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# Theory for effects of pressure on heavy-fermion alloys

## I INTRODUCTION

During the past two decades, considerable attention has been focused on heavy-fermion (HF) systems. Generally speaking, HF systems are a class of intermetallic compounds which contain a periodic array of magnetic Kondo ions, involving rare earth (4$`f`$) or actinide (5$`f`$) elements. At higher temperatures than the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$, the localized magnetic moments behave essentially as independent impurities and each $`f`$ electron becomes the scattering center in the Kondo effect. In this temperature region, the characters of the $`f`$ electrons are similar to those in dilute alloys. At low temperatures, the coherent heavy fermion (or Fermi liquid) behaviors are observed, the $`f`$ electrons form a coherent Kondo lattice. The specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$ is of order $`10^210^3`$ larger than that of normal metals, and the density of states near Fermi level, deduced from $`\gamma `$, is enhanced enormously. It is widely accepted that the large specific-heat coefficient is caused by Kondo effect at each Kondo ion site.

From the ensuing experimental and theoretical works, it is clear that HF materials such as CeAl3, CeCu6, UBe13, and CeCu2Si2, display many of the characteristics of metallic Kondo lattice (KL), where a lattice of localized magnetic moments coexists with a conduction band. Instead of a Kondo resonance (single-peak) structure in the impurity case, the density of states of $`f`$ electrons ($`f`$-DOS) has a pseudogap (two-peak) structure near Fermi level in the KL case, due to the periodic coherence between Kondo ions in the lattice. In order to get information on the development of coherence in HF systems, many experiments have been performed to study the alloying effects in doped HF systems, such as CexLa1-xCu2Si2, CexLa1-xAl3, CexLa1-xBe13, CexLa1-xCu6, and so on. It is shown that, with the increasing of the concentration of Kondo ions (Ce-like ions), an HF alloy system undergoes a crossover from Kondo impurity state to KL state. That is, doping Kondo ions presents a consecutive approach to the coherent Kondo state efficiently. Meanwhile, the electrical resistivity $`\rho `$ follows the quadratic law on temperature $`T`$ in KL case, which is one of the characteristic features of coherence, corresponding to the Fermi liquid behavior. Additionally, a shift of the peak in the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$ is observed to finite temperature with increasing of the concentration $`x`$, while the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ is independent of $`x`$ from experiments. Theoretically, a dispersion term of $`f`$ electron band is introduced to the Anderson lattice model (ALM) by Yoshimori and Kasai to get a metallic KL system in the case of half-filling. Under the coherent potential approximation (CPA), they calculate the electrical resistivity of HF alloys, and some excellent results are obtained, in agreement with experiments very well. Furthermore, Li and Qiu extent the method of Yoshimori and Kasai, and tried to present a reasonable picture for heavy-fermion alloys by the application of the slave-boson mean-field approximation. They calculated the density of states, the thermoelectric power, the specific-heat coefficient, and the residual resistivity. The results themselves look meaningful and the obtained Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ is indeed independent of the alloy concentration. While the slave-boson parameter has not been calculated out over the whole range of the concentration $`0x1`$, their results seem artificial and more careful study is necessary to be performed even for the alloying effects of HF systems.

On the other hand, it is also possible to study systematically the development of the HF behaviors through the application of pressure. From the pressure-dependent measurements on CeAl3, CeCu6, UBe13, CeInCu2, YbCu2Si2, YbCuAl, etc., it is clear that, for Ce-based and U-based HF systems, the specific-heat coefficient is depressed and the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$, at which the electronic resistivity gets the maximum, shifts to higher temperature under pressure. Furthermore, pressure tends to expand the temperature region of the quadratic law and to enhance the coherence of the system. While for Yb-based HF systems, just the opposite effects appear under pressure. More generally, pressure qualitatively acts as a mirror between Ce-based, U-based compounds and Yb-based compounds. From experiments, pressure destabilizes the larger ion. In the case of $`f`$ electron systems, pressure will stabilize the $`f^{n1}`$ configuration relative to $`f^n`$. For Ce-based compounds, the nonmagnetic $`4f^0`$ configuration would be favored rather than $`4f^1`$ under pressure. While for Yb-based compounds, the magnetic $`4f^{13}`$ configuration would be favored under pressure rather than $`4f^{14}`$. Moreover, pressure tends to induce a crossover from a localized $`f`$-electron states to an itinerant or coherent one for Ce-based compounds, and the opposing effect is also expected for Yb-based compounds. Although these important results stated above have been obtained from experiments for a long time, to the best of our knowledge, few works have been performed for the pressure effects on the HF systems theoretically. Among various possible approaches to study the pressure effects, the Kondo collapse (KC) is considered as a reasonable mechanism. It can be used to explain such fact that the hybridization $`V`$ is very exponentially sensitive to pressure. But the KC theory also indicates that the volume decrease results in a large increase in the Kondo temperature. It is true for the Ce-based and U-based compounds, but not true for the Yb-based compounds where the volume decrease results in a decrease in the Kondo temperature. So such a mechanism, the KC, is still controversial, and it seems not so efficient to think that the mirror effect between Ce-based, U-based compounds and Yb-based compounds can be explained within the framework of the KC. The essential of the problem is how pressure influences the development of coherence, in which the system displays typical HF features. Taking into account the valence fluctuation of $`f`$ ions between the singlet and magnetic multiplet configurations, the pressure-dependent behaviors may arise from the cell-volume difference between $`f`$ configurations. Pressure favors the $`f`$ configuration with a smaller volume. On this basis, we would like to develop a theory of pressure on HF alloys involving effects of doping and effects of pressure simultaneously. Following Li and Qiu, the alloying effects of HF systems are studied within the Yoshimori-Kasai (YK) model by using the slave-boson mean-field approximation (SBMFA), but the main results are calcultated again over the whole range of the concentration $`0x1`$ carefully in order to promote the credit of the method. The aim of the paper is to present a unified picture of pressure effects for both Ce-based, U-based and Yb-based systems.

The rest of the paper is prepared as follows. In Sec. II, we formulate the disorder scattering within the mean-field approximation of YK model and introduce the volume variable to describe the pressure influence via the $`f`$ valence fluctuation, originating from the hybridization between $`f`$ electrons and conduction electrons ($`c`$ electrons). Then the spectral function of single-particle Green’s function (GF) is obtained using CPA method and a set of self-consistent equations is also addressed. Based on these, the $`f`$-DOS is performed numerically in Sec. III, while the specific-heat coefficient and the electrical resistivity are discussed in detail in Sec. IV, where we attempt to explain and compare the contrasting effects of pressure on Ce-based, U-based and Yb-based systems in a unified theory. Finally, our results are summarized and discussed in Sec. V.

## II CPA DISORDER FORMALISM AND PRESSURE MODEL FOR HF ALLOYS

In the alloy systems such as CexLa1-xCu2Si2, and CexLa1-xAl3, there exists two kinds of rare earth atoms $`A`$ and $`B`$, where $`A`$ (Ce-like) is a magnetic atom with $`f`$ electrons and $`B`$ (La-like) a nonmagnetic atom without $`f`$ electrons. The substitution of an $`A`$ atom by a $`B`$ atom introduces the disorder into the system and creates missing $`f`$ electrons, referred to as Kondo holes. Following Li and Qiu, the random variable at the lattice point $`l`$ is defined by

$$\xi _l=\{\begin{array}{c}1\text{for }lA,\hfill \\ 0\text{for }lB,\hfill \end{array}$$
(1)
and $`\overline{\xi _l}=x`$, the normalized concentration of $`A`$ atoms. The YK model is the Anderson lattice model, with a small dispersion on $`f`$ electron band, and the disorder Hamiltonian can be written as

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤m}{}}[\epsilon _𝐤c_{𝐤m}^{}c_{𝐤m}+(\alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_0)f_{𝐤m}^{}f_{𝐤m}]+{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}(1\xi _l)(E_L+E_0)f_{lm}^{}f_{lm}`$ (3)
$`+V{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}\xi _l(f_{lm}^{}c_{lm}+c_{lm}^{}f_{lm})+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}U{\displaystyle \underset{l,mm^{}}{}}\xi _lf_{lm}^{}f_{lm}f_{lm^{}}^{}f_{lm^{}},`$
where ($`E_0`$) and $`E_L`$ are the energy levels of $`f`$ electrons on the $`A`$ sites and $`B`$ sites, respectively. $`\epsilon _𝐤`$ is the energy of $`c`$ electrons from Fermi level, which is assumed to be zero. $`U`$ gives the on-site Coulomb repulsion between $`f`$ electrons and $`V`$ the $`c`$-$`f`$ mixing parameter. The dispersion term $`\alpha \epsilon _𝐤`$ is introduced into the YK model to get the metallic states even in the case of half-filling and the parameter $`\alpha `$ is proportional to $`V^2`$. Other notions in Eq. (3) are standard.

In the strong correlation limit $`U\mathrm{}`$, double occupation on $`A`$ sites is forbidden and the Coleman’s slave-boson (SB) operator $`b_l`$ is introduced in the $`c`$-$`f`$ mixing term. Then the YK Hamiltonian (3) in SB formalism reads

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤m}{}}[\epsilon _𝐤c_{𝐤m}^{}c_{𝐤m}+(\alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_0)f_{𝐤m}^{}f_{𝐤m}]+{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}(1\xi _l)(E_L+E_0)f_{lm}^{}f_{lm}`$ (5)
$`+V{\displaystyle \underset{lm}{}}\xi _l(b_lf_{lm}^{}c_{lm}+c_{lm}^{}f_{lm}b_l^{})+{\displaystyle \underset{l}{}}\xi _l\lambda _l\left({\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}f_{lm}^{}f_{lm}+b_l^{}b_l1\right),`$
where a constraint

$$\underset{m}{}f_{lm}^{}f_{lm}+b_l^{}b_l=1\text{for }lA,$$
(6)
has been added with the Lagrange multiplier $`\lambda _l`$. Such a constraint prevents the double occupancy of $`f`$ level on $`A`$ sites due to the infinite $`U`$.

In order to consider the effects of pressure, let us introduce the total volume operator. In pure KL systems ($`x=1`$), such as CeCu6, UBe13, YbCuAl etc., there is a lattice of rare earth or actinide ions which can exist in two valence states: One of them is typically a singlet, $`f^n(j=0)`$ with zero $`j`$; the other a $`2j+1(=N)`$-fold-degenerate state, $`f^{n+1}(j,+m)`$ or $`f^{n1}(j,m)`$ with spin $`j`$. The weak hybridization between $`c`$electrons and the local $`f`$ electrons causes the valence to fluctuate by the following changes in the $`f`$ shell occupation:

$`f^{n+1}(j,+m)`$ $``$ $`f^n(j=0)+e^{}(j,m)\text{for Ce and U,}`$ (7)
$`f^{n1}(j,m)`$ $``$ $`f^n(j=0)+h^+(j,m)\text{for Yb.}`$ (8)
According to the SB technique of Coleman

$$f^n;j=0_lb_l^{}0_l,$$
(9)
$$f^{n\pm 1};j,\pm m_lf_{lm}^{}0_l.$$
(10)
Then at each site $`l`$, the valence fluctuation can be represented by a resonance between a zero-energy boson and a spin-$`j`$ fermion in the subspace where $`Q=n_b+n_f=1`$. The fermion is an electron $`e^{}`$ for Ce and U, while a hole $`h^+`$ for Yb, respectively. In this paper, the numbers of channel $`N(=2j+1)=2`$ would be taken for simplicity, and two values ($`\pm \frac{1}{2}`$) are considered for $`m`$, written as $`\sigma `$ from now on.

