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# A statistical detection of gamma-ray emission from galaxy clusters: implications for the gamma-ray background and structure formation.

## 1 Introduction

During the nine years (1991 - 2000) EGRET was operational on-board the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, it detected a diffuse gamma-ray emission above 30 MeV filling the Universe. This gamma-ray background is composed of an intense Galactic component, due to cosmic ray interactions with local interstellar gas and radiation (Hunter et al., 1997), as well as a diffuse and isotropic extragalactic component. The extragalactic radiation is well described by a simple power law with index $`2.1\pm 0.3`$ from 30 MeV to 100 GeV (Sreekumar et al., 1998). The nature of this extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGRB) has long been debated. It is not clear if the EGRB has a purely diffuse origin or is made up of the superposition of discrete, unresolved, point sources. The majority of the identified EGRET sources are active galaxies in the blazar class, and this has led to the suggestion that the EGRB is produced by an unresolved population of blazars (Padovani, Ghisellini, Fabian, & Celotti, 1993). However, estimates of contributions from unresolved gamma-ray blazars range from nearly all (Stecker & Salamon, 1996, 2001) to less than about a quarter (Chiang & Mukherjee, 1998; Mücke & Pohl, 2000). It seems likely that other sources of the diffuse extragalactic radiation must exist.

Recent work by Loeb & Waxman (2000) has suggested that some, if not most of the diffuse gamma-ray background could be a result of large-scale structure formation in the Universe. Gravitationally-induced shock waves produced during cluster mergers and large-scale structure formation give rise to highly relativistic electrons which are responsible for Compton up-scattering the cosmic microwave background photons to high energy gamma-rays. The fraction of the shocks’ thermal energy transferred to relativistic electrons could range from 1-10% (Waxman & Loeb, 2000). The gamma-ray background is then expected to be produced in filaments, sheets, and extended ($`>1^{}`$) gamma-ray halos associated with newly formed massive clusters (Waxman & Loeb, 2000). In some scenarios, the shock radii for clusters could be large, with gamma-rays detectable in the form of 5-10 Mpc-diameter ring-like emission tracing the cluster virialization shock (Keshet et al., 2002). Other work has suggested that some $`0.52`$% of the EGRB could arise solely from the population of clusters (Colafrancesco & Blasi, 1998). Recent simulation studies of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe suggest that future high energy gamma-ray experiments such as GLAST or the next generation of atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes should be able to resolve gamma-rays from individual clusters in the local Universe ($`z0.025`$, Keshet et al. (2002)). The association of the EGRB with the large scale structure of the Universe can then be tested by cross-correlating gamma-ray maps with known galaxy clusters.

So far, individual galaxy clusters have not been found to be correlated with discrete gamma-ray sources detected by EGRET, although it has been suggested that they may be candidates for unidentified EGRET sources (Totani & Kitayama, 2000). In most cases the predicted gamma-ray fluxes from nearby individual clusters (Dar & Shaviv, 1995; Colafrancesco & Blasi, 1998) are below the sensitivity limit of EGRET, and indeed, no excess gamma-ray emission is seen from any individual cluster. For example, a $`2\sigma `$ upper limit of $`4\times 10^8`$ photons cm-2 s-1 at energies greater than 100 MeV can be derived for Coma, the closest rich cluster (Sreekumar et al., 1996). However, in some cases the predicted emissivity from individual clusters is in disagreement with the $`2\sigma `$ EGRET upper limits (Ensslin, Biermann, Kronberg, & Wu, 1997).

Previous efforts to constrain the gamma-ray emission of clusters used a small sample (58) of X-ray luminous clusters (Reimer, 1999), and found no significant signal when the EGRET data centered on the clusters were co-added. Corrections for Galactic diffuse emission were not made, and a likelihood analysis of the data found no statistically significant emission associated with the clusters. Colafrancesco (2002) has recently reported preliminary evidence of the association of unidentified EGRET sources with galaxy clusters at high latitudes, claiming that these sources also show strong radio emission. Relativistic particles responsible for the radio emission are probably also the source of inverse-Compton gamma-rays. However, the number of claimed associations is small, and no account was taken of the known deviation from Poissonian statistics due to cluster-cluster correlations. As we discuss below, even at high Galactic latitudes - and even with the removal of the best model of Galactic emission - residual Galactic signatures remain, which is a known feature of these models (Hunter et al., 1997). Furthermore, by utilizing the much larger (albeit more inhomogeneous) optical Abell catalog of clusters and evaluating emission in radial bins, we increase our search sensitivity by a factor of 100-1000.

In the present analysis we search for angular correlations of the EGRET extragalactic diffuse emission with cluster position, using the complete Abell catalog of clusters (§2), and radially binning the gamma-ray emission around the Abell clusters (§3,4). We then estimate the average gamma-ray luminosity per cluster and address the question of whether this is consistent with recent predictions of the gamma-ray energy flux arising from intergalactic shocks, based on semi-analytic predictions and hydrodynamical cosmological simulations (§5,6).

## 2 Data Analysis

We have used archival gamma-ray data from all nine years of EGRET observations for our present analysis 111as directly available from the HEASARC archives http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/. The maps were generated by summing data over Phases 1-3 and Cycles 4-9 of the EGRET observations, using only photons with inclination angles of less than $`30^{}`$. EGRET covers an energy range of 30 MeV to over 20 GeV. Details of the EGRET instrument and capabilities may be found in Kanbach et al. (1988). The point spread function (PSF) of EGRET is strongly energy-dependent, and varies from nearly $`6^{}`$ (FWHM) at 100 MeV to $`0.1^{}`$ at $`>1`$ GeV (Thompson et al., 1993). EGRET has proved to be a highly successful gamma-ray experiment, comprehensively surveying the gamma-ray sky from 1991-2000. The Third EGRET (3EG) Catalog (Hartman et al., 1999a) lists the 271 point sources detected by EGRET during the first four cycles of its mission (1991-1995). Since cycle 4, EGRET has been operated in a narrow field-of-view mode for instrumental reasons (Hartman et al., 1999b). Of the 271 point sources in the 3EG catalog, over 60% are unidentified.

The diffuse gamma-ray emission detected by EGRET consists of two components, one Galactic, and the other assumed to be extragalactic and isotropic. A model for the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission was calculated using EGRET data from 1991-1993 (Hunter et al., 1997); a diffuse model using all nine years of EGRET data is not yet available. Other models of the diffuse galactic gamma-ray emission, also using subsets of the EGRET data, have been presented by Strong, Moskalenko, & Reimer (2000) and Pohl & Esposito (1998) (for $`>1`$ GeV emission). The model of Hunter et al. (1997) assumes that cosmic rays are coupled to the interstellar matter density. The gamma-rays are produced mainly by the interaction of cosmic-ray protons and electrons with the ISM. The Galactic diffuse component is found to be highly peaked along the Galactic plane. This model generally describes the EGRET data well on larger scales, but is less successful for individual regions of the sky. Hunter et al. (1997) discuss the residual (observed minus best-fit model) intensity in their analysis of the EGRET galactic diffuse emission. The large scale residual distributions for energies $`>100`$ MeV are less than $`\pm 2\times 10^5`$ photons s-1 cm-2 sr-1, and are roughly distributed around zero intensity. For our analysis, we subtract the modeled Galactic component of the gamma-ray emission from the EGRET gamma-ray intensity skymaps (see below).

The EGRET data used here have been projected into a $`720\times 360`$, ($`0.5^{}`$ pixel size in coordinate units) equatorial grid containing intensities (photons cm-2 s-1 sr-1) (Figure 1). We also utilize the maps of raw photon counts in the same projection, in order to evaluate the Poisson noise associated with each pixel (see below). Our primary dataset contains photons from all energies $`>100`$MeV. We have also analyzed the $`>1`$GeV dataset (which has a correspondingly smaller PSF), although the increased photon shot-noise results in no statistically significant measurements.

Prior to evaluating the cluster-EGRET cross-correlations we typically perform three sets of clipping or corrections to the data, unless described otherwise below. First, 2.7 radius regions (on the sphere of the sky) are excised around the 100 identified EGRET sources to reduce the overall shot noise level. This corresponds to the 90% enclosed flux radius of the full energy weighted ($`>100`$ MeV, $`E^2`$ spectrum) EGRET PSF. Using the 99% enclosed flux radius of $`7.1^{}`$ has a negligible effect on our results. The identified sources consist of 67 blazars and 6 pulsars, as well as 27 sources marginally identified as gamma-ray blazars.

An additional 171 unidentified, faint, EGRET sources have been cataloged. However, the majority of these are close to the Galactic Plane within the Galactic Plane cut we describe below (only 41 of all EGRET sources have $`|b|>45^{}`$; of those, 22 are identified, 19 unidentified). Excising these additional, unidentified sources has a negligible effect on our results and we have therefore chosen to remove only those sources of known origin. As described above, no sources are identified with known clusters of galaxies.

