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# On the two-proton emission of 45Fe - a new type of radioactivity

## Abstract

In an experiment at the SISSI-LISE3 facility of GANIL, the decay of the proton drip-line nucleus 45Fe has been studied after projectile fragmentation of a 58Ni primary beam at 75 MeV/nucleon impinging on a natural nickel target. Fragment-implantation events have been correlated with radioactive decay events in a 16$`\times `$16 pixel silicon strip detector on an event-by-event basis. The decay-energy spectrum of 45Fe implants shows a distinct peak at (1.06$`\pm `$0.04) MeV with a half-life of $`T_{1/2}`$ = (4.7$`{}_{1.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+3.4}`$) ms. None of the events in this peak is in coincidence with $`\beta `$ particles which were searched for in a detector next to the implantation detector. For a longer correlation interval, daughter decays of the two-proton daughter 43Cr can be observed after 45Fe implantation. The decay energy for 45Fe agrees nicely with several theoretical predictions for two-proton emission. Barrier-penetration calculations slightly favour a di-proton emission picture over an emission of two individual protons and point thus to a 2He emission mode.

PACS numbers: 23.50.+z, 23.90.+w, 21.10.-k, 27.40.+z

11footnotetext: present address: Oliver Lodge Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZE, UK22footnotetext: present address: CEA/DPTA/SPN Bruy res-le-Ch tel, F-91680 Bruy res-le-Ch tel, France33footnotetext: present address: Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia44footnotetext: present address: Physics Division, ORNL, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6371,USA

An ensemble of protons and neutrons can form a nucleus stable against any radioactive decay only if a subtle equilibrium between the number of protons and neutrons is respected. If this equilibrium condition is not respected in a nucleus, it becomes radioactive. For small deviations from equilibrium, the nuclei decay by $`\beta `$ decay. The limits of stability, the drip lines, are reached if the nuclear forces are no longer able to bind an ensemble of nucleons with a too large neutron or proton excess. Whereas for heavy nuclei, e.g. $`\alpha `$ decay, 14C radioactivity or fission occurs, unstable proton-rich nuclei may decay by emission of one proton for odd-Z nuclei or of two protons for even-Z nuclei from their ground states. The one-proton ground-state decay has been observed for the first time at GSI Darmstadt in 1981 . Meanwhile almost 30 cases of proton radioactivity have been identified for odd-Z nuclei beyond the proton drip line between Z=51 and Z=83  allowing e.g. to establish the sequence of shell-model single-particle levels beyond the proton drip line.

Two-proton (2p) radioactivity is predicted since 1960  to occur for even-Z proton-rich nuclei beyond the drip line. Due to the pairing energy, the 2p candidates cannot decay by a sequential emission of two protons as the one-proton daughter is energetically not accessible. Therefore, only a simultaneous two-proton emission is possible which can take place in two different ways: i) by an isotropic emission of the two protons which then have no angular correlation, i.e. they fill the whole phase space available, but in order to easily penetrate through the Coulomb and centrifugal barrier of the daughter nucleus they share most probably equally the decay energy; ii) by a correlated emission where in the decay the 2He resonance is formed which decays either already under the Coulomb and centrifugal barrier or outside the barrier. In both cases, a zero energy difference between the two protons is most likely. However, for a 2He emission, a small relative angle between the two protons might be observable.

Recent theoretical work  showed that 45Fe, 48Ni, and 54Zn are the best candidates for two-proton ground-state decay as their 2p Q values are about 1.1-1.8 MeV, whereas one-proton emission is either energetically forbidden or extremely disfavoured due to small one-proton decay energies and very narrow intermediate states.

For light nuclei, the Coulomb and centrifugal barriers for proton emission are smaller and the width of the ground states of these nuclei become large. Thus, one-proton emission is energetically possible through the tails of broad intermediate states even for even-Z nuclei. This has been observed experimentally for 6Be  and 12. In both cases, the emission pattern is compatible with a simultaneous uncorrelated decay into the available phase space. Two-proton emission from excited states has been observed in eight cases after $`\beta `$ decay (see  for a recent reference) as well as after inelastic excitation of 14 and of 18Ne . In all cases, the experimental data are either not precise enough to indicate a detailed decay pattern or compatible with a sequential or three-body picture with half-lives as short as $`10^{21}`$s.

With the advent of projectile-fragmentation facilities equipped with powerful separators for in-flight isotope separation, medium-mass proton drip-line nuclei came into experimental reach and two of the above mentioned most promising candidates, 45Fe  and 48Ni , could be observed. In addition, part of the decay strength of 45Fe was observed  in the experiment designed to identify for the first time 48Ni . However, due to the set-up of the electronics in this experiment, two-proton events triggered the data acquisition only with a very low probability (five possible events at about 1.1 MeV ).

In an experiment performed in June/July 2000 at the SISSI-LISE3 facility of GANIL, we used the projectile fragmentation of a 58Ni primary beam at 75 MeV/nucleon to produce proton-rich nuclei in the range Z=20-28. After production in a natNi target (240 $`\mu `$m in thickness) located in the SISSI device, the fragments of interest were selected by the Alpha/LISE3 separator equipped with an intermediate beryllium degrader (50$`\mu `$m). At the focus of the LISE3 separator, a set-up was mounted to identify (see figure 1) and stop the fragments as well as to study their radioactive decays. This set-up consisted in two channel-plate detection systems for timing purposes mounted at a first LISE focal point 22.9 m upstream from the final focus, a sequence of four silicon detectors (E1: 300$`\mu `$m, E2: 300$`\mu `$m, E3: 300$`\mu `$m, E4: 6mm, respectively) with the third one being a silicon-strip detector with 16$`\times `$16 x-y strips with a pitch of 3 mm, and a Germanium array in close geometry. The silicon detectors were equipped with two parallel electronic chains with different gains, one for heavy-fragment identification and the other for decay spectroscopy.

The fragments of interest were stopped in the third silicon detector of the telescope and identified on an event- by-event basis by means of their flight times and of their energy loss in all detectors of the telescope (see ). Implantation events were triggered by detectors E1 and E2, whereas radioactive decay events were triggered either by the detector E3 or by the adjacent silicon detector E4. The efficiency to observe a $`\beta `$ particle in the E4 detector for a $`\beta `$ decay occurring in the implantation detector is about 30%. The $`\gamma `$ energy calibration and detection efficiency was obtained with standard calibration sources. The efficiency was about 1.6% at 1.3 MeV.

In a 36 h run, 22 45Fe implantations were identified. Due to a rather low implantation rate of much less than one radioactive isotope per second in each pixel, an implantation-decay correlation could be performed on an event-by-event basis with each decay event being correlated to each implantation in the same x-y pixel having occurred less than a well-defined maximum time interval before the decay event.

Figure 2a shows the decay-energy spectrum correlated with implants of 45Fe where only decay events occurring less that 15 ms after a 45Fe implantation were analysed. The spectrum exhibits a pronounced peak at (1.06$`\pm `$0.04) MeV with only a very few other counts. In contrary, in the spectrum in figure 2b conditioned by a decay time in the interval between 15 ms and 100 ms, the 1.06 MeV peak has almost completely disappeared and other events higher in decay energy show up. These counts are consistent with the decay-energy spectrum of 43Cr , the 2p daughter of 45Fe. The 1.06 MeV peak, however, seems to originate only from the fast decay of 45Fe. In addition, the events in this peak have no coincident $`\beta `$-particle signals in the adjacent detector E4 (see figure 3a) beyond the noise level, whereas these coincident $`\beta `$ particles can be observed for the $`\beta `$ decay of 46Fe implants analysed with a similar condition in energy for the E3 detector. For 12 46Fe events in the decay-energy interval 0.875 - 1.3 MeV, six coincident $`\beta `$ particles can be identified in the E4 detector (see figure 3b). As the $`\beta `$-decay end-point energies are roughly the same for 45Fe and 46Fe and therefore similar $`\beta `$-detection efficiencies can be assumed, the non-observation of $`\beta `$ particles in coincidence with the 1.06 MeV peak alone is a strong indication that this peak originates from a direct two-proton ground-state decay of 45Fe. The probability to miss all $`\beta `$ particles for the 12 events in the peak is as low as 1.4%. Although the $`\gamma `$-detection efficiency was rather low, it is worth mentioning that none of the 12 events in the 1.06 MeV peak is in coincidence with a $`\gamma `$ ray.

The observation of only twelve events in the peak at 1.06 MeV indicates that the branching ratio for 2p decay of 45Fe is not hundred percent, in agreement with theoretical prediction of a $`\beta `$-decay half-life of about 7 ms . However, dead-time losses (the data-acquisition dead time is about 0.5 ms) make us lose about 3-4 events. The dead zone between two strips of the implantation detector is another possible source of losses. The events with an energy above 6 MeV (see figure 2a) decay with a half-life compatible with the one of 45Fe and are therefore must likely $`\beta `$-delayed events. With this information, a branching ratio for 2p emission of 70-80% can be estimated.

The observation of a pronounced peak at 1.06 MeV from the decay of 45Fe is a strong additional indication that 45Fe is not decaying by a $`\beta `$-delayed mode alone as does 46Fe  with a more complexe decay-energy spectrum. In addition, the width of the 45Fe peak (60$`\pm `$10 keV) is about 40% smaller than $`\beta `$-delayed one-proton peaks from neighboring nuclei. Although the statsistics is limited, this indicates that the 45Fe peak is not broadened due to $`\beta `$ pile-up.

The decay-time spectrum of 45Fe gated by the 1.06 MeV peak is shown in figure 4. A one-component fit with an exponential yields a half-life for 45Fe of $`T_{1/2}`$ = (4.7$`{}_{1.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+3.4}`$) ms. The decay-time spectrum of events up to 100 ms after a 45Fe implantation can be fitted by taking into account the decay of 45Fe and its 2p daughter 43Cr. The half-life then is (5.7$`{}_{1.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+2.7}`$) ms.

The energy of the peak at 1.06 MeV agrees nicely with $`Q_{2p}`$ value predictions from Brown  of 1.15(9) MeV, from Ormand  of 1.28(18) MeV, and from Cole  of 1.22(5) MeV. These models use the isobaric-multiplet mass equation and shell-model calculations to determine masses of proton-rich nuclei from their neutron-rich mirror partners. Q-value predictions from models aiming at predicting masses for the entire chart of nuclei are in less good agreement with our present result. All the 2p Q-value predictions are summarized in figure 5, where they are used in barrier-penetration calculations using the simple di-proton model for two-proton emission (the model used in  with $`R=4.2`$ fm).

For $`E_p`$ = 1.06$`\pm `$0.04 MeV, these calculations predict a di-proton barrier penetration half-life of (0.2$`{}_{0.1}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.3}`$) ms, if one assumes a spectroscopic factor of unity. Brown  calculated a spectroscopic factor of 0.195 for a direct 2p decay of 45Fe which increases the barrier tunnel time to a predicted half-life of (1.2$`{}_{0.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1.5}`$) ms.

