(r,l,b)`$, with $`(l,b)`$ being the standard galactic coordinates and $`r`$ the distance from the Sun. Following a triple integral much in the spirit of the 2D case, we obtain:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0=\frac{_0^{\mathrm{}}_{b_0}^{+b_0}_{l_0}^{+l_0}f(r)\mu \mathrm{cos}bv_rdldbdr}{_0^{\mathrm{}}_{b_0}^{+b_0}_{l_0}^{+l_0}f(r)\mu \mathrm{cos}^2b\mathrm{sin}ldldbdr},$$
(8)
where $`b_0`$ must be such that all the non-axisymmetric parts are included. If the system is symmetric about the mid-plane, then the $`b`$ integral can extend over the region $`[0,\pm b_0]`$ only: data of this kind are easier to obtain. A discrete version of this equation is given by:

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0=\frac{_if(r_i)v_{r,i}}{_if(r_i)\mathrm{sin}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i}\frac{𝒦(l_0)}{𝒫(l_0)}.$$
(9)
where we have introduced a new notation for the integrals. (Note that one factor of $`\mathrm{cos}b`$ drops out because of the Jacobian in the delta functions.) In the limit that all the tracers are in a plane, Equation (9) reduces to Equation (7) of the 2D case.

Both $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒦`$ are defined as integrals/sums over $`l`$ ranging from $`l_0`$ to $`l_0`$. Since $`\mathrm{sin}l`$ and $`v_r`$ change sign across $`l=0`$, the integrals will partially cancel out. Thus $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒦`$ largely measure a difference across $`l=0`$. When the difference is small, $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒦`$ are small and the measured $`\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0`$ will be poorly determined. This can be seen from the expression for the variance in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0`$: $`\left(\frac{\sigma _{[\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0]}}{\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0}\right)^2=\left(\frac{\sigma _𝒦}{𝒦}\right)^2+\left(\frac{\sigma _𝒫}{𝒫}\right)^2`$. To be more explicit by what we mean by small, we define $`𝒫_\pm _0^{\mathrm{}}_{b_0}^{+b_0}_0^{\pm l_0}f(r)\mu \mathrm{cos}^2b\mathrm{sin}ldldbdr`$, with a similar definition for $`𝒦_\pm `$. (In this notation $`𝒫=𝒫_+𝒫_{}`$ and similarly for $`𝒦`$.) Then we introduce the variables

$$\mathrm{A}_𝒦=\frac{|𝒦|}{|𝒦_{}|+|𝒦_+|},\mathrm{A}_𝒫=\frac{|𝒫|}{|𝒫_{}|+|𝒫_+|}.$$
(10)
These two parameters, which take values in the range $`[0,1]`$, quantify the degree of global asymmetry in the system. When $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫=\mathrm{A}_𝒦=0`$, no asymmetry signal is present (but note that the system need not be axisymmetric, or even symmetric in projection) while when $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫=\mathrm{A}_𝒦=1`$ the observed system is maximally asymmetric. In §3, we use simple models to explore the dependence of measurement errors on $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$.

### 2.3 More complicated density distributions

Several complications may arise, including multiple pattern speeds, non-stationary pattern speeds, solar motion, etc. Here we discuss issues related to violations of the density assumption in Eqn. 1, deferring discussion of solar motion to §2.4. Possible violations of Eqn. 1 include:

1. Multiple pattern speeds. The MWG has a bar and spirals, perhaps also a small lopsidedness; almost certainly all have different pattern speeds. To understand how these will affect the measurement, we suppose that there are $`n`$ non-axisymmetric features superposed, so that Eqn. 1 becomes $`\mu (x,y,t)=_{i=0}^n\mu _i(\rho ,\psi \mathrm{\Omega }_it)`$. Each of these asymmetries gives rise to integrals $`𝒫_i`$ and $`𝒦_i`$. Then, by the linearity of the continuity equation, we can write $`R_0_i\mathrm{\Omega }_i𝒫_i=_i𝒦_i𝒦`$. Dividing both sides by $`𝒫_i𝒫_i`$, we obtain $`R_0\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}=𝒦/𝒫`$, where $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is the average of the different pattern speeds, weighted by the $`𝒫_i`$’s. Thus the average is weighted by both the asymmetry and the density (since if $`\mu _1=s\mu _2`$ then $`𝒫_1=s𝒫_2`$). Therefore, small perturbations to the disk density do not contribute very significantly to $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. However, since the $`𝒫_i`$’s can be either positive or negative, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ is not limited to values in the range $`\mathrm{min}(\mathrm{\Omega }_i)`$ and $`\mathrm{max}(\mathrm{\Omega }_i)`$ (unless all the $`𝒫_i`$’s have the same sign). If distances are available, $`f(R)`$ can be varied, to test for such cancellations; otherwise, strong changes in the slope of $`𝒫`$ as a function of $`l_0`$ may be used to test for cancellations.

Note that winding spiral arms are a special case of the multiple pattern speed situation. In this case, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ is a continuously varying function of distance from the Galactic center. This case is discussed further in §6.1.
2. Radial oscillations. If such oscillations were present, Eqn. 1 would become $`\mu (x,y,t)=\mu (\rho +\rho _1e^{i\omega (tt_0)},\psi \mathrm{\Omega }_pt)`$, where we assume $`\rho _1`$ is small. The time-derivative term in the continuity equation therefore becomes

$$\frac{\mu }{t}\mathrm{\Omega }_p\frac{\mu }{\psi }i\omega \rho _1e^{i\omega t_0}\frac{\mu }{R}A_0+A_1.$$
(11)
The ratio $`|A_1/A_0|`$ is then given by $`\omega \rho _1/(2\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_d)`$, where, for concreteness, we have assumed that the disk is exponential with scale-length $`R_d`$ and the azimuthal density variation is of the form $`\mu (R)e^{2i\psi }`$. For a simple estimate, we assume $`\omega \mathrm{max}(\kappa )2\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Therefore we obtain $`|A_1/A_0|V_c\rho _1/\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_d\rho `$; at $`\rho =1`$ kpc, if the circular velocity is 220 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=60`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ and $`R_d=2.1`$ kpc (Bissantz et al. 2002), we obtain $`|A_1/A_0|1.7\rho _1`$ kpc<sup>-1</sup>. Thus radial oscillations with amplitude larger than about 100 pc will strongly interfere with the measurement of pattern speeds using the TW method. However, radial oscillations are expected to be strongly Landau damped, and it would be very surprising if the MWG exhibits large radial oscillations.
3. Growing amplitudes. In this case, we can replace Eqn. 1 with $`\mu (x,y,t)=\mu _0(\rho )+\mu _1(\rho ,\psi \mathrm{\Omega }_pt)e^{\alpha t}`$, where $`\alpha >0`$ ($`\alpha <0`$) represents a growing (damped) feature. The term $`\mu _0(\rho )`$ is included to make explicit the fact that the density of the feature grows at the expense of a background axisymmetric disc (for which $`𝒫=𝒦=0`$), to conserve the total mass. The time-derivative term is now replaced by

$$\frac{\mu }{t}=\mathrm{\Omega }_pe^{\alpha t}\frac{\mu }{\psi }+\alpha \mu _1e^{\alpha t}A_0+A_1.$$
(12)
It is possible to propagate the term in $`\alpha \mu _1`$ through the calculation, giving, in the 2D case

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0𝒫+\alpha _0^{\mathrm{}}_0^{2\pi }Rg(R)\mu _1𝑑l𝑑R=𝒦.$$
(13)
Eqn. 13 contains both $`f(R)`$ and $`g(R)`$, and therefore requires distance data for a solution. Lacking distances, we estimate the interference from growing features by the ratio $`|A_1/A_0|`$, which, for an $`m=2`$ azimuthal density variation, is given by $`|\alpha |/(2\mathrm{\Omega }_p)`$. Thus the growth term is important when the growth rate is of order the pattern speed (in which case it is safe to ignore damping). Since rapid growth is mostly restricted to the low amplitude, linear regime, while $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ can only be large enough for an accurate measurement once growth is nearly saturated, we expect that rapid growth is unlikely to significantly interfere with pattern speed measurements.

The most important growing structures are spirals. If they are modal, they can grow even when tightly wound. The theoretically computed growth rates vary substantially; e.g. the fastest growing two arm modes in the flat-rotation, cut-out discs of Evans & Read (1998) have $`0.03\mathrm{}<\alpha /2\mathrm{\Omega }_p\mathrm{}<0.29`$.
4. Time-varying pattern speeds. In this case, Eqn. 1 gets replaced by $`\mu (x,y,t)=\mu (\rho ,\psi \mathrm{\Omega }_p(t)t)`$. Although this introduces a new term, proportional to $`t\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_p}{t}`$, it also changes the angle derivative to one in the bar rest frame. A simple transformation to a time $`t^{}`$ in which the moment of observation is $`t^{}=0`$ recovers Eqn. 8. Thus a time-varying pattern speed does not disturb the TW method.

We have considered several violations of the density condition of Eqn. 1. Of these, perhaps the most likely are growing spirals, but it is unclear how rapidly growing spirals are. Most likely, if spirals are of sufficient amplitude to give large signals, then their growth rate cannot be too large. This may be sorted with more detailed data on the MWG density distribution than we currently have, such as will be available with future astrometric missions. For the present work, we have assumed that there are no (strong) non-axisymmetric structures with rapidly growing amplitudes.