Taking into account the cell-volume difference $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_1\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ between two $`f`$ configurations, we can write down the total volume operator as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_t=\underset{l}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_l=\underset{l}{}[b_l^{}b_l\mathrm{\Omega }_0+(1b_l^{}b_l)\mathrm{\Omega }_1],$$
(11)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ are the cell volume for the singlet $`f^n`$ ($`b_l^{}b_l=1`$) and the multiplet states $`f^{n\pm 1}`$($`b_l^{}b_l=0`$), respectively. Then, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is either positive for the cells with the electron-type ($`e`$-type) $`f`$ ions (Ce and U) or negative for the cells with the hole-type ($`h`$-type) $`f`$ ions (Yb). The more electrons occupy the $`f`$ shell, the larger the ionic radius is.

In the case of alloy ($`0x1`$), we can express the total volume operator in terms of the random variable $`\xi _l`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_t=\underset{l}{}\{(1\xi _l)\mathrm{\Omega }_L+\xi _l[b_l^{}b_l\mathrm{\Omega }_0+(1b_l^{}b_l)\mathrm{\Omega }_1]\},$$
(12)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_L`$ is the cell volume of a Kondo hole site (with La-like ions), $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ are the cell volumes of an $`A`$ atom in singlet $`f^n`$ ($`b_l^{}b_l=1`$) and multiplet $`f^{n\pm 1}(b_l^{}b_l=0)`$ states, respectively.

In the SBMFA, the operator $`b_l`$ and constraint (6) are replaced by their mean-field values with the ansatz $`r=b_l`$ and $`\lambda =\lambda _l`$ for all $`A`$ sites. Then the mean-field Hamiltonian is

$`H_{MF}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤\sigma }{}}[\epsilon _𝐤c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }+(\alpha \epsilon _𝐤+E_f)f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma }]+{\displaystyle \underset{l\sigma }{}}(1\xi _l)\epsilon _Lf_{l\sigma }^{}f_{l\sigma }`$ (14)
$`+rV{\displaystyle \underset{l\sigma }{}}\xi _l(f_{l\sigma }^{}c_{l\sigma }+c_{l\sigma }^{}f_{l\sigma })+x\lambda N_s(r^21),`$
where $`E_f=\lambda E_0`$ and $`\epsilon _L=E_LE_f`$ are the renormalized $`f`$ level of the magnetic ($`A`$) atoms and the Kondo holes ($`B`$ atoms), respectively. Here we have used the relation $`x=N_s^1_l\xi _l`$, and $`N_s`$ is the total number of sites in the system.

From Eq. (12), the averaged cell-volume is

$$\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_l=(1x)\mathrm{\Omega }_L+x[\mathrm{\Omega }_0+(1r^2)\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }].$$
(15)
Since pressure always decreases the averaged cell-volume $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}_l`$, for the $`e`$-type HF systems (such as CeCu6 and UBe13) where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$, pressure will lead to the increasing of $`r^2`$. While for the $`h`$-type HF systems (such as YbCuAl), an opposite effect appears since $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$.

Because a Kondo hole doping will lead to a very strong scattering, $`E_L\mathrm{}`$, so that $`\epsilon _L\mathrm{}`$. We should solve the disorder slave-boson mean-field Hamiltonian (14) for arbitrary concentrations by means of a nonperturbative approach, the CPA. Here, we would like to give the full steps to get the analytic solution of the coherent potential, instead of the procedure by Li and Qiu, where such a solution is introduced directly.

To perform the CPA, we should introduce a translational invariant but frequency-dependent coherent potential of the effective medium to replace the disorder scattering potential in Hamiltonian (14). The coherent potential for a $`c`$-$`f`$ mixing model such as YK model could be assumed as a $`2\times 2`$ matrix

$$S(\omega ,x)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}S_{cc}\hfill & S_{cf}\hfill \\ S_{fc}\hfill & S_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(16)
and the average site Green’s function (GF) of the effective medium is obtained

$$F(\omega )=\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤}{}\overline{G}(\omega ,\text{ }𝐤)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}F_{cc}(\omega )\hfill & F_{cf}(\omega )\hfill \\ F_{fc}(\omega )\hfill & F_{ff}(\omega )\hfill \end{array}\right).$$
(17)
Then the effective medium Hamiltonian can be written in the matrix form

$$\overline{H}=\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}(\begin{array}{cc}c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}\hfill & f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}\hfill \end{array})\left(\begin{array}{cc}\epsilon _𝐤+S_{cc}\hfill & \text{ }S_{cf}\hfill \\ \text{ }S_{fc}\hfill & (\alpha \epsilon _𝐤+E_f)+S_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}c_{𝐤\sigma }\hfill \\ f_{𝐤\sigma }\hfill \end{array}\right)+x\lambda N_s(r^21).$$
(18)
From the difference between the disorder Hamiltonian (14) and the effective medium Hamiltonian (18),

$$H_{MF}\overline{H}=\underset{l}{}V_l,$$
(19)
the scattering potentials for atoms $`A`$ and $`B`$ are reached,

$$V_A=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\text{ }S_{cc}\hfill & \text{ }rVS_{cf}\hfill \\ rVS_{fc}\hfill & \text{ }S_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right),V_B=\left(\begin{array}{cc}S_{cc}\hfill & \text{ }S_{cf}\hfill \\ S_{fc}\hfill & \text{ }\epsilon _LS_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right).$$
(20)
According to Yonezawa, the self-consistent condition in single-site CPA is

$$xt_A+(1x)t_B=0,$$
(21)
where $`t_A`$ and $`t_B`$ are the scattering $`t`$ matrices for $`A`$ and $`B`$ atoms, respectively,

$$t_{A(B)}=V_{A(B)}[1F(\omega )V_{A(B)}]^1.$$
(22)
From Eqs. (20), (21), and (22), and taking $`\epsilon _L\mathrm{}`$ to ensure no $`f`$ electron occupation on Kondo holes, we can find an analytic solution of the coherent potential

$$S(\omega ,x)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & rV\hfill \\ rV\hfill & S_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(23)
where $`S_{cc}=0`$, $`S_{cf}=S_{fc}=rV`$ and only $`S_{ff}`$ is to be determined. At the same time, the scattering $`t`$ matrices can be simplified as

$$t_A=\frac{1}{1+S_{ff}F_{ff}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \text{ }0\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{ }S_{ff}\hfill \end{array}\right),t_B=\frac{1}{F_{ff}}\left(\begin{array}{cc}0\hfill & \text{ }0\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{ }1\hfill \end{array}\right),$$
(24)
and the self-consistent CPA equation (21) can be written as

$$S_{ff}F_{ff}=x1.$$
(25)
Now, the analytic solution of $`S(\omega ,x)`$ and the self-consistent CPA equation are obtained after the detail derivation. These expressions are the same as those in the paper by Li and Qiu, but the approach to them are not given there. Then, the average site GFs are expressed as

$$F_{cc}(\omega )=\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤}{}\frac{\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff}}{(\omega \epsilon _𝐤)(\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff})(rV)^2},$$
(26)
$$F_{cf}(\omega )=F_{fc}(\omega )=\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤}{}\frac{rV}{(\omega \epsilon _𝐤)(\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff})(rV)^2},$$
(27)
$$F_{ff}(\omega )=\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤}{}\frac{\omega \epsilon _𝐤}{(\omega \epsilon _𝐤)(\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff})(rV)^2},$$
(28)
which are also very different from those in the paper by Li and Qiu.

The parameters of SB, $`r`$ and $`\lambda `$, can be determined by the extreme values of the grand canonical free enthalpy’s variations (or equivalently, by Hellmann-Feynman theorem). The grand canonical free enthalpy of the HF alloy system under pressure $`p`$ is

$$K=\beta ^1\mathrm{ln}Z_{MF},$$
(29)
where

$$Z_{MF}=\text{Tr}\{\mathrm{exp}[\beta (\overline{H}+p\mathrm{\Omega }_t)]\}\text{Tr}[\mathrm{exp}(\beta H_{eff})].$$
(30)
It is easy to write down the effective Hamiltonian of the SBMFA

$`H_{eff}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤\sigma }{}}[\epsilon _𝐤c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }+(\alpha \epsilon _𝐤+E_f+S_{ff})f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma }+rV(f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }+c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma })]`$ (32)
$`+(1x)N_sp\mathrm{\Omega }_L+xN_s\{\lambda (r^21)+p[\mathrm{\Omega }_0+(1r^2)\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }]\}.`$
From the variation with respect to $`\lambda `$,

$$0=\frac{\delta K}{\delta \lambda }=\frac{H_{eff}}{\lambda }_T=xN_s(r^21)+\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma }_T,$$
(33)
we get the equation including the parameter $`r`$,

$$x(1r^2)=\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤\sigma }{}f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma }_T=\frac{2}{\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega f(\omega )ImF_{ff}(\omega +i0^+).$$
(34)
And application of the same procedure to $`r`$,

$`0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta K}{\delta r}}={\displaystyle \frac{H_{eff}}{r}}_T`$ (35)
$`=`$ $`V{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤\sigma }{}}(c_{𝐤\sigma }^{}f_{𝐤\sigma }_T+f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }_T)+2xN_sr(\lambda p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }),`$ (36)
implies another equation

$`xr(\lambda p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega })`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{N_s}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤\sigma }{}}f_{𝐤\sigma }^{}c_{𝐤\sigma }_T`$ (37)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2V}{\pi }}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}}𝑑\omega f(\omega )ImF_{fc}(\omega +i0^+).`$ (38)
Eqs. (25), (26), (27), (28), (34), and (38) constitute a set of self-consistent equations. These equations are not only fundamental to determine the coherent potential $`S_{ff}(\omega ,x)`$ and the SB parameter $`r`$ of the HF alloy systems, but also powerful for calculating the electronic DOS of both $`c`$ electrons and $`f`$ electrons with arbitrary alloy concentration under various applied pressures.

## III DENSITY OF STATES AND THE KONDO TEMPERATURE

The $`f`$-DOS per magnetic ($`A`$) site for each spin is defined by

$$N_f(\omega ,\text{ }p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }\text{}x)=\frac{1}{\pi x}\text{Im}F_{ff}(\omega +i0^+),$$
(39)
where $`F_{ff}`$ can be calculated self-consistently by numerical method. In the calculations, the unperturbed DOS of conduction electrons, $`N_0(\omega )`$, is assumed as

$$N_0(\omega )=\frac{2}{\pi D}\sqrt{1\left(\frac{\omega }{D}\right)^2}\mathrm{\Theta }\left(D\left|\omega \right|\right),$$
(40)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the step function and $`D`$ the half-width of the unperturbed conduction band.

In the case of a half-filled conduction band, $`r^21`$. From Eq. (6), $`n_f1`$ is obtained, corresponding to the Kondo limit associated with a large $`E_0`$. Therefore, $`\lambda `$ can be expected to be of order $`E_0`$, and we can take $`E_f=0`$ and $`\lambda =E_0`$ as a reasonable approximation. The phenomenological parameter $`\alpha `$ in the dispersion term can be written as

$$\alpha =\eta ^2\left(\frac{rV}{D}\right)^2,$$
(41)
where the parameter $`\eta `$ is greater than 1 in order to get a metallic KL model without real gap.

The numerical results of $`f`$-DOS are performed at various concentrations under applied pressure, shown in Fig. 1. It is clear that no real energy gap appears in the DOS of electrons for arbitrary concentration, and the metallic behavior is obtained.

On the one hand, from Fig. 1, with the increasing of the concentration $`x`$, the $`f`$-DOS transforms from a Kondo impurity resonant state with single-peak structure into a Kondo coherent state with two-peak pseudogap structure. In the dilute region ($`x0`$) only a single peak appears, indicating the local impurity $`f`$ states, the system behaves as a collection of independent Kondo singlet on each $`A`$ site and every $`f`$ electron becomes the scattering center in the Kondo effect. When the concentration of $`f`$ ions increases, the delocalization of the $`f`$ electrons enhances due to the growing coherent scattering. After the concentration reaches a critical value, $`x_c0.7`$, for the parameters chosen for calculation here, the curve of $`f`$-DOS near $`\omega =0`$ transforms into the concave shape from a convex one, showing the appearance of the coherent (two-peak) pseudogap state. In the high concentration region ($`x1`$), the $`f`$ electrons form a coherent lattice, a global Kondo singlet occurs, and the collection of independent Kondo singlets in dilute limit is replaced by a whole coherent Kondo lattice state here.