We have also used the R-matrix formulation of Barker  both in its simple form, equivalent to the di-proton decay model discussed above, and in a more realistic form which includes the s-wave resonance of the two protons. In the R-matrix we need to choose a channel radius $`a`$ and an associated dimensionless reduced width $`\theta _{sp}^2`$ (Eq. 16 of ). For consistency we take $`a=4.2`$ fm which is a region of the resonance wave function where $`\theta _{sp}^21`$. With $`S=0.195`$ we obtain a half-life of (1.7$`{}_{0.5}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+2.3}`$) ms in the simple model, and (8$`{}_{6}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+22}`$) s in the s-wave resonance model. The reduction in the phase space due to the two-proton resonance increases the lifetime by a factor of 4000. Grigorenko et al.  studied the emission of two protons from 48Ni in a three-body model. They find that the half-life for the same $`Q_{2p}`$ value increases by about three orders of magnitude when going from a simple di-proton model to the more advanced three-body model. Thus the models which include the interaction between two-protons appear to give a lifetime which is much longer than the observed value.

A sequential decay seems to be excluded for 45Fe, as the intermediate state, the ground state of 44Mn, is, depending on the prediction used, either not in the allowed region or at the very limit of the allowed region. The model predictions  range from $`Q_{1p}`$ = -24 keV to +10 keV. As the intermediate state is most probably rather narrow (barrier-penetration calculations yield a value of about $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ = 50 meV), the first proton would have a very long half-life (hours or even days), which makes this decay mode very unlikely.

In conclusion, we have studied the decay of 45Fe in an experiment where we measured its decay energy yielding a peak at 1.06 MeV, a half-life of 4.7 ms, and, in particular, no coincident $`\beta `$ particle or $`\gamma `$ ray for the events in the decay-energy peak. In addition, strong indications for the decay of the 2p daughter, 43Cr, after implantation of 45Fe are found. Additional support comes from the width of the 45Fe peak. The energy of the observed peak is in reasonable agreement with theoretical predictions for the 2p decay energy. A consistent picture arises, if one assumes that a two-proton ground-state emission occurs. Simple model calculations favor the observed decay mode to be a 2He/di-proton emission.

Whereas the two-proton ground-state decay of 45Fe seems to be established with the present data, future high-statistics data should definitively allow to conclude on the nature of the two-proton decay, 2He emission or three-body decay. This question can be addressed in an experiment, which measures the individual proton energies and the relative-angle distribution for the two protons emitted which should be either isotropic (three-body decay) or forward-peaked (2He emission).

It should be mentioned that similar results, although with less statistics and a lower energy resolution, were also obtained at the FRS of GSI .

We would like to acknowledge the continous effort of the whole GANIL staff for ensuring a smooth running of the experiment. This work was supported in part by the Polish Committee of Scientific Research under grant KBN 2 P03B 036 15, the contract between IN2P3 and Poland, the NSF grant PHY-00-7911, as well as by the Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine.


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# Multiple Weak Deflections and the Detection of Flattened Halos with Galaxy–Galaxy Lensing

## 1 Introduction

The observed flatness of the rotation curves of the disks of spiral galaxies, in addition to the stellar dynamics and the hydrodynamics of hot gas in giant ellipticals, provides convincing evidence that most, if not all, large galaxies reside within massive dark matter halos (see, e.g., Fabricant & Gorenstein 1983; Stewart et al. 1984; Lauer 1985; and Fich & Tremaine 1991 and references therein). In addition, Zaritsky & White (1994) and Zaritsky et al. (1997) have used the dynamics of genuine satellites of field spirals to investigate the gravitational potentials of the halos, finding that the amount of dark matter associated with the primary galaxy is large and, specifically, they conclude that the mass contained within a radius of $`150h^1`$ kpc of the primary galaxy is of order 1 – 2$`\times 10^{12}h^1M_{}`$ (here $`h`$ is the present value of the Hubble parameter in units of 100 km/s/Mpc). More recently, a dynamical study of the masses of a subset of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies has led to similar conclusions (McKay et al. 2002). Despite the apparent ubiquity of dark halos matter around galaxies, however, the characteristic physical parameters associated with the halos, such as their shapes and physical extents, remain poorly constrained.

A number of independent investigations have, however, shown that weak, systematic gravitational lensing of background galaxies by foreground galaxies is a potentially powerful method by which the physical parameters of galaxy halos may be constrained both in the field and in rich clusters (e.g., Brainerd, Blandford & Smail 1996; Dell’Antonio & Tyson 1996; Griffiths et al. 1996; Hudson et al. 1998; Ebbels 1998; Natarajan et al. 1998, 2001; Geiger & Schneider 1999; Fischer et al. 2000; Hoekstra 2000; Jaunsen 2000; McKay et al. 2001; Smith et al. 2001; Wilson et al. 2001). This effect, known as galaxy–galaxy lensing, is too weak to be detected from the image of an individual lensed source, but since it acts coherently about the lens centers, it results in a slight preference for the images of distant source galaxies to be oriented tangentially with respect to the locations of foreground lens galaxies on the sky. Unfortunately, it is difficult to compare all of the above studies directly since the imaging quality, image deconvolution methods, and the categorization of galaxies into “lenses” and “sources” is by no means consistent amongst the investigations. The diversity of both the data and the analysis techniques notwithstanding, however, generally good agreement amongst the investigations has been found. In particular, observations of galaxy–galaxy lensing by field galaxies have yielded inferred velocity dispersions for the halos of $`L^{}`$ galaxies which compare well with more traditional dynamical or hydrodynamical measurements ($`\sigma _v140`$ km/s to 190 km/s) and the inferred maximum radial extents of the halos of $`L^{}`$ galaxies are very large indeed ($`>100h^1`$ kpc to $`250h^1`$ kpc).

With the advent of very wide–field imaging capabilities, we expect that galaxy–galaxy lensing will develop into a useful method by which fundamental questions about galaxy formation can be addressed directly. For example, Natarajan et al. (1998, 2001) and Geiger & Schneider (1999) have demonstrated that galaxy–galaxy lensing by the galaxies in rich clusters can be used to constrain the degree to which the dark matter halos of galaxies are truncated during infall. Other potential uses of galaxy–galaxy lensing include placing constraints on the evolution of the total mass–to–light ratio of galaxies (both in the field and in clusters), the morphological dependence of the halo potential (i.e., early–type versus late–type galaxies), the “bias” of light versus mass in the universe (i.e., the galaxy–mass correlation function), and even the shape of the redshift distribution of faint galaxies with redshifts in the range $`1<z<3`$ (see, e.g., Brainerd 2002; Brainerd & Blandford 2002).

In addition to these applications, Natarajan & Refregier (2000) and Brainerd & Wright (2000) have discussed the possibility that observations of galaxy–galaxy lensing could provide direct constraints on the projected shapes of dark matter halos. Although the simple singular isothermal sphere can reproduce the flatness of the rotation curves of the disks of spiral galaxies, there are both observational and theoretical arguments in favor of halos which are flattened, rather than spherical. The observational evidence is somewhat scarce, owing to the fact that there are relatively few galaxies for which the shape of the halo potential can be probed directly via traditional methods. Nevertheless, the evidence for flattened halos is quite diverse and includes such observations as the dynamics of polar ring galaxies, the geometry of X-ray isophotes, the flaring of HI gas in spirals, the evolution of gaseous warps, and the kinematics of Population II stars in our own Galaxy. In particular, studies of disk systems which probe distances of order 15 kpc from the galactic planes suggest that the ratio of shortest to longest principle axes of the halos is $`c/a=0.5\pm 0.2`$ (see, e.g., the comprehensive review by Sackett 1999 and references therein). Studies of a number of strong lens galaxies have also suggested that the mass distributions of the lenses are not precisely spherical. For example, Maller et al. (2000) have found that, provided the disk mass is small compared to the halo mass, the halo of the spiral galaxy which lenses the quasar B1600+434 is consistent with $`c/a=0.53`$. In addition, the 17 strong lens systems studied by Keeton, Kochanek & Falco (1998) showed some preference for flattened mass distributions, although extremely flattened (i.e., “disky”) mass distributions were ruled out. Finally, high–resolution simulations of dissipationless cold dark matter models consistently result in markedly non–spherical galaxy halos with a mean projected ellipticity of order 0.3 (e.g., Dubinski & Carlberg 1991; Warren et al. 1992) and, therefore, from a theoretical standpoint it is not at all unreasonable to expect that the dark matter halos of galaxies should be somewhat flattened in projection.

Unlike a spherically–symmetric lens for which the gravitational lensing shear is isotropic about the lens center, the shear due to an elliptical lens is anisotropic about the lens center. Specifically, at a given angular distance, $`\theta `$, from an elliptical lens, source galaxies which are located closer to the major axis of the mass distribution of the lens will experience greater shear than sources which are located closer to the minor axis (e.g., Schneider, Ehlers & Falco 1992). Noting this well–known effect, Natarajan & Refregier (2000) and Brainerd & Wright (2000) modeled the dark matter halos of field galaxies as infinite singular isothermal ellipsoids and made rough estimates of the sizes of observational data sets which would be required to detect “anisotropic” galaxy–galaxy lensing and, hence, to constrain the net flattening of the halo population. Both studies conclude that, if the mean flattening of the halos is of order 0.3, then forthcoming wide–field surveys such as the SDSS should be able to detect this effect.

In estimating the amount of data which would be required to detect anisotropic galaxy–galaxy lensing, both Natarajan & Refregier (2000) and Brainerd & Wright (2000) made the simplifying assumption that each distant source galaxy is lensed by only one foreground galaxy. However, for a modestly deep imaging survey ($`I_{\mathrm{lim}}23`$), the simulations of galaxy–galaxy lensing performed by Brainerd, Blandford & Smail (1996), hereafter BBS, indicated that most of the galaxies with magnitudes in the range $`22<I<23`$ would, in fact, have been lensed at a comparable level by two or more foreground galaxies (see, e.g., §3.5 of BBS). Therefore we expect that in a realistic data set, such “multiple deflections” may significantly affect the signal–to–noise which could be achieved when attempting to detect anisotropic galaxy–galaxy lensing.

Although BBS included a largely qualitative discussion of the importance of multiple weak deflections in deep data sets, a detailed quantitative discussion of this effect has not been published to date. Therefore, we begin this paper by demonstrating that multiple weak deflections are expected to occur with high probability within sufficiently deep data sets. For this we use the well–studied northern Hubble Deep Field, hereafter HDF–N, (Williams et al. 1996). In §2 we compute the probability distribution of weak galaxy–galaxy lensing events for the faint galaxies in the HDF–N as a function of the number of deflectors (i.e., the number of foreground lenses). In addition, we briefly investigate the effect of ignoring such multiple deflections on the values of the dark matter halo parameters that are inferred from observations of galaxy–galaxy lensing.

