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# First-Principles Study of the Temperature-Pressure Phase Diagram of BaTiO3

## Abstract

We investigate the temperature-pressure phase diagram of BaTiO3 using a first-principles effective-Hamiltonian approach. We find that the zero-point motion of the ions affects the form of the phase diagram dramatically. Specifically, when the zero-point fluctuations are included in the calculations, all the polar (tetragonal, orthorhombic, and rhombohedral) phases of BaTiO3 survive down to 0 K, while only the rhombohedral phase does otherwise. We provide a simple explanation for this behavior. Our results confirm the essential correctness of the phase diagram proposed by Ishidate et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2397 (1997)).

BaTiO3 is a paradigmatic example of a ferroelectric material ref:lin77 . Over the years it has been extensively studied from both the experimental and theoretical points of view. It is thus surprising to discover that its temperature-pressure phase diagram remains very poorly investigated. Actually, even the qualitative form of the phase diagram is still controversial.

Figure 1a illustrates the results of early experimental studies of the phase diagram of BaTiO3 ref:sam66 ; ref:sam71 , which were confined to pressures up to $``$3 GPa only. In this pressure range the system retains its zero-pressure transition sequence with decreasing temperature. That is, it progresses from the high-temeperature paraelectric cubic phase to ferroelectric tetragonal, then ferroelectric orthorhombic, and finally ferroelectric rhombohedral phases. It was proposed that the diagram should be completed as shown in Fig. 1ref:sam66  (or with a modification in which the critical points labeled ‘1’ and ‘2’ meet at a multicritical point ref:guf76 ). This kind of scenario has been generally accepted ever since. On the other hand, in 1997 Ishidate et al. ref:ish97  published the first (and, up to now, the only) experimental study extending high enough in pressure to reveal the actual form of the entire phase diagram. Surprisingly, these authors found that all the polar phases of BaTiO3 survive down to 0 K as sketched in Fig. 1b.

Ishidate et al. attributed this remarkable result to the zero-point motion of the ions, which they argued should be significant up to temperatures as high as 200 K. This explanation may appear difficult to accept, given that no atom lighter than oxygen is present in BaTiO3. Indeed, it may be tempting to dismiss the phase diagram of Ishidate et al. on the basis of technical concerns. In particular, it is not easy to find a pressure-transmitting medium that remains fluid (i.e., isotropic) at the low temperature and high pressure required for this study ref:sam71 . This is a crucial issue because anisotropies in the applied pressure could easily upset the delicate balance of stabilities of the polar phases of BaTiO3 and lead to incorrect results. In view of these doubts, there is clearly a pressing need for a fresh approach to this problem.

In this work, we use a first-principles effective-Hamiltonian approach ref:zho94 ; ref:zho95  to carry out a theoretical study of the pressure-temperature phase diagram of BaTiO3. First-principles methods have been used extensively since the early 1990s in many successful studies of ferroelectric perovskites ref:van97 . Our approach is well suited to the present problem because it enables us (i) to calculate the thermodynamic properties of BaTiO3 in the presence of perfectly hydrostatic pressures, and (ii) to switch on and off the zero-point motion of the ions at will. Surprisingly, our results corroborate the scenario proposed by Ishidate et al. ref:ish97 . We confirm that quantum fluctuations completely change the high-pressure structure of the phase diagram and allow all three ferroelectric phases to survive down to zero temperature, as sketched in Fig. 1b. We discuss these results and provide a simple explanation for the predicted form of the phase diagram.

For this study we have made use of the effective-Hamiltonian approach proposed for BaTiO3 by Zhong et al. ref:zho94 ; ref:zho95 . The effective Hamiltonian is a Taylor-series expansion of the potential energy of the system around a high-symmetry phase, written in terms of a set of relevant degrees of freedom. For BaTiO3, the relevant variables are the local polar modes (that add up to produce the spontaneous polarization of the system) and the homogeneous strains, and the reference structure is the paraelectric cubic phase. The parameters in this expansion are obtained from first-principles density-functional calculations ref:explain-heff . Zhong et al. ref:zho94  performed classical Monte Carlo (MC) simulations on the basis of such an effective Hamiltonian and demonstrated that it correctly reproduces the non-trivial phase transiton sequence of BaTiO3 along the zero-pressure isobar ref:fn1 . Indeed, after this initial achievement, the first-principles effective-Hamiltonian method has been successfully applied over the years to situations of increasing complexity ref:bel .

However, one should bear in mind that the quantitative accuracy of this approach is still limited. The approximations involved in the effective-Hamiltonian construction, including those related to the first-principles methods used, result in some calculated quantities (especially transition temperatures) that are not in very good quantitative agreement with experiment. Of particular relevance for us is the well-known understimation of the equilibrium volumes given by the local-density approximation, which brings about a systematic error in the location of our zero of pressure ref:fn1 . For these reasons, the results of the present calculations are to be regarded as reliable only at the qualitative level.

Classical theory.— We first calculated the phase diagram of BaTiO3 at a classical level by performing standard Monte Carlo simulations for a number of temperatures and external hydrostatic pressures. We simulated a $`12\times 12\times 12`$ supercell with periodic boundary conditions, and typically did 30,000 MC sweeps to thermalize the system and another 30,000 sweeps to calculate averages. Our classical calculation is essentially a repeat of the one reported in Fig. 4 of Ref. ref:zho95 , except that we have taken special pains to resolve the high-pressure part of the phase diagram as carefully as possible.

Our result, depicted with open circles in Fig. 2, is topologically identical to the one shown in Fig. 1a. The interesting action occurs in a small region of low temperature and high pressure where the different phases meet. In this region the free-energy landscape of the system is extremely isotropic and it is difficult to locate the phase boundaries precisely. We can say with some confidence that the rhombohedral and cubic phases meet along a phase boundary that extends from about 12.5 GPA at $`T`$=0 K to about 11.5 GPa at about 10 K. Whether all phases then meet at a multicritical point, or whether there are two separate critical points as illustrated in Fig. 1a, is difficult to decide (although we tentatively favor the latter possibility). A more reliable calculation adopting an approach such as that of Ref. ref:ini01 , which allows for a detailed exploration of the free-energy landscape, would probably be needed to decide for certain.

The key conclusion we extract from our classical calculations is that, provided the zero-point motion of the ions is not considered, only the cubic and rhombohedral phases can survive down to zero temperature, i.e., can be true ground states of the system. To be certain that this conclusion is not an artifact of any approximations made in connection with the effective-Hamiltonian method, a careful check was carried out using zero-temperature density-functional calculations directly ref:inig02 . These tests confirm the presence of a second-order transition directly from the ferroelectric rhombohedral to the paraelectric cubic phase with increasing pressure along the zero-temperature isotherm.

Quantum-mechanical theory.— The ionic zero-point motion can be included in our calculations by carrying out the thermodynamic simulations using the path-integral quantum Monte Carlo (PI-QMC) technique ref:cep95  in place of the classical Monte Carlo. The same effective Hamiltonian is used in both cases. A preliminary study of this kind, but limited to zero pressure and small Trotter numbers, was initiated by Zhong and Vanderbilt ref:zho96 , who showed that the transition temperatures are indeed significantly affected by the quantum-mechanical fluctuations. For instance, the rhombohedral to orthorhombic transition, classically calculated to occur at 200 K, was found to fall to 150 K. Not only is this effect quite large, but it is also present at surprisingly high temperatures.

The technical details of the PI-QMC calculations are as follows. A careful convergence analysis of simulations at 10 K led us to take a Trotter number $`P=64`$ as a good compromise between accuracy and computational feasibility. (Note that the size of the simulated system is proportional to $`P`$.) For consistency, we kept the quantity $`1/TP`$, which determines the degree of convergence of the PI-QMC results, constant throughout the studied temperature range. In order to obtain a thermalized configuration for a given $`P`$, we find it convenient to increase $`P`$ from smaller values in a stepwise manner. For example, if our target is $`P=12`$, we consider $`P=13612`$, feeding every new calculation with the thermalized configuration obtained in the previous one. We typically performed 30,000 and 70,000 MC sweeps for thermalization and averages respectively, using a $`10\times 10\times 10`$ supercell. We checked that these choices led to well-converged results.

Our result is depicted with filled circles in Fig. 2. We find, in perfect qualitative agreement with Ishidate et al., that all the polar phases of BaTiO3 survive down to 0 K! Note the dramatic bending of the transition lines, which pass from following the classical law $`T_c(p_0p)`$ at high temperatures to following the quantum-mechanical law $`T_c(p_cp)^{1/2}`$ ref:salje  at lower, but still relatively high, temperatures. This is exactly the crossover that Ishidate et al. observed and which led them to attribute the occurrence of the orthorhombic and tetragonal phases at 0 K to the zero-point motion of the ions in the system. Our result clearly shows that such an interpretation is correct.

Figure 3 shows the calculated sequence of phase transitions along the 10 K isotherm. It is apparent that, in spite of the difficulties involved in our PI-QMC calculations, we are able to identify the phase transitions unambiguously. The calculated pressure range of stability of both the orthorhombic and tetragonal phases at low temperatures is around 1 GPa, while in Ref. ref:ish97  ranges of about 0.6 GPa are reported. Also, we obtain a value of approximately 6 GPa for the critical pressure $`p_c`$ at which ferroelectricity disappears, in rough agreement with the value of 6.5 GPa obtained by Ishidate et al. Of course, given the limitations of our method, this level of agreement may be partly fortuitous.