Second, the region with $`|b|<45^{}`$ is removed to eliminate the high intensity Galactic Plane emission. The choice of this cut is determined by a combination of the desire to minimize the Galactic contamination and the latitude-dependent incompleteness of the Abell catalog (see below), and to maximize the number of Abell clusters used in evaluating the cross-correlation function (thereby maximizing sensitivity and keeping shot noise to an acceptable level). Variations of $`10^{}`$ on this cut have a negligible effect on our results.

Third, the detailed model of the diffuse Galactic emission intensity in the EGRET data (as described above, Hunter et al. (1997)) is subtracted from the masked sky map. Since this model has small residuals, in some instances (5%) where the EGRET data is non-zero, the subtraction results in a negative intensity in a given pixel. The value of the residuals of the model are scattered about zero (relative to the mean subtracted Galactic emission), but do seem to exhibit some correlation with galactic latitude, especially at lower energies, being more negative at lower $`b`$ and away from the Galactic center (Hunter et al., 1997). In our analyses we also utilize the raw EGRET photon count maps to estimate the Poisson, or shot noise, due to finite photon statistics. Specifically we always construct weighted means where weights are assigned as $`A_i\sqrt{N_i}`$, where $`N_i`$ is the raw photon number in a given pixel and $`A_i`$ is the pixel solid angle, which varies with latitude. Consequently all pixels with zero photons acquire zero weight in the calculation of the mean (an unweighted mean, which simply excludes the zero photon pixels, is found to have a negligible difference from the weighted mean for our purposes).

For most of the analyses described below we are left with a total of $`40,000`$ usable EGRET pixels ($`10^4`$ deg2). The effect of any remaining Galactic emission on our results is discussed below. The final EGRET dataset is shown in Figure 2. The mean intensity is $`2.88\times 10^5`$ph s-1 cm-2 sr-1.

The catalog of Abell clusters we utilize consists of the original Abell catalog of 2712 systems, plus the southern ACO extension of 1364 clusters (Abell, Corwin, & Olowin, 1989). Figure 3 plots the clusters for comparison to the EGRET data. We have used the basic Abell parameters of richness ($`R`$) and distance class ($`D`$) in the analysis presented below. Specifically, we have split the sample between $`R2`$ (Figure 3) and $`R<2`$ and among various distance classes. We have also utilized the X-ray selected Brightest Cluster Survey (BCS) of 206 clusters (Ebeling et al., 1998), combined with the extended BCS catalog of an additional 108 fainter systems (Ebeling et al., 2000), although as described below, the larger shot noise of this smaller X-ray sample prohibits robust measurements.

### 2.1 Cross-correlation

The most rigorous cross-correlation analysis of a surface brightness map and a collection of points (clusters) would involve a direct summation over sky cells, smoothing the point distribution by the same kernel (PSF) as the surface brightness (e.g., as is applied to all-sky X-ray data (Jahoda, Mushotzky, Boldt, & Lahav, 1991; Lahav et al., 1993; Miyaji, Lahav, Jahoda, & Boldt, 1994)). In the case of the EGRET data, however, we have chosen a cruder approach of summing, or stacking, gamma-ray emission in radial annuli centered on all Abell clusters, and then determining the statistical mean in each angular bin. Ostensibly this does not differ much from the cell-summation approach, and, unlike cell-summation, we obtain a direct estimate of the excess emission associated with clusters by explicitly including the cluster coordinate information. Using the cell-summation technique would require more extensive modeling to extract this measure (Lahav et al., 1993). Additionally, given the potentially complex residual contamination by diffuse, or unresolved, Galactic emission, and the known selection biases of the Abell catalog, the stacking approach allows for more intuitive modeling (see §3.1 below).

Given an equatorial pixel size of $`0.5^{}`$ for the EGRET data and the 68% flux enclosure at $`1^{}`$ radius for the energy weighted $`>100`$ MeV PSF, we choose annular bins of width $`1^{}`$ in our analysis. We note that the energy dependent PSF can be described as $`\theta 5.85^{}(E_\gamma /100\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V})^{0.534}`$, where $`\theta `$ is the energy dependent radius for 67% flux enclosure (Thompson et al., 1993; Esposito et al., 1999). The area-noise weighted mean flux excess (hereafter referred to as the mean, see §2) above the global mean (calculated from all unmasked, Galactic-corrected pixels) is then evaluated by using all unmasked pixels in each radial bin, out to $`20^{}`$ for each cluster, and then averaging over all clusters used. Pixels are used if their centers lie within a given annulus, consequently there is some variation in the number of pixels counted between different cluster centers, however this variation is negligible on averaging over many objects. We refer to this angular function as $`w_{c\gamma }(\theta )`$ or $`<\mathrm{\Delta }I>=<I\overline{I}>`$ in the results in §3 below. In §3.1 we assess its significance.

## 3 Results

In Figure 4 we plot our principal results. The curve for all 2469 Abell clusters with $`|b|>45^{}`$ peaks at a value of $`6.2\times 10^7`$ ph s-1 cm-2 sr-1 in the 1 bin, and gently declines with $`\theta `$. This is generically the behavior expected for a positive correlation between the two datasets. Upper and lower heavy curves are for the richest ($`R2`$) and poorest ($`R<2`$) Abell subsets. We note that, based on the theoretical predictions, more massive cluster systems are expected to be the sites of higher gamma-ray emission (Loeb & Waxman, 2000). Consequently, the increased amplitude of the rich cluster $`w_{c\gamma }`$ relative to that of the poorer clusters goes in the expected sense if clusters are indeed diffuse gamma-ray sources. The peak amplitude for the rich cluster subset, in the $`1^{}`$ bin, is $`1.19\times 10^6`$ ph s-1 cm-2 sr-1.

We have also investigated the effect of using subsets of the Abell catalog divided using the distance parameter $`D`$, which is based on the brighter galaxy magnitudes in a cluster. The increased noise of using smaller subsets of clusters makes these measurements less significant. Using only the more distant ($`D>4`$) subset, which is still large, has little effect on the results presented here, with variations well within the noise.

In addition, since X-ray-selected clusters are considered to be more robust in terms of being real, gravitationally relaxed systems, we have run our cross-correlation using the 304 clusters of the BCS (Ebeling et al., 1998, 2000). However, only 159 systems remain after the Galactic cuts are applied and the resulting $`w_{\gamma c}(\theta )`$ is too noisy to draw any conclusions.

Finally, at energies above 1 GeV the EGRET PSF has a FWHM of only $`0.1^{}`$. In principle this could help reduce the effect of Galactic contamination, and enhance the cross-correlation measure for compact, resolved, sources associated with clusters. In practice though, the increased photon shot noise of the $`>1`$ GeV data result in a statistically insignificant (although still positive) $`w_{\gamma c}(\theta )`$.

### 3.1 Monte Carlo Tests

The strongly energy-dependent EGRET point-spread function (Thompson et al., 1993), in combination with a complex diffuse Galactic emission contribution and local large-scale structure traced by galaxy clusters (e.g. the Super-Galactic Plane), indicates that the most direct way to assess the significance of any measurement is via Monte-Carlo simulations.

Our primary goal is to determine the significance of any positive correlation between the centroids of local galaxy clusters and the EGRET intensity map. We therefore perform two sets of Monte Carlo simulations. First, we retain the true sky distribution of galaxy clusters but use ”fake” EGRET data. Pixel values are assigned by drawing values randomly from the real (masked and Galactic model subtracted) data, repeats are allowed, and photon shot noise is carried with the surface brightness. Second, we retain the true EGRET data but randomize the galaxy cluster positions. In both cases we generate 1000 random realizations and perform an identical angular cross-correlation analysis to that made on the real data. The population distribution of the angular cross-correlation in each angular bin is then determined and limits containing 90%, 95%, and 99% of the realizations, centered about the means, are obtained.

The first approach removes all residual Galactic emission correlations and all PSF effects, and we consider this to be the true baseline for the case of uncorrelated noise. The second approach is more conservative, since any residual Galactic structure is still present and the precise noise characteristics of the EGRET data are retained. Our second set of Monte Carlo simulations generate random position cluster catalogs with the same number of entries as the real data, although without the measured cluster-cluster correlation properties. The Abell catalog has a known angular selection function, due to increasing absorption and increasing star-galaxy confusion towards the Galactic Plane. This has been fit to a simple law: $`f=10^{\alpha (1cosec|b|)}`$, where $`b`$ is Galactic latitude and $`\alpha `$ has values ranging from $`0.3`$ (Bahcall & Soneira, 1983) to $`0.53`$ (Romani & Maoz, 1992) depending on the particular subset of clusters modeled. Here we conservatively apply the larger correction to our simulated catalogs in order to reproduce the gross features of the Abell cluster selection.