On the other hand, if pressure is applied, two different effects are reached for the $`e`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$) and the $`h`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$). For the $`e`$-type alloys, pressure increases the Kondo interaction and correlation between $`f`$ ions ($`A`$ sites), and tends to enhance the itinerance of $`f`$ electrons and the coherence of the system. The width of the $`f`$-DOS near $`\omega =0`$ is broadened and the height is lowered under pressure. While for the $`h`$-type alloys, the opposing effect occurs. Pressure decreases the Kondo interaction and correlation between $`f`$ ions, and tends to reduce the itinerance of $`f`$ electrons and the coherence of the system. The width of the $`f`$-DOS near $`\omega =0`$ is depressed and the height is lifted under pressure.

The effective mixing parameter $`(rV)^2`$ is also calculated out, shown in Fig. 2, over the whole range of alloy concentration $`0x1`$ under various pressures. On the one hand, with the increasing concentration of $`x`$, $`(rV)^2`$ increases linearly and connects two well-known mean-field results, the Kondo impurity ($`x0`$) and the Kondo lattice ($`x1`$) naturally. On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 2, the effect of pressure appears sensitively in the change of the effective mixing parameter. It is in agreement with experiments qulitatively that pressure tends to promote increase in hybridization and the mixing parameter but decrease in localization for the $`e`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$), while conversely, for the $`h`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$).

Furthermore, we would like to give some discussion on the pressure effects of the Kondo temperature. The Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ is an energy scale, which is used to characterize the contribution to resistivity $`\rho `$ with the temperature relation $`\rho (T)=ab\mathrm{ln}(T)`$ due to the inelastic scattering of conduction electrons from partially compensated local moments. With the decreasing of the temperature, a crossover occurs from the incoherent Kondo impurity state ($`T>T_K`$) to the coherent KL state ($`T<T_K`$). Theoretically, $`T_K`$ can be determined in the limit $`r0`$. From the self-consistent equations, it is directly obtained

$$\frac{2V^2}{(\lambda p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega })\pi }_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \frac{1}{\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\omega }{k_BT_K}\right)+1}\frac{1}{N_s}\underset{𝐤}{}\text{Im}\frac{1}{(\omega \epsilon _𝐤+i0^+)(\omega E_f+i0^+)}=1,$$
(42)
and the expression for $`T_K`$ reads

$$T_K=1.13\frac{D}{k_B}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{E_0p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }}{2N_0(0)V^2}\right).$$
(43)
This analytic expression for the Kondo temperature is given here explicitly as one of the important results of pressure effects. We would like to point out that such an expression does not appear in the paper by Li and Qiu, where the case $`p=0`$ is considered and no effect of pressure is obtained.

From Eqs. (42) and (43), it is clear that, the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ is independent of the concentration $`x`$, in agreement with the experiments. On the other hand, as shown in Fig. 3, pressure increases the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ for the $`e`$-type HF systems ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$), which is in agreement with the experiments on UBe13, CeInCu2, and other $`e`$-type materials. While for the $`h`$-type HF systems ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$), $`T_K`$ decreases with the increment of pressure. Some experiments also indicate that the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$ seems to decrease with pressure in the $`h`$-type compounds.

According to the discussion about the $`f`$-DOS, the effective mixing parameter $`(rV)^2`$, and the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$, it is believed that pressure does act as a mirror between the $`e`$-type HF systems and the $`h`$-type HF systems unambiguously, in agreement with the experiments. Based on these results, we would calculate the specific-heat coefficient and the electrical resistivity to discuss the behaviors of HF system under pressure more intensively.

## IV COHERENCE EFFECTS UNDER PRESSURE

In the low temperature region $`TT_K`$, the main contribution of the specific heat arises from the thermal activation of $`f`$ electrons near Fermi level, and the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$ of HF alloys can be written in terms of $`f`$-DOS as

$$\gamma (T,\text{ }p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega },\text{ }x)=\frac{1}{2}k_B^2\beta ^3_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \omega ^2N_f(\omega ,\text{ }p\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega },\text{ }x)\text{sech}^2\left(\frac{\beta \omega }{2}\right),$$
(44)
where $`\beta =1/k_BT`$. Then, from the $`f`$-DOS given above, the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$ can be obtained over the whole range of concentration $`x`$ under various applied pressures (Fig. 4), the influence of pressure on $`T_K`$ is also considered. It is shown that when $`x<x_c`$, the case of Kondo impurity, $`\gamma (T)`$ continues to increase monotonically as $`T`$ decreases, indicating the incoherent state of the alloy system. While in the KL case ($`x>x_c`$), a maximum is found at a finite temperature well below $`T_K`$ and a peak appears in each $`\gamma `$-$`T`$ curve. With the increasing of concentration $`x`$, the peak shifts to higher temperature corresponding to the pseudogap structure. Generally, the maximum value of $`\gamma (T)`$, found at a finite temperature, is a characteristic feature of KL, which signals the transition to the coherent state and can be assigned experimentally to the effect of the periodicity of the system.

On the other hand, as to the effect of pressure on the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$, two opposing results are shown in Fig. 4. For the $`e`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }>0`$), pressure increases the correlation between $`f`$ ions and promotes the itinerance of $`f`$ electrons. The global Kondo singlet tends to be stabilized and the $`f`$ multiplet states suppressed. Then, near Fermi level, the $`f`$-DOS is lowered and the thermal activation decreases, leading to the decrement of $`\gamma `$ under pressure. These results are in agreement with the measurements on the $`e`$-type HF systems CeAl3, CeCu6, UBe13, and CeCu2Si2. For the $`h`$-type HF alloys ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }<0`$), pressure promotes the localization of $`f`$ electrons, and tends to destabilize the global singlet state. The $`f`$-DOS near Fermi level is lifted and the thermal activation increases, leading to the increment of $`\gamma `$ under pressure. These results are opposite to those of the $`e`$-type HF systems, as observed in YbCuAl, etc.

From experiments, accompanying the decrease (increase) of $`\gamma `$ for the $`e`$-type ($`h`$-type) HF systems is a rapid suppression (enhancement) of the $`T^2`$ coefficient $`A`$ of the electrical resistivity $`\rho `$, an increase (decrease) of the temperature interval over which $`\rho =\rho _0+AT^2`$ and an increase (decrease) of the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ at which $`\rho `$ has its maximum. Study on the electrical resistivity $`\rho `$ presents an effective approach to reveal the effect of coherence in HF systems. According to Kubo formula, the CPA expression of the electrical resistivity can be written as

$$\sigma (T,\text{ }p,\text{ }x)=\frac{2e^2v_F^2}{3\pi \mathrm{}^2\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑\omega \left(\frac{f}{\omega }\right)\underset{𝐤}{}[\text{Im}\overline{G}_{cc}(𝐤,\text{ }p,\text{ }\omega +i0^+)]^2,$$
(45)
where $`v_F`$ is the Fermi velocity, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ the volume of the system and

$$\overline{G}_{cc}(𝐤,\text{ }p,\text{ }\omega )=\frac{\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff}}{(\omega \epsilon _𝐤)(\omega \alpha \epsilon _𝐤E_fS_{ff})(rV)^2},$$
(46)
is the matrix element of the effective medium GF for conduction electrons.

At $`T=0`$, the residual resistivity $`\rho _0(T=0,p,x)=1/\sigma (T=0,p,x)`$ are calculated as shown in Fig. 5. It is found that $`\rho _0`$ has a maximum within $`0x1`$, and approximately follows the Nordheim law $`\rho _0x(1x)`$. On the other hand, for the $`e`$-type HF systems, $`\rho _0`$ decreases with increasing pressure, corresponding to the decrease in effective mass due to the enhancement of itinerance and coherence of the system under pressure, which is in agreement with the observation in UBe13, CeCu6, CeCu2Si2, CeAl3, CeInCu2, etc. While for the $`h`$-type HF systems, $`\rho _0`$ increases with increasing pressure, corresponding to the increase in effective mass due to the enhancement of localization and incoherent state of the system under pressure, as observed in YbAgCu4, YbCu2Si2, etc. In the KL case ($`x=1`$), the $`\rho `$-$`T`$ curves are given in Fig. 6. The resistivity follows the quadratic law $`\rho =\rho _0+AT^2`$ (here, $`\rho _0=0`$ when $`x=1`$) at low temperature and has a maximum at $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$. The coefficient $`A`$ (Fig. 7) and the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ (Fig. 8) are strongly affected by the application of pressure. For the $`e`$-type HF systems, pressure increases the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ but decreases the coefficient $`A`$ and expands the temperature region in which the quadratic law appears. Because the larger presence of the quadratic term in the temperature dependence of the resistivity accompanies the stronger coherence, these results indicate that pressure studies on the $`e`$-type HF systems provide a means of tuning the onset of Kondo coherence into the experimental temperature range without the introduction of disorder which accompanies doping. For the $`h`$-type HF systems, pressure decreases $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ but increases the coefficient $`A`$ and shrinks the temperature range for the quadratic law. Again, pressure acts as a mirror and leads to the contrasting effects on resistivity between the $`e`$-type HF systems as UBe13, CeCu6, CeCu2Si2, CeAl3, and CeInCu2, and the $`h`$-type HF systems as YbAgCu4, YbCuAl, and YbCu2Si2.

## V CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, the pressure effects on HF alloys are studied by the application of CPA in the framework of Yoshimori-Kasai (YK) model. Following Li and Qiu, the alloying effects of HF systems are studied by using the SBMFA. The density of states of $`f`$ electrons ($`f`$-DOS), the Kondo temperature $`T_K`$, the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$, and the electrical resistivity $`\rho `$ are obtained in our CPA formalism for both the $`e`$-type HF alloys and the $`h`$-type HF alloys. It is found that with the increasing of the $`f`$ ion concentration, as pointed out by Li and Qiu, the system transforms from a Kondo impurity with single-peak structure into a coherent Kondo lattice (KL) with two-peak pseudogap structure. Accompanying this transformation, a peak appears in the specific-heat coefficient $`\gamma `$, and it shifts to higher temperature by increasing doping. On the other hand, pressure tends to enhance the itinerance and coherence of the system in the $`e`$-type HF alloys, while, to support the localization and the incoherent state in the $`h`$-type HF alloys. The application of pressure increases the Kondo temperature and suppresses the specific-heat coefficient for the $`e`$-type HF systems. Accompanying these effects, pressure increases the temperature $`T_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and expands the temperature region for the quadratic law. Conversely, pressure decreases the Kondo temperature, enhances the specific-heat coefficient and shrinks the temperature interval for the quadratic law in the $`h`$-type case. Our theoretical results on the HF systems can be looked as a unified interpretation on the opposite pressure-dependent effects, observed in UBe13, CeCu6, CeCu2Si2, CeAl3, and CeInCu2 (the $`e`$-type HF systems) and YbAgCu4, YbCuAl, and YbCu2Si2 (the $`h`$-type HF systems). Although, it is widely accepted that pressure acts qualitatively as a mirror between Ce-based, U-based compounds and Yb-based compounds, further experiments are required to determine to what intensity and to what extent the $`h`$-type HF systems are mirror images of their $`e`$-type counterparts.

## VI ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author is very grateful to Prof. Z. Z. Li and Dr. Y. Qiu for the stimulating viewpoints in their original work, which benefit the author greatly.


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# Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction

## Abstract

For the zero-range interaction providing a given mass $`M_2`$ of the two-body bound state, the mass $`M_3`$ of the relativistic three-boson state is calculated. We have found that the three-body system exists only when $`M_2`$ is greater than a critical value $`M_c1.43m`$ ($`m`$ is the constituent mass). For $`M_2=M_c`$ the mass $`M_3`$ turns into zero and for $`M_2<M_c`$ there is no solution with real value of $`M_3`$.

