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# Untitled Document

TO QUANTIZE OR NOT TO QUANTIZE GRAVITY ?

AFSAR ABBAS

Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar-751005, India

(e-mail : afsar@iopb.res.in)

Abstract

It is shown here that the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics supports the view that gravity need not be quantized. It is shown that the SM gives a consistent description of the origin of the universe. It is guggested that the universe came into existence when the SM symmetry was broken spontaneously. This brings out a complete and consistent model of the physical universe in the framework of a ”semiclassical quantum gravity” theory.

To quantize or not to quantize gravity, is one of the outstanding questions facing physics today. Though there is still no compelling empirical evidence supporting quantization, the current theoretical prejudice is strongly in favour of the latter possibilty. Here it shall however be shown that the most succesful model of particle physics, the so-called Standard Model ( SM ), supports the former view and infact gives a consistent and complete basis for the ” semiclassical quantum gravity ” idea of Rosenfeld .

As the universe expands, it is predicted that it undergoes a series of phase transitions  during which the appropriate symmetry breakes down in various stages until it reaches the stage of the SM symmetry $`SU(3)_c`$ $``$ $`SU(2)_L`$ $``$ $`U(1)_Y`$. After $`t10^{10}`$ seconds ( at $`T10^2`$ GeV ) the SM phase transition to $`SU(3)_c`$ $``$ $`U(1)_{em}`$ through the Higgs Mechanism takes place.

The SM has been well studied in the laboratory. It is the best tested model of particle physics . It was however believed earlier that a weaknesses of the SM was that the electric charge was not quantized in it. However, it was as late as 1990 that this was shown to be wrong. Against all expectations, the electric charge was shown to be fully and consistently quantized in the SM .

It was shown by the author  that in SM $`SU(N_C)SU(2)_L\times U(1)_Y`$ for $`N_C=3`$, spontaneous symmetry breaking by a Higgs isospin doublet of weak hypercharge $`Y_\varphi `$, the isospin -1/2 component develops the vacuum expectation value $`<\varphi >_0`$. This fixes ‘b’ in the electric charge definition $`Q=T_3+bY`$ to give

$$Q=T_3+\frac{1}{2Y_\varphi }Y$$
(1)
where Y is the hypercharge for doublets and singlets for a single generation. For each generation renormalizability through triangular anomaly cancellation and the requirement of the identity of L- and R-handed charges in $`U(1)_{em}`$ one finds that all unknown hypercharges are proportional to $`Y_\varphi `$. Hence correct charges (for $`N_C=3`$ ) fall through as below \[4-8\]

$`Q(u)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_C}})`$ (2)
$`Q(d)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N_C}})`$ (3)
$`Q(e)=1`$ (4)
$`Q(\nu )=0`$ (5)
Hence the electric charge is quantized in SM. The complete structure of the SM as is, is required to obtain this result on very general grounds.

Clearly the $`U(1)_{em}`$ symmetry which arose due to spontaneous symmetry breaking due to a Higgs doublet in the SM symmetry will be lost above $`T_c^{SM}`$ whence $`SU(2)_L`$ $``$ $`U(1)_{em}`$ symmetry would be restored. As is obvious, above $`T_c^{SM}`$ all the fermions and gauge bosons becomes massless. Here I point out a new phenomenon arising from the restoring of the full SM symmetry .

Note that to start with the parameter b and Y in the definition of electric charge were completely unknown. We could lay a handle on ’b’ entirely on the basis of the presence of spontaneous symmetry breaking and on ensuring that photon was massless $`b=\frac{1}{2Y_\varphi }`$. Above $`T_c^{SM}`$ where the SM symmetry is restored there is no spontaneous symmetry breaking and hence the parameter b is completely undetermined. Together ’bY’ could be any arbitrary number whatsoever even an irrational number. Within the framework of this model above $`T_c^{SM}`$ we just cannot define electric charges at all. Hence the electric charge loses any physical meaning all together. There is no such thing as charge anymore. The photon (which was a linear combination of $`W^0`$ and $`B_\mu `$ after spontaneous symmetry breaking ), with it’s defining vector characterteristic, does not exist either. So the conclusion is that there is no electrodynamics above $`T_c^{SM}`$. Maxwells equations of electrodynamics show that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon. Hence above the SM phase transition there was no light and no Maxwells equations. And surprisingly we are led to conclude that there was no velocity of light c as well. One knows that the velocity of light c is given as

$$c^2=\frac{1}{ϵ_0\mu _0}$$
(6)
where $`ϵ_0`$ and $`\mu _0`$ are permittivity and permeability of the free space. These electromagnetic properties disappear along with the electric charge and hence the velocity of light also disappears above the SM phase transition.

The premise on which the theory of relativity is based is that c, the velocity of light is always the same, no matter from which frame of reference it is measured. Of fundamental significance is the invariant interval

$$s^2=(ct)^2x^2y^2z^2$$
(7)
Here the constant c provides us with a means of defining time in terms of spatial separation and vice versa through l = c t. this enables one to visualize time as the fourth dimension. Hence time gets defined due to the constant c. Therefore when there were no c as in the early universe ,there was no time as well. As the special theory of relativity depends upon c and time, above the SM breaking scale there was no special theory of relativity. As the General Theory of relativity also requires the concept of a physical space-time, it collapses too above the SM breaking scale. Hence the whole physical universe collapses above this scale.

Therefore it was hypothesized that the Universe came into existence when the SM symmetry was broken spontaneously . Before it there was no ’time’, no ’light’, no maximum velocity like ’c’, no gravity or space-time structure on which objective physical laws as we know it could exist .

In short we find that the SM of particle physics is not only good to explain all known facts, it is also capable of giving a natural and consistent description of the origin of the Universe .

So matter (which is quantizd) and the space-time ( and so gravity ) are bound together holistically. In this picture one cannot talk of matter without spacetime and neither can we talk of space-time without matter. They are two sides of the same coin and hence the Einstein’s equation as per the SM should read as follows:

$$G_{\mu \nu }=8\pi G\varphi |T_{\mu \nu }|\varphi $$
(8)
This is the ” semiclassical quantum gravity ” approach of Rosenfeld . However here $`\varphi `$ represents the complete matter degrees of freedom incorporated in the SM in terms of the three generations of matter particles plus the gauge particle of the SM ( no other spurious model is needed  ). Gravity, a property of the spacetime arises as a result of the quantum mechanical SM phase transtion and is not quantized. Hence as per the SM origin of the universe scenario presented here we get a complete and consistent picture of the origin and the existence of space-time and matter. The two are inseparably connected.

It seems that the reason that inspite of rigourous efforts we have not seen graviton so far is because as shown here it does not exist. This need not shock some modern adherents of quantization of gravity as many a scientists have been warning against an urge to quantize gravity. Long ago Rosenfeld  had pointed out that empirical evidence and not logic forces us to quantize fields. He said that in the absence of such evidence the temptation to quantize fields must be resisted . Indeed this is what the SM of particle physics is telling us. And this is within the framework of the most successful model of particle physics. Not only can the SM of particle physics provide a good description of all known particles, it also has the capacity to give a consistent picture of the origin of the universe and also of settling the issue of whether to quantize gravity or not.

REFERENCES  m

1. L. Rosenfeld, Nucl. Phys. , 40 (1963) 353

2. E. W. Kolb and M. S. Turner, ” The Early Universe ” Edison Wesley, New York ( 1990 )

3. T. P. Cheng and L. F. Lee, ” Gauge Theory of Elementary Particle Physics ”, Clarendon Press, Oxford ( 1988 )

4. A. Abbas, Phys. Lett. , B 238 ( 1990) 344

5. A. Abbas, J. Phys. G. , 16  ( 1990 ) L163

6. A. Abbas, Nuovo Cimento , A 106 ( 1993 ) 985

7. A. Abbas, Hadronic J., 15 ( 1992 ) 475

8. A. Abbas, Ind. J. Phys., A 67 ( 1993 ) 541

9. A. Abbas, Physics Today  ( July 1999 ) p.81-82

10. A. Abbas, ‘On standard model Higgs and superstring theories’ ”Particles, Strings and Cosmology PASCOS99”, Ed K Cheung, J F Gunion and S Mrenna, World Scientific, Singapore ( 2000) 123

11. A. Abbas, ” On the Origin of the Universe ”, Spacetime & Substance, Int Phys Journal, 2 (7) ( 2001 ) 49 ; Website: spacetime.narod.ru/2-7-2001.html


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# An Alternative to Inflation

## Abstract

Inflationary models are generally credited with explaining the large scale homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe as well as accounting for the origin of structure (i.e, the deviations from exact homogeneity) in our universe. We argue that the explanations provided by inflation for the homogeneity, isotropy, and flatness of our universe are not satisfactory, and that a proper explanation of these features will require a much deeper understanding of the initial state of our universe. On the other hand, inflationary models are spectacularly successful in providing an explanation of the deviations from homogeneity. We point out here that the fundamental mechanism responsible for providing deviations from homogeneity—namely, the evolutionary behavior of quantum modes with wavelength larger than the Hubble radius—will operate whether or not inflation itself occurs. However, if inflation did not occur, one must directly confront the issue of the initial state of modes whose wavelength was larger than the Hubble radius at the time at which they were “born”. Under some simple hypotheses concerning the “birth time” and initial state of these modes (but without any “fine tuning”), it is shown that non-inflationary fluid models in the extremely early universe would result in the same density perturbation spectrum and amplitude as inflationary models, although there would be no “slow roll” enhancement of the scalar modes.

Issues concerning the origin of the universe and the origin of structure in the universe are among the deepest and most fundamental in science. In the absence of any theory of quantum gravity presently capable of giving a local description of phenomena at or very near the origin of the universe, it is difficult to know what questions would be most fruitful to ask, and one cannot expect more than partial answers to any questions that can be asked. Nevertheless, there is much potentially to be gained by seeking to ask and answer fundamental questions concerning the nature of the universe.

Among the most frequently posed fundamental questions are:

(1) Why is the universe so nearly homogeneous and isotropic on large scales, i.e., why is it so well described by a metric with Robertson-Walker symmetry?

