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# Chiral symmetry restoration and the string picture of hadrons.

## Abstract

QCD string picture of highly excited hadrons very naturally explains parity doubling once the chiral symmetry is restored high in the spectrum. In particular, the spin-orbit and tensor interactions of quarks at the ends of the string, related to dynamics of the string, vanish. High in the spectrum there appears higher degree of degeneracy, namely parity doublets with different angular momentum cluster around energy of the string in the given quantum state.

It has recently been shown that the validity of the operator product expansion in QCD at large space-like momenta and the validity of the dispersion relation for the two-point correlator (i.e. validity of the Källen - Lehmann representation) implies a smooth chiral symmetry restoration in the high-energy part of hadron spectra composed of light quarks . Indeed, at large space-like momenta $`Q^2`$ the difference between the two correlators $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{J_1}(Q^2)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{J_2}(Q^2)`$ obtained with the local currents $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ which are connected by the chiral transformation $`J_1=UJ_2U^{}`$, $`USU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ is due only to the small contributions of the chiral condensates that are suppressed by inverse powers of momenta,

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{J_1}(Q^2)\mathrm{\Pi }_{J_2}(Q^2)\frac{1}{Q^n},n>0.$$
(1)
Since the large $`Q^2`$ correlator is completely dominated by the large $`s`$ spectral function, one expects that at large $`s`$ the theoretical spectral functions $`\rho _{J_1}(s)`$ and $`\rho _{J_2}(s)`$ must become essentially the same. This manifests a smooth chiral symmetry restoration from the low $`s`$ region, where both spectral functions are very different because of the chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum, to the high $`s`$ region, where the chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum becomes irrelevant.

Microscopically this is because the typical momenta of valence quarks should increase higher in the spectrum and once it is high enough the valence quarks decouple from the chiral condensates of the QCD vacuum and the dynamical (quasiparticle or constituent) mass of quarks drops off and the chiral symmetry gets restored . This phenomenon does not mean that the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the QCD vacuum disappears, but rather that the chiral asymmetry of the vacuum becomes irrelevant sufficiently high in the spectrum. While the chiral symmetry breaking condensates in the vacuum are crucially important for the physics of the low-lying hadrons, the physics of the highly-excited states is such as if there were no chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum.

This is in a very good analogy with the similar phenomenon in condensed matter physics. Namely, even if the metal is in the superconducting phase (i.e. there is a condensation of the Cooper pairs - which is analogous to the condensation of right-left quark pairs in the QCD vacuum - and the low-lying excitations of the system are the excitations of quasiparticles), the response of the superconductor to the high-energy (frequency) probe $`\mathrm{}\omega >>\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the same as of the normal metal. This is because the phase coherent effects of the superconductor become irrelevant in this case and the external probe sees a bare particle rather than a quasiparticle. Similar, in the QCD case one has to probe the QCD vacuum by the high energy (frequency) external probe (current) in order to create a hadron of a large mass and hence the masses (physics) of the highly excited hadrons should be insensitive to the condensation of chiral pairs in the vacuum.

If high in the spectrum (i.e. where the chiral symmetry is approximately restored) the spectrum is still quasidiscrete, then the phenomenological manifestation of the chiral symmetry restoration would be that the highly excited hadrons should fall into the representations of the $`SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ group, which are compatible with the definite parity of the states - the parity-chiral multiplets . In the case of baryons in the $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ spectra these multiplets are either the parity doublets ($`(1/2,0)(0,1/2)`$ for $`N^{}`$ and $`(3/2,0)(0,3/2)`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }^{}`$) that are not related to each other, or the multiplets $`(1/2,1)(1,1/2)`$ that combine one parity doublet in the nucleon spectrum with the parity doublet in the delta spectrum with the same spin. And indeed, the phenomenological highly-excited $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ spectra show systematic parity doubling , though further experimental studies are required in order to make a definitive statement. It remains to be clarified which parity-chiral multiplets are observed - at the moment one cannot disentangle the different possibilities. In Fig. 1 we show the experimental $`N`$ spectrum . Starting from $`M1.7`$ GeV it is clear that the states systematically appear as approximate parity doublets, except for the two high-lying high-spin states, where the chiral partner have yet to be experimentally found. The onset of the approximate chiral symmetry restoration as low as in the region of 1.7 GeV is very consistent with the recent finding of JLAB that the inclusive electroproduction of resonances in the mass region $`3.1M^23.9`$ GeV2 is perfectly dual to deep inelastic data .

Systematic data on highly-excited mesons are still missing in the PDG tables. However, the data obtained from the ongoing partial wave analysis of mesonic resonances in the proton-antiproton annihilation at LEAR  show an almost systematic appearance of nearly perfect parity doublets in the meson spectrum in the mass region of 1.8 GeV and above . A detailed analysis of the chiral multiplets with spin 0 is given in . A similar situation is also observed for the highly excited mesons with higher spins. Yet the unique assignment of these higher spin states to the specific multiplets is difficult because sometimes the same state fits perfectly into different multiplets. For example, on the one hand the $`\rho (1,1^{})`$ states at $`1970\pm 30`$ MeV and at $`2265\pm 40`$ MeV can be paired with the $`a_1(1,1^{++})`$ states at $`1930_{70}^{+30}`$ MeV and $`2270_{40}^{+55}`$, respectively ($`(0,1)(1,0)`$ representation). But one the other hand the same $`\rho `$-s can also be paired with $`h_1(0,1^+)`$ states at $`1965\pm 45`$ and $`2215\pm 40`$, respectively (i.e. the $`(1/2,1/2)`$ representation). Clearly a very systematic phase shift analysis should be done for both baryon and meson spectra and probably other properties such as decay modes should be invoked in order to unambiguously identify possible chiral partners.

Obviously, one also needs a physical picture for highly excited hadrons that is compatible with the chiral symmetry restoration and which would naturally explain the parity doubling. It is a purpose of this note to show that the QCD string picture of highly excited hadrons does this job.

It is well known that the string picture very naturally incorporates the approximately linear behaviour of Regge trajectories for excited states. Low in the spectrum, where the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry in the vacuum is crucially important and which prevents the parity doubling, the linear behaviour of Regge trajectories is heavily broken . In this part of the spectrum the physics which is associated with the quasiparticle picture (i.e. the constituent quark model) is more relevant and the effective interactions of quasiparticles can be approximated to some extent by potentials of different physical origin (e.g. by effective confining potential, flavor-spin potential which is associated with the Goldstone-boson-exchange between constituent quarks in the low-lying baryons, etc.).

Consider, as an example, the $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons which become the chiral partners when the chiral symmetry is restored. The spectra of both types of mesons are extracted from the two-point functions

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }=ıd^4xe^{ıqx}0|T\{j_\mu (x)j_\nu ^{}(0)\}|0,$$
(2)
where the currents (interpolating fields) for the isovector-vector and isovector-axialvector mesons are given as

$$j_\mu ^V(x)=\overline{q}(x)\gamma _\mu \frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}q(x),$$
(3)
$$j_\mu ^{AV}(x)=\overline{q}(x)\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}q(x).$$
(4)
The chiral $`SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R`$ transformations consist of the isospin as well as the axial transformations. The isospin transformations leave the currents above invariant while the axial transformations mix them

$$j_\mu ^V(x)j_\mu ^{AV}(x).$$
(5)
Group theoretically both currents belong to the $`(0,1)(1,0)`$ representation of the parity-chiral group . ***$`(I_L,I_R)`$ denotes the irreducible representation of the chiral group with $`I_L`$ and $`I_R`$ being the isospins of the left and rigth quarks, respectively. Generally the irreducible representation of the chiral group is not invariant under parity, which transforms the left quarks into the right ones and vice versa. However, the direct sum of two irreducible representations $`(I_L,I_R)(I_R,I_L)`$ is invariant under parity and is an irreducible representation of the parity-chiral group.

In the chiral limit both the vector and the axial-vector currents are conserved and the correlators for these currents can be written as

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_{\mu \nu }=(q_\mu q_\nu q^2g_{\mu \nu })\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2).$$
(6)
The imaginary part of $`\mathrm{\Pi }(q^2)`$ in the time-like domain $`s=q^2>0`$ is proportional to the spectral function $`\rho (s)`$. At large $`s`$ the spectral functions obtained with the currents (3) and (4) must coincide,

$$\rho ^V(s)=\rho ^{AV}(s).$$
(7)
This manifests the chiral symmetry restoration. The theoretical spectral densities obtained in such a way can probably be compared with the experimental ones only upon some averaging . For the present context the important thing is that if at large $`s`$ the spectrum is still quasidiscrete (i.e. it consists of separate resonances), then the equality of the vector and axial vector theoretical spectral densities is consistent with the approximate degeneracy of the highly excited vector and axial vector mesons. These mesons fill out in pairs the $`(0,1)(1,0)`$ representations of the parity-chiral group.

