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# Constraints on decay plus oscillation solutions of the solar neutrino problem

## I Introduction

Solar neutrino experiments with Chlorine , Gallium , and water cerenkov detectors ,, show unequivocally that there is a deficit of $`\nu _e`$ at the Earth compared to the predictions of the standard solar model . It is commonly accepted that vacuum oscillations (VO) or matter induced MSW conversions, with large mixing angle (LMA) or small mixing angle (SMA), can account for the deficit of solar neutrinos. The available experimental results allow not only a test of the neutrino oscillation hypothesis but also offer possibilities of constraining new physics, e.g. neutrino magnetic moment , neutrino decay, flavour changing neutral currents, etc. Here we will be concerned with neutrino decay in the context of neutrino oscillations. The possibility of solving the solar neutrino problem only through neutrino decay in vacuum was raised in  and ruled out mainly owing to the fact that the lower energy $`pp`$ neutrinos observed in Gallium experiments are less suppressed compared to higher energy 7Be and 8B neutrinos observed in Chlorine experiments. The suppression in neutrino flux caused by the solar matter induced decay to majoron has correct energy dependence  but the required fast rates cannot easily be obtained in the standard scenario without conflicting with other constraints . The oscillation plus vacuum decay scenario has been studied more recently in a two generation model in ,. This analysis was prior to results from SNO . These results in combination with earlier data from SuperKamioka  can be used to separate the flux of the electron neutrino from that of other active flavours. This additional information provided by SNO can be quite useful in probing new physics. In the light of this, we study in this paper the three generation model of neutrino oscillation plus decay including the recent SNO  result in our analysis.

Radiative decays of neutrinos are severely constrained by laboratory experiments and a variety of astrophysical and cosmological observations (see references in the PDG ). However, constraints on non-radiative decays are much less stringent. For a relatively heavy unstable neutrino, one can apply the argument that decay products would contribute to the energy density of the universe and thus obtain a limit . However, for masses of the order of eV or less, there is no limit on the lifetime. Solar neutrino data constrains non-radiative neutrino decay in this mass regime.

We examine the scenario where the neutrinos from the Sun are depleted due to non-radiative decays like (a) Majoron emission decays $`\nu _2\overline{\nu }_1+J`$, where the $`\overline{\nu }_1`$ state is either sterile or the active antiparticle of $`\nu _1`$, or (b) $`\nu _23\nu `$. We assume that the lowest mass neutrino $`\nu _1`$ is stable, or at least that it has lifetime $`(\tau _1/m_1)20(\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{MeV})`$. (In the paper, we denote by $`m_i`$ and $`\tau _i`$ the mass and rest frame lifetime of the $`\nu _i`$ neutrino.) The neutrinos which arise as decay products in (a) or (b) can be either active or sterile. They are depleted in energy and carry on an average less than half of the solar neutrino energy. Since the flux of the electron neutrino sharply increases as we go down in energy, the relative contribution of the neutrinos produced in decay to the total signal in a given experiment will be quite small even if they are active. Because of this reason the net effect of the decay is depletion in the neutrino flux. This depletion is over and above the one caused by the neutrino oscillations or conversion which we assume to be the main cause of the solar deficit. The additional depletion caused by the decay is given by an exponential function

$$\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{R}{\tau _2}\frac{m_2}{E_\nu }\right)$$
(1)
where $`E_\nu `$ refers to the energy of the decaying neutrino and $`R`$ is the Sun-Earth distance. The solar neutrino survival probabilities are given in terms of the mixing $`s_1`$, mass difference $`\delta m^2m_2^2m_1^2`$ and the decay lifetime $`\tau _2`$. We determine the regions in the $`\mathrm{tan}^2\theta _1\delta m^2`$ plane allowed at $`99\%`$ C.L. for different values of $`\tau _2`$. The allowed region is found to shrink as $`\tau _2`$ decreases and ultimately it disappears at some value which is taken to be the bound on the neutrino lifetime to invisible channel. The bound derived this way depends upon the specific solution of the solar neutrino problem and is stronger in case of the VO solution $`(\tau _2/m_2)>27.8(\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{MeV})`$ compared to the MSW-LMA and SMA solutions for which we get $`(\tau _2/m_2)>22.7(\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{MeV})`$. In an earlier pre-SNO analysis ,, similar bounds were obtained for the LMA and vacuum solutions but there was no bound on $`\tau _2`$ for the SMA solution. We show in the final section that inclusion of SNO result is critical for obtaining a bound on $`\tau _2`$.

We assume the mixing among three neutrinos to be responsible for the deficit in the neutrino flux observed by the solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments. The mixing matrix $`U`$ needed in order to accomplish this has the following form:

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _e\\ \nu _\mu \\ \nu _\tau \end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}c_1& s_1& 0\\ c_2s_1& c_2c_1& s_2\\ s_2s_1& s_2c_1& c_2\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\nu _1\\ \nu _2\\ \nu _3\end{array}\right)`$ (2)
We have approximated $`U_{e3}0`$ in order to account for the negative results obtained in $`\nu _e`$ disappearance experiment at CHOOZ . In addition to the above mixing one also needs $`\delta m^2=m_2^2m_1^210^410^{11}`$ eV2 and $`\delta _Am_3^2m_2^210^3`$ eV2 to account for the solar and atmospheric  neutrino scales. The required value of $`\delta _A`$ is much larger than the value of the effective mass square $`2\sqrt{2}G_FEN_e`$ of the electron neutrino at the solar core. This suppresses mixing of the third neutrino in matter  which decouples from the rest in case of the MSW solution to the solar neutrino problem. The small value of $`U_{e3}`$ (taken here as zero) also prevents the mixing of the third neutrino in vacuum. As a result, the solar data cannot be used to constrain the lifetime of the heaviest mass eigenstate lying at the atmospheric scale. We therefore concentrate on limiting the $`\nu _2`$ lifetime.

## II VO Probabilities

Neutrinos are produced and detected as flavor eigenstates $`\nu _\alpha ,\alpha =e,\mu ,\tau `$ but their time evolution operator is diagonal in the mass basis $`\nu _i,i=1,2,3`$. The amplitude for flavor conversion during vacuum propagation is given by

$$𝒜_{\alpha \beta }(t)=\underset{i}{}U_{\alpha i}U_{i\beta }^{}𝒜_i(t)$$
(3)
where $`U_{\alpha i}`$ are elements of the mixing angle matrix and $`𝒜_i(t)`$ is the time evolution operator for the $`\nu _i`$ mass eigenstate. For the decaying neutrino scenario the time evolution amplitude is given by

$$𝒜_i(t)=\mathrm{exp}(E_it)\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{t}{2\tau _i}\frac{m_i}{E_i}\right)$$
(4)
where we allow for decay of the $`\nu _i`$ mass eigenstate with lifetime $`\tau _i`$ and we approximate $`E_ip+m_i^2/(2p)`$. The probability for flavor conversion during propagation in vacuum at time $`t`$ is then given by

$$P_{\alpha \beta }(t)=\underset{i>j}{}U_{\alpha i}U_{i\beta }^{}U_{j\beta }U_{\alpha j}^{}\mathrm{cos}\left[\frac{(m_i^2m_j^2)t}{2E_\nu }\right]\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{m_i}{2\tau _i}+\frac{m_j}{2\tau _j}\right)\frac{t}{E_\nu }\right]$$
(5)
with $`E_\nu =p`$.

Now we assume that the lightest mass state $`\nu _1`$ does not decay. Using the mixing matrix (2) the $`\nu _e\nu _e,\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau `$ conversion probability in vacuum from Sun to Earth is given by the expressions

$`P_{ee}`$ $`=`$ $`c_1^4+s_1^4\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{E_\nu }}\right)+2(c_1s_1)^2\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2R}{2E_\nu }}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2E_\nu }}\right)`$ (6)
$`P_{e\mu }`$ $`=`$ $`c_1^2s_1^2c_2^2\left[1+\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{E_\nu }}\right)2\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2R}{2E_\nu }}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2E_\nu }}\right)\right]`$ (7)
$`P_{e\tau }`$ $`=`$ $`c_1^2s_1^2s_2^2\left[1+\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{E_\nu }}\right)2\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2R}{2E_\nu }}\right)\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{2E_\nu }}\right)\right]`$ (8)
where

$$\alpha =\frac{Rm_2}{\tau _2}$$
(9)
$`R=1.5\times 10^{13}\mathrm{cm}=500.3`$ s being the Earth-Sun distance. We notice that the $`\nu _3`$ decay lifetime does not occur in the expressions (8) as $`U_{e3}0`$. The charged and the neutral current interactions in the detector respectively are related to $`P_{ee}`$ and $`P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }`$. Both of these are seen to be independent of the atmospheric mixing angle. The sum of all three probabilities is also independent of the solar $`\delta m^2`$,

$$PP_{ee}+P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }=c_1^2+s_1^2\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\alpha }{E_\nu }\right)$$
(10)
## III MSW probabilities

If the flavor conversion of neutrinos in the Sun is by MSW mechanism then we have different expressions for probabilities for the decay plus conversion scenario. As discussed already, only two energy eigenstates $`\nu _1`$ and $`\nu _2`$ corresponding to the lighter neutrinos participate in the MSW conversion. In the core of the Sun $`E_1>E_2`$, there is a level crossing at the resonance point after which $`E_2>E_1`$ i.e. $`m_2>m_1`$ in vacuum.

