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# Unitarity Corrections and Structure Functions

## 1 Introduction

In the kinematical region of small proton momentum fraction $`x`$, the gluon is the main parton driving the behavior of the deep inelastic quantities. The standard QCD evolution  furnishes a powerlike growth for the gluon distribution. This result leads, at first glance, to the unitarity violation at asymptotic energies, requiring a sort of control. In the partonic language, at the infinite momentum frame, the small $`x`$ region corresponds to the high parton density. The latter is connected with the black disk limit of the proton target and with the parton recombination phenomenon. These issues can be addressed through a non-linear dynamics beyond the usual DGLAP formalism. The complete knowledge about the non-linear dynamical regime plays an important role in the theoretical description of the reactions in the forthcoming experiments RHIC and LHC, where these effects will be enhanced by the high energies or by the nuclear probes.

The description of DIS in the color dipole picture is somewhat intuitive, providing with a simple representation in contrast to the involved one from the Breit (infinite momentum) frame. Considering small values of the Bjorken variable $`x`$, the virtual photon fluctuates into a $`q\overline{q}`$ pair (dipole) with fixed transverse separation $`r`$ at large distances upstream of the target, and interacts in a short time with the proton. More complicated configurations should be considered for larger transverse size systems, for instance the photon Fock state $`q\overline{q}+\mathrm{gluon}`$. An immediate consequence from the lifetime of the pair ($`l_c=1/2m_px`$) to be bigger than the interaction one is the factorization between the photon wavefunction and the cross section dipole-proton in the $`\gamma ^{}p`$ total cross section. The wavefunctions are perturbatively calculable, namely through QED for the $`q\overline{q}`$ configuration  and from QCD for $`q\overline{q}G`$ . The effective dipole cross section should be modeled and it includes perturbative and non-perturbative content. However, since the interaction strength relies only on the configuration of the interacting system the dipole cross section turns out to be universal and may be employed in a wide variety of small $`x`$ processes.

We have taken into account a sound formalism providing the unitarity corrections to the DIS at small $`x`$, namely the Glauber-Mueller approach in QCD. It was introduced by A. Mueller , who developed the Glauber formalism to study saturation effects in the quark and gluon distributions in the nucleus considering the heavy onium scattering. Later developments obtained an evolution equation taking into account the unitarity corrections (perturbative shadowing), generating a non-linear dynamics which is connected with higher twist contributions. Its main characteristic is to provide a theoretical framework for the saturation effects, relying on the multiscattering of the pQCD Pomeron. In this contribution we report our studies considering the parton saturation formalism to describe the observables driven by the gluonic content of the proton in the color dipole picture . The inclusive structure function $`F_2`$ is calculated, disregarding the approximations commonly considered in previous calculations . The structure functions $`F_L`$ and $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}`$ are also presented using the Glauber-Mueller approach and the rest frame in comparison with the experimental data.

## 2  The DIS in the Rest Frame and the Glauber-Mueller Approach

The rest frame physical picture is advantageous since the lifetime of the photon fluctuation and the interaction process are well defined . The more simple case is the quark-antiquark state (color dipole), which is the leading configuration for small transverse size systems. The well known coherence length is expressed as $`l_c=1/(2xm_p)`$, where $`x`$ is the Bjorken variable and $`m_p`$ the proton mass. An important consequence of this formulation is that the photoabsortion cross section can be derived from the expectation value of the interaction cross section for the multiparticle Fock states of the virtual photon weighted by the light-cone wave functions of these states . That cross section can be cast in the quantum mechanical factorized form,

$`\sigma _{T,L}^{\gamma ^{}p}(x,Q^2)={\displaystyle d^2𝐫_0^1𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }_{T,L}(z,𝐫)|^2\sigma ^{\mathrm{dipole}}(x,z,𝐫)},`$ (1)
The formulation above is valid even beyond perturbation theory, since it is determined from the space-time structure of the process. The $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{T,L}(z,𝐫)`$ are the photon wavefunctions (for transverse $`T`$, and longitudinal $`L`$, polarizations) describing the pair configuration: $`z`$ and $`1z`$ are the fractions of the photon’s light-cone momentum carried by the quark and antiquark of the pair, respectively. The transverse separation of the pair is $`𝐫`$. The explicit expressions for the wavefunctions are well known,

$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_T(z,𝐫)|^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{n_f}{}}}e_i^2\left\{[z^2+(1z)^2]\epsilon ^2K_1^2(\epsilon r)+m_q^2K_0^2(\epsilon r)\right\}`$ (2)
$`|\mathrm{\Psi }_L(z,𝐫)|^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{6\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}{4\pi ^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{\overset{n_f}{}}}e_i^2\left\{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}Q^2z^2(1z)^2K_0^2(ϵr)\right\}.`$ (3)
The auxiliary variable $`\epsilon ^2=z(1z)Q^2+m_q^2`$, with $`m_q`$ the light quark mass, and $`K_0`$ and $`K_1`$ are the Mc Donald functions of rank zero and one, respectively. The quantity $`\sigma ^{\mathrm{dipole}}`$ is interpreted as the cross section of the scattering of the effective dipole with fixed tranverse separation $`𝐫`$ . The most important feature of the dipole cross section is its universal character, namely it depends only on the transverse separation $`𝐫`$ of the color dipole. The dependence on the external probe particle, i.e., the photon virtuality, relies in the wavefunctions. In general, an ansätz for the effective dipole cross section is obtained and the process is analized in the impact parameter space. The main feature of the current models in the literature is to interpolate the physical regions of small transverse separations (perturbative QCD picture) and the large ones (Regge-soft picture). Here we have used the Glauber-Mueller approach to determine the dipole cross section, with the advantage of providing the corrections required by unitarity in an eikonal expansion. For the large $`r`$ region, we choose to follow a similar procedure from the saturation model (GBW) , namely saturating the dipole cross section ($`r`$-independent constant value).

Now, we shortly present the main results from the Glauber-Mueller approach. Considering the scattering amplitude dependent on the usual Mandelstan variables $`s`$ and $`t`$, now written in the impact parameter representation $`𝐛`$,

$`a(s,𝐛){\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle d^2𝐪\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}𝐪.𝐛}\mathrm{A}(\mathrm{s},\mathrm{t}=\mathrm{q}^2)}.`$ (4)
the corresponding total and elastic cross sections (from Optical theorem) are rewritten in the impact parameter representation ($`𝐛`$) as

$`\sigma _{tot}=2{\displaystyle d^2𝐛Ima(s,𝐛)};\sigma _{el}={\displaystyle d^2𝐛|a(s,𝐛)|^2},`$ (5)
An important property when treating the scattering in the impact parameter space is the simple definition for the unitarity constraint . If the real part of the scattering amplitude vanishes at the high energy limit, corresponding to small $`x`$ values, the solution to the that constraint is

$`a(s,𝐛)=i\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{s},𝐛)}\right];\sigma _{tot}=2{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\left[\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{s},𝐛)}\right]},`$ (6)
where the opacity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is an arbitrary real function and it should be determined by a detailed model for the interaction. The opacity function has a simple physical interpretation, namely $`\mathrm{e}^\mathrm{\Omega }`$ corresponds to the probability that no inelastic scatterings with the target occur. To provide the connection with the Glauber formalism, the opacity function can be written in the factorized form $`\mathrm{\Omega }(s,𝐛)=\mathrm{\Omega }(s)S(𝐛)`$, considering $`S(𝐛)`$ normalized as $`d^2𝐛S(𝐛)=1`$ (for a detailed discussion, see i.e. ).

We identify the opacity $`\mathrm{\Omega }(sQ^2/x;𝐫)=\sigma ^{\mathrm{nucleon}}(x,𝐫)`$. The ($`q\overline{q}`$ pair) dipole-proton cross section is well known  and in double logarithmic approximation (DLA) has the following form

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{nucleon}}^{q\overline{q}}(x,r)={\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2\alpha _s(\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)}{3}}r^2xG(x,\stackrel{~}{Q}^2)`$ (7)
with the $`r`$-dependent scale $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2=r_0^2/r^2`$. Considering Eq. (7) one can connect directly the dipole picture with the usual parton distributions (gluon), since they are solutions of the DGLAP equations. In our case, we follow the calculations of Ref.  and consider the effective scale $`\stackrel{~}{Q}^2=4/r^2`$. From the above expression, we obtain a dipole cross section satisfying the unitarity constraint and a framework to study the unitarity effects (saturation) in the gluon DGLAP distribution function. Hence, hereafter we use the Glauber-Mueller dipole cross section given by

$`\sigma _{\mathrm{dipole}}^{GM}=2{\displaystyle d^2𝐛\left(1\mathrm{e}^{\frac{1}{2}\sigma _{\mathrm{nucleon}}^{\mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}}(\mathrm{x},𝐫)\mathrm{S}(𝐛)}\right)}.`$ (8)
In order to perform numerical estimates one needs to define the profile function $`S(b)`$. This function contains information about the angular distribution in the scattering. We have chosen a simple gaussian shape in the impact parameter space, $`S(b)=\frac{A}{\pi R_A^2}e^{b^2/R_A^2}`$, where $`A`$ is the atomic number and $`R_A`$ is the target radius. We will keep this notation although we are only concerned with the nucleon case. The $`R_A^2`$ value should be determined from the data, ranging between $`510`$ GeV-2 for the proton case . Here, we have used the value ( $`R_A^2=5`$ GeV-2) obtained from a good description of both inclusive structure function and its derivative . Such a value corresponds to significative unitarity corrections to the standard DGLAP input even in the current HERA kinematics.

In the calculations we have used the GRV94 parametrization : bearing in mind that $`Q^2=4/r^2`$, its evolution initial scale $`Q_0^2=0.4`$ GeV2 allows to scan dipole sizes up to $`r_{\mathrm{cut}}=\frac{2}{Q_0}`$ GeV-1 (= 0.62 fm). For recent parametrizations, where $`Q_0^21`$ GeV2 ($`r_{\mathrm{cut}}0.4`$ fm), the uncertainty due to nonperturbative content in the calculations would increase. An additional advantage is that GRV94 does not include non-linear effects to the DGLAP evolution since it was obtained from rather large $`x`$ values, i.e. this ensures that GRV94 does not include unitarity corrections in the initial scale. To proceed, for the large $`r`$ region, we choose the following ansatz: the gluon distribution is frozen at scale $`r_{\mathrm{cut}}`$, namely $`xG(x,\stackrel{~}{Q}_{\mathrm{cut}}^2)`$. Then, for the large distance contribution $`rr_{\mathrm{cut}}`$ the gluon distribution reads as $`xG(x,Q^2Q_0^2)=Q^2/Q_0^2xG(x,Q^2=Q_0^2)`$ leading to the correct behavior $`xG(x,Q^2)Q^2`$ as $`Q^20`$ and providing the simplest technical procedure.