In Figures 5 and 6 the results from the first set of Monte Carlo simulations (randomly re-sampled EGRET data) are presented for all clusters, and for just rich clusters, respectively. In Figures 7 and 8 the results for the second set of simulations (random Abell catalogs) are presented in the same format.

For all cases shown in Figures 5, 6, 7, and 8 the measured $`w_{\gamma c}(\theta )`$ in the $`1^{}`$ bin is significant at the $`3\sigma `$ level. We note that had clusters exhibited much more significant emission in the EGRET data then it is likely they would have already been directly detected. Our result therefore occupies a significance regime inaccessible to anything but statistical analysis.

## 4 Further analysis

In order to assess more completely the significance of the shape of the measured $`w_{c\gamma }`$ we have evaluated the cluster-cluster correlation ($`w_{cc}`$) for the rich ($`R2`$) subset, with identical sky incompleteness (i.e., the same sky mask as applied to the EGRET data), and using the same annular binning technique. We also convolve $`w_{cc}`$ with the EGRET PSF (see below). $`w_{cc}`$ and $`w_{c\gamma }`$ should agree at large angular scales (e.g. $`10^{}`$) (if the correct normalization between cluster sky density and gamma-ray emissivity is known). At small angular scales $`w_{cc}`$ should match $`w_{c\gamma }`$ only in the case of point-like emission coincident with the clusters. For moderately extended emission (such as that predicted, Keshet et al. (2002)), $`w_{c\gamma }`$ will be suppressed relative to $`w_{cc}`$ at small angles - but should still agree at larger scales.

Our measured $`w_{cc}`$ agrees reasonably well with previous measurements of the Abell cluster angular auto-correlation (Postman, Geller, & Huchra, 1986) which follows an approximate $`w_{cc}\theta ^1`$ relationship. We have not included any selection bias correction in calculating $`w_{cc}`$ in order to compare directly with $`w_{c\gamma }`$. We also note that neither $`w_{cc}`$ (before renormalizing) or $`w_{c\gamma }`$ drop to zero by $`20^{}`$. For this annulus, and 447 clusters in $`10^4`$ deg2, if the clusters were uniformly distributed then each data pixel would be sampled several times, and $`w_{c\gamma }`$ should equal zero. However, as $`w_{cc}`$ illustrates, the clusters are not uniformly distributed. In fact they tend to trace the Super-Galactic Plane which is contiguous across our entire map regions.

In Figure 9 the results for the richest ($`R2`$) subset of clusters are plotted together with the renormalized cluster-cluster correlation determined directly from the catalog, before and after smoothing with the energy weighted EGRET ($`>100`$ MeV) PSF (Esposito et al., 1999). We have renormalized $`w_{cc}`$ to the $`10^{}`$ annular bin of $`w_{c\gamma }`$, where we expect agreement. We also plot the $`>100`$ MeV EGRET PSF for illustration.

Although the corrected $`w_{c\gamma }`$ and $`w_{cc}`$ are broadly similar in shape, there is clear evidence for a flatter slope in $`w_{c\gamma }`$. In particular, at scales less than $`3^{}`$ $`w_{c\gamma }`$ is significantly lower than $`w_{cc}`$. At larger scales ($`>15^{}`$) both functions are less statistically significant. The results summarized in Figure 9 are consistent with non-pointlike cluster gamma-ray emission extending to some $`3^{}`$. We discuss this result in the context of theoretical predictions in §6.

## 5 Constraints on clusters and the EGRB

The basic theoretical predictions for the IGM origin of the EGRB from Loeb & Waxman (2000) are summarized in Eqns 1 & 2. Approximately 80-90% of the EGRB is predicted to be due to IGM emission. The remaining fraction can be ascribed to a population of point sources (Chiang & Mukherjee, 1998). The more recent work of Keshet et al. (2002) agrees closely with these semi-analytic predictions, but differs when a numerical cosmological simulation is utilized (see below).

Equation 1 is the predicted spectral intensity of the EGRB ($`>30`$ eV) due to upscattered CMB photons from relativistic electrons (Lorentz factors $`200<\gamma <4\times 10^7`$) produced in IGM shocks.

$$E^2\frac{dJ}{dE}=1.1\left(\frac{\xi _e}{0.05}\right)\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_bh_{70}^2}{0.04}\right)\left(\frac{f_{sh}kT}{keV}\right)\mathrm{keV}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{sr}^1;$$
(1)
where $`\xi _e`$ is the fraction of shock thermal energy transferred to relativistic electrons, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is the cosmological baryon density parameter, $`h_{70}`$ is the Hubble constant in units of $`70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, and $`f_{sh}`$ is the fraction of baryons shocked to a mass-weighted temperature $`T`$ (Loeb & Waxman, 2000). The value of $`\xi _e0.05`$ is obtained from non-relativistic collisionless shocks in the ISM (SNe) and, as described in §1, may actually range from 1-10% (Waxman & Loeb, 2000; Keshet et al., 2002). From cosmological hydro-dynamical simulations $`f_{sh}(kT/keV)1`$ (e.g., Cen & Ostriker (1999)).

Using a hydro-dynamical cosmological simulation, Keshet et al. (2002) find an $`E^2\frac{dJ}{dE}`$ which is lower than the above semi-analytic, Press-Schechter-based prediction. The spectrum has a varying slope with energy and the amplitude varies from 50-160 eV s-1 cm-2 sr-1, in contrast to the 1100 eV in Equation 1. Consequently their prediction is that only $`15`$% of the EGRB is due to the IGM. Keshet et al. (2002) attribute this primarily to a lower present-day gas temperature found in the simulation.

Equation 2 is the predicted non-thermal bolometric luminosity for massive clusters of galaxies, again due to CMB upscatter from the accretion shocks surrounding these systems. For a forming massive cluster (Waxman & Loeb, 2000; Keshet et al., 2002);

$$L_\gamma =1.5\times 10^{45}\left(\frac{\xi _e}{0.05}\right)\left(\frac{10^9yr}{t_{vir}}\right)\left(\frac{M_{gas}}{10^{14}M_{}}\right)\left(\frac{kT_{gas}}{5keV}\right)\mathrm{ergs}^1,$$
(2)
where $`t_{vir}`$ is the time taken for gas to cross the cluster virialization shock or equivalently, a measure of the transience of the gamma-ray emission; $`T_{gas}`$ and $`M_{gas}`$ are the thermal gas temperature and mass respectively in a cluster. Both Equation 1 and 2 assume a cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.35`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=0.05`$ and $`h=0.7`$). With a slightly different cosmology (Keshet et al 2002) where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=0.04`$ and $`h=0.67`$, very similar amplitudes, of $`1.5`$ and $`2.2\times 10^{45}`$ are determined for Equations 1 & 2 respectively.

We shall use the excess emission associated with $`R2`$ clusters as measured in the innermost (1) bin; $`1.19\times 10^6`$ ph s-1 cm-2 sr-1 ($`>100`$ MeV, Figure 4). This corresponds to the 68% flux enclosure of the EGRET PSF, and can therefore be considered as a conservative choice. Relative to our Galactic model subtracted data this represents a $`4`$% fluctuation above the mean diffuse background, and corresponds to a mean cluster flux in a $`1^{}`$ radius aperture of $`1.14\times 10^9`$ photons s-1 cm-2 ($`>100`$MeV).

First we estimate the gamma-ray, or non-thermal, luminosity implied for a rich cluster of galaxies. Converting our photon count rate into flux (assuming an $`E^2`$ spectrum), we obtain $`f_\gamma =1.87\times 10^{12}`$ erg s-1 cm-2 ($`>100`$ MeV). To estimate the bolometric gamma-ray flux we then apply a simple correction term. We assume that the emission spectrum is close to an $`E^2`$ power law and that the emissivity runs from $`30`$eV to $`1`$TeV. The upper limit of the EGRET sensitivity is $`100`$ GeV; thus, correcting for the missing lower and higher energy flux we obtain $`f_{\gamma bolometric}f_{30eV1TeV}=3.55f_{>100MeV,EGRET}`$. We note that at $`1`$ TeV, pair production cascades should effectively cut off the spectrum. Assuming a mean redshift of $`z=0.1`$ derived for $`R2`$ clusters, and $`h=0.75`$ we arrive at an estimated mean luminosity of:

$$\overline{L_\gamma }=1\times 10^{44}\mathrm{ergs}^1$$
(3)
For our purposes this is fairly robust. Below we discuss the implications of our measured $`\overline{L_\gamma }`$.

The local ($`z0`$) space density of rich clusters is reasonably well known e.g., De Propris et al. (2002), and for $`R2`$ is of the order $`1\times 10^6`$ Mpc-3. Consequently, we can simply derive the local gamma-ray volume emissivity of rich clusters. Assuming no evolution in any properties, we can then integrate the expected contribution of rich clusters to the EGRB from a cosmological volume within $`z_{max}`$. If $`z_{max}=1`$ then we arrive at the estimated surface brightness (bolometric) contribution:

$$\overline{I_{\gamma c}}=6.0\times 10^{10}\mathrm{ergs}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{sr}^1$$
(4)
Integrating the spectrum defined by Equation 1 from 30eV to 1TeV we arrive at a net predicted bolometric IGM surface brightness of $`I_{IGM}=4.3\times 10^8`$ erg s-1 cm-2 sr-1. Therefore, the measured EGRET flux of rich clusters implies that $`1`$% of the predicted diffuse IGM may be due to rich clusters with $`z<1`$.