The probability of $`\nu _e\nu _1`$ just after level crossing is

$$P_1=P_Js_m^2+(1P_J)c_m^2$$
(11)
Here, the first term stands for $`\nu _e`$ going to $`\nu _2`$ by mixing with probability $`s_m^2`$ and then jumping to $`\nu _1`$ with probability $`P_J`$ at the level crossing. The second term means that $`\nu _e`$ goes to $`\nu _1`$ by mixing and then does not jump to $`\nu _2`$ with probability $`(1P_J)`$ at the level crossing. The probability of $`\nu _e\nu _2`$ just after level crossing is

$$P_2=(1P_1)=(1P_J)s_m^2+(P_J)c_m^2$$
(12)
In the formulas above, the Landau-Zener jump probability is given by

$`P_J`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{exp}(bs_1^2/E_\nu )\mathrm{exp}(b/E_\nu )}{1\mathrm{exp}(b/E_\nu )}}`$ (13)
$`b`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{4}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2}{|\dot{A}/A|_{res}}}\right)10^9\left({\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2}{\mathrm{eV}^2}}\right)\mathrm{MeV}`$ (14)
and $`A=2\sqrt{2}E_\nu G_FN_e`$. The mixing angle in matter in the Sun is given in terms of the vacuum mixing angle by the expression

$`\mathrm{cos}2\theta _m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\eta (12s_1^2))}{(12\eta (12s_1^2)+\eta ^2)^{1/2}}}`$ (15)
$`\eta `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta m^2}{A}}=6.6\times 10^5{\displaystyle \frac{b}{E_\nu }}`$ (16)
After level crossing the $`\nu _1`$ state stays as it is but the $`\nu _2`$ state can decay into antineutrinos or sterile neutrinos. Thus, at Earth the probability of detecting $`\nu _1`$ is $`P_1`$ and of detecting $`\nu _2`$ is $`P_2\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /E)`$. We can now use the matrix (1) to find the $`\nu _e,\nu _\mu ,\nu _\tau `$ content of neutrinos at Earth,

$`P_{ee}`$ $`=`$ $`c_1^2P_1+s_1^2P_2\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /E_\nu )`$ (17)
$`P_{e\mu }`$ $`=`$ $`c_2^2s_1^2P_1+c_2^2c_1^2P_2\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /E_\nu )`$ (18)
$`P_{e\tau }`$ $`=`$ $`s_2^2s_1^2P_1+s_2^2c_1^2P_2\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /E_\nu )`$ (19)
As in case of the VO, both $`P_{ee}`$ and $`P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }`$ are independent of the atmospheric angle. But unlike VO, the sum of the three probabilities in (19)

$$PP_{ee}+P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }=P_1+(1P_1)\mathrm{exp}(\alpha /E_\nu )$$
(20)
depends on the solar scale through the Landau-Zener formula (13).

## IV Experimental rates and bound on lifetime

We use the probabilities derived above to obtain a bound on the neutrino lifetime. We consider only total rates for this purpose and include all experiments in our analysis. We do the analysis by two different methods. First we consider the total rates in Chlorine , Gallium  , Super-K  and SNO  experiments and determine the allowed regions in the $`tan^2\theta _1\delta m^2`$ parameter space for different values of $`\tau _2`$. The $`Cl`$, $`Ga`$ and the charged current rates of SNO by themselves cannot constrain $`\tau _2`$ in the SMA region of the MSW solution since these experiments measure $`P_{ee}`$ which becomes independent of $`\tau _2`$ in the small mixing angle limit. This is not true however in case of $`P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }`$ which is probed by neutral current events in SK. Since the neutral current rates can be inferred by combining SK and SNO data , such combination is expected to constrain the lifetime $`\tau _2`$. We show this explicitly by using the SK and SNO data alone.

The rates of neutrino capture in the Chlorine and Gallium experiments can be written as

$$R_\alpha =\frac{{\displaystyle \underset{i=pp,\mathrm{Be},\mathrm{B}}{}}𝑑E_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }_i\sigma _\alpha P_{ee}}{{\displaystyle \underset{i=pp,\mathrm{Be},\mathrm{B}}{}}𝑑E_\nu \mathrm{\Phi }_i\sigma _\alpha }$$
(21)
where the subscript $`\alpha =`$ Ga, Cl denotes the experiment and $`i=pp`$, 7Be, 8B denotes the type of neutrino flux from the Sun. The spectra of the $`pp`$ and 8B neutrinos can be fitted with the analytical functions,

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{pp}`$ $`=`$ $`(5.95\times 10^{10})[193.9(0.931E_\nu )((0.931E_\nu )^20.261)^{1/2}E_\nu ^2]`$ (22)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}`$ $`=`$ $`(5.05\times 10^6)[8.52\times 10^6(15.1E_\nu )^{2.75}E_\nu ^2]`$ (23)
$`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{Be}}`$ $`=`$ $`(4.77\times 10^9)[\delta (E_\nu 0.862)]`$ (24)
where the neutrino fluxes are in units of cm-2s-1 and $`E_\nu `$ is in MeV. The first brackets in (24) give the total flux of neutrinos from the $`pp`$,Be, and B reactions and are taken from BP2000 , and the square brackets give the spectral shape .

The Ga experiments can detect all three types of neutrino fluxes and the neutrino absorbtion cross section of $`Ga`$ is given in . The Chlorine experiment threshold is higher (0.8 MeV) and it detects only the Be and B neutrinos; we take the absorption cross section with the tables from ref..

The electron scattering reaction in Super-K and the charge-current deuterium dissociation reaction at SNO can be written as

$`R_{\mathrm{SK}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝑑E_\nu \sigma _{\nu _e}\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}P_{ee}+𝑑E_\nu \sigma _{\nu _\mu }\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}(PP_{ee})}{𝑑E_\nu \sigma _{\nu _e}\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}}}`$ (25)
and

$`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}^{\mathrm{CC}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝑑E_\nu \sigma _{\mathrm{CC}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}P_{ee}}{𝑑E_\nu \sigma _{\mathrm{CC}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{B}}}`$ (26)
The $`\nu _ee^{}`$ and $`\nu _{\mu ,\tau }e^{}`$ elastic scattering cross section after folding with the detector response function are tabulated in ref.. The deuterium dissociation cross section are taken from .

Using the flux spectrum in equation (24) and the cross sections  we can calculate the theoretical rates for MSW or VO conversion probabilities as a function of the three unknown parameters: the $`\nu _2`$ lifetime $`\tau _2`$, $`\delta m^2`$ and the vacuum mixing angle $`\theta _1`$. The experimental rates $`R_\alpha ^{\mathrm{expt}}`$ with one-sigma combined (statistical and systematic) experimental errors $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha `$ are as follows :

$`R_{\mathrm{Cl}}^{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.335\pm 0.029`$ (27)
$`R_{\mathrm{Ga}}^{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.584\pm 0.039`$ (28)
$`R_{\mathrm{SK}}^{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.459\pm 0.017`$ (29)
$`R_{\mathrm{SNO}\mathrm{CC}}^{\mathrm{expt}}`$ $`=`$ $`0.347\pm 0.029`$ (30)
From the theoretical $`R_\alpha `$, and the experimental $`R_\alpha ^{\mathrm{expt}}`$, we compute the total $`\chi ^2`$ for all experiments, defined as

$$\chi ^2\underset{\alpha =\mathrm{Cl},\mathrm{Ga},\mathrm{SK},\mathrm{SNO}}{}\frac{(R_\alpha R_\alpha ^{\mathrm{expt}})^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_\alpha ^2}$$
(31)
.

Setting the parameter $`\alpha =0`$ we reproduce the standard contours of LMA , SMA and VO solutions shown as dotted contours in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. For $`\alpha =0`$ the global minimum of $`\chi ^2`$ occurs in the vacuum region with $`\chi _{min}^20.3`$.The $`\chi _{min}^2+11`$ contours which corresponds to 99% C.L. bounds for $`\alpha `$ are plotted for various values of non-zero $`\alpha `$ as shown in the solid contours in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. We find that the LMA and SMA allowed parameter space disappear for $`\alpha =18`$ and $`\alpha =22`$ (in MeV units)respectively. The VO allowed region disappears for $`\alpha =18`$. These numbers translate into the bounds $`\tau _2>22.7\mathrm{s}(m_2/\mathrm{MeV})`$ for the MSW solution (where we have taken the larger of the two bounds coming from SMA and LMA solutions) and $`\tau _2>27.8\mathrm{s}(m_2/\mathrm{MeV})`$ for the VO solution.