Having established the importance of multiple weak deflections in deep data sets, we then investigate the systematic lensing of background galaxies by foreground galaxies for a case in which the halos of the lens galaxies are modeled as truncated, singular isothermal ellipsoids. We perform Monte Carlo simulations of galaxy–galaxy lensing, including the effects of multiple weak deflections on the final images of distant galaxies, and we compute the area of a deep ground–based imaging survey ($`I_{\mathrm{lim}}23`$) which would be required in order to detect anisotropic galaxy–galaxy lensing via a straightforward average of the signal. The details of the simulations, including a discussion of the lensing properties of the dark matter halos, are given in §3. The anticipated anisotropy in the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal and the results for the area of a survey which would be necessary in order to detect anisotropic galaxy–galaxy lensing in the presence of realistic observational noise are given in §4. A discussion of our results is presented in §5.

## 2 Multiple Weak Deflections in the HDF–N

The Hubble Deep Field (North) and flanking fields have been the subject of a deep redshift survey (Cohen et al. 2000) as well as an extensive multicolor photometric investigation (Hogg et al. 2000). As a result, both the redshifts, $`z`$, and the rest–frame blue luminosities, $`L_B`$, of $`600`$ galaxies in this region of space are known (Cohen 2002). Therefore, it is possible to make quite a detailed theoretical prediction for the weak galaxy–galaxy lensing shear field in the region of the HDF–N and, specifically, for the probability of multiple deflections.

For simplicity, we follow the approach of BBS in their galaxy–galaxy lensing simulations and we scale the physical properties of the dark matter halos around the galaxies in the HDF–N and the flanking fields in terms of the characteristic properties associated with the halos of $`L^{}`$ galaxies. We let $`\sigma _v^{}`$ be the velocity dispersion of an $`L^{}`$ galaxy halo and we assume that a Tully–Fisher or Faber–Jackson type of relation will hold for each of our galaxies. We therefore have

$$\frac{\sigma _v}{\sigma _v^{}}=\left(\frac{L_B}{L_B^{}}\right)^{1/4},$$
(1)
where $`\sigma _v`$ is the velocity dispersion of a halo in which a galaxy with luminosity $`L_B`$ resides.

In this section we will focus on the probability of multiple deflections and we will compute only the azimuthally–averaged galaxy–galaxy lensing shear (i.e., the mean shear within circular annuli that are centered on the lens galaxies). In this case it is sufficient to adopt a circularly–symmetric density profile for the dark matter halos and, again, we adopt the density profile used by BBS in their analysis:

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\sigma _v^2s^s}{2\pi Gr^2\left(r^2+s^2\right)},$$
(2)
where $`G`$ is Newton’s constant and $`s`$ is a characteristic halo radius. (Note that since our analysis focuses solely on the weak lensing regime, it is sufficient to adopt a density profile with a central density which is singular since the inclusion of any reasonable–sized core will not affect the weak lensing properties of the halos at all.) As in BBS we assume that the total mass–to–light ratio of a galaxy is constant independent of its luminosity and, therefore, the radii of the halos of galaxies with $`L_BL_B^{}`$ scale with the radii of the halos of $`L_B^{}`$ galaxies according to:

$$\frac{s}{s^{}}=\left(\frac{L_B}{L_B^{}}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(3)
Throughout we adopt fiducial values of $`\sigma _v^{}=156`$ km/s and $`s^{}=100h^1`$ kpc for the halos of $`L_B^{}`$ galaxies (i.e., comparable to the characteristic parameters which have been inferred from previous studies of galaxy–galaxy lensing).

Having made these assumptions, we can make predictions for the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear field within the region of the HDF–N that would be generated by the $`600`$ galaxies in Cohen (2002). These objects include not only galaxies in the HDF–N, but also galaxies in the flanking fields and, due to the substantial masses of some of the galaxies in the flanking fields, their weak lensing effects may influence the shear field inside the much smaller region of the HDF–N itself. We therefore include the flanking field galaxies in all of our calculations for the weak shear field inside the HDF–N.

Here our goal is to quantify the probability that a given faint galaxy will be weakly–lensed by one or more foreground galaxies. This probability will, of course, be a strong function of the actual value of the shear, $`\gamma `$, due to a given weak lensing deflection. That is, it is much more likely for a distant galaxy to be lensed by a foreground galaxy which produces a shear of $`\gamma 0.001`$ than, say, a shear of $`\gamma 0.01`$. Therefore, in order to discuss the number of weak deflections that a given source galaxy is likely to encounter, we must first decide what minimum value of $`\gamma `$ qualifies as a “significant” deflection.

A typical value for the net shear due to galaxy–galaxy lensing is $`\gamma 0.005`$ (see, e.g., the observational papers cited in the Introduction) and we use this value of $`\gamma `$ as a baseline for computing the number of weak lensing deflections that source galaxies undergo. Specifically, we compute $`P(N_D)`$, the probability that a given galaxy is lensed by $`N_D`$ foreground galaxies (i.e, “deflectors”) where each individual deflection gives rise to a shear of $`\gamma 0.005`$. That is, $`P(N_D=2)`$ is the probability that a given galaxy has been lensed by two individual foreground galaxies, each of which lensed the distant galaxy at a level which is comparable to or greater than the expected net shear due to galaxy–galaxy lensing.

Shown in Fig. 1 is the theoretical probability distribution function, $`P(N_D)`$, for source galaxies in the HDF–N with redshifts of $`z_s`$. In order to produce this result, source galaxies were placed at random locations within the HDF–N and were assigned specific redshifts, $`z_s`$. Note that since the angular clustering of cosmologically–distant galaxies is observed to be quite weak (e.g., Infante & Pritchett 1995; Villumsen, Freudling & da Costa 1997; Brainerd & Smail 1998) and since BBS found that the inclusion of the intrinsic clustering of the faint galaxies in their sample made no measurable difference to the predicted galaxy–galaxy lensing signal, the use of random location for our source galaxies is reasonably well–justified.

Using the scaling relations above, the individual values of $`\gamma `$ due to each one of the galaxies in Cohen (2002) is computed for the source galaxies and a probability distribution for individual deflections with $`\gamma >0.005`$ is assembled. Results are shown in Fig. 1 for three different cosmologies: open ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0`$, $`H_0=60`$ km/s/Mpc), flat Lambda-dominated ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0.7`$, $`H_0=60`$ km/s/Mpc), and Einstein–de Sitter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1.0`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0`$, $`H_0=60`$ km/s/Mpc). The probability distributions are nearly independent of the cosmology, which is unsurprising since the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear has only a weak cosmology dependence (see, e.g., BBS §3.6).

For a source galaxy in the HDF–N which is located at a redshift of $`z_s=0.5`$, the probability of being lensed by even one foreground galaxy is quite small. This is due to the fact that the median redshift of the galaxies in Cohen (2002) is of order 0.6 and, hence, many of the “lens” galaxies are actually more distant than the “source” galaxies. At a redshift of $`z_s=1`$, however, the probability that a source galaxy has been lensed at a significant level by two or more foreground galaxies is of order 50%. At source redshifts of $`z_s=1.25`$, 1.5, and 1.75, the probability of a source galaxy encountering multiple deflections of $`\gamma >0.005`$ increases to of order 70%, 85%, and 90%, respectively. Therefore, we expect that in a deep data set for which the median redshift is $`>1`$, multiple weak deflections of a substantial magnitude are very likely to have occurred. Of course, in the case of individual deflections for which $`\gamma <0.005`$, the probability of comparable multiple deflections occurring at any given source redshift will be greater than the results shown in Fig. 1.

A major goal of studies of galaxy–galaxy lensing is to constrain the nature of the dark matter halos of the lens galaxies. That is, one wishes to use observations of the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear to measure the values of the parameters $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ above. However, it is clear from Fig. 1 that multiple deflections will likely occur in deep data sets and, therefore, they should be included in calculations which attempt to infer $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ from a detection of galaxy–galaxy lensing. To assess the degree of error in $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ which would be caused by not including multiple deflections, we compute $`\gamma (\theta )`$, the theoretical mean shear as a function of lens–source separation in the HDF–N, for two distinct cases: (i) all of the weak deflections are included in the determination of the net shear experienced by each source galaxy, and (ii) only the deflection due to the closest lens (in projection on the sky) is used to determine the shear. That is, in case (ii) we ignore all of the multiple deflections and we assume that the nearest neighbor lens galaxy is the only lens. This is motivated by the fact that for a singular isothermal potential the shear decreases as $`\gamma (\theta )\theta ^1`$ and, therefore, in the simplistic case of lenses being confined to a single plane in redshift space and sources being confined to another plane in redshift space, the nearest neighbor lens is likely to be the only “important” lens.

The magnitude of the mean shear due to galaxy–galaxy lensing is, of course, strongly–dependent upon the depth of the source sample and here we restrict our analysis to source galaxies with $`I<23`$ (corresponding to a median redshift of order 0.85). Although the completeness limit of the HDF–N extends far below this magnitude, $`I_{\mathrm{lim}}23`$ is comparable to the limiting magnitude of most of the deeper data sets which have so far been used to study galaxy–galaxy lensing. Unfortunately, due to the small area of the field there are relatively few galaxies in the HDF–N data which satisfy our limiting magnitude requirements (only of order 30 galaxies with known redshifts). Therefore, an accurate prediction of the effects of multiple deflections on the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear cannot be obtained simply by using the observed HDF–N galaxies. Instead, we must generate Monte Carlo source galaxy catalogs which reproduce the observed faint galaxy number counts and for which we adopt a parameterized redshift distribution. As in BBS, we use a redshift distribution of the form

$$P(z|I)=\frac{\beta z^2\mathrm{exp}[(z/z_0)^\beta ]}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3/\beta )z_0^3}$$
(4)
(e.g., Baugh & Efstathiou 1993), which is in good agreement with both the no–evolution model and with the observed redshift distribution of galaxies with $`19I22`$ obtained from the Canada France Redshift Survey (e.g., LeFèvre et al. 1996). Here

$$z_0=k_z[z_m+z_m^{}(II_m)],$$
(5)
where $`z_m`$ is the median redshift, $`I_m`$ is the median $`I`$-band magnitude, and $`z_m^{}`$ is the derivative of the median redshift with respect to $`I`$. Extrapolating the results of the CFRS to a sample of galaxies with $`19I25`$ we have that $`z_m=0.86`$, $`z_m^{}=0.15`$, $`k_z=0.8`$, and $`\beta =1.5`$. A total of 6250 Monte Carlo realizations of the source galaxy distribution were generated, and the shear experienced by each of the sources was computed.

