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# A new paradigm for modulated phases in multi-stage structural transformations

## I Introduction

A quite varied structural and thermodynamic behavior is observed in a wide class of materials of technological interest such as martensites and shape memory alloys sma . A displacive structural transition to the low symmetry (‘martensitic’) phase is often preceded by one or more modulated “phases” cowley . However, under the vast experimental data, various anomalies and disparate mechanisms, there must be some unifying principles that are common to most of these materials. The present study is an attempt to address this question by providing a common framework for the different multi-stage transformation mechanisms in displacive martensitic transitions (MT). This general framework emerges naturally after appropriately assimilating the existing experimental data. The discussion below is restricted to displacive (non-reconstructive) transitions.

The modulated phase is, in general, an incommensurate phase which, eventually, may lock into a commensurate modulation due to the freezing of a specific phonon, usually with an associated wavevector inside the Brillouin zone. To be more precise, the commensurate modulation may or may not be observed but never without a preceding incommensurate modulation. A general scenario for a cubic symmetry parent (‘austenite’) phase is depicted in Fig. 1. Note that, in general, there may be three transition temperatures: (i) $`T_I`$ is the temperature at which the incommensurate modulation (IC) first appears; this is (presumably) a second order transition. We note that, in real space, this phase is sometimes referred to as ‘tweed’ in the literature. It has been observed in other materials bkwt  such as quartz, high Tc superconducting perovskites, ferroelectrics, etc. (ii) $`T_{II}`$ is the temperature at which the commensurate modulation (CM) appears from a (previous) IC phase; this is usually a first order transition. (iii) $`T_M`$ is the first order MT temperature. Depending on the material, either the commensurate phase or both the commensurate and incommensurate phases may not appear. In the latter case there is no modulation or precursor precursors  phenomena (either in pure or intermetallic crystals) and a direct transition to the martensitic phase takes place.

Concerning the IC phase (‘tweed’ in real space) we note that in non-stoichiometric alloys there could be premonitory effects such as thermal expansion anomalies jak  that are caused by composition fluctuations kartha95  and stabilized by long-range elastic forces shenoy .

Based on several experimental observations in a variety of materials we first specify the (likely) requirements for a multi-stage transition.

(a) Existence of low restoring forces along specific directions. In most (cubic) martensitic materials (of interest here) this is accomplished by a temperature softening of the long-wavelength limit of the \[1$`\overline{1}`$0\] transverse acoustic (TA2) phonon branch (i.e., $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_4`$ branch). This implies that the shear modulus $`C^{}=(1/2)(C_{11}C_{12})`$ is smaller than the other elastic constants. This effect is related to strain.

(b) Phonon softening (dip) observed in \[1$`\overline{1}`$0\] TA2 branch inside the Brillouin Zone usually at a particular value of the wavevector $`q0`$. This has an effect on shuffle (i.e., intracell distortion) modes.

Hereafter, we shall take these two requirements as necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for applying the point of view adopted in the present study. Besides, they are observed in most martensitic materials planes01  and accepted to be premonitory indications of the low temperature martensitic phase. Nevertheless, at the MT, neither the elastic constant nor the phonon soften completely. It is now accepted that an incomplete softening is enough to drive the transition jak92 . This is because of an interplay between the strain and the shuffle modes. For onset of the IC, we assume the shuffle mode(s) to be the primary order parameter (OP). Symmetry allowed strain component(s) may then couple to the shuffle as a secondary order parameter, particularly in the CM phase. Depending on the material there may be competition or cooperation between the two effects associated with requirements (a) and (b). In this sense, it is not clear how the interplay between the two partial soft modes operates. In addition, it may be modified by coupling to other physical variables such as magnetism (or inhomogeneities).

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section we provide a new classification of martensitic materials in terms of presence or absence of modulated phases and associated anomalies in phonon dispersion and elastic constants. Section III contains an effective, coupled strain-shuffle, one-dimensional model that explains the observed phonon driven anomalies and modulated phases. In Sec. IV we summarize our main findings and propose new experiments that may validate our predictions.

## II Representative materials and Observed Anomalies

According to the general scenario described above, we can broadly classify various displacive martensitic materials in four categories.

(I) Systems that exhibit both, the IC and CM, intermediate transitions. The Ni-Mn-Ga (Refs. 10-13) and $`\alpha `$-Uranium (Refs. 14,15) materials belong to this category. Both show anomalies in specific heat lashley ; planes97 ; manosa97  magnetic susceptibilities obrado98 , resistivity lashley  and an increase in $`C^{}`$ with decreasing temperature between TII and TM manosa97 ; stenger98 ; lander .

Ni2MnGa is a ferromagnetic Heusler alloy with cubic symmetry and the magnetism (mainly localized on Mn atoms) arises from d-electrons. At low temperatures it transforms (for compositions close to stoichiometry) to a tetragonal martensitic phase martynov . The phonon anomaly is observed at a wave vector $`q=\frac{1}{3}[\xi ,\xi ,0]`$, where $`0<\xi <1`$.

$`\alpha `$-U is an orthorhombic material and displays two IC phases–incommensurate modulation in one direction or in two directions. The origin of magnetism is (likely to be) the highly directional f-electrons in actinides (U here). The phonon anomaly is observed at $`q=\frac{1}{2}[\xi ,0,0]`$. The martensitic phase is presumably monoclinic but this is not yet known although there is a small peak in specific heat recently observed lashley  at 1.2 K.

We notice that for materials in this group, the lock-in transition at TII occurs without a change in symmetry (at least on an average).

(II) In this second category we include those systems, although they exhibit the two modulated phases, in which the lock-in transition is accompanied by a change in symmetry. As a prototype we take the NiTi(Fe) material shapiro84 ; salamon85 ; folkins89 . This shape memory alloy (SMA) has a high temperature cubic structure and exhibits an IC phase. It also locks into a CM phase with trigonal symmetry (i.e., an intermediate R phase) before going into a monoclinic martensite barsch . Very recently, it has been pointed out that the R phase is a legitimate martensite competing with the monoclinic martensite shindo . Note that this competing martensitic phases scenario is consistent with our framework. There is a small tendency for $`C^{}`$ to have an up-turn with decreasing temperatureren99 ; ren01  and the phonon anomaly is observed at $`q=\frac{1}{3}[\xi ,\xi ,0]`$. In this case the freezing of the phonon with decreasing temperature (unlike the case I above) is accompanied even by a change in space group symmetry (from cubic to trigonal) related to the underlying phonon displacement amplitude shindo . Note that stoichiometric AuCd (Refs. 24,28) also has a B2 to R phase transition similar to NiTi(Fe).

(III) In this category we include systems in which the CM phase is suppressed (TII=TM). This is the case of the NixAl1-x ($`.45<x<.63`$) (Refs. 29,30), Fe1-xPdx ($`x<.32`$) (Refs. 31,32), Fe3Pt(ordered) (Ref. 33) and In-Tl (Ref. 34) materials. They exhibit an IC phase (referred to as tweed, in real space) but the CM phase is absent before they undergo a MT. The phonon anomaly in NiAl is observed at $`q\frac{1}{6}[\xi ,\xi ,0]`$ with a monoclinic martensitic phase.

