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# Frequency locking of tunable diode lasers to a stabilized ring-cavity resonator

## Abstract

We demonstrate a technique for locking the frequency of a tunable diode laser to a ring-cavity resonator. The resonator is stabilized to a diode laser which is in turn locked to an atomic transition, thus giving it absolute frequency calibration. The ring-cavity design has the principal advantage that there is no feedback destabilization of the laser. The cavity has a free-spectral range of 1.3 GHz and $`Q`$ of about 35, which gives robust locking of the laser. The locked laser is able to track large scans of the cavity.

The easy availability of diode lasers over most of the near-infrared spectrum has led to their widespread use in atomic and optical physics experiments . The principal advantages of these lasers lie in their low cost, narrow spectral width, tunability over several nm, efficient power consumption, reliability, and ease of operation. In addition, by placing a single-mode diode in an external cavity and using optical feedback from an angle-tuned grating, it can be made to operate at single frequency (single longitudinal mode) with linewidth of order 1 MHz . Such frequency-stabilized diode lasers find applications in several experiments as low-cost replacements for ring-cavity dye or Ti-sapphire lasers. In particular, experiments on laser cooling have become accessible to a large community of researchers because several alkali atoms and alkali-like ions have cooling transitions which are accessible with diode lasers . However, to use lasers in such applications effectively it is necessary to set their absolute frequency with $``$MHz precision. In many cases, this is achieved by locking the laser to a known atomic or molecular transition using saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a vapor cell. But this may not always be possible, especially when working with short-lived radioactive species or trapped ions.

In this Letter, we solve this problem by locking a tunable diode laser to a stabilized ring-cavity resonator. Tunable lasers are traditionally locked to linear Fabry-Perot reference cavities. In fact, several commercial dye and Ti-sapphire lasers use a temperature-controlled linear cavity for locking. The main problem with such a design for the diode laser is that it can cause unwanted feedback into the laser and destabilize it. By contrast, our ring-cavity design has a traveling wave inside the cavity and there is no possibility of feedback into the laser. The ring cavity has several other advantages: i) The cavity provides at least three output beams that can be used to measure the signal from the cavity. ii) The angle of incidence on the cavity mirrors is not normal, therefore the mode structure inside the cavity is elliptical; diode laser outputs are also elliptical, and this makes it easier to mode-match the output of the diode laser into the cavity. iii) The design is compact and the cavity is easily temperature controlled to increase its passive stability.

The cavity is actively stabilized to a diode laser (called the “master laser”) that is itself locked to an atomic transition. Using a diode laser locked to an atomic transition as the absolute frequency reference has several advantages over alternatives such as using a stabilized HeNe laser. The atomic transition typically has several hyperfine peaks and the laser can be locked to any of them. For example, we use the $`D_2`$ line in Rb for locking the master laser. Rb has two stable isotopes, and two ground-state hyperfine levels and four excited-state hyperfine levels in each isotope. Thus, there are potentially 24 lock points available in the saturated-absorption spectrum , with frequencies varying over a range of several 100 MHz. Now, when the arbitrary frequency of a tunable laser (called the “slave laser”) has to be set, its frequency will generally be offset from the cavity resonance, and the offset can be as large as the cavity free-spectral range. This offset is accounted for by shifting the laser frequency using an acousto-optic modulator (AOM) and then locking to the cavity. If the cavity is stabilized to a single frequency from a HeNe laser, the free-spectral range of the cavity has to be quite small so that the frequency offset lies within the range of the AOM, which is typically limited to 100–200 MHz. This implies the use of long cavities with their concomitant difficulty in maintaining temperature stability. By contrast, the wide range of lock frequencies available with the atomic transition means that the cavity free-spectral range can be of order GHz, and it is still possible to find one lock point for which the slave laser frequency lies within the range of the AOM. One other advantage of using a diode laser locked to an atomic transition is that it makes scanning of the slave laser quite simple. The master laser can be scanned over a large frequency range around the atomic transition by changing its grating angle, and the slave laser tracks this scan. This kind of scanning is quite important in spectroscopy experiments.

The schematic of our system is shown in Fig. 1. The master laser is tuned to the $`D_2`$ line of atomic Rb at 780 nm ($`5S_{1/2}5P_{3/2}`$ transition). It is locked to one of the hyperfine peaks or crossover resonances in the saturated-absorption spectrum. The absolute frequency of the Rb $`D_2`$ line has been measured previously with kHz accuracy , therefore the frequency of this laser is known very precisely. The error signal for the locking is obtained by modulating the injection current into the diode. Next, the cavity is stabilized by locking it to the master laser frequency. The error signal for this is obtained by modulating the cavity length using a piezo-mounted mirror. Finally, the slave laser is locked to a cavity resonance by dithering its injection current. All the modulation frequencies are in the range of 10–50 kHz and the lock-in amplifiers are home built around the Analog Devices AD630 mixer chip.

The two diode laser systems are built around commercial single-mode laser diodes. The output is first collimated using a 4.5 mm, 0.55 NA aspheric lens. The laser is then frequency stabilized in a standard external-cavity design (Littrow configuration)  using optical feedback from an 1800 lines/mm diffraction grating mounted on a piezoelectric transducer. For the master laser, a part of the output beam is tapped for Doppler-free saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a Rb vapor cell. The laser is locked to one of the hyperfine transitions in the $`D_2`$ line by feeding the error signal to the piezoelectric transducer that controls the grating angle. The slave laser is tuned near the $`D_1`$ line of Rb at 795 nm.

The ring cavity consists of two plane mirrors and two concave mirrors in a bow-tie arrangement, as shown in Fig. 1. One of the plane mirrors is partially reflecting (97%) and is used to couple light into the cavity. The second plane mirror is mounted on a piezoelectric transducer and is used to adjust the cavity length electronically. The two concave mirrors have radius of curvature of 25 mm. The concave mirrors are placed 26.5 mm apart, while the optical path length between them through the plane mirrors is 200 mm. The angle of incidence on all mirrors is 15o. The mirrors are mounted on a 10-mm thick copper plate that is temperature controlled to $`\pm 0.01^\mathrm{o}`$C using a thermoelectric cooler.

We have analyzed the cavity using standard $`ABCD`$ matrices for Gaussian beam propagation . Because of the non-zero angle of incidence on the curved mirrors, it is necessary to analyze the sagittal and tangential planes separately. The cavity modes are therefore elliptical. The cavity has two beam waists, a small one of diameter 13.8 $`\mu `$m $`\times 13.4`$ $`\mu `$m between the concave mirrors and a large one of diameter 224 $`\mu `$m $`\times 119`$ $`\mu `$m between the plane mirrors. The larger waist is used for efficient mode matching of the laser beams into the cavity. The output of the diode lasers is directly fed into the cavity through a lens of focal length 50 cm. About 15% of the light gets coupled into the cavity. Using an anamorphic prism pair after the diode laser, it is possible to adjust the ellipticity of the input beam and improve the coupling efficiency to 50%, but we do not do this on a routine basis.

The cavity has been designed to have a $`Q`$ of about 30. The measured cavity modes are shown in Fig. 2 which is a plot of the power inside the cavity as a function of the cavity length. The measured $`Q`$ is 35, which is close to the designed value. The free spectral range is 1.3 GHz corresponding to a cavity length of 226.5 mm. This implies that the cavity modes have a linewidth of about 37 MHz. The low $`Q`$ of the cavity ensures that the locking of the slave laser is robust and is quite insensitive to sudden perturbations. The error signal obtained by modulating the cavity length is fed to the piezo-mounted mirror to lock the cavity to the master laser. The piezoelectric transducer has a full deflection of 6.1 $`\mu `$m for a voltage of 150 V. This gives a wide dynamic range for the cavity to track scans of the master laser.

There are two ways to produce the error signal for locking the slave laser to the stabilized cavity. The first technique, which is easier to implement, is to modulate the injection current into the slave laser. The second technique is to modulate the frequency of the AOM which is used to shift the frequency of the laser and match it to a cavity resonance. The second technique has the advantage that the laser frequency does not vary and there is no increase in its linewidth. However, the scheme is complicated because it requires double passing through the AOM in order to maintain directional stability. Therefore, we have used the first technique in these experiments.

In order to test the ability of the slave laser to track scans of the master laser, we have used the slave laser to measure transitions on the Rb $`D_1`$ line ($`5S_{1/2}5P_{1/2}`$ transition) while it was locked to the cavity. The slave laser is first tuned near the $`D_1`$ line by measuring its frequency using a home-built wavemeter . The wavemeter also uses the master laser locked to the atomic transition for absolute frequency calibration. This gives us the slave-laser frequency with an accuracy of about 20 MHz. The frequency shift in the AOM is then adjusted so that the slave laser is on a cavity resonance and the laser is then locked to the cavity. The master laser is now scanned over a frequency range of several 100 MHz. The saturated-absorption spectrum of the $`5S_{1/2},F=25P_{1/2},F^{}`$ transitions in 85Rb is shown in Fig. 3. We see that the slave laser is able to track scans of order GHz or more without losing lock.

In conclusion, we have shown that the frequency of a tunable diode laser can be locked using a stabilized ring-cavity resonator. The ring cavity has several advantages over a linear etalon, the main one being that there is no feedback destabilization of the laser. The cavity is stabilized using a diode laser which is in turn locked to an atomic transition. The atomic transition has several peaks in the spectrum, and thus provides several calibrated frequency markers for locking. The cavity we have used in the current experiments has a free spectral range of 1.3 GHz and a $`Q`$ of 35. The low $`Q`$ allows robust locking of the slave laser. The piezo-mounted mirror in the cavity has a wide dynamic range that allows large scans of the master laser to be tracked by the slave laser. We have verified that the slave laser stays locked while the master laser is scanned over a frequency range of 1 GHz or more. The cavity modes have a linewidth of about 37 MHz and this determines the tightness of the lock. In future, we plan to use a longer cavity with free spectral range of about 500 MHz and mode linewidth of 15 MHz. We expect to get much tighter locking with the new design.

This work was supported by research grants from the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (DAE), and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.


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# Percolation in Directed Scale-Free Networks

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Support from the NSF is gratefully acknowledged (DbA).


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# Investigating the Flame Microstructure in Type Ia Supernovae

## Investigating the Flame Microstructure
in Type Ia Supernovae

F.K. Röpke, W. Hillebrandt, J.C. Niemeyer
Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, D-85740 Garching, Germany

### Introduction

Type Ia Supernovae (SN Ia in the following) are the most accurate cosmological distance indicators at the moment. Through light curve shape corrections accuracies of better than 10% in distance are claimed. In addition, claims of an accelerated cosmic expansion and thus a new constituent of the universe are mainly based on supernova observations. It is, however, evident that an understanding of the explosion mechanism is needed in order to validate such interpretations of the data and to control possible evolutionary effects.