Clearly this is modulo many parameters and sources of scatter and should be treated with appropriate caution. If we consider the prediction of the Keshet et al (2002) numerical simulations then this fraction clearly rises to $`10`$% of the IGM emission. Similarly we have assumed zero evolution in all properties, and that our estimate of $`\overline{L_\gamma }`$ is unbiased.

For comparison, as described in §1, the $`2\sigma `$ upper limit on emission from the Coma cluster ($`z=0.0231`$) is $`4\times 10^8`$ ph s-1 cm-2 ($`>100`$ MeV). Following the same procedures this translates to a bolometric luminosity of $`L_{\gamma Coma}<2\times 10^{44}`$ erg s-1. However, the space density of Coma-like clusters ($`M_{total}10^{15}M_{}`$) is only $`3\times 10^9`$ Mpc-3. Consequently only some $`0.010.1`$% of the EGRB IGM component could would be expected to arise from the very richest clusters.

Returning to the prediction of Equation 2, what are the other implications of our measurement? If we assume that we are detecting an actively accreting rich cluster population (i.e., within $`10^9`$ yr of shock formation), then based on our knowledge of Abell clusters the mean thermal gas temperature of the $`R2`$ population is likely to be $`3`$ keV and the typical gas mass is $`10^{13}`$M (e.g., White, Jones, & Forman (1997). Consequently, evaluating Equation 2 for this population we find that the predicted $`L_\gamma `$ in in excellent agreement with our measured $`L_\gamma `$.

## 6 Discussion

We have detected evidence of a positive correlation of unresolved gamma-ray emission with clusters of galaxies in the local Universe. The correlation signal is broadly consistent with emission localized within $`1^{}`$ of clusters, and specifically is more strongly correlated with optically rich clusters. There is some evidence that the gamma-ray emission may be more spatially extended up to $`3^{}`$, or up to $`15`$Mpc at the mean redshift of rich clusters in the Abell catalog. We suggest that the mean non-thermal luminosity associated with rich clusters is $`\overline{L_{\gamma c}}1\times 10^{44}`$ erg s -1 (30eV-1TeV) in the local Universe.

Recent theoretical predictions and modeling have suggested that 10-80% of the EGRB arises from upscattering of CMB photons by relativistic electrons in the large-scale gravitational shocks of the IGM, including clusters. If such models are valid our results suggest that $`110`$% of this component of the EGRB originates from structures associated with rich clusters with $`0<z<1`$. Specific predictions for the population of clusters alone have estimated a contribution to the EGRB of $`0.52`$%, dominated by systems with $`z0.2`$ (Colafrancesco & Blasi, 1998).

Several caveats are worth noting. First, diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission is very hard to remove, even with the current best model for its distribution. We believe we have accounted for the residual effects of this emission by assessing significance via our Monte Carlo simulations, but it may still introduce systematic errors to our results. Second, we cannot, with these data, prove that the excess emission associated with clusters is not due to some population of discrete sources, themselves positively correlated with clusters, although there is no a priori reason to believe this to be the case. Third, estimating the cluster luminosity by measuring the intensity in the innermost 1 bin is likely to be an underestimate, given both the width of the EGRET PSF and the evidence for more extended, correlated, emission. Finally, several potential sources of random error exist serving to increase the uncertainty in quoted numbers - which, therefore, should be considered as broad estimates.

It should also be noted that another possible mechanism for producing non-thermal emission in clusters is synchrotron emission in radio galaxies contained in the clusters, that produce relativistic electrons which then up-scatter to produce the high energy gamma-rays (e.g. Giovannini et al. (1993); Petrosian (2001)). In this case the particles are accelerated in the nucleii of radio galaxies, and this could account for the observed gamma-ray luminosities. In this case, one would expect to see a stronger correlation signal with rich clusters containing radio galaxies. Ledlow & Owen (1995) find that some 79% of $`R=2`$ Abell clusters have evidence of radio emitting member galaxies (in a statistical subsample of 393 clusters of all richnesses). However, more sophisticated analysis is required owing to the small number of radio surveyed clusters and we will investigate this in an extension to the present work.

As discussed by Colafrancesco & Blasi (1998), Loeb & Waxman (2000), Waxman & Loeb (2000), and Keshet et al. (2002), the appearance of non-thermal emission in IGM/cluster structures is transient, with a timescale of $`10^9`$yrs. Therefore the emission disappears almost entirely as soon as there is no strong shocking of gas. If we consider our sample of rich Abell clusters then we know from other wavelengths that the majority of these low-$`z`$ systems are probably in a state closely approximating hydrostatic equilibrium (e.g., the presence of X-ray cooling flows, the nearly isothermal gas, etc.). We can consider two extreme states: either only some, non-equilibrium clusters are gamma-ray bright, or all clusters are close to equilibrium and we are simply seeing the fading emission of an earlier epoch of accretion activity. In the first case we can exploit the fact that a system with an EGRET flux of at least $`5\times 10^8`$ ph s-1 cm-2 ($`>100`$MeV) would be directly detectable in the EGRET map. Given our mean flux of $`1.1\times 10^9`$ (§5) and a total of 447 rich clusters, we would obtain an equivalent detection if only $`10`$ rich clusters had a flux of $`5\times 10^8`$ and the rest were gamma-ray dark. This would then provide a lower limit to the number of actively accreting clusters in the local Universe, a 2% fraction by number.

Alternatively, if all clusters are assumed to be close to equilibrium with a mean temperature of $`kT3`$keV, a mean gas mass $`10^{13}`$M, and, $`\xi _e=0.05`$ then they are almost exactly as gamma-ray luminous as predicted by Equation 2. This implies that in fact all clusters should have been actively accreting recently, certainly within $`z<0.30.4`$, and possibly at the present time ($`z=0`$).

Even in the low-density simulation of Keshet et al. (2002) it appears to be the case that $`z=0`$ clusters can have active gamma-ray emission. Semi-analytic predictions for low density cosmologies ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$) also suggest that even at $`z0`$, for massive clusters ($`10^{15}`$ M) several $`10^{13}`$M in baryons should accrete per $`10^9`$yr (Lacey & Cole, 1993). The shock regions may form some 5-10Mpc from the cluster core, creating a gamma-ray ‘ring’ of emission (Keshet et al., 2002). The suggestion of a rather more extended emission pattern from our cross-correlation (Figure 9) supports this scenario. In this case our estimated $`\overline{L}_{\gamma c}`$ can be considered a good measure of the typical active non-thermal emission for rich clusters. This would then imply that the efficiency of transfer of energy from the shocks to relativistic electrons is similar to the value of $`5`$% inferred from non-relativistic shocks in the ISM.

The simulations of Keshet et al. (2002) predict that for $`\xi _e0.03`$, future high resolution gamma-ray telescopes with threshold sensitivities $`>10^{10}`$ for energies $`>10`$ GeV should be able to resolve some gamma-ray halos associated with large scale structures. The prospect of direct detection of gamma-ray sources with emission attributed to intergalactic shocks with GLAST, VERITAS, HESS, MAGIC, or other atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes is an exciting one. Such gamma-ray halos could be a new source class of high energy sources waiting to be discovered. Their existence would allow an entirely new, and direct, probe of structure formation processes, leading to an improved understanding of inter- and intra-cluster gas dynamics, magnetic fields, and energy partitioning. While extrapolations from EGRET data and simulations for future instruments predict at least a dozen or more detectable sources (Keshet et al., 2002), direct determination of gamma-ray sources due to shocks can be used as an independent calibration for $`\xi _e`$. In fact, if the value of $`\xi _e`$ were lower than the inferred 5% (see discussion above), this would have an impact on the number of sources resolvable by future telescopes. Keshet et al. (2002) predict that the number drops to $`1`$ for $`\xi _e0.2`$. GLAST will have the spectral and spatial resolution to confirm whether galaxy clusters can be directly detected in gamma-rays.

We thank D. Helfand for originally suggesting this work and for his invaluable comments, and F. Paerels, S. Digel, and E. Waxman for discussions which have helped improve this paper. C. S. acknowledges support from NASA grant NAG5-6035, R. M. acknowledges support from NSF grant PHY-9983836. This research has made use of data obtained from the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.