(IV) In the case of Cu-based shape memory alloys (e.g. Cu-Zn-Al), no modulated phase is observed. There is a unique phase transition from the high temperature cubic austenite phase directly to the martensitic phase. In phonon dispersion curves there is almost no dip but significantly, the whole (TA2) phonon branch has a quite low energy. These materials can be termed as ordinary SMA with entropy driven planes01 ; msf  MT.

We note that materials discussed in the above categories exhibit the same premonitory effects but different structural precursors precursors . The different transitions are accompanied by anomalies in various physical quantities with different magnitudes.

(i) Softening of a specific phonon branch accompanied by a dip. Figure 2 shows experimental examples for Ni-Mn-Ga (Refs. 12,13) $`\alpha `$-U (Ref. 36) and Ni-Al (Ref. 30). For the purpose of discussion below, the two cubic alloys Ni-Mn-Ga and Ni-Al are shown together and $`\alpha `$-U (orthorhombic) is shown in the inset. Note the appealing similar behavior of phonons in Ni-Mn-Ga and $`\alpha `$-U. Except for a linear decrease, there is no interesting feature in Ni-Al phonons such as a conspicuous change in slope. The different transitions are denoted by arrows. The increase in energy at low temperature for Ni-Mn-Ga is an indication for the phonon freezing at TII. Presumably the $`\alpha `$-U should also exhibit similar low temperature increase in phonon energy but unfortunately the experimental data is lacking.

(ii) Softening of the relevant elastic constants (i.e., the long-wavelength limit of TA2 phonon branch). An example for $`C^{}`$ and $`C_{44}`$ softening as the temperature is decreased to TII and elastic constant ‘hardening’ upon subsequent coolingmanosa97 ; stenger98  to TM for Ni-Mn-Ga is depicted in Fig. 3(a). In contrast, other than a linear decrease there is no structure in the behavior of elastic constants for Ni-Al, also shown on the same figure for comparison. In Fig. 3(b) we show the temperature variation of three of the relevant orthorhombic elastic constants for $`\alpha `$-U (Ref. 37). There is a striking similarity in the $`C_{11}`$ and $`C_{44}`$ variation for $`\alpha `$-U and the $`C^{}`$ and $`C_{44}`$ variation for Ni-Mn-Ga (Ref. 38). Unfortunately, the $`C_{12}`$ low temperature data for $`\alpha `$-U is lacking. We also note that a somewhat similar incipient anomaly is observed in NiTi(Fe) (Ref. 39). In this work, we shall argue that the up-turn (or elastic constant ‘hardening’) with decreasing temperature at TII is characteristic of systems undergoing multi-stage modulated structural transformations. This point will be discussed below.

(iii) Anomalies in the specific heat, resistivity, magnetic susceptibility and other thermodynamic variables are also observed. Examples include Ni-Mn-Ga (Ref. 8), NiTi(Fe) (Ref. 22), $`\alpha `$-U (Ref. 15) and other actinides hecker .

The IC phase is detected by diffuse satellite reflections that appear at incommensurate positions tanner . Examples include Ni-Mn-Ga (Ref. 10), Ni-Al (Ref. 29), Fe-Pd (Ref. 32), NiTi(Fe) (Ref. 42). It is not caused by a phonon instability but it is due to local inhomogeneities kartha95  (e.g., compositional fluctuations, crystal defects, residual strain) that (locally) couple to the soft modes. The emerging phase is thermodynamically stabilized by anisotropic, long-range elastic forces shenoy . However, this remains an open question for future investigation. The further lock-in (or freezing) of the phonon at commensurate positions requires an additional degree of softening of the anomalous phonon frequency with decreasing temperature before it reaches the martensitic transition TM. It is clear from Fig. 2 that in the case of Ni-Mn-Ga, the magnetism provides (through a magnetoelastic coupling TCV ) the enhancement of softening necessary for freezing.

Moreover, it is known that in many martensitic alloys the transition temperature TM is very sensitive to the electron concentration per atom (e/a). This has never been quantified, but clearly so. In Fig. 4(a) we compare various transition temperatures for three materials shapiro84 : NiTi and NiTi(Fe) for two different compositions as a function of e/a. \[The stable phase for $`T_{II}<T<T_M`$ is rhombohedral (R) and modulated shindo \]. This dramatic dependence of lattice stability with the e/a ratio is also observed in Ni-Mn-Ga (Ref. 8) and Fe-Pd (Ref. 44) as well \[see Fig. 4(b)\]. However, the trend is reversed in Fe-Pd \[inset of Fig. 4(b)\] because, unlike Ni-Mn-Ga and Ni-Ti, Fe-Pd is a close-packed (magnetic) structure. Small changes in the relative alloying percentages of the elements may produce significant variations in TM and therefore in the observed behavior of the materials. This is especially relevant in Cu-based alloys and actinides, particularly in Ga-stabilized hecker  Pu. Beyond a certain alloying percentage, the martensitic transformation can be arrested totally (e.g., above muto88 ; muto90  32 % Pd in Fe-Pd). More precisely, as TM increases, the freezing of the phonon prior to the martensitic transition becomes less likely.

## III Effective 1D model

From the full three-dimensional crystal symmetry analysis we have a Ginzburg-Landau model in terms of all (six) strain tensor components vasilev ; rasmussen , all shuffle folkins89  order parameters and the magnetization vasilev  with the symmetry allowed couplings between strain and shuffle, strain and magnetization as well as shuffle and magnetization. For specific strain components and the shuffle in a particular direction we can obtain an effective one-dimensional analog of the full 3D model. We emphasize that our goal here is to address the ion-displacive (or phonon-driven ion ) anomalies (above TM) but not the microstructural aspects.

We focus on the $`\stackrel{}{q}=[\xi \xi 0]`$ projection of the cubic$``$tetragonal distortion. The relevant order parameters are the amplitude of the anomalous phonon $`\eta `$ and the tetragonal strain $`e`$ ($`e_3`$ in standard symmetry-adapted notation). The simplest Landau free-energy expansion is:

$$F(e,\eta )=\frac{\omega ^2}{2}\eta ^2+\frac{\beta }{4}\eta ^4+\frac{\gamma }{6}\eta ^6+\frac{C^{}}{2}e^2+\frac{A}{3}e^3+\frac{B}{4}e^4+\kappa _{e\eta }e\eta ^2,$$
(1)
where $`\omega `$ is the frequency of the anomalous phonon and $`C^{}`$ the elastic constant defined as $`C^{}=(C_{11}C_{12})/2`$. Both soften with decreasing temperature (for the cubic materials considered here). Here $`\kappa _{e\eta }`$ is a material dependent parameter denoting symmetry allowed coupling between strain and shuffle.

For the analysis of the modulated phases, we write an effective free-energy in terms of the shuffle $`\eta `$ only; i.e.,

$$F_e(\eta )=\frac{\omega ^2}{2}\eta ^2+\frac{\beta _r}{4}\eta ^4+\frac{\gamma }{6}\eta ^6,$$
(2)
with the renormalized coefficient (including fluctuations and anharmonicities jak92 ) being

$$\beta _r=\beta 2(\kappa _{e\eta })^2/C^{}.$$
(3)
The associated tetragonal distortion is given by PAL

$$e=(\kappa _{e\eta }/C^{})\eta ^2,$$
(4)
considering only the harmonic terms in strain.