One way to perform such investigations is by means of numerical simulations. These simulations should be self-consistent, independent of any phenomenological parameters, and based on models that are in accord with observational constraints. However, the main problem with the numerical approach is the vast range of relevant length scales, 11 orders of magnitude from the flame width to the radius of the star, that remains unresolvable in multidimensional simulations. Following , attempts to overcome this difficulty can be classified into large scale calculations (LSCs) and small scale calculations (SSCs). The former try to simulate SN Ia on scales of the radius of the exploding white dwarf star relying on assumptions on the microscale physics, whereas the latter are used to study the flame dynamics through a small window in scale space. In this manner it is possible to isolate specific physical effects and eventually to include the information gained here into LSCs. Examples of LSCs are given in M. Reinecke’s contribution to these proceedings. The present work is concerned with SSCs to investigate the dynamics of thermonuclear flames in SN Ia explosions.

### The astrophysical model

The SN Ia model adopted in the present study describes them as thermonuclear explosions of Chandrasekhar-mass C+O white dwarf stars. In the standard model nuclear burning is ignited near or at the star’s center. At the typical temperatures of around $`10^{10}`$K the thermonuclear burning rate scales with the temperature as $`\dot{S}T^{12}`$. Hence the burning takes place in a very thin region which is called a flame.

Flames can travel in two distinct modes: as a supersonic compression (shock) wave in the detonation mode and as a subsonic conductive wave in the deflagration mode. A pure detonation model for SN Ia can be ruled out because the outcome does not match the observed spectra. A more promising model (see M. Reinecke’s contribution) is one in which the explosion starts out as a (slow) deflagration, is accelerated by turbulence, and possibly undergoes a transition to a detonation. The questions arising here concern the mechanism of the generation of turbulence as well as the likelihood of a deflagration-to-detonation transition. They are still not answered and are the motivation to study thermonuclear flames at microscopic scales.

In this work we will investigate length scales much larger than the diffusive flame width (less than one millimeter for C+O white dwarfs ) but much smaller than the stellar radius. On such scales the so-called discontinuity approximation holds which describes the flame as a discontinuity in temperature and density. This picture does not resolve the inner structure of the flame and it is therefore necessary to prescribe the laminar burning velocity as taken from direct numerical simulations, e.g. .

### Some theoretical considerations

A laminar flame is subject to various instabilities. In the context of SN Ia explosions the most important ones are the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, and the Landau-Darrieus instability. While the first two are more important on large scales, the Landau-Darrieus (LD) instability acts unconditionally on all scales provided the flame can be described by the discontinuity approximation. This instability shall be investigated here, and its cause will be described briefly.

As was first discussed by Landau  and Darrieus  the cause of this instability is the refraction of the streamlines of the flow at the density jump of the flame. Consider a flame front that is perturbed from its originally planar shape. In the vicinity of a bulge of the perturbation the flow tubes are broadened. This leads to a decrease of the local fluid velocity with respect to the velocity far away from the front. Therefore the burning velocity $`s_l`$ of the flame is higher than the corresponding local fluid velocity leading to an accrual of the bulge. The opposite holds for recesses of the perturbed front. In this way the perturbation keeps growing. By means of a linear stability analysis Landau found for the growth rate of the perturbation amplitude

$$\omega _{\mathrm{LD}}=ks_l\frac{\mu }{1+\mu }\left(\sqrt{1+\mu \frac{1}{\mu }}1\right),$$
(1)
where $`k`$ denotes the perturbation wavenumber and $`\mu =\rho _u/\rho _b`$ is the expansion across the flame front. In white dwarf matter at densities relevant for SNe Ia, the existence of the LD instability was first demonstrated numerically in .

However, the LD instability does not lead to unlimited growth of the amplitudes but is limited in the nonlinear regime. Fig. 1 illustrates this effect which can

be described in a geometrical way (following ): The propagation of an initially sinusoidally perturbed flame is first determined by Huygens’ principle. But once a cusp forms at point A Huygens’ principle breaks down and the flame propagation enters the nonlinear regime. The propagation velocity at the cusps exceeds $`s_l`$. This leads to a stabilization of the flame in form of cells which propagate with a velocity not much higher than $`s_l`$. Therefore the LD instability is usually ignored in SN Ia simulations. An analytical investigation of the stabilizing effect is given in  and is applied to the context of SN Ia in . But there exist the possibility that nonlinear stabilization is destroyed under certain conditions (e.g. certain densities; interaction with turbulent velocity fields). In the following section we present a numerical method that will allow us to study this question.

### Numerical methods

The fluid dynamics is described by the reactive Euler equations that are discretized on an equidistant Cartesian grid. To solve these equations a Godunov scheme is applied using the piecewise parabolic method (PPM) . For this we employ the Prometheus implementation  with directional splitting in two dimensions.

The equation of state is that of white dwarf matter, including an arbitrarily degenerate and relativistic electron gas, local black body radiation, an ideal gas of nuclei and electron-positron pair creation/annihilation.

Thermonuclear burning as considered here takes place at fuel densities above $`10^7\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^1`$ and terminates into nuclear statistical equilibrium, consisting mainly of 56Ni. Because of the high computational costs of a full reaction network and because the objective of our SSC is to study flame dynamics rather than to provide an exact nucleosynthetic description we simplified the burning to an net reaction, $`14^{12}`$C$`3^{56}`$Ni, which gives an energy release of $`710^{17}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{g}^1`$.

The flame is described using the level set technique, associating the flame front with the zero level set of a signed distance function $`G`$. Details of the implementation of the level set method can be found in . Without additional measures, however, the flame would smear out over 3-4 cells of the computational grid. This is not acceptable for our purposes and therefore we apply the in-cell reconstruction/flux-splitting scheme developed by Smiljanovski et al. . This algorithm makes use of the fact that geometrical information on cells containing burnt and unburnt material (“mixed cells”) can be obtained from the intersection of the zero level set of the $`G`$-function (representing the flame) with the interfaces of the mixed computational cells. In this way one can designate the volume fraction $`\alpha `$ of the unburnt cell part (Fig. 2, l.h.s.). The conserved quantities $`U`$ are now interpreted as a linear combination of unburnt and burnt parts of each cell

$$\overline{U}=\alpha U_u+(1\alpha )U_b.$$

Together with the Rankine-Hugoniot jump conditions and the Rayleigh criterion for the flame front, the equation of state, the jump condition for the velocity component normal to the front, and the prescribed burning velocity one obtains a system of equations which allows to compute state variables of unburnt and burnt matter in each mixed cell from the mean values. To describe the energy generation and species conversion consistently it is necessary to treat the source terms in this reconstruction implicitly. The reconstruction equation system is solved with Broyden’s method.

The knowledge of the values of the burnt and unburnt quantities makes it possible to treat the hydrodynamic fluxes as linear combinations of “unburnt” and “burnt” fluxes weighted with corresponding parts $`\beta `$ of the cell interfaces (see Fig. 2, r.h.s.). These partial fluxes are calculated separately. Therefore it is guaranteed that for instance no unburnt material can flow through the third cell interface from the left in Fig. 2, r.h.s. This feature prevents the flame from smearing out and enables us to describe it as a sharp discontinuity.

### Some preliminary results

In order to study the LD instability the flame evolution has been simulated for two values of the fuel density, namely for $`\rho _u=510^7`$g cm-1 and for $`\rho _u=510^8`$g cm-1. The corresponding expansion coefficients across the front are $`\mu =2.410`$ and $`\mu =1.619`$, respectively. The simulation runs were performed on a grid of 100 $`\times `$ 100 cells with a cell length of 500 cm. The physical domain was periodic in the $`y`$-direction. On the left boundary of the domain an outflow condition was enforced and on the right boundary we imposed an inflow condition with the unburnt material entering the grid with the laminar burning velocity $`s_l`$.

Fig. 3 shows the temporal evolution of the flame fronts. The flame was initially perturbed in a sinusoidal way with a wavelength of $`\lambda _{\mathrm{pert}}=510^4`$cm and an amplitude of 200 cm (0.4 grid cells). Each contour is shifted artificially in $`x`$-direction for better visibility. As expected, in the beginning the perturbation grows exponentially, and the growth rate of the perturbation amplitude meets the theoretical prediction (1). As the flame evolution enters the nonlinear regime the formation of a cusp sets in. The front develops a cellular structure. At the troughs the cells split forming new cusps. The new cells move downwards the initial cusp and disappear. Finally this merging process results in a single domain-filling cusp/trough structure which then propagates steadily forward.

We do not reproduce the result of  that nonlinear stabilization fails at $`\rho _u=510^7`$g cm-1. A detailed discussion of this discrepancy will be presented elsewhere.

### Summary and outlook

The presented model was proven to be applicable for studies of the microscale behavior of thermonuclear flames in the discontinuity approximation. The response of the flame to perturbations of its planar shape meets the theoretical expectations. Early stages of the flame evolution are consistent with Landau’s stability analysis. The later evolution of the flame is nonlinear, it stabilizes in a cellular structure. Whether the final outcome is always a single domain-filling cell has to be studied in larger simulations. With this new code we are now in a position to investigate the interaction of thermonuclear flames with imprinted velocity fields such as turbulence and to study the question of nonlinear stability. Moreover, if possible, we want to apply the in-cell reconstruction/flux-splitting technique to full two-dimensional LSCs of SN Ia explosions.

### Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Martin Reinecke, Heiko Schmidt, and Sergei Blinnikov for valuable discussions.


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# The AMANDA-II Neutrino Telescope

## 1 INTRODUCTION

To detect the feeble flux of predicted high energy astrophysical neutrinos, high energy Cherenkov neutrino telescopes are build as a grid of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) covering a huge geometric volume. The density of PMTs per effective detector area is about 3 orders of magnitude below that for $`\nu `$-events triggered in the SuperKamiokande detector; this implies a detailed verification of the anticipated performance of these new detectors.

The AMANDA-II telescope is located at the geographic South Pole and uses the transparent ice of the 3 km thick ice sheet . The detector has been installed between November 1995 and February 2000, and consists of 677 PMTs in optical modules (OM) on 19 vertical strings deployed to depths between 1300 m-2400 m. The main instrumented volume ranges from 1500 m-2000 m, it covers a cylinder of 200 m diameter (fig.1).