Discussion.— This quantum phase diagram can be rationalized in the following way. It is natural to assume that in BaTiO3 the lattice-dynamical fluctuations, either thermal or quantum mechanical in character, tend to favor the paraelectric cubic phase, followed respectively by the tetragonal, orthorhombic, and finally rhombohedral ferroelectric phases. On the other hand, we know from our first-principles calculations on BaTiO3 that the potential-energy preference follows just the reverse order (for any pressure $`p<p_c`$). We can thus view the phase transition sequence of this material along the zero-pressure isobar as the result of the competition between these two tendencies. Now let us turn to the case of the zero-temperature isotherm, in which no thermal fluctuations are present. At small pressures the rhombohedral phase is the ground state because the potential energy contribution dominates over the ion zero-point energy. However, as we compress the system, the potential-energy differences between the different phases of BaTiO3 decrease, as a direct consequence of the weakening of the ferroelectric instability, and thus the relative importance of the quantum-mechanical fluctuations grows accordingly. Hence the phase transition sequence can occur in a similar way along both the zero-pressure isobar and the zero-temperature isotherm.

Figure 4 shows the calculated polarization along the zero-pressure isobar, for both the classical and quantum cases. Classically the polarization reaches 0 K with a finite slope, while the slope is zero quantum mechanically. This is the expected quantum saturation of the order parameter that has been discussed by Salje et alref:salje  in the context of structural phase transitions. Following Ref. ref:salje , the quantum-saturation effects in BaTiO3 can be predicted to be significant up to several hundred Kelvin, such high temperatures being a consequence of the shallowness of the potential-energy wells associated with the ferroelectric instabilities of the system. Indeed, in the pressure range from about 3 GPa to about 6 GPa, this strong quantum saturation can be regarded as inhibiting additional phase transitions to lower potential-energy phases, thus allowing for the occurrence of orthorhombic and tetragonal ground states.

It is important to note that the classical and quantum phase diagrams depicted in Fig. 2 cannot be related by the approximate quantum-mechanical correction that is most common in the context of Landau theories of phase transitions ref:salje . As shown in Ref. ref:ini01 , the classical free-energy landscape of BaTiO3 at low temperatures is described by a fourth-order expansion in the polarization, sixth-order terms being identically zero at 0 K. On the other hand, some features of the quantum-mechanical phase diagram at low temperatures, e.g. the existence of an orthorhombic ground state, are strictly sixth-order in character. Since the usual quantum-mechanical correction of the classical Landau potential only involves a modified temperature dependence of the quadratic term ref:salje , it could never account for such features. Hence, the variety of accessible phases in BaTiO3 results in non-trivial quantum corrections and considerably hampers analytical treatment of the problem, costly numerical solutions being required.

In summary, we have made use of the first-principles effective-Hamiltonian method of Zhong et al. to study in detail the temperature-pressure phase diagram of BaTiO3. We have gone beyond the usual approach and considered the zero-point motion of the ions in our calculations by means of the path-integral quantum Monte Carlo method. We find that the quantum fluctuations make a dramatic difference with respect to the classical result. In the quantum-mechanical case, all the polar phases of the system (rhombohedral, orthorhombic, and tetragonal) survive down to 0 K, while at the classical level only the rhombohedral phase does. Our result is in essential agreement with the experimental work of Ishidate et al., thus giving strong support to the conclusions of these authors.

We thank G. A. Samara for helpful discussions at the inception of this project. This work greatly benefited from previous technical contributions of W. Zhong and A. García. The work was supported by ONR grant N0014-97-1-0048, and made use of computational facilities of the Center for Piezoelectrics by Design.


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# The lithium content of the globular cluster NGC 6397 Based on observations made with the ESO VLT-Kueyen telescope at the Paranal Observatory, Chile, in the course of the ESO-Large program 165.L-0263

## 1 Introduction

The lithium abundance in metal–poor turn-off stars appears as a plateau, independent of metallicity and effective temperature (Spite & Spite, 1982a, b), the so-called Spite plateau. Currently its most widely accepted interpretation is that the lithium observed in metal–poor stars has been produced in the big bang and is thus a probe of the universal baryonic density. Recent claims that the Spite plateau does not reflect the true primordial abundance which would be either lower, due to chemical evolution effects (Ryan et al., 1999), or higher due to Li depletion (Pinsonneault et al., 1999; Pinsonneault et al., 2002; Salaris, & Weiss, 2001; Thèado & Vauclair, 2001), deal with second order effects. The primordial Li abundance is within $`0.2`$ dex of the plateau value. Thus there is a general consensus that the bulk of lithium in metal–poor stars is of primordial origin. If this is the case we expect metal-poor stars, wherever in the universe, to show the same Li abundance. The present instrumentation is not capable of providing Li abundances of turn-off stars in nearby external galaxies, however Molaro (1997) suggested that extra-galactic Li has already been detected, at the plateau value, in the blue-metal-poor star CS 22873-139, possibly accreted from an external galaxy. In spite of this, our present knowledge rests on the study of Li abundances in different metal-poor populations of our own Galaxy. The most studied population is the metal–poor field halo (Spite & Spite, 1982b; Bonifacio & Molaro, 1997; Ryan et al., 1999, and references therein). Molaro, Bonifacio, & Pasquini (1997) have studied lithium in metal–poor thick disc candidates and found that they lie on the Spite plateau; two more thick disc stars lying on the plateau were noted by Romano et al. (1999).

Molaro & Pasquini (1994) and Pasquini & Molaro (1996) were the first to study Li in turn-off stars in NGC 6397 and found that it is consistent with the plateau. Recently Thévenin et al. (2001) published Li abundances for seven turn-off stars of NGC 6397, based on UVES data similar to our own, confirming the earlier results. Boesgaard and collaborators have studied lithium in the globular clusters M92 (Boesgaard et al., 1998), M13 and M71 (Boesgaard et al., 2000) using the 10m Keck telescope and found a sizeable scatter in Li abundances in all three clusters.

The globular cluster NGC 6397 is one of the nearest and best studied ones. It is one of the main targets of the ESO-Large Program 165.L-0263 which we are conducting with the aim of providing accurate abundances, reddenings and distances for globular clusters with a range of metallicities. In Gratton et al. (2001) we provided the abundances of several elements and reached the conclusion that NGC 6397 is a very homogeneous cluster, from the chemical point of view, down to the main-sequence stars. It is also quite metal–poor (\[Fe/H\]$`=2.03\pm 0.02`$). We deferred the study of Li abundances in turn-off stars to the present paper because we believe lithium deserves special care. From an observational point of view the Li I 670.8 nm resonant doublet, which is the only lithium line observed, is rather weak, asymmetric and difficult to measure accurately in faint objects. From the point of view of the analysis Li is extremely sensible to the adopted effective temperature, since it is mostly ionized (Li II $`>99.7`$%) in the atmospheres of solar-type stars and neutral lithium is only a trace species. Combining the data from Thévenin et al. (2001) with our own, the total number of turn-off stars of NGC 6397 observed at high resolution with a high S/N ratio is twelve. Such a large sample allows us to tackle the issue of the possible intrinsic dispersion of the Li content among turn-off stars in this cluster.

## 2 Observations

Our spectra were collected at ESO-Paranal with the UVES spectrograph (Dekker et al., 2000) at the Kueyen 8.2m telescope between June 15th 2000 and June 22nd 2000, and have already been described in Gratton et al. (2001); the log of the observations is given in Table 1, the DIMM seeing was noted, when available. While in Gratton et al. (2001) we have relied on the pipeline, in this paper we reduced all the spectra beginning from the raw data using the MIDAS echelle context. The purpose was both to check the accuracy of the pipeline reduction and to try to improve it, especially trying to get rid of the low frequency variations in the continuum, at the level of a few per-cent which were apparent in the pipeline data.

The stability of the UVES spectrograph proved to be remarkable: the flat-fields were perfectly reproducible from one night to the other, except for the night of the 22nd, for which a slight shift of the order positions of a couple of pixels appeared; the wavelength scale was also extremely stable, the largest peak-to-peak variation in the position of the arc lines observed on different nights was 0.005 nm. The FWHM of the arc lines in the region of the Li doublet was 0.015 nm, providing a resolution $`R45000`$.

In spite of our efforts we managed to obtain only a moderate increase of the S/N ratio, with respect to the pipeline data, showing that the quality of the pipeline data is very high and perfectly adequate for scientific analysis. In order to rectify the spectrum, removing the signature of the instrument response function, we used the flux standard Feige 67, which has been observed on June the 15th with the same spectrograph setting as the program stars, except for the slit width which was of $`10^{\prime \prime }`$. The flux data used to calibrate it, was that of Oke (1990) . The wavelength scale of the Oke data is uncertain by about 0.6 nm, we therefore arbitrarily shifted his data so that the position of H$`\alpha `$ coincided with that in our spectrum. The quality of this relative flux-calibration is of the order of a few percent. This was estimated by comparing the flux of Feige 66, observed on June 20th and calibrated with the response function derived from the observations of Feige 67, to the flux of Oke (1990). Another spectrum of Feige 66, observed on June 17th is almost identical to that of June 20th, after a suitable scaling. This gives us confidence that the instrumental response function is very stable and reproducible. We stress that the purpose of this calibration is only to rectify the spectrum and it is meant to be accurate in a relative, not absolute sense. The flux calibration was not entirely successful in removing the ondulation in the continuum; in the end we therefore applied a Fourier high-pass filter to remove it.