### 2.4 Solar motion

We derived Equation (8) for an inertial frame. Any radial velocities that can be measured will be heliocentric, and therefore the motion of the Sun needs to be taken into account. The Sun’s velocity can be decomposed into two parts: a motion of the local standard of rest, $`𝐕_{\mathrm{𝐋𝐒𝐑}}`$, and the peculiar motion of the Sun relative to the LSR, $`𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}`$. We assume that the motion of the LSR consists of two parts, a tangential motion around the MWG centre with velocity $`𝐯_{\mathrm{𝐋𝐒𝐑}}=u_{\mathrm{LSR}}\widehat{𝐱}+V_{\mathrm{LSR}}\widehat{𝐲}`$, where $`\widehat{𝐱}`$ is in the direction towards the Galactic centre and $`\widehat{𝐲}`$ is the in-plane tangential direction. Then, if velocities in the heliocentric frame are labelled as $`𝐯_𝐢^{}`$, we can write $`v_{r,i}=(𝐯_{𝐢}^{}{}_{}{}^{}+𝐯_{})\widehat{𝐫}_𝐢=v_{r,i}^{}+𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}\widehat{𝐫}_𝐢+𝐯_{\mathrm{𝐋𝐒𝐑}}\widehat{𝐫}_𝐢=v_{r,i}^{}+𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}\widehat{𝐫}_𝐢+V_{\mathrm{LSR}}\mathrm{sin}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i+u_{LSR}\mathrm{cos}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i`$. Thus Equation (9) can be rewritten:

$`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ $``$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ (14)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_if(r_i)(v_{r,i}^{}+𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}\widehat{𝐫}_i)}{_if(r_i)\mathrm{sin}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i}}`$
$`u_{LSR}{\displaystyle \frac{_if(r_i)\mathrm{cos}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i}{_if(r_i)\mathrm{sin}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒦}{𝒫}}u_{\mathrm{LSR}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝒮}{𝒫}}.`$
This equation, which is the 3D form of the TW equation derived by Kuijken and Tremaine (1991), is used in the analysis of the OH/IR star sample below. It contains two quantities, $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ and $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ which must be determined from other data. Here, $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ includes the circular velocity; Reid et al. (1999) measured $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=219\pm 20`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for $`R_0=8`$ kpc, from the apparent proper motion of Sgr A, while from a similar measurement Backer & Sramek measured $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=234\pm 7`$. The uncertainty in $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ leads to a much larger uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$, largely because $`𝒮`$ depends on the $`\mathrm{cos}l_i`$’s, which do not cancel across $`l=0`$. The TW equation for external galaxies is similarly sensitive to the relative motion of the observer and the observed galaxy, but in that case reflection symmetry is used to minimize this sensitivity. In the absence of distance information, no similar symmetry argument can be deployed in the MWG. The solar peculiar motion, $`𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}`$, has been measured with HIPPARCOS data by Dehnen & Binney (1998). They found $`𝐯_{,\mathrm{𝐩𝐞𝐜}}=(U_0,V_0,W_0)=(10.00,5.25,7.17)\pm (0.36,0.62,0.38)`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. (These correspond to velocity components that are radially inwards, in the direction of Galactic rotation and vertically upwards, respectively.) In the absence of a radial motion of the LSR, we will then be measuring $`\mathrm{\Delta }V\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$, i.e. the negative of the solar velocity in the bar’s rest frame.

In the coordinate system we are working in, a star moving away from the LSR has a positive $`v_r`$; inside the solar circle, such stars will primarily be at positive $`l`$. Therefore, if a positive $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ is measured, this will correspond to a non-axisymmetric feature in the inner MWG with a pattern speed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p>\mathrm{\Omega }_{}`$, which must therefore be rotating in the same sense as the disc.

The variance in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ due to the errors in the Sun’s measured peculiar velocity is given by:

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Delta }V}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\sigma _{U_0}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(_if(r_i)\mathrm{cos}l_i\mathrm{cos}b_i\right)^2}{𝒫^2}}+\sigma _{V_0}^2`$ (15)
$`+\sigma _{W_0}^2{\displaystyle \frac{\left(_if(r_i)\mathrm{sin}b_i\right)^2}{𝒫^2}}`$
(where we have assumed that errors in position measurements are insignificant). Note that, in this expression, the dominant term is the coefficient of $`\sigma _{U_0}^2`$, since $`\mathrm{cos}l`$ is everywhere positive in the range $`\frac{\pi }{2}l\frac{\pi }{2}`$.

## 3 Tests

We now test the TW method on some simple models. Our goal is not so much to test for specific structures expected in the MWG, since such an approach would say more about our models, which we would like to keep simple. Rather, our goal here is to learn how reliable the TW method is under various observational constraints, such as the number of discrete tracers, signal strength, restricted ranges of $`l`$, etc. Errors from sources specific to our application are discussed in §5.

Models used to test the TW method need to have velocity fields which preserve the assumed density distribution, i.e. the assumption of Eqn. (1) needs to remain valid. However, because the continuity equation is purely kinematic, a model density distribution need not generate the potential required by the kinematics. Here we test the method on models for a bar and a spiral, with application to the OH/IR stars in the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey of Sevenster et al. (1997a,b & 2001) in mind. Since OH/IR stars are concentrated in the inner MWG, our tests assume that the non-axisymmetric structure is inside the Solar circle. We assume throughout that measurements of $`l`$, $`b`$ and $`v_r`$ for individual stars have only small errors, which we ignore, as is appropriate for this survey.

### 3.1 Bar pattern speeds

Tests of the method for a realistic bar can be obtained from $`N`$-body simulations. We tested Equation (9) for a selection of the bars in the fully self-consistent, $`N`$-body simulations of Debattista & Sellwood (2000), who measured $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ from the time rate of change of the phase of the $`m=2`$ Fourier component of the disc density. Here we present the results of several experiments using their “maximum disk” simulation at $`t=650`$, which is shown in Fig. 1, when the bar was fast ($`=1.1\pm 0.2`$). At this time, $`a_B=(2.6\pm 0.6)R_d`$ (where $`R_d`$ is the disc scale-length), which is about twice the size of the MWG bar. The viewer therefore was placed at $`4R_0/R_d5`$ (within the disc). The angle of the bar to the Sun-center line, $`\psi `$, was varied in the expected range ($`20^{}\psi 30^{}`$). The angle $`l_0`$, within which the integrals $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒦`$ were evaluated, was varied in the range $`30^{}l_060^{}`$. The simulation included $`102,000`$ disc particles; here we describe two experiments in which samples of 500 particles were selected. In the first experiment, particles were drawn using $`f(r)`$ a Gaussian with $`\overline{r}=2.25R_d`$ and $`\sigma _r=0.7R_d`$. The second experiment used a cosine probability: $`f(r)=\mathrm{cos}(\frac{r}{R_{max}}\frac{\pi }{2})`$ with $`R_{max}=6R_d`$ for $`rR_{max}`$ and $`f(r)=0`$ otherwise.

Fig. 2 plots the results, from which it is clear that the best results are obtained at large $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$; since the Gaussian probability selects particles in a more limited radial range, it often gives larger $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ and smaller errors. However, the cosine probability is likely to be more realistic for a flux-density-limited sample of tracers, since it preferentially selects nearby objects over distant ones. Fig. 2 show that, when $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫\mathrm{}>0.15`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦\mathrm{}>0.15`$, the expected error is on average $`17\%`$, and never worse than $`40\%`$.

Variations in $`\psi `$, $`l_0`$ and $`R_0`$ mattered to the errors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ only insofar as they changed $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$. For the Gaussian $`f(r)`$ experiment, increasing $`R_0`$ decreased $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$, with a corresponding increase in the fractional error. However, changes in $`\psi `$ (within our range) and $`l_0`$ did not substantially change $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$, and the error is not overly sensitive to variations in these parameters. For the cosine probability distribution, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ were insensitive to variations in all 3 parameters. It is particularly reassuring that the errors do not depend on $`l_0`$, provided that the bar is inside $`l_0`$.

### 3.2 Spiral pattern speeds

Stationary spiral models based on density wave theory are somewhat harder to construct. Since we have already demonstrated that the TW method works well for bars, which have larger non-circular motions than do spirals, a crude spiral model with purely circular orbits suffices for a spiral test. We therefore generated an exponential disc in the radial range $`1.5R_dr5R_d`$, consisting of two components, an axisymmetric component with particles on circular orbits at velocity 2.5 in some arbitrary units and a material (rather than wave) spiral part, which consisted of particles on circular orbits with constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=1`$. The spiral density varied tangentially as $`1+\mathrm{cos}2(\theta \theta _0)`$, where $`\theta _0=\mathrm{\Omega }_pt\mathrm{ln}(r)\mathrm{cot}\gamma `$, to produce two-armed logarithmic spirals of pitch-angle $`\gamma `$, which we set to $`20^{}`$. Both components were modelled by a Gaussian vertically, with equal scale-heights. The axisymmetric component accounted for $`\frac{2}{3}`$ of the total mass, producing a spiral contrast consistent with that observed in external galaxies (Rix & Zaritsky 1995). The spiral component is shown in Fig. 3.