Strings 1-10 form the inner detector of 120 m diameter called AMANDA-B10, which was commissioned in 1997. They use passive OMs with electrical analog signal transmission over 2 km cable. Strings 11-19 form the outer cylinder and are based on analog fiber transmission .

First physics results obtained with AMANDA-B10 are presented at this conference by .

## 2 $`\nu _\mu `$-SEPARATION IN AMANDA-B10

With no astrophysical neutrino sources detected yet, atmospheric neutrinos are the only source to calibrate the sensitivity to the favoured $`\nu `$-channel: upgoing $`\mu `$’s generated in charged current (CC) $`\nu _\mu `$-interactions.

Muon track reconstruction is based on a maximum likelidood fit of measured photon arrival times to expected arrival time distributions , and uses modeled optical bulk ice properties (light scattering and absorption), and local hole ice effects. Light emitted by muon-induced electromagnetic showers and accompanying muons (not in the track fit model) and the low information density per track result in downgoing atmospheric muons being sometimes misreconstructed as upward tracks. They form the dominant background to $`\nu _\mu `$’s, since they trigger about 105 more abundant.

The 1997 data set of the AMANDA-B10 detector has been analyzed by two independent groups. They used different modifications of track reconstruction and extended cuts for selecting highest quality upward reconstructed muon tracks to reject the background at acceptable signal efficiencies. From a total sample of 109 events triggered during 130 effective livetime days in 1997, final samples of 223 and 204 events have been extracted, with $`\nu _\mu `$ passing rates of 3-4% and residual background contamination of 10% . The observed number of events is consistent with expectation, within a $``$50% systematic error due to ice property and primary flux uncertainties. In figure 2 the distribution in cosine of the zenith angle after final cuts for the sample of analysis A is shown (compared to $`\nu `$-simulation expectation, normalized to experimental data). Angular acceptance of AMANDA-B10 is seen to be worst for horizontal directions. The angular and energy averaged effective muon area for muon energies of 0.1-1 TeV is 2800 m2 (weighted over the atmospheric $`\nu `$-spectrum). Much higher effective areas are observed for other searches (see below).

## 3 PERFORMANCE OF AMANDA-II

The AMANDA-II telescope is in stable operation since its commissioning in February, 2000. Reasonable agreement is found between data and simulation .

For neutrinos from astrophysical sources (such as Active Galactic Nuclei, AGN), harder spectra than for atmospheric neutrinos are expected. Fig.3 shows the expected spectrum of triggered events for atmospheric neutrinos (full line) and for a spectrum of AGN neutrinos (dashed line, equal flux set for $`\nu _\mu `$ and $`\nu _e`$) with an assumed diffuse flux of $`10^6E^2`$ GeV sr-1 s-1cm-2. Shown are CC $`\nu _\mu `$ and CC $`\nu _e`$ reactions.

The total number of triggered upgoing events per livetime year for the different channels are given in table 1, including neutral current (NC) interactions.

The $`\nu _e`$-channel was recently shown to yield good sensitivity for diffuse high energy $`\nu `$-search . A first detection of the atmospheric neutrino induced cascades is an interesting challenge in view of the low event rate, see .

The analysis of AMANDA-II data from 2000 is under way. With $`\nu _\mu `$-selection cuts tailored to the larger detector, we find the angular acceptance for horizontal directions and the total signal passing rate much improved, compared to AMANDA-B10. Fig.4 displays a good candidate event for an upward moving muon, reconstructed close to the horizon (zenith angle = 105o).

In figure 5, the calculated AMANDA-II effective area for 10 TeV muons is shown as function of the zenith angle at trigger level . Expected effective areas for two high energy physics analyses are also shown: GRB and point source cuts, yielding areas of 30-60.000 m2. The curve shown for the AMANDA-B10 reveals the acceptance improvement in horizontal direction.

## 4 CONCLUSION

The AMANDA-II telescope reaches effective muon detection areas at 10 TeV of up to 50000 m2, depending on the physics objective, and offers better angular coverage than AMANDA-B10. The latter was proven to work as a high energy neutrino detector by the isolation of a combined sample of 325 atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$’s. The rate of atmospheric $`\nu _\mu `$ events for the full AMANDA-II detector will be about 3 times higher, yielding 800-1000 $`\nu _\mu `$’s for year 2000. Flux limits obtainable by AMANDA-II for high energy neutrinos from diffuse and point sources will improve by $``$10 times within 2 years of livetime .


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# Bulk Hadron Production at AGS and SPS

## 1 Hadron multiplicity and strangeness enhancement

The first SPS experiments with 32S-beams at 200 GeV/A showed an enhancement of various strange particle multiplicities, chiefly $`K^+,\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}`$, relative to pion multiplicities, in going from peripheral to central S + (S, Ag, Au) collisions . This observation appeared to be in-line with the pioneering analysis of Rafelski and Müller  who first linked strangeness enhancement to the advent of transition from the hadronic to a partonic phase. This offered lower effective $`s\overline{s}`$ threshold, shorter dynamical relaxation time toward flavour equilibrium, and an additional, nontrivial effect of relatively high net baryon number or baryochemical potential: the light quark Fermi energy levels move up, perhaps even to the $`s`$-quark mass at high $`\mu _B`$, and the Boltzmann penalty factor for the higher mass $`s\overline{s}`$ pair creation might be removed. This latter aspect was mostly ignored in the late 1980’s but receives fresh significance as we become increasingly aware of the crucial role of $`\mu _B`$.

It is the purpose of this report to present a sketch of our recent progress, both in gathering far superior data and in the understanding of the statistical model that was rudimentarily anticipated in such early strangeness enhancement speculations.

Fig. 1 shows a modern version of the typical strangeness enhancement phenomena. Negative and positive kaon to average charged pion multiplicity ratios obtained by NA49  in Pb+Pb SPS collisions at 158 GeV/A (corresponding to $`\sqrt{s}`$=17.3 GeV) are plotted for a sequence of collision centrality conditions from peripheral to central. At the peripheral end the minimum bias p+p point  matches with the trend. The centrality scale employed here is unusual but it leads to interesting conclusions. The raw data bins are ordered in NA49 data by decreasing projectile spectator energy as recorded in a zero degree calorimeter. This information is converted to mean participant nucleon number, or impact parameter b, by a Glauber calculation. Neither of these scales turn out to be satisfactory  in merging data from central light nuclei collisions, C+C, Si+Si and S+S, with the various centralities of the Pb+Pb collisions. For example, a central S+S collision has $`b2`$ fm and $`N_{part}57`$ but on a b scale the $`K^+/\pi `$ value is about 40% lower than the $`b=2`$ result for the much heavier PbPb system. Inversely on the $`N_{part}`$ scale: $`N_{part}`$=57 corresponds to very peripheral Pb+Pb and the central S+S result is about 40% higher than the Pb+Pb curve. A central collision of a relatively light nuclear pair thus behaves quite differently from a very peripheral heavy nuclear collision where only the dilute Woods-Saxon density tails interact! The scale of Fig. 1 is an intuitive guess  to represent the relative compactness, or volume-to-surface ratio, by the variable R-$`b`$/2 where R is the radius of the colliding nuclear species. It might be connected with the energy density reached in the primordial collision volume. We see that the central light nuclear collision data now merge with the Pb+Pb centrality scale. Similar NA49 data  exist for $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\overline{K}`$ (892) production. The ”strangeness enhancement factor” is also given oftentimes as the production ratio of AA central/(pp min. bias times 0.5 $`N_{part}`$). In the case of Fig. 1 it would be roughly two . Multistrange hyperons  show factors between 4 and 15.

Bulk strangeness enhancement in central collision is a nuclear feature, absent in pp collisions. Of course we lack a detailed picture about ”centrality” in pp collisions but we could still employ e. g. the total charged particle multiplicity to select more or less ”violent” collisions. Fig. 2 shows the $`K^+/\pi `$ ratio of pp at 158 GeV versus charged particle multiplicity, to be essentially flat . Similar findings are made up to Tevatron $`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV $`p\overline{p}`$ collisions : the $`K^+/\pi `$ ratio is 50% higher here but also independent of $`N_{ch}`$.

A picture emerges in which strangeness enhancement, or more generally speaking the yield order in the overall bulk hadron population is connected with ”sequentiality” of interactions at the microscopic level, i.e. with the number of successive collisions if one may employ a naive Glauber picture: with the size and density of the primordial interaction zone. Unfortunately this formal statement does not give us much deeper insight because if we knew how to describe a second, third etc. collision of a hadron, within fm/c space-time distance we would have probably resolved the key issue: does it dissolve into a parton cascade from which the final hadrons are reconstituted? Proton-nucleus collisions must hold a key to this question but nobody has succeeded in isolating the second, third, n’th successive collision of the projectile, as of yet .

At the moment we thus forgo pA as an intermediate step although it certainly also features changes in the hadronic production ratios  and base the analysis on comparing pp to AA. Fig. 3 shows the hadronic multiplicities, from pion to cascade hyperon, obtained by NA49 for min. bias pp at $`\sqrt{s}`$=17.3 GeV . The data are confronted with the Hagedorn statistical model in its canonical Gibbs ensemble form as employed by F. Becattini , leading to very good agreement (as it is well known also for other elementary collisions and energies ). The three parameters are T=186$`\pm `$7 MeV, a reaction volume of 6 fm3, and a total of about 0.5 $`s\overline{s}`$ pairs. The apparent validity of a statistical weight-dominated picture of phase-space filling is not well understood already since Hagedorn’s time. It is clear, however, that the apparent canonical ”hadrochemical equilibrium” pattern can not result from ”rescattering” of produced hadrons: there is none. In Hagedorns view  a creation ”from above” must hold the key to the apparent maximum entropy state, i.e. the QCD process of hadronization . This pattern and T-value are a fingerprint of QCD hadronization - do AA collision data at high $`\sqrt{s}`$ also confirm this picture (they must, of course, also result from a hadronization process)?

## 2 AA collisions in the Grand Canonical Model

Fig. 4 shows the grand canonical fit by Becattini to the NA49 data from central Pb+Pb at 158 GeV/A . The temperature is 160 $`\pm `$ 5 MeV and $`\mu _B`$ =240 MeV; besides, this model employs the much discussed strangeness undersaturation factor $`\gamma _s`$=0.8.