For each star we had four independent exposures which were independently calibrated, rectified and then coadded. The coadded spectrum was normalized around the Li doublet by fitting a spline through several continuum windows about 0.2 nm wide.

For the stars of Thévenin et al. (2001) the raw data and calibration frames were retrieved from the ESO-VLT archive and were reduced with exactly the same prescriptions as our own data. With respect to our own data we highlight the following differences of the Thévenin et al. (2001) data: 1) the CCD binning which was $`1\times 1`$; 2) the slit width was 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$1; 3) the central wavelength was 580 nm, which implies that the Li doublet falls on the MIT CCD; 4) there was no dichroic and observations were taken in the red arm only. The Thévenin et al. (2001) data has a slightly lower resolution and S/N, although a better sampling of the resolution element. The flux calibration was performed using the standard star LTT9239, observed on 05/06/2000 with the same instrument setup as the stars of NGC 6397. Like for our own data multiple spectra of the same star were coadded and normalized with a spline.

## 3 Equivalent widths measurements

In order to measure accurately the equivalent width of the Li doublet we used a least-squares minimization to determine the best fitting synthetic profile. Since the data has been rebinned to a constant wavelength step the theorems concerning the statistical properties of the $`\chi ^2`$ do not apply. Nevertheless $`\chi ^2`$ fitting may be used and the error conveniently estimated using Monte Carlo simulations (Bonifacio, in preparation).

To perform the minimization we used MINUIT (James, 1998) using as fitting parameters equivalent width, broadening (assuming a gaussian shape, which is appropriate for the UVES instrumental profile), wavelength shift and a multiplicative constant for continuum adjustment. To better constrain the continuum we included also two continuum stretches of 0.2 nm each to the blue and to the red of the line. The S/N ratio was estimated from the root mean square deviation in these continuum windows and is given in column (6) of Table 2 . The fitted profiles are shown in Figures 1 ,2 and 3 together with two bracketing synthetic profiles. The equivalent widths of the fitted profiles in units of pm ($`10^{12}`$m) are given in column (2) of Table 2. It is customary to use the Cayrel formula (Cayrel, 1988) to estimate the errors in equivalent widths. This formula assumes a gaussian line profile and depends on the full width at half-maximun of the line, on the pixel size (in wavelength units) and on the S/N ratio. Since the Li doublet profile is non-gaussian we performed a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the errors on equivalent widths. For each star we took its best fitting synthetic profile, added Poisson noise to obtain the observed S/N ratio and performed the fitting several hundreds times. The standard deviation of the fitted equivalent widths was then taken as the 1 $`\sigma `$ error on the measured equivalent width. The derived values are given in column (3) of Table 2, the estimates from the Cayrel formula are given in column (5). This shows that the Cayrel formula does provide a reasonable estimate of the error. We adopt the results of the Monte-Carlo simulations as error estimates. In column (4) of Table 2 we also provide the equivalent widths obtained by fitting a gaussian to the data (we used the iraf task splot). One may easily see that the two measures are consistent within errors. In fact at this resolution and S/N approximating the doublet with a single gaussian is acceptable.

## 4 Li Abundances

To determine the Li abundances we fitted the equivalent widths measured as described in the previous section to those computed with the SYNTHE code (Kurucz, 1993), as described in Bonifacio & Molaro (1997). The atmospheric parameters are the same adopted in Gratton et al. (2001), namely $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$= 6476 K ; log g = 4.10 and $`\xi `$ = 1.32 $`\mathrm{kms}^1`$and a metallicity of $`2.0`$ . An LTE model atmosphere with these parameters was computed with the ATLAS 9 code (Kurucz, 1993) using $`\alpha `$ enhanced opacity 111We note that at this low metallicity the differences between models with and without $`\alpha `$enhancement are negligible as shown e.g., by Gratton et al. (2000) distribution functions with a microturbulent velocity of 1 $`\mathrm{kms}^1`$ and with the overshooting option switched off. The results are given in column (7) of Table 2 . In column (8) of the Table we provide also the errors in Li abundance obtained by summing quadratically the errors arising from equivalent widths and from effective temperatures; as error in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ we assumed 90 K, as given in Gratton et al. (2001). For this effective temperature the correction for Li depletion predicted by the standard isochrones of Deliyannis et al. (1990) is zero. The correction for NLTE effects computed by Carlsson et al. (1994) is +0.01 dex.

Although the assumption that all the stars share the same temperature is acceptable to determine the metallicity and the general abundance pattern of the stars, it may prove to be somewhat crude to discuss the dispersion of Li abundances. In Gratton et al. (2001) we derived the effective temperature by fitting the mean H$`\alpha `$ profile, obtained by averaging all the spectra of the different stars, on the assumption that they share the same temperature. To derive temperatures for each star one could fit the individual H$`\alpha `$ profiles, however, the relatively poor S/N of the spectra would not allow to derive temperatures with an accuracy better than 150 K. Another possibility is to use $`(by)_0`$, but this is even worse: a difference of $`(by)_0`$ of 0.015 mag translates into a temperature difference of about 130 K. The photometric error alone is of this order of magnitude. Figure 4 shows quite clearly that there is no correlation between $`(by)`$ and Li equivalent width, which should be the case if $`(by)`$ is tightly correlated with temperature and the stars have more or less the same Li abundance. Instead our extensive photometry allows us to derive quite accurately the mean locus of the cluster isochrone. What is shown in Fig 5 is an average with outliers eliminated using an iterative clipping procedure.

It is clear that all the stars observed are slightly brighter than the turn-off where a tight one to one relation holds between V an $`by`$. Adopting the average reddening of $`E(by)=0.137`$, which we derived comparing colours and temperatures of cluster and field stars (Gratton et al., 2001), we may thus map V onto $`(by)_0`$ and hence temperature through comparison with the theoretical colors given by Kurucz (1993). These temperatures were corrected to be on the same scale as those from H$`\alpha `$, exactly as done for the field stars in Gratton et al. (2001). We recall that this temperature scale agrees quite well with the IRFM temperature scale (Alonso et al., 1996). We have applied this calibration to four field stars with neglegible reddening, colours similar to our TO stars and metallicities in the range $`2.2[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]1.8`$, and found a mean difference of 7 K between these temperatures and IRFM temperatures. With this calibration an error of 0.05 mag in V translates into an error in the range 20 – 70 K. These temperatures are given in column (9) of Table 2 and the errors deriving from an error 0.05 mag are given in column (10). This estimate is somewhat conservative for the photometric error alone, however if there is any variation of reddening, even at the level of 0.01 mag in $`E(BV)`$, this translates into differences of 0.03 mag in V. These temperature errors should be interpreted as ”internal errors”, thus appropriate to assess the issue of dispersion in Li abundances among the cluster stars. The ”external error” which takes into account the systematic error of our adopted temperature calibration is difficult to assess, since it may depend on many different sources, given that the calibration involves several different steps, each with its systematic error. However since we have shown we are on the same scale of Alonso et al. (1996) we may assume the error of this scale as systematic error. This amounts to 80 K in this temperature range.

The Li abundances derived assuming these temperatures are given in column (11) of table 2, and their associate errors in column (12). For these temperatures the correction for Li depletion predicted by the isochrones of Deliyannis et al. (1990) is zero for all but the two coolest stars, for which it is of the order of 0.01 dex. The NLTE corrections are also small and all of the order of +0.01 dex for all stars.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Observed dispersion of Li abundances

If we adopt the same temperature for all the stars of NGC 6397 the mean Li abundance is A(Li) = 2.39 222on the usual scale A(Li) = log \[N(Li)/N(H)\]+12, with a standard deviation of 0.07 dex, or A(Li) = 2.40, once NLTE effects are accounted for according to Carlsson et al. (1994). The question is whether such a scatter is consistent with the observational errors or if it is larger. The mean error is 0.074 dex, which intuitively suggests that there is no extra scatter. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of the null hypothesis that the data do not come from a normal distribution with mean 2.39 and standard deviation 0.074 gives a probability of $`0.32`$, thus rejecting the hypothesis. One could argue that the Kolmogorov-Smirnov cannot be applied here since the measures have different errors and therefore cannot have been drawn from the same parent distribution. We therefore test the hypothesis that the observed dispersion is simply due to the observational errors by a straightforward Monte Carlo simulation. We generate 1000 sets of 12 gaussian random numbers with mean 2.39 and standard deviation equal to the error estimate of each data point. For each realization of 12 “observations” we compute the standard deviation $`s`$. The mean value of $`s`$ over the sample is 0.073 with a standard deviation of 0.015. Hence the data is consistent with the notion that the stars share the same Li abundance, the dispersion being entirely due to observational error. The error on Li abundances is, in fact, largely dominated by the error in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. A spread in effective temperature of 120 K, neglecting any error in the measurement of equivalent widths, would provide a spread in Li abundances of 0.08 dex, slightly larger than the observed spread. This suggests that the error on the effective temperature is in fact 10 or 20 K larger than estimated in Gratton et al. (2001), which is not unreasonable. It is therefore likely that the stars do not share precisely the same effective temperature, as assumed in Gratton et al. (2001).