Once we generated this system, we computed the integrals of Equation 9 for a variety of orientations. In Fig. 5, we plot the errors at $`l_030^{}`$ as before for the bar; in all cases the error is $`\mathrm{}<20\%`$ when $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫\mathrm{}>0.15`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦\mathrm{}>0.15`$. Since our rather crude spiral model included no random motions, we expect that more realistic errors will resemble those we found for the bar, provided signals are large.

Our analysis of one orientation on a sample of 500 stars, selected with a Gaussian probability of $`\overline{r}=5R_d`$ and $`\sigma _r=3R_d`$, is shown in Fig. 4; at $`l_0=45^{}`$, the error on $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ is $`7.5\%`$ for this case. Note that $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ are both less than 0.2 at $`l_0=45^{}`$, which is smaller than the signal seen in the OH/IR stars (§5). The results for this orientation bear a striking resemblance to those of the OH/IR stars discussed in §5.1.

We ran a variety of additional tests of the TW method on our simple spiral system, with varying system orientation, radial probability function, number of particles selected, and reduced spiral mass fraction. These cases gave results consistent with those shown in Fig. 5; unsurprisingly, we found that the error decreases as the number of particles is increased.

### 3.3 Synthesis of the tests

We have shown that, for 500 stars, we expect to be able to measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ with average errors of $`17\%`$, and always less than $`40\%`$, for either a bar or a spiral, provided that signals are large ($`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ $`\mathrm{}>0.15`$). Furthermore, we found that limiting $`l_0`$ does not lead to large errors, provided that the full non-axisymmetric structure is included.

In addition to the tests described above, we also experimented with other parameters, with results generally in agreement with those presented here. The notable exception was the case of discontinuous $`f(r)`$’s, which gave large errors. Such errors can be understood in terms of noisy surface terms in the integrals. Lacking distance information, $`f(r)`$ can only be a continuous function, corresponding to the detection probability.

## 4 The OH/IR Star Catalogue

### 4.1 OH/IR stars

OH/IR stars are oxygen-rich, cool AGB stars in the superwind phase (Renzini 1981) with typical $`\dot{M}10^5`$ Myr<sup>-1</sup>. The wind outflow velocity, $`V_\mathrm{e}`$, is $`1030`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with $`V_\mathrm{e}`$ larger in the more massive (younger) OH/IR stars. The mass-loss rate is large compared to the stellar mass (typically, 1 to 6 M) and the superwind phase is therefore believed to be very short-lived $`10^{56}`$ yr (Whitelock & Feast 1993). Thus they are rare objects. On the other hand, they are old objects, with ages $`18`$ Gyr, and are therefore dynamically relatively relaxed. The dusty circumstellar envelope which forms from the outflowing material absorbs the stellar radiation and re-emits it in the infrared, pumping OH masers (Elitzur et al. 1976) in the process. In optically-thick envelopes, the strongest line of this maser is at 1612.23 MHz which is conveniently insensitive to interstellar extinction. The Doppler shifted profile from the front and back of the thin OH shell permits easy identification of OH/IR stars, which makes possible an unbiased survey of these objects, tracing the kinematics of the inner MWG. A full review of the properties of OH/IR stars can be found in Habing (1996).

### 4.2 The ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey

We have used the data from the OH/IR star catalogue to search for pattern speeds in the inner MWG. The data were obtained in 3 surveys: the ATCA-bulge and ATCA-disc surveys (Sevenster et al. 1997a,b) at the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), covering $`45.25^{}l10.25^{}`$, $`|b|3.25^{}`$ and the VLA-disc survey (Sevenster et al. 2001) at the Very Large Array (VLA), covering $`4.75^{}l45.25^{}`$, $`|b|3.25^{}`$. The ATCA region was covered uniformly with 1449 pointings. On the other hand, only $`92\%`$ of the VLA region was surveyed, with 965 pointings out of 1053 giving useful data. In all, the surveys produced 793 detections. The ATCA-bulge and VLA-disc surveys have a small overlap region ($`4.75^{}l10.25^{}`$). In this overlap region, 27 sources were observed in both surveys, thus only 766 independent sources were found. However, the overlap region also included detections in either only the VLA-disc or only the ATCA-bulge survey, which is, in part, a manifestation of the intrinsic variability of OH/IR stars.

Details of the reduction technique for the 3 surveys are contained in Sevenster et al. (1997a,b) and Sevenster et al. (2001). Of the 793 detections, no outflow velocity was measured in 105 sources. Since such objects can be supergiants or even star-forming regions, rather than OH/IR stars, and don’t have well–determined velocities, we have excluded them from our analysis.

The use of two separate instruments for compiling the catalogue introduces a systematic difference in the completenesses of the two sides of the MWG. We corrected for the (empirically determined) completenesses, rewriting Equation (8):

$$\mathrm{\Delta }V=\frac{_p\left(C_p^1_{sp}v_{r,s}\right)}{_p\left(C_p^1_{sp}\mathrm{sin}l_s\mathrm{cos}b_s\right)},$$
(16)
where $`_p`$ is a sum over pointings, $`_{sp}`$ is a sum over stars detected in pointing $`p`$ and $`C_p`$ is the completeness of pointing $`p`$. The completenesses consist of two terms: $`C_p=C_{p,a}C_{p,n}`$. The first term, $`C_{p,a}`$, is a measure of the fraction of the surveyed area that is within some threshold radius. For this purpose, all VLA pointings, including the missing ones, were treated identically, and the $`C_{p,a}`$’s were calculated by Monte-Carlo integration. The threshold radii were set by requiring a constant primary beam response (PBR) threshold, equal in both telescopes, for each pointing centre. The PBR of the two instruments is shown in Fig. 6; Table 1 lists several PBR levels, with the corresponding offset radii and values of $`C_{p,a}`$.

The second term, $`C_{p,n}`$, is a completeness due to the noise level, and varies from pointing to pointing. The $`C_{p,n}`$’s were obtained from the observed OH/IR star cumulative flux density distribution, $`N_{}`$, shown in Fig. 7, as the fraction of stars between the flux limits which are brighter than the detection threshold of each pointing. This is computed in the following way:

$$C_{p,n}=\frac{N_{}(\mathrm{max}(f_{min},N_s\sigma _p)ff_{max})}{N_{}(f_{min}ff_{max})}.$$
(17)
Here, $`f_{min}`$ and $`f_{max}`$ are the flux density limits we use, $`\sigma _p`$ is the noise in pointing $`p`$ and $`N_s`$ is the multiplicative detection threshold ($`N_s=7,4,6`$ empirically determined for VLA-disc, ATCA-bulge, ATCA-disc respectively). We chose $`f_{min}=0.16`$ Jy, since this is the highest of the lower absolute detection thresholds of the 3 surveys, and no upper limit on $`f`$. The noise level was more variable in the VLA-disc survey then in the ATCA surveys. In Fig. 8, we plot the resulting distribution of the $`C_{p,n}`$’s.

The three surveys had different velocity coverages: the ATCA-bulge survey covered $`280`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ $`v_r300`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the ATCA-disc survey covered $`295`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ $`v_r379`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, while the VLA-disc survey had full coverage in the range $`200`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ $`v_r210`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Thus the three surveys had full common velocity coverage from -200 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to 200 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. A considerable number of detections were obtained at $`|v_r|>200`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, but these are mostly at $`|l|5^{}`$. One detection was obtained at 270 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the ATCA-disc survey, but as this turned out to be a single-peaked object anyway, it was excluded from our analysis.

Typical errors in positions are $`1^{\prime \prime }`$ for the ATCA surveys and $`2^{\prime \prime }`$ for VLA-disc survey. These position errors introduce negligible errors in the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$, as can be appreciated from Equation 8. The velocity errors are of order 1 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the ATCA surveys, and 2.5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the VLA-disc survey. The velocity errors produce larger errors in $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$, although, as will be seen below, these are still quite small.

The values of $`v_r`$ reported in Sevenster et al. (1997a,b and 2001) included a correction for an assumed solar peculiar motion of 19.7 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ towards RA = 18:07:50.3, Dec = +30:00:52 (J2000.0). For this study, we are adopting the solar peculiar motion found by Dehnen & Binney (1998); we have therefore had to transform from the Sevenster et al. frame to that of Dehnen & Binney.