As discussed before the bound on $`\tau _2`$ in the SMA region mainly comes from the SK data which probe $`P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }`$. It is thus interesting to consider only the SK and SNO results which together determine $`P_{ee}`$ and $`P_{e\mu }+P_{e\tau }`$ in the same energy range ($`815`$ MeV). These two experiments are crucial in providing the bound on $`\tau _2`$. To see the impact of these results , we plot the $`1.96\sigma `$ contours of the SNO ($`R_{\mathrm{SNO}}=0.347\pm 1.960.029`$ shown as dashed curves) and SK ($`R_{\mathrm{SK}}=0.459\pm 1.960.017`$ shown as continuous curves) rates. In Fig.3 we show the allowed regions for $`\alpha =0`$. In Fig.4 we plot the same SNO and SK rates for $`\alpha =25`$ and we can see that there is no overlap in the SMA region between the two experiments for this value of $`\alpha `$. The bound on $`\alpha `$ obtained from SK and SNO is marginally weaker than the one obtained in the combined analysis of all (SK,SNO, Ga and Cl) experiments.

In summary, we have used available results of the solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments to constrain neutrino lifetime within the three generation picture of neutrino oscillations. While the exact bound depends upon the specific solution, we typically find $`\frac{\tau _2}{m_2}>28\left(\frac{sec}{MeV}\right)`$ The corresponding bound $`\tau _2>2.810^5sec`$ for eV mass neutrinos is not very strong but useful since it is the only one following from laboratory experiments in this mass range.

Acknowledgements: The work of E. M. is partially supported by the CICYT Research Project AEN99-0766, by the DGR Project 2001 SGR 00188, and by the EU network on Supersymmetry and the Early Universe (HPRN-CT-2000-00152).


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# Finding Black Holes with Microlensing

## 1. Introduction

Counting the number of black-hole stellar-remnants in our Galaxy is complicated by their faintness. Only a few dozen of an estimated $`10^7`$$`10^9`$ black-holes are observed as X-ray binaries (van den Heuvel 1992). Black-hole numbers estimated from stellar-population synthesis are inaccurate due to variations in IMF with metallicity, uncertainty in the star-formation history, and uncertainty in the cutoff mass for neutron-star progenitors. To count the bulk of the black holes (isolated or in wide binaries) requires a different observable signature, the best candidate being gravitational microlensing since it only relies on gravity.

Microlensing events are primarily characterized by the event timescale, $`\widehat{t}=2R_E/v`$, where $`R_E`$ is the Einstein radius in the lens plane, $`R_E=[4GMc^2D_Sxy]^{1/2}`$, $`v`$ is the velocity of the lens perpendicular to the observer-source axis, $`M`$ is the lensing mass, $`D_{L,S}`$ are the distances to the lens or source, $`x=D_L/D_S`$ is the fraction of distance of the lens to the source, and $`y=1x`$. The motion of the Earth causes magnification fluctuations during long events, an effect called “microlensing parallax” ($`\mu `$$`\pi `$), allowing one to measure the reduced velocity, $`\widehat{𝐯}=(𝐯_𝐋x𝐯_𝐒)/y𝐯_{}`$ (Gould 1992), where $`L,S,`$ stand for the lens, source, and Sun and the velocities are perpendicular to the lensing axis. Given $`D_S`$ and $`\widehat{𝐯}`$, the lens mass is then solely a function of $`x`$,

$$M(x)=(\widehat{v}\widehat{t}c)^2y/(16GxD_S).$$
(1)
The mass is $`0`$ for $`x=1`$, rising to $`\mathrm{}`$ for $`x=0`$, thus to estimate $`M`$ requires knowing $`x`$.

Bennett et al. (2001, hereafter B01) and Mao et al. (2002, hereafter M02) claim that the three longest-duration microlensing events discovered toward the bulge with $`\mu \pi `$ measurements are likely black holes. To arrive at this conclusion, they assume that each lens is a member of a population that has a velocity and spatial distribution characteristic of the disk and bulge. Here we in addition assume that the lenses are drawn from a population that has a mass function characteristic of stellar and stellar remnant populations in the disk and bulge, and is independent of $`x`$. This latter assumption is not true for young bright disk stars (which do not contain much of the disk mass), but may be true for lower mass stars and compact remnants in the disk and bulge. We then find that the probability that these events are black holes is somewhat reduced.

In §2, we apply the analysis of B01 to MACHO-99-BLG-22 and estimate the implied total black hole number. In §3, we include a mass function in our prior for the lens mass. In §4, we consider the timescale distribution for bulge events and describe how mass measurements of long events may provide an estimate of the lens mass function.

## 2. Mass Estimate from Reduced Velocity Only

B01 and M02 present seven microlensing events toward the bulge of the Galaxy with $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ measurements as shown in Figure 1. These events have greatly decreased $`\chi ^2`$ when the $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ effect is included and are unlikely to be caused by a binary lens or source. B01 have computed a distance probability for MACHO-96-BLG-5 and MACHO-98-BLG-6 using a likelihood function which depends on the observed reduced velocity and assumes the source is in the bulge. Using equation (1) they find that the most likely masses for the their two longest events are $`>3M_{}`$ at 68% confidence. Given that these lenses are not detected as main-sequence stars, they argue that they must be black holes. Using the likelihood function of B01, we find that the mass probability for MACHO-99-BLG-22 (OGLE-1999-BUL-32) has $`M=11_6^{+12}M_{}`$ and a 81% probability of being a black hole using the best-fit parameters of Bennett et al. (2002, B02). This differs from the results of B02 due to different assumed disk and bulge velocity dispersions.

If all three events are due to disk black-holes, we can estimate the total number. The detection efficiency, $`ϵ`$, for events from 100–400 days is 20% (Alcock et al. 2000), which we assume also holds at longer $`\widehat{t}`$ (these events are drawn from the alert sample which have a different selection criterion, so a different $`ϵ`$ may apply). We have computed the timescale probability for black-hole lensing events, and find that only $``$ 40% have $`\widehat{t}>1`$ year, so $`ϵ`$ 13%. These three events yield $`\tau 5\times 10^7(ϵ/0.1)^1`$, implying $`N_{\mathrm{total}}5\times 10^8(M/9M_{})^1(ϵ/0.1)^1`$ disk black holes. This estimate is larger than estimates based upon the expected ratio of black-hole to neutron-star remnants, $`10^8`$, (Shapiro & Teukolsky 1983, van den Heuvel 1992) and chemical enrichment by supernovae within the Milky Way, $`2\times 10^8`$ (Samland 1998). This discrepancy indicates that either $`ϵ=20`$% is too low, the IMF was much more top-heavy in the past, or the events are due to more distant, low-mass stars. We next explore the third option.

Fig. 1 - The velocity vectors, $`\widehat{𝐯}`$, and event durations, $`\widehat{t}`$ (proportional to circle size), for seven $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ microlensing events from B01 and M02. The shaded regions show the MACHO bulge fields, while the dashed line shows the region where the bulge density is half of the central bulge density in the sky plane at the distance of the bulge. Boldface indicates three black hole candidate events.

## 3. Mass Function Prior

To recap, the small reduced velocities may indicate that the three longest events most likely lie within 3 kpc and thus should have masses $`>3M_{}`$. However, if a lens is more distant, it is less massive (equation 1) and thus drawn from a more abundant population, which can compensate for the small probability of distant lenses to have a small reduced velocity. Here we investigate the mass likelihood given $`\widehat{𝐯}`$ and $`\widehat{t}`$ using the spatial probability $`dn_L/dM=\rho (x)\varphi (M)/M`$, where $`\varphi (M)`$ is the mass function of a 10 Gyr-old stellar population (independent of $`x`$), $`\varphi (M)𝑑M=1`$, and $`M=𝑑MM\varphi (M)`$ is the mean stellar mass.

To compute $`\varphi (M)`$, we start with the broken power-law IMF from Kroupa (2002), and, following Gould (2000), convert stars with masses $`M_{cms}<M<M_{cwd}`$ into white dwarfs, $`M_{cwd}<M<M_{cns}`$ into neutron stars, and $`M_{cns}<M`$ into black holes. We set $`M_{cms}=1M_{}`$ and $`M_{cwd}=11M_{}`$ (Samland 1998), while we vary $`M_{cns}`$. We use Gaussian distributions for the white-dwarf and neutron-star mass functions with $`M_{wd}=0.5\pm 0.1M_{}`$ (Bragaglia et al. 1995) and $`M_{ns}=1.35\pm 0.04M_{}`$ (Thorsett & Chakrabarty 1999). Black holes we describe with $`\varphi _{BH}M^{0.5}`$ for $`3M_{}<M<15M_{}`$, consistent with the measured mass function of black holes in X-ray binaries (which may have a different mass function than isolated black holes). We compute the relative numbers of each compact remnant by varying the high-mass IMF slope $`2<\beta <3`$, where $`\varphi _{IMF}M^\beta `$, equating the number of each compact remnant with the number of stars in the IMF with appropriate mass range. We assume that this mass function applies in both the disk and bulge.