Since galaxy–galaxy lensing occurs in the weak regime (i.e., $`|\stackrel{}{\gamma }|<<1`$), the net shear experienced by any source galaxy which has been weakly–lensed by more than one foreground galaxy can be computed simply as the (complex) vector sum of the shears induced by each of the individual lenses (e.g., Schneider, Ehlers & Falco 1992). Therefore, the net shear experienced by a given source galaxy after having been lensed by $`M`$ weak lenses is given by:

$$\stackrel{}{\gamma }\gamma _1+i\gamma _2=\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}\gamma _{1,j}+i\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}\gamma _{2,j},$$
(6)
where $`\gamma _{1,j}`$ is the real component of the shear due to lens $`j`$ and $`\gamma _{2,j}`$ is the imaginary component. For our calculations of the net shear due to multiple weak deflections, we include all deflections, $`j`$, encountered by each source galaxy (i.e., not just those deflections for which $`\gamma _j>0.005`$).

Shown in Fig. 2 is the variation of the mean shear with lens–source separation, both with and without the inclusion of multiple deflections. As before, we take $`\sigma _v^{}=156`$ km/s and $`s^{}=100h^1`$ kpc and, for simplicity, we have only considered the case of an open universe. (Since the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal is so weakly–dependent upon the cosmology, there is no significant loss of generality from this choice.) On scales $`>1^{\prime \prime }`$, Fig. 2 shows that there is a substantial systematic error (of order 50%) in the mean shear when multiple deflections are ignored in the calculation. As a result, if one were to model the true shear field with a theoretical shear field that did not include multiple deflections, substantial systematic errors in the best–fitting values of $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ would result. We demonstrate this in Fig. 3, where we compare the actual shear produced by the HDF–N galaxies (i.e., the solid squares in Fig. 2) to the shear that one obtains for single–deflection calculations which use various values of $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$. Formally, the best–fitting values from the single–deflection calculations are $`\sigma _v^{}=198`$ km/s and $`s^{}=435h^1`$ kpc, which are very much larger than the input values of 156 km/s and 100$`h^1`$ kpc. (Note, however, that the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear is relatively insensitive to the radii of the halos and, so, for a given value of $`s^{}`$, $`\chi ^2`$ is nearly identical for all values of $`s^{}`$ which exceed $`100h^1`$ kpc. See also §3.6 of BBS.) Neglecting multiple deflections in the process of constraining $`\sigma _v^{}`$ and $`s^{}`$ leads, therefore, to a formal estimate of the mass of the halo of an $`L^{}`$ galaxy which is a factor of $`2`$ too large within a radius of $`100h^1`$ kpc (e.g., BBS equation 3.4).

We therefore conclude that the effects of multiple weak deflections can be quite important in the accurate prediction of theoretical galaxy–galaxy lensing shear fields, and in the determination of the characteristic parameters which are associated with the halos of the lens galaxies. We now turn to theoretical calculations of shear fields caused by flattened dark matter halos, and for which we have explicitly included all of the multiple deflections.

## 3 Galaxy–Galaxy Lensing with Flattened Halos

While the HDF–N is a useful field for demonstrating the likelihood and effects of multiple weak deflections, it is nevertheless an extremely small field and one for which the effects of halo flattening will not be convincingly detected in the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. We, therefore, have constructed large Monte Carlo galaxy catalogs in order to investigate weak lensing by non–spherical galaxy halos. In the following subsections we outline the details of the galaxy catalogs and their weak lensing properties.

### 3.1 Luminous Properties of the Galaxies

The Monte Carlo galaxy catalogs are designed to reproduce a number of observational constraints on the faint galaxy population:

* the number counts of faint galaxies, $`\frac{d\mathrm{log}N}{dm}`$, to a limiting magnitude of $`I_{\mathrm{lim}}=25`$
* the shape of the redshift distribution of faint galaxies, $`N(z)`$, extrapolated to $`I_{\mathrm{lim}}=25`$
* the distribution of intrinsic shapes (i.e., the unlensed equivalent image ellipses of the light distribution of the sources), as obtained from deep imaging with HST

Each galaxy catalog is generated within a $`40^{}\times 40^{}`$ region of sky and for simplicity we adopt an open cosmology with $`H_0=60`$ km/s/Mpc, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=0`$. A total of 500 independent catalogs were generated and were then used to compute the mean galaxy–galaxy lensing signal which would occur if the dark matter halos of the galaxies were substantially flattened.

As in §2, all galaxies in our catalogs are assigned random locations on the frame. Each galaxy is also assigned an apparent magnitude, $`19<I<25`$, which is drawn from the deep $`I`$–band number counts obtained by Smail et al. (1995). This results in a number density of 60 galaxies per square arcminute in the simulations. In addition, each galaxy is assigned an intrinsic (i.e., unlensed) position angle which is drawn at random from $`\frac{\pi }{2}\varphi \frac{\pi }{2}`$. That is, we assume that in the absence of gravitational lensing, the orientations of the major axes of the images of the distant galaxies are randomly distributed. The galaxies are also assigned intrinsic shapes, $`\tau (a^2b^2)/(2ab)`$, drawn from the probability distribution

$$P(\tau )=A\tau \mathrm{exp}[(\tau /0.036)^{0.54}]$$
(7)
which was obtained by Ebbels (1998) using 94 deep archival HST images of blank fields. Here $`a`$ is the major axis of the (unlensed) equivalent image ellipse of a galaxy and $`b`$ is the minor axis.

Each galaxy is assigned a redshift based upon its apparent magnitude, drawn from equation (4) in §2, and each galaxy is also assigned an intrinsic luminosity, $`L`$, according to:

$$\frac{L}{L^{}}=\left(\frac{H_0D_d}{c}\right)(1+z)^{3+\alpha }10^{0.4(22.9I)},$$
(8)
(see, e.g., BBS). Here $`D_d`$ is the angular diameter distance to the galaxy, $`z`$ is its redshift, $`I`$ is its apparent magnitude, and the parameter $`\alpha `$ is the slope of the spectral energy distribution:

$$\alpha =\frac{d\mathrm{log}_{10}L_\nu }{d\nu }.$$
(9)
For simplicity we adopt the mean slope, $`\alpha =0.42`$, between the $`R`$ and $`B`$ bands which was found in the Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey (Cohen et al. 1999ab).

### 3.2 Gravitational Properties of the Galaxies

Having assigned all of the intrinsic properties of the galaxies which are associated with the light distribution, we then assign the intrinsic properties which are associated with the distribution of the mass. Each galaxy is assumed to reside within a dark matter halo which can be fairly represented as a truncated singular isothermal ellipsoid. Following Kormann et al. (1994), the surface mass densities of the dark matter halos are given by

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }(\rho )=\frac{\sigma _v^2\sqrt{f}}{2G}\left(\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\rho ^2+x_t^2}}\right),$$
(10)
where $`\sigma _v`$ is the line of sight velocity dispersion, $`f`$ is the axis ratio of the mass distribution as projected on the sky ($`0<f1`$), $`x_t`$ is a truncation radius, $`G`$ is Newton’s constant, and $`\rho `$ is a generalized elliptical radius defined such that $`\rho ^2=x_1^2+f^2x_2^2`$. Here $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are Cartesian coordinates measured, respectively, along the minor and major axes of the projected mass distribution of the halo. In the limiting case of a round lens (i.e., $`f1`$), the total mass of the halo becomes

$$M_{\mathrm{tot}}=\frac{\pi \sigma _v^2x_t}{G},$$
(11)
which is identical to the halo mass model adopted by BBS.

Provided a galaxy is in a state of dynamical equilibrium (i.e., it has not undergone a recent collision or merger), it is reasonable to expect that, in projection on the sky, the position angle of major axis of the mass distribution will be aligned well with the (unlensed) major axis of the light distribution. In addition, work by Keeton, Kochanek & Falco (1998) and Kochanek (2001) has shown that the mass and light in strong lens galaxies is aligned quite well. Therefore, we assign a position angle to each halo (as projected on the sky) which is identical to the intrinsic position angle that was assigned to its light distribution in §3.1. However, we do not assign identical intrinsic ellipticities to both the mass and light distributions. Instead, the ellipticity of each galaxy’s halo is drawn from a probability distribution which is constructed from current observational constraints on the shapes of galaxy halos. Specifically, from principle moment analyses in which, by definition, $`a>b>c`$, the distribution of halo shapes seems to favor $`c/a=0.5\pm 0.2`$ and $`b/a>0.8`$ (see, e.g., Sackett 1999). To generate the distribution of projected ellipticities of the halos, then, we construct ten million ellipsoids in which the values of $`b/a`$ are drawn from a uniform distribution $`0.8b/a1.0`$ and the values of $`c/a`$ are drawn from a Gaussian distribution with a mean of 0.5 and a standard deviation of 0.2. Each ellipsoid is then projected onto a plane which is oriented perpendicularly to a randomly–chosen line of sight and the distribution of the projected axis ratios of the ellipsoids is computed. The result is shown in Fig. 4, where the mean and median ellipticities of the distribution are both of order 0.3 and we use the convention that $`ϵ1b/a=1f`$.

As in §2, we scale the physical properties of the galaxy halos in terms of the characteristic properties associated with the halos of $`L^{}`$ galaxies: $`\frac{\sigma _v}{\sigma _v^{}}=\left(\frac{L}{L^{}}\right)^{1/4}`$ and $`\frac{x_t}{x_t^{}}=\left(\frac{L}{L^{}}\right)^{1/2}`$. Again, we adopt a fiducial value of $`\sigma _v^{}=156`$ km/s for the velocity dispersion of the halo of an $`L^{}`$ galaxy and a corresponding truncation radius of $`x_t^{}=100h^1`$ kpc.

### 3.3 Lensing Properties of the Halos

The convergence of the lenses is given by

$$\kappa (\rho )=\frac{\sigma _v^2\sqrt{f}}{2G\mathrm{\Sigma }_c}\left(\frac{1}{\rho }\frac{1}{\sqrt{\rho ^2+x_t^2}}\right),$$
(12)
where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_c\left(\frac{4\pi G}{c^2}\frac{D_dD_{ds}}{D_s}\right)^1`$ is the “critical surface mass density”, $`D_d`$ is the angular diameter distance of the lens, $`D_s`$ is the angular diameter distance of the source and $`D_{ds}`$ is the angular diameter distance between the lens and the source. The real and imaginary components of the shear due to a lens with a projected axis ratio of $`f`$ can be derived straightforwardly by using equations (63abc) of Kormann et al. (1994):

$`\gamma _1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _v^2\sqrt{f}}{2G\mathrm{\Sigma }_c}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}(2\phi )}{\rho }}\left\{f^2\left(x_1^2x_2^2\right)\left(1f^2\right)x_t^2\right\}𝒫\right]`$ (13)
$`\gamma _2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sigma _v^2\sqrt{f}}{2G\mathrm{\Sigma }_c}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(2\phi )}{\rho }}2f^2x_1x_2𝒫\right]`$ (14)
where

$$𝒫\frac{x_1^2+f^4x_2^2(1+f^2)(\rho ^2+x_t^2)+2fx_t\sqrt{\rho ^2+x_t^2}}{\sqrt{\rho ^2+x_t^2}\left[f^4r^42f^2(1f^2)x_t^2(x_1^2x_2^2)+(1f^2)^2x_t^4\right]}.$$
(15)
Recall from eqn. (10) above that $`x_1`$ and $`x_2`$ are Cartesian coordinates measured along the minor and major axes of the lens, respectively. In order to maintain consistency with the notation of Kormann et al. (1994), here we have also introduced a polar coordinate system, centered on the lens, with radial coordinate $`r\sqrt{x_1^2+x_2^2}`$ and polar angle, $`\phi `$, defined such that $`x_1=r\mathrm{cos}\phi `$ and $`x_2=r\mathrm{sin}\phi `$.