(2) Why is the spatial curvature of the universe so nearly zero (and perhaps exactly zero); equivalently (assuming Einstein’s equation), why is the evolution timescale for our universe so much greater than the fundamental timescales appearing in particle physics?

An image that seems to underlie the posing of these questions is that of a blindfolded Creator throwing a dart towards a board of initial conditions for the universe. It is then quite puzzling how the dart managed to land on such special initial conditions of Robertson-Walker symmetry and spatial flatness. If the “blindfolded Creator” view of the origin of the universe were correct, then the only way the symmetry (and perhaps flatness) of the universe could be explained would be via dynamical evolution arguments. Now, dynamical evolution arguments—in essence, the second law of thermodynamics—successfully explain why an ordinary gas in a box will (with overwhelmingly high probability) be found in a homogeneous state if one examines it a sufficiently long time after the box was filled with the gas, even though the box may have been filled by a sloppy and careless technician who made no attempt to arrange for the gas to be homogeneous. However, in non-inflationary models of our universe, causality arguments alone would appear to preclude the possibility of dynamical evolution bringing one close to Robertson-Walker symmetry on large scales if one did not start out with such symmetry111 It also should be noted that for a self-gravitating system such as our universe, dynamical evolution will normally tend to make the system become more inhomogeneous with time (“Jeans’ instability”). Thus, the isotropy of the microwave background radiation on large scales would truly be a puzzle if it did have time to equilibrate on these scales.. Thus, in non-inflationary models it does not appear that the homogeneity, isotropy, and spatial flatness of the universe can be explained by the same type of argument that successfully accounts for the homogeneity of a box of gas.

Our view is that the creation of the universe is fundamentally different from the creation of a box of gas. The “sloppy technician” may be a good model for the origin of a box of gas, but we see no reason to believe in the “blindfolded Creator” model of the origin of the universe. It would therefore be very surprising (and extremely unsatisfying!) if the state of the universe were to be explained in the same manner as the state of a gas in a box. Indeed, it seems clear that rather than seeking to use the second law of thermodynamics or other dynamical arguments to explain how the universe arrived at its current state starting from arbitrary initial conditions, we should be seeking to use the (as yet to be developed) theory of initial conditions of the universe to explain how the second law of thermodynamics came into being (see ). Only when we have such a theory of initial conditions will we know if there is something left to “explain” related to the above two questions.

Nevertheless, inflationary theories were developed primarily to provide a dynamical explanation of the symmetry and flatness of our universe (as well as to provide a mechanism for diluting the presence of magnetic monopoles that may have been created in the early universe). If a sufficiently large, (nearly) spatially homogeneous region has its stress energy dominated by the potential energy of a field (which thereby effectively acts like a cosmological constant), then that region will undergo an exponential expansion that will enormously increase the size of this region, isotropize it , and drastically reduce its spatial curvature. Inflation thereby provides a very simple and elegant dynamical explanation of the symmetry and flatness of the universe that overcomes the causality obstacles to providing such an explanation.

However, despite its elegance, there are at least two significant shortcomings to the explanation of the symmetry and flatness of the present universe provided by inflationary theories—even if one accepts the “blindfolded Creator” view of the origin of the universe, so that a dynamical explanation of its current state is desired/needed. First, although in inflationary models the initial conditions needed to account for the symmetry and flatness of the present universe certainly seem far less “special” than in models without inflation, it seems clear that very “special” initial conditions are nevertheless needed in order to enter an era of inflation. To see this in a graphic manner, it is useful to consider a universe that eventually collapses to a final, “big crunch” singularity. As the “big crunch” is approached, it seems overwhelmingly improbable—and, indeed, in apparent blatant contradiction with the second law of thermodynamics—that the matter in the universe would suddenly coherently convert itself to scalar field kinetic energy in just such a way that the scalar field would “run up a potential hill” and remain nearly perfectly balanced at the top of the hill for a long period of exponential contraction of the universe. In other words, it seems overwhelmingly improbable that a collapsing universe would undergo an era of “deflation” just before the “big crunch”. Thus, the region of “final data space” that corresponds to a universe that did not deflate should have much larger measure than the region corresponding to a universe that did deflate. But the time reverse of a collapsing universe that fails to deflate is, of course, an expanding universe that fails to inflate. Thus, this argument strongly suggests that the region of initial data space that fails to give rise to an era of inflation has far larger measure than the region that does give rise to an inflationary era, i.e., it is overwhelmingly unlikely that inflation will occur222A more precise version of this argument can be given as follows: Let $`𝒰`$ be the collection of universes that start from a “big bang” type of singularity, expand to a large size and recollapse to a “big crunch” type of singularity. Let $``$ denote the space of initial data for such universes and let $`\mu _{}`$ denote the measure on this space used by the “blindfolded Creator”. Let $``$ denote the space of final data of the universes in $`𝒰`$, and let $`\mu _{}`$ denote the measure on $``$ obtained from $`\mu _{}`$ via the “time reversal” map. Suppose that $`\mu _{}`$ is such that dynamical evolution from $``$ to $``$ is measure preserving (“Liouville’s theorem”). Then the probability that a universe in $`𝒰`$ gets large by undergoing an era of inflation is equal to the probability that a universe in $`𝒰`$ will undergo an era of “deflation” when it recollapses. . We do not know the measure on the dartboard used by the blindfolded Creator, so it does not seem possible to make this argument quantitatively precise. But, suppose that the probability of the dart landing on initial conditions directly giving rise to a nearly flat Robertson-Walker model without inflation were, say, $`10^{10^{10}}`$ or smaller, whereas the probability of the dart landing on initial conditions leading to inflation—and, thereby, to a nearly flat Robertson-Walker universe—were, say, $`10^{10}`$. Then inflation would indeed successfully enhance the probability of creation of a universe that looks like our universe by a factor of $`10^{10^{10}}`$ or more. But could it really be said that inflation has accounted for the creation of a universe that looks like ours?

A possible way to counter the above argument is to note that one does not need the entire universe to undergo an era of inflation, but only a sufficiently large portion of it. Although the probability that a given region will inflate may be small, if this probability is non-zero and the universe is infinite (or if infinitely many universes are created), then some regions will inflate333 However, the argument of the preceeding footnote still applies, i.e., the probability of inflation should still be the same as the probability of “deflation”.. Anthropic arguments can then be invoked to explain why we happen to live in a portion of the universe that had undergone an era of inflation. However, we feel that it is legitimate to ask whether arguments of this nature should be considered as belonging to the realm of science. Such arguments are based on an assumed knowledge of quantities—such as the probability measure on the blindfolded Creator’s dartboard and the probability of producing intelligent life in universes very different from ours—that we have no hope of accessing at the present time and that may well turn out to be meaningless when we have attained a deeper understanding of nature. It is far from clear what is really being “explained” by such arguments and whether, even in principle, any nontrivial testable predictions can be made.

A second difficulty arises when one considers the details of the models that give rise to inflation. We do not find it unreasonable to postulate that in the very early universe there was an era when the energy density of the universe was dominated by the self-interaction potential energy, $`V(\varphi )`$, of a scalar field $`\varphi `$. However, in order to have a sufficiently long era of inflation from which the universe can exit in an acceptable manner, $`V(\varphi )`$ must be extremely flat. Additional significant constraints arise from the quantum fluctuations in energy density produced in the inflationary models (see below). Consequently, although scalar field models do exist that result in inflation—at least, with suitable initial conditions, as discussed above—one must “tune” the parameters in these models quite carefully to satisfy all of the constraints . Thus, although inflationary models may alleviate the “fine tuning” in the choice of initial conditions, the models themselves create new “fine tuning” issues with regard to the properties of the scalar field444 These fine tuning difficulties with the models are alleviated in the chaotic inflation scenario..

Thus, even if one were to accept the blindfolded Creator view of the origin of the universe, it is our view that inflationary models are not very successful with regard to providing answers to questions (1) and (2) above. However, the situation changes dramatically when one considers another fundamental question:

(3) Given that the universe has nearly Robertson-Walker symmetry, how did the departures from this symmetry originate?

Here inflationary models provide a very simple, natural, and beautiful answer to this question: The departures from homogeneity arose from the quantum fluctuations of the field responsible for inflation. Although the overall amplitude of the density fluctuations produced by inflation depends upon the details of the particular model (and thus plays more the role of a constraint on inflationary models rather than a prediction of inflation), inflationary models natually yield a so-called “scale free” spectrum of density perturbations (see below). This prediction of a scale-free spectrum has been spectacularly confirmed during the past year by high precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background .

The basic mechanism by which inflationary models give rise to macroscopically important fluctuations at long wavelengths can be seen by considering the simple model of a free, massless, minimally coupled scalar field, $`\varphi `$, in a spatially flat background Robertson-Walker spacetime,

$$ds^2=dt^2+a^2(t)[dx^2+dy^2+dz^2].$$
(1)
If we consider a plane wave mode of coordinate wavevector $`\stackrel{}{k}`$,

$$\varphi (t,\stackrel{}{x})=\varphi _k(t)e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}$$
(2)
then $`\varphi _k`$ satisfies

$$\frac{d^2\varphi _k}{dt^2}+3H\frac{d\varphi _k}{dt}+\frac{k^2}{a^2}\varphi _k=0,$$
(3)
where $`H=a^1da/dt`$ is the Hubble constant. This is identical in form to the harmonic oscillator equation with a unit mass, a (variable) spring constant $`k^2/a^2`$, and a (variable) friction damping coeficient $`3H`$. Consequently, when the (proper) wavelength, $`a/k`$, of the mode is much smaller than the Hubble radius, $`R_H=1/H`$, the mode will behave like an ordinary harmonic oscillator, with negligible damping. On the other hand, when the wavelength is much larger than the Hubble radius, the mode will behave like an overdamped oscillator; its “velocity”, $`d\varphi _k/dt`$, will rapidly decay towards zero and its amplitude will effectively “freeze”.