## 3 Obtaining the Structure Functions

### 3.1 The structure function $`F_2`$

First, we perform estimates for the structure function $`F_2`$ at the rest frame considering the Glauber-Mueller dipole cross section . The expression, with the explicit integration limits on photon momentum fraction $`z`$ and transverse separation $`r`$ is,

$`F_2(x,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d^2𝐫{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑z\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_T(z,𝐫)|^2+|\mathrm{\Psi }_L(z,𝐫)|^2\right)\sigma _{\mathrm{dipole}}^{GM}(x,𝐫^2).`$
In the Fig. (1) one shows $`F_2`$ for representative virtualities $`Q^2`$ from the latest H1 Collaboration measurements . The longitudinal and transverse contributions are shown separately. An effective light quark mass ($`u,d,s`$ quarks) was taken, with the value $`m_q=300`$ MeV, and the target radius is considered $`R_A^2=5`$ GeV-2. It should be stressed that this value leads to larger saturation corrections rather than using radius ranging over $`R_A^2815`$ GeV-2. The soft contribution comes from the freezing of the gluon distribution at large transverse separation as discussed at the previous section.

From the plots we verify a good agreement in the normalization, however the slope seems quite steep. This fact is due to the modelling for the soft contribution and it suggests that a more suitable nonperturbative input should be taken. To clarify the role played by the soft nonperturbative contribution to $`F_2`$, in the Fig. (2) we plot separately the perturbative contribution and parametrize the soft contribution introducing the nonperturbative structure function $`F_2^{\mathrm{soft}}=\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{soft}}x^{0.08}(1x)^{10}`$ , which is added to the perturbative one. The soft piece normalization is $`\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{soft}}=0.22`$. Accordingly, we have used just shadowing corrections for the quark sector, taking into account only the transverse photon wavefunction and zero quark mass. The integration on the transverse separation is taken over $`1/Q^2r^21/Q_0^2`$, with $`Q_0^2=0.4`$ GeV2 for leading order GRV94 gluon distribution. This leads to a residual contribution to the soft piece which would come from the transverse separations $`r^2<1/Q^2`$. It is again verified that the soft contribution is important at small virtualities and decreasing as it gets larger. The data description is quite successful.

Concluding, we have a theoretical estimate, i.e. no fitting procedure, of the inclusive structure function $`F_2(x,Q^2)`$ through the Glauber-Mueller approach for the dipole cross section, detecting a non negligible importance of a suitable input for the large dipole size region.

### 3.2 The structure function $`F_L`$

From QCD theory, the structure function $`F_L`$ has a non-zero value due to the gluon radiation, as is encoded in the Altarelli-Martinelli equation (see ), considering the Breit frame. Experimentally, the determination of the $`F_L`$ is quite limited, providing few data points. Most recently, the H1 Collaboration has determined the longitudinal structure function through the reduced double differential cross section, where the data points were obtained consistently with the previous measurements, however being more precise and lying into a broader kinematical range .

In Fig. (3) we present the estimates for the $`F_L`$ structure function, in representative virtualities as a function of $`x`$ . For the calculations, it was considered light quarks ($`u,d,s`$) with effective mass $`m_q=300`$ MeV and the target radius $`R_A^2=5`$ GeV-2. The large $`r`$ region is considered by the freezing of the gluon distribution in this region. Our expression for the observable is then,

$`F_L(x,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d^2𝐫{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑z|\mathrm{\Psi }_L(z,𝐫)|^2\sigma _{\mathrm{dipole}}^{GM}(x,𝐫^2).`$
The behavior is quite consistent with the experimental result, either in shape as in normalization. The quantity is less sensitive to the non-perturbative content than $`F_2`$. A better description can be obtained by fine tunning the target size or the considered gluon distribution function, however it should be stressed that the present prediction is parameter-free and determined using the dipole picture taking into account unitarity (saturation) effects in the effective dipole cross section . We verify that the rest frame calculation, taking into account the dipole degrees of freedom and unitarity effects produces similar conclusions to those ones using the Breit system. For instance, in a previous work , the unitarity corrections to the longitudinal structure function were estimated in the laboratory frame considering the Altarelli-Martinelli equation, with unitarized expressions for $`F_2`$ and $`xG(x,Q^2)`$, obtaining that the expected corrections reach to $`70`$ % as $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)=15`$, namely on the kinematical corner of the upcoming THERA project.

The higher twist corrections to the longitudinal structure function have been pointed out. For instance, Bartels et al.  have calculated numerically the twist-four correction obtaining that they are large for $`F_T`$ and $`F_L`$, however having opposite signs. This fact leads to remaining small effects to the inclusive structure function by almost complete cancellation between those contributions. The higher twist content is analyzed considering the model  as initial condition. Concerning $`F_L`$, it was found that the twist-four correction is large and has negative signal, concluding that a leading twist analysis of $`F_L`$ is unreliable for high $`Q^2`$ and not too small $`x`$. The results are in agreement with the simple parametrization for higher twist (HT) studied by the MRST group in Ref. , where $`F_2^{HT}(x,Q^2)=F_2^{LT}(x,Q^2)(1+\frac{D_2^{HT}(x)}{Q^2})`$. The second term would parametrize the higher twist content. In our case, the unitarity corrections provide an important amount of higher twist content, namely it takes into account some of the several graphs determining the twist expansion.

### 3.3 The structure function $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}`$

In perturbative QCD, the heavy quark production in electron-proton interaction occurs basicaly through photon-gluon fusion, in which the emitted photon interacts with a gluon from the proton generating a quark-antiquark pair. Therefore, the heavy quark production allows to determine the gluon distribution and the amount of unitarity (saturation) effects for the observable. In particular, charmed mesons have been measured in deep-inelastic at HERA and the corresponding structure function $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)`$ is defined from the differential cross section for the $`c\overline{c}`$ pair production.

Experimentally, the measurements of the charm structure function are obtained by measuring mesons $`D^\pm `$ production . The function $`F_2^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)`$ shows an increase with decreasing $`x`$ at constant values of $`Q^2`$, whereas the rise becomes sharper at higher virtualities. The data are consistent with the NLO DGLAP calculations. Concerning the ratio $`R^{c\overline{c}}=F_2^{c\overline{c}}/F_2`$, the charm contribution to $`F_2`$ grows steeply as $`x`$ diminishes. It contributes less than 10% at low $`Q^2`$ and reaches about 30 % for $`Q^2>120`$ GeV2 .

Once more the color dipole picture will provide a quite simple description for the charm structure function in a factorized way. Now, the Glauber-Mueller dipole cross section is weighted by the photon wavefunction constituted by a $`c\overline{c}`$ pair with mass $`m_c`$. Our expression for the charmed contribution in deep inelastic is thus written as

$`F_2^{c\overline{c}}(x,Q^2)={\displaystyle \frac{Q^2}{4\pi ^2\alpha _{\mathrm{em}}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}d^2𝐫{\displaystyle _0^1}𝑑z\left(|\mathrm{\Psi }_T^{c\overline{c}}(z,𝐫)|^2+|\mathrm{\Psi }_L^{c\overline{c}}(z,𝐫)|^2\right)\sigma _{\mathrm{dipole}}^{GM}(x,𝐫^2)`$
where $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{T,L}^{c\overline{c}}(z,𝐫)|^2`$ is the probability to find in the photon the $`c\overline{c}`$ colo dipole with the charmed quark carrying fraction $`z`$ of the photon’s light-cone momentum with $`T,L`$ polarizations. For the correspondent wavefunctions, the quark mass in Eqs. (2,3) should be substituted by the charm quark mass $`m_c`$. Here, we should take care of the connection between the Regge parameter $`x=(W^2+Q^2)/(Q^2+4m_q^2)`$ and the Bjorken variable $`x_{\mathrm{Bj}}`$. For calculations with the light quarks these variables are equivalent, however for heavier quarks the correct relation is $`x_{\mathrm{Bj}}=x(Q^2/Q^2+4m_c^2)`$, e.g. see :.

In Fig. (4) we show the estimates for the charm structure function as a function of $`x_{\mathrm{Bj}}`$ at representative virtualities . In our calculations, it was used charm mass $`m_c=1.5`$ GeV, target size $`R_A^2=5`$ GeV-2 and frozen gluon distibution at large $`r`$. We have verified small soft contribution, decreasing as the virtuality rises. There is a slight sensitivity to the value for the charm mass, increasing the overall normalization as $`m_c`$ diminishes. Such a feature suggests that the charm mass is a hard scale suppressing the non-perturbative contribution to the corresponding cross section. This conclusion is in agreement with the recent BFKL color dipole calculations of Nikolaev-Zoller  and those from Donnachie-Dosch .

Regarding the Breit system description, in Ref.  we found strong corrections to the charm structure function, which are larger than those of the $`F_2`$ ones. Considering the ratio $`R_2^c=F_2^{c\mathrm{GM}}(x,Q^2)/F_2^{c\mathrm{DGLAP}}(x,Q^2)`$, the corrections predicted by the Glauber-Mueller approach would reach 62 % at values of $`\mathrm{ln}(1/x)15`$ (THERA region). Then, an important result is a large deviation of the standard DGLAP expectations at small $`x`$ for the ratio $`R^{c\overline{c}}=F_2^{c\overline{c}}/F_2`$ due to the saturation phenomena (unitarization). With our calculation  one verifies that it is obtained a good description of data in both reference systems, suggesting a consistent estimation of the unitarity effects for that quantity.

## Acknowledgments

MBGD thanks the organizers for the invitation for this talk and both authors enjoyed the lively scientific atmosphere of this meeting.


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# Cosemisimple Hopf Algebras with Antipode of Arbitrary Finite Order

## 1. Introduction

The order of the antipode of a Hopf algebra has been an important subject of study since the beginning of the theory in the 60’s. Let us first recall some of the highlights.

$``$ First, there is the following fact: the antipode of a commutative or cocommutative Hopf algebra is involutive.

$``$ In 1971, Taft  has constructed finite-dimensional Hopf algebras with antipode of arbitrary even order. The Taft algebras are not cosemisimple.

$``$ In 1975, Kaplansky  conjectured that the antipode of finite-dimensional cosemi-simple Hopf algebra is involutive.