The number of black holes strongly depends on the slope of the IMF, $`\beta `$, and the maximum neutron-star-progenitor mass, $`M_{cns}`$. We choose as a fiducial value the Salpeter $`\beta =2.35`$, consistent with the observed IMF (Kroupa 2002), and $`M_{cns}=40M_{}`$, consistent with chemical-evolution models of the Galaxy (Samland 1998). The resulting mass function has mass fractions of 7% in brown dwarfs, 77% in main-sequence stars, 13% in white dwarfs, 1% in neutron stars, and 1.5% in black holes. This corresponds to a total of about $`10^9`$ neutron stars and $`2\times 10^8`$ black holes in the Milky Way.

Using Bayes’ theorem, the likelihood of a lens to be at a given distance, $`x`$, for fixed source distance $`D_S`$ is $`(x|\widehat{t},\widehat{𝐯})=(\widehat{t},\widehat{𝐯}|x)`$ for no prior on the distance and no errors on the timescale and velocity measurements. For a survey of duration $`T`$ covering a solid angle of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then the solid angle cross section for magnification by $`>30\%`$ by a lens with reduced velocity $`\widehat{v}`$ is $`2R_E\widehat{v}yT/D_L^2`$. We must then multiply by the total number of lenses at that distance and integrate over the phase space of the velocity distribution of lenses and sources. We include lenses and sources in the disk and bulge using the bar model described in Dwek et al. (1995) and Han & Gould (1995) and a double-exponential disk with scale length 3 kpc, scale height 325 pc, Galactic center distance 8 kpc, solar circular velocity 200 km/s, velocity ellipsoid $`\sigma _z:\sigma _\varphi :\sigma _r=1:1.3:2`$, $`\sigma _z=17`$ km/s at the solar circle with a scale length of 6 kpc, and asymmetric drift of $`\sigma _r^2/120`$ km/s (Buchalter, Kamionkowski & Rich 1997). The likelihood function becomes

$`(\widehat{t},\widehat{𝐯}|x)=N_S{\displaystyle 𝑑M𝑑𝐯_𝐒𝑑𝐯_𝐋2R_E\widehat{v}yT\frac{dn_L}{dM}}`$ (2)
$`\times D_Sf(𝐯_𝐋)f(𝐯_𝐒)\delta ^2(\widehat{𝐯}(𝐯_𝐒,𝐯_𝐋,x)\widehat{𝐯})\delta (\widehat{t}(M,\widehat{v},x)\widehat{t}).`$ (3)
The first delta function picks out the particular $`\widehat{𝐯}`$ while the second delta function picks out the particular $`\widehat{t}`$. We convert the velocity delta function in $`\widehat{𝐯}`$ to a delta function in $`𝐯_𝐋`$, then integrate over $`𝐯_𝐋`$ and $`𝐯_𝐒`$, and convert the second delta function to a delta function in mass:

$`(\widehat{t},\widehat{𝐯}|x)={\displaystyle \frac{N_S4R_ED_Sy^3T\widehat{v}}{\widehat{t}}}{\displaystyle \frac{M\varphi (M)}{M}}\rho _L{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\left[\frac{v_l^2}{2\sigma _l^2}+\frac{v_b^2}{2\sigma _b^2}\right]}}{2\pi \sigma _l\sigma _b}},`$ (4)
where $`𝐯=(v_l,v_b)=\overline{𝐯}_𝐋x\overline{𝐯}_𝐒y(𝐯_{}+\widehat{𝐯})`$, $`\sigma _{l,b}^2=\sigma _{L,l,b}^2+x^2\sigma _{S,l,b}^2`$, and $`l,b`$ denote the components directed in galactic longitude and latitude, respectively. Comparing to the expression in B01, we see that the likelihood distributions agree if $`\varphi (M)M^{\frac{3}{2}}`$. We convert from the likelihood of a lens lying at a distance $`x`$ to a likelihood in $`M`$ using equation (1). We then integrate over sources at distance $`D_S`$ using a model for the bulge and disk with luminosity functions measured with HST. The final constraint is to require that the main-sequence lens stars not exceed the flux limits of B01 and M02 (we ignore the contribution from red-giant lenses).

Figure 2 shows the computed mass probability for the above mass function. The white-dwarf, neutron-star, main-sequence cutoff, and black-hole mass cutoff show up as peaks in the probability distribution. The greater number of lenses at small mass compensates for the decreased probability for low $`\widehat{v}`$ events, biasing the probability toward smaller mass. The probability that each lens is a black hole, defined as $`M>3M_{}`$, is changed from above: 4% for MACHO-98-BLG-6, 16% for MACHO-96-BLG-5, and 76% for MACHO-99-BUL-22. MACHO-98-BLG-6 and MACHO-96-BLG-5 are most likely main-sequence or white-dwarf stars at $`>4`$ kpc; better flux limits may rule out a main-sequence star. These probabilities change by one order of magnitude depending on $`\beta `$ and $`M_{cns}`$, as shown in Table 1 (the labels are MACHO-XX-BLG-XX, while the first event is also OGLE-1999-BUL-32). The first two columns describe the assumed mass function, columns 3–5 give the black-hole probability for each event labeled by their MACHO event number, while the last two columns give the average of $`M^{1/2}`$ and $`M^2`$ for black holes divided by the average for all stars given the assumed IMF.

## 4. Probability of Long-Timescale Lensing

We next compute the expected distribution of events as a function of timescale. For long timescales the a-priori differential probability distribution scales as $`\widehat{t}^4`$ (Mao & Paczynski 1996). For solar-mass stars in the disk and bulge this behavior occurs for $`\widehat{t}>200`$ days. We can rescale the probability distribution for different masses

$$\frac{d^2p}{dMd\widehat{t}}=M^1\varphi (M)\frac{dp(M_{})}{d\left(\widehat{t}M^{1/2}\right)},$$
(5)
where $`M`$ is measured in units of $`M_{}`$ and $`dp(M_{})/d\widehat{t}`$ is the timescale probability distribution assuming all lenses have mass $`M_{}`$. Since at long timescales $`dp(M_{})/d\widehat{t}`$ scales as $`\widehat{t}^4`$, we can rescale this equation and integrate over mass

$$\frac{dp}{d\widehat{t}}=_{M_1}^{M_2}\frac{d^2p}{dMd\widehat{t}}𝑑M\widehat{t}^4_{M_1}^{M_2}𝑑M\varphi (M)M^2,$$
(6)
for $`\widehat{t}>M_2^{1/2}`$ 200 days. The fraction of all microlensing events as a function of mass scales as $`M^{1/2}\varphi (M)`$, while the fraction of events in the long-timescale tail scales as $`M^2\varphi (M)`$, strongly favoring black holes. Table 1 shows the average of $`M^{1/2}`$ and $`M^2`$ for black holes divided by mass-function average, showing that the fraction of black-hole events in the long-timescale tail is increased by one to two orders of magnitude as compared to the total number of events. Thus, with a measurement of the mass distribution of events at long timescales, one can directly infer the mass function if it is independent of the location in phase space.

Table 1: Black Hole Probabilities

| $`\beta `$ | $`M_{cns}`$ |  | P(%) |  | $`\frac{M_{BH}^{1/2}}{M^{1/2}}`$ | $`\frac{M_{BH}^2}{M^2}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  |  | 99-22 | 96-5 | 98-6 |  |  |
| 2 | 20 | 97 | 65 | 30 | 3E-2 | 0.78 |
| 2 | 40 | 92 | 45 | 17 | 1.5E-2 | 0.64 |
| 2.35 | 20 | 90 | 33 | 10 | 7E-3 | 0.48 |
| 2.35 | 40 | 76 | 16 | 4 | 3E-3 | 0.26 |
| 3 | 20 | 46 | 4 | 1 | 5E-4 | 0.07 |
| 3 | 40 | 18 | 1 | 0.2 | 1E-4 | 0.02 |

We have computed the probability distribution for lensing by solar-mass stars (see Han & Gould 1995, 1996 for the computation technique), and then convolved with our assumed mass function to give the timescale distribution. This is compared to the observed distribution of MACHO events in Figure 3. We have binned the 252 alert events from MACHO (http://darkstar.astro.washington.edu) and then computed $`\widehat{t}^2dn/d\widehat{t}`$ as $`N_i\widehat{t}_i^2/(ϵ_i\mathrm{\Delta }\widehat{t}_i)`$, where $`i`$ labels the number of the bin, errors are Poisson. Since the efficiencies, $`ϵ_i`$, have not been measured for the alert events, we have used the efficiency curve from Alcock et al. (2000), extrapolating to longer timescale. We note that the alert events timescales may be affected by blending and that a full analysis of efficiencies is required. The rise at long timescale may indicate that 20% underestimates the efficiency or that the longest two events are a statistical fluke. An efficiency of 100% is indicated for the the last three bins by an arrow. Decreasing $`\beta `$ to 2 improves agreement for the shorter timescales, but the longest event still lies well above the predicted value, so it may be an improbable event.