In the IC phase $`\beta _r>0`$ and the last term in the $`\eta `$-expansion (2) is not relevant (in addition to the shuffle amplitude being very small). One possible origin of this phase is local inhomogeneities that couple to the soft modes kartha95  and renormalize the quadratic coefficient so that in some regions $`\omega _r^2`$ becomes negative. $`T_I`$ is the temperature at which long-range elastic forces stabilize the IC phase. Then, the intensity of the satellite reflections continuously increases from zero with decreasing temperature and consequently the magnitude of the associated tetragonal strain, which serves as a precursor to martensite.

As the order parameter $`\eta `$ increases manosa01 ; salamon85 , the sixth-order term in (2) becomes important. The lock-in of the phonon at commensurate positions requires that $`(\kappa _{e\eta })^2/C^{}`$ be large enough so that $`\beta _r<0`$. This is a phonon instability and the transition at $`T_{II}`$ is of first-order.

Subsequent cooling is dominated by the increasing phonon amplitude and the softening of $`C^{}`$ is not required for the structural instability at TM. Actually, materials undergoing the lock-in transition (Ni-Mn-Ga, $`\alpha `$-U) exhibit a hardening of the relevant elastic constant(s) in the range $`T_M<T<T_{II}`$ (see Fig. 3). We suggest this unusual behavior (when approaching a structural phase transition) is characteristic of materials for which the phonon instability occurs prior to the structural instability. The up-turn at $`T_{II}`$ reflects the higher stability of the CM (averaged cubic) phase with respect to the parent cubic phase. The further structural instability results from a symmetry allowed coupling of strain to the increasing value of $`\eta `$ \[that is, from Eq. (4), $`e=(\kappa _{e\eta }/C^{})\eta ^2`$\].

This analysis may be expanded to include secondary couplings.

(i) Effect of softening in $`C_{44}`$: Ren and Otsuka RenOtsuka  pointed out that in some materials $`C_{44}`$ also softens with temperature and consequently there may be a competition between both $`C^{}`$ and $`C_{44}`$ modes. In that case:

$$F(e,ϵ,\eta )=F(e,\eta )+\frac{C_{44}}{2}ϵ^2+\kappa _{ϵ\eta }ϵ\eta ^2,$$
(5)
where $`ϵ`$ is the corresponding (symmetry-adapted shear $`e_4`$) strain and $`\kappa _{ϵ\eta }`$ the strength of the symmetry allowed coupling term. The expression of F(e,$`\eta `$) is given by (1). We may write an effective free-energy in terms of $`\eta `$ and obtain that the renormalized coefficient is now given by:

$$\beta _r=\beta \frac{2(\kappa _{e\eta })^2}{C^{}}\left[1+\frac{(\kappa _{ϵ\eta }/\kappa _{e\eta })^2}{A}\right],$$
(6)
where $`A=C_{44}/C^{}`$ is the elastic anisotropy. The coupling between both shear modes is then given by:

$$ϵ=\left[\frac{\kappa _{ϵ\eta }}{\kappa _{e\eta }}\right]\frac{e}{A}.$$
(7)
We emphasize that this relationship between the two shear strains is naturally mediated through the elastic constant anisotropy ($`A`$).

(ii) Role of magnetism: From the existing data, it appears to renormalize the shuffle coefficients (see Fig. 2). Clearly, d-electrons are responsible in NiTi(Fe) and Ni-Mn-Ga while f-electrons are crucial in $`\alpha `$-U and other actinides, especially hecker ; kotliar  Pu. The ‘kink’ observed at the Curie point $`T_c`$ is described by writing $`\omega _r^2(m)=\omega ^2+\kappa _{m\eta }m^2`$ (with $`\kappa _{m\eta }<0`$), where $`m`$ denotes magnetization. Other couplings that renormalize the strain coefficients are also very likely. Unfortunately there is no data on the behavior of $`C^{}`$ around $`T_c`$.

(iii) For $`\alpha `$-U it follows from symmetry analysis that the monoclinic strain is coupled to the frozen phonon amplitude walker . Thus, the anomaly at 1.2 K in the specific heat lashley  may be an indication of MT to a monoclinic phase. This may also happen for other actinides, including the apparently strange behavior hecker ; kotliar  of Pu.

## IV Conclusion

We have proposed a general framework for understanding multi-stage martensitic transformations which is consistent with a large amount of experimental data on different materials such as Ni-Al, Ni-Mn-Ga, NiTi(Fe), $`\alpha `$-U, Fe-Pd, Au-Cd, etc. Specifically, presence of an incommensurate, and in some cases an additional commensurate, modulated phase as precursors to the MT reflects itself in the anomalous (softening and further ‘hardening’) of both the elastic constants and phonons. In the case of some magnetic martensites, particularly Ni-Mn-Ga, the phonon softening is enhanced by magnetism. We propose additional experiments that may test the broader validity of our scenario. (i) Measurements of $`C^{}`$ in Ni-Mn-Ga as a function of temperature with the hope of observing a change in slope around $`T_c`$. (ii) Low temperature (below 30 K) measurements of phonon dispersion in $`\alpha `$-U to observe a possible up-turn (akin to that in Ni-Mn-Ga). (iii) Measurements indicating a possible structural phase transition to a monoclinic martensite around 1.2 K in $`\alpha `$-U.

From the new perspective presented here it is clear that, concerning structural behavior, the underlying physics in such disparate systems as shape memory alloys and $`\alpha `$-U is quite similar. We have attempted to extract some unifying principles that provide new insight into multi-stage, modulated structural transformations. Moreover, these connections may enable exchange of ideas and expertise from one set of materials to another and vice versa.

Inclusion of gradient terms will allow us to study domain walls, especially antiphase boundaries, twin boundaries and microstructure by augmenting the Landau free energy with Ginzburg terms rasmussen  in multi-stage transformations. It remains to be explored how the multi-stage character of the transformation affects domain wall orientation and energetics, specifically the microstructure.

This global view of the many factors implicated for different materials has drawn our attention particularly to the need for further study, in any complex material, for new, refined measurements of heat capacities and magnetic susceptibility.

## V Acknowledgment

We thank L. Mañosa, E. Vives and J.C. Lashley for fruitful discussions. We are indebted to G.R. Barsch, J.A. Krumhansl, K. Otsuka and S.M. Shapiro for critical comments. A.S. gratefully acknowledges a fellowship from Iberdrola (Spain). This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy and in part by the CICyT (Spain) project MAT2001-3251 and CIRIT (Catalonia) project (2001SGR00066).


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# Density profiles and clustering of dark halos and clusters of galaxies

## 1. Introduction

The key assumption underlying the standard picture of structure formation is that the luminous objects form in a gravitational potential of dark matter halos. Therefore, a detailed description of halo density profiles as well as of their clustering properties is the most basic step toward constructing the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters.

More specifically, the importance of the detailed studies of density profiles of dark halos is two-fold:

What is the final (quasi-)equilibrium state of cosmological self-gravitating systems (as long as the energy dissipation is neglected) ? One may easily think of two quite distinct, but equally plausible, possibilities;

1. the systems reach a certain universal distribution which is independent of the cosmological initial condition.
2. the systems somehow keep the memory of the cosmological initial condition even at the highly nonlinear regime.