It is clear from equations (12) through (15) that, unlike a circularly symmetric lens for which the magnitude of the shear depends only upon the angular distance from the lens center, the shear due to an elliptical lens is a function of both the angular distance from the lens center and the azimuthal coordinate of the source as measured with respect to the symmetry axes of the lens. At a given angular distance, $`\theta `$, from the lens center, the magnitude of the shear is greatest for sources located nearest to the major axis of the lens and least for sources located nearest to the minor axis of the lens. Hence, in a given radial annulus which is centered on the lens, the mean shear experienced by sources whose azimuthal coordinate, $`\phi `$, places them within $`\pm N^{}`$ of the major axis of the lens will be greater than that for sources whose azimuthal coordinate, $`\phi `$, places them within $`\pm N^{}`$ of the minor axis. As a shorthand notation, we refer to the magnitude of the mean shear experienced by sources whose azimuthal coordinates place them within $`\pm N^{}`$ of the minor axis of the lens as $`\gamma ^{}`$. Similarly, we refer to the magnitude of the mean shear experienced by sources whose azimuthal coordinates place them within $`\pm N^{}`$ of the minor axis of the lens as $`\gamma ^+`$. For clarity, we illustrate our use of this notation in Fig. 5.

For each galaxy in our simulations we define an “intrinsic” shape parameter, $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_i`$, which describes the image of the galaxy prior to being lensed:

$$\stackrel{}{\gamma }_i\frac{ab}{a+b}e^{2i\varphi },$$
(16)
where $`a`$ and $`b`$ are the intrinsic major and minor axes of the light distribution and $`\varphi `$ is its intrinsic position angle. Since we are again dealing only with the weak lensing regime, the final shape of a galaxy, $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$, after having been lensed by $`M`$ foreground galaxies is given by:

$$\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f=\stackrel{}{\gamma }_i+\underset{j=1}{\overset{M}{}}\stackrel{}{\gamma }_j,$$
(17)
where $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_j`$ is the weak shear due to lens $`j`$.

For each galaxy, $`i`$, which has a redshift of $`z_i`$, all other galaxies, $`j`$, with redshifts $`z_j<z_i`$ can formally be considered to be lenses of galaxy $`i`$. However, since the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal drops off steeply with projected lens–source separation on the sky (i.e., $`|\stackrel{}{\gamma }(\theta )|\theta ^1`$ on scales, $`\theta `$, which are less than or of order the angle subtended by the lens, and $`|\stackrel{}{\gamma }(\theta )|`$ falls off even more steeply on scales larger than that subtended by the lens), we do not actually compute the weak shear due to all of the foreground galaxies, $`j`$, which are within the full $`40^{}\times 40^{}`$ region of the simulation. Instead, to reduce the run time of the simulations, we simply compute the net shear on each (source) galaxy $`i`$ due to all (lens) galaxies $`j`$ which are located within $`150^{\prime \prime }`$ of galaxy $`i`$. Increasing the maximum lens–source separation to $`300^{\prime \prime }`$ has a negligible effect ($`<0.01|\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f|`$) on the net shear computed for each of the source galaxies.

## 4 Results

Using the final image shapes of the galaxies, $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$, we compute the angular dependence of the mean value of the shear experienced by sources located closest to the minor axes of lens galaxies, $`\gamma ^{}`$, as well as the mean value of the shear experienced by sources located closest to the major axes of lens galaxies, $`\gamma ^+`$ (e.g., Fig. 5). Clearly, in the case of isolated lenses for which the position angle of the mass distribution of the lens (i.e., the position angle of the halo as projected on the sky) is known precisely, we expect $`\gamma ^{}<\gamma ^+`$ on all angular scales, $`\theta `$, which are less than or of order the angular scale subtended by the halos. Of course, on angular scales which are substantially larger than that subtended by the halos, the ratio $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ will approach unity since, for all intents and purposes, the truncated elliptical lens begins to act similarly to a point mass lens.

Here we restrict our analysis to galaxies for which $`19<I<23`$, since a limiting magnitude of order $`I=23`$ can be achieved in a reasonable amount of observing time with large ground–based telescopes, and because this limiting magnitude is comparable to the deeper data sets which have been used to detect galaxy–galaxy lensing. We do, however, include the effects of systematic lensing due to galaxies with $`23I25`$ on the images of galaxies with $`I<23`$ since the redshifts of some galaxies with $`I23`$ will, in fact, be smaller than the redshifts of some galaxies with $`I<23`$ (e.g., equation (4) above). In addition, because of the finite area of the fields (1600 square arcminutes each), we restrict our computation of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ to only those galaxies which are located within the central $`30^{}\times 30^{}`$ region of each simulation. This is done in order to avoid errors in the calculation of the mean shear which would occur simply due to boundary effects caused by the fact that source galaxies located close to the edges of the simulations will not have been lensed by objects which would, in a larger simulation, exist just outside our $`40^{}\times 40^{}`$ frame.

In all cases below, we compute the mean shear only on scales greater than $`\theta =5^{\prime \prime }`$. This is identical to the inner radius imposed by BBS in their analysis and it insures that in a realistic data set the “source” galaxies in the analysis will be located more than 7 scale lengths from the “lens” galaxies (see, e.g., BBS). This, in turn, insures that systematic errors due to overlapping isophotes of lens and source galaxies should not occur in a realistic observational data set.

### 4.1 No Observational Noise

We first compute the angular dependence of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ in the limit of truly “ideal” data. That is, from the simulations we have precise knowledge of the orientation of the major axes of all of the halos, the redshifts of the galaxies, and the final shape parameters, $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$, of the images of the galaxies after they have been lensed by all foreground galaxies. The only source of “noise” in the data, therefore, is simply that due to the intrinsic ellipticity distribution of the galaxy shapes.

For all foreground galaxies, $`j`$, located at an angular distance $`\theta `$ from all background galaxies, $`i`$ (i.e., $`z_j<z_i`$), we compute the net tangential shear of the background galaxies using the individual values of $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$ which were obtained in the simulations. For all background galaxies located within $`\pm N^{}`$ of the symmetry axes of the halos, then, we compute the angular dependence of $`\gamma ^{}`$, $`\gamma ^+`$, and the ratio $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ as a function of differential lens–source separation on the sky. The results are shown in Fig. 6, where the left panels show results for $`N=45^{}`$, and the right panels show results for $`N=20^{}`$.

As expected, the variation of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ with differential lens–source separation is well–fitted by a broken power law. That is, on scales, $`\theta `$, which are less than or of order the angle subtended by the lenses, the mean shear should decrease roughly as $`\theta ^1`$ since we have adopted an isothermal density profile. On scales larger than the truncation radius, a steepening in the variation of the mean shear with angular separation ought to occur and this, indeed, is the case. The changes in slope which are shown in the top panels of Fig. 6 occur at $`\theta 33^{\prime \prime }`$ which, unsurprisingly, corresponds to the mean projected value of the truncation radii of the halos, $`x_t33^{\prime \prime }`$. For sources located within $`\pm 45^{}`$ of the symmetry axes of lenses, the change in slope is of order $`0.5`$ (i.e., steeper than the slope for an isothermal lens, but not quite as steep as that for a point mass lens). Again as expected, the variation of the ratio $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ as a function of differential lens–source separation is less than unity on small angular scales and approaches unity on scales considerably larger than the mean projected value of the halo truncation radii.

For the purposes of planning possible future observational investigations, we are interested in estimating the size of a deep imaging survey which would be required to detect the effects of flattened halos on the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. To do this we define an “anisotropy parameter”,

$$𝒜1\frac{\gamma ^{}}{\gamma ^+},$$
(18)
and, again for the case of truly ideal data, we compute the signal–to–noise in a measurement of $`𝒜`$ as a function of the area of the survey. Shown in Fig. 7 are the results for lens–source separations of $`5^{\prime \prime }\theta \theta _{\mathrm{out}}`$, where $`\theta _{\mathrm{out}}=35^{\prime \prime },75^{\prime \prime }`$, and $`135^{\prime \prime }`$ for the cases of $`N=45^{}`$ (left panels) and $`N=20^{}`$ (right panels). For the case of $`N=20^{}`$, the values of the anisotropy parameter are $`𝒜=0.24,0.20,0.18`$ for $`\theta _{\mathrm{out}}=35^{\prime \prime },75^{\prime \prime },135^{\prime \prime }`$ and a $`4\sigma `$ detection of $`𝒜`$ should be obtained with surveys of area 3.5, 5.0, and 9.0 square degrees, respectively. For the case of $`N=45^{}`$, the values of the anisotropy parameter are $`𝒜=0.15,0.13,0.11`$ for $`\theta _{\mathrm{out}}=35^{\prime \prime },75^{\prime \prime },135^{\prime \prime }`$ and a $`4\sigma `$ detection of $`𝒜`$ should be obtained with surveys of area 5.0, 7.0, and 14.5 square degrees, respectively.

### 4.2 Lensing–Induced Image Correlations

In the above subsection, we computed $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ relative to the actual symmetry axes of the halos of the lens galaxies themselves. That is, $`N`$ was specifically measured relative to the major and minor axes of the halos as seen in projection. Of course, in a real data set one must measure $`N`$ relative to the major and minor axes of the light distribution of the lens galaxies and, to some extent, the position angle of a lens galaxy’s equivalent image ellipse will differ from its intrinsic position angle due to the fact that lens galaxies with redshifts $`z_i`$ will have been weakly–lensed by foreground galaxies with redshifts $`z_j<z_i`$. For a typical galaxy in our simulation, the misalignment between the intrinsic position angle of the galaxy and its final post–lensing position angle is of order $`5^{}`$ or less. This, clearly, is a source of intrinsic noise in the determination of $`N`$ which one might think would be very small indeed (particularly for values of $`N>>5^{}`$). However, as we show below, this slight deflection of the position angles of the lens galaxies away from their intrinsic position angles (i.e., those which were aligned with the halo major axes a priori) induces a substantial systematic error in the values of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ when these quantities are computed relative to the post–lensing position angles of the images of the lens galaxies.

Shown in Fig. 8 is the angular dependence of $`\gamma ^{}`$, $`\gamma ^+`$, and $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ for $`N=45^{}`$ (left panels) and $`N=20^{}`$ (right panels), where $`N`$ has been measured relative to the final, observed position angles of the lens galaxies. That is, the sole difference between Fig. 8 and Fig. 6 is that here $`N`$ is measured relative the final, post-lensing position angles of the images of the lens galaxies, whereas previously we measured $`N`$ relative to the intrinsic position angles of the lenses. In Fig. 8 we see quite a striking trend: on scales larger than about $`10^{\prime \prime }`$ the values of $`\gamma ^{}`$ actually exceed those of $`\gamma ^+`$ and, hence, the ratio $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ is greater than unity.