$``$ Radford (, 1976) proved that the order of the antipode of a finite-dimensional Hopf algebra is finite.

$``$ Kaplansky’s conjecture was proved in characteristic zero by Larson-Radford (, 1987). The conjecture remains opened in general, although Etingof-Gelaki (, 1998) proved it in positive characteristic, under the additional assumption of semisimplicity.

It seems that the only known examples of cosemisimple Hopf algebras have either involutive antipode or antipode of infinite order (the antipode of a cosemisimple Hopf algebra is always bijective). In this note, we present, under the assumption that the base field is algebraically closed of characteristic zero, examples of cosemisimple Hopf algebras with antipode of arbitrary even order:

###### Theorem 1.

Let $`m1`$ be a positive integer and let $`k`$ be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. There exists a cosemisimple Hopf algebra over $`k`$ having an antipode of order $`2m`$.

In fact the Hopf algebras of the Theorem were introduced by Dubois-Violette an Launer . Their properties are straightforward consequences of the results of . Using these Hopf algebras, we also have a partial negative answer to a question raised in  (see Remark 5).

In the last Section, we study the Schur indicator for cosemisimple Hopf algebras. We get a generalization of the Frobenius-Schur theorem of Linchenko-Montgomery  to the case of cosemisimple Hopf algebras with involutive antipode. Finally we use the Hopf algebras of the second section to illustrate the difficulty for proving a wider generalization, even when the order of the antipode is finite.

We work over a fixed algebraically closed field of characteristic zero $`k`$.

## 2. Proof of Theorem 1

We consider the universal Hopf algebra associated to a non-degenerate bilinear form, introduced by Dubois-Violette and Launer . Let $`n^{}`$, and let $`EGL_n(k)`$. We consider the following algebra $`(E)`$: it is the universal algebra with generators $`(a_{ij})_{1i,jn}`$ and satisfying the relations

$$E^1{}_{}{}^{t}aEa=I=aE^1{}_{}{}^{t}aE,$$

where $`a`$ is the matrix $`(a_{ij})_{1i,jn}`$ and $`I`$ is the identity matrix. The algebra $`(E)`$ admits a Hopf algebra structure, with comultiplication $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ defined by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(a_{ij})=_{k=1}^na_{ik}a_{kj}`$, $`1i,jn`$, with counit $`\epsilon `$ defined by $`\epsilon (a_{ij})=\delta _{ij}`$, $`1i,jn`$, and with antipode $`S`$ defined on the matrix $`a=(a_{ij})`$ by $`S(a)=E^1{}_{}{}^{t}aE`$.

For $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _nk`$, the corresponding anti-diagonal matrix is denoted by AD$`(\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n)`$ (the coefficient $`\alpha _n`$ is located at the top-right of the matrix). The corresponding diagonal matrix is denoted by D$`(\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n)`$.

Now fix $`m1`$ and $`\xi k^{}`$ a primitive $`m`$-th root of unity. We consider the matrices

$$E=\mathrm{AD}(\xi ,1,1,1,1,1)\mathrm{and}F=E^1{}_{}{}^{t}E=\mathrm{D}(\xi ^1,1,1,1,1,\xi ).$$

###### Proposition 2.

The Hopf algebra $`(E)`$ is cosemisimple, with antipode of order $`2m`$.

Proof. We first prove that $`(E)`$ is cosemisimple. Let $`qk^{}`$ be such that $`q^2+\mathrm{tr}(F)q+1=0`$. Then by , Theorem 1.1, there exists an equivalence of monoidal categories

$$\mathrm{Comod}((E))^{}\mathrm{Comod}(𝒪(SL_q(2))).$$

It is well-known that $`𝒪(SL_q(2))`$ is cosemisimple if and only if $`q=\pm 1`$ or if $`q`$ is not a root of unity (see e.g. ). For the value of $`q`$ chosen here, it is easily seen that either $`q=1`$ or $`q`$ is not a root of unity (e.g. embedding $`(\xi )`$ into $``$). Hence $`(E)`$ is cosemisimple.

Since $`S^2(a)=FaF^1`$, we have $`S^{2m}(a)=a`$ and the antipode of $`(E)`$ has order $`2m`$. Now consider the 6-dimensional comodule associated to the elements $`a_{ij}`$: this comodule corresponds, via the category equivalence of , to the simple 2-dimensional $`𝒪(SL_q(2))`$-comodule. It follows that the elements $`a_{ij}`$, $`1i,j6`$, are linearly independent. Let $`GM_6(k)`$ be such that $`aG=G{}_{}{}^{t}a`$. The linear independence of the $`a_{ij}`$’s forces $`G=0`$, and thus it is clear that the antipode of $`(E)`$ has even order. Now let $`k^{}`$ be such that $`S^{2k}(a)=F^kaF^k=a`$. Again by the linear independence of the $`a_{ij}`$’s, there exists $`\lambda k^{}`$ such that $`F^k=\lambda I`$, and hence $`\xi ^k=1`$. Since $`\xi `$ is primitive $`m`$-th root of unity, $`m`$ divides $`k`$ and we conclude that the antipode of $`(E)`$ has order $`2m`$. $`\mathrm{}`$

Theorem 1 is an immediate consequence of Proposition 2.

###### Remark 3.

The cosemisimplicity of $`(E)`$ cannot be proved using a compactness-like argument (we assume in this remark that $`k=`$). Indeed $`(E)`$ does not admit a CQG algebra structure . This is easily seen examining the eigenvalues of the matrix $`F`$ (see , Lemma 30 of Chapter 11).

###### Remark 4.

The matrix $`E`$ just considered does not have the smallest possible size for particular values of $`m`$. Here are the smallest sizes we have found. Again $`\xi `$ is a primitive $`m`$-th root of unity.

$``$ Assume that $`m5`$. Put $`E=\mathrm{AD}(1,1,\xi )`$. Then $`(E)`$ is a cosemisimple Hopf algebra with antipode of order $`2m`$.

$``$ Assume that $`m=4`$. Put $`E=\mathrm{AD}(1,1,1,\xi )`$. Then $`(E)`$ is a cosemisimple Hopf algebra with antipode of order $`8`$.

$``$ Assume that $`m=3`$. Put $`E=\mathrm{AD}(1,1,\xi ,\xi )`$. Then $`(E)`$ is a cosemisimple Hopf algebra with antipode of order $`6`$, and is cotriangular since the corresponding $`q`$ in Theorem 1.1 of  is $`q=1`$.

###### Remark 5.

Let $`tk^{}`$ be such that $`t^2+3t+1=0`$. Let $`E=\mathrm{AD}(1,1,t)`$. The corresponding $`q`$ in Theorem 1.1 of  is $`q=1`$, and thus $`(E)`$ is a cotriangular Hopf algebra. Since $`t^2`$ is not a root of unity and is an eigenvalue of $`S^2`$, we have a partial negative answer to Question 7.4 in  (of course $`(E)`$ is not the twist of a function algebra).

## 3. The Schur indicator for cosemisimple Hopf algebras

Let $`G`$ be a compact group and let $`V`$ be a complex finite-dimensional representation of $`G`$. Following the notation of , we define the Schur indicator of $`V`$ to be

$$\nu _2(V)=_G\chi _V(g^2)𝑑g.$$

The classical Frobenius-Schur theorem (see ) states that for an irreducible representation $`V`$, then $`\nu _2(V)=0,1`$ or $`1`$, with $`\nu _2(V)0`$ if and only if $`V`$ is self-dual. The case $`\nu _2(V)=1`$ corresponds to the existence of a $`G`$-invariant symmetric non-degenerate bilinear form on $`V`$, while the case $`\nu _2(V)=1`$ corresponds to the existence of a $`G`$-invariant skew-symmetric non-degenerate bilinear form on $`V`$.

The Frobenius-Schur theorem for finite groups was generalized to finite-dimensional semisimple Hopf algebras by Linchenko-Montgomery . We prove such a theorem for cosemisimple Hopf algebras with involutive antipode, and discuss the difficulty for predicting a more general theorem, even for cosemisimple Hopf algebras with antipode of order 4.

Let $`A`$ be a cosemisimple Hopf algebra with Haar measure $`h`$, and let $`V`$ be a finite-dimensional $`A`$-comodule with corresponding coalgebra map $`\mathrm{\Phi }_V:V^{}VA`$. The character of $`V`$  is defined to be $`\chi _V:=\mathrm{\Phi }_V(\mathrm{id}_V)`$. Dualizing , we define the Schur indicator of $`V`$ to be

$$\nu _2(V):=h(\chi _{V(1)}\chi _{V(2)}),$$

with Sweedler’s notation $`\mathrm{\Delta }(a)=a_{(1)}a_{(2)}`$.

###### Theorem 6.

Let $`A`$ be a cosemisimple Hopf algebra, and let $`V`$ be a finite-dimensional irreducible $`A`$-comodule.

1) If the $`A`$-comodule $`V`$ is not self-dual, then $`\nu _2(V)=0`$.

Assume now that $`V`$ is self-dual.

2) Let $`\beta :VVk`$ be a non-degenerate $`A`$-colinear bilinear form. Let $`E`$ be the matrix of $`\beta `$ in some basis of $`V`$. Then

$$\nu _2(V)=\frac{dim(V)}{\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})}.$$

3) Assume that $`S^2=\mathrm{id}`$. Then $`\nu _2(V)=\pm 1`$. The case $`\nu _2(V)=1`$ corresponds to the existence of an $`A`$-colinear symmetric non-degenerate bilinear form on $`V`$, while the case $`\nu _2(V)=1`$ corresponds to the existence of an $`A`$-colinear skew-symmetric non-degenerate bilinear form on $`V`$.

Proof. Let $`e_1,\mathrm{},e_n`$ be a basis of $`V`$, and let $`a_{ij}`$, $`1i,jn`$, be the corresponding matrix coefficients of the comodule $`V`$. Then $`\chi _V=_ia_{ii}`$ and $`\nu _2(V)=_{i,j}h(a_{ji}a_{ij})`$. By the orthogonality relations , Proposition 15 of Section 11 (the orthogonality relations first appeared in ), we have $`\nu _2(V)=0`$ if $`V`$ is not self-dual.