Leaving the second order concern about $`\gamma _s`$ to the theoretical community I note here that Braun-Munzinger et al.  fit a set of data at the same top SPS energy without introducing a $`\gamma _s`$; they report T=170 $`\pm `$5 MeV, at $`\mu _B`$=270 MeV, close enough. There are also studies of the new RHIC STAR data  at $`\sqrt{s}`$=130 GeV by this model  and by Kaneta and Xu , averaging at 175 $`\pm `$ 5 MeV and $`\mu _B`$=48 MeV. And the new, still preliminary data of NA49  at 80 and 40 GeV/A have resulted in Becattini fit values of T=155 MeV, $`\mu _B`$=270 MeV and T=150 MeV, $`\mu _B`$=395 MeV, respectively. I will return shortly to a further discussion of the grand canonical approach but wish to, first of all, show an overall impression from these analyses which are confronted in Fig. 5 with the sensational new lattice QCD calculations at finite $`\mu _B`$ by Fodor and Katz .

The latter predict the T, $`\mu `$ dependence of the QCD phase transformation which in this model consists of a crossover for all $`\mu >`$ 650 MeV, i.e. in the SPS-RHIC domain. Note that physics observables can change rapidly in a crossover, too: the familiar steep rise of e.g. lattice $`ϵ/T^4`$ at $`T_c`$ does not, by itself, reveal the order of the phase transformation . Anyhow: the hadronization points from grand canonical ensemble analysis merge with the phase transformation site of lattice QCD at top SPS and RHIC energy. Quite a sensational result, but also a plausible one  if we recall that Ellis and Geiger did already point out in 1996 that hadronic phase space weight dominance appears to result from the colour-flavour-spin-momentum ”coalescence” that occurs at hadronization . Unfortunately a rigorous QCD treatment of the parton to hadron transition is still missing.

At this point the following objection is always raised: if the same basical model describes hadronic yield ratios in $`pp`$, $`e^+e^{}`$ and in central AA collisions, Figs. 3 and 4, what is special about AA, as you will not tell us now that a QGP is also formed in pp?! Answer: on the one hand both collision systems reveal the QCD hadronization process which features, furthermore, the Hagedorn limiting hadronic temperature $`T_H`$. At top SPS and at RHIC energy $`T`$ (hadronic ensemble) $`T_HT_c`$ (QCD), this is the common feature; it should not be a chance coincidence. On the other hand hadronization appears to occur under dramatically different conditions in AA collisions, as captured in the transition from a canonical to a grand canonical description. Inspection of Fig. 3 and 4 shows that the hadronic population ratios are quite different: the falloff from pions to cascade hyperons in the former case is about four orders of magnitude whereas it reduces to three in the grand canonical situation: strangeness enhancement! In the canonical case the small reaction fireball volume is strongly constrained by local conservation of baryon number, strangeness neutrality and isospin whereas these constraints fade away in the GCE which represents a situation in which, remarkably, these conservation laws act only on the average, over a rather large volume, as captured by a collective chemical potential $`\mu =\mu _B+\mu _s+\mu _I`$. On top of this, $`\mu _s`$ is eliminated by overall strangeness neutrality, and $`\mu _I`$ by overall charge conservation. This leaves one global quantity $`\mu _B`$ essentially in charge of all the conservation task. Note that the statistical model does predict nothing, it merely captures this most remarkable feature of the data. Its observed success implies some kind of long range collective behaviour in the hadronizing source, the origin of which is yet unknown, but must be specific to central AA collisions. Strangeness enhancement is the fading away of canonical constraints, in the terminology of the statistical model .

This aspect has been recently studied in all detail by Cleymans, Redlich, Tounsi and collaborators . Fig. 6 illustrates their results concerning the transition from canonical to grand canonical behaviour with increasing number of participants, i.e. overall ”source” size. It is intuitively clear that it should occur, first, in singly strange hadrons, the increase occuring with offset (but having a larger specific effect on the yields per participant) in S=2,3 hyperons.

A further, appropriate critical question: how can we understand the other aspect of Fig. 5, i.e. the steep falloff from the QCD transition domain occuring at the lower SPS energies? We even have a further GCE analysis, at top AGS energy, by Braun-Muzinger et al. , for central Si+Au collisions at 14.6 GeV/A, shown in Fig. 7.

The result is $`T`$=125 MeV, $`\mu _B`$=540 MeV, far below the $`T`$ scale of Fig. 4. The picture of a direct parton to hadron transition is intuitively inapplicable at these lower energies. Still the overall dynamical trajectory that ends in hadronic chemical (abundance) freezeout should arrive there ”from above” as hydrodynamical models  show. How can the expanding hadronic system maintain conditions near equilibrium, or acquire them? We do not know. Clearly a primitive hadronic point-like gas would not accomplish this, due to relaxation times far exceeding the expansion time scale (volume doubling occuring every about 4fm/c). However, the hadronic system is very dense along its trajectory, and it is thus a quantum mechanical coherent state that decays to the finally observed hadron ensemble. Unlike a quasi-classical, albeit dense ”gas” it might thus ignore the classical concept of a relaxation time. Recall the nucleus, also still a dense system: we do not invoke relaxation time in a transition within such a quantal medium, such as $`\beta `$-decay. And yet ”Fermis Golden Rule” asserts that the transition strength depends ”only” on the squared matrix element times final state phase space volume weight plus global conservation laws. And we know that the phase space factor oftentimes far overrides the matrix element, in the net decay strength. Vague hints, at present! High density hadronic matter behaviour is essentially unknown: an old and new research paradigma. At top SPS and at RHIC energy, in turn, the increasingly ”explosive” nature of hadronic and partonic expansion may almost instantaneously dilute the hadronizing source toward chemical freezeout, as indicated by $`T(GCE)T`$ (Hagedorn) $`T_c`$ (QCD).

## 3 Energy dependence of strangeness yields

From combination of AGS, SPS and RHIC hadron multiplicities we can construct the energy dependence of various strange particle yields relative to the pion yield which carries the main fraction of light quark production. As an example Fig. 8 shows the total $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ and cascade hyperon yield ratio  relative to $`\pi ^+`$, as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$. A distinct maximum is visible in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }/\pi ^+`$ yield ratio. Similar maxima occur e. g. in the $`K^+/\pi `$ ratio , at $`\sqrt{s}68`$ GeV.

Recent work with the grand canonical hadronization model, by Braun-Munzinger, Cleymans, Oeschler, Redlich and Stachel  has shown that such, at first sight remarkable, nonmonotoneous behaviour is, again, semiquantitatively captured. They interpolate among the various GCE fits at increasing $`\sqrt{s}`$, to obtain a continuous hadronic freezeout trajectory in the $`T`$, $`\mu `$ plane. The result is shown in Fig. 8 to reproduce the overall features of the data. Furthermore they showed that these separate strange to nonstrange $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ or $`K^+`$ to pion yield dependences on $`\sqrt{s}`$ are the consequence of a more general maximum in the ”Wroblewski-ratio”, $`\lambda 2(s+\overline{s})/(u+\overline{u}+d+\overline{d})`$ at similar $`\sqrt{s}`$. This finding is illustrated in Fig. 9. The Wroblewski $`\lambda `$ dependence on $`T`$ and $`\mu _B`$ is shown in the plane of $`T,\mu _B`$ in a set of curves each corresponding to a fixed value of $`\lambda `$, from 0.3 to 0.8, as obtained from the GCE model. The (dashed) hadronic freeze-out curve intersects these lines, steeply at first, from high $`\mu _B`$ downwards (”strangeness enhancement”) to $`\mu _B`$ 450 MeV where $`\sqrt{s}`$=6-8 GeV is implied. It peaks there at $`\lambda `$ =0.65 indicating a maximum global strangeness to nonstrangeness ratio, the reflection of which we saw in Fig. 8. Then $`\lambda `$ falls back to 0.4 toward top SPS and RHIC energies.

Cleymans has shown  that this general evolution of the strange to nonstrange hadronic population is the consequence, at the level of the statistical model, of qualitatively different trends concerning the basic parameters. While $`\mu _B`$ drops to zero continuously with increasing $`\sqrt{s}`$ the apparent hadronization temperature turns into saturation (after a similar steeply ascending passage initially) toward $`T=170\pm `$10 MeV, above about $`\sqrt{s}`$= 6-8 GeV where it has already reached $`T=140150`$ MeV. This picture can actually be even recast in the terminology of microscopic collisions: at lower $`\sqrt{s}`$ strangeness production is ”encouraged” by associated production channels owing to the prevailing high net baryon density, then to turn over to $`s\overline{s}`$ production from free fireball energy . This picture would, alone by itself, indicate merely a saturation of the relative strangeness yield. An additional feature sets in with the advent of limiting hadron temperature which can not be understood from a continuous evolution of hadronic collision energy alone. It signifies the advent of partonic phase dynamics. Actually, ”no reasonable person would doubt that toward $`\sqrt{s}`$ = 200 GeV the most simple picture arises from the interaction of quarks and gluons”, to quote Lerry McLerran .

Thus, in concluding this report, let me recapitulate that the Hagedorn statistical model does not predict anything except for the existence of a limiting temperature. It reacts to the data in its particular language, and from this reflection we infer that hadron multiplicities obey a grand canonical order which indicates that an extended, collectively interacting ”fireball” of strongly interacting matter is formed in AA collisions, that merges closely with the QCD phase transformation boundary toward top SPS, and RHIC energy, thus providing for an estimate of the QCD critical temperature. At lower $`\sqrt{s}`$ the overall behaviour of the hadronic multiplicities may reflect the advent of this phase boundary, but at present we lack an appropriate understanding of dense hadronic matter dynamics to fully comprehend the apparent validity of the grand canonical model, also in this domain.


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# Untitled Document

ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE UNIT CELL TYPE ON THE WAVE
FUNCTION IN ONE-DIMENSIONAL KRONIG-PENNEY MODELS

M. G. Tashkova1, A. M. Miteva2 and S. G. Donev3(***e-mail: sdonev@inrne.bas.bg)

1Institute of Organic Chemistry with Center of Phytochemistry, Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences, Acad. G.Bonchev Str. 9, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria 2Space Research Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, P.O.Box 799,
1000 Sofia, Bulgaria 3Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, blvd.Tzarigradsko chaussee 72, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria

PACS. 03.65.-w - Quantum mechanics

PACS. 71.15.-m - Methods of electronic strucyure calculations

PACS. 73.20.-r - Electron states at surfaces and iterfaces

Abstract.- We study the influence of the different choice of unit cells on the Bloch solutions of Schrödinger equation for one-dimensional periodic Kronig-Penney models with rectangular potential barriers or potential wells and partially constant effective mass. We obtain generalized Kronig-Penney relations for bulk states and exact expressions for the corresponding periodic parts of the Block wave functions for the two possible choices of the matching conditions in an unit cell. We show also that our analytic expressions reduce to the well known expressions for the Kronig-Penney relations and Bloch waves under constant effective mass and appropriate matching conditions

The superlattice (SL) electronic structure is of primary importance and interest in both fundamental and applied aspects, and it has been extensively studied recently \[1-10\]. Theoretical studies of the electronic properties of SLs may be carried out in the framework of one-dimensional Kronig-Penney (KP) models , in particular, calculating the electronic surface states \[2,4-6\], the electronic interface states \[3,7-9\] and the electronic bulk states  in the semiconductor superlattices. The basic point in these considerations is to determine the general solution to the corresponding one-dimensional Schrödinger equation together with the conditions for existence of surface and interface states, which conditions depend strongly on the corresponding wave functions \[2-9\]. It hhas been noted by several authors \[12-14\] that the kind of the wave function depends on the choice of the unit cell, therefore, it seems very important to have a more detailed knowledge of this dependence between the choice of the unit cell and the wave function.