In the quantum theory of the scalar field $`\varphi `$, each mode $`\varphi _k=(2\pi )^{3/2}\mathrm{exp}(i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x})\varphi d^3x`$ acts as an independent harmonic oscillator, with Lagrangian

$$L_k=\frac{a^3}{2}[|d\varphi _k/dt|^2\frac{k^2}{a^2}|\varphi _k|^2],$$
(4)
where the factor of $`a^3`$ arises from proper volume element in the Klein-Gordon Lagrangian for $`\varphi `$. (Note that $`\varphi _k`$ was defined using the coordinate volume element rather than the proper volume element in order to obtain this simple form for $`L_k`$.) At a fixed time $`t`$, the ground state of the oscillator defined by eq. (4) is a Gaussian wavefunction in $`\varphi _k`$, with spread given by

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _k)^2=\frac{1}{2a^3(k/a)}$$
(5)
(see, e.g., eq. (2.3.34) of ). Now, if the proper wavelength of the mode is much smaller than the Hubble radius, the ground state will evolve adiabatically, and eq. (5) will continue to hold at later times. At the other extreme, if the proper wavelength of the mode is much larger than the Hubble radius, the oscillator will be overdamped, and the fluctuation amplitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _k`$ will remain constant with time.

It should be noted that during a “normal” era of evolution of the universe (when $`P0`$—or, more generally, $`P>\rho /3`$ where $`P`$ is the pressure and $`\rho `$ is the mass density), the Hubble radius will grow more rapidly than $`a`$, so the Hubble radius will tend to “overtake” the proper wavelength of modes. Thus, $`\varphi _k`$ may evolve from an overdamped oscillator to an underdamped oscillator, but not vice-versa. On the other hand, during an era of inflation (when $`P=\rho `$), the Hubble constant is truly constant, whereas $`a`$ grows exponentially with $`t`$. Thus, the proper wavelength of modes will tend to rapidly overtake the Hubble radius.

The basic mechanism by which inflation produces a spectrum of density perturbations appropriate to account for the origin of structure in our universe may now be explained. In inflationary models, the modes relevant to cosmological perturbations are assumed to be “born” in their ground state at a time when their proper wavelength is much less than the Hubble radius. These modes initially evolve adiabatically (remaining in their ground state), so the precise time at which they came into existence is not important. However, during an era of inflation, their proper wavelength becomes much larger than the Hubble radius, and their fluctuation amplitude essentially freezes at the value

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _k)^2\frac{1}{2a_0^3(k/a_0)},$$
(6)
where $`a_0`$ is the value of the scale factor at the time the mode “crossed” the Hubble radius, i.e., at the time when

$$k/a_0=H_0$$
(7)
where $`H_0`$ is the Hubble constant during the inflationary era. Now consider these modes at a later time—but early enough that all of the cosmologically relevant modes still have wavelength larger than the Hubble radius. Combining eqs. (6) and (7), we see that the fluctuation spectrum for these modes is given by

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _k)^2\frac{H_0^2}{k^3},$$
(8)
which corresponds to a “scale free” spectrum555 The normalization of the power spectrum commonly used elsewhere differs from our conventions by a factor of $`k^3`$ as a consequence of the use of the volume element $`dk/k`$ rather than $`k^2dk`$ in the inverse Fourier transform. Thus, eq. (8) corresponds to a power spectrum that is independent of $`k`$ in the alternate conventions.. Note that eq. (8) differs from eq. (5) by a factor of $`(a/a_0)^2`$, which is enormous for the modes of interest and thereby accounts for how quantum fluctuations can have macroscopically relevant cosmological effects.

In order for the above initial fluctuation spectrum of $`\varphi _k`$ to produce a corresponding initial fluctuation spectrum of the density perturbations, it is necessary that the scalar field also make a large, essentially classical contribution to the stress-energy of the universe. If it does so, then the cross-terms in the stress-energy tensor of the scalar field between the classical, homogeneous background field $`\varphi _0`$ and the quantum fluctuations of the scalar field will give rise to cosmologically relevant density perturbations. In standard inflationary models, the initially large, background, classical energy of the scalar field is provided by potential energy, with an extremely “flat” potential. The stress-energy associated with this potential provides an effective cosmological constant in Einstein’s equation, which self-consistently drives the evolution of the universe into an inflationary era. A sufficiently “slow roll” down this potential provides a sufficiently long era of inflation for the relevant modes to behave as described above. An essentially666The inflationary models actually predict logarithmic corrections to the scale-free spectrum that depend upon the details of the model , , due to the fact that the Hubble constant is not strictly constant as the scalar field rolls down the potential hill. scale-free spectrum of density perturbations is thereby produced. The complete analysis of the scalar density perturbations produced during inflation ,  is more complicated than the above analysis of a test scalar field in a fixed, background spacetime, since, in particular, one must consider the evolution for perturbations of the full, coupled Einstein-scalar-field system and follow these perturbations through reheating. Nevertheless, the basic explanation of the origin of the scalar perturbations and their scale-free nature is as given above for a test scalar field.

The main purpose of this paper is to point out that the above basic mechanism responsible for producing density perturbations in inflationary models—namely, the evolutionary behavior of quantum modes with wavelength larger than the Hubble radius—will operate whether or not inflation actually occurs. Therefore, it may not be necessary to assume that an era of inflation actually occurred in order to account for the origin of structure in much the same way as in inflationary models.

In the analysis of the density perturbation spectrum arising in non-inflationary models, the modes of cosmological interest have proper wavelength much larger than the Hubble radius throughout the evolutionary history of the early universe. Therefore, one must directly confront the issue of the initial state of these modes. This issue, of course, also arises in inflationary models , but since in inflationary models the modes at early times had proper wavelength smaller than the Hubble radius, it seems natural to assume—as we did above—that the modes are “born” in their ground state. As mentioned above, the results are then not sensitive to the precise time at which it is assumed that the modes are born. Thus, the issue of the initial state of modes has not played a central role in analyses of inflationary models, since one merely needs to assume that the modes were born in their ground state at some point prior to or during inflation.

However, in non-inflationary models, the predictions for density fluctuations will depend sensitively on assumptions about the initial conditions of the modes. The assumptions that would appear most natural concerning the time at which modes are “born” and their initial state at birth depend primarily upon one’s view of the validity of a semiclassical description of our universe. It is usually assumed that a semiclassical description will break down—and a complete theory of quantum gravity will have to be used—if one tries to describe phenomena on a spatial scale smaller than the Planck length, $`l_P`$. It is similarly assumed that a semiclassical description will break down in the description of phenomena occurring on a timescale smaller than the Planck time, $`t_P`$. Otherwise, it is normally assumed that a semiclassical description will, in general, be valid. However, it should be noted that the arguments for these views do not go much beyond the dimensional analysis given by Planck over a century ago. Furthermore, one cannot give a Lorentz invariant version of these criteria unless one also takes the view that the semiclassical description breaks down for all phenomena involving null related events, even if they are “macroscopically separated”.

In the above conventional view, a valid semiclassical description of spacetime structure, matter fields, and their quantum fluctuations at all spatial scales larger than $`l_P`$ should suddenly become possible at the Planck time, $`t_P`$. In this view, it would seem natural to assume that all the modes with wavelengths greater than $`l_P`$ would be instantaneously “born” at time $`t_P`$. As the universe expands and these modes attain larger proper wavelengths, new modes would then have to be continuously created at the Planck scale to “fill in” the “gap” produced by the expansion of the original modes. Now, as already indicated above, in a non-inflationary model, the modes of cosmological interest have a proper wavelength much larger than $`l_P`$ at the Planck time. If it is assumed that these modes are born in their ground state at the Planck time, then the evolutionary era during which their proper wavelength remains larger than the Hubble radius will be too short to produce large enough effects to be of cosmological interest. In addition, since the relevant modes of different wavelengths are all created simultaneously, the power spectrum will remain that of the ground state (i.e., $`(\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _k)^21/k`$) rather than the scale-free spectrum obtained in inflationary models.

We wish to propose here an alternative view on the creation of modes: We propose that semiclassical physics applies (in some rough sense) to phenomena on spatial scales larger than some fundamental length, $`l_0`$, which, presumably, is of order the Planck scale or, perhaps, the grand unification scale. In this view, it would make sense to talk about a classical metric and quantum fields at times nominally earlier than the Planck time777 In other words, we suggest that it makes sense to talk about phenomena “emerging out of the spacetime foam” at length scales greater than $`l_0`$, and that some sort of semiclassical description of such phenomena may be possible even in an era that would correspond to $`tt_P`$ in the naive extrapolation of a semiclassical solution of Einstein’s equations to early times. Note however that we do not suggest that an accurate semiclassical description should be given by such a naive extrapolation of the classical spacetime metric to time earlier than $`t_P`$. Instead, the “correct” semiclassical description that we have in mind would presumably be obtained by some suitable “coarse graining” of the degrees of freedom of quantum gravity over length scales $`<l_0`$. , provided that one restricts consideration to phenomena occurring on spatial scales larger than $`l_0`$. Thus, in this view, it would be natural to treat the modes as effectively being “born” at a time when their proper wavelength is equal to the fundamental scale888 A model in which modes are “created” when the wavelength is at a given spatial scale is considered in ; see also . , $`l_0`$. Consequently, in this view, all of the modes would, in effect, be continuously created over all time, in contrast with the view that most of the modes (including all of the cosmologically relevant ones) are created at the Planck time and the rest are continuously created at later times.

If we assume that the modes are created in their ground state, then it is easy to see that the calculation of the fluctuation spectrum for a free, massless scalar field becomes identical to the inflationary calculation sketched above, with the Hubble radius, $`1/H_0`$, at the time of inflation replaced by $`l_0`$. Thus, the desired scale free spectrum of an appropriate amplitude will be obtained. It should be emphasized that to obtain this result for a scalar field in a fixed background Robertson-Walker spacetime, no assumptions need to be made concerning the detailed behavior of the scale factor $`a(t)`$ in the early universe.