We have tried to explain the rise at long timescale by varying the assumptions in the Galactic kinematics and density, but all reasonable modifications fail. To explain this discrepancy with a different mass function requires stars of mass $`100M_{}`$ since the timescale scales as $`M^{1/2}`$ and the probability distribution peaks at $`100`$ days for $`1M_{}`$ lenses. However, $`100M_{}`$ lenses are ruled out by the $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ observations which indicate that the three longest timescale events would have to be within a few hundred parsecs. This would require an even larger black hole mass density to explain the number of these events, $`1M_{}`$ pc<sup>-3</sup>, which exceeds the Oort limit. Also, for events near the peak of the timescale distribution for $`100M_{}`$ lenses, $`\widehat{v}`$ should be much larger than observed.

Fig. 3 - The distribution of event timescales, $`\widehat{t}^2dn/d\widehat{t}`$. The histogram shows the MACHO alert events, while the lines show the predicted distribution for all masses (solid), neutron stars (dashed), and black holes (dotted) for the fiducial IMF.

## 5. Conclusions

We have shown that including the timescale as a constraint on the black hole probability may change the conclusion as to whether or not the lens is a black hole. The probability is most robust for MACHO-99-BLG-22, which is most likely a black hole for the range of mass functions we have explored, while the probability for MACHO-98-BLG-6 and MACHO-96-BLG-5 is strongly dependent on the assumed mass function. A $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ measurement does not provide sufficient information to estimate the mass of a given event, but may result in interesting limits on the mass.

The contribution of a given population of stars to the long-timescale tail ($`\widehat{t}>200M^{1/2}`$ days) of the lensing distribution depends on $`M^2`$ for that population. Due to their larger mass, $``$ 26% of events with $`\widehat{t}>600`$ days should be black-hole lenses for $`\beta =2.35`$ and $`M_{cns}=40M_{}`$; this fraction may be reduced if black holes have a velocity dispersion much larger than that of disk and bulge stars. To constrain $`\beta `$ and $`M_{cns}`$ with the timescale distribution will require more events and a careful estimate of the microlens detection efficiency as a function of $`\widehat{t}`$. The parallax events may have an increased efficiency since they are less affected by observing gaps and have a wider cross section due to the Earth’s motion (B01).

The OGLE III project may detect $`10^3`$ microlensing events toward the bulge each year (Paczyński, priv. comm.), which should include $`3`$ black-hole lensing events and $`5`$ neutron-star events for $`\beta =2.35`$ and $`M_{cns}=40M_{}`$. Since the timescale of black-hole events is longer, $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ measurements are feasible from the ground (as demonstrated by B01). If these can be followed up with astrometric observations, then the mass can be determined when combined with $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ information (Paczyński 1998, Gould 2001, Boden, Shao, & van Buren 1998). Since the typical mass of black holes, $`9M_{}`$, is much higher than the typical lens mass, $`0.5M_{}`$, the typical astrometric signal for black-hole lens events with a source in the bulge will be $``$ 3 mas which will easily be measured with ACS (M02), VLTI (by 2004, Delplancke et al. 2001), SIM (by 2009), or GAIA (by 2010-12, Belokurov & Evans 2002), compared to 0.7 mas for a typical main-sequence lens. The deviation of the centroid is $`\delta \theta =\theta _E𝐮/(u^2+2)`$, where $`u`$ is the normalized impact parameter as a function of time and $`\theta _E`$ is the Einstein angle (Paczyński 1998). Since $`u`$ is determined by the photometric light curve, observations of $`\delta \theta `$ at two different $`u`$ will suffice to determine $`\theta _E`$. Combined with $`\widehat{R}_E=\widehat{v}\widehat{t}/2`$ measured photometrically from the $`\mu `$$`\pi `$ will allow a determination of the mass of the lens, $`M=c^2\widehat{R}_E\theta _E/(4G)`$. With mass measurements for many long-timescale events, the mass function can be deduced since the probability for lensing is proportional to $`\widehat{t}^4M^2\varphi (M)`$ for a phase-space distribution that is independent of mass (equation 3). The $`M^2`$ dependence means that detection of black holes will be favored so that one can constrain $`\beta `$ and $`M_{cns}`$.

Finally, direct observations of the lenses provide another avenue toward determining their nature. If they are black holes, they may accrete from the interstellar medium or from a companion wind. With plausible assumptions, the X-ray radiation could be detectable with current space-based observatories (Agol & Kamionkowski 2001).

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Dave Bennett and Shude Mao for constructive comments. This work was supported in part by NSF AAST-0096023, NASA NAG5-8506, and DoE DE-FG03-92-ER40701. EA was supported by NASA through Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship Award Number PF0-10013 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of NASA under contract NAS8-39073.


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# FAQ about the “contextual objectivity” point of view.

## I Introduction

In a previous preprint , we introduced and discussed a “physical” (as opposed to mathematical) definition of a quantum state***Throughout this paper “state” means “pure state”, unless it is specified as “mixed state”. To avoid confusion, pure states will also be called “modalities” ., that reads in the following way :

The quantum state of a physical system is defined by the values of a completeThe set of quantities is complete in the sense that the value of any other quantity which satisfies the same criteria is a function of the set values. set of physical quantities, which can be predicted with certainty and measured repeatedly without perturbing in any way the system.

As discussed in detail in ref. , this definition is in full agreement with the usual formalism of QM. It is also implies that some “objectivity” can be attached to the quantum state, because the quantum state is defined from a fully predictable course of events, that is independent of the observer. In  we tried to exploit this definition, together with some ideas about the system dimensionality, to propose a new axiomatic approach to QM, that is an attempt to spell out how the “quantum reality” is related with the “macroscopic reality”. While  is a straightforward rewriting of usual QM,  is much more tentative and its goal is mostly to stimulate some thinking. We recommend to the reader to have a look at least at  before reading the FAQ below.

## II Frequently Asked Questions (and answers)

Q: What is contextual objectivity ?

A: It is an attempt to reformulate quantum mechanics (QM) in a more physical (as opposed to mathematical) way. The ultimate goal of such a reformulation, that is evoked in , would be to explain why QM is the way it is. In particular, the Hilbert space structure should be deduced, not postulated.

It is worth emphasizing that contextual objectivity is not an alternative theory to Quantum Mechanics, but it is rather an alternative way to present it: for all practical purposes, the predictions drawn from our approach will be the same as the ones of standard QM, only the point of view will be slightly different. So the difference is not in the prediction, but in the so-called “interpretation” of QM. For instance, we claim that our point of view is “realistic”, though it is certainly not a revival of “local realism”. We fully acknowledge that QM is non-separable, but we emphasize that quantum non-separability is not an “action at a distance” (not even an “influence at a distance”; see below). We insist also on the uniqueness of the macroscopic world, at variance with the so-called “many worlds” point of view (see also below).
Q: The quantum state cannot be an objective property of the system, because if you are given the system it is not possible to recover the state.

A: You should be given not only the system, but also the set of relevant observables (i.e. the “context”, or in usual terms the measurement basis). Then the state can obviously be recovered with certainty.
Q: Does that mean that the set of relevant observables is “an intrinsic part of the reality” (cf Bohr’s answer to the EPR argument) ?

A: In some sense yes. As explained in , a very specific quantum feature is the existence of “non-exclusive modalities” (in usual terms, non-orthogonal pure states): one cannot recover a state among a set of non-exclusive modalities, but it is quite possible to recover it among a set of exclusive ones (in usual terms, orthogonal ones). This is why the set of relevant observables is needed together with the system, and why we speak about “contextual” objectivity. We note that the appropriate set of relevant observables is also observer-independant.
Q: How to explain the EPR “paradox” ?

A: In an EPR state, the initial quantum state is a state of the particles pair, and the fully predictible quantities are the results of Bell measurements, that are joint measurements on both particles. On the other hand, the states for each particle are undefined (they have no “reality”). When Alice performs a measurement, the state is redefined on her side. Given her measurement result, and assuming that she knew the initial entangled state, Alice can infer Bob’s state. On Bob’s side, nothing changed : there was no pure state before, and there is no pure state after, until Alice informs Bob about what she measured. For doing that she needs classical transmissions. Therefore, Alice’s measurement does not “act upon” Bob’s particle in any sense. We note that Bob is also free to make a measurement on his side. If he does, it can be checked afterwards that his result is compatible with (but not determined by) Alice’s prediction.