Let us therefore consider the sample with Li abundances derived assuming the temperatures from the $`VT_{eff}`$ calibration. It is apparent from the plot in Fig. 6 that there is very little scatter. In fact also the three stars observed with NTT by Pasquini & Molaro (1996) are totally consistent with the present data set, once we adopt the same temperature scale. The mean Li abundance is 2.32 with a standard deviation of 0.056 dex. To verify whether this is compatible with the estimated errors we resort again to a Monte Carlo simulation. The mean standard deviation of 1000 samples is 0.051 with a standard deviation of 0.011. Thus also with this temperature scale, in spite of the very small errors adopted for the temperatures there is no evidence of any intrinsic scatter. In fact we may use these results to place an upper limit on the maximum intrinsic scatter allowed. In order to be not detected at 1$`\sigma `$ the intrinsic scatter should have been such that, summed quadratically to the mean scatter provided by observational errors (estimated as 0.051 from the Monte Carlo simulation) it does not exceed this mean by more than 1$`\sigma `$ . Let $`\delta (\mathrm{Li})`$ be the intrinsic scatter produced by the Li depletion mechanism, one has $`\delta (\mathrm{Li})<\sqrt{0.062^20.051^2}0.035`$.

### 5.2 Comparison with previous results

Pinsonneault et al. (1999) reported unpublished results by Thorburn and collaborators which showed a significant dispersion of 0.3 – 0.5 dex in Li abundances in this cluster, based on spectra of about 20 stars, but since these results have not been published in any detailed form we cannot make any hypothesis on the reason for the discrepancy with the present results.

The difference between the Li abundances given here and those of Thévenin et al. (2001) lies only in the different effective temperatures adopted. Although Thévenin et al. (2001) do not give the Li equivalent widths we used their Li abundances and their effective temperatures to compute the equivalent widths of the Li doublet for their stars, and these were always within 0.2 pm of our measured equivalent widths, as expected. If we compare the colours for the two sets of stars, by estimating for the Thevenin et al stars $`(by)0.74(BV)`$, we find that, although the Thevenin et al stars are about 0.1–0.2 mag brighter, thus slightly more evolved and, on average, cooler, they span the same colour range as our stars. In Fig. 4 we show equivalent widths for our stars (filled symbols) and for those of the Thévenin et al. (2001) stars (open symbols) as a function of $`(by)`$. It is clear that the two sets of stars occupy the same area in this plane.

From Fig. 6 it is clear that our measures are in good agreement with those of Pasquini & Molaro (1996) and the difference in Li abundances is due to the different temperature scales adopted.

### 5.3 Comparison with field stars

Several halo field stars have been observed at twilight in the course of the program and their atmospheric parameters, determined as done for cluster stars are reported in Gratton et al. (2001). The effective temperatures are different from those of Gratton et al. (2001) due to the better straightening of the spectra achieved here thanks to the flux calibration. To compare the Li content of NGC 6397 with that of field stars we select only those with metallicity below \[Fe/H\]$`=1.5`$, which is roughly the value where Li abundances begin to rise off the Spite plateau, and effective temperature higher than 5700, which is roughly the value below which Li depletion due to convection becomes non-negligible. In Table 3 we give the equivalent widths of the Li doublet as measured from our spectra, the effective temperatures derived from the H$`\alpha `$ profiles and for reference, the effective temperatures of Fuhrmann et al. (1994), also based on Balmer lines, and of Alonso et al. (1996), based on the Infrared Flux Method (IRFM). The observed field stars are somewhat cooler than our cluster stars. As noted by Bonifacio & Molaro (1997) at temperatures below 6300 K, even the standard models of stellar evolution predict a slight Li depletion (Deliyannis et al., 1990). Thus to make a meaningful comparison we corrected the Li abundances for the depletion predicted by the isochrones of Deliyannis et al. (1990) and these corrected values are given in column (11) of Table 3: the corrections are small for all the stars. Also the correction for NLTE effects, albeit small, is temperature dependent (Carlsson et al., 1994) we thus corrected also for this effect and the corrected values are given in column (12) of Table 3. As described above we applied the same corrections also to the stars of NGC 6397.

The star HD 116064 has been noted to be a double-lined spectroscopic binary by Smith et al. (1998) and our spectrum does indeed confirm the duplicity. The veiling is unknown, however the star’s Li abundance is comparable with that of the other stars, suggesting that at these wavelengths it is neglegible. The mean A(Li) for the five field stars is 2.29 with a standard deviation of 0.058, in excellent agreement with the mean A(Li) $`=2.32`$ for the 12 TO stars of NGC 6397. If we consider the depletion corrected values, the mean Li abundance is 2.31 for the field stars and 2.32 for the NGC 6397 sample. When considering also the NLTE corrections it becomes 2.33 for the field stars and 2.34 for the cluster stars. We believe there is no need for any sophisticated statistical analysis to conclude that the Li abundance in NGC 6397 is the same as that of the field stars, within the stated errors, supporting the primordial origin of Li in these stars.

Preliminary results of the analysis of a high quality  sample of field stars with IRFM temperatures have been reported by Bonifacio (2001) and the current best estimate of the plateau Li abundance is $`2.317\pm (0.014)_{1\sigma }\pm (0.05)_{sys}`$. This value happens to be in perfect agreement with the values found here both for field stars and for NGC 6397 TO stars.

### 5.4 Evolutionary models and Li depletion

There is a long-standing debate concerning Li depletion on the Spite plateau. If Li depletion is possible, the pristine Li abundance is higher than the observed. As noted above, standard models of stellar evolution cannot account for any significant depletion in dwarf stars. Early attempts to compute more sophisticated models including diffusion (Michaud, Fontaine, & Beaudet, 1984) or rotation-induced turbulence (Vauclair, 1988) predicted large depletions333For the purpose of the present discussion we consider Li to be depleted, even if it is not destroyed, but simply removed from the observable layers of the stars. What is relevant is that the true Li abundance is higher than that deduced from the analysis of the spectrum. of up to a factor of 10. These models predicted a considerable scatter in the observed Li abundances and also other features, such as a slope of the plateau with effective temperature and metallicity, or an enhanced Li abundance among post-TO stars. All of these effects have been ruled out by the observations.

The situation on the theoretical side has dramatically changed in the last year: new sets of models seem to be able to produce a plateau with very little scatter. The rotationally mixed models of Pinsonneault et al. (2002), the diffusive models of Salaris, & Weiss (2001) and the models of Thèado & Vauclair (2001), which include rotational-mixing, diffusion and compositions gradients, are all capable of reproducing a plateau, with a very small intrinsic dispersion. It must be however noted, that large depletion factors are not any longer found, and the above papers predict primordial Li abundances in good agreement with the best current estimates of the baryonic density of the universe 444 Pinsonneault et al. (2002) derive A(Li) = 2.4, Salaris, & Weiss (2001) and Thèado & Vauclair (2001) derive A(Li) = 2.5. The intrinsic dispersions allowed for by the various depletion mechanisms, are somewhat larger than the maximum value of 0.035 dex derived above; it is unlikely, however, that this value can rule out any of them. A common feature of all models which predict Li depletion is the presence of a small number of “outliers”, i.e. stars with a Li abundance more than $`3\sigma `$ below the mean and such objects are indeed known to exist among field stars. It may therefore of some significance that out of 15 TO stars observed in NGC 6397 none appears to be significantly Li depleted. We mantain that there is no compelling evidence in favour of any of the proposed depletion mechanisms, although none can be ruled out. Economy of hypothesis suggests that standard models with no Li depletion should be preferred. In spite of this there are strong arguments in favour of the presence of both diffusion and rotational mixing, although, admittely, they come mostly from the study of the Pop I.

Helioseismic studies of the Sun imply that atomic diffusion is important (Guenther, Kim, & Demarque, 1996). Theoretical investigations show that it should be important also in metal-poor stars (Michaud, Fontaine, & Beaudet, 1984; Castellani et al., 1997; Salaris, & Weiss, 2001). Lebreton et al.. (1999) have shown that the H-R diagram of field stars with accurate parallaxes, in the metallicity range $`1.0+0.3`$, is best fitted when models which include diffusion are used. All diffusive models predict that surface lithium sinks below the bottom of the thin surface main sequence convection zone, thus becoming unobservable, i.e. depleted, in our parlance. Two features are predicted by diffusive models: excess dispersion and a downturn at the hot end of the plateau; both are in disagreement with the observations. To alleviate the problem it has been suggested that a modest mass-loss (Vauclair & Charbonnel, 1995; Swenson, 1995) may undo the sedimentation predicted by diffusion. These mass loss models, however, also predict a down-turn of Li abundances at the hot edge of the Spite plateau (Vauclair & Charbonnel, 1995) and a constant Li abundance among cooler sub-giants (Swenson, 1995), but none of these features is observed. Furthermore there is no observational evidence that such a mass-loss actually occurs. Recently Vauclair (1999) has proposed a model in which meridional circulation, in presence of a composition gradient, created by diffusion, could lead to a quasi-equilibrium stage in which diffusion and circulation are both inhibited. The detailed results for these model and the impact on the Spite plateau have been discussed by Thèado & Vauclair (2001). The predicted dispersion in the plateau is very small, however there persists a slight downturn at high temperatures and an increased dispersion. Similar results are found by Salaris, & Weiss (2001), using purely diffusive models (no rotational mixing and no composition gradients): a very uniform plateau, with a slight downturn, and excess dispersion at the hottest edge, above 6200 K (see their figures 7 and 8). This is exactly the region covered by our observations and no downturn or extra dispersion are observed. Admittedly our sample, of 12 stars only, is very small, and Salaris, & Weiss (2001) predict, based on their Monte Carlo simulations, that at least 40 – 50 stars at the hot end of the Spite plateau should be observed in order to detect the downturn. Such a number of stars shall be easily available in the near future, with the FLAMES instrument, but for the time being we conclude that our results for NGC 6397 do not support neither the models of Thèado & Vauclair (2001) nor those of Salaris, & Weiss (2001). The Li abundance in NGC 6397 is constant and is the same as that of field stars of much lower $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. Also the iron abundance of the TO stars (Gratton et al., 2001; Thévenin et al., 2001) is equal to that of sub-giant and giant stars (Gratton et al., 2001; Castilho et al.., 2000). Instead diffusive models predict the photospheric metallicity of a star to constantly decrease, due to diffusion, during its main sequence lifetime, reaching a minimum around the turn-off and then increasing back again to the original metallicity along the red giant branch (Castellani et al., 1997). The observational evidence presented here and in Gratton et al. (2001) is against any significant sedimentation due to diffusion in the stars of NGC 6397, both for Li and Fe.