The singular isothermal sphere:

$`\rho (r)={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma ^2}{2\pi G}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^2}}`$ (1)
may be a reasonable possibility along the line of the idea (A). As a matter of fact, quite often I meet people who argue that the idea (B) is unlikely because of the strong nonlinear nature of the gravitation. In such an occasion, I present an example of the well-known stable clustering solution for the nonlinear two-point correlation function (Davis & Peebles 1977):

$`P_{\mathrm{mass}}(k)`$ $``$ $`k^n\xi _{\mathrm{mass}}(r)r^{3(n+3)/(n+5)}.`$ (2)
This provides a good specific case that the cosmological initial condition is not erased and imprinted even in the strongly nonlinear behavior as is well confirmed by later numerical simulations (e.g., Suto 1993; Suginohara et al. 2001). Of course the answer to the final state of cosmological self-gravitating systems may not be unique since it should really depend on the specifics and scales of the systems under consideration. For instance, it is clearly hopeless to extract any meaningful cosmological information from the precise data on the orbit of the earth around the Sun; all the initial memory should have been lost due to the strongly nonlinear and chaotic nature of the gravitation. Nevertheless the final state of dark matter halos corresponding to galaxy- and cluster-scales is a well-defined problem which may be reliably answered with the current high-resolution numerical simulations independently of the physical intuition.

Whether or not the density profiles of dark halos keep the cosmological initial memory, the quantitative (empirical) prediction of the profile for a given set of cosmological parameters has several profound astrophysical implications including the rotation curve of spiral galaxies, reconstruction of the mass distribution from the weak-lensing, and X-ray and SZ observations of galaxy clusters. In particular, the confrontation of those testable predictions against the accurate observational data may even challenge the cold dark matter paradigm itself.

In this article, first I will review the summary of the past studies of the density profiles of dark matter halos, and then present some applications of those results.

## 2. Previous work on the density profiles of dark matter halos

The study of the density profiles of cosmological self-gravitating systems or dark halos has a long history. Table 2 is my personal (and thus incomplete) summary of some past work that I recognize (or at least I have really read those papers).

Hoffman & Shaham (1985) argued, on the basis of the secondary infall model (Gunn & Gott 1972), that the density profile around peaks is given by $`\rho r^{3(n+3)/(n+4)}`$ where $`nd\mathrm{ln}P(k)/d\mathrm{ln}k`$ is the spectral index of the density fluctuation field. The resulting power index $`3(n+3)/(n+4)`$ is close to, but slightly differ from, that for the stable clustering solution for the nonlinear two-point correlation function $`3(n+3)/(n+5)`$. In any case this result implies that the density profile of dark halos does keep the initial memory.

Many subsequent numerical simulations seem to have confirmed the prediction of Hoffman & Shaham (1985). While some authors have reported the existence of a kind of universal profile, they were not able to specify its functional form. In this respect, the proposal of the specific universal density profile by Navarro, Frenk & White (1995, 1996, 1997) was really a breakthrough. They suggested that all simulated density profiles can be well fitted to the following simple model (now referred to as the NFW profile):

$$\rho (r)\frac{1}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})(1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^2}$$
(3)
by an appropriate choice of the scaling radius $`r_\mathrm{s}=r_\mathrm{s}(M)`$ as a function of the halo mass $`M`$. Considering the previous conclusion from numerical simulations, their claim was quite surprising and, in some sense, contradictory. It turned out that most simulations prior to their discovery did not have sufficient mass-resolution to reliably represent the deep central gravitational potential, which gives rise to an artificial central core. This presents a good example that the quantitative difference leads to the qualitatively different interpretation of the physical phenomena; now the density profile of dark halos seems to lose the initial memory, and thus the answer to the final (quasi-)equilibrium state of cosmological self-gravitating systems changes even in a qualitative way; from the possibility (A) to (B) mentioned in the previous section !

If this change of the qualitative conclusion (from Hoffman & Shaham to NFW) is really ascribed to the mass-resolution of the numerical simulations, one should naturally wonder whether or not current numerical simulations are sufficiently reliable for the present problem. This motivated many people to examine the convergence of the profile, in particular, its inner power-law index, with significantly higher–resolution simulations. Fukushige & Makino (1997) are the first to claim that the inner slope of density halos is much steeper than the NFW value. Their claim was confirmed by a series of systematic studies by Moore et al. (1998, 1999), and the current consensus among most (but not all) numerical simulators in this field is the converged profile is given by

$$\rho (r)\frac{1}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})^\alpha (1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^{3\alpha }}$$
(4)
with $`\alpha 1.5`$ rather than the NFW value, $`\alpha =1`$, (e.g., Fukushige & Makino 2001). In most cases this difference is fairly minor and the NFW profile still provides a good empirical approximation to the dark matter halo (Jing & Suto 2002).

I just reproduce two figures from my collaborative work (Jing & Suto 2000) just to illustrate the validity of the universal density profile (eq.) despite the fact that their projected images look very diverse rather than universal. It is hard to imagine the regularity of the averaged profiles plotted in Figure 2 behind the apparent diversity quite visible in Figure 1.

## 3. Observational confrontation of the universal density profile

### 3.1. Mass profile and rotation curve

The advantage of the NFW profile is that it is completely specified for a given of cosmological parameters. Therefore this leads to a variety of testable quantitative predictions. In fact, one can write down all the necessary formulae in the following concise manner:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _c\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})(1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^2}},`$ (5)
where $`\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$(z) is the critical density of the universe at $`z`$

$`\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}(z)={\displaystyle \frac{3H_0^2(1+z)^3}{8\pi G}}1.8\times 10^{11}(1+z)^3h^2M_{}/\mathrm{Mpc}^3.`$ (6)
The characteristic halo density contrast $`\delta _c`$, and the scaling radius $`r_s`$ are written in terms of the concentration parameter as

$`\delta _c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{vir}}\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{c_{\mathrm{vir}}^3}{\mathrm{ln}(1+c_{\mathrm{vir}})c_{\mathrm{vir}}/(1+c_{\mathrm{vir}})}},`$ (7)
$`r_s(M)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{r_{\mathrm{vir}}(M)}{c_{\mathrm{vir}}}}.`$ (8)
Finally the virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}=r_{\mathrm{vir}}(M,z)`$ and the concentration parameter are given as

$`r_{\mathrm{vir}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{3M}{4\pi \mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{vir}}\mathrm{\Omega }_0\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}}\right)^{1/3}{\displaystyle \frac{1.69}{1+z}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{vir}}\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{18\pi ^2}}\right)^{1/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{10^{15}h^1M_{}}}\right)^{1/3},`$ (9)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{vir}}\{\begin{array}{cc}18\pi ^2\mathrm{\Omega }(z)^{0.7}\hfill & (\lambda _0=0)\hfill \\ 18\pi ^2\mathrm{\Omega }(z)^{0.6}\hfill & (\lambda _0=1\mathrm{\Omega }_0)\hfill \end{array},`$ (12)
$`c_{\mathrm{vir}}(M,z)={\displaystyle \frac{9}{1+z}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{1.5\times 10^{13}h^1M_{}}}\right)^{0.13}.`$ (13)
The expression for $`c_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is the fitting formula in LCDM (Lambda Cold Dark Matter) by Bullock et al. (2001).