The mass, and therefore age and luminosity, of OH/IR stars correlate with $`V_\mathrm{e}`$. For example, Sevenster (2001) finds that OH/IR stars with $`V_\mathrm{e}=13(17.5)`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ have a mass of roughly $`1.7(4)M_{}`$ and therefore an age of 1.8 (0.2) Gyr. We can anticipate, therefore, that we will need to make cuts on $`V_\mathrm{e}`$. However, the $`V_\mathrm{e}`$’s have been measured in units of half the channel-widths (2.27 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the VLA-disc survey, and 1.46 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the ATCA surveys). To compensate for this effective binning, we have randomized the outflow velocities within each bin. We did this in a number of ways with similar results once random re-samplings were performed; we have therefore relied on the simplest approach, namely to add to each $`V_\mathrm{e}`$ a random value distributed uniformly between -1.2 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and 1.2 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The luminosity, $`L_{}`$, of OH/IR stars increases with $`V_\mathrm{e}`$: simple models predict $`V_\mathrm{e}^4L_{}`$, while more sophisticated models predict $`V_\mathrm{e}^{3.3}L_{}`$ (Habing et al. 1994). Thus a flux density-limited sample will probe to different distances for different $`V_\mathrm{e}`$. In Fig. 9 we plot the maximum longitude, $`|l|_{\mathrm{max}}`$, of OH/IR stars versus $`V_\mathrm{e}`$, from which it can be seen that OH/IR stars of low $`V_\mathrm{e}`$ are found only at small $`|l|`$. We interpret this as resulting from the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey being able to detect only the very nearest faint OH/IR stars of a distribution ending inside the solar circle. For the faint stars, the effect of small scale number density fluctuations is large, both because only a small portion of the disc is seen and because the number of such stars is low. We have therefore chosen to exclude all OH/IR stars with $`V_\mathrm{e}<10`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The TW method requires a sample of stars that form a relatively relaxed population; a convenient cutoff criterion would be at least 2.5 rotations at 6 kpc. This requires ages greater than 0.5 Gyr, or $`V_\mathrm{e}16`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. However, since we have had to randomize the outflow velocities we used only stars with $`V_\mathrm{e}15`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, to minimize contamination by very young stars. Thus our final range in outflow velocities is $`10`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ $`V_\mathrm{e}15`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is expected to cover a distance range of 4 to 10 kpc from the Sun. The lower limit removes roughly $`10\%`$ of stars from the sample, while the upper limit removes a further $`35\%`$.

## 5 Results

### 5.1 A pattern speed in the disc

We computed $`𝒫`$, $`𝒦`$, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ for $`5^{}l_045^{}`$ in steps of $`1^{}`$. We set $`f_{min}=0.16`$ Jy, PBR = 0.5 and excluded OH/IR stars with $`|v_r|>280`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We tried both using the ATCA and the VLA in the overlap region. At each $`l_0`$, the values reflect averages over 100 Monte-Carlo experiments containing slightly different samples. In these experiments, the $`V_\mathrm{e}`$’s were randomized in their bins (as described above) and Gaussian random errors of $`\sigma _v=5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ added to the radial velocities. These results are presented in Fig. 10. It is immediately clear that there is effectively no difference between using the ATCA or the VLA in the overlap region. Therefore, since the ATCA survey tends to be less noisy, we use it from here on. For $`l_025^{}`$, both $`𝒫`$ and $`𝒦`$ are small and roughly constant, while $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ are noisy, suggesting they are strongly affected by Poisson noise. In the range $`25^{}l_033^{}`$, $`𝒫`$, $`𝒦`$, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ all grow very rapidly. At $`l_033^{}`$, there is a sudden change in the slope of the number of included stars, which is associated with almost constant $`𝒫`$, $`𝒦`$, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ at $`l_033^{}`$. In this region, both $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ are $`\mathrm{}>0.15`$, which our simple tests of §3 suggest is large enough for moderate error levels. Averaging over $`l_035^{}`$, we obtain $`𝒦/𝒫=263\pm 44`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, where we have used one half of the difference between the maximum and minimum value for the error estimate since the values of $`𝒦/𝒫`$ at different $`l_0`$ are not independent. Then, if $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$, $`R_0=8`$ kpc and $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (which we assume for the remainder of this paper except where otherwise noted), $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=60\pm 6`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$.

Another way of presenting the data of Fig. 10 is shown in Fig. 11, where we plot the same data for $`l_0=45^{}`$ but without the averaging of the various values of $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒫`$ resulting from the Monte-Carlo reshufflings of $`V_\mathrm{e}`$. In the upper panel of this figure, we also plot lines of constant $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ (40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$) assuming $`R_0=8`$ kpc and $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$ and for $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. For the $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$ case, the various re-samplings have average $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=57`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, while in the case of $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, average $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=45`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, graphically demonstrating the sensitivity of the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ obtained to a small radial LSR motion. The bottom panel also shows the effect of varying $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ and $`R_0`$, demonstrating that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ increases with decreasing $`R_0`$ and/or increasing $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$. However, we will not be concerned here with errors on $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$, $`R_0`$ and $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$; $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ enters only in the ratio $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}/R_0`$, which has been determined to $`10\%`$ accuracy, $`R_0`$ is determined to even higher accuracy, while the effect of $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ is considered in §5.4. Note that the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ obtained this way is slightly different from that obtained by averaging over $`l_0`$; since the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ at different $`l_0`$ are not independent, we quote values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ based on $`l_0=45^{}`$ only from now on.

### 5.2 Is it real?

Before proceeding further, we present evidence that the signal we have measured is real, and not a result of a systematic error in either our analysis or the OH/IR star surveys. Since $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒫`$ measure differences, any systematic error in our calculated completenesses of the VLA or ATCA survey will be amplified into a signal. Several reasons lead us to believe that this has not happened. Firstly, the signals of Fig. 10 first become evident at a very clear region in the disc, which is well correlated with an observed structure. In Fig. 12, we present contour maps of the surface density of OH/IR stars in the survey. These clearly show the presence of very significant over-densities localized at $`l25^{}`$ and $`l32^{}`$.

While, there are roughly equal number of stars at positive and negative $`l`$, (despite the missing pointings, smaller PBHW and greater noise in the VLA survey), for $`25^{}<|l|<33^{}`$, there are 13 OH/IR stars at negative $`l`$ and 24 at positive $`l`$, which has less than $`10\%`$ probability, even without taking the lower VLA detection probability into account. Thus, when all the $`C_p`$’s are set to 1 (i.e. when no completeness corrections are included), the qualitative behavior of $`𝒫`$, $`𝒦`$, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ is unchanged, although, as is to be expected, signals are then smaller.

Systematic errors in the completenesses are not likely to be the source of this signal. Suppose errors of the form $`C_{\mathrm{ATCA}}^{}=C_{\mathrm{ATCA}}(1+\delta C_{\mathrm{ATCA}})`$ and/or $`C_{\mathrm{VLA}}^{}=C_{\mathrm{VLA}}(1+\delta C_{\mathrm{VLA}})`$ were present, and suppose further that the OH/IR stars sample only an axisymmetric part of the disc. It is then easy to show that $`\delta C_{\mathrm{VLA}}\delta C_{\mathrm{ATCA}}𝒫/𝒫_{}`$ which is approximately equal to $`17/35`$ in our case. Since the noise errors are random, such a large systematic error would have to be in the values of the areal completenesses, which corresponds to roughly an overestimate (underestimate) by $`20\%`$ in the radius at any given PBR for the ATCA (VLA). Such a large error is impossible since the PBR of both instruments is well determined. A systematic effect might be introduced by the different channel widths of the VLA and the ATCA, but the similarity of the flux density distributions between the VLA and the ATCA side suggests that, at most, this is a $`10\%`$ effect. Furthermore, this effect acts to under-estimate the flux density of the sources detected by the VLA, so that $`f_{min}`$ would remove from our sample more VLA stars than ATCA stars, which would make $`𝒫`$ negative, which is the opposite sign from what we found.

Further evidence that the signal of Fig. 10 is real comes from the dependence of the signal on $`b`$. We explored the effects of limits in $`b`$, finding that most of the non-axisymmetric signal comes from very close to the MWG plane, with little signal at $`|b|1^{}`$ (which divides our sample of OH/IR stars into two roughly equal parts). This is unsurprising for a disc population: at 6 kpc, $`1^{}`$ corresponds to roughly the disc scale-height. We found considerable fluctuations in the value of $`𝒦/𝒫`$ at $`l_035^{}`$ obtained from $`|b|1^{}`$, reinforcing the impression that the settling of $`𝒦/𝒫`$ in the previous experiments is not caused by systematic errors, e.g. in the completenesses.

All these facts make it likely, therefore, that the signal is intrinsic to the sample. Finally, it is perhaps worth drawing attention to the suggestive similarity between Fig. 4 and Fig. 10.

Although the derived value of $`𝒦/𝒫`$ is nearly constant in the range $`35^{}l_045^{}`$, we cannot completely exclude that extending the survey to larger $`l_0`$ would not lead to a different $`𝒦/𝒫`$. However, the density of OH/IR stars is decreasing rapidly at $`l_0=45^{}`$: an extrapolation of the binned surface density suggests that their surface density will vanish at around $`l_060^{}`$, as is also suggested by the dynamical models of Sevenster et al. (2000). Observationally, Le Squeren et al. (1992) found that the distribution of OH/IR stars is concentrated inside $`|l|70^{}`$, with only roughly $`15\%`$ of sources outside this range. Physically, this steep drop-off is the result of a metallicity gradient in the MWG disc: at the lower metallicities typical of the outer disc, AGB stars are more likely to evolve into carbon stars. Thus, even if there is still non-axisymmetric structure outside $`l=\pm 45^{}`$, it is not likely to change the derived value of $`𝒦/𝒫`$ for the OH/IR population very significantly.