In the limit of single deflections for each source galaxy, and for the case of isolated lens galaxies which are not themselves lensed by any foreground object, we always expect $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ to be less than unity on small scales. However, due to the fact that our galaxies are broadly distributed in redshift and we have taken full account of all weak lensing events for all of the galaxies, we clearly do not have this idealized limiting case. Rather, consider the case of 3 galaxies with redshifts $`z_1<z_2<z_3`$. If the galaxy at $`z_3`$ is weakly–lensed by both of the galaxies at $`z_2`$ and $`z_1`$, and the galaxy at $`z_2`$ is also weakly–lensed by the galaxy at $`z_1`$, then correlated alignments of the post–lensing images of the galaxies at $`z_2`$ and $`z_3`$ will occur. This, in turn, will cause $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ as measured relative to the final image of the lens at $`z_2`$ to be greater than unity (effectively by decreasing the net ellipticity of sources at $`z_3`$ which are closest to the projected major axis of the halo of the lens at $`z_2`$ and, simultaneously, increasing the net ellipticity of sources at $`z_3`$ which are closest to the minor axis of the halo).

We quantify this effect in our simulations using a correlation function of the image shapes,

$$C_{\gamma \gamma }(\theta )\stackrel{}{\gamma }_1\stackrel{}{\gamma }_2^{}$$
(19)
where the mean value is computed for all foreground–background pairs of galaxies separated by angles $`\theta \pm \delta \theta /2`$ on the sky (see, e.g., Blandford et al. 1991). Here $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_1`$ is the image shape of a galaxy with redshift $`z_1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_2^{}`$ is the complex conjugate of the image shape of a galaxy with redshift $`z_2>z_1`$ (see, e.g., equations 16 and 17 above). This function measures the degree to which the images of galaxy 1 and galaxy 2 are aligned with one another and in the limit of no systematic alignments between images 1 and 2, $`C_{\gamma \gamma }(\theta )`$ is identically zero on all scales.

Shown in the top panel of Fig. 9 is the function $`C_{\gamma \gamma }(\theta )`$, computed using the intrinsic shape parameters, $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_i`$, of all galaxies with magnitudes in the range $`19<I<23`$. As expected, $`C_{\gamma \gamma }(\theta )`$ is consistent with zero on all scales since all galaxies are assigned intrinsic shape parameters which are drawn at random at the start of each simulation. Shown in the middle panel of Fig. 9 is $`C_{\gamma \gamma }(\theta )`$ computed using the final shape parameters for all galaxies with $`19<I<23`$ (i.e., the objects which we have used to measure $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ in Figs. 6 and 8). Here there is clearly a net correlation of foreground–background image shapes on scales $`\theta <60^{\prime \prime }`$ and a slight anti–correlation on larger scales. It is this small–scale correlation of the final image shapes between foreground and background galaxies which is responsible for the ratio $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ being greater than unity in Fig. 8. That is, the effect of multiple weak lensing events on pairs of lenses and sources is to cause a slight tendency for the images of lenses and sources to be preferentially aligned with each other on angular scales $`<60^{\prime \prime }`$ in our simulations.

This effect will, of course, be strongest for foreground–background pairs in which the redshifts of the foreground and background objects are fairly similar (i.e., each of the two objects is likely to be multiply–lensed by an identical number of foreground objects). Therefore, it should be possible to reduce the effect of correlated lens–source shape parameters by restricting our analysis to lens redshifts, $`z_d`$, which are relatively smaller than the source redshifts, $`z_s`$. We find that this does, indeed, occur when we restrict our analysis to the following cases: (i) $`z_d<0.1`$, $`z_s>0.1`$; (ii) $`z_d<0.2`$, $`z_s>0.2`$; (iii) $`z_d<0.5`$, $`z_s>0.5`$. Redshift cuts using $`z_d<0.1`$ and $`z_d<0.2`$ result in values of $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$ which are less than unity, but which require excessively wide fields in order to detect our anisotropy parameter, $`𝒜`$, at a significant level. A redshift cut at $`z_d<0.5`$, however, largely eliminates any correlation between the values of $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$ for all foreground–background pairs of galaxies (see the bottom panel of Fig. 9) and still allows a significant detection of $`𝒜`$ with only moderate–sized data sets.

### 4.3 Effects of Observational Noise

In the above sections we have demonstrated that in the limit of imaging data which contains no observational noise whatsoever, it is possible in principle to detect the effects of flattened halos on the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. That is, the only noise for which we have accounted so far is the “intrinsic” noise associated with the fact that the galaxy images have a broad distribution of intrinsic ellipticities and that multiple weak lensing events can cause the images of foreground–background pairs of galaxies to be preferentially aligned with one another.

Here we include the effects of realistic observational noise in our analysis in order to determine whether or not a detection of galaxy–galaxy lensing by flattened halos would be feasible with ground–based imaging data of modest quality. It is unlikely that spectroscopic redshifts would be available for all of the galaxies in an observational data set which has a depth comparable to our simulations; however, photometric redshifts could certainly be obtained in a multi–color data set and these could be used for the purposes of lens–source separation. Photometric redshifts are, of course, not exact and this will introduce some level of noise into the analysis. In addition, seeing, sky noise, and pixellation effects introduce noise into the observed, final image shapes (i.e., the observed values of $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$) and they, therefore, degrade the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal itself.

We model the effects of noise which would be introduced by the use of photometric redshifts (as opposed to spectroscopic redshifts) by adding an error term to each galaxy’s actual redshift:

$$z_{\mathrm{obs}}=z_{\mathrm{in}}+\delta z,$$
(20)
where $`z_{\mathrm{in}}`$ is the intrinsic redshift assigned to the galaxy at the start of the simulation and $`\delta z`$ is an error term drawn from a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and a standard deviation of 0.1. This is in reasonable agreement with the accuracy of photometric redshifts found by Hogg et al. (1998) who conducted a blind test of the predictions of several photometric redshift algorithms against the actual spectroscopic redshifts of galaxies in the HDF–N and found that for 68% of the galaxies the error in the photometric redshift was $`<0.1`$.

We model the effects of noise introduced in the imaging process by adding appropriate errors to the final, observed position angles of the galaxies. This is identical to the approach followed by BBS in their simulations of galaxy–galaxy lensing and is motivated to a large extent by simplicity. That is, although there will certainly be a finite error associated with the measurement of the ellipticity of a galaxy’s image, we choose to incorporate all of the observational error in a measurement of $`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f`$ into an error in the final, observed position angle since it is largely the degree of tangential alignment of the source galaxies relative to the lens galaxies which gives rise to the significance of a detection of galaxy–galaxy lensing.

The magnitudes of the galaxies used by BBS in their observational investigation of galaxy–galaxy lensing, $`20r24`$, were very similar to those adopted for our simulations and we use the results of matched galaxy catalogs from substacks of the BBS data set to assign errors in the position angles of the galaxies in our simulations. From substacks of the data, BBS noted that the typical error in the position angle of a faint galaxy is dependent upon not only the magnitude of the galaxy but also its ellipticity, with the error being most significant for the roundest galaxies (see, e.g., Table 2 of BBS). We extend the original analysis of BBS to galaxies which are brighter than those which are tabulated in their paper and in Table 1 we show the typical errors in the position angles of galaxies with $`19<I<23`$ as a function of both $`I`$–magnitude and ellipticity, $`ϵ`$. We also note that the median seeing in the BBS data was $`0.9^{\prime \prime }`$ FWHM and no attempt was made by BBS to deconvolve the images, so the data should be fairly representative of the imaging quality which could be achieved under modest observing conditions.

For each galaxy in the simulation, then, we assign an error to the final, observed (i.e., post–lensing) position angle based upon the galaxy’s apparent magnitude and its ellipticity after having been lensed by all foreground objects. The error is assigned from a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and the appropriate standard deviation from Table 1. Thus, we now have a set of objects with redshifts ($`z_{\mathrm{obs}}`$) and final shape parameters ($`\stackrel{}{\gamma }_f^{\mathrm{obs}}`$) which have been “corrupted” by the inclusion of moderate errors.

Using these corrupted redshifts and final shape parameters, then, we re–compute the signal–to–noise which can be achieved in a measurement of our anisotropy parameter, $`𝒜`$, as a function of the area of the survey. Again, to reduce the effects of correlated shape parameters of foreground and background galaxies, we use only lens galaxies with $`z_d^{\mathrm{obs}}<0.5`$ and source galaxies with $`z_s^{\mathrm{obs}}>0.5`$ in the analysis. The results are shown in Fig. 10 where, as in Fig. 7, the left panel corresponds to the case in which $`N=45^{}`$ and the right panel corresponds to the case in which $`N=20^{}`$. Not unexpectedly, we find that for a given survey area the signal–to–noise in a measurement of $`𝒜`$ decreases significantly when moderate amounts of observational noise are included in the calculation. Nevertheless, when the signal is averaged over relatively small angular scales, $`5^{\prime \prime }\theta 35^{\prime \prime }`$, a 4$`\sigma `$ detection of $`𝒜`$ can be achieved with a data set of order 22 square degrees in the case of $`N=20^{}`$ and with a data set of order 32 square degrees in the case of $`N=45^{}`$.

### 4.4 Weighted Means

In the previous sections we have used only simple, unweighted means in our calculations of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$. However, as our two illustrative cases of $`N=20^{}`$ and $`N=45^{}`$ demonstrate, the “signal” (i.e., the level of anisotropy) is greatest for sources located closest to the symmetry axes of lenses and will, of course, be nearly identical for all sources which have azimuthal coordinates, $`\phi `$, which are close to $`45^{}`$. In principle, therefore, one should consider computing $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ using all sources within $`N=45^{}`$ via a weighted mean which would weight sources with $`N<<45^{}`$ strongly, while largely discarding sources with $`N45^{}`$ from the calculation.

In this section we compute $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ using simple weighted means where the weight applied to the image of galaxy $`i`$ is of the form:

$$w_i=N^{1/n},$$
(21)
where $`n=2,3,4,\mathrm{}9`$. For brevity, we show only results for the case of the noisy data used in §4.3 (i.e., noise added to both the image shapes and the redshifts), and a fiducial analysis annulus of $`5^{\prime \prime }\theta 35^{\prime \prime }`$. Results for signal-to-noise as a function of survey area as obtained from the weighted means are shown in Fig. 11, where they are directly compared to the results of the previous unweighted means (i.e., Fig. 10).

From Fig. 11, it is clear that when all sources within $`N=45^{}`$ of the lens symmetry axes are used, this weighting scheme yields an improvement in the S/N over the unweighted mean for the case of $`n>4`$. However, increasing $`n`$ beyond a value of 4 does not increase the S/N substantially for a given survey area and, in fact, the simple unweighted mean which uses all sources within $`N=20^{}`$ of the lens symmetry axes yields the largest signal to noise values.