Assume now that $`V`$ is self-dual. Let $`E`$ be the matrix of $`\beta :VVk`$ in the fixed basis of $`V`$. Since $`\beta `$ is $`A`$-colinear, we have $`S(a)=E^1{}_{}{}^{t}aE`$ and $`S^2(a)=E^1{}_{}{}^{t}Ea{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1}E`$. Then again by the orthogonality relations , we have

$$h(a_{kl}S(a_{ij}))=\delta _{kj}\frac{(E^1{}_{}{}^{t}E)_{il}}{\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})},1i,j,k,ln.$$

Using $`S(a)=E^1{}_{}{}^{t}aE`$, a direct computation gives

$$h(a_{kl}a_{ij})=\frac{E_{ki}^1E_{lj}}{\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})},1i,j,k,ln.$$

This leads to

$$\nu _2(V)=\underset{i,j}{}\frac{E_{ji}^1E_{ij}}{\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})}=\frac{dim(V)}{\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})},$$

as claimed. Assume finally that $`S^2=\mathrm{id}`$. The linear independence of the $`a_{ij}`$’s forces $`E^1{}_{}{}^{t}E=\lambda I`$ for $`\lambda k^{}`$, and necessarily $`\lambda =\pm 1`$. This gives $`\nu _2(V)=\pm 1`$. The last assertion is immediate. $`\mathrm{}`$

Using the Larson-Radford’s theorems , it is clear that Theorem 6 implies Theorem 3.1 of .

The Hopf algebras $`𝒪(SL_q(2))`$ show that the Schur indicator may take various possible values. Even in the case of cosemisimple Hopf algebras with antipode of finite order $`>2`$, it seems difficult to predict all the possible values of the Schur indicator. The following example might convince the reader.

###### Example 7.

Let $`n3`$, with $`n`$ odd. We claim that there exists a cosemisimple Hopf algebra with antipode of order $`4`$ having an irreducible comodule $`V`$ with $`\nu _2(V)=n`$.

Put $`k=\frac{n1}{2}`$. Consider the matrices

$$E=\mathrm{AD}(\underset{ktimes}{\underset{}{1,1,\mathrm{},1}},\underset{2nktimes}{\underset{}{1,1,\mathrm{},1}})\mathrm{and}$$

$$E^1{}_{}{}^{t}E=\mathrm{D}(\underset{ktimes}{\underset{}{1,1,\mathrm{},1}},\underset{2n2ktimes}{\underset{}{1,1,\mathrm{},1}},\underset{ktimes}{\underset{}{1,1,\mathrm{},1}}).$$

Then $`\mathrm{tr}(E{}_{}{}^{t}E_{}^{1})=2n4k=2`$, and hence $`(E)`$ is cosemisimple by . Consider now the fundamental $`2n`$-dimensional $`(E)`$-comodule (irreducible by ), denoted by $`V`$. By Theorem 6 we have $`\nu _2(V)=\frac{2n}{2}=n`$, as claimed.

###### Remark 8.

($`k=`$) If $`A`$ is cosemisimple Hopf algebra with antipode of finite order, it is easily seen, using Theorem 6, that $`|\nu _2(V)|1`$ for any self-dual irreducible comodule $`V`$.

E-mail: Julien.Bichon@univ-pau.fr


text:
# On Be Star Candidates and Possible Blue Pre-Main Sequence Objects in the Small Magellanic Cloud

## 1 Introduction

About 1/6 - 1/3 of all Galactic B-type stars with luminosity class III-V once showed H$`\alpha `$ in emission and have therefore been classified as Be stars (e.g. Zorec & Briot 1997). The optical and near-infrared spectra of Galactic Be stars usually display hydrogen, He I and singly ionized metallic emission lines, whose double-peaked shape indicate their origin in a circumstellar gaseous quasi-Keplerian disk. Detailed studies of Be stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) have been performed only in recent years, being especially confined to open clusters like NGC 330 (e.g. Keller, Wood and Bessell 1999). These studies show the importance of studying Be stars in the low metallicity environment of the SMC since they serve as probes to test for the mechanisms of disk formation and of global disk oscillations (Baade et al. 2001, Hummel et al. 1999).

Over the past years, the microlensing projects (OGLE, MACHO, EROS) have monitored millions of stars in the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic bulge for variability. The huge resulting photometric databases are very well suited not only for microlensing studies but also for many other issues of modern astrophysics, including the distance scale, variable stars, star clusters etc. In particular, the OGLE II project (Udalski, Kubiak and Szymanski, 1997), has provided accurate BVI measurements for about 6.5 million stars from the central parts of the Magellanic Clouds (Udalski et al. 1998, 2000). Based on this same material, a unique catalog containing about 68.000 variable stars has just been released (Żebruń et al. 2001).

The aim of this paper is to search the OGLE II database for Be star candidates and provide a much larger sample of these stars in the SMC than previously known. This will provide the basis for posterior follow-up spectroscopic studies of these objects, necessary to fully understand their nature. We will also call attention to several apparently new classes of light curves which appeared during our search for Be stars in the SMC.

The paper has the following structure. Observational data and the applied selection criteria are described in section 2. Results are presented in section 3, and discussed in section 4. In section 5, we present our current conclusions on the underlying nature of the observed types of variability.

## 2 The Data

During four years (1997-2000), about 4.5 and 2 million stars were monitored in the LMC and SMC, respectively, in the course of the OGLE II project (Udalski, Kubiak and Szymanski 1997). Typically, about 400 I and 30 B and V observations were secured for each star. An application of a newly developed photometric pipeline (Woźniak 2000, Żebruń et al. 2001 ) to the data, based on the DIA method introduced by Alard and Lupton (1998), resulted in the detection of about 68.000 variable stars (Żebruń et al. 2002). This catalog, apart from presenting positions and light curves for all its objects, provides in addition cross identifications with objects detected during earlier reductions carried out with Dophot. It should be stressed that the positions of the variable stars obtained with the DIA package were obtained from the variable signal only, and may be in principle quite different, especially in the very crowded regions, from the positions obtained from the Dophot photometry. However, the great majority of variable sources detected with DIA were unambiguously cross-correlated with objects detected with Dophot (Żebruń et al. 2002).

To carry out our search, we inspected the OGLE II SMC BVI maps, and looked for stars matching the usual luminosities and colours observed in Galactic Be stars. Absolute magnitudes of Be stars based on Hipparcos parallaxes (Wegner 2000) indicate that Be stars of luminosity classes IV-V and III have absolute V-band magnitudes between -4 and 0. However, Garmany & Humphreys (1985) report on a population of extremely luminous non-supergiant Be stars in the Magellanic Clouds with absolute V-band magnitudes up to -6. Therefore, we searched for stars having absolute V-band magnitudes between -6 and 0. Assuming a distance modulus for the SMC of 19.0 $`\pm `$ 0.2 mag, a visual extinction of 0.3 mag and a typical amplitude of the photometric variations of Be stars of 0.2 mag, the above absolute magnitudes imply apparent V-band magnitudes between 13.1 and 19.7. In addition to this magnitude constraint, we required that the selected stars should have colours in the range in which Galactic Be stars are usually found, viz. -0.4 $`<`$ B-V $`<`$ 0.6 and -0.35 $`<`$ V-I $`<`$ 0.8. Using these criteria, we obtained a first sample of 5168 Be star candidates in our database. As a next step, we extracted the I-band light curves for each of these objects from the OGLE II catalog of variable stars (Żebruń et al. 2002). The light curves were visually inspected and spurious variables, Cepheids and eclipsing binaries rejected. We then proceeded in classifying the remaining 1056 stars according to the appearance of their light curves. Our set of Be star candidates is likely to be complete for stars showing a $`rms`$ larger than 0.02 magnitudes in the I band. However, we could have missed Be stars either not showing long-term variations, or with I-band amplitudes less than 0.02 magnitudes.

## 3 Results

Surprisingly, we found not only a large sample of 685 objects showing light curves similar to those observed for Galactic Be stars (we call them Type-4 stars, with stochastic or sometimes quasi-periodic variations), but also 139 objects showing outbursts (called Type-1 stars), 154 showing high and low states (called Type-2 stars), and 78 stars showing periodic or near-periodic long-term oscillations (Type-3 stars). 18 Type-1 stars also showed sudden luminosity jumps like those observed in Type-2 stars. We called them Type-1/Type-2 stars. In Figures 1-6, we show examples of light curves for objects of the Type-1 to Type-4 subclasses. Basic information (OGLE name, distance (in arcsec) to the nearest star detected with Dophot, V magnitude, B-V and V-I colours, scatter of I-band magnitudes, and optional comments) on these stars is given in Tables 1-6. It is striking that Type-2 and Type-3 light curves have not been observed in any Galactic variable, to the best of our knowledge, and very few cases of Galactic Type-1 stars seems to have been detected (see Section 3.1). Therefore all these stars clearly deserve further study. In Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 we show the V versus B-V, and V-I versus B-V diagrams for the entire sample of stars. It is observed that the number of Be star candidates declines towards the extremes in both diagrams, indicating that the ranges of magnitude and colour we chose for our search were probably near-optimum to include all the Be stars in the database. Regarding the main sequence, most stars are displaced to the red in the V versus B-V diagram; this is in principle consistent with hydrogen recombination (free-bound and free-free) emission from circumstellar envelopes around Be stars (Dachs, Engles and Kiehling 1988). Keeping in mind that our data have not been corrected for interstellar or circumstellar reddening, the sharp blue cut-off in the B-V colour is notable. This observational fact is consistent with the vanishing of the Be phenomenon in spectral types earlier than B0, partly due to the efficiency of radiation pressure to remove circumstellar gas in hotter stars.

### 3.1 Type-1 stars:

The outbursts shown by Type-1 stars were basically of two types: those characterized by a sudden rise of luminosity followed by a gradual decline, generally lasting tens of days with amplitudes $`<`$ 0.2 mag, and those with usually slower declines, lasting hundreds of days with amplitudes $`>`$ 0.2 mag, and characterized by more symmetric rising and fading timescales. In general, in both kinds of outbursts, the stars were redder when brighter and we could not find any evidence of a correlation of outburst rising delay with wavelength. Some stars showed both kinds of outbursts, and sometimes it was difficult to classify them when the outburst was faint and not well resolved, or in the cases of noisy light curves. For this reason we do not provide a sub-classification for Type-1 stars. Not always these stars are showing a constant quiescence brightness level. For 16% of Type-1 stars (22 objects) it was possible to identify an outburst time-scale, i.e. a typical time for outburst recurrence, although this recursion sometimes was observed only as a transient phenomenon and not during the whole observing period. Basic information for Type-1 stars is given in Tables 1 and 2. Exemplary light curves of this type of variable stars are shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The outburst time-scales, given in Table 2, run from 16 to 332 days, with a mean of 126 days. The time-scale histogram shows a decrease of cases toward longer periods; 68% of the objects show time-scales shorter than 150 days. There is no clear correlation between outburst time-scale, and stellar colour or apparent magnitude.