The strongest evidences of the inadequcy of the standard models probably comes from the study of lithium in open clusters; among them, the presence of the Li dip first discovered in the Hyades (Boesgaard & Tripicco, 1987), the observed scatter in Li abundance among the solar type stars in the field and M67 (Pasquini, Liu, & Pallavicini, 1994; Pasquini, Randich, & Pallavicini, 1997), require that additional mixing mechanisms, besides convection, are at work. Rotational mixing models have the ingredients to reproduce several of the observed features, and, although they fail in the quantitative reproduction of the observations (see e.g. Randich, Pasquini, & Pallavicini (2000); Randich et al. (2002)), they are promising, expecially when considering stars with high masses and large rotational velocities such those around the Li dip. Open cluster data has been interpreted with models with different physical ingredients: Pasquini, Randich & Pallavicini (2001) used the Charbonnel & Talon (1999) models, which include both rotational mixing and diffusion, for the interpretation of the Li observations of the intermediate age cluster NGC 3680; Boesgaard & King (2002) used the Deliyannis & Pinsonneault (1997) models, which include only rotational mixing, for the interpretation of the Hyades Li and Be data. Therefore there is no “non standard” set of models which is prefered for the explanation of Li observations in Pop I stars. We point out that the Pop II stars are of much lower metallicity and mass. We therefore do not see any compelling argument for the use of “non standard” models, in the case of Pop II stars. The only observable prediction we could verify is that they predict the presence of some ‘’outlier” on a large sample; in a sample of 15 NGC 6397 turnoff stars we do not find any outlier, and this could be therefore taken as a mild indication against extra mixing predicted by “non standard” models. From an observational point of view we wish to add that Lucatello & Gratton (2002) showed that the projected rotational velocities of our stars are less than 1.7 $`\mathrm{kms}^1`$, which provides an additional constraint, to be incorporated in the comparison of theoretical and observational data.

### 5.5 Normal Li and enhanced N: a paradox ?

The subgiant stars of the cluster show very strong CN bands. The full analysis of this data shall be presented elsewhere, however preliminary results suggest a conspicuous N enhancement of the order of 1 dex or more. This suggests that the material has been processed through the CNO cycle. Since our current understanding of subgiant stars precludes any mixing to occur in the star itself one is forced to conclude that the star was either formed from, or polluted by, such processed material. One should therefore expect that the TO stars share the same characteristics, although the CN bands are too weak to be detected and no direct information on N abundance is available. Here lies the paradox: if the material of these stars has been processed at the high temperatures where the CNO cycle is operating, Li should have been destructed.

Such a paradox has been known to exist for many years for the N-rich metal-poor dwarfs, like HD 166913, studied also in this paper, which are Li - normal (Spite & Spite, 1986). In two of these stars Beveridge & Sneden (1994) have found the neutron capture elements to be moderately enhanced and concluded that the most likely source of N and neutron capture elements was material provided by a thermally pulsing AGB star. In the stars of NGC 6397, instead, \[Sr/Fe\]$`0.1`$, \[Ba/Fe\]$`0.2`$ and \[Eu/Fe\] $`0.4`$, as shall be discussed elsewhere. Beveridge & Sneden (1994) also argued that the N enhancement in halo dwarfs is unrelated to the phenomenon observed in N-, Na-, Al-rich, O-poor globular cluster giants, on the grounds that oxygen is not depleted in N-rich dwarfs. The abundance ratio of oxygen and magnesium to iron in this cluster is rather low $`+0.2`$. Both oxygen and magnesium deficiencies could be explained by presence of material processed through complete CNO cycle. We add that Al enrichment is very moderate or absent in N-rich dwarfs, at the level of \[Al/Fe\]$`0.2`$ at most (Beveridge & Sneden, 1994; François, 1986). Our TO stars in NGC 6397 show a similar low Al enhancement.

Our current understanding of N production require that it is synthetized in intermediate mass stars through CNO cyclying (Henry, Edmunds, & Köppen, 2000). However the simple picture by which Li is totally destroyed under these condition is not confirmed by recent computations. Ventura et al. (2001) studied the evolution of N and Li in metal-poor massive AGB stars, CNO processing at the bottom of the convective envelope overproduces nitrogen by $`1.5`$ dex; lithium is initialy produced by the Cameron-Fowler mechanism (Cameron & Fowler, 1971) and then destroyed, but a small amount of matter very Lithium rich is recycled to the interstellar medium. The net result is a reduction of $`0.6`$ dex for stars of metallicity comparable to that of NGC 6397. Note that a mass loss rate four times larger than the one assumed (which is within the uncertainty in the mass loss calibration) would leave the lithium essentially unaltered. Chieffi, Domínguez, Limongi, & Straniero (2001) have computed models for the evolution of zero metallicity stars. Such intermediate mass stars are capable of producing primary N and the most massive ones experience a normal AGB evolution, including thermal pulses and third dredge–up. What is interesting for us here, is that also in this case there is Li production via the Cameron-Fowler mechanism. We conclude that there are strong theoretical indications that at low metallicities N production is always accompanied by some Li production, so that Li is never totally depleted in the processed material. Mixing such material with material having the big bang lithium abundance would dilute nitrogen leaving it overabundant, but would not touch significantly lithium. Whether this is indeed a viable explanation depends very much on the precise degree of nitrogen enhancement. This may somehow alleviate the paradox, however some fine tuning is still needed in order to produce a Li abundance exactly at the level of the Spite plateau.

We are not here in a position to solve this puzzle, however we conclude this section by reasserting what we believe to be a sound observational fact: whichever the cause of these abundance anomalies, it cannot have altered significantly the Li content of the cluster stars.

## 6  Conclusions

The equivalent widths of the Li doublet of the 12 turn-off stars of NGC 6397 observed with VLT+UVES are consistent with the hypothesis that the stars all share the same Li abundance, the spread being entirely explained by observational error. The stars do not have exactly the same temperature but span a range of almost 300 K. We thus consider the chemical homogeneity of this cluster, which we found for iron abundances in Gratton et al. (2001), to be firmly established. Why a globular cluster like NGC 6397 should show a constant Li abundance, with essentially no intrinsic scatter, while M92, M71 and M13 show a scatter is puzzling. We note here however, that while M92 is a very metal–poor cluster, comparable to NGC 6397, both M71 and M13 are rather metal-rich. In fact more metal rich than \[Fe/H\]$`=1.5`$, which is roughly the metal-rich edge of the Spite plateau.

The constancy of Li abundances within the cluster has two important implications:

1. it poses a very stringent upper limit to the maximum intrinsic dispersion allowed for any proposed Li depletion mechanism, which must be less than 0.035 dex.
2. the good agreement between the mean Li abundance in the cluster and that obtained for the field stars suggests that this is in fact the primordial Li abundance.

The mean value of A(Li) in the cluster, based on 12 stars, including corrections for “standard” depletion and NLTE effects, is A(Li)$`=2.34`$ with a standard deviation of 0.056. This is a statistical error to which we must add the systematic error corresponding to 80 K in the temperature scale, which amounts to 0.06 dex in Li abundance. Taking this value as the estimate of the primordial Li abundance, we obtain two possible values for the baryon-to-photon ratio: $`n_b/n_\gamma =4.3\times 10^{10}`$ which, using the relation $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=3.66\times 10^3\times \eta \times 10^{10}`$, implies $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.016\pm 0.04`$, in good agreement with recent results from the abundance of D (D’Odorico, Dessauges-Zavadsky, & Molaro, 2001; Levshakov et al., 2002) and $`{}_{}{}^{3}\mathrm{He}`$ (Bania, Rood & Balser, 2002) and from the CMB fluctuation spectrum (de Bernardis et al., 2001); or $`n_b/n_\gamma =1.5\times 10^{10}`$ which implies a low baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.005_{0.0006}^{+0.0026}`$. In spite of the considerable error on the Li abundance, the error on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is dominated by the error on the theoretical predictions of nucleosynthesis.