PACS numbers: 21.45.+v,03.65.Pm,11.10.St

Zero-range two-body interaction provides an important limiting case which qualitatively reflects characteristic properties of nuclear  and atomic  few-body systems. In the nonrelativistic three-body system it generates the Thomas collapse . The latter means that the three-body binding energy tends to $`\mathrm{}`$, when the interaction radius tends to zero. Several ways to regularize this interaction have been proposed in the literature .

When the binding energy or the exchanged particle mass is not negligible in comparison to the constituent masses, the nonrelativistic treatment becomes invalid and must be replaced by a relativistic one. Two-body calculations show that in the scalar case, relativistic effects are repulsive (see e.g. ). Relativistic three-body calculations with zero-range interaction have been performed in a minimal relativistic model  and in the framework of the Light-Front Dynamics . In these works it was concluded that, due to relativistic repulsion, the three-body binding energy remains finite and the Thomas collapse is consequently avoided.

In the present paper we reconsider, in the Light-Front Dynamics approach, the problem of three equal mass ($`m`$) bosons interacting via zero-range forces. We will show that instead of the Thomas collapse, its relativistic counterpart takes place. Namely, when the two-body bound state mass $`M_2`$ decreases, the mass $`M_3`$ of the three-body system decreases as well and vanishes at some critical value of $`M_2=M_c1.43m`$. For $`M_2<M_c`$ there are no solutions with real value of $`M_3`$ what means – from physical point of view – that the three-body system collapses.

Our starting point is the explicitly covariant formulation of the Light-Front Dynamics (see for a review ). The wave function is defined on the light-front plane given by the equation $`\omega x=0`$, where $`\omega `$ is a four-vector with $`\omega ^2=0`$, determining the light-front orientation. In the particular case $`\omega =(1,0,0,1)`$ we recover the standard approach .

The three-body equation is represented graphically in figure 1. It concerns the vertex function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, related to the wave function $`\psi `$ in the standard way:

$$\psi (k_1,k_2,k_3,p,\omega \tau )=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(k_1,k_2,k_3,p,\omega \tau )}{^2M_3^2},^2=(k_1+k_2+k_3)^2=(p+\omega \tau )^2.$$

All four-momenta are on the corresponding mass shells ($`k_i^2=m^2,p^2=M_3^2,(\omega \tau )^2=0`$) and satisfy the conservation law $`k_1+k_2+k_3=p+\omega \tau `$ involving $`\omega \tau `$. The four-momenta $`\omega \tau `$ and $`\omega \tau ^{}`$ are drawn in figure 1 by dash lines. The off-energy shell character of the wave function is ensured by the scalar variable $`\tau `$. In the standard approach, the minus-components of the momenta are not conserved and the only non-zero component of $`\omega `$ is $`\omega _{}=\omega _0\omega _z=2`$. Variable $`2\tau `$ is just the non-zero difference of non-conserved components $`2\tau =k_1+k_2+k_3p_{}`$.

Applying to figure 1 the covariant light-front graph techniques , we find:

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(k_1,k_2,k_3,p,\omega \tau )={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{(2\pi )^3}}{\displaystyle \mathrm{\Gamma }(k_1^{},k_2^{},k_3,p,\omega \tau ^{})}`$
$`\times \delta ^{(4)}(k_1^{}+k_2^{}\omega \tau ^{}k_1k_2+\omega \tau ){\displaystyle \frac{d\tau ^{}}{\tau ^{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_1^{}}{2\epsilon _{k_1^{}}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k_2^{}}{2\epsilon _{k_2^{}}}}+(23)1+(31)2,`$ (1)
where $`\epsilon _k=\sqrt{m^2+\stackrel{}{k}^2}`$. For zero-range forces, the interaction kernel is replaced by a constant $`\lambda `$. In (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) the contribution of interacting pair 12 is explicitly written while the contributions of the remaining pairs are denoted by $`(23)1+(31)2`$.

Equation (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) can be rewritten in variables $`\stackrel{}{R}_i,x_i,`$ ($`i=1,2,3`$), where $`\stackrel{}{R}_i`$ is the spatial component of the four-vector $`R_i=k_ix_ip`$ orthogonal to $`\stackrel{}{\omega }`$ and $`x_i=\frac{\omega k_i}{\omega p}`$ . For this aim we insert in r.h.-side of (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) the unity integral

$$1=2(\omega k_3^{})\delta ^{(4)}(k_3^{}k_3\omega \tau _3)𝑑\tau _3\frac{d^3k_3^{}}{2\epsilon _{k_3^{}}}$$

and recover the usual three-body space volume which, expressed in the variables $`(\stackrel{}{R}_i,x_i)`$, reads

$$\delta ^{(4)}(\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}k_i^{}p\omega \tau ^{})\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d^3k_i^{}}{2\epsilon _{k_i^{}}}2(\omega p)d\tau ^{}=\delta ^{(2)}(\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\stackrel{}{R^{}}_i)\delta (\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}x_i^{}1)2\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{d^2R_i^{}dx_i^{}}{2x_i^{}}.$$

The Faddeev amplitudes $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}`$ are introduced in the standard way:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }(1,2,3)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(1,2,3)+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{23}(1,2,3)+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{31}(1,2,3),$$

and equation (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) is equivalent to a system of three coupled equations. With the symmetry relations $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{23}(1,2,3)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(2,3,1)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{31}(1,2,3)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(3,1,2)`$, the system is reduced to a single equation for one of the amplitudes, say $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}`$.

In general, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}`$ depends on all variables ($`\stackrel{}{R}_i,x_i`$), constrained by the relations $`\stackrel{}{R}_1+\stackrel{}{R}_2+\stackrel{}{R}_3=0`$, $`x_1+x_2+x_3=1`$, but for contact kernel it depends only on $`(\stackrel{}{R}_3,x_3)`$ . Equation (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) results into:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R}_{},x)=\frac{\lambda }{(2\pi )^3}\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R}_{},x)+2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{}x^{}\stackrel{}{R}_{},x^{}(1x))\right]\frac{1}{s_{12}^{}M_{12}^2}\frac{d^2R_{}^{}dx^{}}{2x^{}(1x^{})},$$
(2)
in which

$$s_{12}^{}=(k_1^{}+k_2^{})^2=\frac{R_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+m^2}{x^{}(1x^{})}$$

is the effective on shell mass squared of the two-body subsystem, whereas $`M_{12}^2=(k_1^{}+k_2^{}\omega \tau ^{})^2=(pk_3)^2`$ corresponds to its off-shell mass. It is expressed through $`M_3^2,R_{}^2,x`$ as

$$M_{12}^2=(1x)M_3^2\frac{R_{}^2+(1x)m^2}{x}.$$
(3)
These on- and off-shell masses $`s_{12}^{}`$ and $`M_{12}^2`$ differ from each other, since $`k_1^{}+k_2^{}+k_3p`$. On the energy shell, at $`\tau ^{}=0`$, the value $`M_{12}^2`$ turns into $`s_{12}^{}`$, what is never reached for a bound state.

Since the first term $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R}_{},x)`$ in the integrand does not depend on the integration variables, we can transform (2) as:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R}_{},x)=\frac{1}{\lambda ^1I(M_{12})}\frac{2}{(2\pi )^3}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{}x^{}\stackrel{}{R}_{},x^{}(1x))\frac{1}{s_{12}^{}M_{12}^2}\frac{d^2R_{}^{}dx^{}}{2x^{}(1x^{})},$$
(4)
where

$$I(M_{12})=\frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{s_{12}^{}M_{12}^2}\frac{d^2R_{}^{}dx^{}}{2x^{}(1x^{})}.$$
(5)
The integral (5) diverges logarithmically and we implicitly assume that a cutoff $`L`$ is introduced.

The value of $`\lambda `$ is found by solving the two-body problem with the same zero-range interaction under the condition that the two-body bound state mass has a fixed value $`M_2`$. From that we get $`\lambda ^1=I(M_2)`$ with $`I`$ given by (5). It also diverges when the momentum space cutoff $`L`$ tends to infinity (or, equivalently, the interaction range tends to zero). However, the difference $`\lambda ^1I(M_{12})=I(M_2)I(M_{12})`$ converges in the limit $`L\mathrm{}`$. The factor $`F(M_{12})=1/[I(M_2)I(M_{12})]`$ gives the two-body off-shell scattering amplitude, depending on the off-shell two-body mass $`M_{12}`$, without any regularization. For $`0M_{12}^2<4m^2`$ the calculation gives:

$$F(M_{12})=\frac{8\pi ^2}{\frac{\mathrm{arctan}y_{M_{12}}}{y_{M_{12}}}\frac{\mathrm{arctan}y_{M_2}}{y_{M_2}}},$$

where $`y_{M_{12}}=\frac{M_{12}}{\sqrt{4m^2M_{12}^2}}`$ and similarly for $`y_{M_2}`$. If $`M_{12}^2<0`$, the amplitude obtains the form:

$$F(M_{12})=\frac{8\pi ^2}{\frac{1}{2y_{M_{12}}^{}}\mathrm{log}\frac{1+y_{M_{12}}^{}}{1y_{M_{12}}^{}}\frac{\mathrm{arctan}y_{M_2}}{y_{M_2}}},$$

where $`y_{M_{12}}^{}=\frac{\sqrt{M_{12}^2}}{\sqrt{4m^2M_{12}^2}}.`$

Finally, the equation for the Faddeev amplitude reads:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(R_{},x)=F(M_{12})\frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}_0^1𝑑x^{}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(R_{}^{},x^{}(1x))d^2R_{}^{}}{(\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{}x^{}\stackrel{}{R}_{})^2+m^2x^{}(1x^{})M_{12}^2}.$$
(6)
The three-body mass $`M_3`$ enters in this equation through variable $`M_{12}^2`$, defined by (3).

By replacing $`x^{}(1x)x^{}`$, equation (6) can be transformed to

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(R_{},x)=F(M_{12})\frac{1}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{1x}\frac{dx^{}}{x^{}(1xx^{})}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d^2R_{}^{}}{_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}M_3^2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(R_{}^{},x^{}),$$
(7)
where

$$_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}=\frac{\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{}^2+m^2}{x^{}}+\frac{\stackrel{}{R}_{}^2+m^2}{x}+\frac{(\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{}+\stackrel{}{R}_{})^2+m^2}{1xx^{}}.$$

This equation is the same than equation (11) from  except for the integration limits of ($`\stackrel{}{R^{}}_{},x^{}`$) variables. In  the integration limits follow from the condition $`M_{12}^2>0`$. They read

$$_{\frac{m^2}{M_3^2}}^{1x}\left[\mathrm{}\right]𝑑x^{}_0^{k_{}^{max}}\left[\mathrm{}\right]d^2R_{}^{}$$
(8)
with $`k_{}^{max}=\sqrt{(1x^{})(M_3^2x^{}m^2)}`$ and introduce a lower bound on the three-body mass $`M_3>\sqrt{2}m`$. The same condition, though in a different relativistic approach, was used in . The integration limits in (8) restrict the arguments of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}`$ to the domain

$$\frac{m^2}{M_3^2}x1\frac{m^2}{M_3^2},0R_{}k_{}^{max}$$

and can be considered as a method of regularization. In this case, one no longer deals with the zero-range forces.

Being interested in studying the zero-range interaction, we do not cut off the variation domain of variables $`R_{},x`$

$$0x1,0R_{}<\mathrm{}.$$

The integration limits for these variables reflect the conservation law of the four-momenta in the three-body system and they are automatically fullfilled, as far as the $`\delta ^{(4)}`$-function in (Three-boson relativistic bound states with zero-range interaction) is taken into account. The off-shell variable $`M_{12}^2`$ may take negative values, when $`R_{}`$ and $`x`$ vary in their proper limits. Thus, if $`M_3^2>m^2`$ one has $`\mathrm{}M_{12}^2(M_3m)^2`$ but if $`M_3^2<m^2`$, $`M_{12}^2`$ is always negative $`\mathrm{}M_{12}^20`$. We would like to notice that $`M_{12}^2`$ is not to be confused with the on-shell effective mass squared $`s_{12}^{}=(k_1^{}+k_2^{})^2`$ which is indeed always positive and even $`s_{12}^{}4m^2`$. As we will see, this point turns out to be crucial for the appearence of the relativistic collapse.