Our Type-1 objects probably correspond to the “bumpers found in the Large Magellanic Cloud by Cook et al. (1995) after analysing the MACHO collaboration database. These authors report on the discovery of a group of bright main sequence stars with V $``$ 15–17 which have a constant luminosity for extended periods of time, but show occasional outbursts at 10–30% amplitude level. They found that the episodes in more than 50% of the cases are asymmetric and shorter than about 50 days with a more rapid brightening than dimming. The fact that H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ emission was observed in the spectra of 7 of these stars led Cook et al. (1995) to suggest that these stars could be related to, or maybe identical to, Galactic Be stars.

The Galactic counterparts of Type-1 objects could be the outbursting Be stars found by Hubert & Floquet (1998) analyzing Hipparcos photometry. They find short-lived outbursts in $`\omega `$ CMa and other 13 Be stars, and also a long-lived outburst in $`\upsilon `$ Cyg and another 7 Be stars. The outbursts were preferentially detected in early Be stars with rather low to moderate projected rotational velocities. The average time scale for the recurrence of short-lived outburst is, however, slightly larger than that observed for our SMC sample. Hubert & Floquet (1998) argue that both kinds of outbursts probably have the same origin and can be explained by discrete high density emitting plasma events seen under low inclination angles with respect to the rotational axis. The number of cases presented by these authors is too small and the photometry too scarce to make a detailed comparison with our Type-1 stars, however.

Although at present we cannot exclude the Be star nature of Type-1 objects, we will present, in the next section, two possible alternative explanations for these objects.

### 3.2 Type-2 stars and Type-1/Type-2 stars:

Type-2 stars show sudden brightness jumps of an amplitude of a few tenths of magnitude, with the star remaining at a rather constant brightness level for hundreds of days. Type-2 stars usually don’t show additional variability, like the irregular variations observed in Type-4 stars, except for rather smooth long-term changes. Type-2 stars can be found in basically the same colour range as Type-1 stars, but Type-2 stars are statistically bluer than Type-1 stars. Eighteen Type-1 stars in our database also showed high-low states like those observed in Type-2 stars. These Type-1/Type-2 stars were only found in the range of 15.5 $`<`$ V $`<`$ 17 and in a narrow colour box characterized by -0.2 $`<`$ B-V $`<`$ 0.2 and -0.2 $`<`$ V-I $`<`$ 0.25. The existence of these “transition” stars supports the conjecture that Type-1 and Type-2 stars could correspond to the same kind of object. Basic information for Type-2 and Type-1/Type-2 stars is given in Tables 3 and 4.

### 3.3 Type-3 stars:

In these periodic objects, we searched for periods longer than 0.2 days using a variety of period searching algorithms implemented in graphic C-routines written by us, and also in IRAF. We found periodicities in the range of 17 to 720 days. The accuracy for periods longer than 200 days is low, and these variations can easily be quasi-periodic rather than strictly periodic. 51% of the periods were found in the range of 17-100 days. The mean period was 135 days. Many of the stars showed significant aliases in the periodogram in addition to the main period, and 2 showed evidence of a variable period. Five stars turned out to be eclipsing binaries, with evidence of additional variability not related to changing aspects of the binary system. In general, Type-3 stars were redder when brighter. All the relevant information is given in Table 5. The 9 Type-3 stars in our sample with periods longer than 200 days have V-I colours in the range of 0.0-0.2 mag, and B-V colours in the range of -0.1-0.0 mag. They correspond to stars with visual magnitudes between 15.5 and 18.0 mag. In general, Type-3 stars show similar colours than the other types of stars we are discussing, but they appear more homogeneously distributed in Figs. 7 and 8, with a tendency to concentrate in the red part of the colour-colour diagram.

### 3.4 Type-4 stars:

They are the most numerous in our sample, sharing colour ranges with the other types of variables. They usually show stochastic variability in time scales running from days to years (Fig. 6). In some occasions we observed quasi-periodic oscillations on time scales of weeks, and in others short-duration, eclipse-like events. Information on Type-4 stars is given in Table 6.

## 4 Discussion

We have reviewed the literature in order to find out if our stars have already been detected as variable stars by other surveys. In the original sample of 5168 objects, we found 8 stars classified as Be stars by Keller et al. (1999). We classified four of them as Type-4 (ngc330/219, ngc330/235, ngc346/259 and ngc346/377), and the others were missed by our visual inspection search method since they show I-band $`rms`$ lower than 0.02 mag (ngc330/238, ngc330/1054, ngc330/1064 and ngc330/1239). We also found one Type-4 star listed as extreme Be-star by Garmany & Humphreys (1985, their star AV433). Another two Type-4 stars are listed as Be/X-ray binaries and one as possible Be/X-ray binary in the compilation by Haberl & Sasaki (2000, their stars 20,23 and 6, respectively). The fact that eight Type-4 stars have been previously classified as Be stars or Be/X-ray binaries suggests that all Type-4 stars might be related with Be stars in some way. Their light curve morphology, quite similar to Galactic Be stars, supports this conjecture.

Type-1 light curves are reminiscent of those observed in FU Orionis stars, thought to be caused by accretion events in protostellar disks around young solar-type stars. There is a notable similarity between the shape of the sharp Type-1 outbursts with those observed in the extreme classical T Tauri star EX Lupi (Herbig et al. 2001) and the FU Ori star V 1057 Cyg (Bell et al. 1995). However, the amplitude and duration of the outbursts are respectively factors 20 and 1000 smaller in Type-1 stars. On the other hand, the general appearance of Type-2 light curves, i.e., a rapid rise of luminosity followed by a ”plateau” of rather constant brightness resemble (except for a scale factor) the initial stages of the outbursts observed in V1515 Cyg and FU Ori (Bell et al. 1995). Type-1 light curves are also quite similar in shape to those observed in cataclysmic variables (CVs) of the dwarf novae type. However, these objects experience in general much larger amplitude outbursts ($``$ 2-7 mags), have a rather constant luminosity at maximum and usually return to the same quiescence level after outburst.

The outbursts observed in CVs and FU Ori stars have been modeled by mass transfer instabilities in accretion disks (Meyer & Meyer-Hofmeister 1981, Bell et al. 1995). A heating front propagates across the disk after a certain critical density is reached, pushing the disk into a hot state with high mass transfer rate and consequently high accretion luminosity. Rapid outburst rising times can be produced by outbursts starting in the outer disk and propagating inwards, and slower rising times can be produced by outbursts triggered in the inner disk and propagating outwards. We can speculate that the same phenomenon responsible for FU Ori outbursts is also present in more massive young stars, producing light curve patterns like the ones observed in Type-1 and Type-2 stars. In this view, the smaller outburst amplitude and shorter duration of Type-1 outburst when compared with those observed in FU Ori stars should correspond to accretion of matter with lower mass transfer rates. Sharp and hump-like outbursts should correspond to outside-in and inside-out outbursts, respectively. Type-2 stars could be explained by outside-in outbursts followed by a sustained period of a high mass-transfer rate. A characteristic of the FU Ori outbursts is their larger amplitude at shorter wavelengths, contrary to what is observed in Type-1 stars. However, dwarf novae are redder at maximum.

In connection with the above ideas, it is interesting that one of our objects classified as Type-1 was identified by Beaulieu et al. (2001) as a possible pre-main sequence star (ESHC2). In principle, this is in contradiction with the Cook et al. (1995) classification of some of these objects as Be stars. It is possible that the presence of Balmer emission not necessarily implies a Be star classification for the “bumpers” detected in the LMC by Cook and collaborators. In fact, the low ionization metal absorption lines usually found in optical spectra of Herbig Ae/Be stars could be hard to detect in low metallicity stellar photospheres like those found in the SMC and LMC. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask if perhaps all of Type-1 and Type-2 objects are actually pre-main sequence stars with FU Ori-like accretion disk activity. In this case, the mass accretion rates need to be much higher than those observed in normal Be star discs, or even in Be/X-ray binaries, to yield luminosities comparable or larger than the luminosity of the accreting B-type star. Since the nebulosities defining Herbig Ae/Be objects cannot be resolved at the distance of the Magellanic Clouds, the answer to the above question needs to await future spectroscopic studies, especially in the infrared, and possibly very high-resolution imaging studies which could reveal the surrounding nebulosities. We must keep in mind, however, that Hipparcos photometry of Galactic Herbig Ae/Be stars apparently does not reveal Type-1 like activity (van den Ancker et al. 1998). Also, the optical light of some Galactic Be stars showing outbursts, like $`\lambda `$ Eri and $`\mu `$ Cen, is apparently dominated by the stellar continuum during quiescence, and the spectrum does not reveal the strong emission lines typical of massive Herbig Ae/Be envelopes. Although it is not clear if these Galactic Be stars are the same kind of object that Type-1/Type-2 stars, we recognize that these two facts are the weak points in the pre-main sequence scenario. We therefore offer an alternative explanation in the next paragraph.

Type-1 star outbursts resemble also in shape the optical outbursts observed in some Be/X-ray binaries (e.g. A 0538-66, Densham et al. 1983), except for their much smaller amplitudes and redder colours. It is currently assumed that in these objects a neutron star companion undergoes episodes of mass accretion when passing through the envelope of a Be star primary (e.g., Okazaki & Negueruela 2001). These high-energy phenomena are no doubt relevant in the X-ray domain, but should not show up at optical and near infrared wavelengths. In addition, the optical counterparts of Galactic and Magellanic Cloud Be/X-ray binaries have spectral types earlier than B2 (Negueruela 1998). This is in principle contrary to the distribution of B-V colours in Fig. 7. However, the similarity between the X-ray Type-I and Type-II outbursts observed in Be/X-ray binaries and the narrow and hump-like outburst observed in Type-1 stars suggest that they could be due to accretion by a white dwarf, not a neutron star. The Be+WD system should produce less energetic outburst, eventually much prominent in the optical and infrared. Favouring this hypothesis is the fact that many Be+WD binaries, even with late-type B stars, are expected from evolutionary calculations (Waters et al. 1989). Only few candidates for these systems have been found up to now, likely due that the white dwarfs, if present, should be hard to detect (Apparao 1991). The hypothesis of accreting white dwarf companions would naturally explain some of the Type-1 light curves. The same model for periodic X-ray outbursts in Be/X-ray binaries by Okazaki & Negueruela (2001) could eventually be applied to Be+WD systems. In this model, periodic narrow outbursts occur in systems with high orbital eccentricity, every time that the compact object captures gas from the disc at every periastron passage. Hump-like outbursts occurs in systems with low eccentricity, when the outer disc eventually passes beyond the orbit of the companion. Accordingly to Apparao (1991), observations of time delays between enhancements of optical line and continuum emission could identify Be stars with white dwarf companions. We must keep in mind, that only a small fraction of Type-1 objects shows periodic or quasiperiodic outbursts, however.