Microscopically this means the following. At large $`s`$ the valence quarks that are injected by the current into the vacuum do not become dressed by the quark condensates of the vacuum and remain left or right on the whole way of their propagation to the point where they are annihilated by the current. It is important to construct a model picture for the highly excited hadrons that is consistent with the given property of chiral symmetry restoration and that would explain chiral multiplets high in the hadron spectra.

To carry out this task we will assume for the highly excited hadrons that the QCD string-like picture of confinement underlies the physics. We make the following simplifying assumptions: (i) the field in the string is of pure color-electric origin; (ii) the chiral symmetry is completely restored and hence the hadrons are rotating strings with massless quarks at the ends with definite chirality=helicity This is a short notation for $`chirality=+helicity`$ for quarks and $`chirality=helicity`$ for antiquarks. and these valence quarks are combined into parity-chiral multiplets.

While for mesons the geometry of the string is rather obvious, it is not so for baryons. In the present context it is not so important whether the highly excited baryons are to be viewed as symmetric string configurations of the Mercedes-Benz type with the string junction in the center or are of a deformed type with the quark-diquark clustering. For us it is only important that the strings are pure electric and that the valence quarks at the ends have definite chirality=helicity and belong to one of the parity-chiral multiplets.

The motion of the quarks at the ends of the string is constrained by the stationary motion of the string. This motion is a rotation. The key point is that massless $`s=1/2`$ quarks in the chirally restored regime possess a definite chirality=helicity (see Fig. 2). For the description of the rotation of massless quarks with definite chirality the angular momentum representation of the Weyl equations must be used, which for the stationary motion

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{R,L}(j,j_z,t)=\varphi _{R,L}(j,j_z)e^{ıEt}$$
(8)
are

$$\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{}\varphi _R(j,j_z)=ıE_R\varphi _R(j,j_z),$$
(9)
$$\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{}\varphi _L(j,j_z)=ıE_L\varphi _L(j,j_z).$$
(10)
Under parity transformation the Weyl equation for the right spinor is transformed into Weyl equation for the left spinor and vice versa. Since we require that the valence quarks belong to the same parity-chiral multiplet, then under parity operation the valence quarks must satisfy

$$\varphi _L(j,j_z)\varphi _R(j,j_z).$$
(11)
One then obtains that the rotating string does not distinguish between the right and left valence quarks since they must have the same energy

$$E_L=E_R.$$
(12)
Since the nonperturbative field in the string is pure electric, the magnetic interaction of quarks of the type $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }(i)\stackrel{}{\sigma }(j)`$ is absent. Though the string is pure electric, the quantum fluctuations of perturbative origin are possible once the quarks are close to each other.Depending on whether the nonperturbative resummation of gluonic exchanges or the instanton-induced interactions provide the chiral symmetry breaking in QCD, the corresponding forces automatically split the low-lying mesons where chiral symmetry breaking effects are central to the physics. However, for massless quarks with definite chirality=helicity the interaction induced by perturbative forces, does not distinguish between the members of the parity-chiral multiplet.

The electric field in the string is ”flavor-blind” and hence does not distinguish between the light quarks of different flavor once the chiral limit is taken.

Since chiral symmetry is assumed to be restored, the valence quarks are decoupled from the Goldstone bosons§§§The coupling of Goldstone bosons to quasiparticles (constituent quarks)  is regulated by the Goldberger-Treiman relation taken at the quark level, $`g=\frac{Mg_A}{f_\pi }`$, where $`M`$ is the quasiparticle (dynamical) mass of quarks induced by the coupling of quarks to the quark condensates. Chiral symmetry restoration high in the spectrum means (as it was explained above) that the valence quarks decouple from the quark condensates which in turn implies that their quasiparticle mass $`M`$ approaches to the current mass value (which is zero in the chiral limit). Hence the Goldstone bosons decouple from such valence quarks. This is in contrast to the low-lying hadrons where the chiral symmetry breaking effects are very important and where the coupling of valence quarks to the chiral condensates is crucial for physics. and hence the Goldstone boson mediated forces (e.g. the flavor-spin forces, that are crucially important in the low-lying baryons ) between quarks are also absent.

One arrives at the following situation: (i) the hadrons with the different chiral configurations of the quarks at the ends of the string which belong to the same parity-chiral multiplet and that belong to the same intrinsic quantum state of the string must be degenerate; (ii) the total parity of the hadron is determined by the product of parity of the string in the given quantum state and the parity of the specific parity-chiral configuration of the quarks at the ends of the string. There is no analogy to this situation in nonrelativistic physics where parity is only determined by the orbital motion of particles. Thus one sees that for every intrinsic quantum state of the string there necessarily appears parity doubling of the states with the same total angular momentum.

The spin-orbit operator $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{L}`$ does not commute with the helicity operator $`\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{}`$. Hence the spin-orbit interaction of quarks with the fixed chirality=helicity is absent. In particular, this is also true for the spin-orbit force due to the Thomas precession

$$U_T=\stackrel{}{\sigma }\stackrel{}{\omega }_T\stackrel{}{\sigma }[\stackrel{}{v},\stackrel{}{a}]\stackrel{}{v}[\stackrel{}{v},\stackrel{}{a}]=0,$$
(13)
where $`U_T`$ is the energy of the interaction and $`\stackrel{}{\omega }_T`$, $`\stackrel{}{v}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{a}`$ are the angular frequency of Thomas precession, velocity of the quark and its acceleration, respectively.

In addition, for the rotating string

$$\stackrel{}{\sigma }(i)\stackrel{}{R}(i)=0,$$
(14)
$$\stackrel{}{\sigma }(i)\stackrel{}{R}(j)=0,$$
(15)
where the indices $`i,j`$ label different quarks and $`\stackrel{}{R}`$ is the radius-vector of the given quark in the center-of-mass frame. The relations above immediately imply that the possible tensor interactions of quarks related to the string dynamics should be absent, once the chiral symmetry is restored.

As an example, consider a relativistic potential description of $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons within the constituent quark model . With this description the parity of the state is unambiguously prescribed by the relative orbital angular momentum of the quark and antiquark and the $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons are the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{3}P_{1}^{}`$ states, respectively. Clearly, such a picture cannot explain the systematical degeneracy of $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons high in the spectrum because stronger centrifugial repulsion and weaker spin-spin force in $`a_1`$ mesons systematically shifts them with respect to $`\rho `$ mesons. As a result, while the fitting of the parameters of the model provides success in the description of the low-lying $`\rho `$ mesons, the model completely fails in the description of $`a_1`$ mesons. Up to 2.4 GeV it predicts only two $`a_1`$ states (at 1.24 GeV and 1.82 GeV) while the experimental data indicates the states at 1.26 GeV, 1.64 GeV, 1.93 GeV and 2.27 GeV .

The failure of the potential description is inherently related to its inability to incorporate chiral symmetry restoration. In contrast, in the string picture once the chiral symmetry is restored both $`\rho `$ and $`a_1`$ mesons belong in pairs to the same quantum state of the string with the same angular momentum of the string. The opposite parity of these states is provided by the different right-left configurations of valence quarks. While the vector mesons contain the following valence quark configuration

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\overline{R}\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}\gamma ^\mu R+\overline{L}\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}\gamma ^\mu L),$$
(16)
the axial vector mesons are constructed as

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(\overline{R}\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}\gamma ^\mu R\overline{L}\frac{\stackrel{}{\tau }}{2}\gamma ^\mu L).$$
(17)
Both hadrons actually are the different parity states of the same basic particle. This is like the $`\rho ^+,\rho ^0,\rho ^{}`$ which represent different charge (isospin) states of the same particle. While isospin symmetry (which is not broken in the vacuum) is a good symmetry both for low-lying and high-lying hadrons, chiral symmetry (which contains isospin as a subgroup) is a good symmetry only high in the spectrum, in fact. So high in the spectrum it would even be proper to use the same ”name” for chiral partners.

As was shown above, in the string picture once the chiral symmetry is restored the spin-orbit force is absent. Indeed, the phenomenological meson and baryon spectra in the $`u,d`$ sector do not show large spin-orbit forces. In contrast, in the potential picture the states are affected by the large spin-orbit force which comes both from the one gluon exchange interaction and the Thomas precession of quarks in the scalar confining potential. While for some specific family of mesons the fine tuning of parameters can provide an approximate cancellation of these strong spin-orbit interactions, this is not the case for the other family of mesons. For example, though the $`{}_{}{}^{3}S_{1}^{}`$ states in $`\rho `$-s are not affected by the spin-orbit force, the spin-orbit force is strong in $`a_1`$ mesons within this description.