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# Stock Market Scale by Artificial Insymmetrised Patterns

## 1 Introduction

It is not disputed that developing ways to measure the state of financial market accurately is essential, see, e.g., . The purpose of this paper is to show how using a simple graphical tool we can estimate a state of an asset. The basic idea comes from the use of visual displays. An Artificial Insymmetrised Pattern, AIP in short, was introduced by Pickover in 1986  to describe human voice and animal vocalization. The method, called also Symmetrised Dot Patterns, takes advantage of the fact that symmetry, color and redundancy of dot patterns are useful in the visual detection and memorization of patterns by any human analyst. The method was successfully applied to many different time series , becoming a technique for the qualitative assessment of time series . With AIP, one can graphically detect hidden patterns and structural changes in data or see similarities in patterns across the time series being studied.

The fundamental assumption underlying the idea of AIP or any similar type propositions, like, e.g. recurrence plots , or $`i`$-variability diagram method , is that an observable time series is the representation of some dynamical process. Typically, we have interactions between many different factors over time which finally sum up into a one dimensional time series. An example of such process is a stock market. The behavior of the stock market is determined by many factors, such as the economic and political environment, investors expectations and individual trader’s decisions. But eventually we deal with a single factor, namely, the price of a stock.

In the following we propose how to read AIPs if time series of indices of different stock markets are studied. Properties of NYSE Composite (NYSE in short) and Standard and Poors 500 (S$`\&`$P 500 in short) lead us to a picture of a well developed and mature market. A young market, Warsaw Stock Exchange, which just celebrated its 11th anniversary this April, is a representative of so-called emerging markets. Its index is called WIG. We also look at NASDAQ Composite (NASDAQ in short) to take inspect a market of a high volatility related to the ”Internet Economy”. Some AIPs for the listed series are presented in . With this paper we maintain that such stylized facts known for fluctuations of financial time series as (a) weak correlations between the price changes on succesive trading days, (b) positive kurtosis like in a Levy noise and decay with a power law in tails for the probability distribution function of the price changes, and (c) correlations between the absolute values of the price changes, called clustering of volatility, are easily readable from dot patters, Section 3. Moreover, by extracting extreme events we find that fluctuations could be self-similar and if they are not self-semilar we obtain the background noise that drives the market, Section 4. Finally, by snap-shots in time we show how to estimate a state of a market with respect to its history. It appears that close to a crash, the system becomes frozen - the dependence on subsequent points is fixed, Section 5.

## 2 AIP method

The procedure is to convert a series of data $`\{x(t)\}`$ into a collection of dots by a simple computer program:

* choose the model parameters $`R`$ and $`\tau `$ suitable to your needs,
* rescale the data to the range $`[0,R]`$ using the formula:

$$x(t)R\frac{x(t)x_{min}}{x_{max}x_{min}}$$

where $`x_{min}=\mathrm{min}_t\{x(t)\}`$ and $`x_{max}=\mathrm{max}_t\{x(t)\}`$

Thus the low values of a series are close to $`0`$ and high values are near $`R`$. One can say that each series is presented in its own min-max scale.
* mark a dot on a 2-dimensional plane using subsequent points separated by $`\tau `$ but in polar coordinates (radius, angle):

$$\{(x(t),x(t+\tau ))\}$$
* multiply a plot symmetrically by rotating $`k`$ times by $`\varphi `$ angle

$$\{(x(t),x(t+\tau )+k\varphi )\}$$

and/or reflecting trough mirror planes :

$$\{(x(t),\pm [x(t+\tau )+k\varphi ])\}$$

The resulting representation of a series, called Artificial Insymmetrised Pattern, provides a base in which local visual correlation can be used in detection and characterization of significant features of any sample data. The gallery of different AIPs can be found in .

Our present interest is to compare different series or different epochs in a series and therefore in all figures included here we show patterns where most of symmetries are left out — we plot different series on the same figure to observe lack of symmetries. For the best presentation of data we choose $`R`$ to be equal to $`\pi `$. As a result, a single dot pattern is plotted on a half of a circle of radius $`\pi `$. With the rescaling $`R=\pi `$ the plots of standard series take the form presented in Fig.1. The basic set of standards consists of noises: Gaussian, white and Levy at different $`\alpha `$s ($`\alpha `$ represents decay of tails) and a random walk. Let us emphasize that all noises do not give different patterns when the distance between subsequent points $`\tau `$ is changed. The random walk depends on $`\tau `$ \- with increasing $`\tau `$ the width of a curve increases. We also include a picture of a walk made from a half of points of a series to show regularity in density of a resulting curve.

Having in mind the visual scale just shown, let us move to estimates of states of stock markets.

## 3 Stylized facts by AIP

The basic quantities studied here are values of indices: WIG, NASDAQ, NYSE and S&P500 at closing. For each time series we consider a series of daily returns defined as usual :

$$\mathrm{return}(t+1)=\mathrm{ln}[\mathrm{index}(t+1)]\mathrm{ln}[\mathrm{index}(t)]$$
(1)
The analyzed data comes from time span between 1st of January 1995 and 31st of December 2001 (7-year study resulting in about 1750 data points) or between 1st of January 1999 and 31 December 2001 (3-year study with about 750 data points).

The min-max scale of AIP is determined by extreme events. These events are located close to the circle of $`\pi `$ radius - positive tails, or at the zero - negative tails. Fig. 2 is a density AIP plot to compare returns of last seven years to returns of last three years. All these patterns are peaked significantly more than a Gaussian noise. Presence of rare events squeezes the ”body” of AIPs making the area of the AIP plot much smaller than if the AIP plot is of a Gaussian noise. Comparing plots of Fig. 2 to the scale plots of Fig. 1 we see that plots of returns are similar to the Levy noise with $`\alpha `$ about $`1.8`$ in case of 7-year data and $`\alpha >1.9`$ in case of 3-year data. The tendency of flattening of distributions can be easily verified by calculating kurtosis. It appears that the kurtosis for 7-year data is: WIG: $`2.607`$, NASDAQ: $`4.302`$, NYSE: $`4.652`$ and S$`\&`$P 500: $`3.710`$ and if 3-year data is considered then WIG: $`1.878`$, NASDAQ: $`1.667`$, NYSE: $`1.761`$ and S$`\&`$P 500: $`1.261`$. Moreover, the localization of bodies of the 7-year data is moved from the vertical axis to the left in case of NYSE, S$`\&`$P 500 and WIG and to the right when NASDAQ is considered. It is because in a scale of individual min-max events at average the returns occupy rather: higher half of values (NYSE, S$`\&`$P 500, WIG) or lower half (NASDAQ).

Rare events lead to heavy tails in the distribution of returns . What we can read from Fig. 3 is that the area where positive rare events are plotted is more densely populated in case of indices than in case when any Levy noise is considered. Therefore, we can speculate that tails of the distribution of indices decay diferently from a Levy noise world.

It is interesting to compare walks performed by logarithms of indices, see Fig. 4. The 7-year data, Fig. 4(a), shows a walk which in case of NYSE and S$`\&`$P 500 is pushed to high values. NASDAQ’s walk is rather located close to the zero. WIG’s walk shows a similar feature. The 3-year data, Fig. 4(b), shows as all walks have been shifted towards low values. Moreover, the events separated by 20 days are scattered over a half of a circle more widely than it is with 7-year walk. Thus the considered stock walks when observed in last three years are definitely more noisy than if they are considered from the perspective of 7 years.

It is generally assumed that for probability distribution function of volatility a log-normal distribution is a good approximation . In Fig. 5 we present AIPs for volatility time series. It concludes that one-day volatility(: absolute values of returns) Fig. 5(a), for three of four indices is rather far from being a Gaussian noise, while five-day volatilities, especially, when $`\tau =20`$, Fig. 5(b), appear to be like a Gaussian noise. The five-day volatility is calculated as standard deviation of five succesive returns.

To observe clustering of volatility we divide series into epochs and we study where points of a considered epoch are located in a main body of volatility dot patterns (see subsequent plots of Fig. 6.) In particular, Fig. 6(a) shows the whole 3-year data of one-day volatility and 5-day volatility. Fig. 6(b) presents volatility in the first three months of 1999. Notice, that volatility of Warsaw market is high what is different from volatility of the New York markets. The next snap-shots are taken at the moment where the opposite situation happens: a high volatility term is going on New York markets while Warsaw market experiences a calm time, Fig. 6(c). Fig. 6(d) shows data from a month before the attack of 11 September 2001 and Fig. 6(e) - a month after the attack. Notice, that some indices were not influenced by this event. Finally, the present state of markets is shown on Fig. 6(f) where the data from the last month of a period studied is presented. All markets are quiet.

## 4 Filtering data

As the main shape of an AIP is definitely generated by extreme events, we should ask what kind of a pattern would arise if the most exotic points were extracted from a series. On the following figures, Figs 7-10, we show results when subsequently a hundred, two-hundred and four-hundred points are extracted from the series.