In order to construct a non-inflationary model in which density perturbations of the desired spectrum and amplitude are produced, it is necessary to consider a situation where there is a large background stress-energy that is linearly perturbed by quantum fluctuations of the appropriate spectrum and amplitude. As a simple model, suppose that the matter in the early universe can be described on spatial scales greater than $`l_0`$ by a fluid with equation of state $`P=w\rho `$, where $`w`$ is a constant with value in the range $`0<w1`$. (The case of greatest physical relevance would presumably be $`w=1/3`$, but we prefer to admit a general $`w`$ in order to emphasize that our results to not depend sensitively on the details of the equation of state.) We assume that the universe is well described by a flat Robertson-Walker model—as we await a theory of initial conditions that might provide some kind of deeper understanding of why this is so. To analyze the density perturbation spectrum that would be arise in this model, we must quantize the perturbations of the coupled Einstein-fluid system. The required analysis of this system has been given in , where a Lagrangian was obtained for a gauge invariant “velocity potential” $`v`$, defined by eq. (10.43a) of that reference. If we define $`\psi =v/a`$ and transform from the “conformal time” variable used in  to proper time, the action given by eq. (10.62) of  corresponds in the case of a $`P=w\rho `$ fluid to the Lagrangian

$$L_k=\frac{a^3}{2}[|d\psi _k/dt|^2\frac{c_s^2k^2}{a^2}|\psi _k|^2],$$
(9)
where $`c_s=w^{1/2}`$ denotes the speed of sound in the fluid. This is precisely the same Lagrangian as for a test scalar field discussed above, except that the sound speed, $`c_s`$, has replaced the speed of light, $`c=1`$. We may therefore immediately write down the power spectrum for $`\psi `$, valid at all later times at which the modes still have wavelength larger than the Hubble radius

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\psi _k)^2=\frac{1}{2a_0^2c_sk},$$
(10)
where $`a_0`$ denotes the scale factor at which the mode was created. Under the hypothesis stated above, we take $`a_0`$ to be given by $`a_0kl_0`$. This yields the power spectrum

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\psi _k)^2\frac{1}{2l_0^2c_sk^3}.$$
(11)
The gauge invariant gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ of  (equal to the potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }_H`$ of  and directly related to the “gauge invariant fractional density perturbation” $`\delta ϵ/ϵ_0`$ of ) is given in terms of $`\psi `$ by

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_k=\frac{\sqrt{3(6w+5)}}{2\sqrt{2}}\frac{l_P}{c_s}\frac{a^2}{k^2}H\frac{d\psi _k}{dt}$$
(12)
(see eq. (12.8) of ; following their conventions, we have defined $`l_P^2=\frac{8\pi }{3}\frac{G\mathrm{}}{c^3}`$). In order to evaluate $`d\psi _k/dt`$, we integrate the equation of motion

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(a^3\frac{d\psi _k}{dt}\right)=c_s^2k^2a\psi _k$$
(13)
and use the fact that $`\psi _k`$ itself is approximately constant. Substituting the background solution for a $`P=w\rho `$ fluid (namely $`at^{2/(3w+3)}`$), we obtain

$$\frac{d\psi _k}{dt}\frac{a_0^3}{a^3}\left(\frac{d\psi _k}{dt}\right)_{t=t_0}c_s^2t\frac{3w+3}{3w+5}\frac{k^2}{a^2}\psi _k,$$
(14)
where $`t_0`$ denotes the “creation time” of the mode. The first term on the right side is negligible for $`tt_0`$ with our assumed ground state initial conditions for $`\psi _k`$. Substitution into eq. (12) and again using the background solution yields

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_k\sqrt{\frac{3}{2}}\frac{\sqrt{6w+5}}{3w+5}l_Pc_s\psi _k.$$
(15)
Consequently, eqs. (11) and (15) imply that the power spectrum for modes with wavelength greater than the Hubble radius is given by

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_k)^2\frac{l_P^2}{l_0^2}\frac{3w^{1/2}(6w+5)}{4(3w+5)^2}\frac{1}{k^3}.$$
(16)
This corresponds to the desired scale free spectrum of density perturbations. Furthermore, the correct amplitude is obtained999Similar results to those we have just derived can be obtained from eqs. (12.29) and (12.32) of , with the understanding that the initial time appearing in eq. (12.29) for a given mode is now to be taken to be the time at which $`k/a_0=1/l_0`$, rather than some fixed time that is independent of $`k`$. However, it should be noted that the initial conditions chosen in  correspond roughly to a ground state condition for $`v_k`$ with respect to conformal time, whereas our initial conditions correspond to a ground state condition for $`\psi _k`$ with respect to proper time. This makes a very important difference for the case $`w=1/3`$, where the initial conditions of  are chosen so as to yield no effect (i.e., a power spectrum at late times equal to a ground state spectrum) whereas our initial conditions yield as large an effect for $`w=1/3`$ as for other values of $`w`$. if we choose $`l_0`$ to be of order the grand unification scale (i.e., $`l_p/l_010^5`$).

Note that the amplitude of the density perturbation spectrum for “scalar modes” in inflationary models differs from our formula eq. (16) with $`l_0=1/H_0`$ primarily in that there is no “slow roll enhancement factor” in our formula. Therefore, in our model, the amplitude of scalar modes would be suppressed relative to inflationary models with $`H_0`$ taken to be $`1/l_0`$. On the other hand, the amplitude of “tensor modes” in our model should be essentially the same as that of inflationary models with $`H_0=1/l_0`$. Consequently, our model should predict a larger ratio of tensor to scalar perturbations than typical inflationary models.

The above fluid model of the extremely early universe is undoubtedly far too simplistic to be taken seriously as a realistic description of phenomena occurring during that era. The above hypotheses concerning the validity of a semiclassical description and the birth of modes are also undoubtedly too simplistic—although not necessarily more simplistic than conventional assumptions that would, in effect, postulate that all of the relevant modes are born in their ground state at the Planck time. Thus, the above model is not intended to represent an accurate account of the origin of density fluctuations but rather is being proposed in the spirit of an “existence proof” for robust alternatives to inflation.

In summary, we have argued that inflation does not satisfactorily “solve” the homogeneity/isotropy and flatness “problems”—nor is any other dynamical mechanism likely to give a satisfactory explanation of the homogeneity/isotropy and spatial flatness of our universe. Rather, a much deeper understanding of the nature of the birth of our universe undoubtedly will be required. On the other hand, the mechanism for producing density fluctuations in inflationary models via the dynamical behavior of quantum modes with wavelength larger than the Hubble radius provides a very simple and natural explanation for the observed departures from homogeneity and isotropy in our universe. This mechanism will operate whether or not inflation occurred, but in non-inflationary models, the results will depend crucially on one’s assumptions concerning the birth of modes. Consequently, in non-inflationary models, we are placed in a much more uncomfortable position with regard to making reliable predictions—although this does not mean that Nature would share our discomfort to the degree that She would thereby choose an inflationary model over a non-inflationary one! We have shown above that under suitable assumptions concerning the birth of modes, a density fluctuation spectrum for non-inflationary models can obtained (without any “fine tuning”) that is of the same nature as that of inflationary models. Thus, we have provided an alternative to inflation. However, the determination of whether this alternative is correct (or even viable) will require a much deeper understanding than we presently possess of the nature of the universe at and near its birth.

We wish to thank Bill Unruh for helping to explain to us the manner in which inflation produces density fluctuations, and we wish to thank Sean Carroll for reading the manuscript and providing us with a number of useful comments. This research was supported in part by NSF grant PHY00-90138 to the University of Chicago.


text:
# Shell Shock and Cloud Shock: Results from Spatially-Resolved X-ray Spectroscopy with Chandra in the Cygnus Loop

## 1 Introduction

Supernova remnants fundamentally drive the cycle of matter and energy in the interstellar medium. Supernova remnants (SNRs) mix newly-formed elements into the interstellar medium (ISM), and they may determine whether those elements remain gaseous or enter the solid phase in the form of dust grains. SNRs drive mass exchange between the different phases of the ISM. Each SNR individually consists of an expanding hot interior, which can evaporate surrounding cold clouds. The compression of the ambient medium behind the SNR blast waves sets the stage for future generations of star formation. The interaction between the ISM and the stars in it is reciprocal. The stellar progenitor is responsible for processing the local medium, which alters subsequent evolution of the shock front, while the immediate environment profoundly influences the evolution of an individual SNR.

The bright Cygnus Loop supernova remnant serves as an ideal probe of its surroundings (Fig. 1). It is middle-aged ($`\tau =8000`$ yr), with the extant ISM determining its subsequent evolution. Because the Cygnus Loop is nearby (440 pc; Blair et al. 1999), high spatial resolution, high signal-to-noise observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Chandra) reveal hydrodynamical evolution of the blast wave and directly probe the inhomogeneous ambient ISM. Large clouds and a smooth atomic shell together define the boundary of the cavity the SNR’s progenitor created (Levenson et al., 1998), and shocks associated with both the cloud and shell produce X-rays, which we analyze here.

The brightest regions of the Cygnus Loop in optical and X-ray emission, such as the western and northeast limbs, are sites of interactions between the SNR blast wave and large interstellar clouds, which extend over scales of 10 pc. The blast wave is decelerated in the dense clouds. The shocks that advance in the clouds are radiative, and their cooling gas emits strongly in many optical lines, including hydrogen Balmer lines, \[O III\], and \[S II\], with typical temperature $`T10^4`$ K. Figure 2 illustrates the Cygnus Loop’s characteristic bright H$`\alpha `$ emission due to these slow cloud shocks at the western limb. Shocks that are reflected off the cloud surfaces propagate back through previously-shocked material, further heating and compressing it. These reflected shock regions exhibit enhanced X-ray emission (Hester & Cox, 1986), with characteristic temperature $`T10^6`$ K.