Once the quantum fluctuations of perturbative origin are neglected, the energy of the hadron is determined exclusively by the energy of the string; the mutial orientation of the spins of the quarks become irrelevant. In this case there appears an even higher degree of degeneracy than the simple parity doubling. Namely those hadrons with the same intrinsic energy and angular momentum of the string but with different total spin of all quarks (that are allowed by Pauli principle) must be degenerate. The higher we are in the spectrum - the smaller is the amplitude for the quarks to be close to each other and hence the perturbative contributions become suppressed. In other words, one should expect an appearance of sets of degenerate parity-doublets with different total angular momentum (i.e. clusters of parity-doublets) in hadron spectra. For example, if the intrinsic angular momentum of the string in an excited nucleon is L=1, then the cluster of parity doublets should consist of three doublets with total angular momenta $`J=1/2,3/2,5/2`$ (because the total spin of three quarks can range from 1/2 to 3/2). The first cluster of parity doublets in the nucleon spectrum at $`M1.7`$ GeV neatly fits this picture. If one assumes that the next excitation of the string is associated with $`L=2`$, then there should be cluster of parity doublets with $`J=1/2,3/2,5/2,7/2`$. And indeed the band of baryons in the $`N`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ spectra in the mass region $`M2`$ GeV does contain such parity doublets. The empirical parity doublets in meson spectrum with different total angular momentum also perfectly group into two clusters around the masses of $`2`$ GeV and of $`2.22.3`$ GeV.

Clearly, in reality the chiral symmetry restoration is only approximate and also the masses of light quarks are not zero, so the helicity is not equal to chirality and the quark spin can flip with some small amplitude during the rotation of the string. It can also be not parallel to the quark momentum. Consequently there must appear weak spin-spin, spin-orbit and tensor interactions of different origins between the valence quarks. These weak interactions should give rise to the small splittings in parity doublets as well as among different doublets within the cluster. It is a challenging task to evaluate such corrections.

I am grateful to D.V. Bugg for providing me with data  on highly excited meson spectra. This work was supported by the FWF Project P14806-TPH.


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# Precise frequency measurements of the 𝐷-lines and fine-structure interval in K

## Abstract

We use a diode laser locked to a Rb transition as the frequency reference along with a scanning Michelson interferometer to make precise measurements on the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines of potassium. The Rb reference frequency is known with sub-MHz accuracy. We obtain the following values for the energy levels: 12 985.169 60(13)(15) cm-1 for the $`4P_{1/2}`$ state ($`D_1`$ line); 13 042.875 95(14)(15) cm-1 for the $`4P_{3/2}`$ state ($`D_2`$ line); and 57.706 35(19)(15) cm-1 for the $`4P_{3/2}4P_{1/2}`$ fine-structure interval. The leading source of systematic error cancels in the determination of the interval. The errors represent about an order of magnitude improvement over tabulated values.

Semiconductor diode lasers bring several advantages to the field of laser spectroscopy, the principal ones being tunability and narrow spectral width . By placing a single-mode diode in an external cavity and using optical feedback from an angle-tuned grating , it can be made to operate at single frequency (single longitudinal mode) with linewidth of order 1 MHz and tunability over several nm. In addition, techniques such as saturated-absorption spectroscopy using counter-propagating pump and probe beams can help eliminate the first-order Doppler effect and allow narrow hyperfine transitions within a given atomic line to be resolved. It is thus possible to get an absolute frequency calibration of the laser by locking to such a transition. Recently, we have shown that a diode laser locked to an atomic transition in Rb can be used along with a scanning Michelson interferometer as a precision wavemeter to determine the unknown frequency of a tunable laser .

In this Letter, we apply this technique to determine the absolute frequencies of the $`D`$ lines in potassium. The frequency of the reference laser is known with sub-MHz accuracy, and the unknown laser is tuned to the one of the $`D`$-line transitions in K with $``$MHz accuracy, therefore the frequencies are also determined with $``$MHz accuracy. More importantly, we can determine the fine-structure interval in the $`4P`$ state with this accuracy. Knowledge of fine-structure intervals is important for several reasons, e.g. in the study of atomic collisions, astrophysical processes, and relativistic calculations of atomic energy levels. Alkali atoms are particularly important because of their widespread use in ultra-cold collision studies, photoassociation spectroscopy, atomic tests of parity violation, and more recently in Bose-Einstein condensation . The species we have studied is K in which there has been renewed interest recently because laser cooling can be used to produce a quantum degenerate Fermi gas . But the technique is more general and applicable to other alkali atoms such as Li or Cs, alkali-like ions, and indeed any system where precise knowledge of energy levels is important. We achieve an accuracy of 0.00015 cm-1, which is one to two orders of magnitude better than the typical accuracy of the energy-level tables .

The interferometer used for the ratio measurement has been described extensively in a previous publication . For consistency with the terminology there, we will call the two lasers as “reference” and “unknown”, respectively. The basic idea is to obtain the ratio of the two laser wavelengths using a scanning Michelson interferometer where both lasers traverse essentially the same path. As the interferometer is scanned, the interference pattern on the detectors goes alternately through bright and dark fringes. Since both lasers traverse the same path, the ratio of the number of fringes counted after scanning through a certain distance is the ratio of the two wavelengths. The ratio obtained is a wavelength ratio in air, however, the wavelength ratio in vacuum (or equivalent frequency ratio) is easily calculated by making a small correction for the dispersion of air  between the reference wavelength and the unknown.

The reference laser is a diode laser system built around a commercial single-mode diode. The output is first collimated using an aspheric lens to give an elliptic beam of 5.8 mm $`\times `$ 1.8 mm $`1/e^2`$ diameter. The laser is then frequency stabilized in a standard external-cavity design (Littrow configuration) using optical feedback from an 1800 lines/mm diffraction grating mounted on a piezoelectric transducer . Using a combination of temperature and current control, the laser is tuned close to the 780 nm $`D_2`$ line in atomic Rb. A part of the output beam is tapped for Doppler-free saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a Rb vapor cell. The injection current into the laser diode is modulated slightly to obtain an error signal and the laser is locked to the $`5S_{1/2},F=25P_{3/2},F^{}=(2,3)`$ crossover resonance. The frequency of this resonance has been measured previously to be 384 227 981.877(6) MHz . The elliptic beam from the laser is directly fed into the Michelson interferometer. The large Rayleigh ranges ($``$34 m and $``$3 m in the two directions) ensure that the beam remains collimated over the length of the interferometer and diffraction effects are not significant.

The relevant energy levels of 39K are shown in Fig. 1. The ground state has two hyperfine levels with $`F=1`$ and 2. The $`D_1`$ line is the $`4S_{1/2}4P_{1/2}`$ transition at 770.1 nm. The $`4P_{1/2}`$ state again has two hyperfine levels with $`F=1`$ and 2. The $`D_2`$ line is the $`4S_{1/2}4P_{3/2}`$ transition at 767.7 nm. The upper state has 4 excited levels, with $`F=0`$, 1, 2, and 3. The measurements on the $`D`$ lines of K are done using a single-frequency tunable Ti-sapphire laser (Coherent 899-21). The laser can be tuned from 700–800 nm and is frequency stabilized to an ovenized reference cavity that gives it a linewidth of 500 kHz. A part of the output is split off for saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a K vapor cell. The cell is heated to about 70oC to get sufficient vapor. The saturated-absorption spectra on the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines for transitions starting from the $`F=2`$ ground level are also shown in Fig. 1. The two hyperfine transitions in the $`D_1`$ line are well resolved, as seen in the figure. This is because the hyperfine interval in the $`4P_{1/2}`$ state is about 60 MHz. On the other hand, all the hyperfine levels in the $`4P_{3/2}`$ lie within a range of 30 MHz, and the individual transitions in the $`D_2`$ line are not resolved. However, the peak in the spectrum corresponds to the $`F=2F^{}=(2,3)`$ crossover resonance, and this is what we use for the measurements. For transitions starting from the $`F=1`$ ground level, the peak corresponds to the $`F=1F^{}=(1,2)`$ crossover resonance.

To get several independent measurements of the energy levels, we tune the Ti-sapphire laser to different hyperfine transitions of the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines in K. In each case, the wavelength ratio is measured about 600 times. The values are statistically analyzed to obtain the mean ratio and the $`1\sigma `$ (statistical) error in the mean. The mean wavelength ratios obtained from four such measurements (two for each line) are listed in Table I. We extract the hyperfine-free energy level of the state by making two corrections to the measured ratio. First, we convert the wavelength ratio in air to a frequency ratio using the refractive index of air from Edlén’s formula : $`n=1.000`$ 275 163 at 780.0 nm (reference), $`n=1.000`$ 275 231 at 770.1 nm ($`D_1`$), and $`n=1.000`$ 275 255 at 767.7 nm ($`D_2`$). Then we remove the hyperfine frequency shifts shown in Fig. 1, which are known to sub-MHz accuracy . The extracted values of the energy levels are also listed in Table I.