In case of NYSE walk, Fig. 7(a), just after filtering a hundred points, the data separated by 20 days starts to appear as a white noise rather than a walk. However, the filtered returns, Fig. 7(b), ensures us that the noise is still non-Gaussian and the peaked distribution is firmly kept. We interpret this feature as a self-similarity. The series of S$`\&`$P 500, Fig. 8(a), shows also that elimination of extreme events makes a series more noisy. Returns, Fig. 8(b), when filtered subsequently, slightly move the center of a body what suggests that the max values are distant from the average value. NASDAQ walk data when filtered, Fig. 9(a), shows distinct properties. The area of low values stays dense occupied and, although more and more points are extracted, the walk arrives to high values rarely. The peaked distribution of returns is kept, however, and we observe a move of the main body down, Fig. 9(b). The walk of WIG, Fig. 10(a), seems to be in a state between NYSE and NASDAQ — the dots of a plot rather quickly are scattered over the whole circle. However the distribution of dots is not uniform. Low values are occupied more densely. Surprisingly, the returns of WIG, Fig. 10(b), after filtering loose the positive kurtosis and become similar to a Gaussian noise.

## 5 Crashes

By study larger values of $`\tau `$ like $`\tau =50,100`$ we can observe how the system arrives to its minimal and maximal values, see Fig. 11. Notice that WIG and NASDAQ maxima are separated dots, minima are densely occupied. Moreover, these walks are squeezed along the horizontal axis. Hence large values are followed by strong drops. This feature does not appear for plots of NYSE and S$`\&`$P 500. We know that during the period we studied NASDAQ experienced the crash. It was in April of 2000. At the same time huge drops were noticed on Warsaw stock market. Is it possible that this event can be recognized by AIPs? Can we learn in advance about an approaching crash from dot patterns?

Fig. 12 presents plots for series of data taken before the crashes. NASDAQ and WIG plots consist of data of two years before April 2000 (March values are the last data included). For NYSE and S$`\&`$P 500 we consider data of two years before October 87 crash (September is the last data included). Although data on Fig. 12(a) and Fig. 12(b) are plotted with increasing delay between points, namely $`\tau =10,20,50,100`$, the resulting plots look both differently and similarly. They are similar to each other because there is no visible influence of $`\tau `$ (despite squeezing the body). Markets look like being frozen — driven by some deterministic rule. Moreover, the points of the top of walks are distributed loosely while the lowest values are densely occupied. Plotting snap-shots of last 60 days, we see that in the last days there are flights rather not walks to high values, see Fig. 13.

In the period that we studied one more crash took place. At the end of August 1998, S$`\&`$P 500 lost $`6.79\%`$. That crash was different from others discussed so far, because is was a crash of confidence. It was caused by events in Asia and Russia. Again, when plotting AIPs from data before the crash we see that the markets are frozen, Fig 14. The Warsaw market behaves very noisy at that time. It looks like WIG experienced a crash earlier.

## 6 Summary

We found that visualization of the economic data by the AIP method is particularly useful in getting into relations between markets. In particular:
(1) The stylized facts of returns of financial time series: lack of correlations in daily returns, positive kurtosis of probabability density function of returns with tails that are different from both Gaussian and any Levy noise, and clustering of volatility are easily readable from AIPs. By differentiating these features we can compare markets.
(2) Filtering out the extreme events we can learn about fractal properties of the data or un-hide the background noise that drives fluctuations.
(3) Moreover, as the AIP method keeps points in the time order, we can also easily find nonstationary features of markets. By taking snap-shots in time we can estimate a market state with respect to its history. Especially this property seems to be important in recognizing the ill condition of a market such as an imminent crash.

Wealth of observations together with simplicity of use make the graphical method presented in this paper worth to be taken into account. For example, due to observations that are derived only because of using AIPs, we are not surprised by the opinion that eastern Europe markets are driven by different logic than other markets, .

Acknowledgement
This work is supported by Gdańsk University: BW 5400-5-0235-2


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# Estimation of dibaryon (Ω⁻Ω⁻)_{𝐽^𝜋=0⁺} yields at RHIC energies

## 1 Introduction

According to quantum chromodynamics (QCD) theory, there is the possibility of the existence of some exotic multi-quark states, such as H dibaryon , and gluonic states. The growing interest of searching for such states lies on not only to examine the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) theory, but also to reveal the quark-gluon behavior in short distance and other new physical characteristics. But so far no convinced evidence is found in experiments to show their existence. Recently a new candidate, the strange dibaryon $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$, is suggested and studied based on the chiral SU(3) quark model . This six-quark states with large strangeness is found to have more attractive characteristics than other six-quark states. First, it is a deeply bound state. Although the color magnetic interaction in the one gluon exchange term for this diomega system exhibits the repulsive feature, the large attraction stemming from the chiral gluon coupling and from the symmetry property of the system lead to a considerable binding. By the Resonating Group Method, the binding energy of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ is found to be as large as $``$ 116 MeV, and the root-mean-square distance between two $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$s is 0.84 fm. Second, $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ has a quite long lifetime of $`10^{10}`$ sec as it can undergo only weak decay, such as $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}\pi ^{}+\mathrm{\Xi }^0+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}\pi ^0+\mathrm{\Xi }^{}+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$. As they are three-body decay, the final state phase-space would be suppressed. In the sudden approximation, the lifetime of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ was found to be four times longer than the free $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ lifetime of 0.822$`\times 10^{10}`$ sec. Apart from these conventional decay modes, the non-meson decay $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}\mathrm{\Xi }^0+\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ is also possible, the lifetime of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ for this process is twice the free $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ lifetime. Third, $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ has two negative charges. These properties make it easily be identified in experiment when it were created.

Because of the large strangeness and very heavy mass, $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ is not likely to be produced in proton-proton collisions. While in relativistic heavy ion collisions, it is found that the strangeness production is enhanced and has been suggested as one of the possible signals of quark-gluon-plasma (QGP). Recent experiments by the WA97 Collaboration  and the NA49 Collaboration  showed the substantial enhancement of the (anti-)hyperon ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$) yields in 158 A GeV/c Pb+Pb central collisions relative to p+Pb collisions, and exhibited the enhancement pattern increasing with the strangeness content of the (anti-)hyperon. Therefore, the extreme environment of very hot and very dense block of matter provided by the relativistic heavy ion collisions may lead to the formation of exotic deeply bound objects composed of quarks or baryons with large strangeness, among them the dibaryon $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ is the most possible candidate.

Theoretically, the yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ can be estimated by two ways: The kinetic simulation or microscopic transportation model, and the quantum statistical model or thermal model. Because the formation probability of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ is very low and the cross sections related to $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ formations and decays are not well known, the calculations by kinetic simulation can not be well carried out. Contrarily, the statistical model can do the calculations easier. Based on this model, ref. 5 gave out an estimation of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ yields in Pb+Pb collisions at 158A GeV/$`c`$ (SPS), which is in order of magnitude $`10^5`$. In this paper, we will present its yields in other two reactions: Au+Au collision at 11.6A GeV/$`c`$ (AGS) and Au+Au collision at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 130 GeV (RHIC). And, based on the results of these three reactions, we try to predict the yield of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ for Au+Au collision at full RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 200 GeV, by means of extrapolation. In order to reduce the effect of system size to the extrapolated results, the above collisions are chosen to have the same or similar reaction system. The yields of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and the ratios of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ are also given.

## 2 Thermal Production

In relativistic heavy ion collisions, a large amount of particles including baryons, mesons, their resonance and anti-particles are produced and form a fireball of hadronic gases with high particle density and high energy density. The fireball undergoes the expansion until freeze out. The large amount of produced particles and the violent collisions between them lead the gaseous particles inside the fireball to reach the chemical and thermal equilibrium. Such gas system can be described by the statistical model or thermal model. This model has been successfully applied in analysis of hadron yields and ratios at AGS and SPS energies , and recently the RHIC energy . Here we use this model to estimate the yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ in above three energies and predict it’s yield in full RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 200 GeV, by means of extrapolation.

In the frame of grand canonical ensemble, the density of hadron species i reads as (in unit of $`c=\mathrm{}=k_B=1`$)

$$\rho _i=\frac{g_i}{(2\pi )^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d^3q}{e^{(\epsilon \mu _i)/T}\pm 1},$$
(1)
where T is the temperature of the fireball, $`\epsilon =\sqrt{q^2+m_i^2}`$ is the energy of the particle, q and $`m_i`$ are the momentum and mass, $`g_i`$ is the spin-isospin degeneracy. $`\pm `$ stands for the characteristics of statistics, + is for the Fermions and \- is for the Bosons. The chemical potential is determined by $`\mu _i=B_i\mu _B+S_i\mu _S`$, $`\mu _B`$ and $`\mu _S`$ are the chemical potentials of baryon and strangeness respectively, $`B_i`$ and $`S_i`$ are the baryon charges and strangeness charges of the particle respectively.