The results of solving equation (6) are presented in what follows. Calculations were carried out with constituent mass $`m=1`$ and correspond to the ground state. We represent in fig. 2a the three-body bound state mass $`M_3`$ as a function of the two-body one $`M_2`$ (solid line) together with the dissociation limit $`M_3=M_2+m`$. The zero two-body binding limit $`B_2=2mM_20`$ is magnified in fig. 2b. In this limit the three-boson system has a binding energy $`B_30.012`$.

When $`M_2`$ decreases, the three-body mass $`M_3`$ decreases very quickly and vanishes at the two-body mass value $`M_2=M_c1.43`$. Whereas the meaning of collapse as used in the Thomas paper implies unbounded nonrelativistic binding energies and cannot be used here, the zero bound state mass $`M_3=0`$ constitutes its relativistic counterpart. Indeed, for two-body masses below the critical value $`M_c`$, the three-body system no longer exists.

The results corresponding to integration limits (8) are included in fig. 2a (dash line) for comparison. Values given in  were not fully converged . They have been corrected in  and are indicated by dots. In both cases the repulsive relativistic effects produce a natural cutoff in equation (6), leading to a finite spectrum and – in the Thomas sense – an absence of collapse, like it was already found in . However, except in the zero binding limit, solid and dash curves strongly differ from each other.

We would like to remark that for $`M_2M_c`$, equation (6) posses square integrable solutions with negative values of $`M_3^2`$. They have no physical meaning but $`M_3^2`$ remains finite in all the two-body mass range $`M_2[0,2]`$. The results of $`M_3^2`$ are given in figure 3. When $`M_20`$, $`M_3^2`$ tends to $`11.6`$.

In figure 4 is shown the Faddeev amplitude $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}`$ corresponding to a solution with relatively large binding energies $`M_2=1.5`$ and $`M_3=1`$. Figure 4a shows its $`R_{}`$-dependence at fixed values of $`x`$ and figure 4b – its $`x`$-dependence at fixed values of $`R_{}[0,20]`$. One can remark in figure 4b that, in addition to the zeroes at $`x=0`$ and $`x=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{12}(R_{},x)`$ has two zeroes at $`x0.15`$ and $`x0.7`$. When the mass values $`(M_2,M_3)`$ are changed, the positions of zeroes are only slightly shifted.

In summary, we have considered the relativistic problem of three equal-mass bosons, interacting via zero-range forces constrained to provide finite two-body mass $`M_2`$. The Light-Front Dynamics equation has been derived and solved numerically.

We have found that the three-body bound state exists for two-body mass values in the range $`M_c1.43mM_22m`$. At the zero two-body binding limit, the three-body binding energy is $`B_30.012m`$. The Thomas collapse is avoided in the sense that three-body mass $`M_3`$ is finite, in agreement with . However, another kind of catastrophe happens. Removing infinite binding energies, the relativistic dynamics generates zero three-body mass $`M_3`$ at a critical value $`M_2=M_c`$. For stronger interaction, i.e. when $`0M_2<M_c`$, there are no physical solutions with real value of $`M_3`$. In this domain, $`M_3^2`$ becomes negative and the three-boson system cannot be described by zero range forces, as it happens in nonrelativistic dynamics. This fact can be interpreted as a relativistic collapse.

Acknowledgements. Authors are indebted to T. Frederico for useful remarks concerning results of Refs. . V.A.K. is sincerely grateful for the warm hospitality of the theory group at the Institut des Sciences Nucléaires in Grenoble, where this work was performed. This work is partially supported by the French-Russian PICS and RFBR grants Nos. 1172 and 01-02-22002. Numerical calculations were performed at CGCV (CEA Grenoble) and IDRIS (CNRS).


text:
# Illuminating the darkness

## 1 Introduction

The claim by Oppenheimer et al. (oppenheimer (2001)) that they had found a significant population of Halo stars from a kinematic survey toward the South Galactic Pole opened up an interesting discussion regarding the nature of dark matter in the solar neighborhood. Their discovery seemed to corroborate earlier findings using very deep HST photometry that also pointed out to the existence of an as yet unobserved component to the Halo, identified as very cool and ancient white dwarfs (Méndez and Minniti 2000). However, several authors have indicated that Oppenheimer’s sample could be also interpreted as the tail of a ’warmer’ white dwarf component (in the sense of having shorter cooling ages and therefore higher surface temperatures), better ascribed to the intermediate Thick-Disk population of the Galaxy (see e.g., Reid et al. 2001; Reylé et al. 2001).

Obviously, disentangling the true nature of Oppenheimer’s objects is important to understand their contribution to the dark matter problem in the Galaxy. In this paper we use HST data, deep photometry and proper-motions, to demonstrate that there is indeed a very important population of what appears to be Thick-Disk white dwarfs with a large mass density in the solar vicinity. These Thick-Disk objects could not have been identified before on the Hubble Deep Fields South and North due to their high Galactic latitude ($`|b|50^o`$), which prevented the appearance on these fields-of-view of an important population of these objects, characterized by a steep concentration toward the Galactic plane.

A fundamental discovery presented in this paper is that, regardless of whether the objects found are Thick-Disk or Halo white dawrfs, they together account for most of the dark matter in the solar neighborhood.

## 2 Description of the photometric and kinematic sample

Our data is based on a proper-motion membership study of the nearest Globular Cluster NGC 6397 by King et al. (king (1998), KACP98 thereafter). They used HST proper-motions to segregate cluster members from field stars in order to define, characterize, and study the faint end of the main sequence on the cluster, in a seminal paper using HST’s WFPC accurate relative astrometry. Since their main science goal was to study the cluster, the field stars received comparatively little attention in that paper. In a previous paper they had also used the first-epoch exposures to study the cluster’s white dwarf sequence (Cool et al. 1996).

More recently, Castellani et al. (castellani (2001)) used King’s data set to compare the star- and color-counts with Galactic models, constraining a number of large-scale Galactic parameters, but no attention was given to the kinematic information, as derived from the proper-motions.

In this paper,we use the combined photometric and astrometric information to characterize, specifically, the blue-faint objects found in the field population of the KACP98 sample. The main motivation is the recent discovery of spectroscopically-confirmed old white dwarfs indicative of a rather massive Galactic component comprised of these remnants, as previously suggested by the photometric study of the stellar content on the Hubble Deep Fields South and North by Méndez et al. (mendez96b (1996)), and Méndez and Minniti (mendez00a (2000), MM00 henceforth).

Relative proper-motions for all field and cluster stars in a field close to the cluster NGC 6397 were derived by KACP98 using an earlier version of the methods described in Anderson and King (2000, and references therein). The final proper-motions for field stars are motions relative to a reference frame in which the cluster is at rest. Since the internal velocity dispersion for the cluster ($`5`$ km s-1 or 0.4 mas y-1, where mas stands for milli-arcsec) is smaller than the proper-motions detected, at the distance of the cluster, the width of the cluster proper-motion provides a good indication of the uncertainties in the derived relative motions.

The full sample was segregated by KACP98 into three sub-samples, based on a proper-motion and photometric selection criteria: NGC 6397 main-sequence stars (1,386 stars), non-main sequence members (64 stars), and generic field stars (929 stars) on a 4.5 arcmin2 field-of-view located at $`(l,b)=(338.1^{},12.0^{})`$, encompassing the range $`15I25`$ and $`0VI4.0`$. Here, we will concentrate our attention on the field stars of the KACP98 sample.

The uniqueness of this data set is the availability of proper-motions for a a sample of very faint stars in a field with modest Galactic latitude, which then samples a significant path through the Thick-Disk of the Galaxy (Méndez & van Altena 1996). Another fortunate coincidence is that, unlike other studies being carried out with HST on different Globular clusters, which focus on the inner core of the clusters, this field was acquired toward the outer envelope of NGC 6397, some 4.5 arcmin from the cluster center, far from the central 20 arcsec dominated by the cluster’s power-law cusp, and therefore minimizing the ’contamination’ from cluster stars.

### 2.1 Photometric calibration

KACP98 published photometry in the F555W and F814W bands of the ’flight-system’, as defined by Holtzman et al. (holtzman (1995), Ho95). In order to compare our photometry with models, we need to convert this photometry to a standard system. However, because we only have magnitudes in two bands we can not apply the iterative method used by Méndez et al (mendez96b (1996)), or MM00, to derive calibrated photometry. Instead, in this paper, the calibration is done on a two-step process, by adjusting the zero-points of the flight-system (equation 1 below), then by applying the flight-to-ground transformations (equation 2 which yields equation 3 below), and then explicitly solving for a quadratic equation on the standard photometry.

Specifically, the mags given by KACP98 are defined by (equation (7) of Ho95):

$$WFPC2=2.5\mathrm{log}(DNs^1)+Z_{FG}+2.5\mathrm{log}GR_i$$
(1)
where WFPC2 is the flight magnitude, DN is the measured flux per unit time on the camera, $`Z_{FG}`$ are the zero-points as given in Table 6 of Ho95, and $`GR_i`$ is the detector’s gain (slightly different for all three chips, hence the subscript, in our case this is $``$7 $`e^{}`$ ADU-1).

On the other hand, the flight-to-ground transformation is accomplished by equation (8) on Ho95, which we repeat here for completeness:

$`SMAG`$ $`=`$ $`2.5\mathrm{log}(DNs^1)+Z_{FS}+2.5\mathrm{log}GR_i+`$ (2)
$`T_{1,FS}\times SCOL+T_{2,FS}\times SCOL^2`$
where SMAG and SCOL are the standard-system magnitudes and colors respectively, $`T_1`$ and $`T_2`$ are linear and quadratic coefficients determined empirically which, along with the zero-points, are given in Table 7 of Ho95. Combining equations 1 and 2 above thus yields:

$`SMAG`$ $`=`$ $`WFPC2+(Z_{FS}Z_{FG})+2.5\mathrm{log}GR_i+`$ (3)
$`T_{1,FS}\times SCOL+T_{2,FS}\times SCOL^2`$
In our case we have magnitudes in two passbands only, so that SMAG could be either V or I (the closest match to the F555W and F814W passbands, see Ho95). Using equation 3, and subtracting the terms for the I band from those of the V band, we end up with:

$`VISCOL`$ $`=`$ $`(F555WF814W)+`$
$`(T_{1,FS,F5Q5W}T_{1,FS,F814W})\times SCOL+`$
$`(T_{2,FS,F555W}T_{2,FS,F814W})\times SCOL^2`$
which is a quadratic equation on SCOL. Solving for SCOL yields thus the standard color, which, combined with equation 3 yields also the individual apparent magnitudes. There is no iteration necessary, and the standard magnitudes are uniquely determined (this is not the case if we have more than two bands, in this case the best solution is obtained by the iterative process, which best satisfies (in a minimum-residual sense) equation 2 simultaneously, for all passbands). The corrections from the instrumental to the standard system are, in any case, quite small. For example for F14W= 15.87, and F555W-F814W= 1.03, one finds that I= 15.83 and V-I= 1.043. Because these corrections are quite small, errors in the transformation (which can be up to 0.1 mag, Ho95) are minimal (i.e., we could have as well used the instrumental magnitudes). The uncertainty in the final calibrated magnitudes is estimated to be less than 0.05 mag (Cool et al. 1996).