Concerning Type-3 stars, they can be ruled out to be Cepheids, since their large periods (sometimes hundreds of days) are incompatible with their inferred luminosities. On the other hand, the periods are one or two orders of magnitude longer than those observed in Galactic pulsating B stars. This hints at the possibility that Type-3 variability is linked to the envelope rather than to the star itself. There is evidence for global one-armed oscillations in the envelopes of Galactic Be stars (Okazaki 1997), but the associated photometric variations are not so strictly periodic as those observed in Type-3 stars, the time-scales are longer, about 7 years in average, and, from a theoretical point of view, the oscillations are expected to disappear in the low metallicity environment of the SMC or, alternatively, to slow down, yielding periods in excess of several years (Hummel et al. 2001), in disagreement with the observed Type-3 oscillations. The distribution of Type-3 stars in the colour-colour diagram of Fig. 8 suggests that these stars are perhaps not be linked to the Be star phenomenon at all. Preliminary spectroscopy of one Type-3 object seems to corroborate this view. It shows double H$`\alpha `$ emission with a deep central absorption and total equivalent width $``$ 100Å, too large for an isolated Be star (Mennickent et al. in preparation). We speculate that Type-3 stars could be young objects with massive envelopes ongoing some kind of oscillation.

## 5 Conclusions

We have presented a sample of $``$ 1000 Be star candidates in the Small Magellanic Cloud, giving positions and basic photometric information along with periodicities when present. Many of these objects show apparently new kinds of photometric variability never seen before, and this feature enabled us to carry out an empirical classification based on the light curve appearance. There is evidence that some of these objects are truly Be stars, but spectroscopy is needed to confirm this suspicion. On the other hand, the hypothesis that at least part of the Type-1 and Type-2 stars are Be-stars with accreting white dwarfs, or alternatively, pre-main sequence stars showing accretion disk instabilities, should be studied more thoroughly.

The understanding of the phenomena causing the photometric variability of the stars discussed in this paper requires knowledge of the spectral energy distributions of these stars. We plan to discuss, in a forthcoming paper, the detailed photometric properties of these objects along with spectroscopic data. It should be interesting to test the accretion scenario for Type-1 stars. Since the theory of accretion is rather well developed, it could be a source of physical information about the environments surrounding these objects. We also plan to search the OGLE-II database for Be stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It should be interesting to investigate if the same types of light curves are observed in the LMC, whose metallicity is intermediate between the SMC and our Galaxy, and how the light curve properties are modified by the change in metallicity.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by Grant Fondecyt 1000324 and DI UdeC 202.011.030-1.0. The authors are very grateful to Professor Bohdan Paczynski for many interesting suggestions on this paper. We would also like to thank the OGLE collaboration for making their data public domain, thus enabling us to carry out this research. We also acknowledge the anonymous referee who made valuable comments to improve a first version of this manuscript.

Figure Captions

Fig.1 Examples of Type-1 Be star candidates showing sharp outbursts.

Fig.2 Examples of Type-1 Be star candidates showing hump-like outbursts.

Fig.3 Examples of Type-1/Type-2 Be star candidates showing outbursts and high-low states.

Fig.4 Examples of Type-2 Be star candidates showing high and low states.

Fig.5 Examples of Type-3 Be star candidates showing periodic oscillations.

Fig.6 Examples of Type-4 Be star candidates showing random variability.

Fig.7 The V vs. B-V diagram for the sample stars. Blue dots correspond to Type-1 stars, red dots to Type-2 stars, green dots to Type-3 stars, circles to Type-4 stars and black dots to Type-1 stars showing high and low states, as Type-2 stars. The track of the main sequence (Allen 2000) is shown for reference. Note the sharp cut-off at the blue edge.

Fig.8 The V-I vs. B-V diagram for the sample stars. The track of the main sequence (Allen 2000) is shown as a reference. Meaning of the symbols are as in Fig.7.


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# Modelling diffusion of innovations in a social network

## Abstract

A new simple model of diffusion of innovations in a social network with upgrading costs is introduced. Agents are characterized by a single real variable, their technological level. According to local information agents decide whether to upgrade their level or not balancing their possible benefit with the upgrading cost. A critical point where technological avalanches display a power-law behavior is also found. This critical point is characterized by a macroscopic observable that turns out to optimize technological growth in the stationary state. Analytical results supporting our findings are found for the globally coupled case.

There has recently been much interest in modeling social and economical systems from a physical point of view. Most of these studies have fallen into two classes: statistical analysis of time series and agent based microscopic models. Among the latter, most of them have been proposed in order to mimic financial markets behavior. Despite this, several authors have, on their turn, developed models to simulate other sort of social behaviors such as the adoption of competing products, innovation and collaboration or group decision-making. The main goal of all these models is to reproduce real world behavior while simplifying the theoretical models retaining as less parameters as possible.

Keeping this in mind, we have tackled the problem of diffusion of innovations in a social network. In order to understand the complex behavior of technology adoption dynamics one should consider how the stimulus for change spreads by gradual local interaction through a social network. Most of the times, these “waves” of change come in terms of intermittent bursts separating relatively long periods of quiescence, in other words, the system exhibits “punctuated equilibrium” behavior. Certainly some technologies, like cellular phones or VCR’s, seem to lurk in the background for years and then suddenly explode into mass use.

There are two main mechanisms involved in the diffusion of innovations in a social network that any mathematical model should take into account. On the one hand, there is a pressure for adopting a new product or technology coming from marketing campaigns and mass media. These external processes are essentially independent of the social network structure and one can view their effects as a random independent process on the individuals (hereafter called agents). On the other hand, there is the influence of the surrounding agents who define the social network. Once an agent decides to adopt a new technology, those who are in contact with him can evaluate the new payoff the agent has got from acquiring the new technology and compare it with their current benefits. This propagating mechanism stands for interpersonal, such as word of mouth, communication processes. By balancing the payoff increment with the associated upgrading cost, they may decide to adopt, or not, the new technology. In this way, the local flux of information plays a key role in diffusing new products. It is important to notice that we are not considering any compatibility constraint among the agents. Links only account for the flux of information among agents who decide to take an action or another for their exclusively own benefit.

In this letter we propose a simple model of diffusion of technological innovations with costs. In the simplest version of the model, a population of $`N`$ agents lie in a one-dimensional chain with periodic boundary conditions. Each agent $`i`$ is characterized by the real variable $`a_i`$. This variable stands for their technological level, that is, the higher $`a_i`$, the more advanced (technologically speaking) he is . We will assume that the payoff that an agent receives from possessing a certain technological level is simply proportional to it. The model is then simulated as follows:

(i) at each time step, a randomly selected agent $`a_i`$ updates his technological level

$$a_ia_i+\mathrm{\Delta }_i,$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_i`$ is a random variable exponentially distributed with mean $`\lambda `$, that is, $`p(\mathrm{\Delta })=e^{\mathrm{\Delta }/\lambda }/\lambda `$. This driving process accounts for the external pressure that may lead to a spontaneous new technology adoption by any of the population agents. In all numerical simulations shown in this letter we have used $`\lambda =1/2`$. However, all results are robust against other noise choices, as long as they have a finite variance.

(ii) all agents $`jϵ\mathrm{\Gamma }(i)`$ ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }(i)`$ being the set of neighbors of agent $`i`$) decide whether they also want to upgrade or not, according to the following rule

$$a_ia_jCa_ja_i,$$
(2)
where $`C`$ (cost) is a constant parameter that stands for the price an agent must pay in order to upgrade his technology as well as his personal “resistance” to change.

(iii) if any $`a_j`$ has decided to also upgrade his level, we let their neighbors also choose whether to upgrade or not. This procedure is repeated until no one else wants to upgrade, concluding a technological avalanche. Whenever an agent $`a_i`$ decides to upgrade, their neighbors become aware of the new technology and balance the profit they may obtain in case of also adopting it ($`a_ia_j`$) with its cost $`C`$. It may well happen that if the technological innovation spontaneously adopted by the seed of the avalanche is high enough compared with the cost, the avalanche may end up spanning a large portion of the population.

According to the cost value $`C`$ it is possible to distinguish several regimes. In Fig. 1 we can see some examples of the technology profile (the interface defined by the technology level of all agents) for several values of the cost $`C`$. For $`C1`$, once there is an external random update, a system size avalanche is immediately triggered so that all agents end up sharing the same technological level, or in other words, the system is always in an almost synchronized state. For values of $`C1`$ upgrading is so expensive that agents do not care about their neighbors technology, and large avalanches are not triggered any more (almost all avalanches are of size $`1`$). In this regime the technological profile is quite rough (actually, in the limit $`C\mathrm{}`$ we should recover the random deposition model). In between these two regimes, there is a region showing a rich dynamics where one finds technological avalanches of all possible sizes. Actually, for some values of $`C`$ the probability density of having an avalanche of size $`s`$ shows a power-law behavior

$$P(s)s^\tau .$$
(3)
Fig. 2 shows $`P(s)`$ for several system sizes and $`C=3`$. The appearance of power-law distributed quantities is usually related to the existence of some critical point. Nevertheless, it is difficult to locate the critical point by looking at $`P(s)`$ since finite-size effects provide a whole region of the parameter space where $`P(s)`$ behavior is compatible with a power-law. Actually, the same problem appears in some SOC models and the question of whether there is critical point or a whole critical region in some parameter space has been largely debated. We need another signature of criticality that may help us in locating the critical point.