Since the temperature of the fireball is very high, it is reasonable to treat the hadron gas as the ideal gas obeying the Boltzmann distribution. In the condition of $`m/T1`$, the density of species i can be well approximated by

$$\rho _i=g_i(\frac{m_iT}{2\pi })^{3/2}e^{(m_i\mu _i)/T}.$$
(2)
We carried out the calculations for the following three relativistic heavy ion collisions: Au+Au collision at 11.6A GeV/$`c`$ (AGS), Pb+Pb collision at 158A GeV/$`c`$ (SPS) and Au+Au collision at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 130 GeV (RHIC). The experimental data of the hadron yields and ratios are adopted from  and the references therein, respectively. All hadrons including baryons, mesons and possible anti-particles with mass less than 2 GeV/$`c^2`$ are included in the hadron gas of the fireball. The calculations are carried out within the frame of two-source statistical model (TSM) . This model is developed on the basis of the standard statistical model, the single-source model (SM), and takes the non-homogeneous effect of the source into account. This effect is showed up in the experimental observation of low baryon components in the midrapidity region of relativistic heavy-ion collisions at energy of 158A GeV/$`c`$ (see, e.g. ) and in the microscopic model calculations which show the central zone is more baryon dilute than outside zones . This effect of ”non-homogenous” implies the requirement of a multiple source model to better describe the source of a hadronic gas. The two-source model (TSM) is the simplest multiple source model. In TSM the whole source is roughly divided into two regions (sources): the inner source $`S_2`$ and the outer source $`S_1`$. The two sources are supposed to reach equilibrium respectively and possess different temperatures, densities, chemical potentials and other thermodynamic characteristics. Especially the net strangeness density is no longer zero everywhere as in the single-source model but the total number of strangeness still keeps conserved. The two-source model significantly improves the agreement to the experimental data of hadron yields and ratios and exhibits a reasonable source structure : At SPS and AGS energies, the whole source is composed of a small, hotter core (inner source) surrounded by a large, cooler halo (outer source). Most baryons are distributed outside, seems to be the projectile- and target-like components, while almost all anti-baryons are concentrated inside. Besides, in the two-source model approach, the average particle densities and the average energy density are effectively reduced and the strangeness is effectively suppressed but without introducing extra corrections, such as the corrections of hard core excluded volume of the particles and the strangeness suppression. These corrections were generally used when the whole source is assumed to be a unique homogeneous source.

By means of least square method and by fitting the experimental data, the main thermodynamic characteristics in the two sources, S2/S1, are obtained as follows:

AGS energy the temperatures, T2/T1, are 144/91 MeV. The baryon chemical potentials, $`\mu _{B2}/\mu _{B1}`$, are 288/599 MeV. The strangeness chemical potentials, $`\mu _{S2}/\mu _{S1}`$, are -70.0/116 MeV.

SPS energy T2/T1=168/110 MeV, $`\mu _{B2}`$/$`\mu _{B1}`$=14.4/387 MeV, $`\mu _{S2}`$/$`\mu _{S1}`$=-14.8/52.2 MeV.

RHIC energy T2/T1=176/175 MeV, $`\mu _{B2}`$/$`\mu _{B1}`$=36.9/38.9 MeV, $`\mu _{S2}`$/$`\mu _{S1}`$=10.0/10.7 MeV.

The $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ yields in above three reactions are directly obtained through formula 2. Because of the large strangeness, -6, and very heavy mass, 3230 MeV, the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ yields are very small. Therefore, it can be supposed that the thermodynamic quantities would be little effected by the existence of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$. In statistical model of grand canonical frame, all hadrons in the fireball including $`(\mathrm{\Omega }^{}\mathrm{\Omega }^{})_{0^+}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ are in chemical and thermal equilibrium. According to formula 2, the yield ratio of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ has the relation of

$$\eta =\frac{g_{(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })}}{g_\mathrm{\Omega }}(\frac{m_{(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })}}{m_\mathrm{\Omega }})^{3/2}e^{[(m_{(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })}\mu _{(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })})(m_\mathrm{\Omega }\mu _\mathrm{\Omega })]}.$$
(3)
With formulas 2 and 3 the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ yields can be obtained from the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ yields. The yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ together with the ratios are presented in Table 1 (rows 2-4) and shown in Fig. 1.

(put Table 1 here)

Apparently, the yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ increase steadily as the energy increases from AGS to SPS, and to RHIC. At RHIC energy, they are 5.8$`\times 10^4`$ and 5.8 respectively. The ratio, however, shows a saturation feature in RHIC energy region with value of $`1.0\times 10^4`$.

With results in above three reactions, we can try to predict the results for Au+Au collisions at full RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 200 GeV, by means of extrapolation (with Lagrange formula). In order to reduce the effect of system size to the extrapolated results as possible, these three collisions have been chosen to possess the same or similar reaction system. The results are shown in Fig. 1 (last points) and also shown in Table 1 (last column). At RHIC and full RHIC energies, the yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ are 5.8$`\times 10^4`$ and 1.2$`\times 10^3`$ respectively, well within the limits of the detectors used in RHIC energies. With the excellent characteristics, $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$, the marvelous particle, can be easily identified and detected when it is created.

## 3 Discussion and Summary

In order to justify the reliability of the model predictions, we give out some results related to the strange particles and compare them to the experimental data or other model predictions. Table 2 and Fig.2 show the yields of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and their ratio $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+/\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$. At low energy the $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+`$ yield is much lower than the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ yield, while $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+`$ increases faster than $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ as the energy increases. So at somewhere they will have equal yield (in the figure, it is at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ 150 GeV). Table 3 and Fig.3 show the ratios of the anti-strange particle to the strange particle. In Fig.3 the results at AGS energy are for 11.6A GeV/$`c`$ Au+Au collision used for extrapolations. While in Table 3 the results at AGS energy are for 14.6A GeV/$`c`$ Si+Au collision used to compare with the available experimental data. For the strange baryons, the ratios possess the similar behavior as the energy increases but the magnitudes are different. Ratio for particle with more strange components is larger than that with less strange components. The ratio of kaon exhibits a different feature which saturates after $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$ = 70 GeV with value of 0.8. From the comparisons in Tables 2 and 3, one can see that the model predictions are in very good agreement with the experimental data.

(put Table 2 here)

(put Table 3 here)

Several points need be pointed out. Firstly, the yields and ratios obtained above are thermally produced, i.e. produced in a hot and dense fireball which is assumed to reach the equilibrium or local equilibrium. If taking the kinetic effect into account, some amount of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ would be produced from two $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$s’ collision, the total yield of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ will be a little increased. Secondly, the yields of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ predicted by statistical models generally lower than that given by experiments. So the yields of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ presented here are the lower limit. Thirdly, more importantly, the experimental data used in calculations for RHIC energy are taken from pseudorapidity interval $`|\eta |<1`$ which is a small portion of the whole source of which the rapidity range is $`5.4<y<5.4`$. (This small portion of source, the ”measured” source, is located in the central part of the source. In this region, the particles are uniformly distributed and construct a single homogeneous source. So the two parts, S1 and S2, in TSM are identical (see above the thermodynamic characteristics at RHIC energy) and also identical to the source in the single-source model.) Therefore, if the data are taken from the whole source or a larger rapidity interval, the yields of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ will be raised and correspondingly, the yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ increases. For example, in a conservative estimation, suppose the yield of $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ increases two times to reach 12, the yield of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ increases the same times to reach 1.2$`\times 10^3`$. At full RHIC energy, their yields increase $`2.2`$ times and reach 24 and 2.6$`\times 10^3`$ respectively. Obviously, a larger central rapidity range is favorable to measuring the interesting but rarely produced strange dibaryon, $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$. Of cause, the more exact results are expected after the data of full RHIC energy become available.

So far experimental data are available only for three collisions at AGS, SPS and RHIC energies with the same or similar collision system. There is no data available within the large energy region between SPS and RHIC energies. The particle yields, not as the ratios, are quite sensitive to the ”measured” source size or ”measured” rapidity interval. Under these limitations, the yields are only roughly estimated and may have large deviation, but it is believable that the order of magnitude would not deviate far away.

In summary, the yields of dibaryon $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$, hyperon $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and their ratios in relativistic heavy ion collisions at three energies are calculated within the framework of two-source statistical model. The yields of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ increase steadily as the energy increases, while their ratios display a saturation feature. By means of extrapolation, the yields and the ratio at full RHIC energy are estimated. In the RHIC energy region, the $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ yield is in order of $`10^410^3`$, the $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ yield is in order of $`10^010^1`$ and the ratio of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$ to $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ is $`1.0\times 10^4`$. And, to measure the rarely produced particles as the strange dibaryon $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$, a larger central rapidity range is favorable.

Acknowledgements. The author are grateful to Professors Z.Y. Zhang,Y.W. Yu, C.R. Qing and H.Z. Xo for stimulating discussions. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China under the contracts No.19975075.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Fig 1 Energy dependence of $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{\Omega })_{0^+}/\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Points at full RHIC energy, $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$=200 GeV, are obtained by extrapolation. Points at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$=75 GeV are obtained by interpolation.