The aim of this letter is to consider some aspects of this problem, in particular, how the periodic parts of the Bloch solutions to the corresponding Schrödinger equation with periodic potential and partially constant effective mass depend on the choice of the unit cell, more precizely, on the matching points for the wave functions and their derivatives in this unit cell.

We are going to consider two cases of infinite one-dimensional KP-models: with rectangular potential barriers given on Fig.1, and with rectangular potential wells given on Fig.2. In the first case (potential barriers) the potential $`V(x)`$, determined by the conditions:

$$V(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}V=const,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^1(x):nb+(n+1)ax(n+1)(a+b),\hfill \\ 0,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^2(x):n(a+b)xnb+(n+1)a,(n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{})\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
is periodic with respect to $`x`$ with a period equal to the lattice constant $`(a+b)`$, i.e. $`V(x)=V(x+(a+b))`$. For an electron with a partially constant effective mass $`m(x)`$

$$m(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}m_1=const,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^1(x):nb+(n+1)ax(n+1)(a+b)\hfill \\ m_2=const,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^2(x):n(a+b)xnb+(n+1)a,(n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{})\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
moving in the periodic potential field (1), the one-dimensional stationary Schrödinger equation

$$\frac{d^2\mathrm{\Psi }(x)}{dx^2}+\frac{2m(x)}{\mathrm{}^2}\left[EV(x)\right]\mathrm{\Psi }(x)=0$$
(3)
has, according to the Bloch-Floquet theorem , the following periodic in $`x`$ solutions with period $`(a+b)`$:

$$\psi _I(x)=Aexp\left[(i\alpha +\gamma )x\right]+Bexp\left[(i\alpha \gamma )x\right]$$
(4)
in ”regions I”: $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1(x):nb+(n+1)ax(n+1)(a+b)`$, and of the form

$$\psi _{II}(x)=Cexp\left[i(\alpha +\beta )x\right]+Dexp\left[i(\alpha \beta )x\right]$$
(5)
in ”regions II”: $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x):n(a+b)xnb+(n+1)a`$. Further in our consideration we assume the quantities $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$, introduced by (4) and (5), to be real and positive and their explicit dependences on the electron energy $`E,(0<E<V)`$, are given by

$$\beta =\sqrt{\frac{2m_2}{\mathrm{}^2}E},\gamma =\sqrt{\frac{2m_1}{\mathrm{}^2}(VE)},$$
(6)
and $`\alpha `$ is determined by the matching conditions. To obtain the coefficients $`A,B,C`$ and $`D`$ of the wave functions (4) and (5) we make use of the matching conditions at three successive points $`(x_1,x_2,x_3)`$ in one unit cell such, that $`|x_1x_3|=(a+b)`$, and $`|x_1x_2|=a,|x_2x_3|=b`$, or $`|x_1x_2|=b,|x_2x_3|=a`$, and we assume $`x_1x_2x_3`$ (Fig.1). Since there exist only two ways to choose these three points on the $`x`$ axis we introduce them by the following relations:

$`x_1+a`$ $`=x_2,x_2+b=x_3,`$ (7)
$`x_1+b`$ $`=x_2,x_2+a=x_3,`$ (8)
Relations (7) and (8) specify the two types of unit cells: the unit cell of type ”well-barrier” which we call KP-1 type cell (Fig.1a), and the unit cell of type ”barrier-well”, called KP-2 type cell (Fig.1b), respectively. Thus, if we use the matching conditions used in \[1,3,15-17\] and denote $`y=\frac{m_2}{m_1}`$ , the solutions (4) and (5) for the unit cells (7) and (8) must obey the following conditions at $`x=x_2`$:

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi _I(x_2)& =\psi _{II}(x_2)\hfill \\ \hfill y\frac{d\psi _I}{dx}(x_2)& =\frac{d\psi _{II}}{dx}(x_2).\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
It follows from the periodicity of $`\psi (x)`$ that the solutions (4) and (5) and their first derivatives must satisfy also at the points $`x=x_1`$ and $`x=x_3`$ the conditions

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi _I(x_3)& =\psi _{II}(x_1)\hfill \\ \hfill y\frac{d\psi _I}{dx}(x_3)& =\frac{d\psi _{II}}{dx}(x_1)\hfill \end{array}$$
(10)
for the KP-1 type unit cell defined by (7), and the boundary conditions

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \psi _I(x_1)& =\psi _{II}(x_3)\hfill \\ \hfill y\frac{d\psi _I}{dx}(x_1)& =\frac{d\psi _{II}}{dx}(x_3)\hfill \end{array}$$
(11)
for the KP-2 type unit cell defined by (8). From (9) and (10) and from (9) and (11) we obtain two systems of four linear homogeneous equations each, for the four constants $`A,B,C`$ and $`D`$, reflecting the differences of the two types unit cells. These two systems have nontrivial solutions only if the corresponding determinants are equal to zero, which leads to the same equation for $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ given by

$$cos\left[\alpha (a+b)\right]=ch(\gamma b)cos(\beta a)+\frac{(1y)^2\alpha ^2+y^2\gamma ^2\beta ^2}{2y\beta \gamma }sh(\gamma b)sin(\beta a).$$
(12)
This equation (12) we call generalized Kronig-Penney relation.

Since only three of the four coefficients $`A,B,C`$ and $`D`$ are linearly independent we can express any three of them through the fourth. So, when $`A=\mu _I^jB`$ and $`C=\lambda _{II}^jD`$, where the index $`j=1,2`$ denotes the two types unit cells, the corresponding periodic wave functions (4) and (5) become

$$\psi _I^j(x)=B\left\{\mu _I^jexp\left[(i\alpha +\gamma )x\right]+exp\left[(i\alpha \gamma )x\right]\right\},(j=1,2),$$
(13)
$$\psi _{II}^j(x)=D\left\{\lambda _{II}^jexp\left[i(\alpha +\beta )x\right]+exp\left[i(\alpha \beta )x\right]\right\},(j=1,2).$$
(14)
For the KP-1 unit cell the corresponding nonhomogeneous system of equations (9) and (10) gives the following expression for $`\mu _I^1`$:

$$\mu _I^1=\frac{cos(\beta a)\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\beta }y\frac{\gamma }{\beta }\right]sin(\beta a)exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)\gamma b\right]}{cos(\beta a)+\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\beta }+y\frac{\gamma }{\beta }\right]sin(\beta a)+exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)+\gamma b\right]}exp(2\gamma x_2).$$
(15)
Similarly, the nonhomogeneous system of equations (9) and (10) gives for $`\lambda _{II}^1`$:

$$\lambda _{II}^1=\frac{ch(\gamma b)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\gamma }+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\beta }{\gamma }\right]sh(\gamma b)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\beta a\right]\right\}}{ch(\gamma b)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\gamma }\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\beta }{\gamma }\right]sh(\gamma b)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\beta a\right]\right\}}exp(i2\beta x_2).$$
(16)
In the same way for the KP-2 unit cell, from the corresponding nonhomogeneous system of equations (9) and (11) for the coefficients $`\mu _I^2`$ and $`\lambda _{II}^2`$ we obtain

$$\mu _I^2=\frac{cos(\beta a)+\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\beta }y\frac{\gamma }{\beta }\right]sin(\beta a)exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)+\gamma b\right]}{cos(\beta a)\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\beta }+y\frac{\gamma }{\beta }\right]sin(\beta a)+exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)\gamma b\right]}exp(2\gamma x_2),$$
(17)
$$\lambda _{II}^2=\frac{ch(\gamma b)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\gamma }+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\beta }{\gamma }\right]sh(\gamma b)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\beta a\right]\right\}}{ch(\gamma b)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\gamma }\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\beta }{\gamma }\right]sh(\gamma b)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\beta a\right]\right\}}exp(i2\beta x_2).$$
(18)
Hence, for the both types of unit cells (7) and (8) it is seen from (15) and (17) that the wave functions (13) in the ”region I” are different: $`\psi _I^1\psi _I^2`$; and from (16) and (18) we see that the wave functions (14) in the ”region II” are also different: $`\psi _{II}^1\psi _{II}^2`$. Consequently, the choice of matching points inside the unit cell through relations (7)-(11) determines the form of the periodic parts (13) and (14) of Bloch solutions for the model under consideration.