The main source of statistical error is that the frequency counter counts zero-crossings and does not count fractional fringes. The total number of fringes counted depends on the fringe rate (or cart speed) coupled with the 1 s integration time. We use about 20 cm of cart travel per measurement, which results in a single-shot statistical error of about 5 parts in $`10^7`$ in each data set . The error of less than 2 parts in $`10^8`$ in Table I comes after averaging over $`600`$ individual measurements. We also plot a histogram of the individual points to make sure that the distribution around the mean is Gaussian. This guarantees that there is no significant statistical bias in the data.

There are several potential sources of systematic error, the main two being variation in the lock point of the lasers and non-parallelism of the two laser beams in the interferometer. We have checked for the first error by locking the unknown laser to different hyperfine transitions. The transitions are about 500 MHz apart and the saturated-absorption spectrum in each case is quite different. Therefore, we expect the definition of the lock point also to be quite different. However, as seen from Table I, within the errors quoted the different ratios yield consistent values for the hyperfine-free energy level. This implies that there is no significant variation in the lock point of the lasers.

The second source of systematic error, namely that the two beams have a small angle between them, is more serious. Any misalignment would cause a systematic increase in the measured ratio given by $`1/\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, where $`\theta `$ is the angle between the beams. We have tried to minimize this error in two ways. The first method is as follows. When the beams from the two arms of the interferometer are combined on the beamsplitter, two output beams are produced. Of these, the one on the opposite side of the beamsplitter from the input beam has near-perfect contrast and is detected for the measurement. The unused output beam (the one on the same side of the beamsplitter as the input beam) propagates towards the other laser, and can therefore be used as a tracer for checking the parallelism of the lasers. Using this method, we ensure that the reference and unknown beams are parallel over a distance of about 3 m . The second method to check for parallelism is to look for a minimum in the measured ratio as the angle of the unknown beam is varied. This works because the measured value is always larger than the correct value, whether $`\theta `$ is positive or negative, and becomes minimum when $`\theta =0`$. We find this method to be more reliable and it quickly guarantees us that the beams are perfectly aligned.

It is difficult to get a quantitative estimate of the systematic error due to this non-parallelism. However, it is important to note that the error cancels in the determination of the fine-structure interval. This is because the measurements on the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines are done without changing the alignment in the interferometer. The direction of the output of the Ti-sapphire laser does not change when its wavelength is changed, therefore any misalignment angle remains the same during all the measurements. If there is a misalignment, the measured frequencies on both the $`D_1`$ and the $`D_2`$ lines will be systematically higher but by the same amount, so that when we take their difference to obtain the fine-structure interval, the error will cancel.

As a further check on possible systematic errors in our measured frequencies, we have repeated the measurement scheme using a different reference laser. This set of measurements was done using a reference diode laser locked to a transition in the $`D_1`$ line of Rb at 795 nm. The diode laser system is identical to the first one, except that after stabilization it is locked to the $`5S_{1/2},F=35P_{1/2},F^{}=3`$ transition in 85Rb. The frequency of this transition is 377 106 271.6(4) MHz . Since this frequency is also known with sub-MHz accuracy, we do not expect any decrease in the precision of the measurements. However, because the laser is different, it requires completely new alignment of the interferometer, which gives us a good check on systematic errors arising from any misalignment angle between the beams. More importantly, it gives us a check on the reliability of converting wavelength ratios in air to vacuum using Edlen’s formula because the reference wavelength has changed from 780 nm to 795 nm.

The results of the second set of measurements are listed in Table II. The values for the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines of K are consistent with the earlier results in Table I, within the quoted errors. Therefore, we have strong reason to believe that our systematic errors are less than the statistical errors. Combining the results from Tables I and II, we obtain the following average values

$`4P_{1/2}:\mathrm{12\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}985.169\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}60}(13)(15)\mathrm{cm}^1,`$
$`4P_{3/2}:\mathrm{13\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}042.875\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}95}(14)(15)\mathrm{cm}^1,`$
and a precise value for the fine-structure interval

$`4P_{3/2}4P_{1/2}:\mathrm{57.706\hspace{0.33em}\hspace{0.17em}35}(19)(15)\mathrm{cm}^1.`$

The errors are statistical and systematic, respectively.

The values we obtain can be compared to the values listed in the K energy-level tables released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology : 12 985.170 cm-1 for the $`4P_{1/2}`$ state; 13 042.876 cm-1 for the $`4P_{3/2}`$ state, and 57.706 cm-1 for the fine-structure interval. Our results are consistent with these values but have significantly higher accuracy, thus demonstrating the power of our technique to improve the accuracy of the existing energy-level tables.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that a diode laser stabilized on a Rb transition can be used as an absolute frequency reference to make precise measurements of the energy levels in atoms. The reference laser and a laser tuned to the atomic transition of interest are fed into a scanning Michelson interferometer to obtain their frequency ratio very precisely. We have used this technique to make frequency measurements on the $`D_1`$ and $`D_2`$ lines of K, and obtain improvement of about an order of magnitude over existing values. The leading source of systematic error is non-parallelism between the two laser beams in the interferometer. While we have several checks to minimize this error, it cancels to first order in the determination of the fine-structure interval. The technique should prove useful in other atomic systems and particularly alkali atoms, where transitions are easily accessible with tunable diode lasers and knowledge of fine-structure intervals is important. Since atomic energy levels are generally known to about 0.01 cm-1 accuracy, our precision wavemeter  has the potential to improve these values by up to two orders of magnitude.

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


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# Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts

## 1. Introduction

Narrow emission features superimposed on the early X-ray afterglow of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) seem to be common \[Piro et al. 1999, Antonelli et al. 2000, Piro et al. 2000 (hereafter P00), Reeves et al. 2002 (hereafter R02)\], even though a single strong evidence of their significance is still lacking. These features are observed starting from several hours after the burst (due to instrumental limitations) up to a couple of days. Some have signs of variability (e.g. R02), others are constant for the total duration of the observation (Antonelli et al. 2000; P00). Understanding how and where they are produced is fundamental for identifying the nature of the burst progenitor. In fact the line, being observed at its rest wavelength, has to be produced through reprocessing of the burst radiation, and carries therefore information about the geometry and structure of the material surrounding the burst (Lazzati, Campana & Ghisellini 1999). It is commonly accepted that the presence of metal lines itself strongly favors hypernova models (Woosley 1993; Paczynski 1998) and can be used to rule out compact mergers (Eichler et al. 1989) as burst progenitors. Nevertheless, whether the lines can be produced in a standard hypernova scenario or require an explosive event or supernova that occurred prior to the GRB (see e.g. Vietri & Stella 1998) is still a matter of open debate.

We define as Engine Dominated (ED) the models in which the lines are produced in a standard – single step – hypernova explosion. In these models, the line is created by reprocessing from material very close to the explosion site ($`R10^{13}`$ cm). The ionizing continuum in this case can not be attributed to the burst or afterglow itself, since the photons are radiated at larger distances. The ionizing continuum is then believed to be provided by a long lasting engine (Rees & Mészáros 2000) or by magnetic energy stored in a plasma bubble emerging after the jet has crossed the stellar progenitor (Mészáros & Rees 2001). In ED models the duration of line emission is related to the duration of the the ionizing continuum.

We define as Geometry Dominated (GD) the models in which the reprocessing material is located at a large enough distance, $`R`$, to be illuminated by the burst and afterglow photons. In these models the duration of the line emission is set by the size of the reprocessor. This reprocessing material has to be compact and metal enriched, similar to a supernova remnant (SNR), as naturally predicted in the supranova model (Vietri & Stella 1998). In both ED and GD models the line is supposed to be produced by reflection off a slab of optically thick material (see also Böttcher 2000 and Böttcher & Fryer 2001 for an alternative GD model).

In this letter we compute the luminosity of $`K_\alpha `$ lines from the elements O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar and Ca (which we will refer to as “light elements” hereafter), and compare them to the iron one. We find that the detection of soft X-ray ($`[0.5-5]`$ keV) features, possibly made in the afterglow of GRB 011211 (R02) strongly favors GD scenarios for the production of metal lines in GRB afterglows. The letter is organized as follows. In §2 we compute the line luminosities in reflection from an a priori point of view. We compute the line flux in GD and ED scenario in §3 and we discuss the comparison of predictions with observational constraints in §4.

## 2. Line luminosities

The luminosity of the lines has been computed according to the equation:

$$L_X=\frac{n_Xϵ_XS\lambda }{t_{\mathrm{em}}}$$
(1)
where the subscript X indicates the particular ion, $`n_X`$ is the ion density, $`ϵ_X`$ is the $`K_\alpha `$ emission line frequency $`ϵ_X=h\nu _X`$ of the H-like ion, $`S`$ is the emitting surface, $`\lambda `$ is the depth of the emitting layer and $`t_{\mathrm{em}}`$ is the time scale of emission of a photon by a single ion.