## 5 Discussion

We have used the well–studied HDF–N to show that the probability of multiple weak deflections due to galaxy–galaxy lensing is significant in a deep data set ($`I_{\mathrm{lim}}23`$). Using a fiducial model in which the halos of $`L^{}`$ galaxies have characteristic velocity dispersions of 156 km/s and outer radii of 100$`h^1`$ kpc, we have shown that neglecting multiple weak deflections when predicting the galaxy–galaxy lensing shear field results in a substantial underestimate of the mean shear on scales $`>1^{\prime \prime }`$. This, in turn, leads to an overestimate of the mass of the halo of an $`L^{}`$ galaxy by a factor of order 2 interior to a radius of 100$`h^1`$ kpc.

We have also used Monte Carlo simulations of galaxy–galaxy lensing by flattened dark matter halos to compute the signal–to–noise which might be achieved for a measurement of $`𝒜1\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$. For modest degree of observational noise (including errors in photometric redshifts and in the determination of the final image shapes) in a data set for which the galaxy magnitudes are in the range $`19<I<23`$, we find that a simple unweighted mean in the computations of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$ should yield a significant detection of the weak lensing signal due to flattened halos provided the data set is sufficiently wide. Multiple weak deflections (i.e., weak lensing of background lens–source pairs by foreground galaxies) do, however, tend to cause alignments between the final images of lenses and sources, which complicates the detection of the expected anisotropy in the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. A simple redshift cut of $`z_d<0.5`$, $`z_s>0.5`$ is sufficient to break this correlation, however. Imposing such a redshift cut, and restricting our unweighted mean to sources within $`N=20^{}`$ of the lens symmetry axes, we find that a 4$`\sigma `$ detection of the anisotropy parameter can be obtained with a data set of order 22 square degrees. If all sources within $`N=45^{}`$ of the lens symmetry axes are used, the required survey area increases to of order 32 square degrees for a 4$`\sigma `$ detection.

Two previous investigations, Natarajan & Refregier (2000) and Brainerd & Wright (2000), have also made predictions for the sizes of data sets which would be necessary in order to detect the anisotropic signature of systematic weak lensing by flattened dark matter halos. Neither of these investigations included the effects of multiple weak deflections on the lensing signal and both considered only the very simple case in which all galaxy halos are modeled as infinite singular isothermal ellipsoids with identical projected ellipticities, $`ϵ`$.

Brainerd & Wright (2000) used the observed signal–to–noise in the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal obtained by BBS to estimate the size of a data set with imaging characteristics similar to the BBS data which would be required in order to detect galaxy–galaxy lensing by flattened halos. They computed the anisotropy parameter, $`𝒜`$, for the case of $`N=45^{}`$ and used unweighted means in the computations of $`\gamma ^{}`$ and $`\gamma ^+`$. For halo mass ellipticities of $`ϵ=0.3`$, and using all sources within $`N=45^{}`$ of the lens symmetry axes, Brainerd & Wright (2000) concluded that a mere 1.25 square degrees of imaging data similar to that of BBS would be sufficient to yield a 4$`\sigma `$ detection of weak lensing by flattened halos when averaged over lens–source separations of $`5^{\prime \prime }\theta 35^{\prime \prime }`$. This estimate is, however, a factor of order 25 too small compared to the results of the simulations discussed here (i.e., left panel of Fig. 10).

Natarajan & Refregier (2000) used a complimentary approach to predict that, in the absence of observational noise, the signal–to–noise which could be achieved in a measurement of:

$$ϵ_\kappa =\frac{a^2b^2}{a^2+b^2}$$
(22)
is given by:

$$\left(\frac{S}{N}\right)_{ϵ_\kappa }4.6\left(\frac{ϵ_\kappa }{0.3}\right)\left(\frac{\alpha }{0.5^{\prime \prime }}\right)\left(\frac{n_b}{1.5\mathrm{arcmin}^2}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{n_f}{0.035\mathrm{arcmin}^2}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{0.3}{\sigma _ϵ}\right)\left(\frac{A}{1000\mathrm{deg}^2}\right)^{1/2}$$
(23)
where $`\alpha `$ is the Einstein radius, $`n_b`$ is the number of background galaxies, $`n_f`$ is the number of foreground galaxies, $`\sigma _ϵ^2`$ is the variance in the intrinsic ellipticity distribution of galaxies ($`0.3^2`$), and $`A`$ is the area of the survey. For a data set similar to that of BBS (i.e., similar to the type of data set investigated in this paper and in Brainerd & Wright 2000), we have that $`\alpha 0.17^{\prime \prime }`$, $`n_b=7\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$, and $`n_f=6\mathrm{arcmin}^2`$ (see, e.g., BBS). Adopting these values of $`\alpha `$, $`n_b`$, and $`n_f`$ as being representative, then, equation (23) predicts that for a value of $`b/a=0.7`$ (i.e., $`ϵ=0.3`$ in our notation and $`ϵ_\kappa =0.34`$ in the notation of Natarajan and Refregier), a 4$`\sigma `$ detection of weak lensing by flattened halos should be detectable in a survey with an area of order 6 square degrees. Again, compared with the predictions of our simulations, this is a considerable underestimate of the size of the data set which would be needed in order to detect the anisotropic lensing signal at a significant level.

The primary motivation for studies of galaxy–galaxy lensing has, of course, been its promise to place strong statistical constraints on the physical parameters of the halos of galaxies. This motivation is well–justified because of the fact that weak lensing provides a probe of the gravitational potentials of the halos of the lens galaxies up to very large physical radii (on the order of $`100h^1`$ kpc or so), where dynamical and hydrodynamical tracers of the potential are very unlikely to be found for the vast majority of the galaxies in the universe. To date, the published studies of galaxy–galaxy lensing by field galaxies have attempted to constrain the depths of the potential wells of the halos of the lens galaxies and their typical outer scale radii, but they are only just beginning to address the shapes of the halos. In a very preliminary, but nevertheless tantalizing, study, Hoekstra, Yee & Gladders (2002) have used a maximum likelihood technique to constrain the shapes of the halos of early–type galaxies in the Red–Sequence Cluster Survey and they find that they can rule out spherical halos at the 99% confidence level. Although not yet a definitive result, this is certainly encouraging for future studies which aim to constrain halo shapes via weak lensing.

Here we have explored galaxy–galaxy lensing by field galaxies with flattened halos and we have concluded that the resulting weak lensing signal should be detectable in deep, wide, multi-color data sets with modest imaging quality. That is, provided the halos have a median ellipticity of order 0.3, we find that an anisotropy in the weak lensing signal (i.e., $`\gamma ^{}`$ vs. $`\gamma ^+`$) is detectable via an appropriate strategy in the data analysis. However, in closing we caution that this is not identical to a direct measurement of the mean flattening of the halo population; it is, rather, an indicator that the halos are not spherically–symmetric on average. If all galaxy halos were infinite singular isothermal ellipsoids with identical ellipticities in projection on the sky, and all galaxy images were weakly–lensed by one and only one foreground galaxy, then it would be very straightforward to turn a single measurement of $`\gamma ^{}/\gamma ^+`$, or equivalently $`𝒜`$, into a direct measurement of $`ϵ`$ (see, e.g., Brainerd 2002 and Brainerd & Wright 2000). It is, of course, not realistic to suppose that all halos have identical ellipticities in projection and this, combined with the need to remove lensing–induced correlations between the final shapes of lenses and sources will certainly necessitate the use of detailed Monte Carlo simulations to translate any future measurements of anisotropies in the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal into constraints on the mean flattening of the halos of field galaxies.

## Acknowledgments

Support under NSF contracts AST-9616968 (TGB and COW), AST-0098572 (TGB), an NSF Graduate Minority Fellowship (COW), and a generous allocation of resources at Boston University’s Scientific Computing and Visualization Center are gratefully acknowledged.

Table 1: Errors Assigned to Post–Lensing Position Angles

$`ϵ`$ $`19<I<20`$ $`20<I<21`$ $`21<I<22`$ $`22<I<23`$    0.0–0.1 30 30 30 35  0.1–0.2 13 16 20 25  0.2–0.3 8 11 15 20  0.3–0.4 4 6 8 10  0.4–0.5 4 6 8 10  0.5–0.6 2 3 4 5  0.6–0.7 2 3 4 5


text:
# Disturbance Ecology from Nearby Supernovae

## Disturbance Ecology from Nearby Supernovae

D.H. Hartmann1, K. Kretschmer2, and R. Diehl2
1 Clemson University, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Clemson, SC 29634-0978
2 Max-Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, PO Box 1312, 85741 Garching

## The Hammer of God

“Kali 2 entered the atmosphere just before sunrise, a hundred kilometers above Hawaii. Instantly, the gigantic fireball brought a false dawn to the Pacific, awakening the wildlife on its myriad islands. But few humans; not many were asleep this night of nights, except those who had sought the oblivion of drugs” .

This grim description of an asteroid impact by Arthur C. Clarke was inspired by the famous paper “Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction” by Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez and his geologist son, Walter Alvarez . That great extinction episodes in geological history are tightly connected to asteroid/comet impacts is now firmly established . Whether impact events are (quasi)periodic or random is not yet clear, and it is also not yet established if some external agent (e.g., a hypothetical Nemesis companion star of the Sun or modulated Oort cloud pertubations via solar oscillations in the Galactic disk; ) is required to explain the extinction record. While the idea of repeated blows by some “Hammer of God” has found widespread acceptance, a paradigm shift is underway with regards to the way we think about such catastrophes. Was the extinction of the dinosaurs a bad day in our history? From the point of view of the dinosaurs it sure counts as a bad day, but from our present-day perspective we can appreciate how this impact promoted evolutionary changes that benefited humans and other species.

## Disturbance Ecology on Grand Scales

Ecology is the study of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment. In the past interactions between predators and prey and between herbivors and plants held the preeminent status among all ecological processes, with the environment merely providing the stage on which the ecological play takes place. This view has changed dramatically in recent decades. The “New Ecology” endowes the environment with an active role. Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, land-slides, vulcanic eruptions, storms, and lightning strikes are all key agents of the new “disturbance ecology” . The destructive power of nature is now viewed as essential for maintaining biodiversity. This new persepective can be expanded by considering that changes in the solar system environment can directly affect the Earth, and that such changes can be driven by gentle or catastrophic events in the solar neighborhood. Long term evolution of the Sun will steadily increase the equilibrium temperatures of the planets on time scales of billions of years (melting the ice caps and eventually boiling the oceans and evaporating the atmosphere), while solar flares occur frequently and occasionally can be so energetic that global planetary atmospheres and the interplanetary space environment become severely polluted with energetic particles that can significantly alter atmospheric chemistry  . Other dangers lurk just outside the solar system.