Let’s consider the case $`y=1`$, i.e. when the electron effective mass (2) is constant: $`m_1=m_2=m_o`$. In this case $`\beta `$ and $`\gamma `$ in (6) become

$$\beta _o=\sqrt{\frac{2m_o}{\mathrm{}^2}E},\gamma _o=\sqrt{\frac{2m_o}{\mathrm{}^2}(VE)}$$
(19)
and equation (12) is reduced to the well-known Kronig-Penney equation . If for the KP-1 model (Fig.1a) we set $`x_2=a`$ in relation (7), and then, making use of (16) and (19), we find for the coefficient $`\lambda _{II}^I\left(\lambda _{II}^I\right)^B`$ the following value:

$$\left(\lambda _{II}^I\right)^B=\frac{ch(\gamma _ob)i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\beta _oa\right]\right\}}{ch(\gamma _ob)i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\beta _oa\right]\right\}}exp(i2\beta _oa),$$
(20)
which coincides with the corresponding ”expression (17)” in Bloss’ paper . For the KP-2 model (Fig.1b) if $`x_2=0`$ in (8) we have the classical KP-model . In this case from (17) and (19) and from (18) and (19) we find the following expressions for the corresponding coefficients $`\mu _I^2\left(\mu _I^2\right)^{KP}`$ and $`\lambda _{II}^2\left(\lambda _{II}^2\right)^{KP}`$:

$$(\mu _I^2)^{KP}=\frac{cos(\beta _oa)\frac{\gamma _o}{\beta _o}sin(\beta _oa)exp[i\alpha (a+b)+\gamma _ob]}{cos(\beta _oa)\frac{\gamma _o}{\beta _o}sin(\beta _oa)+exp[i\alpha (a+b)\gamma _ob]}$$
(21)
$$(\lambda _{II}^2)^{KP}=\frac{ch(\gamma _ob)+i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)exp\left\{i[\alpha (a+b)+\beta _oa]\right\}}{ch(\gamma _ob)+i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)+exp\left\{i[\alpha (a+b)\beta _oa]\right\}}$$
(22)
These values (21) of $`(\mu _I^2)^{KP}`$ and (22) of $`(\lambda _{II}^2)^{KP}`$ have been implicitly used in . However, choosing $`x_2=\frac{1}{2}b`$ in (8), from (17) and (19) and from (18) and (19) we find that the corresponding coefficients $`\mu _I^2(\mu _I^2)^G`$ and $`\lambda _{II}^2(\lambda _{II}^2)^G`$, given by

$$(\mu _I^2)^G=\frac{cos(\beta _oa)\frac{\gamma _o}{\beta _o}sin(\beta _oa)exp[i\alpha (a+b)+\gamma _ob]}{cos(\beta _oa)\frac{\gamma _o}{\beta _o}sin(\beta _oa)+exp[i\alpha (a+b)\gamma _ob]}exp(\gamma _ob)$$
(23)
$$(\lambda _{II}^2)^G=\frac{ch(\gamma _ob)+i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)exp\left\{i[\alpha (a+b)+\beta _oa]\right\}}{ch(\gamma _ob)+i\frac{\beta _o}{\gamma _o}sh(\gamma _ob)+exp\left\{i[\alpha (a+b)\beta _oa]\right\}}exp(i\beta _ob)$$
(24)
are identical to Gubanov’s results . Comparing (21) with (23), and (22) with (24), we immediately obtain the following relations between them:

$$(\mu _I^2)^G=(\mu _I^2)^{KP}exp(\gamma _ob),(\lambda _{II}^2)^G=(\lambda _{II}^2)^{KP}exp(i\beta _ob).$$

Note that the exponential factors in (23) and (24) is due only to the different choice of the coordinate origin in the unit cell.

The case of the Kronig-Penney models with rectangular potential wells and partially constant effective mass (2) we treat in the same way, and the corresponding results are obtained taking into account the periodic potential $`V(x)`$ (Fig.2):

$$V(x)=\{\begin{array}{cc}0,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^1(x):n(a+b)xnb+(n+1)a\hfill \\ V,\hfill & \mathrm{\Omega }^2(x):nb+(n+1)ax(n+1)(a+b),(n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2,\mathrm{})\hfill \end{array}$$
(25)
where $`V>0`$. Relations (7) and (8) again specify two types of unit cells: the unit cell of the type ”well-barrier” called KP-1a type cell (Fig.2a), and the unit cell of the type ”barrier-well” called KP-2a type cell (Fig.2b). In the regions with constant potentials the quantities $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$, which now play the roles of $`\gamma `$ and $`\beta `$ in (4) and (5), are related to the electron energy $`E`$ by means of the equations

$$\theta ^2=\frac{2m_1}{\mathrm{}^2}E,\phi ^2=\frac{2m_2}{\mathrm{}^2}(E+V).$$

In the case $`\theta ^2>0,\phi ^2>0`$ the Schrödinger equation (3) for an electron with effective mass (2), moving in the potential field (25), for the both types of unit cells has nontrivial solutions only if the quantities $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ satisfy the corresponding generalized Kronig-Penney relation

$$cos\left[\alpha (a+b)\right]=cos(\theta a)cos(\phi b)+\frac{(1y)^2\alpha ^2(y^2\theta ^2+\phi ^2)}{2y\theta \phi }sin(\theta a)sin(\phi b),$$
(26)
where $`y=\frac{m_2}{m_1}`$. Now the periodic part $`\varphi (x)`$ of the Bloch wave function is of the form

$$\varphi _I^j(x)=B\left\{\nu _I^jexp[i(\alpha +\theta )x]+exp[i(\alpha \theta )x]\right\},(j=1,2),$$
(27)
in ”regions I” (barriers): $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1(x):n(a+b)xnb+(n+1)a`$, and of the form

$$\varphi _{II}^j(x)=D\left\{\chi _{II}^jexp[i(\alpha +\phi )x]+exp[i(\alpha \phi )x]\right\},(j=1,2)$$
(28)
in ”regions II” (wells): $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2(x):nb+(n+1)ax(n+1)(a+b)`$. For the KP-1a unit cell, determined by condition (7), the corresponding nonhomogeneous system of equations (9) and (10) gives the following expressions for $`\nu _I^1`$ and $`\chi _{II}^1`$:

$$\nu _I^1=\frac{cos(\phi b)i\left[(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }y\frac{\theta }{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\theta a\right]\right\}}{cos(\phi b)+i\left[(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }+y\frac{\theta }{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\theta a\right]\right\}}exp(i2\theta x_2),$$
(29)
$$\chi _{II}^1=\frac{cos(\theta a)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\theta }+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{\theta }\right]sin(\theta a)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\phi b\right]\right\}}{cos(\theta a)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\theta }\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{\theta }\right]sin(\theta a)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\phi b\right]\right\}}exp(i2\phi x_2),$$
(30)
For the KP-2a unit cell, determined by (8), the coefficients $`\nu _I^2`$ and $`\chi _{II}^2`$ are obtained from the nonhomogeneous system of equations (9) and (11) are given by:

$$\nu _I^2=\frac{cos(\phi b)+i\left[(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }y\frac{\theta }{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\theta a\right]\right\}}{cos(\phi b)i\left[(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }+y\frac{\theta }{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\theta a\right]\right\}}exp(i2\theta x_2),$$
(31)
$$\chi _{II}^2=\frac{cos(\theta a)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\theta }+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{\theta }\right]sin(\theta a)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\phi b\right]\right\}}{cos(\theta a)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{\theta }\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{\theta }\right]sin(\theta a)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\phi b\right]\right\}}exp(i2\phi x_2).$$
(32)
It is clearly seen that the corresponding wave functions (27) and (28) satisfy the inequalities $`\varphi _I^1\varphi _I^2`$ and $`\varphi _{II}^1\varphi _{II}^2`$.

If the electron energy is negative: $`E=\epsilon ,\epsilon >0`$ and $`V<E<0`$, we have $`\theta ^2=\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}\epsilon <0`$ and $`\phi ^2=\frac{2m_2}{\mathrm{}^2}(E+V)>0`$, and denoting $`\frac{2m}{\mathrm{}^2}\epsilon k^2`$, the generalized Kronig-Penney relation (26) becomes

$$cos\left[\alpha (a+b)\right]=ch(ka)cos(\phi b)+\frac{(1y)^2\alpha ^2(y^2k^2+\phi ^2)}{2y\phi k}sh(ka)sin(\phi b).$$
(33)
In this case the quantity $`\gamma _I^1`$ (29) for the KP-1a model becomes

$$\left(\nu _I^1\right)^\pm =\frac{cos(\phi b)\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }\pm y\frac{k}{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)\pm ka\right]}{cos(\phi b)+\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }y\frac{k}{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)+exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)ka\right]}exp(\pm 2kx_2),$$
(34)
and from (30) we obtain also $`\left(\chi _{II}^1\right)^+=\left(\chi _{II}^1\right)^{}=\left(\chi _{II}^1\right)^\pm `$

$$\left(\chi _{II}^1\right)^\pm =\frac{ch(ka)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{k}+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{k}\right]sh(ka)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\phi b\right]\right\}}{ch(ka)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{k}\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{k}\right]sh(ka)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\phi b\right]\right\}}exp(i2\phi x_2).$$
(35)
For the KP-2a model the quantity $`\nu _I^2`$ (31) becomes

$$\left(\nu _I^2\right)^\pm =\frac{cos(\phi b)+\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }\pm y\frac{k}{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)ka\right]}{cos(\phi b)\left[i(1y)\frac{\alpha }{\phi }y\frac{k}{\phi }\right]sin(\phi b)+exp\left[i\alpha (a+b)\pm ka\right]}exp(\pm 2kx_2),$$
(36)
and from (32) we again have $`\left(\chi _{II}^2\right)^+=\left(\chi _{II}^2\right)^{}=\left(\chi _{II}^2\right)^\pm `$:

$$\left(\chi _{II}^2\right)^\pm =\frac{ch(ka)+i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{k}+\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{k}\right]sh(ka)exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)+\phi b\right]\right\}}{ch(ka)i\left[\left(\frac{1y}{y}\right)\frac{\alpha }{k}\left(\frac{1}{y}\right)\frac{\phi }{k}\right]sh(ka)+exp\left\{i\left[\alpha (a+b)\phi b\right]\right\}}exp(i2\phi x_2).$$
(37)
Hence, we have the relations

$$\left(\varphi _I^1\right)^+\left(\varphi _I^1\right)^{}\left(\varphi _I^2\right)^+\left(\varphi _I^2\right)^{},\left(\varphi _{II}^1\right)^+=\left(\varphi _{II}^1\right)^{}\left(\varphi _{II}^2\right)^+=\left(\varphi _{II}^2\right)^{}.$$

When $`y=1`$ our generalized Kronig-Penney relations (26) and (33) reduce to the corresponding Kronig-Penney relations given in .

In conclusion we can say that the differences between the wave functions (13) and (14) and between the wave functions (27) and (28), which finally depend on the choice of unit cell and the matching conditions, should be taken into account when we compute surface and interface electronic states. In other words, varying the position of the barrier-well interface within an unit cell, we will influence the conditions for the existence of surface and interface states. For the two potentials (1) and (25) our generalized Kronig-Penney relations (12) and (26), and the particular case (33), are different, as it is in the original Kronig-Penney relations, and the corresponding Bloch wave functions for these two potentials are also different.

REFERENCES

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Fig.1: One-dimensional Kronig-Penney model with rectangular barriers and lattice constant $`(a+b)`$: $`b`$-the width of the barriers, $`V`$-the height of the barriers: (a) unit cell of KP-1 type: ”region II- region I” (well-barrier); (b) unit cell of KP-2 type: ”region I- region II” (barrier-well).