### 2.2 Proper-motions

The proper-motions given by KACP98 are actually displacements on a 32-month baseline with respect to the mean displacement of the bona-fide cluster stars. These displacements were converted to actual relative proper-motions using the WFC plate-scale, and the baseline. This proper-motions were then converted to motions in RA and DEC by applying the position angle of the observations. As mentioned before, the motions are measured with respect to a system that has a zero mean motion for the cluster. In order to compute true absolute motions we need to correct for the proper-motion of the cluster, i.e.:

$$\mu _{rel}^f=\mu _{abs}^f\mu _{abs}^{cl}$$

where $`\mu _{rel}^f`$ are the observed relative motions for field stars with respect to the cluster, $`\mu _{abs}^{cl}`$ is the absolute motion of the cluster, and $`\mu _{abs}^f`$ is the absolute motion of the field stars. Fortunately, the motion for NGC 6397 is known, and it is given in the comprehensive compilation by Dinescu et al. (dinescu (1999)), which has $`\mu _{\alpha _{abs}}^{cl}\mathrm{cos}\delta =3.30\pm 0.50`$ mas y-1, and $`\mu _{\delta _{abs}}^{cl}=15.20\pm 0.60`$ mas y-1. We finally converted the motion to the Galactic system for an easier interpretation of the results. In this system, the mean absolute motion for the cluster would be $`\mu _{l_{abs}}^{cl}=11.46`$ mas y-1, and $`\mu _{b_{abs}}^{cl}=10.52`$ mas y-1.

## 3 Analysis of the sample

The vector point diagram (VPD) for the whole sample is shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 1a includes all the data, whereas Fig. 1b shows a detail of the inner core of the proper-motion distribution. The pluses indicate the cluster members, whereas the small black dots indicate the non-members. In addition, several other interesting objects have been marked by the solid and open star symbols, as well as the filled square symbol. These objects will be discussed further below. This figure clearly shows that there is a good separation between cluster and field stars, although the boundary, specially in the interface between the two distributions, is somewhat blurry (fortunately this is of no consequence to our analysis).

Table 1 indicates the main properties of the proper-motion distributions shown in Fig. 1, split into Main-sequence cluster members, and non-members. The method to compute these parameters, accounting for outliers, has been described in Méndez et al. (mendez00b (2000)).

From Table 1 we can estimate the accuracy of the proper-motions directly from the dispersion in the cluster members (which should actually have a very small dispersion if there were no observational errors). We obtain an overall uncertainty of about 2.0 mas y-1 in both coordinates. We also note that the mean motion for the cluster is what we would have expected from the absolute motion of the cluster (see Section 2.2), after correction from relative to absolute, and within the observational errors as given on the second row of the table above. While the above values are for the entire sample, there is a slight increase in proper-motion errors, as judged from the width of the cluster distribution, when going to fainter magnitudes, for example while the dispersion is 1.99 and 1.88 mas y-1 in $`\mu _l`$ and $`\mu _b`$ respectively for $`16I<22`$, these values increase to 2.22 and 2.66 mas y-1 respectively for $`22I<24`$.

The VPD allows us to mark out some potentially interesting kinematic outliers for further consideration. We have drawn a more or less arbitrary section around the main bulk of the proper-motions for identification in the reduced proper-motion and color-magnitude diagrams (see below). There are, however, other interesting objects that fall within the outliers boundary, and these will be discussed later.

Recently, Oppenheimer et al. (oppenheimer (2001)) found a large population of white dwarfs with kinematics representative of the Galactic Halo. These objects were pre-selected from a photographic proper-motion survey using UK Schmidt plates. They used the so-called ’reduced-proper-motion’ (RPM) parameter H, used for the first time by Luyten many years ago. The interesting property of this parameter is that while it is directly observable once we have proper-motions and photometry, it is mostly an indicator of luminosity for distinct stellar populations. This parameter is defined as:

$$H_m=m+5\mathrm{log}\mu +5=M+5\mathrm{log}V_{tan}5\mathrm{log}K$$

where m and $`\mu `$ are the apparent magnitude and (absolute) proper-motion, and M and $`V_{tan}`$ are the absolute magnitude (in the same band) and total tangential velocity for the star, while $`K`$ is a constant.

As it can be seen from its definition, different stellar populations (with characteristic luminosities and kinematics) will occupy a different locus on, e.g., an H vs. color diagram, hence H can be used to distinguish distinct populations from its position on the RPM diagram.

Fig. 2 shows the $`H_V`$ vs. V-I diagram for our HST sample. The same objects found on the VPD have been marked on the RPM. Indeed, the RPM diagram allows us to clearly distinguish some objects that did not stand-out in the VPD (e.g., the red stars or some of the faint blue objects), and vice-versa (the general kinematic outliers). The properties of the most interesting objects found (i.e., the extremely red stars, and the faint blue stars) are given in Table 2.

As it can be seen in Fig. 2, there is a group of six very red stars with $`21<I<24`$ and colors $`VI>3.6`$. These objects are interesting because, with their faint magnitudes and red-colors, they could be representatives of a very faint and nearby sample of low-luminosity late-type dwarfs or even brown-dwarfs. There is also a group of six faint blue stars ($`22I<25`$, $`VI1.0`$) with intermediate kinematic, and one fainter blue object with even more extreme kinematics (labeled as ’Extreme’ on Table 2). These faint blue objects, as will be argued below, are part of two distinct populations, belonging to the Thick-Disk of the Galaxy and to the Halo respectively, and represent the late-stages in the evolution of the precursors of these stars when the Galaxy was formed. The properties of all these objects (i.e., the extremely red stars, and the faint blue stars) are given in Table 2.

An inspection of Table 2 indicates that the red stars are actually not very nearby: If they belong to the disk population (as predicted from all Galactic models, see e.g. Castellani et al. (2001)), then their kinematics (assuming a tangential velocity of 40 km s-1, typical of this population) indicates distances larger than 600 pc, and absolute magnitudes brighter than $`M_I12.0`$, characteristic of M5 to M6-type dwarfs (Gizis 1997; Leggett 1992, her Fig. 1). Their colors also indicate similar distances and luminosities. For example, adopting the color-absolute magnitude relationship given by Gizis (chabrier (2000), his Table 4 and Fig. 11) or Leggett (legget92 (1992), her Fig. 15), we have for $`VI4.0`$ a typical $`M_V16.5`$ or $`M_I12.5`$. We conclude that none of these red stars are very nearby nor particularly faint. On the other hand these objects can not be extragalactic, because they exhibit motions that are significantly different from zero, within our estimated 2 mas y-1 error budget (see Table 1).

The object with the most extreme-kinematic (the star far to the left on the VPD, see Fig. 1) has a V-I= 2.85 and I= 19.56. The absolute magnitude for this color is predicted in the range $`12.0M_V13.5`$, depending on metallicity (Gizis 1997). Thus, for a total proper-motion of 74.43 mas y-1 one derives a tangential velocity on excess of 200 km s-1, i.e. more than five times the expected tangential velocity of a typical Disk star. This object is thus quite interesting for follow-up spectroscopy as a potential Halo subdwarf (the same is true for the other kinematic outliers, 16 objects in total, located outside the polygon on Fig. 1). Alternatively, if we insist on this object having a tangential velocity of 40 km s-1, one derives a distance of about 120 pc, leading thus to an absolute magnitude of $`M_V17.0`$, i.e., more than three magnitudes fainter than normal Disk stars of the same color, an unlikely solution.

The sample of faint blue objects represents an interesting population that deserves further attention, in view of the recent discovery by Oppenheimer et al. (oppenheimer (2001)) mentioned before. Oppenheimer’s study was limited to much brighter magnitudes (with $`R19.8`$) than our study ($`20I25`$, see Fig. 5), but they have spectral confirmation. Our objects are much fainter, and it is unlikely that we will have any confirmatory spectroscopy on them until the large next-generation telescopes of 30 m or more become available. Table 2 shows that all these objects have motions that differ by more than 2.5 times from both the mean motion of the field or the cluster, even considering the large width of the field’s proper-motion dispersion of more than 4 mas s-1 given in Table 1.

Even though we can not hope to have spectroscopy on these objects yet, we can use the RPM diagram, along with theoretical models to, at least, compare their position on this diagram with what we would expect for ancient white dwarfs. On Fig. 2 we have superimposed the latest theoretical cooling sequences for old white dwarfs from Chabrier et al. (chabrier (2000)). The continuous line is for a population with a mean tangential speed of 60 km s-1, characteristic of the Thick-Disk (TD model), whereas the dashed line is for a speed of 120 km s-1, typical of the Halo (Halo model). As can be seen the brightest blue stars fall very close to the expected location for old white dwarfs from the Thick-Disk. The faintest point however could, in principle, be fit by either model. However, we argue that this object is better fit by the Halo model rather than the TD model. Indeed, if this was a Thick-Disk star, then the corresponding (cooling) age (i.e., since it left the main-sequence) from the theoretical sequence (almost 14 Gyr), would imply that the Thick-Disk is quite older than what most models predict. It will also imply an absolute magnitude for this object of $`M_V17.6`$, thus becoming the faintest degenerate objects ever found (as an example ESO 439-26, the faintest spectroscopically confirmed WD known has $`M_V17.4`$, Ruiz et al. 1995). Instead, if this object is placed on the Halo model, then its derived cooling age is 11 Gyr, fully consistent with the age for the Galactic Halo, and with a reasonable luminosity of $`M_V15.8`$. We must emphasize here that the derived tangential velocities for these objects are used only as an indication of the population to which they belong, but these velocities are not used to determine distances directly (see Section 4).

### 3.1 Comparison to local and simulated samples

Before we can proceed with any certainty on the probable identification of the faint blue objects as belonging to the stellar Thick-Disk or Halo components of our Galaxy as described in the previous paragraph, we need to compare this sample of putative white dwarfs with the kinematics of local samples of (Disk) white dwarfs. A sample with well defined selection criteria, which has been used for a determination of the (Disk) white dwarf luminosty function is provided by Legget, Ruiz, and Bergeron (legget98 (1998), LRB98 thereafter). Fig. 3 shows the locus in the RPM diagram of the LRB stars in comparison with our sample. At first it would seem as if there is no difference between the two samples, thus implying that we are actually looking at normal Disk stars. However, there is a big difference in the two samples: The LRB sample has a strong kinematic bias in favor of stars with quite large proper-motion ($`\mu >0.8`$ arc-sec y-1), and thus the mean tangential velocity of the LRB89 sample is not representative of the Disk population of white dwarfs as a whole, but rather it overestimates it. This then displaces the mean locus of these objects on the RPM to larger values of $`H_V`$, making them appear similar to that of our sample (we must note that our sample has not been pre-selected according to a large proper-motion). The mean tangential velocity for the LRB8 sample is 113 km s-1 with a dispersion of 73 km s-1. It would of course be interesting to compare directly our sample with that of Disk white dwarfs that have not been selected according to kinematics. Such a sample does exist (Holberg, Oswalt, and Sion 2001, HOS01 thereafter), but unfortunately there are are no V-I colors available for these stars which would allow us to make a direct comparison with our objects. From HOS01’s (volume-limited) complete sample of white dwarfs closer than 13 pc one finds that their mean tangential velocity is only $`45\pm 5`$ (m.e.) km s-1 (this is actually based on 43 out of their 49 stars closer than 13 pc due to the lack of proper-motions for a few of them). We note here that volume-limited samples of main-sequence stars from Hipparcos give values close to 40 km s-1 (Dehnen and Binney 1998), i.e., similar to those found for Holberg’s sample (actually one would expect white dwarfs to have larger motions since they are older than the disk, and much of the velocity scattering is generated in the first Gyr (Wielen 1977). Indeed, numerical simulations using Reylé’s model (private communication, model described in Reylé, Robin, and Crézé 2001), for the same Galactic location as our field, and with the same magnitude, color, and error constraints as those of our sample give a $`<V_{tan}>=45.8\pm 1.9`$ (m.e.) km s-1, in excellent agreement with the results from HOS01 sample of nearby Disk white dwarfs. From this analysis we see that the mean tangential velocity for our possible Thick-Disk white dwarfs is more than $`7\sigma `$ away from the mean of the local (simulated) sample. A further indication of the effect of kinematic selection is provided by the sample of Ruiz and Bergeron (ruiz01 (2001), RB01 thereafter). They have published a sample of new nearby spectroscopically confirmed white dwarfs, selected from their own proper-motion survey. For their sample with $`\mu >0.2`$ arc-sec y-1 one finds $`<V_{tan}>=60\pm 8`$ (m.e.) km s-1, while for $`\mu 0.2`$ arc-sec y-1 one finds $`<V_{tan}>=43\pm 12`$ (m.e.) km s-1 (this last sample is incomplete in proper-motion, so this value is probably an upper limit).