The lithium content of NGC 6397 supports the primordial origin of lithium in metal-poor stars and the standard big-bang model without need for any new physics.

###### Acknowledgements.

Part of this work was done while PB was at the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon as a visitor. R. Cayrel and M. Spite are warmly thanked for many helpful discussions. This research was done with support from the italian MURST/MIUR COFIN2000 grants for the projects “Osservabili stellari di interesse cosmologico” (P.I. V. Castellani) and “Spettroscopia e studio dei processi fisici del Sole e delle stelle di tipo solare” (P.I. G. Peres)


text:
# The Cooling Neutron Star in 3C 58

## 1 Introduction

PSR J0205+6449, a pulsating X-ray source, was discovered by Murray et al. (murrayetal02 (2002)) in the supernova remnant 3C 58, which is most likely associated with the historical supernova SN 1181. It is thus one of the youngest neutron stars (NSs) observed. Recently, using Chandra observations Slane et al. (shm02 (2002)) inferred an upper limit on the effective surface temperature (redshifted for a distant observer): $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}<1.08`$ MK. They emphasized that this upper limit for a young NS is low, “suggesting the presence of some exotic cooling contribution in the interior”. In other words, it provides evidence for the powerful direct Urca process (Lattimer et al. lpph91 (1991)) in the NS inner core, or for similar processes of enhanced neutrino emission in pion-condensed, kaon-condensed, or quark core, as reviewed, e.g., by Pethick (pethick92 (1992)).

Here we analyze this intriguing possibility in more detail using recent results of the NS cooling theory (Kaminker et al. khy01 (2001); Yakovlev et al. 2001b ; Kaminker et al. kyg02 (2002), hereafter KYG; Yakovlev et al. ygkp02 (2002), hereafter YGKP) and taking into account the observational data on thermal emission of other isolated middle-aged NSs.

The observational basis is shown in Figs. 1 and 2. They display the upper limit of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ for PSR J0205+6449 with the age of SN 1181, and the observational values of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ for eight middle-aged isolated NSs, the same as in KYG and YGKP. They are: RX J0822–43, 1E 1207–52, and RX J0002+62 (radio-quiet NSs in supernova remnants); Vela, PSR 0656+14, Geminga, and PSR 1055–52 (observed as radiopulsars); and RX J1856–3754 (also a radio-quiet NS). We do not analyze the less likely possibility that the age of J0205+6449 is given by the pulsar dynamical age $`5400`$ yr, measured by Murray et al. (murrayetal02 (2002)); that case could be easier explained by the cooling theory. The values of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`t`$ for other sources are the same as in KYG and YGKP, with the only exception of the age of RX J1856–3754, $`t=5\times 10^5`$ yr, as revised recently by Walter & Lattimer (wl02 (2002)). Note also a too slow spindown rate of 1E 1207–52 measured by Pavlov et al. (pzst02 (2002)) which may cast doubts on the correct determination of the age of this NS.

## 2 Cooling theory

We confront the observational data with our simulations of NS cooling, using the recent cooling theory summarized in KYG and YGKP. For simplicity, we consider the models of NSs with the cores composed of neutrons, protons, and electrons (npe matter). We use the equation of state (EOS) in the NS core proposed by Prakash et al. (pal88 (1988)) (version I of the symmetry energy, with the compression modulus $`K=240`$ MeV of the saturated nuclear matter; it is denoted as EOS A in KYG and YGKP). The maximum NS mass for this EOS is $`M_{\mathrm{max}}=1.977`$ M (with the central density $`\rho _\mathrm{c}^{\mathrm{max}}=2.575\times 10^{15}`$ g cm-3). The adopted EOS opens direct Urca process in the NSs with masses $`M>M_\mathrm{D}=1.358`$ M and central densities above $`\rho _\mathrm{D}=7.851\times 10^{14}`$ g cm-3.

In our simulations, we take into account superfluidity of nucleons in the NS interiors. Superfluidity suppresses many neutrino emission processes (e.g., direct and modified Urca processes, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung) but opens a specific powerful mechanism of neutrino emission due to the Cooper pairing of nucleons (proposed by Flowers et al. frs76 (1976); see, e.g., Yakovlev et al. 2001a  for details), and also affects the heat capacity of matter. We include the singlet-state pairing of protons and the triplet-state pairing of neutrons in the NS cores but, for simplicity, we neglect the singlet-state pairing of neutrons in the NS crusts. The core superfluids are characterized by the density-dependent critical temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{cp}}(\rho )`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{cnt}}(\rho )`$ (Fig. 3). We use one model of strong proton superfluidity (model 1p described, e.g., in KYG), and two models of triplet-state neutron superfluidity (model 2nt of weak superfluidity and model 3nt of moderately strong superfluidity). The critical temperatures $`T_\mathrm{c}(\rho )`$ are parameterized by Eq. (1) in KYG. The parameters of model 1p are given in KYG; the parameters of models 2nt and 3nt are the same as for model 1nt in KYG, but the parameter $`T_0`$ is now equal to $`2\times 10^9`$ K and $`1.5\times 10^{10}`$ K, respectively. Our phenomenological superfluid models are consistent with the current microscopic models of nucleon superfluidity in NS cores (e.g., Lombardo & Schulze ls01 (2001)).

## 3 Theory and observations

Figures 1 and 2 compare the observational data with theoretical cooling curves, $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}(t)`$.

Adopting model 1p of proton superfluidity and model 2nt of neutron superfluidity we obtain (Fig. 1) a family of cooling curves for NSs with different masses $`M`$. Actually, superfluidity 2nt is rather weak and has almost no effect on NS cooling. The properties of such cooling models are discussed in KYG and YGKP. One can distinguish NSs of three types:
(I) Low-mass NSs, $`MM_\mathrm{I}`$, are very slowly cooling NSs where modified or direct Urca processes are strongly suppressed by proton superfluidity; their cooling curves are almost independent of NS mass and EOS.
(II) Medium-mass NSs, $`M_\mathrm{I}MM_{\mathrm{II}}`$, undergo moderately fast cooling via direct Urca process partly reduced by proton superfluidity; their cooling is very sensitive to NS mass, EOS, and $`T_{\mathrm{cp}}(\rho )`$ model.
(III) Massive NSs, $`MM_{\mathrm{II}}`$, show fast cooling via direct Urca process in the NS centers almost unaffected by proton superfluidity. At $`t10^5`$ yr, for our NS models, we have $`M_\mathrm{I}1.36`$ M and $`M_{\mathrm{II}}1.52`$ M. These values are easily varied by choosing other EOSs and proton superfluid models (KGY, YGKP).

The situation would be drastically different if we adopted neutron superfluidity 3nt instead of 2nt. We would get a number of cooling curves plotted in Fig. 2. As long as a NS is hot and its internal temperature is larger than the maximum of $`T_{\mathrm{cnt}}(\rho )`$, the neutron superfluidity is absent and the star cools as shown in Fig. 1. However, the appearance of a moderately strong neutron superfluidity induces powerful neutrino emission due to the Cooper pairing of neutrons, which leads to a very fast cooling. In low-mass NSs ($`MM_\mathrm{D}`$), where direct Urca process is forbidden, this fast cooling has nothing to do with direct Urca process. As seen from Fig. 2, one can easily explain the upper limit of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ for PSR J0205 by cooling of such a star. Moreover, by changing the maximum of $`T_{\mathrm{cn}}(\rho )`$, one can explain all relatively cool sources in Figs. 1 and 2 (including the coldest ones such as Vela and Geminga) by cooling of low-mass NSs with their own models of neutron superfluidity in the NS cores. In this way, it seems that the current observational data do not require direct Urca process (or similar processes in pion or kaon condensed matter, or in quark matter).

However, the main point is that NSs may have different masses, surface magnetic fields, etc., but they must have the same EOS and superfluid properties of their cores. Thus, all the sources should be explained by one set of models of $`T_{\mathrm{cn}}(\rho )`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{cp}}(\rho )`$. A natural explanation (KYG, YGKP) is to assume a weak neutron superfluidity in the NS cores (e.g., model 2nt, Fig. 1) and the presence of direct Urca process in massive NSs. If this is true, the two hottest sources for their ages, RX J0822 and PSR 1055, can be treated as low-mass NSs of type I, while 1E 1207, RX J002, Vela, PSR 0656, Geminga, and RX J1856 can be treated as medium-mass NSs of type II. This interpretation would be impossible without introducing the direct Urca process. Notice that the revised age of RX J1856 (Walter & Lattimer wl02 (2002)) changes its status from a type I NS (e.g., KYG) to a type II NS. If PSR J0205 has the surface temperature just below the inferred upper limit, it belongs to the family of type II NSs and requires direct Urca process in its core. The appropriate cooling curve (e.g., the $`M=1.42`$ M curve in Fig. 1) would lie above the cooling curves for Vela and Geminga which means that Vela and Geminga would be colder for their ages than PSR J0205. In other words, the well-known observational data on Vela and Geminga (e.g., Pavlov et al. pavlovetal01 (2001), Halpern & Wang hw97 (1997)) provide stronger arguments in favor of direct Urca process than the newly reported data on PSR J0205. Let us recall that our interpretation enables one to measure the masses of type II NSs for a fixed EOS and superfluid properties of NS interiors (see KYG and YGKP). In the above scenario (Fig. 1), the mass of PSR J0205 would be lower than the masses of Vela and Geminga.