Fig.2: One-dimensional Kronig-Penney model with rectangular wells and lattice constant $`(a+b)`$: $`b`$-the width of the wells, $`V`$-the depth of the wells: (a) unit cell of KP-1a type: ”region II- region I” (well-barrier); (b) unit cell of KP-2a type: ”region I- region II” (barrier-well).


text:
# The truncation of stellar discs: the magnetic hypothesis

## 1 Introduction

At large radii, the surface brightness of a disc no longer follows the standard exponential profile, but vanishes at the truncation radius, $`R_\mathrm{t}`$. This truncation does not take place for the gas density, however, which continues to decrease exponentially up to much larger radii than $`R_t`$.

There is a short but interesting list of works reporting optical observations of this phenomenon (e.g. van der Kruit 1979; van der Kruit & Searle 1981a,b, 1982; Barteldrees & Dettmar 1994; Pohlen et al. 2000; Pohlen 2001; de Grijs et al. 2001, hereafter called dGKW01). Truncations have also been observed in the near infrared (Florido et al. 2001).

Truncations were originally assumed to be sharp, but recent observations (Pohlen et al. 2000; dGKW01) have shown most of them to be fairly shallow.

As most (if not all) discs have stellar truncations, theoretical work is needed to explain this common feature. However, a recent review by van der Kruit (2001) noted the scarcity of theoretical scenarios to explain the basic facts. The aim of this paper is to propose a simple hypothesis of magnetic origin for the establishment of truncations in stellar discs.

## 2 Some comments on other hypotheses

In this section we will comment on other previous hypotheses, their difficulties and their interest, but it is to be emphasized that our main purpose is neither a review of these theories, nor a list of objections about them, but simply to present a novel hypothesis in order to enrich a future discussion to understand stellar truncations. We follow the scheme of theoretical scenarios as in dGKW01. These authors included a comprehensive review in the paper presenting their own observations, and commented on three alternative hypotheses. The reader is addressed to dGKW01 for more details and for a complete list of papers contributing to the development of these hypotheses.

a) Subcritical gas densities. Kennicut (1989), among others, holds that star formation ceases beyond $`R_\mathrm{t}`$ due to the existence of a critical gas density, below which star formation does not take place. The existence of this critical density may be due to various dynamic mechanisms.

b) Slow disc formation. Following the early models of Larson (1976), Gunn (1982) and others, discs are still being formed. Intergalactic matter is still accreting in such a way that the disc radius is an increasing function of time. The truncation radius is thus the radius where the disc formation time equals the present age of the galaxy.

c) Tides. As shown by Noguchi and Ishibashi (1986) tidal interactions can also produce the truncation of stellar discs.

dGKW01 propose that a combination of scenarios a) and b) best matches the observations, i.e. a subcritical gas density in a slowly growing disc.

Before proposing our own hypothesis, let us comment on the above three. As observational information is still insufficient no theory can be firmly rejected which, on the other hand is far from our objectives. However, let us note some problems.

As remarked by Sasaki (1987) and dGKW01, tides may explain some truncations in interacting galaxies, but not all truncations.

The existence of a subcritical gas density is apparently belied by two observational facts.

In the first place, some galaxies present a sudden step in the rotation curve. Clear examples of this are NGC891, NGC4013 and NGC5907. The rotation velocity drops by about 20 km/s at the truncation radius (Bottema et al. 1987; Bottema 1995, 1996). The implications of a truncated disc on the rotation curve have been considered by Casertano (1983), Hunter et al. (1984), Bahcall (1983) and others. Van der Kruit (2002) and dGKW01 have emphasized the importance of this fact, although it has yet to be statistically confirmed.

In the absence of internal radial motions, star formation implies an increase in the stellar density and an equal decrease in the gas density. However, the total mass density must remain unchanged. Only steps in the total mass density can produce steps in the rotation curve. Therefore, a sudden decrease in the star formation rate cannot explain the sudden step in the rotation curve and, therefore, does not explain truncations. It is true, however, that this observational fact needs further studies to be confirmed. Therefore this potential objection requires more work to be considered.

Secondly, there is in fact star formation beyond $`R_t`$. Important stellar formation is observed in the outer disc of the Milky Way. The truncation radius in our Galaxy is located at about 15 kpc (Habing 1988; Robin et al. 1992; Ruphy et al. 1996; Freudenreich 1998; Porcel et al. 1997). At radii much larger than this, HII regions, IRAS sources, H2O masers and other objects characterizing star formation are observed (e.g. Mead et al. 1987; Mead et al. 1990; Brand & Wouterloot 1991, 1994, 1995; Rudolph et al. 1996; Williams & McKee 1997; May et al. 1997; Kobayashi & Tokunaga 2000). The amount of star formation per unit mass of H2 is similar (Wouterloot et al. 1988; Ferguson et al. 1998), as is the efficiency of star formation (Santos et al. 2000).

Summarizing these observations with respect to our discussion, it could be said that H2 could decrease exponentially with radius; molecular clouds for $`R>R_\mathrm{t}`$ would be similar; just the number of molecular clouds should decrease exponentially. For star formation, it is the density inside the clouds that is important, not the number density of clouds. Therefore, a subcritical gas density could be not confirmed in our own Galaxy.

These arguments are perhaps too naive or based on insufficiently established observational facts. For example, Martin & Kennicutt (2001) have shown that star formation thresholds do exist in nearly all of the 32 galaxies they studied, even if random star formation can still occur in isolated places, such as in molecular clouds at large galactocentric radii. Therefore the threshold hypothesis cannot be disregarded at all.

The hypothesis of slow disc formation is very attractive: stars are born at $`R>R_\mathrm{t}`$, but we do not see (old) stars because this birth is a very recent phenomenon. The only objection could be the relatively poor theoretical support. Models by Larson (1976) and Gunn (1982) were very promising years ago, but present hierarchical cold dark matter models present a different scenario. Ellipticals are born from the merging of spirals. These models provide very good results for a large variety of observational facts but demand substantial revision to form discs (Navarro & Steinmetz 2000). The origin of the angular momentum of spiral discs is not fully understood (Frenk et al. 1997). Gaseous discs in simulations have much smaller radii than those observed (Navarro et al. 1995), a problem also present in Larson’s models.

The time evolution of disc sizes is difficult to observe. Bottema (1995) found a relation between truncations and warps. Many large warps have been found in the HDF (Reshetnikov et al. 2002) but a direct study of truncations in the HDF has not been addressed. For z=0 galaxies, Sasaki (1987) pointed out that the mean age of stars in NGC5907 decreases with increasing galactocentric distance. This is what would be expected from a slow growth of the disc, as stated by dGKW01.

The basic question about the truncation problem is then: if stars form beyond $`R_\mathrm{t}`$, why do we only see young stars there? There are two possible answers: a) The disc for $`R>R_\mathrm{t}`$ has formed recently, i.e. the hypothesis of slow disc formation, and b) Stars, once formed, have gone away. Our model follows this second possibility. It may well be that both (or more) processes are at work, without a single dominant mechanism.

## 3 The magnetic hypothesis

We adopt the so-called magnetic model of the rotation curve (Nelson 1988; Battaner et al. 1992; Battaner & Florido 1995, 2000; Battaner et al. 1999). In this model, magnetic fields explain the flat rotation curve, and the model is therefore in disagreement with the standard interpretation based on the existence of dark matter halos.

These models only provide a first order quantitative output for the complex problem of the rotation of spirals, though dark matter models do not do much better. Even so, the magnetic scenario remains an interesting alternative because of its direct connection with stellar truncation.

We consider the following simplified scenario: the equilibrium of the initial gas in the radial direction arises from the balance of two centripetal forces, gravitational and magnetic, and the centrifugal force, $`\theta ^2/R`$. (In fact, the magnetic force can be directed inwards when the magnetic tension is higher than the magnetic pressure force, as shown in the above-mentioned model). When gas is converted into stars, the magnetic force suddenly disappears from the stellar system. Therefore, stars in the outer region suddenly have a velocity higher than the escape velocity of the gravitational potential. This escape produces truncation and takes place for stars beyond a certain radius, which is the observational truncation radius, $`R_\mathrm{t}`$. Gas exists beyond $`R_\mathrm{t}`$ and, therefore, so do newly formed stars, which can be observed. This young stellar population, however, is assumed to be in the process of escaping.

A complete model developing this idea should take into account the time evolution of the system. The redistributed mass in a certain step should control the dynamics of the next step, in an iterative process. Instead, we prefer a time-integrated model, which is more suitable for exploration and zero-order calculations.

Let us assume that, first, there was only gas, and that the density distribution was exponential. The rotation velocity was different in three regions: a) an inner region where $`\theta (R)`$ was that corresponding to an exponential disc, $`\theta _\mathrm{d}(R)`$ (with a maximum at 2.27 $`R_\mathrm{d}`$, $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ being the radial scale length), b) an intermediate region, and c) an external region where $`\theta `$ was a constant $`\theta _0`$. The magnetic model is fully assumed, and therefore no dark matter is considered, i.e., the constancy of $`\theta _0`$ is the result of magnetic effects.

Finally, there are only stars. The density is different in three regions: a) an inner region, in which magnetism is insignificant against gravity and, therefore, has remained unchanged, i.e. exponential, b) an intermediate region, and c) an outer region, beyond $`R_\mathrm{t}`$, in which the stellar system density is zero. The rotation velocity in the inner region is unchanged, $`\theta _\mathrm{d}(R)`$.

In most galaxies an extended HI disk is observed out to at least twice the optical radius. The fact that this HI disc exists must mean that gravity is non-negligible throughout, even in the presence of magnetic forces in the gas. We have considered, however, that the gravitational potential is mainly produced by the inner disc ($`R<R_\mathrm{t}`$).

Taking the thesis of Begeman (1987) as a classical reference, dark matter is considered to be unnecessary for $`R3R_\mathrm{d}`$, typically. Replacing the dark matter interpretation by the magnetic one, we assume that magnetic fields are unimportant for $`R3R_\mathrm{d}`$, and therefore, the truncation radius must be larger, $`R_\mathrm{t}>3R_\mathrm{d}`$. The density for $`R<3R_\mathrm{d}`$ contains 95$`\%`$ of the mass of an exponential disc, and therefore the gravitational potential beyond $`3R_\mathrm{d}`$ cannot change very much. This means that for large radii, the potential would not differ greatly from the central point mass potential and for radii slightly higher than $`3R_\mathrm{d}`$ the potential would not differ very much from the exponential disc potential. We will estimate $`R_\mathrm{t}`$ for both potentials. In each case the calculation is based on the assumption that the truncation radius will occur when the rotation velocity of the initial gas becomes equal to the escape velocity: $`\theta _{\mathrm{esc}}=\theta (R_\mathrm{t})`$.