The extreme western limb also includes a portion of the primary blast wave. Raymond et al. (1980) first identified its characteristic faint filaments in H$`\alpha `$ images and showed that H$`\alpha `$ and H$`\beta `$ are the only strong lines in a filament’s optical spectrum. These “non-radiative” shocks excite Balmer line emission through electron collisions in pre-shock gas that is predominantly neutral (Chevalier & Raymond, 1978; Chevalier, Raymond, & Kirshner, 1980), marking regions where the gas is being shocked for the first time. The excitation is confined to a narrow zone immediately behind the shock front, so these filaments delineate the outer edge of the blast wave. This true boundary of the SNR is now located in the neutral shell of material at the edge of the cavity the progenitor star created.

The western limb is the archetype of cloud–blast-wave encounters in the Cygnus Loop. The large obstacle is detected directly in molecular observations (Scoville et al., 1977). More importantly, at this location we view the collision with the cloud nearly edge-on (Levenson et al., 1996). The stratification of the forward and reflected shock regions is therefore clear, and the simplification to a one-dimensional hydrodynamical problem on small resolved angular scales is reasonable. The X-ray data we present here also reveal the similar interaction of the primary blast wave with the cavity shell, allowing comparison of these effects in different interstellar conditions.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

We obtained a 31 ks exposure of the western limb of the Cygnus Loop on 2000 March 13 and 14 with the Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). (See Weisskopf et al. 2000 and the Proposers’ Observatory Guide at http://asc.harvard.edu/udocs/docs/docs.html for more information on Chandra and ACIS.) The total field of view is approximately $`25\mathrm{}\times 17\mathrm{}`$, with spatial resolution around $`1\mathrm{}`$ and simultaneous spectral resolution $`E/\mathrm{\Delta }E12`$. We illustrate the X-ray context of these observations in Figure 1, marking the fields of view from the six Chandra detectors on the ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) soft X-ray mosaic of the entire SNR. The presence of a large interstellar cloud enhances emission and indents the spherical blast wave here.

Figure 3 contains the total ACIS 0.1–8 keV image binned by a factor of two into $`1\mathrm{}\times 1\mathrm{}`$ pixels, with the detectors identified. This image is not corrected for existing large variations in detector sensitivity. The S3 CCD is oriented with its charge-transferring electrodes facing away from the incident X-rays, which greatly increases the soft X-ray sensitivity of this “back-illuminated” detector. The remaining five CCDs are “front-illuminated,” having readout electronics that face the incident photons and therefore absorb some of the soft X-rays from the astronomical source. The increased number of counts in the back-illuminated S3 CCD is the result of these differences, not varying emission intrinsic to the source. Within a given detector, each of the four readout amplifier nodes has a distinct spectral response, which produces smaller-magnitude variations; these node boundaries are also marked.

We reprocessed all data from original Level 1 event files, removing the 0.5-pixel spatial randomization that is included in standard processing. (See the Chandra Science Center at http://cxc.harvard.edu/ for details about Chandra data and standard processing procedures.) The latest gain files (from the Chandra calibration database, version 2.7, at http://cxc.harvard.edu/caldb/) were used to calibrate the back-illuminated S3 detector. During the first few months of Chandra operations, radiation damaged the front-illuminated devices, increasing their charge transfer inefficiency, consequently diminishing their spectral resolution and sensitivity. To mitigate these effects, we used the software and technique of Townsley et al. (2000), applying their response matrices for energy calibration. We included only good events that do not lie on node boundaries, where discrimination of cosmic rays is difficult. We examined the lightcurves of background regions and found no significant flares, so we did not reject any additional data from the standard good-time intervals.

We combined three energy-selected images to create the false-color composite (Fig. 4). Total counts in the 0.3–0.6, 0.6–0.9, and 0.9–2.0 keV energy bands are displayed in red, green, and blue, respectively, and the individual images have been binned by a factor of two and smoothed by FWHM$`=14\mathrm{}`$. The individual energy images are not corrected for sensitivity variations within each detector or across the field. Thus, some of the color variation is not due to intrinsic spectral variation. Notably, because of its distinct spectral sensitivity as a function of energy, the correspondence between color and spectral shape in the back-illuminated S3 detector is different from that of the other five front-illuminated CCDs, so the S3 detector is displayed separately. Most importantly, the S3 detector is more sensitive at very soft X-ray energies. The component red, green, and blue images are scaled linearly from 0 to 2, 4, and 1.5, respectively, in the front-illuminated detectors, and to 5, 3, and 1, respectively, in the back-illuminated detector, in units of $`10^7\mathrm{photons}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{arcsec}^2`$.

## 3 Spectral Modeling

The false-color image (Fig. 4) illustrates significant spectral variation on small spatial scales within the Cygnus Loop. We identified several outstanding features (indicated in Fig. 3) that correspond to specific physical circumstances in the context of interactions between the SNR shock and the inhomogeneous ISM, as we demonstrate below. We extracted spectra from these small (roughly $`1\mathrm{}\times 15\mathrm{}`$) regions in order to isolate their particular spectral characteristics and to avoid calibration variations that are significant over larger areas. Within the bright emission of the I3 front-illuminated detector, the spectrum of region A is relatively hard, and that of region B is extremely soft. Immediately behind the primary blast wave observed on the S3 CCD, region C is spectrally harder than region D. Each spectral extraction was confined to a single read-out node of a detector, to avoid significant calibration variations that occur across node boundaries, and in each case, background emission was measured in an off-source region of the same CCD. Data were grouped into bins with a minimum of 20 counts, so $`\chi ^2`$ statistics are appropriate in the model fitting.

We fit the spectra satisfactorily with thermal equilibrium plasma models. Specifically, we used the MEKAL model (Mewe, Gronenschild, & van den Oord, 1985; Arnaud & Rothenflug, 1985; Mewe, Lemen, & van den Oord, 1986; Kaastra, 1992), with updated Fe L calculations (Liedahl, 1992) in XSPEC (Arnaud, 1996). We used data in the energy range 0.3–2.0 keV from the back-illuminated detector and restricted the energy range to 0.4–2.0 keV from the front-illuminated CCD. The detector calibration uncertainties determined the lower energy bound, and the lack of significant emission above 2 keV in all instances set the upper bound. In all cases, we allowed temperature and absorbing column density to be free parameters. We constrained the latter $`N_H4.7\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, the column density that corresponds to the average visual extinction to the Cygnus Loop (Parker, 1967), which we assume is in the foreground, allowing for additional intrinsic absorption or variation as a function of position. Regions C and D do not require any additional absorption, so we fixed $`N_H=4.7\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ in their final spectral fits. Figure 5 shows the data, best-fitting models, and residuals for the four regions, and Table 1 lists the model parameters, corresponding emission measure, and count rates.

With one exception, a single temperature component is sufficient to describe the data with 99% confidence. In fitting the spectrum of region B, however, the inclusion of a second thermal component is statistically significant. As we describe below, this extraction does not cover the cooler cloud shock exclusively, but also contains an additional contribution along the line of sight from the hotter reflected shock, to which the detector is more sensitive. In all other cases, however, the addition of any second spectral component does not significantly improve the model fits.

In general, sub-solar oxygen abundance is necessary to fit the data, where $`(\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H})_{}=8.51\times 10^4`$ (Anders & Grevesse, 1989). Because the characteristic temperatures we measure in the Cygnus Loop are very low compared with younger SNRs ($`kT0.2`$ keV), these spectra are particularly sensitive to oxygen, which accounts for nearly all the emission from 0.5–0.7 keV and represents a significant fraction of the detected photons. We examined the harder and softer portions of the spectra separately to confirm that they differ only in normalization and not temperature or ionization state, for example, so adjusting the oxygen abundance is reasonable. In the final modeling, we fixed the oxygen abundance at the best-fitting value for each detector, determined in the fitting of at least four spatially distinct extractions where the abundance was allowed to be a free parameter. We use $`\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H}=0.53(\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H})_{}`$ in the I3 CCD and $`\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H}=0.44(\mathrm{O}/\mathrm{H})_{}`$ in the S3 detector. These values are similar to recent photospheric abundance measurements (e.g., Holweger, 2001).

We do not measure any systematic trend of abundance as a function of distance from the shock front, which indicates that we are not sensitive to the immediate effects of depletion and grain destruction in interstellar shocks. The offset, however, between the front-illuminated and back-illuminated CCDs is due to a difference in the relative soft-energy calibration of these detectors, not a physical variation over the spatial scale we investigate. We measure this calibration offset in a cloud interaction region that covers the S3 and I3 CCDs contiguously. The common physical conditions of this spatially-extended emission produce the same detector-specific abundance difference. Unfortunately, these observations are not strongly dependent on the abundances of elements that grain depletion affects most greatly. These data are not at all sensitive to silicon abundance, for example. At some of the higher observed temperatures ($`kT0.2`$ keV), we could measure depletion of iron at the 10% level, but because these hotter regions represent older shocked material, they are not physically revealing.

In addition to the broad oxygen complex, we note several other features in the spectra. Mg XI produces the emission near 1.35 keV in spectra from regions A and B. In the spectra of regions C and D, Ne IX transitions near 0.92 keV are obvious. In our final spectral analysis, we use the MEKAL model because it reproduces the prominent Ne emission significantly better than other equilibrium models. Qualitatively, the absence of Fe XVII emission around 0.73 and 0.83 keV emphasizes the relatively low temperatures of all the observed X-ray–emitting regions; these lines produce significant emission when $`kT0.5`$ keV.

We considered non-equilibrium ionization in the spectral modeling, which may be expected to be physically relevant to the conditions in the Cygnus Loop. Collisional ionization is not immediate following the shock, so the elements are initially under-ionized with respect to their equilibrium values. The ionization parameter, $`n_et`$, characterizes the scale of equilibration, where $`n_e`$ is the initial electron density and $`t`$ is the time elapsed since the passage of the shock. Ionization equilibrium usually occurs when $`n_et3\times 10^{11}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}`$, depending on the element and its equilibrium state. The best fitting non-equilibrium ionization models tend toward equilibrium solutions, with $`n_et10^{12}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}`$. Furthermore, these non-equilibrium models do not statistically improve the spectral fits, so we do not consider them further here.