While comparing samples of putative disk white dwarfs to those presented in this paper, one also has to keep in mind that it is not unlikely that a few of the ’local’ samples may also have representatives from the Thick-Disk and Halo (Fig 3.). This is the case, for example of ESO439-26 (with $`M_I=16.29`$ and $`V_{tan}=78`$ km s-1, Ruiz et al. 1995) or CE51 (with $`M_I=16.47`$ and $`V_{tan}=68`$ km s-1, RB01). The mean tangential estimates derived from these local samples will be biased toward higher values due to these kinematic interlopers. Unfortunately, spectroscopy does not help here because all white dwarfs, irrespective of the metallicity of the parent population, look alike.

We can finally compare the locus of our sample on the RPM diagram to that predicted by Galactic models. Here we use the predictions from the model by Reylé et al. (reyle (2001), and private communication) based on the Besançon model of stellar populations in the Milky Way, which has been (succesfully) used to identify the kinematics of Oppenheimer’s sample with that of Thick-Disk stars (see also Reid et al. 2001). Model simulations where run for the same Galactic location as that of our sample, with the same magnitude, color and proper-motion limits, as well as the same observational errors in all these quantities. The field-of-view of the simulation was larger than that of our sample in order to have enough (simulated) stars in the comparison. Fig. 4 shows the locus for our stars, and those predicted by the model. As it is obvious from this figure, the location of our stars is totally in agreement with the predictions from the model for Thick-Disk stars. Disk stars on the other hand exhibit values with smaller tangential velocity (smaller $`H_V`$), as it has been discussed before. Of course all this evidence is, in a way, indirect (even if, as dicussed before, we had spectroscopy), and one could still insist that these stars are actually members of the Disk population. But, in this case, how can one explain that they obey such a distint kinematic behavior in the RPM diagram in comparison with the normal Disk stars? This obviously points to these objects as beeing part of a separate higher-velocity component. We thus conclude that, based on the evidence we have, these few blue faint stars are very likely true representatives of the Thick-Disk of our Galaxy. The implications for this will be discussed in the following Section.

A final point is important when comparing the results from this paper with those found by MM00 for the HDF-S&N. Fig. 5 shows the calibrated color-magnitude diagram for our sample. As it can be seen, the faint blue objects are much less well defined, becoming mixed with the rest of the distribution, and making it difficult to distinguish between different kinematic components, a point to which we will come back in the next Section. The outliers on the VPD diagram (open circles) also become well mixed with the rest of the distribution, and only the red objects stand-out by virtue of their color-selection criteria.

## 4 Discussion

It is interesting to ’weight’ (literally) the consequences of the presence of two kinematic components on the faint blue population described above. First of all, is the discovery of one possible truly Halo white dwarf (the open star on Figs. 1 and 2) consistent with previous findings? As it was shown by MM00, the total mass contributed by a Halo-like population is given by:

$`M(r_{max})`$ $``$ $`<M_{WD}>\times N_{WD}=`$ (4)
$`8.46\times 10^8\mathrm{\Omega }\times \rho _{\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle _0^{r_{max}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{}}}{R}}\right)^3r^2𝑑r`$
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$ is the local mass density of this component, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the field-of-view in arcmin2, R is the galactocentric distance (in pc), $`R_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the Solar Galactocentric distance (assumed to be 8,500 pc), r is the heliocentric distance (pc), and $`M(r_{max})`$ is the mass (in $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$) contributed by this component out to a Heliocentric distance $`r_{max}`$ (also in pc), while $`N_{WD}`$ is the number of observed white dwarfs of mean mass $`<M_{WD}>`$. If we compute the ratio of $`M(d_{max})`$ between, e.g., the Hubble Deep fields South and this field close to NGC 6397, then we find that, to the same depth in apparent magnitude, the expected number of Halo white dwarfs would scale as $`N_{WD}(N6397)1.11\times N_{WD}(HDFS)`$, taken into account the different fields-of-view of the two samples. Now, down to $`I25`$ we see from Fig. 3 on MM00 that we have two possible Halo white dwarfs on HDF-S, whereas we have found one based on its kinematic properties on the field of NGC 6397. No doubt, it is small numbers, but at least the two studies (MM00 based only on differential star counts, the present one on kinematics) are consistent with each other. Note also that the HDF images go about 5 magnitudes fainter than the ones on the present study. We conclude thus that there is consistency between these results.

In our study we seem to find a population of stars somewhat brighter than those detected by MM00, with kinematics indicative of the Thick-Disk. However, there is no indication for these objects on the HDF-S&N sample by MM00, which seems to be inconsistent with the findings of the present paper. Here we should point out that there was no kinematic information for the sample used by MM00 and, thus, it was not possible to kinematically distinguish Thick-Disk from Halo-like objects. Therefore, it is in principle possible that some of the blue objects on MM00 could actually be Thick-Disk stars. However, it turns out that the expected density of these latter objects is much smaller in the HDF-S&N because of their spatial location in the Galaxy. If we adopt a density law characteristic of the Thick-Disk of the form:

$$\rho (r)=\rho _{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{exp}^{|zz_{\mathrm{}}|/h_z}\mathrm{exp}^{(R_{pl}R_{\mathrm{}})/h_R}$$
(5)
where $`\rho (r)`$ is the stellar densities at Galactic position $`r`$ whereas $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$ is the density in the solar neighborhood, $`h_z`$ and $`h_R`$ are the scale height and length of this component respectively, z is the distance from the Galactic plane, $`z_{\mathrm{}}7`$(pc) is the Sun displacement with respect to the Galactic plane, and $`R_{pl}`$ is the distance from the Galactic center, as measured on the plane of the Galaxy, we find, using the analogous of equation 4 for this density law, that the ratio between the expected number of objects on the HDF-S&N and the field under consideration is only 0.29 and 0.16 for HDF-S and HDF-N respectively. So, if we have 6 Thick-Disk stars on the N6397 field, we should only expect to see 1 or 2 such objects on HDF-S and 1 or none on HDF-N, for a reasonable choice of $`h_z`$ (760 pc) and $`h_R`$ (2500 pc) in the above equation. It is interesting to notice that, above $`V25`$ (i.e. the same magnitude range as our stars, see Fig. 5), there is indeed only one blue object on HDF-N and two blue objects on the HDF-S (see Fig. 3 on MM00). These objects have magnitudes and colors similar to those of our kinematically selected Thick-Disk sample in NGC 6397, and in agreement with the above numbers. However, lacking kinematics for the HDF sample, we can not advance much more in this analysis (see below).

### 4.1 Density estimates

We can use the six stars identified as members of the Thick-Disk to compute the stellar and mass density associated to this component. For this purpose we use the generalized $`1/V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ method proposed by Tinney et al. (tinney (1993)). This method extends the classical $`1/V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ to the case of non-(spatially) uniform samples, such as those found here. The method defines a (generalized) density-weighted volume $`V_{\mathrm{gen}}`$ as:

$$V_{\mathrm{gen}}=_{Vol}\frac{\rho (r)}{\rho _{\mathrm{}}}𝑑Vol$$
(6)
where $`\rho (r)`$ and $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$ are the stellar densities at position $`r`$ and in the solar neighborhood respectively, and the integral is carried out over the volume available to the sample, given the observational constraints.

Then, the total stellar density is given, just as in the classical method, by:

$$\rho _{\mathrm{}}=\underset{i}{}\frac{f_i}{V_{\mathrm{gen}_i}}$$

where the factors $`f_i`$ account for the incompleteness of the sample ($`f_i1`$), and the sum is carried over the individual data points. Meanwhile, the standard deviation on the derived overall density is given by:

$$\sigma _\rho _{\mathrm{}}=\sqrt{\underset{i}{}\frac{f_i}{V_{\mathrm{gen}_i}^2}}$$

The volume over which the integral in equation 6 is to be extended is determined by the minimum and maximum distances ($`r_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$ respectively) over which any star can contribute to the sample (see, e.g., Méndez and Ruiz 2001).

If we have a sample with a lower proper-motion limit $`\mu _l`$ and a faint apparent magnitude $`m_f`$, $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is given by:

$$r_{\mathrm{max}}=min[p^1(\mu /\mu _l);p^110^{0.2(m_fm)}]$$

where $`p`$ is the parallax, $`\mu `$ is the proper-motion and m the apparent magnitude.

Similarly, if the sample is only complete to an upper proper-motion limit $`\mu _u`$ and a bright apparent magnitude $`m_b`$, the minimum distance for inclusion would be:

$$r_{\mathrm{min}}=max[p^1(\mu /\mu _u);p^110^{0.2(m_bm)}]$$

For our sample, the value for $`\mu _l`$ is determined by the observational errors. As mentioned in Sect. 2.2, our observational errors are on the order of 2 mas y-1. Therefore, one could consider to have a firm detection for, say, three times the error, or 6 mas y-1, which we will adopt as our value for $`\mu _l`$. Objects with motions larger than that would qualify within our selection criteria. Similarly, the fastest-moving object in the sample (see Fig 1.) has a total proper-motion of nearly 75 mas y-1, value thus adopted for $`\mu _u`$. It is very likely that the detection limit is larger than this, and it is determined by the epoch difference used to obtain the proper motions and the confusion limit. However, we have made tests and found that, even if one where to adopt $`r_{\mathrm{min}}=0`$, our results will change by less than 0.1%. The apparent magnitude limits were chosen as $`m_b=15`$ (see Fig. 5), and $`m_f=25`$ (see Table 1 on KACP98).

For each of the six putative Thick-Disk stars identified in Table 2, we computed their absolute magnitudes in the I pass-band from their observed V-I color, by interpolation on Table 3 of Chabrier et al. (chabrier (2000)). The I and $`M_I`$ were then used to obtain photometric parallaxes. We must emphasize here that the kinematics of the sample is not used at all to determine photometric distances or absolute magnitudes, rather the kinematics is used as an indication of belonging to a given population, which then allows us to adopt the correspondig density laws (e.g., equation 5) for calculating the effective sampling volume (equation 6). Therefore our results are not dependant on the exact value adopted for $`V_{tan}`$ on either the Thick-Disk or the Halo.

With the above values, the limiting distances $`r_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$ were computed, and the integral on equation 6 was evaluated by direct integration, using the adopted Thick-Disk density law, equation 5. In this case, equation 6 can be written as:

$`V_{\mathrm{gen}}`$ $`=`$ $`8.46\times 10^8\mathrm{\Omega }{\displaystyle _{r_{min}}^{r_{max}}}\mathrm{exp}^{|zz_{\mathrm{}}|/h_z}\mathrm{exp}^{(R_{pl}R_{\mathrm{}})/h_R}r^2dr`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`V_{\mathrm{max}}\times \mathrm{}`$
Where $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the classical maximum allowed volume for a magnitude and proper-motion selected sample (see, e.g., Méndez and Ruiz 2001), and $`\mathrm{}`$ is a (dimensionless) correction factor which accounts for the non-homogeneous distribution of stars in space (we shall see that, in any case, this correction factor is relatively small, close to one, for our sample). Both terms are given, respectively, by:

$$V_{\mathrm{max}}=8.46\times 10^8\times \mathrm{\Omega }\times \left(\frac{r_{max}^3r_{min}^3}{3}\right)$$
(8)
and

$$\mathrm{}=\frac{_{r_{min}}^{r_{max}}\mathrm{exp}^{|zz_{\mathrm{}}|/h_z}\mathrm{exp}^{(R_{pl}R_{\mathrm{}})/h_R}r^2dr}{\left(\frac{r_{max}^3r_{min}^3}{3}\right)}$$
(9)
The density law in equation 7 or equation 9 has two parameters, namely $`h_z`$ and $`h_R`$, which introduce some ambiguity in the computation of the integral. We have thus computed the integral (and the corresponding correction factor R) for several combinations of parameters in the range $`760<h_z<1300\mathrm{pc}`$ and $`2500<h_R<3500\mathrm{pc}`$, and have chosen the extreme values as representative of the ’modeling errors’ involved in the computation. Finally, the factors $`f_i`$ have been computed as the reciprocal of the completeness fraction as inferred from the artificial-star experiments reported by KACP98 (their Table 1). Table 3 summarizes all the adopted and derived values for the six Thick-Disk and one Halo stars from Table 2. The cooling age on the second column of Table 3 is the age (since becoming a white dwarf) inferred from the same table on Chabrier et al. (chabrier (2000)) used for determining the absolute magnitudes.