As the Sun moves around the Galactic center in a nearly circular orbit the Galactic environment in general changes slowly, but “sudden” (103-4 years) modifications of the planetary environments can take place when the Sun encounters local density fluctuations in the interstellar medium   or local field stars . The latter situation can disturb the Oort cloud, increasing the cometary impact rates in the solar system, while the former situation can modulate the properties of the heliosphere and thus the local cosmic ray environment, with potential consequences for planetary climates. Still more damaging could be encounters with very massive stars, black holes, novae, super- novae, and hypernovae (aka Gamma Ray Bursts, GRBs).

## Exposure to Nearby Gamma Ray Bursts

The largest energy releases in the Universe due to supernovae and gamma-ray bursts ( and  discuss both phenomena and their possible connections) do take place with somewhat predictable rates. A core collapse supernova occurs about once every second in the Universe. The Milky Way’s present star formation rate is a few solar masses per year, which for a Salpeter-like IMF translates into a Galactic supernova rate of about once per century. The GRB rate is of order 1 day-1, and we know that bursts are truly cosmological (typical redshifts of order unity, with a present record at z $``$ 4.5 for GRB000131). Afterglow observations point towards a direct link between GRBs and supernovae so that bursts are also expected to occur in the Milky Way, although with a lower rate. The relative frequency of SNe and GRBs depends on the uncertain beaming pattern of bursts. The observations imply significant beaming corrections, but suggest that GRB rates are still much lower than supernova rates. Long-duration GRBs and SNe are expected to have similar spatial distributions. The amount of energy released into the surrounding medium is of order 1 foe (1051 ergs) in both cases, but GRBs focus energy into narrow jets while SNe impact their environments $``$isotropically.

Hartmann  and Thorsett  considered the possibility that a GRB was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs and perhaps other mass extinctions. Thorsett studied in detail the effect of the gamma-ray flux on Earth’s atmosphere, especially the reduction of ozone and the subsequent effects of enhanced solar UV radiation on the surface. Thorsett concluded that the critical distance was Dcrit $``$ 1 kpc, and estimated a rate of events closer than this distance of about 1/108 yrs. In 1998 Dar, Laor, and Shaviv  investigated the effects of cosmic ray exposure for planet Earth located inside the jet of a galactic GRB. These authors concluded that ozone destruction and radioactive pollution of the Earth could have contributed to mass extinctions, and that biological effects due to ionizing radiation could also have caused the fast appearance of new species. More recently Dar $`\&`$ DeRujula  considered the potential dangers from Eta Carina as a future nearby GRB source (concluding that the direction of the possible jet is not aiming at us), and determined that jet-sterilization per life-supporting planet could happen as often as every 100 million years. Such a high rate might provide an answer to Fermi’s famous question about alien visitors: “Where are they?”. Depressing thoughts along these lines were the theme of the recent NOVA show ”Death Star” ; nothing seems to sell better than sex and doomsday predictions .

A less sensational approach to the possible biological effects of nearby bursts was recently presented by Scalo and Wheeler , who investigated in great detail the effects of ionizing GRB radiation on DNA alterations and chemical modifications of the atmosphere. The emphasis of this work is thus not on catastrophes but smaller (more frequent and perhaps cumulative) events that can alter evolution through enhanced mutagenesis. Scalo and Wheeler estimate the “critical ” X-$`\gamma `$-fluence required for a significant increase in DNA alteration, Fcrit = 5 105 ergs cm-2. From observed GRB spectral properties the sphere of influence of a galactic GRB is found to be $``$ 10 kpc, so that many galactic GRBs can have a potential impact on Earth’s ecology. Scalo and Wheeler estimate that at least one thousand biologically significant Galactic GRB irradiations should have occurred stochastically during the 4.4 Gyr history of life on Earth. The direct effect of one burst (GRB830801) on the ionosphere was recorded via changes in the VLF radio transmissions between distant sites , and this event most likely occured at a cosmological distance. Although GRBs are very luminous, their short duration provides a moderating factor in comparison to other potential sources of ionizing radiation (massive stars, supernovae, etc), and causes only one half of the Earth to be affected in any given exposure.

## Exposure to Nearby Supernovae

The rate of nearby Galactic supernovae is a rather uncertain quantity, and estimates date back to the sixties . The impact of a close supernova on the biosphere was considered in the seventies  and subsequent studies zoomed in on particular supernovae (e.g., Vela , and Geminga ) or nearby star forming regions (Sco-Cen ). The potential identification of such events through specific isotopic anaomalies (e.g., 60Fe) was pointed out by Ellis and collaborators . A recent search for 60Fe anomalies in deep-ocean ferromanganese crust samples was sucessful  and estimates of the distance and epoch of the putative supernova give D $``$ 30 pc and age $``$ 5 Myrs , based on standard yields of Mej(60Fe) $``$ 10-5 M . The decay of 60Fe (mean life $``$ 2 Myrs) produces gamma-ray lines at 1.17 MeV and 1.33 MeV. The diffuse glow of the galactic disk from the many supernovae that occur during a few mean life times may soon be detected with INTEGRAL, an ESA mission to be launched later this year  . Tracing the orbits of the Sun and nearby stars back in time Benitez et al.  find that massive stars born in the Sco-Cen association produced supernovae at the right time and distance to be responsible for the 60Fe observed in the ocean crust. According to these authors $``$ 2 Myrs ago a “Sco-Cen supernova” as close as D $``$ 40 pc could have done serious damage to the Earth’ ozone layer, provoking or contributing to the Pliocene- Pleistocene boundary marine extinction. A very recent (or perhaps near future) supernova impact may be associated with “Vela-Junior” , for which 44Ti gamma-ray line observations  were used to argue for a distance of D $``$ 150 pc and an age of t $``$ 700 yrs.

While dramatic events such as the demise of the dinosaurs and other mass extinctions may in some cases be linked to nearby supernovae , more moderate alterations of evolutionary paths through the enhanced UV exposure were only recently considered in detail . Core collapse supernovae launch a strong shock that propagates through the star for a few hours, depending on the progenitor size and mass and ejecta energy. The shock-breakout leads to a short UV-flash   that delivers of order 1047 ergs in the 200-300 nm UV band. Scalo et al estimate that a “critical” fluence for enhanced mutagenesis in this crucial energy window is Fcrit $``$ 600 ergs/cm2. Taking into account absorption in the atmosphere the relevant value at the top of the atmosphere is about three times as large. The critical distance for shock breakout UV-flashes to affect the biosphere is thus of order 1 kpc. The effect of galactic extinction must also be taken into account, as emphasized by Scalo et al. In the UV band considered here the average differential midplane UV-extinction is $`_r`$AUV $``$ 5 mag kpc-1. In addition, one should consider the spatial distribution of the absorbing dust relative to the spatial distribution of supernovae.

What is the frequency of supernovae that generate UV fluences at Earth that exceed the critical value? A galaxy-wide star formation rate of a few solar masses per year is associated with a supernova rate of a few events per century (many papers have been written about the value of “few” in both of these quantities). If the fraction of events closer than Dcrit is f, the time between “events that cause a disturbance” is $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$T $``$ 100/few f-1 $`\mathrm{years}`$, where “few” is about 1$``$3 . We find that f is of order 10-3, so that dangerous UV-flashes from nearby supernovae occur as often as every $``$100,000 years. Scalo et al. provide an estimate of this time scale as a function of fluence and peak flux.

We now consider a modification of these rate estimates due to the solar motion in the Galaxy. The Sun is currently located $``$ 10 pc above the midplane (this number is uncertain, but everyone agrees that it is not zero ), but its perpendicular velocity relative to the local standard of rest W = 7.2 $`\pm `$ 0.4 km/s  will eventually carry us to a maximal height H $``$ 100 pc (depending on the galactic mass model) above the plane. The sun, like most stars, will spend most of its time above the Galactic dust layer, so that this effect should be included in estimates of the extinction to supernovae. The figure shows the variation of f with height above the Galactic plane. For the Sun the change in $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ T is less than a factor two, but for planets around high-velocity stars the effect can be significant (making damaging exposure ten times less frequent if vertical motion carries the star to z $``$ 1 kpc above the plane. The effect seen in the figure is due to the exposure asymmetry (events above/below the plane) for small heights but simply the result of larger distances from supernovae as the star moves away from the disk. For heights well in excess of 1 kpc none of the galactic supernovae is ever close enough to have an effect. As the stars oscillate in the Milky Way with periods of order 50$``$100 Myrs plane passages would lead to increased exposure, but less time is spend in the “critical midplane zone”. A Monte Carlo simulation using these constraints could evaluate the time-averaged UV-exposure as a function of position and kinematics in the Galaxy.

We also investigated the effects of a larger scale height of supernovae relative to the dust (dashed line in the figure). The standard model assumes an exponential scale height of Hz = 60 pc for both components, while the model with larger extent of the supernova layer assumes Hz = 120 pc. The effect of “puffing up” the SN distribution is reduced extinction and thus a slightly larger fraction of critical events, but the effect is obviously not very strong. The radial distribution of supernovae probably is a more critical parameter. It is however rather uncertain and we describe it by a gaussian function, centered at R = 4 kpc, the location of the well known molecular ring . If the width of this gaussian drops below 3 kpc, the fraction of “deadly SN” decreases rapidly. Clearly, a delta function at R = 4 kpc generates no SN close enough to damage the biosphere. If the gaussian width exceeds 3 kpc, the fraction saturates as the local SN density profile becomes flat (as was assumed by Scalo et al.). While the time between SN that are “too close for comfort” depends on many properties of the Galaxy, the solar orbit, the shock breakout properties, and assumptions about what constitutes a biologically significant exposure, the perhaps surprising fact remains that close calls happened many times along our path around the galactic center.

## Conclusions and Outlook

Can a nearby GRB or Supernova ruin your day ? You bet! Does this happen frequently? Yes and no, depending on your point of view. On a present-day human history time scale the answer is no (fortunately), but on a long-term- history-of-life time scale the answer is yes. Over the past billions of years there must have been a large number of close encounters of the undesired kind - UV jolts from supernovae and GRBs, and longer exposures to passing luminous and hot stars. Disturbance ecology is driven by events taking place on Earth and in the immediate Galactic environment of the solar system. Mutagenesis can be stimulated by exposure to external UV sources, and despite the long time intervals between events (ten thousand years to perhaps millions of years) these “rare” events may have domiated the path of evolution on Earth as well as other inhabited planetary systems throughout the Galaxy. The killing of the dinosaurs was indeed spectacular, but perhaps more impressive is the realization that the evolution of life throughout the Universe is so closely intertwined with the violent history of the Universe. Once every second a supernova and once every minute a GRB sends a UV flash into some galactic environment, jolting mildly or vehemently life in its path. It happened many times in Earth’s history, and it will happen again. We hope that the next nearby jolt in our path contributes to a better global future for most lifeforms on Earth.

### Acknowledgements

With pleasure we thank the organizers and the staff for outstanding hospitality and a very stimulating meeting.