Then the corresponding mass profile and the circular velocity are computed in a straightforward manner as

$`M(r)=4\pi {\displaystyle _0^r}{\displaystyle \frac{\delta _c\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}r^2}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})(1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^2}}𝑑r=4\pi \delta _c\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}r_s^3\left[\mathrm{ln}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_s}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{r}{r+r_s}}\right],`$ (14)
and

$`V_c(r)=\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{GM(r)}{r}}}=\sqrt{4\pi \delta _c\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}r_s^2\left[{\displaystyle \frac{r_s}{r}}\mathrm{ln}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_s}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{r_s}{r+r_s}}\right]}.`$ (15)
The above results explicitly show that one can in principle compare the universal density profile with the observational data without any unknown free parameter. This is why the reported disagreement with the mass profile reconstructed from weak/strong lensing (Tyson et al. 1998) and the rotation curves of dwarf/low surface brightness galaxies (e.g., Moore et al. 1999; de Blok et al. 2001), if real, cannot be easily accommodated in the context of the standard paradigm of cold dark matter.

### 3.2. X-ray gas density profile from the universal density profile of dark halos: origin of the isothermal $`\beta `$ model ?

Another important application of the universal density profile of dark halos may be found in X-ray emission from galaxy clusters. A simple but realistic approximation is the isothermal gas distribution in hydrostatic equilibrium embedded in the NFW halo gravitational potential. Actually the hydrostatic equilibrium equation:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dp_{\mathrm{gas}}}{dr}}={\displaystyle \frac{GM(r)}{r^2}}\rho _{\mathrm{gas}},`$ (16)
combined with the NFW profile and equation of state

$`p_{\mathrm{gas}}=n_{\mathrm{gas}}kT_{\mathrm{gas}}={\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}}{\mu m_p}}kT_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ (17)
can be analytically integrated (Makino, Sasaki & Suto 1998; Suto, Sasaki & Makino 1998) as

$`\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)=\rho _{\mathrm{g0}}e^B\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{r}{r_s}}\right)^{Br_s/r},B{\displaystyle \frac{G\mu m_p}{kT_{\mathrm{gas}}}}4\pi \delta _c\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}r_s^2.`$ (18)
More surprising is the fact that the above model is very close to the conventional $`\beta `$ model. Indeed we found the following fit as illustrated in Figure 3:

$`\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{g0}A}{[1+(r/r_{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{eff}})^2]^{3\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}/2}}},`$ (19)
$`A`$ $``$ $`0.178b+0.982=0.013B+0.982(b2B/27),`$ (20)
$`r_{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{eff}}`$ $``$ $`0.22r_s,\beta _{\mathrm{eff}}0.9b=0.067B.`$
As far as I understand, this work is the first analytical model for the cluster gas distribution obtained by consistently solving the Poisson equation for the underlying halo mass distribution. The fact that the resulting gas profile is quite similar to the isothermal $`\beta `$ model, widely used as a good empirical model, is encouraging. On the other hand, the expected core sizes of clusters seem to be significantly smaller than the observational ones (Fig. 4). In fact, rotation curves of dwarf/LSB galaxies (Moore et al. 1999; de Blok et al. 2001) and the mass profile reconstructed for the galaxy cluster CL0024 (Tyson et al. 1998) also indicate the presence of the core, rather than cusp, in the halo density profile. While this is still controversial at this point, Spergel & Steinhard (2000) among others even proposed to abandon the collisionless nature of dark matter to reconcile the reported discrepancy.

### 3.3. Collisional dark matter

Since the cold dark matter model is known to successfully reproduce the large-scale structure of the universe ($`r1`$Mpc), the possible collision of dark matter should be effective only at scales below 1Mpc. The required collision cross section $`\sigma `$ for a dark matter particle of mass $`m`$ may be obtained by assuming

$`(mn)\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{m}}\right)l1\mathrm{for}mn\rho _{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{cluster}}\mathrm{and}l1\mathrm{M}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{c}.`$ (21)
This may be rewritten as

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma }{m}}\right)1.6h^1\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{g}\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^4\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}{\rho _{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{cluster}}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1h^1\mathrm{Mpc}}{l}}\right)`$ (22)
or equivalently as

$`\sigma 2.5\times 10^{24}h^1\mathrm{cm}^2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m}{1\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{10^4\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}{\rho _{\mathrm{c},\mathrm{cluster}}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1h^1\mathrm{Mpc}}{l}}\right).`$ (23)
The corresponding mean collision time-scale is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }t{\displaystyle \frac{l}{v}}10^9\left({\displaystyle \frac{1000\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}}{v}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{l}{1h^1\mathrm{Mpc}}}\right)h^1\mathrm{year}.`$ (24)
The above rough estimate is encouraging because in the Hubble time collisional dark matter with the cross section of an order $`\sigma /m1`$cm2/g will affect the central part of dark halos only while keeping the larger-scale behavior intact.

More detailed study of the effect of collision should be made again with numerical simulations. Yoshida et al. (1999) and Davé et al. (2001) conducted such simulations and found that dark matter models with $`\sigma /m1\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}^2/g`$ lead to the formation of the softened central core, rather than cusp, in cluster-sized halos. The models, however, simultaneously produce too spherical halos to be compatible with the gravitational lensing observations (Miralda-Escude 2002). In addition, there are other indications to favor the presence of halos on the basis of the gravitational lensing statistics (Molikawa & Hattori 2001; Oguri et al. 2001; Takahashi & Chiba 2001; Li & Ostriker 2001). Furthermore, CL0024 seems to be a very complicated system and thus the interpretation of its density profile is not straightforward (Czoske et al. 2002).

## 4. Beyond spherical description of dark halos

Actually it is rather surprising that the fairly accurate scaling relation applies after the spherical average despite the fact that the departure from the spherical symmetry is quite visible in almost all simulated halos (Fig. 1). A more realistic modeling of dark matter halos beyond the spherical approximation is important in understanding various observed properties of galaxy clusters and non-linear clustering (especially the high-order clustering statistics) of dark matter in general. In particular, the non-sphericity of dark halos is supposed to play a central role in the X-ray morphologies of clusters, in the cosmological parameter determination via the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect and in the prediction of the cluster weak lensing and the gravitational arc statistics (Bartelmann et al. 1998; Meneghetti et al. 2000, 2001; Molikawa & Hattori 2001, Oguri et al 2001).

Recently Jing & Suto (2002) presented a detailed non-spherical modeling of dark matter halos on the basis of a combined analysis of the high-resolution halo simulations (12 halos with $`N10^6`$ particles within their virial radius) and the large cosmological simulations (5 realizations with $`N=512^3`$ particles in a $`100h^1`$Mpc boxsize). The density profiles of those simulated halos are well approximated by a sequence of the concentric triaxial distribution with their axis directions being fairly aligned. They characterize the triaxial model quantitatively by generalizing the universal density profile which has previously been discussed only in the framework of the spherical model, and obtain a series of practically useful fitting formulae in applying the triaxial model; the mass and redshift dependence of the axis ratio, the mean of the concentration parameter, and the probability distribution functions of the the axis ratio and the concentration parameter. Their triaxial description of the dark halos will be particularly useful in predicting a variety of nonsphericity effects, to a reasonably reliable degree, including the weak and strong lens statistics, the orbital evolution of galactic satellites and triaxiality of galactic halos, and the non-linear clustering of dark matter. Some applications of the triaxial halo model is now in progress (Lee & Suto 2002).