## 4 Conclusions

We propose a theoretical interpretation of the upper limit on $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ of PSR J0205+6449 reported recently by Slane et al. (shm02 (2002)). Although our interpretation is based on the specific NS models with given EOS and superfluid properties of NS interiors, it is, in fact, quite generic. As discussed in KYG and YGKP, we could arrive to qualitatively similar conclusions by choosing other EOSs and density profiles of the superfluid critical temperatures. Let us emphasize that the current observational data are explained by cooling of NSs with the cores composed of neutrons, protons, and electrons, without invoking any exotic matter. Nucleon superfluidity in NS cores is a widely accepted phenomenon; pairing of nucleons in atomic nuclei is proved experimentally. On the contrary, exotic phases of matter (pion and kaon condensates, quark matter) remain undetected. It is therefore comfortable to find that the npe matter with superfluid nucleons, which can be treated as a minimal model of NS cores, is sufficient to explain the present observations of cooling NSs.

Our main conclusion is that the detected upper limit of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$, by itself, does not indicate that direct Urca process or similar processes of strong neutrino emission operate in the NS core. Combined with the observational data for other isolated middle-aged NSs, it gives some evidence for the direct Urca process, although less stringent than the evidence provided by the Vela and Geminga pulsars.

Future observations of PSR J0205+6449 would be extremely important. If the temperature $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ appears to be lower than 0.8 MK, it would mean (in the frame of our interpretation) that PSR J0205+6449 is indeed the coldest observed NS. It would then provide the strongest argument that direct Urca process is open in the NS cores. Were the detected temperature or the upper limit be around 0.3 MK, this would be a strong indication that PSR J0205+6449 is a rapidly cooling massive NS of type III (no NS of such type has been observed so far). The values of $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ below 0.15 MK (the lowest $`T_\mathrm{s}^{\mathrm{}}`$ given by the maximum-mass model) for PSR J0205+6449 could not be explained by the proposed theory.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to the referee, Dany Page, for a useful suggestion that improved the presentation of figures. The work was partly supported by RFBR grants No. 02-02-17668 and 00-07-90183, and KBN grant No. 5P03D.020.20.


text:
# Accelerated expansion of the universe driven by tachyonic matter

## I 1. Introduction

The stress tensor $`T_b^a`$ for any source term in a Friedmann universe, described by an expansion factor $`a(t)`$, must have the form $`T_b^a(t)=\mathrm{dia}[\rho (t),p(t),p(t),p(t)]`$. Given an equation of state which specifies $`p`$ as a function of $`\rho `$, we will be left with two degrees of freedom $`a(t)`$ and $`\rho (t)`$ which can be determined by two independent Einstein’s equations for the Friedmann model. The situation, however, is slightly different if the source is described by an “adjustable function” as in the case of scalar fields. If, for example, the source is described by a scalar field with a Lagrangian $`=(1/2)_a\varphi ^a\varphi V(\varphi )`$, then it is possible to choose $`V(\varphi )`$ in order to have a specific evolution for the universe. Given any $`a(t)`$ it is always possible to obtain a $`V(\varphi )`$ such that it results in a consistent cosmological evolution. In fact, this can be achieved even in the presence of other energy densities in the universe (like matter, radiation etc.) in addition to the scalar field. This should not be surprising, since the existence of a free function $`V(\varphi )`$ allows a trade off with another function $`a(t)`$.

Recently, it has been suggested that asen  the tachyonic condensate in a class of string theories can be described by an effective scalar field with a Lagrangian of the form $`=V(\varphi )[1_a\varphi ^a\varphi ]^{1/2}`$. The evolution of this condensate can have cosmological significance which may be worth exploring gibb . Since this Lagrangian also has a potential function $`V(\varphi )`$, it seems reasonable to expect that any form of cosmological evolution (that is, any $`a(t)`$) can be obtained with the tachyonic field as the source by choosing $`V(\varphi )`$ “suitably”. It turns out that this is indeed true.

I will outline a recipe for constructing $`V(\varphi )`$ given a particular form of evolution for the universe $`a(t)`$ in the two cases (normal scalar field and tachyonic field) mentioned above. The first case corresponds to quintessence/dark energy models and has been a favourite pastime of the cosmologists in the last several years \[for a sample of references, see varun \]. In this case, there is very little (independent) constraint on $`V(\varphi )`$ and hence it is not possible to evaluate the relative merits of different choices for $`V(\varphi )`$. In the case of tachyonic scalar field, there are some constraints on the form of $`V(\varphi )`$, especially on the asymptotic behaviour, which could rule out certain class of cosmological models. It is nevertheless possible to construct several interesting models satisfying the asymptotic constraints on $`V(\varphi )`$. In particular, it may be possible to have a rapidly accelerated phase of expansion for the universe at late times which seems to have some observational support.

## II 2. Recipe for the scalar field potential

Consider a $`k=0`$ universe with a normal scalar field having a potential $`V(\varphi )`$ as the source. We assume that the evolution of the universe is already specified so that $`a(t)`$, $`H(t)(\dot{a}/a)`$ … etc. are known functions of time and we need to determine $`V(\varphi )`$ such that Friedmann equations

$$\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2=\frac{8\pi G}{3}\rho ;\left(\frac{\ddot{a}}{a}\right)=\frac{4\pi G}{3}(\rho +3p)$$
(1)
as well as the equation of motion for the scalar field

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }=\frac{dV}{d\varphi }$$
(2)
are satisfied. (Of course, only two of these three equations are independent when the universe is driven by a single source.) In a Friedmann universe, $`\varphi (t,𝐱)=\varphi (t)`$ and the energy density and pressure of the scalar field is given by

$$\rho _\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi );P_\varphi =\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2V(\varphi )$$
(3)
It is convenient to define a time dependent parameter $`w(t)`$ by the relation $`w(t)P_\varphi (t)/\rho _\varphi (t)`$. The equation of motion for the scalar field, written in the form $`d(\rho a^3)=w\rho d(a^3)`$ can be integrated to give $`(\dot{\rho }_\varphi /\rho _\varphi )=3H(1+w)`$. The Friedmann equation, on the other hand, gives $`\rho _\varphi H^2`$ so that $`(\dot{\rho }_\varphi /\rho _\varphi )=2(\dot{H}/H)`$. Combining the two relations we get

$$1+w(t)=\frac{2}{3}\frac{\dot{H}}{H^2}$$
(4)
thereby determining $`w(t)`$. (Note that we have not used the specific form of the source so far; so, this equation will be satisfied by any source in a FRW model.) From the definition of $`w`$ and (3), it follows that $`\dot{\varphi }^2/2V=(1+w)(1w)^1f(t)`$, say. Writing this as $`\dot{\varphi }^2=2fV`$, differentiating with respect to time and using (2) we find that

$$\frac{\dot{V}}{V}=\frac{\dot{f}+6Hf}{1+f}$$
(5)
Integrating this equation and using the definition of $`f(t)`$ and equation (4) we get

$$V(t)=\frac{3H^2}{8\pi G}\left[1+\frac{\dot{H}}{3H^2}\right]$$
(6)
Substituting back in the relation $`\dot{\varphi }^2=2fV`$, we can determine $`\varphi (t)`$ to be

$$\varphi (t)=𝑑t\left[\frac{\dot{H}}{4\pi G}\right]^{1/2}$$
(7)
Equations (6) and (7) completely solve the problem of finding a potential $`V(\varphi )`$ which will lead to a given $`a(t)`$. These equations determine $`\varphi (t)`$ and $`V(t)`$ in terms of $`a(t)`$ thereby implicitly determining $`V(\varphi )`$.

In fact, the same method works even when matter other than scalar field with some known energy density $`\rho _{\mathrm{known}}(t)`$ present in the universe. In this case, equations (6) and (7) generalizes to

$$V(t)=\frac{1}{16\pi G}H(1Q)\left[6H+\frac{2\dot{H}}{H}\frac{\dot{Q}}{1Q}\right]$$
(8)
$$\varphi (t)=𝑑t\left[\frac{H(1Q)}{8\pi G}\right]^{1/2}\left[\frac{\dot{Q}}{1Q}\frac{2\dot{H}}{H}\right]^{1/2}$$
(9)
where $`Q(t)[8\pi G\rho _{\mathrm{known}}(t)/3H^2(t)]`$.

As an example of using (6) and (7), let us consider a universe in which $`a(t)=a_0t^n`$. Elementary algebra now gives the potential to be of the form

$$V(\varphi )=V_0\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{\frac{2}{n}}\frac{\varphi }{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\right)$$
(10)
where $`V_0`$ and $`n`$ are constants and $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2=1/8\pi G`$. The corresponding evolution of $`\varphi (t)`$ is given by

$$\frac{\varphi (t)}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}=\sqrt{2n}\mathrm{ln}\left(\sqrt{\frac{V_0}{n(3n1)}}\frac{t}{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\right)$$
(11)
As a second example, consider an evolution of the form

$$a(t)\mathrm{exp}(\alpha t^f),f=\frac{\beta }{4+\beta },0<f<1,\alpha >0$$
(12)
In this case, we can determine the potential to be

$$V(\varphi )\left(\frac{\varphi }{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}}\right)^\beta \left(1\frac{\beta ^2}{6}\frac{M_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}{\varphi ^2}\right)$$
(13)
where $`\beta `$ is a constant. The two potentials described above have been used extensively in inflationary models.