### 5.3 Missing pointings and radial velocities

The error introduced by the missing VLA pointings is systematic in $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒫`$, in that it always reduces the VLA (i.e. positive) contribution to these terms; however, the sign of the resulting change in $`𝒦/𝒫`$ is not obvious. Of 88 missing pointings, 18 are in the overlap region. In general, therefore, we chose to use the ATCA pointings in the overlap region, to minimize the effect of missing pointings. To estimate the effect of the remaining missing pointings (70 of 88), we tried to reconstruct the missing pointings by reflection about the mid-plane where possible (49 pointings). Where this was not possible (21 pointings), we have simply averaged the value in the 4 nearest pointings, or the subset of them which were not themselves missing pointings. With these changes but all else as before, $`𝒫`$, $`𝒦`$, $`\mathrm{A}_𝒫`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_𝒦`$ increase somewhat, but $`𝒦/𝒫`$ changes to $`239\pm 30`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is not significantly different from our previous values. The reason for this robustness to missing pointings can be understood by comparing the number of pointings and of OH/IR stars. Our sample contains 73 OH/IR stars detected in 840 good VLA pointings. With these probabilities, we estimate that $`\mathrm{}<70\times 0.096`$ OH/IR stars have been missed because of missing VLA pointings not in the ATCA overlap region.

Due to observational constraints, we considered only OH/IR stars with $`|v_r|280`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We experimented with reducing the maximum $`|v_r|`$ further to test how our limit might have affected our value of $`𝒦/𝒫`$. Radial velocities this large are expected to occur only in the bulge region, and indeed, the biggest relative changes in $`𝒦`$ were at small $`l_0`$, but these propagated to small changes in $`𝒦`$ at large $`l_0`$. It is only at $`|v_r|250`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ that stars begin to leave the sample, and $`𝒦/𝒫`$ decreases slowly for smaller maximum $`|v_r|`$, reaching $`229\pm 40`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at $`|v_r|200`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is still smaller than $`1\sigma `$. We therefore conclude that it is unlikely that our modest cuts in $`|v_r|`$ has resulted in a large systematic error in $`𝒦/𝒫`$.

### 5.4 Radial motion of the LSR

A non-zero radial velocity of the LSR, $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$, cannot be excluded. For our OH/IR star sample, $`𝒮/𝒫18`$. Thus even a quite small $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ will drastically alter the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$: if $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}14`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, then $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ changes by $`100\%`$. An accurate measurement of $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ is therefore needed.

Averaging the 197 OH/IR stars at $`10^{}l10^{}`$ (i.e. the ATCA-bulge survey), we estimated $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=+2.7\pm 6.8`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (the plus sign indicating that the motion is away from the Galactic centre). Similarly, Kuijken & Tremaine (1994) used a variety of tracers (OH/IR stars, globular clusters, high velocity stars, planetary nebulae, etc.) to obtain $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=1\pm 9`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Perhaps the best constraint on $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ is that of Radhakrishnan & Sarma (1980), who showed that the main component in the HI absorption spectrum of Sgr A has a mean line-of-sight velocity $`\overline{v_R}=0.23\pm 0.06`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Since this absorbing material is presumably outside the inner region of the MWG and within 6-7 kpc from the Sun, this means that a wide band of material is moving at a common radial velocity. While it is possible to construct models in which $`d\overline{v}_R/dR`$ is zero but with non-zero $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ (e.g. Blitz & Spergel 1991), the most natural explanation is that $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$ is zero to this level; if $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0.23`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, this changes $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ by $`4`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

### 5.5 Sampling experiments and error estimates

We now estimate the errors arising from sampling, which should be the largest source of errors for our small sample. We do this by re-sampling the data; however, since arbitrary resamplings will increase the noise, we first sorted the OH/IR stars by $`V_\mathrm{e}`$, then took sub-samples of 220, 230 and 240 consecutive stars. At each sub-sample size, we generated 1000 different reshufflings of the $`V_\mathrm{e}`$’s (since we always used $`10V_\mathrm{e}15`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the number of combinations of OH/IR stars, and therefore the number of different values of $`𝒦`$ versus $`𝒫`$ is smaller than 1000). The results are presented in Fig. 13, which shows clearly that there is quite a fair amount of scatter in the values of $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒫`$. The median value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V=252\pm 41`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$; this corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=59\pm 5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$. Therefore, as an estimate of the sampling noise, we adopt 5 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$.

The error estimate on $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ from sampling is consistent with the results we found in §3, and with the estimate based on variations in $`l_0`$. We further test this error estimate by taking a sub-sample of PBR = 0.6, which gives about 180 stars. Then the average $`\mathrm{\Delta }V=175\pm 23`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which is within $`2\sigma `$ of the result for the full sample. Since this is an even smaller sample than our main sample, it should be even noisier than our full sample. We conclude that our sampling error error estimate is reasonable. (Higher PBR levels give even smaller samples and require larger areal corrections (see Table 1), which make them too susceptible to noise. We have therefore not attempted to use PBR levels above 0.6.)

We have experimented with other sub-samples; in all cases we found that the results were not statistically different from the results we presented above. However, we found that the average $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ tends to systematically increase as the upper cutoff on $`V_\mathrm{e}`$ is decreased. Thus, for example, we find that for $`10V_\mathrm{e}14.5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (212 stars), the average $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=64`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ while for $`10V_\mathrm{e}14.0`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (181 stars), the average $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=69`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$. The same trend was seen when we increased the upper $`V_\mathrm{e}`$ to 16 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, although in that case we are less certain that the population is relaxed. While all these results are consistent with 59 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ within $`2\sigma `$, the systematic behavior suggests that there is a systematic error, perhaps due to the population not being fully relaxed. We take as an estimate of this error 10 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$.

## 6 Discussion and Conclusions

The results of our study of the OH/IR stars in the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey give us a pattern speed of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=59\pm 5\pm 10`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ (internal and estimated systematic errors respectively) for $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$, $`R_0=8`$ kpc and $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. If the rotation curve stays flat between the region of the non-axisymmetry and the Sun, then the corotation radius is $`3.7\pm 0.3_{0.5}^{+0.8}`$ kpc, while the main non-axisymmetric feature in question appears to be centered at $`l30^{}`$, i.e. $``$ 4.0 kpc if it is seen tangentially. If this is the full extent of this non-axisymmetric feature, then $`=0.9\pm 0.1_{0.1}^{+0.2}`$, which is fast in the usual definition. However it is possible that the feature is not being viewed tangentially and extends somewhat further out, in which case $``$ would be smaller.

Which feature in the MWG disc can be responsible for the signal we have measured? While the TW method has the great advantage of being model independent, the result is that, in the absence of distance information, it is hard to identify the feature responsible for the pattern speed measured. For such a fast feature, the MWG bar would seem to be the natural explanation. However, the longitude at which the non-axisymmetric signal peaks is somewhat larger than what present models of the MWG would have (e.g. Gerhard 2001, but see Hammersley et al. 2000, who have recently claimed evidence of a second, larger bar in the MWG).

The small latitude of the main part of the signal implies a disc source, while the large longitude suggests the signal arises mostly from spirals, particularly at the tangent point of the Scutum spiral arm. The high value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ and the relatively small $``$ may hint at a coupling to the bar; perhaps it is even an inner ring, rather than a spiral arm. Such rings are often found in external barred galaxies (Buta 1995), and are elongated along the bar, so that they co-rotate with the bars which they contain. Such a ring has been postulated in the MWG (e.g. Sevenster & Kalnajs 2001).

The pattern speed measured must, in fact, be a density and asymmetry weighted average of all the non-axisymmetric structure in the survey region, which is known to include a bar, various spirals and perhaps a ring. Note that there is no evidence of substantial cancellation of $`𝒫`$ in Fig. 10. For various sub-samples, we find some marginal evidence for multiple pattern speeds: when we divided our full sample into bright (flux density $`>0.854`$ Jy) and faint (flux density $`<0.854`$ Jy) sub-samples, we found $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=49\pm 6`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=71\pm 14`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$ respectively, together with some evidence of signals peaking at different $`l_0`$. Since the bright (faint) sub-sample is, on average, expected to be closer to (further from) the Sun and further from (closer to) the Galactic centre, the lower (higher) pattern speed is not unexpected. However, these sub-samples are even smaller than our already small full sample, and the differences are not statistically significant. Multiple pattern speeds can be better studied with larger samples of tracers.

### 6.1 Future prospects

In the future, it will be possible to improve on our measurement in a variety of ways. Our main limitation was the small sample of objects; larger samples will provide one means of improving on our measurement. At present, the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey is the only large scale complete survey of a population satisfying the continuity equation. Kuijken & Tremaine (1991) applied the TW method to the Galactic HI, which covers the entire disc, but this is unlikely to satisfy continuity, particularly in the presence of a bar. However, systematic surveys of other populations are now in progress (e.g. planetary nebulae Beaulieu et al. 2000; SiO masers Deguchi et al. 2001) or planned (Honma et al. 2000); these may be used for similar measurements.

Accurate distance information will lead to an important refinement in the method. Future astrometric satellites, such as ESA’s GAIA, will measure radial velocities together with distance. Not only will GAIA provide samples many orders larger than the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey, but it will also be possible to drop the assumption of one pattern speed. Then, if the pattern speed is some function of Galacto-centric radius only, we can write

$`{\displaystyle \mathrm{\Omega }_p(\rho )\mu (\rho ,\psi )\mathrm{cos}\psi \rho ^2f(R)𝑑\psi 𝑑\rho }`$
$`={\displaystyle \mu (\rho ,\psi )\rho v_R(\rho ,\psi )f(R)𝑑\psi 𝑑\rho },`$ (18)
where $`(\rho ,\psi )`$ are Galacto-centric polar coordinates, $`R`$ is the usual distance from the Sun, and for simplicity we have ignored both the third dimension and LSR motion. This is a Fredholm integral equation of the first kind for the unknown function $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p(\rho )`$; techniques for the solution of such equations, including numerical methods, are well established. The main difficulty with a solution of this equation probably arises in regularising the solution at helio-centric radii $`R`$ at which the integrals are small or vanish, as must happen for a spiral, but a detailed discussion of these issues is beyond the scope of this paper. Such data will make it possible to test theories of spiral structure in greater detail than has been possible to now.