A possible answer comes from the social interpretation of the model. Social science researchers usually work with aggregated data such as the adopting curve, that is, the evolution in time of the total number of people who adopts a certain product or technology. Analogously, in our model we can set an arbitrary threshold $`a_{th}`$ and then calculate how many agents posses a technology $`a>a_{th}`$ as the upgrading process goes on. Let us label $`\varphi `$ the fraction of agents with $`a>a_{th}`$. Fig. 3 shows three adopting curves for three different values of $`C`$. For $`C=1.25`$ large avalanches (made of a lot of agents acquiring the same new product or technology) are triggered. In this way, the technological profile advances uniformly and, the system must pay a lot of costs. This situation is clearly inefficient. In the plot this is reflected by the fact that the curve for $`C=1.25`$ is the last one to reach $`a_{th}`$ (at least one of the agents), but once it begins the whole population crosses $`a_{th}`$ very fast (because of the uniform advance). On the other hand, for $`C=3.5`$ very few avalanches are triggered, meaning that the profile grows in a very non-uniform way, and its fluctuations are quite important. That is why the $`C=3.5`$ curve begins crossing the threshold $`a_{th}`$ earlier than the case $`C=1.25`$. However, it takes much more time the whole population to cross the threshold and it is clearly inefficient in terms of how many times a cost is paid. As result, there is an intermediate value of $`C`$ ($`C=2.5`$ in the plot) where this weighted growth process is optimized and the $`\varphi `$ curve is always greater than for larger and smaller cost values. That corresponds to the critical region, where avalanches of all possible sizes are triggered. In other words, there are some intermediate $`C`$ values that let the population reach a given average technological level with a minimum number of upgrades (and their associated costs). Therefore, we can speak of an efficient cost region leading to an optimal growth rate.

We can quantify this effect by computing the so-called mean velocity of progress defined as ratio of the total technology advance and the total number of upgrades. It can also be computed as $`\rho =H/s`$, where $`H`$ stands for the average total technological advance induced by an avalanche (the interface area increment caused by an avalanche) and $`s`$ is the average avalanche size. This quantity, $`\rho `$, gives an idea of how fast the technological profile grows. Fig. 4 shows several plots of $`\rho `$ against $`C`$ for several system sizes. The first thing one can see is that $`\rho `$ has a maximum for an intermediate value of $`C`$. Moreover, $`\rho _{max}`$ scales with the system size as $`\rho _{max}N^{0.20(1)}`$, diverging in the thermodynamic limit $`N\mathrm{}`$. The location of $`\rho _{max}`$ allows us to define the finite size critical point of the model $`C_cN`$. A proper and detailed characterization of this critical point will be published elsewhere. It is also possible to exactly calculate the assymptotic value of $`\rho `$. For $`C1`$, almost all avalanches are of the size of the system $`sN`$, and the total advance induced by them is, in average, $`N\lambda `$. Therefore, $`\rho \lambda `$. Moreover, for $`C1`$ the avalanches are of unit size $`s1`$ and advance $`\lambda `$, so that $`\rho \lambda `$ as well.

In the view of all this, one can assert that it is near the critical point where the technological profile grows more efficiently. This leads to the following paradoxal result: upgrading costs should be neither cheap nor expensive in order to have an optimal technological growth. Obvioulsy, our concept of efficiency is related to the number of times a cost is paid, that is, from the point of view of the population but not the companies who sell the products. Sellers will always look for a scenario where agents acquire as many new products as often as possible.

In order to complete our study, we have also analysed the globally coupled case, where some analytical results have been found.

In the globally coupled version of the model information about the technological level $`a_i`$ of all agents is available to any agent. Now, agents technological level is confined in a band of width $`C`$ since whenever there is a difference $`aa^{}C`$ between any two agents, the one with the lowest level immediately adopts the highest technological level. Moreover, the system still displays a peak for the mean velocity of progress $`\rho `$ as Fig. 5 shows. What is, indeed, also quite amazing, is that the globally coupled case also has also a power-law avalanche probability distribution $`P(s)`$ at the efficient region (Fig. 5).

In order to give an estimation of $`\rho `$ in the stationary state, let us make some mean-field assumption (that is, restricting to average values and neglecting fluctuations). Let us assume that the agents technological levels are uniformly distributed over the band of width $`C`$, so that there is a density of levels $`N/C`$. In order to keep things simple we also assume that random spontaneous updates are of fixed size $`\lambda `$. Then, there is going to be an avalanche whenever any of the agents having a technological level $`a[C\lambda ,C]`$(where the origin has been set at the base of the band) decides to, spontaneously, adopt a new technology. This will happen with a probability $`\lambda /C`$ every time step. The agents involved in such avalanche will be those who lie in the lowest region of the band $`a[0,\lambda ]`$, and, in average, half of them will take part in the avalanche, so that the number of agents involved is $`N\lambda /2C`$. These agents will advance their technological levels by $`C`$. Therefore, after $`T`$ time steps, in average there will be $`T\lambda /C`$ avalanches and $`T(1\lambda /C)`$ simple spontaneous updates. Now, we can calculate $`H`$, the global technological advance after $`T`$ time steps, as well as $`S`$ the total number of upgrades (spontaneous and induced by the avalanches)

$$H=\frac{T\lambda }{C}\left(\frac{N\lambda }{2C}C\right)+T\left(1\frac{\lambda }{C}\right)\lambda $$
(4)
$$S=T+\frac{T\lambda }{C}\frac{N\lambda }{2C}.$$
(5)
Then $`\rho `$ is imply given by the ratio $`H/S`$. In terms of the adimensional variables $`\rho /\lambda `$ and $`\mu \lambda /C`$ we find the relation

$$\rho /\lambda =\frac{\mu N/2+1\mu }{1+\mu ^2N/2}.$$
(6)
This formula holds whenever $`\lambda >C`$, otherwise the above assumptions are not valid, and one trivially finds that $`\rho =\lambda `$. Notice that in the limit $`C\mathrm{}`$ we also recover $`\rho \lambda `$. Fig. 5 shows a comparison between Eq. (6) and simulation data. Although the formula gives a correct estimation for $`C0`$ and $`C\mathrm{}`$, there is some discrepancy near the peak of the $`\rho `$. A plausible explanation for this is the existence of large fluctuations (as Fig. (5) shows) so that a mean-field approach only provides a crude estimation of $`\rho `$.

Now, it is possible to study the asymptotic behavior of $`\rho _{max}`$ that results from maximizing Eq. (6). We find that

$$\mu _{cN}=\frac{2N\sqrt{2N(N^2+2N4)}}{N(2N)}.$$
(7)
In the thermodynamic limit $`N\mathrm{}`$, $`\mu _{cN}0`$ and $`C_{cN}\mathrm{}`$. Therefore, for the globally coupled case the critical point goes to infinity and $`\rho _{max}`$ diverges as $`\rho _{max}N`$.

In conclusion, we have presented a simple model of diffusion of innovations in a social network displaying rich dynamics ranging from global synchronization to critical behavior. Costs are responsible of blocking the flux of information over the network, but, at the same time, they are necessary to guarantee an optimal growth of the technology profile. In order to show this, we have computed the value of $`\rho `$, mean velocity of progress, a quantity that is maximized at the critical point of the model. We have also analytically solved a mean-field version of the globally coupled case and showed the existence of a maximum value of $`\rho `$ that diverges in the thermodynamic limit. Also in this case, a power-law avalanche distribution leading to a critical behavior has also been found at the efficient region of the model. Therefore, one of the most interesting things of our model is that all its most intriguing features are qualitatively the same regardless of the systems connectivity.

We kindly acknowledge F. Vega-Redondo, J. J. Ramasco, M. A. Rodríguez and J. M. López for helpful comments. Financial support has been provided by DGES of the Spanish Government through grant BFM2000-0626 and EU TMR Grant No ERBFMRXCT980183. X. G. and M. Ll. also acknowledge financial support from the Generalitat de Catalunya and the MCT of the Spanish government, respectively.


text:
# The September 11 Attack: A Percolation of Individual Passive Support

((galam@ccr.jussieu.fr))

## Abstract

A model for terrorism is presented using the theory of percolation. Terrorism power is related to the spontaneous formation of random backbones of people who are sympathetic to terrorism but without being directly involved in it. They just don’t oppose in case they could. In the past such friendly-to-terrorism backbones have been always existing but were of finite size and localized to a given geographical area. The September 11 terrorist attack on the US has revealed for the first time the existence of a world wide spread extension. It is argued to have result from a sudden world percolation of otherwise unconnected and dormant world spread backbones of passive supporters. The associated strategic question is then to determine if collecting ground information could have predict and thus avoid such a transition. Our results show the answer is no, voiding the major criticism against intelligence services. To conclude the impact of military action is discussed.

PACS numbers: 89.75Hc, 05.50+q, 87.23.G

The recent September 11 terrorist attack on the US came as a total and dramatic blow to all experts on terrorism, intelligence services and military hierarchy. Here, terrorism designates the use of random violence against civilians in the purpose to kill them. While the problem is extremely complex, complicated and difficult, a different view from the physics of disorder may be useful in shedding some new light on it.

In the past years physicists have been dealing with social and political behaviors using some concepts and tools from Statistical Physics . Here we are using the theory of percolation  to analyze the connection between terrorism activity and the surrounding population attitude. We are neither investigating the terrorist net itself nor its internal mechanisms.

Our work does not aim at an exact description of terrorism complexity. Making some crude approximations it allows exhibiting an essential characteristics of terrorism by linking its capacity of destruction to the surrounding population attitude. In particular a target is set to be reachable once it is located within an area covered by a cluster of people who are passively consenting to the terrorist cause. The September 11 terrorist attack on the US is given an explanation in terms of the first worldwide percolation of such a cluster of passively consenting people. In parallel collecting ground information has proven unable to assess the associated current world level of related terrorism threat. Military action also appears of no use against it.

Passive supporters are normal people who do not need to express explicitly their position. It is a dormant attitude that results from an individual opinion. They are unnoticeable. They just do not oppose a terrorist act in case they could. They are sharing independently an identical opinion of identifying with the terrorist cause. They do not need to communicate between them. Mainly concentrated within the terrorist home area they are randomly spread in the whole population. We analyse their distribution in terms of percolation theory.

To make our model more explicit, we assume the world is a grid within a continuum percolation picture. Sites are randomly distributed on a plane and when separated by a distance less than some maximum length, they are regarded as nearest neighbors. To move on the grid requires to go through a continuous path of neighboring sites. People are distributed randomly over all the sites. Therefore for someone to change site, it has to simultaneously exchange sites with a nearest neigbhor on the grid making its agreement a prerequisite for its one site move. Accordingly for a terrorist to go from one home site to a target site requires to find a continuous path of passive supporters with whom it can switch successively. All of them do not need to cooperate collectively. The interaction is pairwise, local and restricted to the moving terrorist. Only one passive supporter is involved at a time. In contrast a non passive supporter does not allow the site exchange thus blockading the terrorist motion.

The random distribution of passive supporters produces random clusters of neigbhoring passive supporters. No one is aware it belongs to a definite cluster. Such a cluster existence comes to life only via the moving of a terrorist on it. Otherwise it is totally virtual. However it is both the size and the localization of such virtual clusters which determine the global level of terrorist threat as well as its in reach potential targets. Up to now the passive supporters of a terrorist cause have been always mainly concentrated with the geographical area of the terrorist home. It usually give rise to one major home cluster with sometimes few additional clusters further away but unconnected to the home one (see Fig. 1). It explains why all known terrorism has been always geographically anchored to finite size areas like for instance recently in Ireland, Corsica or Euskadi.