Fig 2 Energy dependence of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+/\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Points at full RHIC energy are obtained by extrapolation. Points at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$=75 GeV are obtained by interpolation.

Fig 3 Energy dependence of $`\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}/\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}^+/\mathrm{\Xi }^{}`$, $`\overline{\mathrm{\Omega }}^+/\mathrm{\Omega }^{}`$ and $`K^{}/K^+`$ in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Points at full RHIC energy are obtained by extrapolation. Points at $`\sqrt{s_{NN}}`$=75 GeV are obtained by interpolation.


text:
# Dark halo densities, substructure, and the initial power spectrum

## 1 Introduction

The cold dark matter plus cosmological constant (LCDM) model of structure formation is the most successful and popular current theory for the origin of universal structure. The theory is highly predictive, and given that observations constrain the universe to be nearly flat (with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.3`$, and $`h0.7`$) a crucial unknown is the primordial spectrum of density fluctuations. It is usually assumed that the initial fluctuation spectrum is scale-invariant, with $`P(k)k^n`$, $`n=1`$. This choice is motivated by the fact that slow-roll inflation models predict nearly scale-invariant spectra. However, generic models of inflation do not predict primordial power spectra that are exactly scale-invariant and almost all models have some small, often non-negligible, “tilt” ($`n1`$) and “running” of the spectral index ($`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k0`$). In this proceeding we report on our work to model the small-scale implications of reasonable initial power spectra, and demonstrate that the substructure content and central densities of dark halos should be very sensitive to small deviations from scale-invariance. Our models are semi-analytic, but they are normalized and tested against N-body simulations. As we discuss below, our results may be important for interpreting galaxy rotation curves, dwarf galaxy counts, and substructure mass fractions as measured from multiply imaged quasars.

In Zentner & Bullock  (hereafter ZB1 and ZB2) we chose several well-motivated and representative inflation models and calculated the implied power spectra to second order in slow-roll using the method of Stewart and Gong . Adopting $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{L}=0.7`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2=0.020`$, and $`h=0.72`$ (LCDM), we calculated P(k) using the results of Eisenstein & Hu  and normalized to COBE on the pivot scale, $`k_{}0.0023`$ h-1Mpc. In the interest of brevity, we report on only three models here:

* IPL: $`n=0.94`$, $`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k=0.001`$,
$`\sigma _8=0.83`$
* RM: $`n=0.84`$, $`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k=0.004`$,
$`\sigma _8=0.65`$
* $`n=1`$: $`n=1.00`$, $`dn/d\mathrm{ln}k=0.000`$,
$`\sigma _8=0.95`$.

The tilt and running are evaluated at $`k=k_{}`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ is the rms fluctuation amplitude within spheres of $`8h^1`$Mpc implied by the COBE normalization. Observational constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ have historically favored a value near unity; however, some recent estimates indicate surprisingly low values of $`\sigma _8`$ . Roughly speaking, $`0.60<\sigma _8<1.2`$ spans the range of recently reported values (for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3`$).

## 2 Central Densities

The theory of CDM has survived remarkably well since its creation roughly twenty years ago , but lingering for nearly half this time has been a possible problem with galaxy central densities , which seem to be much less dense than the standard CDM model typically predicts. One part of this problem — the cusp vs. core question — concerns the precise inner slope of galaxy rotation curves and whether they match the “cuspy” predictions of CDM theory. This particular question is highly debated, and some argue that observational errors and/or theoretical uncertainties make the comparisons inconclusive. But even among those who believe there may be no problem with the shapes of rotation curves (the authors included), it is almost universally agreed upon that the data do prefer halos that are less centrally concentrated than typical halos in the standard ($`n=1`$) LCDM model.

One way to see the problem is by comparing rotation curve data to theory using the following, non-parametric measure of the density :

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{V}/2}\frac{\overline{\rho }(r_{\mathrm{V}/2})}{\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{V_{\mathrm{max}}}{H_0r_{\mathrm{V}/2}}\right)^2.$$
(1)
This is the mean dark matter density within the radius $`r_{\mathrm{V}/2}`$ where the galaxy rotation curve falls to half its maximum, $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$. In practical units, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{V}/2}5\times 10^5(V_{\mathrm{max}}/100\text{ kms}^1)^2(r_{\mathrm{V}/2}/\text{h}^1\text{ kpc})^2`$.

In Figure 1, we plot $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{V/2}`$ measured from several dark matter-dominated galaxy rotation curves (data from , see ZB1 for details) and compare to predictions for typical halo densities in our models with different power spectra (lines). Notice that the $`n=1`$ model overpredicts the galactic densities by a factor of $`6`$, while our inflation-motivated models with $`n<1`$ do much better.

The predictions were made using the semi-analytic model of Bullock et al. , which was shown to reproduce the halo densities measured in N-body simulations for $`n=1`$ and $`0.9`$ LCDM power spectra as well as a variety of power-law models (see ZB1 for an extensive discussion). The model is similar to that originally proposed in  (see also ), although modified in order to reproduce the redshift dependence seen in N-body halos. Qualitatively, it embodies the fact that halo densities reflect the density of the universe at their characteristic collapse redshift. Halos in models with less small-scale power collapse later, when the universe is less dense, and therefore have more diffuse cores. Interestingly, even the “IPL” case, with only a moderate tilt and mild running, does significantly better than the $`n=1`$ standard model. If we adopt the criterion that a ”good” fit to the data has $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{V/2}3\times 10^5`$ at $`V_{\mathrm{max}}=100`$ kms-1 then the data prefer $`n(k_{})+6.96dn(k_{})/d\mathrm{ln}k0.85`$, assuming that the primordial spectrum is the only element of the solution.

## 3 Substructure

As mentioned briefly in the previous section, the input power spectrum greatly affects the typical merger history of galaxy-sized halos. Halos formed in models with less power on galactic scales typically form later, and accrete a larger fraction of their substructure at later epochs. Similarly, the “subhalos” that are accreted also form later, are less dense, and therefore are more easily tidally disrupted. In order to explore how different initial power spectra affect the substructure content of halos quantitatively, we developed a semi-analytic model that tracks halo accretion histories using the extended Press-Schechter formalism  and follows subhalo orbital evolution in a semi-analytic fashion.

Described in detail in ZB2, our model expands on the calculations presented in Bullock, Kravtsov & Weinberg  and includes some modifications similar to those advocated by Taylor and Babul . Briefly, after each merger event, we follow the subhalo orbital evolution as it decays due to dynamical friction and loses mass via tidal interactions with the host halo. Dynamical friction dominates for large subhalos, which typically merge with the central object soon after accretion. Low mass substructures are efficiently stripped by the host potential, and a large fraction of them become completely tidally destroyed. The results of our model for an ensemble of Milky Way-like host halos in an $`n=1`$ LCDM cosmology are displayed in Figure 2. Shown as a function of $`V_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are the total number of objects that have been accreted compared to the number that eventually merge with the central object, the number that are tidally destroyed, and the number that survive as distinct substructures at $`z=0`$. It is clear that our model for the number of surviving structures is in good agreement with the results of N-body simulations (thin solid lines) . We use this model to estimate the sensitivity of the substructure population at $`z=0`$ to the primordial power spectrum.

Shown in Figure 3 are the cumulative subhalo velocity functions for each of our models compared to two different estimates of dwarf galaxy counts within $`200`$kpc of the Milky Way and M31 . That $`n=1`$ LCDM overpredicts the number of small satellites by roughly an order of magnitude is expected. This is the well-known dwarf satellite problem (e.g. ). Interestingly, the number of subhalos is reduced by as much as a factor of $`3`$ for the inflation-derived power spectra that we consider. Although all of these cases would require some degree of feedback to match dwarf counts (e.g., ionization ), the amount of feedback needed will depend sensitively on the input power spectrum.

Related to the dwarf satellite problem are recent efforts to measure the substructure content in halos using the flux ratios in multiply imaged quasars . For example, Dalal and Kochanek used this technique to constrain the fraction of the host halo mass bound up in substructure to be $`0.006f_{\mathrm{sat}}0.07`$ (90 % confidence). They went on to use this result to try to limit the tilt of the primordial spectrum using a simplified model for the abundance of substructure and obtained $`n0.94`$ at 95% confidence. Our results on substructure differ from those of Dalal and Kochanek, as illustrated in Figure 4. We find that for a host halo of the relevant mass, the total mass fraction in subhalos is typically larger than the their lower limit ($`f_{\mathrm{sat}}0.006`$) even for our most tilted primordial spectrum, $`n0.84`$. Since this model is on the edge of what is acceptable by $`\sigma _8`$ constraints, it seems that strong lensing does not yet serve as a significant probe of the primordial power spectrum. (Using a version of our model, Dalal and Kochanek are in the process of revising their limits, and now find results more in line with those reported here .)