### 6.2 Conclusions

We derived a 3D version of the Tremaine-Weinberg method for the Milky Way Galaxy. The method, as developed here, is based on the assumption that the density distribution can be expressed as in Eqn. 1. Thus we have assumed one pattern speed only; if multiple pattern speeds are present, then an average pattern speed is measured, as discussed in §2.3. Moreover, we have assumed that any rapidly growing structure present has low amplitude. We argued that this is likely to be the case since large amplitude features cannot sustain large growth for long.

We tested the method on simple models of bars and spirals, selecting samples of 500 discrete tracers, to show that it is possible to measure pattern speeds with average error of $`17\%`$, and always better than $`40\%`$, provided that asymmetry signals are sufficiently large, as described in §3. We then extracted a sample of some 250 OH/IR stars from the ATCA/VLA OH 1612 MHz survey and applied the method to these stars. This gave $`𝒦/𝒫=252\pm 41`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, from which we obtain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p=59\pm 5`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, with a possible systematic error of perhaps 10 $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{kpc}^1`$, if $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=220`$ $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`R_0=8`$ kpc and $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}=0`$ (for other values of $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$, $`R_0`$ or $`u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$ can be obtained from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_pR_0V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=252\pm 4118u_{\mathrm{LSR}}`$). The sample is quite small and the detection is only significant at about the $`90\%`$ level. Future larger samples will improve this situation; we sketch how distance data combined with the projected position and line-of-sight velocity data used in our study will lead to a substantial improvement in our knowledge of the pattern speed(s) in the Milky Way Galaxy.

This work was partly supported by grant # 20-56888.99 from the Swiss National Science Foundation. We thank the anonymous referee for comments which helped improve this paper.


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# Retroactive Coherence

## 1 Introduction

Interference can occur when there are two paths for light propagation from a source to an observer. In gravitational microlensing (Alcock, et.al. (2000), Wozniak, et.al. (2001), Derue, et.al. (1999)) wavetrains from a point on the source star travel on two paths, and the wave amplitudes are combined before the light is detected. The lensing geometry has the potential to produce interference, and applications of gravitational lensing interference have been considered for wavelength regimes from radio waves to gamma rays (Mandzhos (1981), Schneider and Schmid-Burgk (1985), Deguchi and Watson (1988), Peterson and Falk (1991), Gould (1992), Stanek, Paczynski and Goodman (1993), Ulmer and Goodman (1995)). As many of these authors note, interference visibility will be diminished if the difference of the length of the two paths exceeds the coherence length of the light.

The light sources in gravitational microlensing are incoherent. In many microlensing examples the light sources are stars and stellar photospheres emit primarily blackbody radiation. The temporal coherence length of this light is $`L_{coh}=ct_{coh}=c/\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$, where $`c`$ is the speed of light, $`t_{coh}`$ is the coherence time and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is the half-power bandwidth of the source emission spectrum. Because of the large bandwidth of the blackbody spectrum, the coherence length $`L_{coh}`$ is about equal to the peak wavelength. Blackbody emission is often labeled “incoherent”.

Blackbody emission can be modeled as a continuous stream of short wavepackets. Figure 1 shows wavepackets of length $`L_{coh}`$ traveling on two paths from source to observer around a lensing mass. Because the wavepackets do not overlap at arrival, the short coherence length of the light would seem to indicate that gravitational lensing interference is undetectable except in cases where the path length difference amounts to just a few wavelengths. However, this is not correct, as the experiment described below demonstrates.

Coherence can be established retroactively. After incoherent light has passed through the interference apparatus (in the lab or in the Universe), it can be filtered to a narrow bandwidth and that filtered light will have a new, longer coherence length. This allows gravitational microlensing interference to be observed for large path length differences.

In this Letter I present results of a laboratory experiment, carried out using a Michelson interferometer, which demonstrates retroactive coherence.

## 2 Two Path Coherence

An analysis of partial coherence for two path geometries is presented in Born and Wolfe (1980). I adapt their analysis to the present purpose.

To describe the degree of interference seen in the patterns formed by his interferometers Michelson defined a quantity called the interference visibility $`V(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})=(I_{max}I_{min})/(I_{max}+I_{min})`$. Here the maximum and minimum of the intensity $`I_{max}`$ and $`I_{min}`$ are taken as the path length difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}`$ varies. $`V`$ ranges from 0 to 1, and generally has a maximum at zero path difference.

For two-path gravitational microlensing, or for light that passes through a Michelson interferometer, the detected intensity is

$$I(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})=<|\sqrt{I_1}f(t)+\sqrt{I_2}f(t+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c)|^2>_T$$
(1)
where $`I_1`$ and $`I_2`$ are the intensities on the two paths, $`f(t)`$ is a complex function describing the time variation of the arriving field strength on the shorter path, and $`f(t+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c)`$ is the same function shifted in time by the path delay difference. $`f`$ is normalized, i.e. $`<f^{}(t)f(t)>=1`$, and assumed to be stationary. $`T`$ is the duration of the observation, the time over which the intensity is averaged, and is taken to be much longer than $`t_{coh}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c`$.

The total intensity is then

$$I(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})=I_1+I_2+2\sqrt{I_1I_2}Re(<f^{}(t)f(t+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c)>_T)$$
(2)
The last term describes the interference is also called the real part of the complex degree of coherence $`\gamma (\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})=<f(t)^{}f(t+\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c)>`$.

For an optical frequency band centered at $`\nu _c`$ the magnitude of the degree of coherence is related to the interference visibility by $`Re(\gamma (\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}))=V(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})cos(2\pi \nu _c\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}/c)`$.

The autocorrelation of the wave amplitude $`\gamma `$ is the fourier transform of the power spectral density $`P(\nu )`$ of the light and the coherence length is the width of the function $`|\gamma _{12}(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{})|`$. This means that decreasing the bandwidth of the observation, i.e. forcing $`P(\nu )`$ to zero outside a narrow range of frequencies, increases the coherence length and makes interference visible at large path length differences. The experiment described below shows that this is true even when the bandwidth restriction occurs after the light has passed through the interference apparatus.

## 3 Laboratory Analog of Lensing Interference

I set up a laboratory analog of gravitational lensing interference using a Michelson interferometer, as shown in figure 2. In the experiment light from a laboratory thermal source arrives at a partially reflecting beam splitter which divides the light among two paths. These paths are the two orthogonal arms of the interferometer. At the ends of the arms mirrors return the light to the beam splitter with a path length difference that can be adjusted. The beam splitter recombines the light before it passes through the exit aperture.

Filtering the light restores interference visibility. In gravitational lensing the path length varies with time because of relative motion among the source, lensing masses, and the observer. In the Michelson interferometer, the path lengths are stable but the interferometer can be adjusted to give various path lengths through various parts of the instrument. I tilted one mirror slightly so zero path length difference occurs only at a line dividing the pattern vertically. The pattern is also divided horizontally. The top half of the exit aperture of the interferometer is unblocked and here the full bandwidth of the thermal source contributes to the interference pattern. The bottom half of the exit aperture is covered by a narrow-band ($`486nm\pm 15nm`$) filter. In figure 3 the results of the experiment are displayed. For white light the visibility falls almost to zero within a few fringes. For filtered light the visibility remains near one for the entire width of the pattern.

Considering the frequency domain it is easy to see how coherence is restored through bandwidth restriction: the white light interference pattern is composed of many narrow-band patterns overlaid. The spacing of the fringes is proportional to wavelength. For all wavelengths, the patterns are aligned in the center of the image, at zero path difference. The central few fringes have high visibility but, away from the center of the image, the pattern develops colored stripes, as red and blue fringe patterns separate in phase. At the edge of the pattern the visibility has fallen nearly to zero because of cancellation, among the various wavelengths, of constructive and destructive interference. By selecting a narrow range of frequencies cancellation is avoided and the interference becomes visible across the entire field. This is shown in the right panel of figure 3.

In the time domain a puzzle remains: how can short coherence length wave packets, which don’t overlap as they exit the interferometer, create visible interference at large path length differences? The answer is that the filter stores multiply delayed copies of the wave train incident upon it. Interference occurs among these copies. Light storage in a filter is illustrated in figure 4.

## 4 Discussion

In the experiment described here a single narrow filter is used to restrict the passband of the observation. Most of the optical power from the source is blocked by this filter. In a gravitational microlensing observation a spectrophotometer could be used instead of a filter. This would divide the spectrum into many narrow passbands, each acting as a narrow filter. This allows all the optical power to be used in the observation. For a spectrophotometer the coherence time $`t_{coh}`$ is the reciprocal of the frequency resolution.