The time scale of photon emission $`t_{\mathrm{em}}`$ can be set either by the ionization time scale corrected for the Auger effect (if the ionization parameter is low) or by the recombination time scale, for highly ionized plasma. Here, we compute the emission time as $`\mathrm{max}(t_{\mathrm{rec}},t_{\mathrm{ion}}/Au_{\{X,Z\}})`$, where $`Au_{\{X,Z\}}`$ is the photoelectric yield for the element $`X`$ with charge $`Z`$ (Kaastra & Mewe 1993). The ionization time scale $`t_{\mathrm{ion}}`$ is computed as (Lazzati et al. 2001b):

$$t_{\mathrm{ion}}=(3+\alpha )\frac{4\pi R^2h\nu _X^\alpha }{L_0\sigma _X}$$
(2)
where $`L(\nu )=L_0\nu ^\alpha `$ is the ionizing spectrum (note that $`L_0`$ does not have the dimensions of a luminosity), $`\sigma _X`$ the threshold cross section of the element $`X`$ (atomic data are taken from Verner & Yakovlev 1995) and $`R`$ the distance of the reprocessing material from the ionizing flux source. The recombination time scale $`t_{\mathrm{rec}}`$ has been computed with the analytic approximations and tables of Verner & Ferland (1996). A constant temperature $`T=4\times 10^7`$ K has been assumed. Both the ionization and recombination time scales are computed for the H-like ion. The charge of the atom is then computed as111The exponent $`2/5`$ has been derived by interpolation of the numerical recombination rates of Shull & van Steenberg (1982). $`Z_X=(t_{\mathrm{ion}}/t_{\mathrm{rec}})^{2/5}`$.

The depth of the emitting layer $`\lambda `$ is assumed to be the depth that the ionizing photons can reach and/or a line photon can escape without a shift in frequency. We therefore compute it as the minimum between the plasma opacity at resonance for the ion $`X`$ and the maximum Thompson depth a photon can travel before being shifted by Thomson scattering. We therefore have $`\lambda =\mathrm{min}(\lambda _T,\lambda _X)`$, where:

$$\lambda _X=\left[\underset{Y}{}\frac{n_Yt_{\{\mathrm{ion},\mathrm{Y}\}}\sigma _Y(\nu _X)}{t_{\{\mathrm{ion},\mathrm{Y}\}}+t_{\{\mathrm{rec},\mathrm{Y}\}}}\right]^1$$
(3)
and

$$\lambda _T=\frac{\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{sc}}(T)}}{n_e\sigma _T}$$
(4)
where the sum in Eq. 3 is extended over the astrophysically relevant elements H, He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Fe (elemental abundances taken from Anders & Grevesse 1989), and $`\sigma _Y(\nu _X)`$ is the cross section of element $`Y`$ computed at the threshold frequency of element $`X`$. In the numerator of Eq. 4, $`N_{\mathrm{sc}}(T)`$ is the maximum number of scatterings a photon can make before the line is smeared or shifted. If $`ϵkT`$, line broadening is more important than shifting, and we have $`\sigma _ϵ/ϵ\sqrt{kT/(m_ec^2)}`$ for a single scattering. Requiring a limit of $`\sigma _ϵ/ϵ1/3`$ in order for the line to be detectable as a narrow feature, we have $`\tau _{\mathrm{max}}=\sqrt{N_{\mathrm{sc}}}[m_ec^2/(9kT)]^{1/2}4`$. Note however that, for the considered abundant elements, Eq. 4 is relevant only for very high ionization parameters (i.e. in the decreasing tails of Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts) and therefore its uncertainty is not necessarily reflected in the maximum efficiency of line reprocessing.

In Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts and Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts (lower panel) we show the results of our calculations for O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca and Fe as a function of the ionization parameter $`\xi =4\pi F_{[1-10]}/n`$, where $`F_{[1-10]}`$ is the ionizing flux in the energy range \[1-10\] keV and $`n`$ the particle density. The figures show that, in optimal conditions, $`1\%`$ of the ionizing flux is reprocessed in each line. We also show that increasing the metallicity does not increase this fraction, but helps keep it constant for high ionization parameters. The accuracy of this line strength estimates have been checked against the results of numerical simulations for Mg, Si and Fe (Ross 1979; Ross & Fabian 1983; Ballantyne, Fabian & Ross 2002). We find that our results are in agreement within a factor $`2`$ with line luminosities obtained by fitting Gaussian profiles to the numerical spectra. The largest deviations are observed close to the minimum value of the efficiency (in the strong Auger regime), where our semi-analytical approach yields larger luminosities with respect to the full numerical treatment. This comparison has been performed with Mg, Si and Fe lines, since the numerical code does not include S, Ar and Ca.

## 3. GRB models

In order to apply the results of the previous section to various GRB models, we need to transform the ratios shown in Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts and Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts into observed fluxes and/or luminosities. Even though in spectroscopy it is customary to compute the line equivalent width, in the case of GRBs it is assumed that the observed continuum is not related to the ionizing continuum responsible for producing the lines (which can be the afterglow itself at earlier times in GD models or a completely different component in ED models), and so it is more useful to directly compare the line fluxes (Lazzati et al. 1999).

### 3.1. Geometry dominated models

In the case of GD models, the observed line flux has to be corrected by a geometric factor $`\zeta `$. This factor takes into account that while the emitting material is illuminated for a time $`t_{\mathrm{ill}}`$, the line is observed, at infinity, for a time $`t_{\mathrm{obs}}R_{\mathrm{SNR}}/c`$. A precise computation of $`\zeta t_{\mathrm{ill}}/t_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ is complex, since the reprocessing material is illuminated by the burst and early afterglow radiation, and it is likely that the properties of the fireball towards the reprocessing material are different from those along the line of sight (Rossi, Lazzati & Rees 2002). If one assumes that the fireball decelerates inside the remnant and that the density of the external medium in the immediate vicinity of the progenitor scales with the remnant radius222Note that the density is not supposed to scale with the radius. We consider a uniform density inside the remnant, scaling it with the remnant radius in order to have a constant total mass inside it. as $`n=10^8n_8(R_{\mathrm{SNR}}/10^{15})^3`$ cm-3, the time the fireball takes to overtake the remnant is proportional to the radius of the remnant itself, and:

$$\zeta \frac{c(t_{\mathrm{GRB}}+t_{\mathrm{ill}})}{R_{\mathrm{SNR}}}\frac{ct_{\mathrm{ill}}}{R_{\mathrm{SNR}}}0.05\frac{n_8}{E_{51}}$$
(5)
where $`t_{\mathrm{GRB}}`$ is the burst duration, and $`E_{51}`$ is the isotropic equivalent energy output of the burst in units of $`10^{51}`$ erg in the direction of the reprocessing material. We have used Eq. 15 of Panaitescu & Kumar (2000) to evaluate the numerical factor.

On the other hand, in GD models the ionizing continuum is not directly observed, and can then be assumed to be much larger than the afterglow luminosity at the time the line is detected. The ratio $`\eta _{\mathrm{cont}}`$ of reflected to incident continuum depends on the ionization parameter, ranging from $`<0.1`$ for $`\xi 10^2`$ to $`1`$ for $`\xi 10^5`$ (see the upper panel of Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts). For reasonable ionization parameters, one can then assume an ionizing luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{ion}}L_{\mathrm{After}}/(\zeta \eta _{\mathrm{cont}})2\times 10^{48}`$ erg s-1, where $`L_{\mathrm{After}}`$ is the afterglow \[1-10\] keV luminosity at the time at which the lines are observed. The apparent contradiction of having an ionizing continuum brighter than the afterglow but not observed in the afterglow itself, is solved if we consider the geometry of the system (see e.g. panels a and b of Fig. 2 in Vietri et al. 2001). In fact, the fireball emission towards the reprocessing material is not necessarily related to the one in the direction of the observer. Moreover, line photons produced at time $`t`$ are observed at a later time due to the longer travel thay have to make. At this later time the afterglow emission has decreased.

Finally, we must take into account that while the ionizing continuum may be geometrically beamed, the line emission is nearly isotropic, so that the observed flux must be corrected by a factor $`\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi 0.25`$, where the numerical factor has been computed for a jet opening angle of $`\theta =40^{}`$. This opening angle is one order of magnitude larger than the opening angle measured in GRB 991216 (Frail et al. 2001). Since $`\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi =1-\mathrm{cos}\theta _j\theta _j^2`$, a ten times smaller opening angle would make the lines two orders of magnitude fainter and thus undetectable. We here assume this larger angle without discussing its implications, referring the reader to the thorough discussion presented in Ghisellini et al. (2002).