## 5. Clustering of dark halo on the light-cone

All cosmological observations are carried out on a light-cone, the null hypersurface of an observer at $`z=0`$, and not on any constant-time hypersurface. Thus clustering amplitude and shape of objects should naturally evolve even within the survey volume of a given observational catalogue. Unless restricting the objects at a narrow bin of $`z`$ at the expense of the statistical significance, the proper understanding of the data requires a theoretical model to take account of the average over the light cone (Matsubara, Suto, & Szapudi 1997; Mataresse et al. 1997; Moscardini et al. 1998; Nakamura, Matsubara, & Suto 1998; Yamamoto & Suto 1999; Suto et al. 1999). We take account of all relevant physical effects and construct an empirical model for the two-point correlation functions of dark halos on the light-cone (Hamana, Colombi, & Suto 2001a; Hamana, Yoshida, Suto & Evrard 2001b).

Figure 6 plots the projected distribution of identified halos from “light-cone output” of the Hubble Volume $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM simulation (Evrard et al. 2002) with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.04`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{CDM}}=0.26`$, $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`h=0.7`$.

Figure 7 displays the redshift distribution of the cumulative mass functions of the identified halos with $`M>2.2\times 10^{13}h^1M_{}`$, $`5.0\times 10^{13}h^1M_{}`$, and $`1.0\times 10^{14}h^1M_{}`$. The total number of the corresponding halos at $`0<z<3`$ is 21,090, 5,554 and 1,543, respectively. For comparison, we also plot the predictions on the basis of the Press-Schechter mass function (short-dashed lines), the modified mass function by Sheth & Tormen (1999; dotted lines), and the fitting model by Jenkins et al. (2001; long-dashed lines). The Press-Schechter model underpredicts the halo abundance at $`z>1`$, while the Sheth-Tormen model overpredicts beyond $`z1.5`$. This tendency is consistent with the previous finding of Jenkins et al. (2001) that the Sheth-Tormen model overestimates the number of halos when ln($`\sigma ^1`$) becomes large.

Figure 8 compares our model predictions with the clustering of simulated halos. For the dark matter correlation functions, our model reproduces the simulation data almost perfectly at $`R>3h^1`$Mpc (see also Hamana et al. 2001a). This scale corresponds to the mean particle separation of this particular simulation, and thus the current simulation systematically underestimates the real clustering below this scale especially at $`z>0.5`$. Our model and simulation data also show quite good agreement for dark halos at scales larger than $`5h^1`$Mpc. Below that scale, they start to deviate slightly in a complicated fashion depending on the mass of halo and the redshift range. This discrepancy may be ascribed to both the numerical limitations of the current simulations and our rather simplified model for the halo biasing. Nevertheless the clustering of clusters on scales below $`5h^1`$Mpc is difficult to determine observationally anyway, and our model predictions differ from the simulation data only by $`20`$ percent at most. Therefore we conclude that in practice our empirical model provides a successful description of halo clustering on the light-cone.

## 6. What’s next ? : dark halos vs. galaxy clusters

As I have briefly shown in the above sections, understanding of the density profiles and clustering of dark halos has been significantly advanced during last several years. With those theoretical/empirical successes in mind, the next natural question is how to apply them for the description of real galaxy clusters. In principle this may be fairly straightforward, but in reality the main obstacle is the lack of the proper definition of clusters. This point of view is clearly illustrated in Figure 9 which summarizes the conventional definitions of clusters/halos in various situations. There are a wide range of practical (and quite different!) definitions of dark halos and clusters of galaxies. Of course they are closely related, but the one-to-one correspondence is unlikely and nothing but a working hypothesis. We we need more quantitative justification or modification of the working hypothesis in order to move on to precision cosmology with clusters.

This problem has not been considered seriously probably because the agreement between model predictions and available observations seems already satisfactory. In fact, since current viable cosmological models are specified by a set of many adjustable parameters, the agreement does not necessarily justify the underlying assumption. Thus it is dangerous to stop doubting the unjustified assumption because of the (apparent) success.

#### Acknowledgments.

I would like to thank S. Bowyer and C.-Y. Hwang for inviting me to this well-organized and fruitful meeting. The plots that I presented in these proceedings are based on my collaborative work with A.E.Evrard, T.Hamana, Y.P.Jing, N.Makino, S.Sasaki and N.Yoshida. This research was supported in part by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of JSPS (12640231, 14102004).

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# Outflow from and asymmetries in the nebula around the LBV candidate Sk-69∘279

## 1 Introduction

Stars are known up to masses around 100 M with main sequence luminosities of $`10^{56}`$ L. As O stars they are located in the upper left part of the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (HRD). In their later evolution, they leave the main-sequence at almost constant luminosity towards redder spectral types, i.e, they quickly cool and become supergiants. However, instead of completing their evolution towards the red, the most massive ones among them enter a phase of very high mass loss (up to 10-4 Myr-1) and reverse the direction of their evolution, i.e., the stars become hotter again (e.g., Schaller 1992; Langer et al. 1994; Schaerer 1996a,b). These stars are known as Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs). The location of the turning points of LBVs in the HRD is called the Humphreys-Davidson limit (HD-limit; Humphreys & Davidson 1979, 1994, Langer et al. 1994). It is a function of the stellar luminosity. The position of most LBVs and LBV candidates known is illustrated in Fig111 This figure is nearly identical to Fig. 9 from Humphreys & Davidson (1994), and was copied with the permission of the authors.1, where a solid line marks the empirical HD-limit. Since LBVs show also spectral variability both the hottest and coolest temperature (e.g., their position in the non-eruptive and eruptive states) are indicated with filled and open dots. The regime of the hypergiants, red supergiants and the location of the main-sequence is shown for reference, as is the position of the precursor of SN1987A. Presently, only a few LBVs are known (roughly 40, including candidate objects, see, e.g., Humphreys & Davidson 1994), of which 9 are in our Galaxy and 10 in the LMC.

The strong stellar winds and possible so-called giant eruptions, lead to the formation of nebulae around LBVs, the LBV nebulae (e.g., Nota et al. 1995, Weis 2001). These LBV nebulae are typically up to 2 pc in diameter. Because of this small size, they can be studied only in our galaxy and—with the high-resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)—in a few neighboring galaxies like, for instance, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). For a better understanding of the evolution of LBVs and especially the formation of LBV nebulae a good knowledge of the parameters of the nebulae around LBVs is of great interest.

## 2 The LBV candidate Sk-69279 and its nebula

Sk$`69^{}279`$ (Sanduleak 1970) is a bright and hot star ($`m_{\mathrm{pg}}=12\stackrel{m}{.}5`$) in the LMC in the field of the supergiant shell LMC 2, or—more precisely—on the eastern edge of the H ii complex N 160 (see Henize 1956). The star was identified as a Hα emission-line star, by Bohannan & Epps (1974), and named BE(74) 619 in this publication. The authors note in addition to the stellar emission-line a sharp feature seen bluewards of Hα, but do not discuss this feature further. A photometry of Sk$`69^{}279`$ measured the blue supergiant with $`m_\mathrm{V}=12\stackrel{m}{.}79`$ and $`(\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V})=0\stackrel{m}{.}05`$ (Isserstedt 1975). Later—based on prism spectroscopy—spectral types of O $``$ B0 (Rousseau et al. 1978) and—based on grating observations—O9f (Conti et al. 1986) were quoted. Thompson et al. (1982) derived an effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{30\hspace{0.17em}300}`$K, an absolute bolometric magnitude $`M_{\mathrm{bol}}=9\stackrel{m}{.}72`$, $`M_\mathrm{V}=6\stackrel{m}{.}77`$ and a radius of R$`=28`$ R. Various analysis especially of UV data (IUE) and IR photometry of Sk$`69^{}279`$ exist (Morgan & Nandy 1982, Nandy et al. 1981, 1984, Gummersbach et al. 1995, Misselt et al. 1999) but were mainly used for the determination of the interstellar extinction towards the LMC and don’t yield further information concerning the star itself, beside that it is reddened and that the stellar wind terminal velocity is of the order of 1000 km s-1(Nandy et al. 1984, determined from the Si iv line). In a recent analysis of IUE spectra, Smith Neubig & Bruhweiler (1999) found that Sk$`69^{}279`$’s UV spectra resemble that of type B0 ii, and note that the star shows weak Si iv, C iv, Al iii, Fe iii as well as strong Si ii/iii lines. The most recent photometry (Schmidt-Kaler et al. 1999) of Sk$`69^{}279`$ finds values which are—within the errors—consistent with those of Isserstedt (1975).