Although temporal coherence can be increased by using high spectral resolution, limited lateral spatial coherence remains a factor reducing lensing interference visibility for most geometries studied so far. As described in the references above, the path length difference varies from point to point across the disk of a source star. The total variation is generally many wavelengths, and this substantially reduces interference visibility.

Occasionally, microlensing events include caustic crossings. At the first crossing two new, high magnification paths appear. These paths have the same length at first so the size of the laterally coherent region (Jaroszynski and Paczynski (1995), Gould and Gaudi (1997) ) can cover a much larger part of the source disk than in the more common Schwarzschild case.

A Michelson interferometer is useful, not just as a laboratory analog of gravitational lensing interference, but also as a tool for observation of the effect. Microlensed light, collected with a telescope, can be passed through a Michelson interferometer before detection. Then, if the interferometer path length difference matches the lensing path length difference, the two arriving wavepackets seen in figure 1 can be realigned, and bandwidth reduction of visibility can be avoided. For slight mismatches of the two path length difference the required bandwidth for full visibility is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu <c/(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}_{interferometer}\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}_{lensing})`$.

Even though a complex representation of the wave amplitude is used in this discussion of interference, and even though the uncertainty principle $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{coh}\mathrm{\Delta }\nu 1`$ applies to the coherence time, the effects described here are classical rather than quantum mechanical. No use is made, in this analysis, of photon quanta.

The use of high resolution spectroscopy establishes coherence retroactively, allowing gravitational microlensing interference to be visible for path length differences many times larger than the wavelength of the light.


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# Laminar plasma dynamos

## Abstract

A new kind of dynamo utilizing flowing laboratory plasmas has been identified. Conversion of plasma kinetic energy to magnetic energy is verified numerically by kinematic dynamo simulations for magnetic Reynolds numbers above 210. As opposed to intrinsically-turbulent liquid-sodium dynamos, The proposed plasma dynamos correspond to laminar flow topology. Modest plasma parameters, 1–20 eV temperatures, $`10^{19}`$$`10^{20}`$ m-3 densities in 0.3–1.0 m scale-lengths driven by velocities on the order of the Alfvén Critical Ionization Velocity (CIV), self-consistently satisfy the conditions needed for the magnetic field amplication. Growth rates for the plasma dynamos are obtained numerically with different geometry and magnetic Reynolds numbers. Magnetic-field-free coaxial plasma guns can be used to sustain the plasma flow and the dynamo.

PACS numbers: 52.30.-q; 47.65.+a; 52.65.Kj; 52.72.+v

Dynamo action is believed to be the fundamental mechanism that creates the magnetic field commonly observed from planetary to galactic scales. Conversion of kinetic (flow) energy into magnetic energy is the best known explanation for observed magnetic fields in the universe that are persistent against resistive diffusion. A direct experimental proof of the conversion of plasma flow energy to magnetic energy has not been accomplished to date. Another motivation of this letter is to show dynamo experiments can be performed in plasmas, as an alternative to liquid sodium or other conducting liquids. The plasma dynamos discussed here are funadmentally different from what has generally been known for spheromaks and reversed field pinches, when the term ‘dynamo’ has traditionally been invoked to explain conversion of one type of magnetic flux into another (toroidal flux into poloidal flux in the spheromak case). Because in these previous cases, the total magnetic field energy does not increase. In the present case, the plasma flow energy is converted into magnetic energy, and magnetic field is amplified accordingly.

Existing and proposed laboratory dynamo experiments  have used liquid sodium as conducting medium. Liquid sodium has low resistivity and viscosity for conduction of electricity and fluid flow, as well as a low melting temperature which eases the creation of the liquid state for the conductor. A constraint on liquid sodium dynamos is intrinsically turbulent flow due to the small ratio of viscosity to resistivity. The turbulent flow makes it difficult to make detailed comparisons between experiments and theories. Also, resistivity of the liquid sodium is only variable within a factor of two, which implies the magnetic Reynolds number, $`Re_m`$, may be varied only within a small range, primarily by variation of the experimental dimensions. Even with the high conductivity of the liquid sodium, existing technologies can only move liquid sodium at velocities no more than 20 m/sec. Therefore $``$1 meter in size is necessary to have a dynamo excitation for a liquid sodium experiment, and $`Re_m`$ has been limited to values below a few hundred.

Dynamo action is described by the induction equation

$$\frac{𝐁}{t}=\times \left(𝐔\times 𝐁\right)+\frac{\eta }{\mu _0}^2𝐁,$$
(1)
where $`𝐔`$ is the fluid flow velocity, and $`\eta `$ is the resistivity. Without the flow U, the induction equation is a diffusion equation for magnetic field $`𝐁`$ with the characteristic diffusion time determined by the dimension of the field and resistivity. Only when U does not vanish may $`𝐁`$ grow by transfering the flow energy. The magnetic Reynolds number $`Re_m\mu _0LU_0/\eta `$ measures the relative amplitude of the flow drive to diffusion in Eq. (1), where $`L`$, $`U_0`$ and $`\eta `$ are characteristic values for the dimension, velocity field, and resistivity. Theories predict that only when the magnetic Reynolds number $`Re_m`$ exceeds certain threshold values (from 20 to 200, depending on the geometry), is dynamo action possible.

$`Re_m`$ greater than 200 appears easily achievable in flowing laboratory plasmas by this analysis. Thus an experiment is possible to create magnetic field energy that grows by transformation of the plasma flow energy alone. Such a new plasma dynamo can cover a wide range of magnetic Reynolds numbers both below and above the threshold by controlling the plasma flow velocity and the plasma resistivity. In the entire plasma system, one may encounter various length scales $`L`$, velocities $`U`$, as well as uncertain resistivity (the plasma resistivity is often ”anomalous”). Average, “global” values characteristic of the entire flow appear reasonable to use for comparison to theoretical threshold values of $`Re_m`$. In the plasma regime considered here where the flow is laminar (see below), the scale length $`L`$ is close to the dimension of the boundary. The characteristic velocity $`U_0`$ is representative of a Beltrami-flow profile, which is a flow satisfying $`\times 𝐔=\lambda _B𝐔`$ with constant parameter $`\lambda _B`$. Spitzer resistivity provides a realistic estimate since the magnetic field is weak during the initial growth of the magnetic field, and the long plasma lifetimes imply local thermal equilibrium. In addition, energy balance is dominated by atomic physics (radiation by the electrons and boundary losses by the ions) and classical thermal conduction, and the plasma temperatures will be close to being in equilibrium and in the 1–20 eV range, even with substantial high-$`Z`$ impurities.

One key feature of these laboratory plasma dynamos is the high speed plasma flows (see Fig. 1) which will be on the order of the critical ionization velocity (CIV). CIV, denoted as $`U_c`$, is defined as $`U_c\sqrt{2E_i/M_i}`$, where $`E_i`$ is the ionization energy and $`M_i`$ the ion mass. A velocity of this magnitude is routinely achieved using plasma accelerators or thrusters. For hydrogen gas, $`U_c`$ is 51 km/sec. For ease of estimation, the electron temperature determining the resistivity can be assumed to be in equilibrium with the ion temperature which is itself set to the “flow equivalent temperature” $`T_i=(M_iU^2)/2`$. With this simplifying assumption, $`Re_m`$ scales as $`Re_m=15T_i^2`$\[eV\] $`L`$ \[m\]. For $`L`$ about 0.5 m and $`T_i`$ ranging from 1 to 20 eV, the $`Re_m`$ varies from 7.5 to 3000. The threshold $`Re_m=200`$ corresponds to $`T_i=5.2`$ eV, or a flow velocity of 31 km/sec for hydrogen, and hence in the expected range of CIV velocities. Because of the high plasma flow velocity, $`Re_m`$ in a plasma dynamo can be well above the threshold magnetic Reynolds number for magnetic field to grow, even considering that the resistivity of the plasma is much greater than that of liquid sodium. In Fig. 1, these plasma dynamos are compared with existing and proposed sodium dynamos, which are the only known laboratory dynamos so far.

Another unique feature of the new plasma dynamo is laminar flow. Flow topology is determined by the kinetic Reynolds number, $`Re`$, which characterizes the relative amplitude of the fluid convection to viscous dissipation in the Navier-Stokes equation. The critical Reynolds number for onset of turbulence $`Re`$ is more than a few thousand, and fluid motion is laminar for $`Re`$ below this threshold. Plasmas discussed here can be approximated as fluids because the mean free path for particle motion is much less than the system dimension. The kinetic Reynolds number $`Re`$ then scales with the device dimension and plasma ion temperature as $`Re=4.0\times 10^{16}L`$ \[m\] $`n_e`$ \[m-3\]/$`T_i^2`$ \[eV\]. An experimental dimension $`L`$ of 0.5 m is adequate to meet the conditions of a plasma dynamo, with density 1019 to 1020 m-3 and temperature 1–20 eV. This corresponds to the kinetic Reynolds number $`Re`$ varying from 5 to 20000, which imply that plasma flow will be mostly laminar.