The resulting line luminosity of the element $`X`$ is then given by:

$$L_X=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }\zeta L_{\mathrm{ion}}\eta _X0.25\frac{\eta _X}{\eta _{\mathrm{cont}}}L_{\mathrm{After}}$$
(6)
where $`\eta _X`$ is the luminosity ratio plotted in Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts. Note that the geometric factor $`\zeta `$ is not relevant in this expression. For low ionization parameters $`\xi <10^3`$ one has $`\eta _{\mathrm{cont}}0.1`$ and $`\eta _X10^2`$, while for iron one obtains $`\eta _{\mathrm{Fe}}10^3`$ since its efficiency is strongly decreased by Auger auto ionization (see also Ross, Fabian & Brandt 1996). Light elements can reprocess into $`K_\alpha `$ line emission a sizable fraction of the continuum, yielding luminosities of the order of $`L_X2.5\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1 ($`F_X5\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 at $`z1`$). In contrast, iron $`K_\alpha `$ emission will be one order of magnitude fainter, and therefore undetectable with present instrumentation. For larger ionization parameters $`10^3<\xi <10^4`$, iron emission is efficient, while light elements are too ionized to emit line photons. A bright iron line should then be detectable in absence of light element features (see also Ballantyne & Ramirez-Ruiz 2001).

### 3.2. Engine dominated models

Evaluating the line luminosity in ED models is simpler and less affected by uncertainties. In fact, there is no geometric dilution of the photons and the ionizing continuum is likely to be smaller than the afterglow luminosity at the time of the line observation. Only the beaming factor $`\mathrm{\Omega }/4\pi `$ has to be taken into account, yielding a luminosity:

$$L_X=\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{4\pi }L_{\mathrm{After}}\eta _X0.25L_{\mathrm{After}}\eta _X$$
(7)
In ED models, then, the line luminosity is a factor $`\eta _{\mathrm{cont}}`$ less intense than in GD models. Lines from light elements (Mg, Si, S, Ar and Ca), should be very difficult to detect since $`L_{\{\mathrm{Ar},\mathrm{Ca}\}}10^{43}`$ erg s-1 ($`F_X10^{15}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 at $`z1`$). Iron lines should instead be detectable, in particular if the ionization is not too high and the spectral slope is flat (Ballantyne et al. 2002).

## 4. Summary and discussion

The presence of emission features in the early X-ray afterglows of GRBs provides important clues for identifying the burst progenitor. We computed the luminosity of $`K_\alpha `$ emission features from astrophysically relevant elements (Mg, Si, S, Ar and Ca) in reflection models and applied the results to the detectability of those features in the early afterglows of GRBs. We find that the line luminosity of these elements can be a strong indicator of the geometry of the reprocessing material. In particular, light element lines are detectable only if the ionizing continuum is not directly observable. This geometrical set-up is naturally accounted for in GD models, in which the line photons reach the observer after being reflected by material away from the line of sight. In ED models, the ionizing continuum and the line are observed simultaneously and for this reason the strength of light elements lines is greatly diluted, making them undetectable.

Recently, a possible detection of $`K_\alpha `$ emission lines from light elements in the early afterglow of GRB 011211 has been claimed (R02). Reeves et al. claim that their spectrum is inconsistent with a reflection model. We should however be aware that the reflection model used to fit the data does not include emission from S, Ar and Ca (Ross & Fabian 1983). In addition, they fit a pure reflection model, without including the power-law external shock emission. This power-law component must however dominate the continuum, since the broad band lightcurve decreases as a power-law in time (R02). Let us now consider the $`K_\alpha `$ line of sulphur at $`2.6`$ keV. It is detected at a flux level of $`(1\pm 0.3)\times 10^{14}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, when the \[0.2-10\] keV continuum has a flux of $`2\times 10^{13}`$ erg cm-2 s-1. This flux ratio $`\eta _S=0.05\pm 0.015`$ can be compared to the lower left panel of Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts and Eq. 7. Even if the beaming correction approaches unity, the detected flux ratio exceeds the maximum allowed in an ED model, regardless of both the value of the spectral slope and ionization parameter. In GD models, however, the luminosity of light element features can be ten times larger due to the very small fraction of the continuum that is reflected for small ionization parameters (see the upper panel of Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts).

Another important particularity of the observation of light element features in GRB 011211 is the lack of an iron line. If we compare this observation to that of the iron $`K_\alpha `$ line in GRB 991216 (P00), we find that the ratio of iron to sulphur luminosities is significantly different. The line ratio is $`L_\mathrm{S}/L_{\mathrm{Fe}}<0.4`$ in GRB 991216 and $`L_\mathrm{S}/L_{\mathrm{Fe}}>2`$ in GRB 011211. This difference can be explained, as a consequence of the different ionization state of the reprocessing material – in GRB 011211 the reprocessing material had an ionization parameter between $`30\xi 300`$, while in GRB 991216 $`10^3<\xi <10^5`$. In the framework of GD models, the different ionization parameter can be interpreted as a different age of the SNR at the time of the burst explosion. If the remnant itself has a density that scales with the radius (and hence with age) $`n_{\mathrm{SNR}}R_{\mathrm{SNR}}^3`$, the ionization parameter should also scale with radius for a constant ionizing luminosity. Young remnants should then produce light element lines, possibly in coincidence with weak nickel and/or cobalt lines, while old remnants should produce high ionization iron lines, and no light element features (see also Vietri et al. 2001). In addition, the variability time scale of compact remnants should be smaller. All these predictions are confirmed by observations – the features observed in GRB 011211, in which a marginal evidence of Ni line is present, are observed to disappear after $`4`$ h (R02), while the iron line in GRB 991216 is detected $`18`$ h after the burst (P00). Is should also be remarked that these conclusions do not depend on the assumption of a constant temperature of the reprocessing material. In fact, should this assumption be wrong or the temperature be estimated incorrectly, the result would be an horizontal shift of the lines in Fig. Soft X-ray emission lines in the early afterglow of gamma-ray bursts. Since we have not discussed in which conditions a certain value of the ionization parameter is relevant, this does not affect the generality of our conclusions.

In conclusion, the detection of Mg, Si, S, Ar and Ca lines with equivalent widths of hundreds of eV in the early afterglow of GRB 011211 can not be accounted for in any version of ED models. A two step explosion is necessary, in order to place the reprocessing material at a distance large enough to explain the duration of the line and to let the ionizing continuum fade (hidden by the afterglow emission) before the lines can be observed. This evidence adds to the transient absorption feature detected in GRB 990705 (Amati et al. 2000; Lazzati et al. 2001a) which strongly favors a GD model. Alternatively, the reflecting material may have been expelled during the common envelope phase of a binary progenitor system composed by a compact object and a helium star (Böttcher & Fryer 2001). In this case, all the discussion about GD models hold true, but a Ni line is not expected since the reprocessing material is not a SN explosion.

We are very grateful to K. Pounds and J. Reeves for useful discussions on the data of GRB 011211 and to A. Fabian and D. Ballantyne for many discussions on reflection spectra, and for making their numerical spectra available to us. We thank Markus Böttcher for useful discussions.


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# Optimization potential of a real highway network: an empirical study

## 1 Introduction

In the last few years, the increasing amount of vehicular traffic has led to a more and more oversaturated freeway network. In contrast to the past, it is no longer possible to react on this additional amount of traffic by construction of new highways. Therefore, in order to use the existing network more efficiently, several control strategies like signal control, variable message signs, route guidance, motorway-to-motorway control and ramp metering (Papageorgiou, 1995) have been proposed for the optimization of the highway’s performance and for the amelioration of the system’s traffic state.

Empirical studies of parts of a highway network (Salem, 1995) have revealed the benefits of ramp metering strategies for the total mean speed and the total travel-time for both, the vehicles on the highway and the queuing vehicles on the on-ramp. These empirical findings are underscored by several theoretical investigations of simplified (Kolomeisky, 1998; Appert, 2001) as well as well as of more realistic (Popkov, 2001; Huberman, 1999; Barlovic, submitted) traffic models. In particular, studies of the asymmetric simple exclusion process reveal the existence of a maximal current phase which obviously is the most desirable state. It can be obtained for large input and small output rates and allows to operate a highway in the optimal regime. The possible capacity gain is even higher in more realistic models which reproduce the empirically observed meta-stable high-flow states. In finite systems these states are temporally quite stable and, therefore, it seems to be possible to optimize at least short highway sections in this manner.

Moreover, in (Huberman, 1999), a simple simulation setup consisting of a two-lane highway segment with an on-ramp is presented. It has been shown that the travel-time of all vehicles can be optimized at a finite injection rate of the on-ramp in the sense that its variance is minimized.