With respect to Bell’s inequalities, one should notice that for an EPR state the strong correlations between measurements on the subsystems are due to global properties, while the properties of each subsystem are completely random. Such a situation is totally non-classical, because classically correlations must be “mediated” by properties of the subsystems. So Bell’s hypothesis contradict QM because of the failure of the “local reality” (or “separability”) assumption, that states that in order to explain the correlations, there should exist a property (a “local hidden variable”) that describes the polarization on each side Mathematically this is expressed by the dependance of the measurement result $`A(\stackrel{}{a},\lambda )=\pm 1`$ on both the adjustable parameter $`\stackrel{}{a}`$ and the hidden variable $`\lambda `$. Classically, if there is nothing like $`\lambda `$, then $`A(\stackrel{}{a})=\pm 1`$ is purely random, and the correlations should vanish, while this is not the case quantum mechanically. This emphasizes again that an essential hypothesis for Bell’s inequalities is “local reality”.. As said above, this is not the case in QM, but again there is no “action at a distance”, not even any “influence at a distance”.

The ultimate lesson from the EPR argument and Bell’s inequalities is that classical physics is unable to manage global properties of a system, that are not mediated by individual properties of the subsystems, while QM can perfectly do so§§§In case this sentence sounds too “holistic” to the reader, let us remind that in our approach, the quantum state is always “embedded” in a classical environment.. On the other hand, both classical and quantum correlations are due to “common causes in the past evolution”, and thus obey relativistic causality.
Q: Why not to say that a pure quantum state is a “state of knowledge” ?

A: An implicit consequence of the wording “state of knowledge” is that such a state should be contingent (i.e. observer-dependant), and that it should be associated with an “ignorance” of something. This is indeed true for a mixed state, but this is not true for a pure state, that is observer-independant, and that is not associated with the “ignorance” of anything (i.e. , there is no hidden variables). Therefore, one might use a wording like “objective state of knowledge”, but this is not very clear, and this is why we prefer to say that a state is “real” in the contextual objectivity point of view. Actually, as said above, a pure state appears to be real and objective in the usual sense as long as one carries out measurements within the specified complete set of commuting observables, following the time evolution of the system.
Q: How to deal with the problem of the boundary between quantum and classical “realities” ?

A: The discussion in  does not directly answer the question of the quantum-classical boundary, but rather makes it irrelevant, by claiming that the true basic postulate of QM is the existence of both a continuous classical world and a quantized quantum world. The structure of QM is then a consequence from the need to connect them together. As said above, this line of reasoning is an attempt to stimulate thinking rather than a proof, and we summarize below its main points.

A physical quantity is defined as an ensemble of possible measurements, that are connected between themselves by “geometrical” transformations that we call “knob transformations” (they may be standard geometrical transformations, such as rotations of a Stern-Gerlach magnet…). This definition of physical quantities, that cannot be avoided in our opinion, is essentially classical : it cannot be quantum, since it actually defines the parameters that will be used to measure the state of the quantum system In an extreme view, what is required is the (continuous) “spacetime” in which the experiment is carried out, that is not a quantum space-time (at least, not in usual QM).. More precisely, we will assume that the “knob transformations” have the structure of a non-commutative continuous group In a more precise definition, physical quantities will be associated with the infinitesimal generators of that group.. On the other hand, the quantum system is intrinsically quantized: though it may be in an infinite number of (non-exclusive) modalities, we postulate that for a given “context” (i.e. complete set of commuting observables), there is only a discrete number of exclusive modalities, that is a property of the system (its dimension). Not surprisingly, quantization is the main feature of the quantum system.

Given the two concepts of physical quantities and of a system, the most naive classical approach is to identify each physical quantity with the numbers given by the measurements, and to attribute “reality” to these numbers. EPR themselves realized that this definition of “reality” was too restrictive, and proposed instead their definition based upon predictability and reproducibility; this is just the idea that we use as our definition of a quantum state. But as soon as this is done, it appears that “reality” based upon predictability and reproducibility cannot be attributed simultaneously to all physical quantities : this is simply incompatible with the structure of the physical quantities described above.

One wants indeed to hold simultaneously that the physical quantities are defined by measurements, depending on continuous parameters, while the possible measurement results (the “exclusive modalities”) are quantized. How QM is able to make these two requirements fit together is discussed in  (see also ). We reach then the conclusion that what is “real” at the macroscopic level is the definition of the physical quantities (i.e. of the possible measurements), and what is “real” at the quantum level (of the measured system) is the quantum state. These two “realities” are fully compatible - they are actually the only ones that can connect the experimental definition of a physical quantity and the measurement results in a consistent way.
Q: What about the “many-worlds” interpretation ?

A: The so-called “many-worlds” interpretation of QM is a possible (the only possible ?) alternative to our point of view. The difference between the two approaches is clear : while our approach is built to take into account that the measurement of $`S_z`$ on a superposition $`(|++|)/\sqrt{2}`$ gives only one result, the “many-worlds” approach claims that it gives two (totally equivalent) results. For consistency with classical reality, it adds that our mind is made is such a way that it “follows” only one of these possibilities. Rather that introducing our mind at that point (whose’s mind actually ?), we consider more fruitful to assume that physical reality is uniquely defined, within the framework of contextual objectivity.


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# An analysis of STIS HST UV spectra of M33 early B supergiantsPartly based on INES data from the IUE satellite

## 1 Introduction

The Wind Momentum–Luminosity Relationship (WLR, Kudritzki et al. 1995; Puls et al. 1996, for recent reviews see Kudritzki 1998 and Kudritzki & Puls 2000) offers the very attractive opportunity to derive the stellar luminosity directly from the analysis of the observed spectrum, provided that the wind is radiatively driven. Accurate individual stellar distances can then be obtained if the apparent magnitude and extinction are known. This method, that has been extensively described elsewhere (see for example the reviews cited above), can be potentially applied to individual stars up to distances of 10–20 Mpc, reaching the Virgo and Fornax clusters with accuracies as low as 0.1 mag, using present day telescopes and techniques (McCarthy et al. 1997; Kudritzki et al. 1999).

However, accurate application of the method requires previous calibrating work, as the WLR depends on the stellar metallicity and the spectral type (Puls et al. 1996; Kudritzki et al. 1999). Thus observation and analysis of stars of different spectral type and metallicity at known distances are crucial to calibrate the method before applying it.

For this reason we have started in our group a number of programs aimed at calibrating the WLR for different stars in different environments within the Local Group (Puls et al. 1996; McCarthy et al. 1997; Kudritzki et al. 1999; Herrero et al. 2001).

In the present paper, we analyze STIS HST UV spectra of M33 B–supergiants. Our analysis is primarily aimed at obtaining the wind terminal velocities, needed to calculate the WLR, that will be determined after the analysis of the optical spectrum.

In addition our study constitutes, together with a similar study of B-supergiants in M31 (Bresolin et al. 2002), the largest homogeneous sample of stars analyzed in the UV beyond the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds (see Prinja & Crowther 1998, for a recent list), and an important increase in the total number of analyzed B-supergiants, in particular those with large intrinsic brightness (bright magnitudes are of course still a primary selection criteria for our extragalactic targets). The group of early B–supergiants is particularly important for the spectral type dependence of the WLR. Between O9 and B3, two jumps are observed in the WLR, one between O9 and B0 and another between B1 and B1.5, while the WLR for B-supergiants between B1.5 and B3 is not well understood in terms of the radiatively driven wind theory, as wind momenta lower than expected are derived for the analyzed Galactic stars (Kudritzki et al. 1999).

In Sect. 2 we show the observations of the spectra, that are described in Sect. 3. Sect. 4 presents the analysis of the UV profiles, while in Sect. 5 we discuss the individual aspects found for each star. In Sect. 6 we present the discussion of the results and the conclusions.

## 2 The observations

Observations were made with the HST STIS, using the GL140 grating which provides a resolution from 310 to 210 km s-1 in the wavelength range from 1150 to 1700 Å. We used a 0.2 wide slit, which is recommended for optimizing the spectral purity. Table 1 gives our list of objects and other details of the observations.

There are two spectra for each star. We merged these two spectra after checking their relative displacement by cross-correlating them.

Merged stellar spectra are corrected for the relative velocity between stars and observer. This is done by measuring the displacement from rest wavelength of metal lines that are purely photospheric. There are a few photospheric lines that could in principle be used in the observed spectral range (Prinja 1990). They are difficult to identify in all spectra. Thus, after inspection of the spectra, we decided to use the Si iii doublet at $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1500.24, 1501.19 Å, because it is the only one that can be clearly identified in all spectra. The spectral resolution does not allow us to resolve both components of the Si iii doublet. We use as rest wavelength that of a composed line centered at $`\lambda `$ 1500.72 Å. Because of the small signal to noise ratio of the spectra, we decided to correct one of the spectra of higher quality and then refer the others to this one. We selected the spectrum of M33-0900 for that purpose. Once the M33-0900 spectrum had been shifted so that the Si iii line was at rest wavelentgh, we checked this correction with the position of other strong interstellar lines (see f.e. Prinja 1990), as these are probably produced by the interstellar medium close to M33-0900. We can see in Fig. 1 that the shifted interstellar lines are at their expected rest wavelengths.