On physical grounds, we would expect non-equilibrium conditions to be marginally relevant. Using the densities and timescales calculated below (§4), we find $`n_et10^{12}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}`$, which is somewhat higher than previous results (e.g., Vedder et al., 1986; Miyata et al., 1994). At the very soft X-ray energies of the Cygnus Loop, however, no instrument has the spectral resolution and sensitivity on small spatial scales required to measure the non-equilibrium conditions directly and accurately. The spectra of a fully-equilibrated lower-temperature medium and the non-equilibrium state of a higher-temperature plasma remain indistinguishable. Thus, the adoption of the better-fitting equilibrium models in this analysis is justified.

In this inhomogeneous region, high spatial resolution is essential to derive physically meaningful conclusions from the spectral analysis. For comparison, we extracted the spectrum from a $`2\mathrm{}`$ circular region of the bright emission observed with the I3 detector. None of the models we applied, including multiple temperatures and non-equilibrium, fit this spectrum adequately because it covers such a range of physical conditions. We note that similar to analysis of ASCA spectra of other locations in the Cygnus Loop at comparable spatial resolution, extreme abundance variations are statistically preferred (Miyata & Tsunemi, 1999). The sensitive Chandra data, however, make clear that such exceptional models are still unacceptable, and they emphasize that spatially-integrated spectra do not directly measure genuine abundance variations.

## 4 Physical Interpretation

### 4.1 Cloud Shock

These Chandra data reveal the propagation of the SNR blast wave through the inhomogeneous ISM at the western limb of the Cygnus Loop. Over most of this region, we observe the interaction with a large interstellar cloud at the boundary of the pre-supernova cavity (Scoville et al., 1977). When the blast wave encounters the cloud, three characteristic regions become important: the decelerated forward shock in the cloud, a reflected shock, which propagates back through the previously-shocked ambient ISM, and the singly-shocked SNR interior (Hester & Cox, 1986). Because we view the plane of the shock nearly edge-on, the stratification of the spatially distinct emission regions is preserved. (See fig. 7 of Levenson et al. 1996 for a cartoon illustration of the geometry of this region.)

The distinct, narrow, pink feature in Figure 4, which extends over several arcminutes from north to south, directly illustrates the shock front in the cloud. Even though the cloud shock is slower than the undisturbed blast wave and will therefore not produce such hot plasma, the shock in the denser cloud produces very bright X-ray emission; for a given volume, emitted flux is proportional to $`n^2`$, where $`n`$ is density. The emission from the reflected shock region is also enhanced with respect to the rarefied singly-shocked SNR interior. The intense X-ray emission of this interaction was previously evident at the spatial resolution of the ROSAT HRI observations, but without simultaneous spectral information, the decelerated cloud shock and the harder reflected shock could not be distinguished. In these Chandra data, however, we uniquely identify both constituents of the X-ray enhancement. The location of the pink emission further identifies it as the cloud shock. It appears ahead of the harder reflected shock, and it is aligned with the onset of a radiative cooling zone observed optically (Fig. 2).

The peak emissivity of O VI occurs around the temperature of the shocked cloud, $`T=3.5\times 10^5`$ K, and oxygen is the dominant coolant at this temperature. Far-ultraviolet maps of the Cygnus Loop that are sensitive to the O VI doublet at $`\lambda \lambda `$1032, 1038 show strong emission at the western limb and are generally correlated with the X-rays (Blair et al., 1991; Rasmussen & Martin, 1992), consistent with O VI production in cloud shocks.

Because of the nearly edge-on geometry of this interaction, projection effects are not significant in this case, but they are present and explicable. For example, the emission slightly ahead (west) of the cloud shock yet still within the I3 CCD is due to another portion of the blast wave, which is likely on the near side of the cloud. The extremely soft (red in Fig. 4) patch near $`\alpha =20^\mathrm{h}45^\mathrm{m}40^\mathrm{s}`$, $`\delta =30^{}52\mathrm{}`$ (J2000) of this region is associated with a fully radiative shock, detected at optical wavelengths in H$`\alpha `$ and \[O III\]$`\lambda 5007`$ lines. The relationship between multiple projections of the extended shock plane is expected when it encounters the non-uniform surface of an interstellar cloud. Another consequence of projection effects is that the spectral extraction of region B includes some contribution from the reflected shock in addition to the cloud shock along the line of sight. Qualitatively, this effect produces the pink cloud shock: the softest (red) emission is most significant, and combined with secondary harder (green and blue) contributions of the reflected shock along the line of sight, the net result is pink in this image. Chandra’s increasing effective area with energy up to 1 keV emphasizes this effect in the spectral extractions, and the spectral model of this region requires both the very soft emission of the slow forward shock and the hotter emission of the reflected shock that we measure in the spectrum of region A.

Distinguishing these two spectral components, we quantify the relationship between the shock velocities and density contrast of the cloud and cavity regions. For standard interstellar abundances, the post-shock temperature and cloud shock velocity $`v_c`$, are related by $`T=1.4\times 10^5(v_c/100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1)^2`$ K. The measured temperature $`T=3.5`$ (+6.7, -1.9) $`\times 10^5`$ K corresponds to $`v_c=150`$ (+120, -40) $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. We solve the one-dimensional conservation equations of mass, energy, and momentum over both the cloud and reflected shock fronts, assuming constant pressure across the contact discontinuity that develops between the singly-shocked ambient medium and the reflected shock region. (See Hester, Raymond & Blair 1994, for example.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Note the typographical error in the equation on page 739 of Hester et al. (1994), which should read
$$\frac{1}{y}=1\frac{3}{4\eta }(1\beta ).$$
) Because the region of interest is small compared with the total size of the SNR, we reasonably assume that the initial ambient pressure is constant. While we emphasize that the limb-brightened morphology of the Cygnus Loop is not a consequence of SNR evolution in a homogeneous medium, the Sedov similarity solution demonstrates that pressure behind the blast wave as a function of radius, $`R`$, over the observed scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$, is approximately constant here, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }R/R10^2`$. In this case, the observed temperature difference between the cloud and reflected shock regions corresponds to a density contrast of 11 between the original cloud and the ambient cavity medium, and the original blast wave in the rarefied cavity had $`v_{bw}=310\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

We use the reflected shock spectrum to determine the densities because its normalization, the relevant model parameter, is better constrained than the normalization of the cloud shock. We assume the emitting region extends 5 pc along the line of sight, the depth of the SNR at this radius. The reflected shock model then indicates an initial cavity density $`n_0=0.4\mathrm{cm}^3`$, and cloud density $`n_c=5\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The thermal pressure in the fully-ionized reflected region $`P=2.0\times 10^9\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. According to the solution of the reflected shock equations, this should be a factor of 2.65 greater than the pressure behind the ambient blast wave, so these data imply $`P_{bw}=7.5\times 10^{10}\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. We compare these derived physical quantities with the results from the shell region and previous work below (§4.2).

### 4.2 Shell Shock

At the far west, observed in the S3 detector, the SNR blast wave encounters the atomic shell that is a consequence of progenitor’s processing of the ISM (Levenson et al., 1998). The softest spectrum (region D) is near the cloud, where the density (and therefore shock deceleration) are greatest. The temperature $`kT=0.12`$ (+0.004, -0.003) keV corresponds to $`v_s=310`$ (+7, -4) $`\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the shell. Behind the blast wave and farther from the shell, the reflected shock component enhances and hardens the emission to $`kT=0.16`$ keV. Given the observed curvature of the shock front, we do not expect the shell to be uniform over the entire field of view, but we roughly estimate the density contrast between the shell and the ambient medium assuming that these extracted spectra are the reflected and forward components of the same interaction. The observed temperature ratio of 1.3 requires a density ratio of 1.5 between the original shell and the rarefied interior, and $`v_{bw}=340\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the original blast wave.

Assuming the thin ($`54\mathrm{}`$) shell observed in X-rays is the spherical shell of the SNR of radius 11 pc, the emitting volume of the extracted spectrum extends $`6.9\times 10^{18}`$ cm along the line of sight. Thus, the original shell density $`n_s=0.6\mathrm{cm}^3`$, and in the cavity, $`n_0=0.4\mathrm{cm}^3`$ before the passage of the strong blast wave, in agreement with the value obtained from modeling the cloud shock region. The density and shock velocity ratios in the shell region indicate a somewhat higher blast wave pressure: $`P_{bw}=1.1\times 10^9\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2`$.

The errors are large in calculating the cavity and blast wave parameters from both the cloud shock and shell shock regions. In the former case, we more certainly identify the cloud and reflected shock regions. Disadvantageously, however, the computed cloud density is sensitive to the intensity normalization of the plasma model, but at such soft X-ray energies, we cannot measure the normalization (or density) with Chandra to better than a factor of 10 in this region that includes multiple temperature components. In the simpler case of the shell shock, the errors in the density measurement are only a factor of $`\sqrt{2}`$. The question here, however, is whether the slightly hotter region C is a clear example of a reflected shock. Given these uncertainties, the similarity of these results from the two regions suggests that they both roughly characterize the pre-existing and present ISM conditions.

Both the cavity and cloud densities we find are comparable to previous X-ray and optical measurements, after correcting for the revised distance, where appropriate (e.g., Cox, 1972; Fesen, Blair, & Kirshner, 1982; Ku et al., 1984; Raymond et al., 1988; Hester et al., 1994). These results are also similar to distance-corrected global measurements of $`P_{bw}`$. Ku et al.’s (1984) X-ray observations of the entire Cygnus Loop yield $`P_{bw}7\times 10^{10}\mathrm{dyne}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, for example. We note that considering the additional heating the reflected shock provides, we derive a somewhat lower value of $`v_{bw}`$ than others find from X-ray data. The reason for this discrepancy is that previous work has attributed $`kT0.2`$, characteristic of the brighter regions, to the forward blast wave alone, for $`v_{bw}400\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

### 4.3 Instabilities

At the present spatial and spectral resolution, non-equilibrium conditions do not affect the measurable X-ray properties significantly. Morphologically, the cloud shock front is evident as a distinct feature in the energy map, having width less than $`10\mathrm{}`$, while extending over a length of several arcminutes. Quantitatively, the spectra of the various regions, including those at the extreme western limb as well as the bright central region, correspond to realistic physical conditions in the ISM in the context of the reflected shock model.