Because of the Galactic location of this field, it is easy to show that, with small errors, the ($`\mu _l,\mu _b`$) proper-motions are projected almost directly into the V (along Galactic rotation) and W (towards the North Galactic Pole) velocity components respectively. These velocities, computed using the distance given in the fourth column of Table 3, are indicated, for reference, in the seventh and eigth columns of the same Table. Finally, in the last column we give the approximate tangential velocity (neglecting the small contribution from the U component of the velocity towards the Galactic center). As it can be seen from the Table, the mean tangential velocity is close to $`65kms^1`$ for the Thick-Disk stars, and more than $`100kms^1`$ for the one possible Halo white dwarf, in agreement with the value found from Fig. 2, and larger than the value expected for normal nearby Disk white dwarfs, as already discussed in Section 3.1.

Equation 9 has thus been integrated using the parameters specified in Table 3. The adopted incompleteness factors and the extreme values derived for the integral in $`\mathrm{}`$ are given in Table 4. $`\mathrm{}_{min}`$ was derived adopting $`h_z=760\mathrm{pc}`$ and $`h_R=3500\mathrm{pc}`$, whereas $`\mathrm{}_{max}`$ was derived using $`h_z=1300\mathrm{pc}`$ and $`h_R=2500\mathrm{pc}`$. In the case of the Halo star, instead of using a double-exponential density law, we have adopted an $`R^3`$ law similar to that used in MM00, which leads to equation 4 above (to be more precise $`V_{\mathrm{gen}}`$ is given by equation 4 divided by the local stellar density $`\rho _{\mathrm{}}`$, while the definition of $`\mathrm{}`$ is similar to that adopted for a double exponential. In this case however, the free parameter in the density law is the axial ratio of the (flattened) Halo, which was varied in the interval 0.8 (oblate spheroid, $`\mathrm{}_{min}`$) to 1.0 (round spheroid, $`\mathrm{}_{max}`$)).

If ($`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}`$, $`\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}}`$) and ($`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}`$, $`\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}}`$) are the densities and its error derived from $`R_{min}`$ and $`R_{max}`$ respectively, then the final value for the total density and its error was calculated from:

$$\rho _{\mathrm{}}=\frac{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}}^2+\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}}^2}{1/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}}^2+1/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}}^2}$$

,and,

$$\sigma _\rho _{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{min}}}^2+1/\sigma _{\rho _{\mathrm{}_{max}}}^2}}$$

With these equations, and the values given in Table 4 we obtain, for the Thick-Disk white dwarf stars a value of:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDTD}}`$ $`=`$ $`(13.82\pm 4.39)\times 10^3stars/pc^3`$
$`=`$ $`(11.06\pm 3.51)\times 10^3M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$
For the one star that probably belongs to the Halo, the same computation above yields:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDH}}`$ $`=`$ $`(5.31\pm 3.50)\times 10^3stars/pc^3`$
$`=`$ $`(4.25\pm 2.80)\times 10^3M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$
Obviously, we have much larger errors in this latter case due to the use of only one object. In both cases we have assumed a mean mass per white dwarf of 0.8 $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$.

Because the correction factors $`\mathrm{}`$ given in Table 4 are all close to one, one might as well have computed the stellar densities using the classical $`1/V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ method, without correcting for the variation of stellar density as a function of distance away from the Sun. In this case, one does not need to adopt any density law whatsoever, and the method is completely model independent. It is thus interesting to compare the previous values with the ones that one would have derived in this case. Dropping the correction factor $`\mathrm{}`$ in equation 7, one finds:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDTD}}`$ $`=`$ $`(13.82\pm 4.39)\times 10^3stars/pc^3`$
$`=`$ $`(15.66\pm 3.51)\times 10^3M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$
And for the Halo star:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDH}}`$ $`=`$ $`(7.02\pm 6.54)\times 10^3stars/pc^3`$
$`=`$ $`(5.62\pm 5.23)\times 10^3M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$
As we see, the densities are slightly overestimated, but also the errors are larger. Still, we obtain basically the same results using either method. This is important, because it implies that, regardless of the details of the (model) density law adopted, the stellar and mass densities are indeed quite large. The implications of these results are discussed in the next Section.

## 5 Conclusions

The stellar and mass densities derived above imply that the Thick-Disk white dwarf stars, a population unaccounted for in the Hubble Deep Fields South and North due to their high Galactic latitude, contributes to about 85% of the missing mass in the solar neighborhood, whose density in the solar neighborhood is estimated to be $`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{DM}}1.26\times 10^2M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$.

Additionally, the value derived for only one possibly Halo star, albeit having a large error, is similar to the value derived by MM00 from the larger sample of Halo white dwarfs found in the HDF-S&N. They found a density of $`\rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDH}}=4.64\times 10^3M_{\mathrm{}}/pc^3`$. Their value, however, has to be taken with caution because the lack of kinematic information prevented a clear separation of the populations (compare Figs. 2 and 5 above). It has been mentioned already that one might expect one or two Thick-Disk stars on the HDF-S and one or none in the HDF-N. If these objects were inadvertently identified by MM00 as Halo stars, then the estimated density for these objects on the Halo would have been too large. It is interesting to point out that on HDF-S there are two stars on the WD tracks that are quite a bit brighter than the rest of the blue-faint group. In the HDF-N there seems to be a grouping of faint WDs, and a brighter one, which could also be ascribed to the Thick-Disk (see Fig. 3 on MM00). In any case, proper-motions for both the HDF-S&N sample would help settle this uncertainty.

If we combine the present results for Thick-Disk stars, with the earlier results from MM00 for Halo stars, the overall density on WD stars for both populations seems to be able to account for the whole of the (local) missing mass in the Galaxy. The existence of a massive component of Thick-Disk evolved white dwarfs has been proposed recently by Gates and Gyuk (gates (2001)) to help explain some of the (many) difficulties with a massive Halo of ancient stars. However, our results suggest that, in addition to this Thick-Disk component, there would also be a quite massive Halo of remnant stars. Even though their local densities are similar, the mass locked in each population is quite different, in account of their different stellar density functions (double exponential vs. power-law). The simple integration of these density functions over the whole Galaxy lead to masses of:

$$M_{WDTD}=4\pi \rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDTD}}h_zh_R^310^9M_{\mathrm{}}$$

,and,

$$M_{WDH}=4\pi \rho _{\mathrm{}_{WDH}}R_{\mathrm{}}^3\mathrm{ln}(R_{max}/R_{min})9\times 10^{10}M_{\mathrm{}}$$

for the Thick-Disk and Halo components respectively. $`R_{max}20`$ kpc and $`R_{min}1`$ kpc in the last equation are the overall extension of the Halo and the Halo core-radius respectively.

The total mass in these components is consistent with the mass required to produce the MACHO events, as indicated by Gates and Gyuk (gates (2001)), and is also not inconsistent with the total mass estimates for the Galaxy out to a distance of 20 kpc. We also note that with the small scale height of the Thick-Disk population ($`h_z1.5`$ kpc), their contribution to the optical depth of microlensing events would be quite small, and thus the primary sources of the MACHO events would still be primordially the Halo white dwarfs.

The possibility of a white dwarf dominated (dark) halo has been criticized from many fronts (see e.g. Richer 1999 and Gates and Gyuk 2001). Among the most important criticisms is that the precursor of these stars would have produced metals at a rate greater than observed (Gibson and Mould 1997) or that Galaxy halos at high redshift would be brighter than observed due to the the white dwarf precursors (Charlot and Silk 1995). While these are no doubt important issues, Chabrier (1999) and more recently Fontaine et al. (2001, see also Fontaine’s C.S. Beals Lecture at http://www.astro.ubc.ca/WD\_workshop/talks/index.html) have shown that many of these points can either be overcome, or are doubtful criticisms of this scenario. One example is the chemical evolution problem: The yield of a zero-metallicity stars is largely uknown, nor has there been much modelling of the structure of these stars (e.g., a zero metallicity star never undergoes a helium flash, which must have an effect on the the yield of metals in the PNe phase).

Even if the problems described above with this scenario persist, as pointed out by Lynden-Bell and Tout (lynden (2001)) in the first ’Russell lecture’ of the new millennium, they could be avoided if the objects found are ’pristine’ white dwarfs, objects that never underwent nuclear reactions nor followed the ’normal’ path of stellar evolution. These objects (with masses in the range $`0.2M/M_{\mathrm{}}1.1`$) could have formed gradually and very slowly by accretion onto planetary-sized precursor bodies in low-density regions such as cooling flows and galaxy halos. By radiating their energy before collapsing, these bodies would grow in mass resting on the zero-point energy of confined electrons following the uncertainty principle, and never getting a temperature high enough to start nuclear burning. The difficulty with this scenario is that, although theoretically possible, preliminary results suggest that the required accretion rates are too slow to allow the formation of these objects in less than a Hubble time, which keeps the puzzle regarding the origin of these objects still open.

As we have seen before, the assignement of the bulk of the faint blue stars found here to the Thick-Disk is actually irrelevant in the sense that one could as well have used the classical $`1/V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ method to derive space densities, without regard to the origin or association to a given stellar population of these stars. This is an important issue in the context of whether some of the stars found by Oppenheimer et al. (oppenheimer (2001)) are either Thick-Disk or Halo stars. The controversy in this regard seems to come from using white dwarf cooling ages while ignoring the main sequence lifetimes of the progenitors, which for many of these stars will be substantial. Indeed, Oppenheimer’s sample seems to come from a population of stars formed in a single burst of stars formation between 11 and 14 Gyr ago, as indicated by the luminosity function of these stars, which is a much more direct indication of the age of the population than the cooling ages (see discussion on http://research.amnh.org/users/bro). Another indication that perhaps most of Oppenheimer’s stars actually do belong to the Halo is provided by the recent work of Koopmans and Blanford (2001) that have used a maximum-likelihood analysis to show that these stars are consistent with a kinematically distinct flattend Halo population at the more than 99% confidence level.

Albeit our objects are faint, it would be quite interesting to acquire U-band photometry with HST. In this case, true white dwarfs will stand out from other objects in a UBV diagram. Additionally, at least the two brightest blue objects on Fig. 5 are whithin the capabilities of current 8-m class telescopes for an spectroscopic follow-up. This is an interesting possibility that deserves further work.

###### Acknowledgements.

I thank Ivan King, Jay Anderson and Adrienne Cool for making their data available, and for helping with several questions regarding the nature of the HST observations on NGC 6397. Linda Schmidtobreick, Fernando Comeron, Ivan King, Dante Minniti, Fernando Selman and William F. van Altena have provided valuable input to improve the first draft - I appreciatee their help. I want to also thank Celine Reylé for producing the numerical simulations described in the text using the Besançon model of stellar population synthesis (www.obs-besancon.fr/fesg/modele\_ang.html). Finally, the referee Dr. B.R. Oppenheimer suggested a number of modifications to the original manuscript that have greatly improved the final version, I am most grateful to him for reading the paper with an open yet rigorous mind.