This improvement of the system’s throughput can be explained by considering fluctuations of the traffic flow. Obviously, free flow is the most desirable traffic state since large flows can be obtained. However, at increasing traffic demand, synchronized traffic forms in the vicinity of on-ramps, which enables a large amount of vehicles to drive with a velocity considerably larger than in a jam but smaller than in free flow, and leads to a flow comparable to free flow (Kerner, 2001). Synchronized states are not very stable, i.e., already small perturbations can cause wide jams. The importance of synchronized traffic for an optimized usage of the network capacity is due to its role as a precursor of traffic jams: If synchronized traffic is observed at a bottleneck control mechanisms will help to stabilize this phase and, thus, ensure large throughputs of the highway at large densities. In particular, by means of ramp metering, it is possible to tune the injection rate of the on-ramp in order to affect the vehicle-vehicle interactions. Increasing the interactions will improve the vehicle coupling and help to synchronize them (Ariaratnam, 2001), however, strong interactions lead to perturbations of the flow and, thus, to wide jams. The variation of the on-ramp flow therefore helps to adjust the interactions and to stabilize the synchronized state. As a result, the perturbations are minimized, and the performance of the highway is optimized.

In this study we present an extensive analysis of a highway network which gives insight about the spreading of jams in the network. In contrast to former analyses which are restricted to only small parts of a highway system, here, the coverage of the network with inductive loops allows to analyse the overall traffic state on a global scale. This enables us to identify and characterize its bottlenecks. In particular, the question is raised whether bottlenecks are of topological nature or if they are constituted by on-ramps with a large inflow. Topological bottlenecks are static whereas dynamical bottlenecks (like ramps) in principle can be influenced externally, e.g., by controlling their strength. Moreover, the properties of the bottlenecks may give evidence if the network’s state can be optimized by local control devices only or whether global traffic management strategies are necessary (Brockfeld, 2001).

## 2 Network characteristics

We examine the highway network of North Rhine-Westfalia (see Fig. 1 for a sketch of the network) which has a total length of about $`2500km`$ and includes $`67`$ highway intersections and $`830`$ on- and off-ramps. The data set is provided by about $`3500`$ inductive loops which send minute aggregated data of the flow, the occupancy and the velocity online (that is every minute) via permanent lines from the traffic control centers in Recklinghausen and in Leverkusen. For the sake of simple data handling, the driving directions are classified into south/west and north/east.

As one can see in Fig. 2, most of the detectors are concentrated on the inner network. This is justified by the distribution of the traffic volume, as we will show later. The recording of the data started on 10-10-2000. For the analysis of the network, a period of $`265`$ days from 10-10-2000 to 07-01-2001 was considered.

The highway network of North Rhine-Westfalia has an average traffic load of about $`30000`$ veh/24h per measurement section for one driving direction. Note that the traffic volume is calculated per measurement section and thus sums the flow of two or three lanes. However, there are large differences between the highways (Fig. 3). Obviously, only a few sections with very large traffic volumes exist which concentrate on the main urban areas. In detail, the Kölner Ring, especially the section between the highway intersections Kreuz Leverkusen and Kreuz Köln Ost, large parts of the A3 and the A40, the A57 near Neuss and the A2 near the highway intersection Kreuz Duisburg have an average load of $`4000080000`$ veh/24h. The more the highways leave these conurbations, the less is the traffic volume which can be measured. In addition, nearly the same values of the traffic volumes can be found for both, the driving directions south/west and north/east.

About $`15\%`$ of the vehicles are trucks. Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the relative number of trucks per measurement section. Obviously, the share of trucks on the traffic volume increases with the distance to the conurbations, while the absolute number of trucks does not change significantly on the main highways. Thus, the long-distance traffic is mainly dominated by trucks, while at short distances commuter traffic leads to large traffic loads of the network.

## 3 Bottleneck localization

Since the traffic volumes are simple integrated quantities, it is possible that a large traffic volume can indicate that a two-lane road is often jammed, while the capacity of a three-lane road is still not reached. Therefore, in order to allow an evaluation of the traffic load, the probability to find a jam is calculated. This has the advantage that traffic volumes which are larger than the highway capacity can be related directly to a large jam probability, and thus bottlenecks of the highway network can clearly be identified. Due to the size of the analysed data set it is necessary to introduce a simple criterion to identify jams. Our criterion is the following: If the density of at least one minute is larger than $`50\%`$ (the density is given as occupancy which is the percentage of time a detector is covered by a vehicle), a jam is supposed. This criterion was motivated by former empirical studies (Knospe, 2002) that indicated that densities higher than $`50\%`$ are typically neither observed in free-flow nor in synchronized traffic. The threshold value as well as the chosen time interval are, of course, somehow arbitrary. Our results are, however, rather insensitive upon an increase of the density threshold. By contrast, longer time intervals may lead to problems, because jams are often not compact but include regions of free flow traffic. This implies that the density threshold has to be lowered if longer time intervals are used, but lower density threshold lead to problems in discriminating between jams and synchronized traffic.

The usage of the density as an indicator for a jam has some advantages compared to the mean velocity and the flow. First, the flow as well as the velocity depend on speed limits which vary in the network. Therefore, it is not possible to distinguish whether a small velocity is due to a large density or a speed limit. Second, a small flow can refer to both a jam or just free flow with only a few cars. The jam probability is therefore calculated as the relation of the number of days a jam was found to the total number of days of the observation period ($`265`$ days).

Fig. 5 represents the jam probability of the network for the driving direction south/west. Obviously, large jam probabilities can be found in a region of the inner network, where the conurbations of the Ruhrgebiet (region 1), the areas of Dortmund (region 2), Düsseldorf and Krefeld (region 3) and Köln (region 4) are located. As one can see in Fig. 2, most of the inductive loops are concentrated in this regions, which are indeed the most crowded sectors of the network. In contrast, in regions which are less equipped with counting devices, only few jams can be found.

Large differences of the jam probability between the areas can be observed. Only $`10\%30\%`$ of the observation days were jammed in the area of the Ruhrgebiet (region 1), that is every third day a jam occurred. In contrast, in the areas of Dortmund (region 2), Krefeld and Düsseldorf (region 3) and Köln (region 4), more than $`50\%`$ of the days showed jams. Especially in the area of Dortmund, between the Westhofener Kreuz and the Kreuz Dortmund/Unna, nearly $`5`$ days a weak jams can be measured.

Next, we analyse when the jams typically occur. First, we expect significant differences between the weekend and working days.

Indeed, the exclusion of weekends leads to an increased jam probability on weekdays compared to the probability averaged over the whole observation period. Second, we regarded the daily variations of the jam probabilities. During the week from monday to friday only minor differences in the jam probability exist, but one has to distinguish the period from monday to thursday and the friday as we will show below. The jam probabilities we obtained are qualitatively the same as in case of an average over the whole data set (see Fig. 6), the same four regions show a large jam probability that is the Ruhrgebiet and the areas of Dortmund, Krefeld and Düsseldorf and Köln. The actual value of the jam probability, however, is increased and the difference to the remainder of the network is now more pronounced. During the weekend the jam probability is considerably reduced. Nevertheless, there are a few locations in the network where high jam probabilities can be observed on sundays, i.e., between the Westhofener Kreuz and the Kreuz Dortmund/Unna. Remarkably the same classification scheme was found to be appropriate for city data as discussed in (Chrobok, 2000; Chrobok, 2001).

Next, we analyse the intraday variations of the data set. We further divided the time-series into five time intervals, in order to capture the main rush-hours. The first interval covers the time from $`0`$ to $`6`$ a.m., the second interval from $`6`$ to $`11`$ a.m., the third interval from $`11`$ a.m. to $`1`$ p.m., the fourth interval from $`1`$ to $`8`$ p.m. and the fifth interval from $`8`$ to $`12`$ p.m. Indeed, the division of a day is somehow arbitrary, but a finer discretization of a day will not change the results significantly. Moreover, analyses of city data revealed the existence of basically two rush-hour peaks in the time-series of the traffic volume at about $`8`$ a.m. and $`4`$ p.m. (Chrobok, 2000; Chrobok, 2001).

Figures 7 and 8 show the jam probability of the whole data set in the driving direction south/west for two time intervals. During the first time interval, that is $`0`$ to $`6`$ a.m., no jams could be measured. The main traffic volume occurs in the second and in the fourth interval, which include the rush-hours. From $`11`$ a.m. to $`1`$ p.m. only a few jams are visible, while from $`8`$ p.m. to $`12`$ p.m. just one region shows jams, namely the region between the Westhofener Kreuz and the Kreuz Dortmund/Unna. The jams therefore occur mainly in the morning and afternoon rush-hours. There are, however, parts of the network where the load is so large, that the probability to find a jam is high throughout the whole day.

The same picture can be drawn from the analysis of the data set classified in single days which are divided into the five time intervals. Due to the exclusion of the weekends, the values of the jam probability increase significantly. The main disturbances of the network can be measured in the rush-hours, while the regions $`2`$ and $`4`$ show continuously a large traffic load. Again, there are only small differences between the weekdays. On fridays on the one hand, the load of the network in the time between $`6`$ and $`11`$ a.m. is smaller, but, on the other hand, is increased significantly between $`1`$ and $`8`$ p.m. compared to monday to thursday. Moreover, on sundays, the large jam probability in the area of Dortmund can be traced back to congestions between $`1`$ to $`8`$ p.m.