However one of the characteristics of current terrorism has been its capacity in creating many passive supporters spread all over the world. It also succeeded in producing one huge home cluster covering in part Afghanistan (see Fig. 2). Nevertheless for years other existing world backbones stayed out of reach to its activity making them invisible and unused. Accordingly the past years of continuing dynamics of converting more and more people to the terrorism cause went unnoticeable. At least, it did not rise any concern. After all it was just a question of opinion spreading. And indeed, since all new and enlarged backbone of passive supporters were staying unconnected to the home one, they were of no practical significance on terrorism activity. Their size increase went without any consequence.

However at some density coverage of passive supporters a drastic geometric phenomenon occurs. All of a sudden and at once many existing spread backbones got connected to merge into one unique huge world wide cluster. It must have been the first passive social percolation phenomenon in terrorism history. Passive means the phenomenon occurs without any particular organized social behavior. It is a geometrical result that does not require interactions among its ingredients. The associated level of threat became automatically infinite. We argue the September 11 terrorist attack on the US is the immediate result of that percolating cluster. It is worth to stress at this stage that the few previous long-ranged terrorist attacks, like the one by the Japanese Red Army Group at Tel Aviv airport three decade ago, are associated to a dangling path rather than a percolating cluster.

Such an explanation rises the question on whether it was possible to predict this world wide percolation. To answer such a strategic question and keep the presentation simple we set black a site open to terrorism move and grey a blockading one. To illustrate the demonstration the percolation threshold is supposed to be at fifty percent of the whole grid sites. The qualitative results do not depend on this choice. Moreover within the qualitative level of the present paper it may be sufficient to state that approximately a structure is connected if the majority of its substructures are connected. Accordingly as long as less than fifty percent of the world sites are black there exists no world percolating cluster and therefore no world level to terrorism threat.

Now, at this stage we are aiming at measuring a world state which result from individuals attitudes. Therefore to find the distribution of world passive supporters requires getting ground information about individual attitudes. One natural approach to achieve such a goal is to use ground people to report on what they see. Indeed let us examine such a scheme.

In principle each person sees things which it could report on. However these reports would score up to billions making it impossible to collect all of them, even with very large resources. The construction of a representative sample of such an infinite ensemble is then a prerequisite. Let us assume it exists. Along with, every person of the sample reports on the black or grey occupation of the various sites it can see. The associated grid coverage thus defines an individual area. The goal is then to state if it is an area open to terrorist move or not. To do so requires to aggregate and synthezise the resulting color of several sites which are respectively either black or grey. Being concerned with the percolation of the whole world grid, a natural way to proceed is to apply the same above hypothesis of fifty percent at the level of individual areas. A given area with more than fifty percent of black sites is black, otherwhise it is grey.

Once this area step is completed, the next one is to collect and treat all available world spread colored areas to determine the world status with respect to its passivity to terrorism. But here come a genuine difficulty. Real information is not just a black or grey color. Indeed, the more from the ground an information is, the more specific to the ground it is. Cultural biases, religion, poverty, military pressure and many other local characteristics dress heavily any ground information. In term of information theory the signals are very noisy. Accordingly all area informations cannot be just added together. They must be grouped by families such that their respective dispersions are not too large to be understandable by one unique person which has to make a clear synthesis report. For individual areas, a clan can be such a natural frame to a synthesis.

Then, keeping our fifty percent criterium, a color clan is determined using a simple majority rule among the various colors of its associated individual areas. A grey clan is hostile to terrorism while a black clan don’t oppose it. Along the same aggregating-synthezising process, clans have to be grouped by ethnies, ethnies by provinces, provinces by states, states by countries, countries by continent and continents gives the world. At each iterative step, colors are respectively determined using the same local majority rule . It means, at each step we are increasing the size of territories for which we are setting the color. For instance starting from individual areas black and grey we go to each associated clan area which becomes either black or gray. In other words a posteriori we are turning all individual areas to the same and unique color of its corresponding clan (see Fig. 3). And so forth going up to higher levels.

To proceed with a quantitative scheme, we note $`n=0`$ the ground site level of aggreagtion, $`n=1`$ the individual areas, $`n=2`$ the clans, $`n=3`$ the ethnies, $`n=4`$ the provinces, $`n=5`$ the states, $`n=6`$ the countries, $`n=7`$ the continents and $`n=8`$ the World. At each level a black color means the level allows terrorist activity on the corresponding territory. Green means it forbids it (see Fig. 4). For instance one black country surrounded by grey ones confines possible terrorism activities within this country. Such a possibility gives light to the fact that several countries stated that prior to September the 11 they did warn the US about the possibility of some terrorist action. But such a warning could not be credited since the US would have to be sure the world was percolating to engage a preventive military action. Otherwise any military move would have been rejected by the whole world as arbitrary aggressive.

Let us now illustrate the quantitative mechanism at work in the model by the repeated color rescaling from site colors to the world color. To solve simple equations we choose arbitrary numbers for each grouping step. Exact numbers could be used but it would only make the equations more fastidious without changing the main qualitative result. We take 5 sites per individual area, 5 individual areas per clan, 5 clans per ethny, 5 ethnies per province, 5 provinces per state, 5 states per country, 5 countries per continent and 5 continents to the world. It implies 5 $`\times `$ 5 $`\times `$ 5 $`\times `$ 5 $`\times `$ 5 $`\times `$ 5 $`\times `$ 5 = 78 125 human personals on the ground. Each one of them reports on 5 different sites.

Assuming everything is randomly distributed in our collecting system we can write one equation giving the probability $`p_n`$ to have a black entity at level $`n`$ as function of the probability $`p_{n1}`$ to have one at the level below $`n1`$,

$$p_n=p_{n1}^5+5p_{n1}^4(1p_{n1})+10p_{n1}^3(1p_{n1})^2,$$
(1)
where $`n`$ runs from 1 for individual areas to 8 for the world. The value $`p_0`$ gives the density of reported black ground sites. Suppose $`p_0=0.47`$, the percolation transition is about to happen. We can then make our intelligence collecting ground information system at work to check its validity.

Iterating Eq. (1) from $`p_0=0.20`$ gives $`p_1=0.06`$ with $`p_2=p_3=p_4=p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=0.00`$ where 0.00 symbolizes fractions below half a percent. The collecting procees makes $`20\%`$ of black sites a small ground noise not to worry about. An increase of black support to $`30\%`$ results in the series $`p_1=0.16`$, $`p_2=0.03`$ and $`p_3=p_4=p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=0.00`$. Reaching $`40\%`$ leads to $`p_1=0.32`$, $`p_2=0.19`$, $`p_3=0.05`$ and again $`p_4=p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=0.00`$. Getting close to the transition point at $`p_0=0.47`$ gives $`p_1=0.44`$, $`p_2=0.40`$, $`p_3=0.31`$, $`p_4=0.18`$, $`p_5=0.04`$, $`p_6=0.00`$, $`p_7=0.00`$ and $`p_8=0.00`$. If some indication is emerging about something going on within countries with $`p_5=0.04`$, at the country level noone is a threat. The aggregation procees has dropped out the existing $`47\%`$ of ground black sites. It would lead to a total disaster in term of any forecast. At the same time from $`p_0=0.55`$ the aggregation process yields $`p_1=0.59`$, $`p_2=0.67`$, $`p_3=0.80`$, $`p_4=0.94`$ and now $`p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=1`$. The conclusion would be a total hysterical view of the whole world in the terrorist camp.

From above numbers, the intelligence machine has proven its ability to determine exactly the current world color but it misses totally the corresponding ponderation of the leading color. Moreover the vicinity of a possible global shift is competely missed. When the shift to black occurrs it is too late to react. At this stage the world appears either “good” or “bad”. And indeed the performance is even worse. In many real life situations, it may happen a synthesis cannot provide a clear characterization on whether an area is black or grey. In that case to avoid a dramatic mistake a doubting synthesis is associated to a grey signal. No one would decide military action unless the evidences are unquestionable.

To implement this zero mistake requirement within our model we introduce some even size collecting groups which may exhibit equal number of black and grey sites. In this case the color is grey. To illustrate this possibility let us go from 5 to 6 in above intelligence machine with 6 $`\times `$ 6 $`\times `$ 6 $`\times `$ 6 $`\times `$ 6 $`\times `$ 6 $`\times `$ 6 = 279 936. Eq. (1) becomes,

$$p_n=p_{n1}^6+6p_{n1}^5(1p_{n1})+15p_{n1}^4(1p_{n1})^2.$$
(2)
Again iterating Eq. (2) from $`p_0=0.47`$ gives respectively $`p_1=0.29`$, $`p_2=0.06`$, and $`p_3=p_4=p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=0.00`$. Although there exist $`47\%`$ of black sites the machine gives every level grey already at the clan one. Checking on an initial $`p_0=0.60`$ leads to $`p_1=0.54`$, $`p_2=0.43`$, $`p_3=0.22`$, $`p_4=0.02`$, and $`p_5=p_6=p_7=p_8=0.00`$. The result is dramatic with a total failure in determining even the current state of the world which is much above the percolation threshold. Changing above numbers does not modify the qualitive result.

To conclude the use of ground information can at best determine the current dominant ground state but cannot assess the associated level of potential threat, in particular the vicinity of a phase transition. And most likely, since a large-scale military action cannot be undertaken with any doubt, it even misses totally a ground shift to a state of maximum world danger. On this basis our results make void the major criticism against intelligence services that would have failed in opposing current terrorism due to its neglecting of human ground personal. The hint to a better efficiency of intelligence services should to be looked upon other direction than coming back to old ground intelligence practice.

Last but not least our finding demonstrate that the use of military power cannot reduce the level of threat attached to the existence of the percolating backbone of passive supporters. Indeed to suppress a percolating cluster requires getting down the number of passive supporters below the percolation threshold. Imagine there exist 54 percent of passive supporters within a population of 100 millions. A military action would aim at neutralizing say 10 percent of them. To achieve such a goal would require the neutralization of more than 20 percent of the whole population (20 millions) whose moreover half are innocents since passive supporters are randomly distributed and unnoticeable. It is morally unacceptable though achievable with currently available weapons of mass destruction.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank D. Makinson and the anonymous referee for fruitful comment on the subject.