Weis et al. (1995; in the following referred to as W95) found that Sk$`69^{}279`$ is surrounded by a circumstellar shell which has a diameter of about 18″ or 4.5 pc (assuming a distance to the LMC of 50 kpc). Hα images of the shell (Weis et al. 1997, in the following referred to as W97) show a ring-like structure with some brighter areas within this ring (Knot E, Knot S and Knot N). Knot E reaches beyond the shell and clearly deforms the otherwise almost perfectly round ring structure. The shell is expanding very slowly with an expansion velocity $`v_{\mathrm{exp}}14`$km s-1 (W97). In addition to an otherwise almost spherical expansion (see, in particular, the flat expansion pattern in Fig. 4 in W97) kinematic deviations from a simple expanding shell were found. A feature, which was identified with the morphologically classified Knot E, moves $`40`$km s-1 faster than the center of expansion or about 20 km s-1 faster than the backside of the shell at the corresponding position. One of the most unusual properties of the nebula around Sk$`69^{}279`$ is the high \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å/Hα ratio, which reaches a value of 0.7, compared to a \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å/Hα ratio of the background H ii region of only 0.07. In particular due to the large \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å/Hα ratio and the star’s location in the HRD, W97 concluded that Sk$`69^{}279`$ actually is a good candidate for a LBV with a typical LBV nebula around it. LBV nebulae are characterized by such large \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å/Hα ratios due to CNO-processed material.

Supporting evidence for Sk$`69^{}279`$ being a candidate LBV came from the IUE analysis of Smith Neubig & Bruhweiler (1999). They detected in Sk$`69^{}279`$’s spectra features which are found in and regarded as characteristic for the previously classified LBVs and LBV candidates. In a very detailed analysis about S Dor variables in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds (van Genderen 2001), stars which show a certain varibility which is very typical for LBVs, Sk$`69^{}279`$ appears among the ex-/dormant S Dor variables222There is, however, no history of variability of Sk$`69^{}279`$ so far, mainly due to the lack of data (van Genderen, priv. comm.). In the same group as Sk$`69^{}279`$ van Genderen lists, for instance, S 119, S 61 and He 3-519—all stars are known as LBV candidates (Humphreys & Davidson 1994). Comparing the stellar parameters of Sk$`69^{}279`$ with those of other LBVs, the star is only slightly hotter than most of the other LBVs as seen from Fig. 1. Sk$`69^{}279`$’s location is, for example, still very similar to that of WRA 751 a galactic LBV candidate or to that of S 119 (see again Fig. 1), another LBV candidate and similar in temperature to it (see also van Genderen 2001, Tab. 8). Therefore the star’s location in the HRD (see Fig. 1), its classification as ex-/dormant S Dor variable and its \[N ii\] bright nebula makes it quite likely that Sk$`69^{}279`$ belongs to the LBV group. What we do know about the star, is consistent with its LBV candidate classification. The stars slightly hotter temperature can probably be attributed to it being a more evolved LBV, as it was proposed for He 3-519 (Davidson et al. 1993).

## 3 Observation and data reduction

### 3.1 Imaging with the 0.9 m CTIO

For the present investigations, we made use of our already published image of Sk$`69^{}279`$ and its nebula (W95, W97). The image was taken with the 0.9 m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). A 75 Å wide Hα filter, centered at 6563 Å was used, which also contains emission from the \[N ii\] lines at $`\lambda \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}6548}`$ and 6583 Å. The full field of view with this setup was 13$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 $`\times `$ 13$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 and the scale was about 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$4 pixel-1. The exposure time was 600 s, the seeing $`1\stackrel{}{.}6`$.

### 3.2 Long-slit echelle spectroscopy

To investigate the kinematics in the Sk$`69^{}279`$ nebula, new high-resolution long-slit echelle spectra were taken with the CTIO 4 m telescope. The setup of the echelle spectrograph was nearly identical to that used by W97: In both setups the cross-disperser was replaced by a flat mirror and a post-slit Hα filter (6563/75 Å) was used to select the orders. The spectral region chosen contained the Hα line and the two \[Nii\] lines at $`\lambda `$6548 and 6583 Å. The spatial slit length was vignetted to $`4^{}`$ and we used the 79 l mm-1 echelle grating with a slit-width of 150 $`\mu `$m (in contrast to W97, who used a slit width of 250 $`\mu `$m). This leads to an instrumental FWHM at the Hα line of $`8`$ km s-1. The data were recorded with the long focus red camera and a $`2048\times 2048`$ pixel squared CCD, with a pixel size of 0.08 Å pixel-1 along the dispersion and 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$26 pixel-1 on the spatial axis. The spectra were taken on January 29, 1999. The seeing was $`1`$$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 during the observations. The weather was not photometric. For wavelength calibration and geometric distortion correction, Thorium-Argon comparison lamp frames were taken. The telluric lines visible in the spectra helped to improve the absolute wavelength calibration. The final accuracy of the wavelength calibration is estimated to be at least 0.04 Å or about 2 km s-1.

The data reduction was perfomed using the longslit package in IRAF333IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories which is operated by AURA, Inc. under cooperative agreement with the NSF.. For wavelength calibration a list of thorium and argon lines ($`31809665`$ Å, as pre-installed in IRAF and revised in Feb. 1992, Daryl Willmarth, see IRAF help on linelists) was used, and a Chebychev 6th order fit. For the correction of the deformation along the spatial axis, frames with stars present were used. In this case, six stars were available, located at different positions on the CCD. Here a 2nd order Chebychev function was fitted. After fitting the calibration files, this database was used and transformed onto the data. After correcting for the distortion along the spatial axis and the wavelength calibration, the final fitting of the data, e.g., the determination of the velocities, was performed using a gauss function, and correcting for the continuum emission. The accuracy to which the peak of the gaussian could be fitted to the data (that is the central velocity) was estimated fitting all lines present and comparing the offsets (line fits to each individual line were always identical within the limits of the fitting accuracy which is smaller than 0.2 km s-1). The errors of the radial velocity measurements are therefore estimated to be of the order of $`\pm `$ 0.5 km s-1. Since this is much smaller than the size of the symbols used in all position-velocity diagrams ($`pv`$-diagrams), no error bars are visible in these plots.