To correct the other spectra we cross-correlated them with the corrected spectrum of M33-0900. To avoid possible biases, strong P-Cygni profiles have been masked111Spectral regions of N v, C iv, Si iv UV resonance lines have been set to zero before correlations (see Howarth et al. 1997). For M33-1137 and M33-B-526, the stars with lowest SN spectrum, the cross-correlation function does not present a well defined maximum. Checking the strong interstellar lines present in the spectra (Si ii $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1260.40, 1526.70) we found good concordance between all spectra, excluding M33-1137 and M33-B-526. We decided to shift both spectra until the position of their interstellar lines agree with those of other spectra. Special care was taken in the case of M33-B-526, as the unshifted spectrum shows several lines in the vicinity of the rest wavelength of the intestellar lines.

After having shifted the spectra we rectified the continuum by tracing a polynomial through a number of selected continuum points chosen iteratively, in the same way as described in Herrero et al. (2001).

## 3 Description of the spectra

After all the above corrections have been performed, we finally obtained the spectra displayed in Fig. 1.

One of the difficulties of stellar analyses in M33 is the large possible variation in metallicity, that complicates the interpretation of the spectrum. Thus in Fig. 2 we show a comparison of the N v, Si iv and C iv lines of the M33 stars with Galactic stars of similar spectral classification. Their identifications and spectral types are given in Table 2.

The Galactic UV spectra have been taken from the INES IUE archive, and have been degraded from the original high resolution to the lower resolution of our M33 HST spectra. We emphasize that we have taken the rectification points of the M33 stars as a guide to rectify the IUE spectra in the same way. Therefore, the extra absorption seen redwards of the Si iv and C iv profiles in some Galactic stars are probably an effect of metallicity. Furthermore these extra absorptions are consistent with the profiles indicating a lower metallicity in the M33 stars. The N v comparison is strongly affected by the different L$`\alpha `$ absorptions.

M33-0900 has Si iv and C iv profiles that are very similar to those of HD 154090. Although N v is stronger in M33-0900, the star looks normal for its spectral type.

This is not the case for M33-110-A, which in comparison to HD 148688 displays very weak Si and C lines. Moreover considering the luminosity effect we would expect for Si iv, the difference is even larger. This is consistent with the low Si and O abundances derived by Monteverde et al. (2000). Thus we can expect a low metallicity for 110-A, also consistent with the higher continuum level redwards from Si iv and C iv. The N v profile is again stronger than in the comparison star. The slopes of the blue wings of both the Si and C lines are smaller than in HD 148688. This will be interpreted during the fit procedure as a larger dispersion velocity. Finally we shall mention the broad absorption in the C iv blue wing that becomes more apparent due to the low absorption in this line. This additional absorption is present in both individual M33-110-A spectra and can be clearly indentified in Fig. 3 where we show a comparison of the C iv line in 110-A and in B-38. We have used this figure as a guide in fitting the C iv line in 110-A.

M33-B-38, for which Monteverde et al. (2000) again derive low O and Si abundances, has also been compared with HD 148688. Similar comments as for 110-A are applicable, although effects are less extreme and the N v profile in this case is marginal (as in the Galactic star).

This has previously been observed and analized by Bianchi et al. (1996) and was later reanalyzed by Prinja & Crowther (1998). Both used the same HST GHRS spectrum, which looks like ours, including the lower slope in the blue wings as compared to Galactic stars (see Fig. 4 from Bianchi et al. 1996). Bianchi et al. (1996) find a narrow absorption feature (narrow absorption component, NAC) at a blueshifted velocity of $``$1250 km s-1, which is close to the edge velocity determined by Prinja & Crowther (1998), 1225 km s-1. Interestingly, we also find evidence of a NAC at the same velocity, which may indicate that this is a more permanent feature.

M33-B-133 shows the most puzzling spectra. The red component of the Si iv doublet is deeper than the blue one, which cannot be explained by the theory. The effect is due neither to noise nor to variability, as it is present in the same form in both individual spectra of M33-B-133. We see numerous features in the C iv profile that could be interpreted as NACs. From them, only the absorptions at 250, 585 and 1990 km s-1 show both components. None of these NACs, however, seems strong enough to explain the red component of Si iv.

This is not the only remarkable feature in the spectrum of M33-B-133. This object has been classified by Monteverde et al. (2000) as B1.5 Ia, and is compared with HD 152236 (B1.5 Ia+) in Fig. 2. We see that the profiles are quite different. In fact, the spectrum of B-133 resembles more that of $`\kappa `$ Ori (HD 38771), a B0.5 Ia star, although a comparison of the optical spectra excludes such an early spectral type for M33-B-133.

Another possibility is a blend with the spectrum of a hotter star. This is supported by the resemblance of the spectra of B-133 and $`\kappa `$ Ori, and by the data in Table 1. Note that there B-133 has a larger S/N than would be expected from a comparison of its visual magnitude and spectral type with those of the other stars. Thus, although a particular set of circumstances is required because the B1.5 supergiant dominates the blue spectrum, it is not impossible that a hotter companion of type O9.5-B0.5 is dominating the UV spectrum. If this is the case the apparent strong red component of the Si iv doublet would be the main contribution of the B1.5 star in the UV spectrum.

However, we could not reproduce the observed spectrum by combining IUE spectra of different spectral types without extra ad hoc assumptions (as arbitrary relative displacements), nor can we detect any clear indication of binarity in the HST WFPC2 images of B-133, or other features indicative of a companion in the blue and UV spectrum, and thus the suspected binary nature of B-133 remains unconfirmed.

M33-B-526 displays lines very similar to those of HD 198487, in spite of its suspected binary nature from its appearance in the Keck I screen (McCarthy, private communication).

The C iv profile displays several absorption features redwards of the rest wavelength that could be interpreted as contributions from a companion star. However, their positions do not correspond to those of the doublet separation Thus we expect this to be the spectrum of a single star.

M33-1137 has Si iv profiles that are clearly weaker than those of the selected Galactic counterpart, HD 51309. The C iv profile in M33-1137 is clearly broader than in HD 51309, with a shallow slope in the blue wing. It displays additional absorptions that agree with the positions of the C iv components at $``$75 km s-1, thus clearly pointing to wind inhomogeneities. Weaker absorptions are compatible with components at $``$550 km s-1. Other absorptions cannot be clearly assigned to the C iv doublet, specially considering the low SNR. The N v feature is more evident in M33-1137 than in the Galactic star. The observed spectrum points again to a lower metallicity in the M33 star than in the Galactic comparison star.

Therefore the UV spectral morphology of the observed M33 stars separates them in three groups: a group (particularly evident in Si iv) with lines weaker than their Galactic comparison stars (M33-110-A, M33-B-38 and M33-1137), a second group with lines similar to their Galactic counterparts (M33-0900 and M33-B-526) and one star (M33-B-133) showing peculiar profiles for its spectral type. In addition, the M33 stars seem to have lower slopes in the blue wings, pointing to larger dispersion velocities. This is particularly clear in the first group of stars.

## 4 Analysis of the resonance lines

We use the method described by Haser (Haser 1995, see also Lamers et al. 1999) to analyse the UV P Cygni lines in order to derive wind terminal velocities. We have also derived H i column densities towards the M33 stars by fitting the IS L$`\alpha `$ line, in the same way as in Herrero et al. (2001) (see also Jenkins 1970; Bohlin 1975). The values quoted in Table 2 for these column densities are similar to those obtained for stars in our Galaxy (see Fig.2 of Shull & Van Steenberg 1985).

After continuum rectification, we extract small regions of each spectrum centered in our strategics doublets: N v $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1238.819, 1242.798; Si iv $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1393.73, 1402.73 and C iv $`\lambda \lambda `$ 1548.191, 1550.761. In case of discrepancies or difficulties, we give more weight to the Si iv and C iv lines than to the N v one.

To get the wind terminal velocities we have to correct for the underlying photospheric components, which we do in an approximate way, by using IUE spectra of hot stars with weak winds (and projected rotational velocities as low as possible) as templates. These templates have been convolved with appropriate rotational profiles, to account for the individual stellar rotational speeds. We excluded N v from this procedure, as the corresponding spectra are noisy and do not show any features.

We selected a sample of Milky Way dwarfs with spectral types from O9V to B3V taken from the INES database. This covers the spectral type range of our M33 stars. Selection of photospheric template and continuum rectification has a big impact when fitting emission peaks, but has little effect on the determined terminal velocities. The IUE spectra have been corrected for the relative velocity between stars and observer, in the same way as for M33 stars. The stars used for the photospheric templates are specified in Table 2. Note that the profiles of interest are very weak in these stars, but even so the different metallicity may be a small source of error.

The velocity stratification is parameterized as a usual $`\beta `$-law, and we account for the wind turbulent velocity in the same manner as described in Haser (1995) and Herrero et al. (2001). The indetermination in the exponent of the velocity field, $`\beta `$, produces an additional uncertainty in the terminal velocities.