The cloud shock temperature is uniform on resolved scales, which implies that shear flow or other instabilities are not important at this shock front, thereby justifying this simplified one-dimensional treatment. While more complex hydrodynamic models have been proposed to interpret cloud-shock interactions, they are not required in this case. Turbulent mixing layers, for example, are predicted to cascade down from large to small scales (Begelman & Fabian, 1990; Slavin, Shull, & Begelman, 1993). If these mixing layers are present, their length scale must be much smaller than the arcsecond ($`10^{16}`$ cm) scale we resolve here. We do not detect the strong ionization and temperature disequilibrium these models predict, despite the early stage of the encounter that could establish the shear flow such models require that is exhibited here.

These conclusions based on the X-ray data broadly agree with other observations of the Cygnus Loop. At optical wavelengths, however, high sensitivity and high spatial resolution reveal a great deal of additional structure, much of which may be a consequence of variations in the pre-existing cloud. The shell interaction at the far-western limb, however, appears to be extremely uniform in all observations. It exhibits smooth Balmer filaments over its length, which have not developed into radiative shocks, for example. The combined data therefore imply that the shell wall is uniform, at least on the arcsecond scales that are resolved.

## 5 Conclusions

These Chandra observations reveal the physical conditions of the prominent western limb of the Cygnus Loop. The interaction of the primary blast wave and a large interstellar cloud enhances X-ray emission, where both the decelerated shock in the dense cloud and the development of a reflected shock are important. The primary blast wave currently propagates through a shell of material that marks the boundary of the pre-supernova cavity. Here, too, the X-rays reveal the inhomogeneity of the ISM and clearly distinguish the Cygnus Loop from supernova expansion in a uniform medium. These X-ray data uniquely allow direct and simultaneous measurement of the multiple shock components that are present, which we quantify with spectroscopy of several distinct regions. These data demonstrate the necessity of high spatial resolution spectroscopy, and they directly reveal the hydrodynamic evolution of the supernova remnant on small physical scales.

The edge-on view of the shock propagation allows simplified one-dimensional analysis. The blast wave has not yet passed beyond the cloud, so this encounter is currently at an early stage with respect to the large cloud. It is, however, a well-developed interaction, in which we do not find significant evidence for instabilities or non-equilibrium conditions. The western limb may be exceptional in this respect. Morphologically, it appears to be much simpler than other bright cloud–blast-wave interactions of the Cygnus Loop, such as the eastern limb and the southeast knot, so dynamical effects may still be important in these other regions.

We thank Paul Plucinsky and Glenn Allen of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center for their assistance. We thank Chris McKee and the anonymous referee for their comments, which improved this work. N.A.L. appreciates many useful discussions with David Strickland about data processing. Support for this work was provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award Number GO0-1121 issued by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract NAS8-39073.


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# The long journey from the giant-monopole resonance to the nuclear-matter incompressibility

## Abstract

Differences in the density dependence of the symmetry energy predicted by nonrelativistic and relativistic models are suggested, at least in part, as the culprit for the discrepancy in the values of the compression modulus of symmetric nuclear matter extracted from the energy of the giant monopole resonance in 208Pb. “Best-fit” relativistic models, with stiffer symmetry energies than Skyrme interactions, consistently predict higher compression moduli than nonrelativistic approaches. Relativistic models with compression moduli in the physically acceptable range of $`K=200300`$ MeV are used to compute the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength in 208Pb. When the symmetry energy is artificially softened in one of these models, in an attempt to simulate the symmetry energy of Skyrme interactions, a lower value for the compression modulus is indeed obtained. It is concluded that the proposed measurement of the neutron skin in 208Pb, aimed at constraining the density dependence of the symmetry energy and recently correlated to the structure of neutron stars, will also become instrumental in the determination of the compression modulus of nuclear matter.

The compression modulus of symmetric nuclear matter is a fundamental property of the equation of state. While some of the existent claims in the literature may be overstated—indeed, there is little evidence in support of a correlation between the compression modulus and the physics of neutron stars Mu96 —the compression modulus impacts on a diverse set of phenomena ranging from nuclear structure to supernova explosions. In particular, the compression modulus controls the energetics around the nuclear-matter saturation point. This is because the first derivative of the energy-per-nucleon with respect to the density (i.e., the pressure) vanishes at saturation, so the dynamics of small density fluctuations around the equilibrium position becomes solely determined by the compression modulus.

To date, most efforts devoted to the study of the compression modulus have relied on the excitation of the isoscalar giant-monopole resonance (GMR). While the first set of measurements of the GMR date back to the late seventies and early eighties Yo77 ; Yo81 , a recently improved $`\alpha `$-scattering experiment finds the position of the giant monopole resonance in 208Pb at $`E_{\mathrm{GMR}}=14.17\pm 0.28`$ MeV Yo99 . While the experimental story on the GMR in 208Pb seems to be coming to an end, the theoretical picture remains unclear. On the one hand nonrelativistic calculations that reproduce the distribution of isoscalar-monopole strength using Hartree-Fock plus random-phase approximation (RPA) approaches with state-of-the-art Skyrme Co92 ; Ha97  and Gogny Bl95  interactions, predict a nuclear compression modulus in the range of $`K=210220`$ MeV . On the other hand, relativistic models that succeed in reproducing a large body of observables, including the excitation energy of the GMR, predict a larger value for the nuclear incompressibility ($`K275`$ MeV) La97 ; Vr00 . It is the aim of this paper to elucidate the origin of this apparent discrepancy. It is proposed that this discrepancy, at least in part, is due to the density dependence of the symmetry energy; a poorly known quantity that affects physics ranging from the neutron radius of heavy nuclei to the structure of neutron stars Ho01 . It should be noted that while knowledge of the symmetry energy is at present incomplete, the proposed measurement of the neutron radius of 208Pb at the Jefferson Laboratory PREX  should provide stringent constraints on this fundamental component of the equation of state.

In this paper we follow closely the philosophy of Blaizot and collaborators who advocate a purely microscopic approach for the extraction of the compression modulus of nuclear matter from the energy of the giant-monopole resonance Bl95 ; Bl99 . While the merit of macroscopic (semi-empirical) formulas for obtaining qualitative information on the compression modulus is unquestionable Ch97 ; St98 , the field has attained a level of maturity that demands stricter standards: it is now expected that microscopic models predict simultaneously the compression modulus of nuclear matter as well as the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength. Moreover, theoretical studies based solely on macroscopic approaches have been proven inadequate Pe91 ; Sh93 .

The starting point for the calculations is an interacting Lagrangian density of the following form:

$`_{\mathrm{int}}=\overline{\psi }\left[g_\mathrm{s}\varphi \left(g_\mathrm{v}V_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{g_\rho }{2}}𝝉𝐛_\mu +{\displaystyle \frac{e}{2}}(1+\tau _3)A_\mu \right)\gamma ^\mu \right]\psi {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa }{3!}}(g_\mathrm{s}\varphi )^3{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{4!}}(g_\mathrm{s}\varphi )^4.`$ (1)
This Lagrangian includes an isodoublet nucleon field ($`\psi `$) interacting via the exchange of scalar ($`\varphi `$) and vector ($`V^\mu `$, $`𝐛^\mu `$, and $`A^\mu `$) fields. It also incorporates scalar-meson self-interactions ($`\kappa `$ and $`\lambda `$) that are instrumental in reducing the unreasonably large value of the compression modulus predicted in the original (linear) Walecka model Wa74 ; Se86 . The Lagrangian density depends on five unknown coupling constants that may be determined from a fit to ground-state observables. Four of these constants ($`g_\mathrm{s}`$, $`g_\mathrm{v}`$, $`\kappa `$, and $`\lambda `$) are sensitive to isoscalar observables so they are determined from a fit to symmetric nuclear matter. The four nuclear bulk properties selected for the fit are as follows: i) the saturation density, ii) the binding energy per nucleon at saturation, iii) the nucleon effective mass at saturation, and iv) the compression modulus (see Table 1). It is noteworthy, yet little known, that the above four coupling constants can be determined algebraically and uniquely from these four empirical quantities Gl96 . It is also possible for the various meson masses to enter as undetermined parameters. However, here the standard procedure of fixing the masses of the $`\omega `$ and $`\rho `$ mesons at their physical value is adopted; that is, $`m_\mathrm{v}=783`$ MeV and $`m_\rho =763`$ MeV. As infinite nuclear matter is only sensitive to the ratio $`g_\mathrm{s}^2/m_\mathrm{s}^2`$, the mass of the $`\sigma `$-meson must be determined from finite-nuclei properties; the $`\sigma `$-meson mass has been adjusted to reproduce the experimental root-mean-square (rms) charge radius of 208Pb ($`r_{\mathrm{ch}}=5.50\pm 0.01`$ fm.)

The symmetry energy of nuclear matter is a poorly known quantity with an uncontrolled density dependence in nonrelativistic models (for a recent discussion of the symmetry energy in Skyrme models see Refs. Br00  and Oy02 ). In contrast, the symmetry energy displays a weak model dependence in relativistic approaches. It is given by the following simple form:

$$S(k_\mathrm{F})=\frac{k_F^2}{6E_F^{}}+\frac{g_\rho ^2}{12\pi ^2}\frac{k_F^3}{m_\rho ^2},$$
(2)
where $`E_F^{}=\sqrt{k_\mathrm{F}^2+M^2}`$. The symmetry energy, together with its density dependence, is constrained in relativistic approaches because the only “free” parameter in Eq. (2) is the $`NN\rho `$ coupling constant. As the effective nucleon mass $`M^{}`$ has been fixed in symmetric nuclear matter (and spin-orbit phenomenology demands a value in the range of $`M^{}/M=0.60.7`$) reproducing the empirical value of the symmetry energy at saturation ($`J37`$ MeV) constrains the $`NN\rho `$ coupling constant to a relatively small range. Note that relativistically, the density dependence of the symmetry energy can also be modified through the inclusion of isoscalar-isovector couplings terms Ho01 , density-dependent coupling constants Ty99 , and isovector-scalar mesons Li02 . For simplicity, however, none of these contributions will be considered here. In reality, the symmetry energy at saturation is not well constrained experimentally. Rather, it is an average of the symmetry energy near saturation density and the surface symmetry energy that is constrained by the binding energy of nuclei. Thus, a prescription first outlined in Ref. Ho01  is adopted here: the value of the $`NN\rho `$ coupling constant is adjusted, unless otherwise noted, so that the symmetry energy at $`k_F=1.15`$ fm-1 (i.e., $`\rho =0.10`$ fm-3) be equal to $`26`$ MeV (see Table 1).