### 3.1 Central mass potential

When the potential $`\varphi =(GM)/(rR_\mathrm{d})`$, and $`r=R/R_\mathrm{d}`$, i.e. the radius taking $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ as unity, and the escape velocity $`\theta _{\mathrm{esc}}=\sqrt{2\varphi }`$, the truncation radius will occur when the velocity of the initial gas equals this escape velocity. For $`R>3R_\mathrm{d}`$ it becomes reasonable to assume that we are in the region where $`\theta (R)=\theta _0`$ is a constant. Therefore we can calculate $`R_\mathrm{t}`$, when $`\theta _0=\theta _{\mathrm{esc}}(R_\mathrm{t})`$. A first simple formula to calculate the truncation radius is therefore

$$r_\mathrm{t}=\frac{2GM}{\theta _0^2R_\mathrm{d}}$$
(1)
($`r_\mathrm{t}=R_\mathrm{t}/R_\mathrm{d}`$, taking $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ as the unit). Another way to write this formula could take into account that

$$\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{max}}}{\sqrt{GM/R_\mathrm{d}}}=0.62$$
(2)
where $`\theta _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the maximum velocity, at $`R=2.27R_\mathrm{d}`$, in the exponential disc rotation curve (see, for instance, Binney & Tremaine 1987). Then

$$r_\mathrm{t}=\frac{2}{0.62^2}\left(\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{max}}}{\theta _0}\right)^2=5.2\left(\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{max}}}{\theta _0}\right)^2$$
(3)
Here, $`\theta _{\mathrm{max}}`$ should be taken as the maximum disc circular velocity from the standard decomposition of $`\theta (R)`$ into the different galactic components. Usually, $`\theta _{\mathrm{max}}`$ is of the order of $`\theta _0`$, or slightly lower than $`\theta _0`$. For instance, van der Kruit (2002) finds that the ratio $`\theta _{\mathrm{max}}/\theta _0`$ is proportional to the square root of $`R_\mathrm{d}/H`$ ($`H`$ being the width of the disc), proposing a mean value of 0.8-0.9. In the sample in Begeman’s thesis containing 8 galaxies, 4 galaxies are pure disc (bulge poor) galaxies, and hence especially suitable for comparison with our calculations. These values are given in Table I.

NGC 2903 was considered somewhat exceptional by Begeman. We see that truncation radii between 5.2 and 3.8 $`R_\mathrm{d}`$ are typical with this approximation.

### 3.2 Exponential disc potential

Now

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \varphi (R)& =2\pi G\mathrm{\Sigma }_0R(r)=\frac{GM}{2R_\mathrm{d}^2}R(r)\hfill \\ & \\ & =\frac{1}{2}\frac{GM}{R_\mathrm{d}}r(r)=\frac{1}{2}\frac{\theta _{\mathrm{max}}^2}{0.62^2}r(r)\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ is the disc central surface brightness and

$$(r)=I_0(r/2)K_1(r/2)I_1(r/2)K_0(r/2)$$
(5)
where $`I_0`$, $`I_1`$, $`K_0`$ and $`K_1`$ are Modified Bessel functions. Again, we calculate $`r_\mathrm{t}`$ considering $`\theta _{\mathrm{esc}}(r_\mathrm{t})=\theta _0`$:

$$r_\mathrm{t}(r_\mathrm{t})=\left(\frac{\theta _0}{\theta _{\mathrm{max}}}\right)^20.38$$
(6)
In the case of $`\theta _{\mathrm{max}}=\theta _0`$ we obtain $`r_\mathrm{t}=5.6`$. In Table 1, we see that with this potential we obtain slightly larger values in the range $`r_\mathrm{t}=4.15.6`$ if we still consider NGC2903 somewhat exceptional.

Giving the uncertainties in our simple model, the results are very promising. Some values reported in the literature are: van der Kruit & Searle (1982), 4.2 $`\pm `$ 0.5; de Grijs et al. (2001), 4.3, 3.8, 4.5 and 2.4; Pohlen et al. (2000 a,b), 2.9 $`\pm `$ 0.7; Barteldrees & Dettmar (1994), 3.7 $`\pm `$ 1. Data by Florido et al. (2001) were obtained in the NIR, minimizing extinction effects, especially those in the Ks band. By application of this filter, they obtained $`r_\mathrm{t}=3.6\pm 0.8`$.

The agreement between observations and the values deduced here is therefore very close.

### 3.3 The decoupling time

Throughout this paper we have assumed that the time scale for the formation of stars out of a gas cloud is short compared to the galactic dynamic time. In this section we will check the validity of this assumption.

In the transition from molecular gas to a main sequence star there must be three different regimes. In the first one, external magnetic fields are still dynamically important, while in the third one (close to the main sequence stage) they are completely ignorable. Therefore, the timescale of the intermediate stage (or the time of decoupling from external magnetic fields) is a good estimate of how fast magnetic fields stop being dynamically relevant. If this decoupling time is large enough, then complicated orbits would develop during this intermediate phase which would affect the degree of sharpness of the truncation.

A 1M star reaches the main sequence in approximately $`10^7`$ years. If the star population is dominated by lower mass stars, this time could be as long as $`10^8`$ years. However, the decoupling time must be much shorter. In fact, before nuclear reactions begin, the proto-star reaches a very high density. In this stage self-gravity becomes so high that external magnetic fields cannot modify the orbit of such a dense system. This high density is reached after the initial free fall collapse. Therefore, the free fall time can be used to estimate the decoupling time

$$\tau _{\mathrm{ff}}=\left(\frac{3\pi }{32G\rho }\right)$$
(7)
Where $`\rho `$ is the density of the initial molecular cloud.

This time is independent of the mass of the born star, the size of the cloud and even the fragmentation process. For a characteristic cloud density of $`5\times 10^{22}\mathrm{gcm}^3`$, the free fall time is $`3\times 10^6`$ years.

Desch and Mouschovias (2001) have calculated that the cloud does not actually suffer a free fall collapse. Instead, the collapse is slowed down approximately 30$`\%`$ due to the magnetic pressure. This results in a time of about $`10^7`$ years which is, in fact, an upper limit to the decoupling time.

Desch and Mouschovias (2001) have also considered a complementary problem. Instead of the external problem considered here of when the orbit of the protostar becomes unaffected by large scale galactic fields, they have considered when internal magnetic fields are negligible in the collapse process. This complementary calculation can also be used here.

They start with a cloud density of $`3\times 10^2\mathrm{cm}^3`$. About 13 Myr later the density has only increased less than two orders of magnitude. Along these 13 Myr magnetic fields are internally important and keep values not much higher than interstellar strengths. Suddenly, the density increases, and after 15 Myr the number density becomes much larger (with typical values of $`10^{12}\mathrm{cm}^3`$). The action of ambipolar diffusion prevents the increase of magnetic fields, which therefore become negligible in the collapse dynamics. It is clear that such a dense object cannot be displaced by external magnetic fields. The sudden increase of the density takes place in a quite short period (which can be taken as an estimate for the decoupling time) of $`2\times 10^6`$ years.

Moreover, the rotation velocity of the proto-star should also suddenly increase. Through reconnection of magnetic field lines, the external and internal magnetic fields should become independent. Interstellar magnetic field lines are not able to penetrate into the protostar, and the external magnetic field is therefore unable to have an influence on the dynamics.

A decoupling time of $`2\times 10^6`$ years is very short compared with typical dynamic times in the galaxy. Therefore, the transition from magnetically driven clouds to magnetically unaffected proto-stars can be assumed to be instantaneous.

## 4 Conclusions

We have considered the different scenarios proposed to date to explain truncations. Models based on the existence of a cut-off density, below which the star formation rate vanishes, do not perfectly agree with observations. Tidal effects cannot explain all truncations. The scenario based on Larson’s (1976) model with a slowly growing disc is, however, an interesting possibility. Some additional theoretical work supporting this model is desirable. Even if it is not possible at present to reject any previous hypothesis, new ones would be welcome. We suggest a hypothesis based on magnetic fields.

The magnetic hypothesis of the truncation of stellar discs, presented here, provides a simple explanation and predicts values of the truncation radius that are in very satisfactory agreement with the observations. This result may also constitute an argument supporting the magnetic model of rotation curves. The two phenomena could be closely related. More sophisticated models are a desirable goal but, at present, exploratory zero-order arguments are preferable. This is an interesting alternative, especially considering that not many scenarios have been advanced in the literature.

In the model presented here, an escape of stars to the intergalactic medium is predicted. It is then necessary to estimate the amount of escaped mass along the whole history of the galaxy.

The mass of lost stars is negligible compared with the initial mass of the galaxy. It can be estimated by

$$_{r_\mathrm{t}}^{\mathrm{}}\rho _0e^{R/R_\mathrm{d}}4\pi RH𝑑R$$
(8)
where $`\rho _0`$ is the initial central density and $`H`$ the width of the disc. Therefore, the proportion of lost stars would be

$$\frac{\left[_{r_\mathrm{t}}^{\mathrm{}}e^rr𝑑r\right]}{\left[_0^{\mathrm{}}e^rr𝑑r\right]}0.1$$
(9)
when adopting $`r_\mathrm{t}=4`$. Therefore, only 10$`\%`$ of the initial galactic mass escapes to the intergalactic space due to this mechanism, during the whole life-time of a galaxy. If gravitational potentials in the outer galaxy, other than that considered here would not be negligible, this 10$`\%`$ would be an upper limit.

Considering Eq. (1), some tentative predictions can be made about the dependences of $`r_\mathrm{t}`$, which could be tested in future statistical studies: the truncation radius should roughly be inversely proportional to the squared asymptotic rotation velocity $`r_t\theta _0^2`$. To find a predictable relation of $`r_\mathrm{t}`$ on $`M`$, and $`R_\mathrm{d}`$, we should take into account that $`MR_\mathrm{d}^2`$, and therefore $`r_\mathrm{t}`$ should be proportional either to $`R_\mathrm{d}`$, or to the square root of the visible mass. Similar conclusions are obtainable from Eq. (4).

On qualitative grounds, other statistical properties are to be expected from this hypothesis. We predict sharper truncations and lower truncation radii for larger wavelengths. In fact, the old stellar population has been affected but its escape has been considered here for the whole history of a galaxy. Recent star formation beyond $`r_t`$, however, would produce a much smoother decline among the young population. Indications of this colour dependence of both sharpness and radius are evident in the comparison of the optical data obtained by Pohlen (2001) and Florido et al. (2001).

###### Acknowledgements.

This paper has been supported by the “Plan Andaluz de Investigación” (FQM-108) and by the “Secretaría de Estado de Política Científica y Tecnológica” (AYA2000-1574).