Table 2 gives the fit results with respect to the wind and turbulent velocities. The final fit to each line is shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

## 5 Individual comments

We briefly comment here on individual aspects of the analysis that could be of interest.

### 5.1 M33-0900

We used HD 22591 (B0.5 V) for the photospheric profiles. The N v profile shows a large emission peak that we cannot reproduce completely (see Sect. 3). The $`v_{ta}/v_{\mathrm{}}`$ ratio is 0.18, larger than in Galactic stars.

### 5.2 M33-110-A

We used HD 39777 (B1.5 V) for the underlying photospheric profiles. We find the same problems as for M33-0900: a large red emission peak in N v, and a large ratio $`v_{ta}/v_{\mathrm{}}`$, which with a value of 0.25 is much larger than in Galactic B–supergiants. Furthermore, the additional absorption contaminating the blue side of C iv makes the fit a bit more difficult, affecting mainly the determination of $`v_{ta}`$. This does not seriuosly affect the uncertainty in the adopted values for $`\beta `$, $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`v_{ta}`$.

### 5.3 M33-B-38

The terminal velocity of this star has also been determined by Bianchi et al. (1996) and Prinja & Crowther (1998). The first authors use an analysis method similar to the one employed here, and thus it is not surprising that our value agrees with their. Prinja & Crowther (1998) determine the terminal velocities of their stellar sample from the violet edges of the profiles and the NACs. The velocity they obtain for this star is much larger (1225 km s-1) than ours (730 km s-1) or the one by Bianchi et al. (about 700 km s-1). Our velocity would support the interpretation that what we have seen at 1250 km s-1 is actually not a NAC.

Bianchi et al. (1996) do not give the turbulent velocity of their stars. We derive a very large value, 250 km s-1, nearly 35$`\%`$ of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$.

We adopted a large $`\beta `$-value, both to improve the consistency between the Si iv and C iv fits, and to improve the fit of the blue side of the red emission peak.

### 5.4 M33-B-133

We have used HD39777 for phostospheric profiles, as in the case of M33-110-A and M33-B-38.

In spite of the low O and Si abundances derived by Monteverde et al. (2000) for this star, its UV spectrum shows comparatively strong C iv and Si iv P-Cygni profiles, indicating a strong and fast wind (see Sect. 3). The terminal velocity reaches 2050 km s-1. The turbulent velocity is 150 km s-1, a modest 7$`\%`$. This is the only star for which we obtain a terminal velocity clearly above the galactic average for its spectral type (taken from Kudritzki & Puls 2000), thus challenging the low abundances or the spectral classification (or both!). The spectral type, however, should change from B1.5 to O9 in order to have a terminal velocity close to the spectral type average. This is completely ruled out from inspection of the optical spectrum.

The fits displayed in Fig. 5 also show a behaviour different from those of the other stars. N v is well fitted. The fit of the C iv profile is good in the bluest part of the wind absorption profile but is bad in the rest of the profile. Fortunately, the first one is the important part for determining the terminal velocity. The unsatisfactory fit at low wind velocities is cosmetically very dependent on the underlying photospheric profile, and thus does not mean very much by itself, but it would be consistent with the presence of additional C iv absorption at low wind velocities. We keep the low $`\beta `$ value as there is no need to increase $`\beta `$ to improve the consistency between C iv and Si iv. However, the anomaly in Si iv indicated in the preceding section, i.e., a stronger red component, can also not be fitted and indicates an extra absorption at low wind velocities. This uncertainty does not affect the determination of the terminal and turbulent wind velocities, that have an accuracy of $`\pm `$100 km s-1.

This does not solve the problem referred to above. The star has a large $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ for its spectral classification and a Si iv red component stronger than the blue one. The first might be attributed to a case of bi-stability (Pauldrach & Puls 1990), similar to that of P-Cygni in our Galaxy, where the ratio of terminal velocity to escape velocity is larger. This however does not explain the red Si iv component. One possible solution to this puzzle is that we are looking at a composite spectrum, B-133 being the star contributing to the red component of Si iv (see Sect. 3). If this is the case, we estimate its terminal wind velocity to be of the order of 450 km s-1, but would expect to see extra absorption in Si iv at low wind velocities.

### 5.5 M33-B-526

It has been classified as B2.5I (Monteverde et al. 1996), from its optical spectrum. We used a B2.5V galactic star for the photospheric profiles (HD 44402, Z CMa).

The derived terminal velocity is the lowest in our sample and the UV spectrum shows only weak signs of mass loss. However, the turbulence velocity is relatively high, with a ratio $`v_{ta}/v_{\mathrm{}}`$ in excess of 0.3. This large value is the result of a compromise between the fit of C iv and that of Si iv. The first would allow a lower turbulence, but then we cannot fit the second one. Again, the value of $`\beta `$ has to be large to favour consistency between both doublets and a better fit to C iv. However, the terminal velocity is not seriously affected. The uncertainty of both velocities is different now, being that of $`v_{ta}`$ $`\pm `$100 km s-1 and that of $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ $`\pm `$50 km s-1. For the sum of both we have adopted $`\pm `$75 km s-1.

### 5.6 M33-1137

This is the coolest star of our sample, with spectral type B3Ia. We take HD32630 (B3V) for the photospheric profiles.

The Si iv doublet is mainly photospheric or in any case the wind has a small contribution. The fit to N v is poor.

The C iv is the main profile for deriving the parameters of the velocity field. The low SNR of the spectra and the additional absorptions described in the preceding section make the fit difficult. We find the best fit at 750 km s-1, 250 km s-1 and 2.0 for $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$, $`v_{ta}`$ and $`\beta `$. Again, $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ is larger than the Galactic average from Kudritzki & Puls (2000), but now much more moderately than for B-133. The uncertainties are slightly larger than those of the other fits, as already expected from the described difficulties. We adopt $`\pm `$100 km s-1 for $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$, $`v_{ta}`$ and its sum.

## 6 Discussion and conclusions

In Fig. 6 we have plotted the derived $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ against the stellar spectral types, together with parabolic fits to the average values quoted by Kudritzki & Puls (2000) for Galactic OB supergiants. The fits have been obtained by joining OI and BIa supergiants on the one hand and OII and BIb supergiants on the other. We have also plotted lines that indicate a 30$`\%`$ variation from the plotted average relations, a usual scatter range (see Fig.4 in Kudritzki & Puls 2000).

All M33 B-supergiants give us values that can be considered normal, except B-133. We see no difference between the stars with different suspected metallicities. This is in agreement with Puls et al. (2000) (see also Vink et al. 2000) who have argued that the terminal velocity (which depends on the slope of the line-strength distribution function, $`\alpha `$) is primarily controlled by the ratio of light ions vs. iron group elements, because of the different line statistics. As long as this ratio is roughly similar, the theoretical expected change of terminal velocity (due to the ”indirect” $`\alpha `$ effect, see Puls et al., 2000, setc 5.2) is much smaller than if this ratio would be changed. In particular if a dense wind is present (as is the case for our supergiants) and this ratio remains unchanged (which we have to assume for the moment), the effect is expected to be very small (see Puls et al. 2000, Fig. 27), since the effective $`\alpha `$ then remains roughly constant. Only for thin winds and/or a significantly lower (general) metallicity the effect should become observable.

We could not find a satisfactory explanation for B-133. While its terminal velocity is well above the average for its spectral type, it could still be accepted (even with the low metallicity derived by Monteverde et al. 2000) assuming for example a bi-stability phenomenon, were it not for the anomalous red component of the Si iv doublet. Assuming on the other hand that B-133 is actually producing the red Si iv component, its velocity would be much closer to the average of its spectral type. However, we could not reproduce the observed profiles without ad hoc hypothesis, nor find conclusive evidence of a binary nature.

Although three of our stars have been analyzed by Monteverde et al. (2000) we will postpone a discussion of the terminal velocities in terms of the stellar parameters, as new analyses of their optical spectra, now including mass-loss effects, are currently under way in our group together with a set of newly observed stars.

The wind turbulent velocities derived here are larger than the typical 10$`\%`$ $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Kudritzki & Puls 2000) or the 14$`\%`$ found by Herrero et al. (2001), reaching nearly 35$`\%`$ in the most extreme case. Including B-133 we obtain 0.25 for the mean $`v_{ta}/v_{\mathrm{}}`$ ratio. This result is of the same order of that found by Bresolin et al. (2002) in their analysis of M31 B supergiants. We tentatively attribute it for the moment to the extreme character of our objects, selected among the brightest supergiants in M33, and as a consequence are among the most luminous objects.

Finally, we have detected evidence of numerous NACs, confirming the wide presence of wind inhomogenities.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank F. Najarro for very useful discussions during the stellar analyses. A.H. wants to acknowledge support for this work by the spanish DGI under proyect AYA2001-0436, the DGES under project PB97-1438-C02-01 and from the Gobierno Autonómico de Canarias under project PI1999/008. F.B. and J.P. acknowledge support from the German DLR, under grant RD-RX 50OR9909/2.