The nuclear observables used as input for the determination of the model parameters are listed in Table 1. In all cases the saturation density, binding-energy-per-nucleon, and rms charge radius in 208Pb have been fixed at their empirical values. Thus, the only discriminating factors among the three “families” are the effective nucleon mass and the symmetry energy. While best-fit relativistic models suggest values for the symmetry energy and its slope at saturation density satisfying $`J35`$ MeV and $`L100`$ MeV, respectively Ch97 , family C is defined with an artificially small value for $`J`$ (and correspondingly for $`L`$) in a “poor-man’s” attempt at simulating nonrelativistic Skyrme forces Oy02 . That nonrelativistic Skyrme models have a softer symmetry energy is revealed by the behavior of one of the most sensitive probes of the density dependence of symmetry energy: the neutron skin of 208Pb. Indeed, the neutron skin of 208Pb is predicted to be equal to $`R_nR_p=0.16`$ fm for the recent SkX parametrization and falls below $`0.22`$ fm for all eighteen Skyrme parameter sets considered in Ref. Br00 . In contrast, best-fit relativistic models consistently predict larger values. For example, the NL3 model of Ref. La97 , the TM1 model of Sugahara and Toki Su94 , and the NLC model of Serot and Walecka Se97 , predict $`R_nR_p=0.28,0.27,`$ and $`0.26`$ fm, respectively (see also Table 2).

Within each family defined in Table 1, calculations of the isoscalar monopole response have been performed using a compression modulus in the physically acceptable range of $`K=200300`$ MeV. To illustrate the similarities and differences between these three families, the equation of state for symmetric nuclear matter (left panel) and the symmetry energy (right panel) are displayed in Fig. 1 at $`K=250`$ MeV. Clearly, the properties of symmetric nuclear matter at saturation density are identical in all three models. Further, having fixed the value of the effective nucleon mass in symmetric nuclear matter, the full density dependence of the symmetry energy is determined by one sole number: its value at $`k_F=1.15`$ fm-1.

Results for the peak energy of the giant-monopole-resonance in 208Pb as a function of the nuclear incompressibility are listed in Table 2 and displayed in Fig 2. All calculations were performed using the nonspectral, relativistic random-phase-approximation (RPA) approach of Ref. Pi00 . For each family, there is a clear correlation between the compression modulus and the energy of the GMR. Indeed, all of the results are well represented (in this limited range of $`K`$) by a linear relation with a “universal” slope:

$$E_{\mathrm{GMR}}=E_{200}+0.026(K200),$$
(3)
where $`E_{\mathrm{GMR}}`$, $`E_{200}`$, and $`K`$ are all given in MeV. The intercept is non-universal and given by: $`E_{200}=12.22`$ MeV, $`E_{200}=12.71`$ MeV, and $`E_{200}=13.14`$ MeV, for families A, B, and C, respectively.

A few comments are now in order. First, the value of the slope ($`0.026`$) is obviously small. This suggests that even without theoretical uncertainties, it would not be possible to determine the compression modulus from the 208Pb measurement alone to better than $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{GMR}}/0.026`$ MeV ($`\mathrm{\Delta }E_{\mathrm{GMR}}`$ is the experimental uncertainty). At present, the best determination of the peak position of the GMR is $`E_{\mathrm{GMR}}=14.17\pm 0.28`$ MeV Yo99 , thereby resulting in an uncertainty in the compression modulus of about $`20`$ MeV. Second, and more importantly, the journey from the GMR to the compression modulus is plagued by uncertainties unrelated to the physics of symmetric nuclear matter. To illustrate this point we invoke, although never use in any of the calculations, a semi-empirical formula based on a leptodermous expansion of the nuclear incompressibility:

$$K(A,I)=K+K_{\mathrm{surf}}/A^{1/3}+K_{\mathrm{sym}}I^2+K_{\mathrm{Coul}}Z^2/A^{4/3}+\mathrm{},$$
(4)
where $`K_{\mathrm{surf}}`$, $`K_{\mathrm{sym}}`$, and $`K_{\mathrm{Coul}}`$ are empirical surface, symmetry, and Coulomb coefficients and $`I=(NZ)/A`$ is the neutron-proton asymmetry. The sizable contribution from the surface term to $`K(A,I)`$ has been discussed recently by Patra, Viñas, Centelles, and Del Estal Pa02  in the context of a relativistic Thomas-Fermi theory so we limit ourselves to only a few comments. A surface dependence is modeled here through a change in the value of the effective nucleon mass (surface properties are also sensitive to the $`\sigma `$-meson mass but this value has been chosen to reproduce the rms charge radius of 208Pb). As shown in Table 1, family A uses an effective nucleon mass of $`M^{}/M=0.6`$ while family B uses $`M^{}/M=0.7`$; all other input observables are identical. A larger $`M^{}`$ generates a slightly compressed single-particle spectrum and a correspondingly smaller spin-orbit splitting. Consequences of this change in $`M^{}`$ result in a larger intercept, as displayed in Fig. 2. Thus, compression moduli of approximately $`K=275`$ MeV (for family A) and $`K=250`$ MeV (for family B) are required to reproduce the experimental energy of the GMR. Further, if one incorporates the experimental error into this analysis, one concludes that “best-fit” relativistic mean-field models are consistent with a compression modulus in the range $`K=245285`$ MeV.

We now turn to the central idea behind this work, namely, how our incomplete knowledge of the symmetry energy impacts on the the extraction of the compression modulus. Let us then start by considering two identical models, but with vastly different symmetry energies, that predict a compression modulus of $`K=250`$ MeV. Further, for simplicity we assume that these two models have identical surface and Coulomb properties so only the first and third term in Eq. (4) are relevant to this discussion. Both models attempt to reproduce the “experimentally” accessible quantity:

$$K_{208}\underset{A\mathrm{}}{lim}K(A,I=0.212)=K+K_{\mathrm{sym}}(0.212)^2+\mathrm{},$$
(5)
defined as the compressibility of infinite nuclear matter at a neutron-proton asymmetry identical to that of 208Pb (see Table 2). The first model, having a very stiff symmetry energy (that is, $`K_{\mathrm{sym}}`$ large and negative) reduces $`K(A,I)`$ from its $`I=0`$ value of $`250`$ MeV all the way down to, let us say, $`200`$ MeV at $`I=0.212`$. Comparing this prediction to the assumed experimental value of $`K_{208}=225`$ MeV, it is concluded that the compression modulus of symmetric nuclear matter must be increased to $`K275`$ MeV. The second model predicts a very soft symmetry energy. So unrealistically soft, let us assume, that it generates no shift in going from $`I=0`$ to $`I=0.212`$ (i.e., $`K_{\mathrm{sym}}=0`$). In this case, the compression modulus must then be reduced to $`K=225`$ MeV to reproduce the experimentally determined value. Thus two models, originally identical as far as symmetric nuclear matter is concerned, disagree in their final values of the compression modulus due to an incomplete knowledge of the symmetry energy. While the situation depicted in Fig. 2 might not be as extreme, it does follow the trends suggested by the above discussion. Indeed, family C, with the softest symmetry energy, generates the largest intercept and consequently predicts the smallest compression modulus of the three families.

In summary, the impact of the poorly known density dependence of the symmetry energy on the extraction of the compression modulus of nuclear matter from the energy of the giant-monopole resonance in 208Pb was addressed. The nuclear matter equation of state and the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength in 208Pb were computed using three different families of relativistic models constrained to reproduce a variety of ground-state observables. For each family the compression modulus was allowed to vary within the physically acceptable range of $`K=200300`$ MeV. The first family (A), with an effective nucleon mass fixed at $`M^{}/M=0.6`$ is, at least for $`K=275`$ MeV, practically indistinguishable from the successful NL3 model of Ref. La97 . The second family (B) differs from the first in that the effective nucleon mass is increased to $`M^{}/M=0.7`$, thereby generating a slightly compressed single-particle spectrum but still a robust phenomenology. Finally, the third family (C) is obtained from the second one by artificially softening the symmetry energy in a “poor-man’s” attempt at simulating nonrelativistic Skyrme models. When the peak energy of the GMR is plotted against the compression modulus, a linear relation with a universal slope is obtained. In contrast, the intercept is family dependent and it is largest for the model with the softest symmetry energy. Demanding agreement with the experimental value for the peak energy fixes the compression modulus at: $`K=275,255,`$ and $`240`$ MeV, for families A, B, and, C, respectively. It is therefore suggested that the discrepancy between relativistic and nonrelativistic models in the prediction of the compression modulus of nuclear matter may, at least in part, be due to our incomplete knowledge of the symmetry energy. At present, this issue can not be resolved. Yet the proposed Parity Radius Experiment (PREX) at the Jefferson Laboratory should provide a unique constraint on the density dependence of the symmetry energy through a measurement of the neutron skin of 208Pb. Such a measurement could have far-reaching implications: from the determination of a fundamental parameter of the equation of state ($`K`$) to the structure of neutron stars Ho01 .

###### Acknowledgements.

The author is grateful to the ECT\* in Trento for their support and hospitality during the initial phase of this research. It is a pleasure to thank Profs. M. Centelles and X. Viñas for many enlightening conversations. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No.DE-FG05-92ER40750.