Analogously to the analysis of the data of the driving direction south/west, the jam probability is calculated for the direction north/east (Fig. 9). Like for the driving direction south/west, the same regions with large jam probabilities occur which can be identified as the conurbations of the Ruhrgebiet (region 1), the areas of Dortmund (region 2), Krefeld and Düsseldorf (region 3) and Köln (region 4). In contrast, the region of the Ruhrgebiet (region 1) and the area Krefeld and Düsseldorf (region 3) have a larger jam probability in the direction north/east, while in the direction south/west the area of Köln (region 4) shows a larger traffic volume. In the area of Dortmund (region 2), a large jam probability can be found in the south of the Westhofener Kreuz. Because north of the Westhofener Kreuz in the driving direction south a large jam probability was measured, too, one can clearly identify the Westhofener Kreuz as a dominant bottleneck.

Again, the distinction between the days shows no difference to the analysis of the whole observation period with the exception of a larger jam probability in the single regions. In addition, the main traffic volume can be measured in the morning and afternoon rush-hours.

## 4 Spatial extension of jams

Calculating the jam probability in the four regions, one can observe that consecutive measurement sections are often jammed even at the same time, which may be a consequence of jams that have a large spatial extension. However, as one can see further, a sequence of jammed detectors is always restricted by highway intersections, not by on- and offramps. But more importantly a jam which branches from one highway to another highway via an intersection has been observed only in one case (see below).

In order to determine the spatial extension of a jam, it is necessary to consider its temporal occurrence: If for a given day a jam was detected at a detector, the detector is considered to be active (1) if not as being passive (0). In this way we generated a binary time-series which allows the calculation of the spatial correlation between different measurement locations. The explicit calculation of the correlation of the density time-series, in contrast, has the disadvantage that the duration of jams decreases in upstream direction, which leads to vanishing correlations.

Although the activity gives only a rough estimate of the jamming state at an inductive loop, the typical spatial extension of jams can clearly be seen. The large jam probability in region 2 in the driving direction south/west can be related to a jamming of large parts of the A1 between the Westhofener Kreuz and the Kreuz Dortmund/Unna (Fig. 10) since the correlation shows large values. The same picture can be drawn in the area of Köln (region 4) where a jam may cover a distance from the Kreuz Köln West and from the Kreuz Köln Ost to the Kreuz Leverkusen. The largest extension of a jam can be found on the A40 (region 1) where strong correlations between the Kreuz Duisburg and the Kreuz Bochum are measured. Obviously, there are also correlations with highways that are very far away from the reference detector, but which are not connected by a sequence of succeeding inductive loops with a large jam probability. The correlations are simply a consequence of a large traffic load of the network which leads to many jams on various highway sections. Since the number of jams counted at the reference detector is large, correlations of a free flow signal can be excluded.

The correlation analysis of the driving direction north/east reveals strong values on the A57 near the Kreuz Kaarst (Fig. 11) and again on the A40 between the Kreuz Bochum and the Kreuz Duisburg (Fig.12). A jam measured at the Westhofener Kreuz (Fig.13) can branch due to the highways intersection on both, the highway A45 and the highway A1.

The analysis of the activity allows for the daily occurrence of jams, but temporal differences due to the morning or afternoon rush-hours are omitted. Therefore, the activity is classified into the five periods used for the jam probability calculation. This additional consideration of the temporal occurrence of the activity allows a better determination of the spatial correlation of the measurement locations.

The picture of large congested areas on the highways can be confirmed by the classified activity correlation analysis. Especially the A40 between the Kreuz Bochum and the Kreuz Duisburg in the directions east and west, the A57 in the vicinity of the Kreuz Kaarst in the direction north and the area of Köln in the direction south/west (Fig. 14) show strong correlations of consecutive measurement locations. Since the finer discretization of the activity time-series does not change the results significantly, the classification of the activity into five intervals is sufficient for the proper recording of the temporal occurrence of jams. Thus, although the classified activity is only a rough estimate for the density time-series of a detector, the correlation analysis nevertheless allows the determination of the spatial extension of jams.

The correlation analysis supports the results drawn from the jam probability calculation. Although jams can have a large spatial extension, branching of a jam via a highway intersection is rarely observed. As a consequence one can conclude that the bottlenecks are, apart from the Westhofener Kreuz, a result of perturbations due to on- and offramps rather then local capacity restrictions. As one can see in Fig. 15 and Fig. 16, most of the sources of the network with a large injection rate are concentrated in the four regions. In addition, most of the sinks can be found there 111The source and sink rate is calculated by summing up the flow of all lanes at a measurement section. The difference of the total flow between two succeeding sections gives the loss or gain of the number of vehicles.. Therefore, traffic in these four regions is determined by strong fluctuations of the traffic demand and, thus, the flow, resulting in jams with a large spatial extension. However, these jams are restricted to single highways and do not affect traffic in other parts of the network.

Nevertheless, an example of a topological bottleneck is given in Fig. 17. The bottleneck is located north of the junction Oberhausen-Lirich on the A3 and is generated by a reduction from three to two lanes in each driving direction. In September 2001 this bottleneck was eliminated by the extension to three lanes. Due to the road works, jams regularly emerged in the south of the bottleneck. These jams could have an extension up to the Kreuz Breitscheid, passing the Kreuz Kaiserberg undisturbed. For comparison, Fig. 18 shows the same part of the network after the road constructions have been finished. Obviously, the probability to find a jam on the A3 south of the junction Oberhausen-Lirich is reduced drastically. A systematical impact on other parts of the highway network, however, cannot be observed.

## 5 Conclusion

The analysis of the highway network of North Rhine-Westfalia leads to the following results: The main traffic load concentrates on the inner network where the conurbations of the Ruhrgebiet (region 1), the areas of Dortmund (region 2), Düsseldorf and Krefeld (region 3) and Köln (region 4) are located. In these regions, traffic is predominantly determined by commuter or local traffic. In contrast, the outer regions of the network are dominated by long-distance traffic, indicated by a large truck share on the total traffic volume. Jams can be measured very often in the central part of the network i.e., jam probabilities of more than $`50\%`$ have been measured. This picture can be confirmed by a more detailed analysis of the traffic data which takes the daily occurrence of jams into account. Like in (Chrobok, 2000; Chrobok, 2000), the days can be classified into monday to thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. However, the time a jam emerges is considered by the subdivision of one day into five intervals. As a result, most of the jams can be traced back on the morning and afternoon rush-hours, but for the areas of Köln (region 4) and Dortmund (region 2), the probability to find a jam is large during the whole day. In addition, on fridays, the main traffic load is shifted from the morning to the afternoon rush-hour.

The correlation analysis of the activity takes the temporal occurrence of a jam at consecutive measurement locations into account. Large correlations between succeeding detectors in the four regions can be measured. Nevertheless, the jams are mainly restricted to single highways and do not branch on other highways via intersections. The only bottleneck which can be identified is the highway intersection Westhofener Kreuz. A more detailed calculation of the correlation by means of a classified activity confirms these results.

The bottlenecks of the network are therefore predominantly on- and offramps rather than topological peculiarities of the highway system. It is the large in- or outflow at ramps that perturbes the stream of vehicles on the main highway. As proposed in (Salem, 1995; Huberman, 1999), it has to be expected that ramp metering systems are able to counteract these destabilization of the flow and reduce the formation of jams. In this way a restricted flow on the ramps may lead to a significant increase of the capacity of the main highways. Of special interest for a capacity optimization is the existence of some “hot spots” in the network: The highest jam probabilities are spatially and temporally well localized. These are the parts of the network, where the flow has to be optimized. Presently these sections self-organize in a congested state, leading fluxes that are far below their capacity. The situation can be improved a lot by controling the number of entering cars and by optimizing the traffic stream at the on- and off-ramps at this section. The small number of bottlenecks that are present in the network shows that it is possible to improve the capacity of the network with a reasonable technical effort. Of particular interest are sections where the main input is from other, less crowded, highways. In these cases a restricted input does not lead to a collapse of the urban traffic.

There is of course another way to avoid congestion in conurbations. Our analysis shows that the jams are caused mainly by commuters. This means that a better usage of public transport in the urban areas would indeed reduce significantly the congestion at the conurbations.

Summarizing our analysis has shown that the bottlenecks of a highway network can be found by means of a simple statistical analysis. The distribution of the bottlenecks in the network indicates that optimization strategies can be successfully applied in order to increase the capacity of the network.

Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to the Landesbetrieb Straßenbau NRW for the data support and to the Ministry of Economics and Midsize Businesses, Technology and Transport as well as to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany for the financial support (the latter within the BMBF project “DAISY”).

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