Plasma flow can be created using coaxial plasma guns, or Marshall guns. For the gun plasma momentum to be effectively transferred to the bulk plasma in a chamber, the mean free-path, $`\lambda _{mfp}`$, of the gun plasma ions should be less than the size of the dynamo chamber, that is, $`\lambda _{mfp}<L`$ is required. This is equivalent to $`Re>2.5`$, and hence the kinetic Reynolds number cannot be too small. The magnetic Prandtl number ($`Pr_m`$) is defined as the ratio $`Pr_m=Re_m/Re`$ and scales as $`T_i^4/n_e`$ with values in the range of 3.7$`\times 10^4`$ to 600 for the plasma parameters above. In comparison, the $`Pr_m`$ for liquid sodium experiments is $`10^5`$. The plasma Prandtl number can be very similar to that of the interior of the sun or the galactic plasma dynamos, albeit at very much lower Reynolds numbers.

The gun-plasma momentum transfer is also affected by ion-neutral collisions, which include ion-neutral momentum transfer and ion-neutral charge exchange. The ion-neutral momentum transfer cross section is 100 times less than that of ion-ion collision. Therefore, as long as the ionization fraction is greater than 1%, ion-neutral momentum transfer can be neglected. The charge exchange cross section is about half of that of ion-ion momentum transfer. Therefore ion-ion momentum transfer is the dominant process for gun-plasma momentum transfer. Generation of toroidally rotating plasmas is most efficient when the ionization fraction is greater than 30%.

A possible experimental configurationtion is shown in Fig. 2, when one ‘main gun’ (Labeled as MG) is used together with three ‘toroidal guns’ (TG, not shown) to produce toroidal and poloidal plasma flows. Kinetic energy density for a 13 eV and 1019 m-3 plasma is equivalent to a magnetic field strength of 53 gauss at the same energy density. Theoretical studies indicate that the fraction of the plasma flow kinetic energy that can be converted into magnetic field depends on the ratio of the magnetic Reynolds number to the kinetic Reynolds number. As much as 20% of the flow energy was seen to convert into magnetic field numerically. If this is the case, magnetic field of up to 24 gauss may be generated when the back-reaction of the magnetic field on plasma flow is taken into account.

Numerical results confirm the existence of laminar plasma dynamos. The plasma flow is approximated by a Beltrami flow, $`\times 𝐔=\lambda _B𝐔`$, which corresponds to a state of maximum kinetic helicity \[$`𝑑V(𝐔\times 𝐔)`$\] for a given total kinetic energy and a given boundary condition. We can use the Beltrami flow approximation because the flow is laminar here, large coherent flow pattern can be established. The Beltrami flow is also an eigenmode for the cylindrical boundary condition considered. Theoretical results indicate that large kinetic helicity content can lead to large dynamo growth rate. The solution of axisymmetric Beltrami flow inside the cylinder $`0<r<R`$ and $`L/2<z<L/2`$ may be written in terms of a poloidal flux function $`\mathrm{\Psi }(r,z)`$

$`\mathrm{\Psi }=rJ_1\left(j_{11}{\displaystyle \frac{r}{R}}\right)\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{\pi z}{L}}\text{,}`$ (2)
$`U_r={\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{z}}\text{,}U_z={\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{r}}\text{,}U_\varphi ={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda _B\mathrm{\Psi }}{r}}`$ (3)
where $`J_1(x)`$ is a first order Bessel function in its standard notation, and $`j_{11}`$ is the first root of $`J_1(x)=0`$, $`\lambda _B^2=j_{11}^2/R^2+\pi ^2/L^2`$. The velocity components $`U_r`$, $`U_z`$, and $`U_\varphi `$ have been normalized to a characteristic velocity $`U_0`$.

The kinematic dynamo problem for Beltrami flows satisfying Eqs. (2) and (3) is implemented numerically as follows. The flow field is taken as given and the back reaction of the growing magnetic field on the flow is neglected. This approximation is justified for the initial stage of the exponential dynamo growth, when the magnetic field is weak and does not influence the flow. Instead of solving the induction equation Eq. (1) for $`𝐁`$ directly, potentials $`𝐀`$ and $`\phi `$ are introduced. Using the gauge condition $`\phi 𝐔𝐀+(\eta /\mu _0)𝐀=0`$ , one can derive the following equation of evolution for the vector potential $`𝐀`$,

$$\frac{A^i}{t}=A_k\frac{U^k}{x^i}U^k\frac{A^i}{x^k}+\frac{\eta }{\mu _0}\frac{^2A^i}{x^kx_k}\text{,}$$
(4)
where the resistivity $`\eta `$ is assumed to be constant throughout the cylinder and the coordinate notations refer to a Cartesian coordinate system $`x^i`$. A 3D kinematic dynamo code is used to solve Eq. (4). Then, the magnetic field can be obtained at any time by taking the curl of $`𝐀`$. The code is written for cylindrical coordinates, and it uses an explicit scheme with central spatial differencing in the advection term and standard nine points stencil for the diffusion term. Since the conductivity of metallic walls is much higher than the conductivity of the plasma, a perfectly conducting boundary is a good approximation. All boundaries of the cylinder ($`r=R`$, $`z=L/2`$, and $`z=L/2`$) are assumed to be perfect conductors. Then, the boundary conditions for $`𝐀`$ at perfectly conducting boundaries compatible with the gauge can be chosen as follows: both the components of $`𝐀`$ parallel to the boundary and the divergence of $`𝐀`$ at the boundaries are zero. This gives three boundary conditions for three components of vector potential. Eq. (4) has a unique solution. A detailed description of the code, of the gauge choices, and of the implementation of the boundary conditions can be found in Ref. .

In the case of axisymmetric flow, the nonaxisymmetric modes of the magnetic field, which are proportional to $`\mathrm{exp}(in\varphi i\omega t)`$ with different azimuthal wavenumbers $`n`$ (also known as toroidal mode numbers), are decoupled from each other and are eigenmodes of Eq. (1) or Eq. (4). The 3D kinematic code picks up the fastest growing mode of the dynamo, which turns out to be the $`n=1`$ mode. Since the structure of each eignemode is two dimensional in $`(r,z)`$ coordinates, a 2D code involving only the azimuthal component of the magnetic field saves much time for simulations with varying boundary parameters. Such a 2D code for the vector potential evolution has also been written and used to calculate the dependencies of the growth rates of the $`n=1`$ mode on the boundary dimensions. The growth rates and the structure of the $`n=1`$ modes obtained using the 3D dode agree remarkably well with that using the 2D code. The modes have an oscillatory nature, i.e. the oscillation frequency $`\omega =\omega ^{}+i\gamma (U_{max}/L)`$ has real and imaginary parts, where both the rotation frequency $`\omega ^{}`$ and the dimensionless growth rate $`\gamma `$ are real. $`U_{max}/L`$ is about 100 kHz. $`U_{max}`$ is the maximum absolute velocity inside the cylinder. Exponentially growing (or decaying) magnetic fields also rotate with certain frequency, which comparable to the frequency of the fluid rotation, $`\omega ^{}100`$ kHz.

Dependence of the growth rate $`\gamma `$ on the magnetic Reynolds number $`Re_m`$ and on the aspect ratio $`R/L`$ of the cylinder is explored. Fig. 3a shows the dependence of $`\gamma `$ on $`Re_m`$ for a fixed aspect ratio $`R/L=1`$. Negative values of $`\gamma `$ correspond to decaying magnetic field. For $`Re_m`$ smaller than the threshold value of 210, the dynamo will not grow. With increasing $`Re_m`$, the growth rate first increases up to the maximum value $`0.022`$ (a growth time of 0.45 msec) at $`Re_m=500`$, and it subsequently decreases to smaller values but remains positive. Such behavior is typical for slow dynamos (for example, see Ref. ). Thus, these laminar plasma dynamos are slow dynamos, for which $`\gamma `$ asymptotically goes to zero for $`Re_m\mathrm{}`$. The laminar and regular (as opposed to chaotic) fluid motion stretches the magnetic field linearly in time. Exponential growth is only possible due to small diffusivity of the magnetic field, which recreates the component of the magnetic field perpendicular to the flow. When the diffusion of the magnetic field becomes very small ($`R_m\mathrm{}`$), the growth rate $`\gamma `$ also decreases to 0. Fig. 3b shows the dependence of $`\gamma `$ on the aspect ratio $`R/L`$ for a fixed $`Re_m=500`$. Dynamo does not exist for very long or very short cylinders. It is necessary to have comparable $`R`$ and $`L`$ for efficient excitation of the dynamo. In particular, at an experimentally feasible value of $`Re_m=500`$, the maximum growth rate $`\gamma =0.055`$ is achieved at $`R/L=0.6`$. These results suggest that a somewhat elongated cylindrical vessel will be the best for the excitation of dynamo. Pulsed plasma flow of several msec long should be sufficient to excite the laminar dynamos.

In conclusion, a theoretical study has shown dynamo can be excited to convert plasma kinetic energy into magnetic field energy in a laboratory environment. These plasma dynamos are laminar because of the low kinetic Reynolds number. Modest plasma parameters self-consistently satisfy the conditions needed for the dynamo. Numerical calculation yields a threshold magnetic Reynolds number of 210 for exponential growth of the laminar plasma dynamos in a cylindrical boundary with Beltrami flows. These results indicate that a new type of laboratory dynamo experiments is possible.

We thank Drs. Hui Li and Stirling Colgate for many useful suggestions to this work. One of us, VIP, would also like to thank Dr. John Finn for his advice on numerical simulations. This work is supported by U.S. DOE Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36. VIP acknowledges partial support from DOE grant DE-FG02-00ER54600

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