In fact, virtually all other potentials used in quintessence/dark energy models for the universe can be obtained by the recipe given above. Since one seldom worries seriously about the microscopic origin of $`V(\varphi )`$ in these models, it may be mathematically more convenient to choose one’s favourite cosmological evolution in terms of $`a(t)`$ and then construct $`V(\varphi )`$ and study its properties.

## III 3. Recipe for tachyonic potential

Consider next a universe with a given $`a(t)`$ and a tachyonic source with the Lagrangian $`=V(\varphi )[1_a\varphi ^a\varphi ]^{1/2}`$. When $`\varphi =\varphi (t)`$, the energy density and pressure are given by

$$\rho =\frac{V(\varphi )}{\sqrt{1\dot{\varphi }^2}};p=V\sqrt{1\dot{\varphi }^2}$$
(14)
In this case, the “reverse engineering” to determine $`V(\varphi )`$ from $`a(t)`$ is almost trivial. For any source with a parameter $`w(t)`$, we must have

$$\frac{\dot{\rho }}{\rho }=3H(t)(1+w)=\frac{2\dot{H}}{H}$$
(15)
leading to (4). On the other hand, for the tachyonic model, $`p(t)/\rho (t)w(t)=\dot{\varphi }^21`$. Combining these, we can determine $`\dot{\varphi }^2=(2/3)(\dot{H}/H^2)=(2/3)(dH^1/dt)`$ in terms of $`H`$ and obtain

$$\varphi (t)=𝑑t\left(\frac{2}{3}\frac{\dot{H}}{H^2}\right)^{1/2}$$
(16)
Multiplying the two equations in (14) and using (4) and the Friedman equation, we get

$$V=(w)^{1/2}\rho =\frac{3H^2}{8\pi G}\left(1+\frac{2}{3}\frac{\dot{H}}{H^2}\right)^{1/2}$$
(17)
Equations (16) and (17) completely solve the problem. Given any $`a(t)`$, these equations determine $`V(t)`$ and $`\varphi (t)`$ and thus the potential $`V(\varphi )`$. Equation (16) also implies that $`\dot{H}<0`$ for these models.

Note the similarity between the forms of $`V(\varphi )`$ in (17) and (6). The fact that both tachyonic and normal scalar field potentials can be used to drive the expansion of the universe, suggests that — as far as cosmological evolution is concerned — there exists a mapping between the two potentials directly. For example, we found that an exponentially decaying potential for the normal scalar field leads to power law growth for $`a(t)`$. I will now show that a tachyonic potential of the form $`V(\varphi )\varphi ^2`$ will lead to the same kind of cosmological evolution.

Consider a universe with power law expansion $`a=t^n`$. In this case, $`(\dot{H}/H^2)`$ in equation (16) is a constant making $`\dot{\varphi }`$ a constant. The complete solution is given by

$$\varphi (t)=\left(\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}t+\varphi _0;V(t)=\frac{3n^2}{8\pi G}\left(1\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}\frac{1}{t^2}$$
(18)
where $`n>(2/3)`$. \[I will comment on the $`n=(2/3)`$ case later on.\] Combining the two, we find the potential to be

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{n}{4\pi G}\left(1\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}(\varphi \varphi _0)^2$$
(19)
For such a potential, it is possible to have arbitrarily rapid expansion with large $`n`$. \[It is also possible to reproduce the evolution in (12) by a more complicated choice of the potential, of the form $`V\varphi ^x(1+c_1\varphi ^y)^{1/2}`$. The reverse-engineering procedure is exactly the same\].\]

If $`\varphi _a\varphi ^a1`$ the tachyonic Lagrangian can be approximated by the form

$$=V(\varphi )[1_a\varphi ^a\varphi ]^{1/2}\frac{1}{2}\psi _a\psi ^aU(\psi )$$
(20)
with

$$\psi =\sqrt{V(\varphi )}𝑑\varphi ;U(\psi )=V[\varphi (\psi )]$$
(21)
In our case, $`V(\varphi )=A/\varphi ^2`$ (say), giving $`\psi =\sqrt{A}\mathrm{ln}\varphi `$ and $`U(\psi )\mathrm{exp}(2\psi /\sqrt{A})`$. Curiously, this has the same form of the potential we found in (10) for a normal scalar field to produce the $`a=t^n`$ evolution though the coefficient of $`\psi `$ matches with that in (10) only when $`n1`$. In this limit, the mapping in (20) becomes increasingly accurate.

The potential in (19) has the reasonable behaviour of $`V0`$ as $`\varphi \mathrm{}`$ though its form for small and intermediate values of $`\varphi `$ is not supported by string theory. It is however possible to show that the asymptotic form of the evolution is still given by the solutions found above. To see this, assume that the late time behaviour of $`\varphi `$ is given by

$$\varphi (t)=\left(\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}t+Be^{Ct}=\left(\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}t+𝒪(e^{Ct})$$
(22)
where $`n,B,C`$ are constants with $`(2/3)n`$. This implies that we take $`\varphi (t)`$ to grow proportional to $`t`$ asymptotically with exponentially small corrections. In this case, it is possible to repeat the above analysis and show that asymptotically (at late times), we have the following behaviour:

$$a(t)t^n\mathrm{exp}\left[𝒪(\frac{e^{Ct}}{t})\right]$$
(23)
and

$$V(\varphi )\frac{n}{4\pi G}\left(1\frac{2}{3n}\right)^{1/2}\frac{1}{\varphi ^2}[1+𝒪(\frac{e^{Ct}}{t})]$$
(24)
The asymptotic form for $`a(t)`$ is essentially a power law found before with exponentially small corrections. The time scale for the validity of asymptotic solution is determined by $`(1/C)`$ which is a parameter that can be fixed independent of $`n`$. This will allow one to ignore exponentially subdominant terms even when large values of $`n`$ are invoked.

This analysis assumes that the asymptotic “velocity” of the scalar field is given by $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=(2/3n)^{1/2}`$ if the expansion of the universe at late times is given by $`a(t)=t^n`$. This, in turn, requires the tachyonic potential $`V(\varphi )`$ to have the asymptotic form $`A/\varphi ^2`$ without any restriction on $`A`$. To have accelerated expansion, we must have reasonably large $`n`$ requiring $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})`$ to be sufficiently less than unity — which is possible if $`A`$ is non zero and arbitrary.

The situation is different if there are string theoretic reasons to expect $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=1`$ asymptotically. Since equation (16) can be equivalently written as

$$H^1(t)=\frac{3}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2𝑑t$$
(25)
$`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=1`$ asymptotically will imply $`a(t)t^{2/3}`$. Then we must have $`n=(2/3)`$ which is just a dust dominated, zero pressure, expansion law. The cosmological implications are very different depending on whether string theory requires the condition $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=1`$ asymptotically or not. Let me discuss the different possibilities briefly.

If it is possible to have $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})1`$ asymptotically, then an attractive scenario emerges in which the tachyonic condensate could be driving the acceleration of the universe and mimicking the cosmological constant. In this case, one is interpreting the asymptotic evolution to be applicable during the current phase of the universe, in the range of redshifts, say, $`0<z<3`$. In a realistic model, one may need to worry about the timescales in string theory (presumably $`t_{\mathrm{Planck}}`$) vis-a-vis the cosmological timescale. But this issue will arise in any attempt to use the tachyonic condensate in the late phases in the evolution of the universe, like — for example — as some kind of dark matter.

An easy way out is to use the solutions in the early universe. The solutions I have obtained, of course, could also be used to provide a power law inflation in the very early universe if $`t\mathrm{}`$ is interpreted merely as $`tt_{\mathrm{Planck}}`$. It may be easier to have non vanishing pressure for the tachyonic condensate for $`tt_{\mathrm{Planck}}`$ than during the current epochs of the universe. (I think it would be nicer if string theory could provide an effective cosmological constant at the current epoch — which has some observational support — rather than merely provide yet another inflaton field. But the procedure outlined here can be used to construct a wide class of inflationary solutions as well.)

If, on the other hand, string theory demands $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=1`$ asymptotically, then $`V0`$ asymptotically in such a manner as to give finite $`\rho `$ and zero pressure. The tachyonic condensate can then contribute, say, $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.7`$ in the universe and — together with clustered normal matter contributing $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.3`$ — can lead to a $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ universe. Such a model is an extreme form of mixed dark matter model with a very smoothly distributed component at large scales. It is possible that the model is consistent with CMBR and galaxy clustering data but will contradict the supernova data if it is interpreted as indicating $`\ddot{a}>0`$ in the recent past. (Because $`\ddot{a}<0`$ when $`n<1`$, this model will not be accelerating.) Given the observational uncertainties, it may still be worth studying the consequences of such a model.

Even in this case \[with $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{})=1`$ asymptotically\], it may be possible to provide an accelerated expansion for the universe in the recent past if one considers more complicated potentials. For example, one can arrange matters such that $`n1`$ in the redshift range of $`3>z>0`$, say, with the asymptotic regime of $`n=(2/3)`$ coming into effect only in the future. The procedure developed in this paper can be used to obtain suitable $`V(\varphi )`$ which will ensure such a scenario.

All these emphasize the need to understand the constraints on $`V(\varphi )`$ from string theory.

I thank Ashoke Sen for useful discussions.