To improve on the spatial coverage of our spectral data, we chose a position angle (PA) of 180, i.e., orthogonal to that of the spectra by W97. At this PA, three spectra were taken: One centered on the star (Slit Center NS) and two offset 3″ to the east (Slit 3E) and to the west (Slit 3W) of the central star, respectively. The new slit positions as well as the ones from W97 (dotted lines) are indicated and labeled in Fig. 3. For consistency we label W97’s spectra as Slit 4N and Slit Center EW. They were published originally as Figs. 3 (a) and (b) in W97. The echellograms of all five spectra are shown in Fig. 4. The echellograms are 1′ in spatial direction and centered on the star, or—in cases of the off-centered slits—on the projected position of the star onto the slit. The spectral range of each echellogram is 65 Å and the central position coincides with the rest wavelength of Hα. In Fig. 5 we present the corresponding $`pv`$-diagrams of the respective slits. Velocities are quoted in the heliocentric reference system with the systemic velocity subtracted, and are determined from the Doppler shifts in the \[N ii$`\lambda `$6583 Å line.

## 4 The morphology of the nebula around Sk-69279

A morphological discussion has still to be based on the image discussed in W97 as no improvement was achieved since. W97 noticed three deviations in Sk$`69^{}279`$’s nebula from a spherical shell, manifesting themself as extended knots (see also Fig. 2) and named Knots E, S, and N. Knots N and S are located within the ring structure and are characterized by their higher surface brightness as compared to their surroundings. In contrast, Knot E manifests itself as a geometrical deviation from the ring structure appearing as a triangularly shaped attachment to the ring. To disentangle these knots from possible back/foreground stars a continuum subtracted image was made and shown in W97. While the emission (i.e., the continuum) of all stars in the field was successfully subtracted, all identified knots still show up in the continuum free image, giving evidence that the knots are real brighter emission line regions within the shell. In addition to these already described features, we identify in Sk$`69^{}279`$’s nebula the Filament N (Fil N, Fig. 2). Fil N extends from Knot N about 7$`\stackrel{}{.}`$1 (corresponding to 1.7 pc) to the north and is—similar to Knot E—roughly triangular in shape. Fil N has a very low surface brightness compared to other parts of the nebula and might easily be mistaken as a part of the background H ii region. Because of this, its membership to Sk$`69^{}279`$’s nebula can be established only with the help of a spectral analysis (Sect. 5) and thus could not be classified earlier.

## 5 The kinematics of the nebula around Sk-69279

Already W97’s two spectra of the nebula around Sk$`69^{}279`$ showed that the expansion is not perfectly spherical but displays faster moving small scale features. The three new spectra taken with a north-south orientation support these earlier results. Fig. 4 shows the echellograms of all five spectra. Expansion ellipses are the clearly visible main features in all spectra.

For comparison purposes, we model the expansion as being spherically symmetric with a velocity $`v_{\mathrm{exp}}`$ and a radius $`R`$ of the nebula. We introduce a coordinate system $`\{\eta ,\xi \}`$, where the coordinate $`\xi `$ is measured along the slit and has its origin at the star’s projected position, and the coordinate $`\eta `$ in a perpendicular direction with the same origin. The observed radial velocity distribution $`v_{\mathrm{rad},\mathrm{rel}}^{\mathrm{spher}}`$ relative to the systemic velocity then is

$$\left|v_{\mathrm{rad},\mathrm{rel}}^{\mathrm{spher}}(\eta ,\xi )\right|=v_{\mathrm{exp}}\left(\frac{R^2\eta ^2\xi ^2}{R^2}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(1)
In Fig. 5 we compare for all five slit positions and orientations the model velocities with the observed values. The measured radial velocities were transformed into the central star’s reference system by correcting for a systemic velocity of 230 km s-1 (W97). We find that in all cases the observed run of the radial velocities differs from what a pure spherical model predicts. These differences are significant given the accuracy of our spectra.

In addition, a closer comparison of the $`pv`$-diagrams (Fig. 4) shows that the maximum expansion velocities (here defined as the center of the line split) of each Doppler ellipse lie at different positions in each slit. In Slit 3E the maximum expansion velocity amounts to 15.1 km s-1 at the position 0″, in Slit Center NS it is 14.8 km s-1 at 5$`\stackrel{}{.}`$7, in Slit 3W 17.5 km s-1 at 3$`\stackrel{}{.}`$7, in Slit Center EW 16.0 km s-1 at $`4\mathrm{}`$, and in Slit 4N 16.9 km s-1 at 2″. These off-centered maximum expansion velocities and the asymmetric shapes of the ellipses are a clear indication that the expansion is not spherically symmetric. In particular in Slit 3W (see middle panel in Figs. 4 and 5) the expansion pattern is deformed and considerably deviates from an elliptic shape, being smaller at the center (see waist like deformation at position 0″) and getting wider to the north at $`4\mathrm{}`$.

Comparing the positions of the maximum expansion velocity of each slit we find that the regions with the highest expansion velocities are located nearly exactly to the north (since the maximum expansion velocity found in the north-south oriented slits lie at positive offsets) and to the east of the star. Two of the spectra (Slit 3E and Slit 4N) have expansion ellipses which are open on one side, in Slit 3E to the north (upper part) and in Slit 4N to the east (lower part). Here the shell forms no coherent structure anymore, or only very faint emission with a much lower surface brightness (below our detection limit) is present.

Beside of this global expansion pattern, several regions are found in the spectra which move significantly faster or slower than the expansion ellipse at that point or extend beyond the ellipse. Most prominent is a feature seen in Slit Center NS (Figs. 4 and 5). Here to the north (top) of the slit a long red-shifted emission extends beginning at the end of the ellipse. This feature is about 10″ long, corresponding to 2.5 pc. The spectrum shows that with increasing distance the velocity becomes larger and increases from the edge of the shell at 6.0 km s-1 by about 15 km s-1 to 21.0 km s-1 at our outermost measurement. This faster moving structure can be identified with the morphologically classifies Filament N. A corresponding fainter emission can be traced in Slits 3E and 3W to the north end of the expansion ellipses. This emission is also a contribution of Filament N, which is partly intercepted by these slits (see position Slit 3W, Slit 3E in Fig. 3). Also at the northern rim (at $`6\mathrm{}`$) of the ellipse in Slit Center NS appears a structure which shows a brighter knot-like emission and is blue-shifted with respect to the expansion ellipse at that position. The highest blue-shifted emission of the structure is at about $`31.0`$km s-1 and thus 20 km s-1 faster than the expanding shell. The higher surface brightness and the position makes it likely that this blue-shifted emission results from Knot N. At the south end ($`10`$ to $`15`$″) of Slit Center NS and Slit 3W we detect a component moving with approximately $`+10`$km s-1(Fig. 4) which is therefore expanding faster than the shell at this point. This component can be assigned to the optically identified structure called Knot S. Finally we note that Slit Center EW has a highly red-shifted knot at +42 km s-1 and was already identified with Knot E in W97.

## 6 Discussions and Conclusions

The images of the nebula around Sk$`69^{}279`$ as well as the spectra show several cases of deviations from the morphology and kinematics of a spherical nebula with symmetric expansion.

Due to the lack of sufficiently resolved images of the nebula, one can only speculate—with the help of spectra—about the three dimensional structure of the nebula. While part of its main body may reasonably well be approximated by a sphere with a symmetric expansion, the nebula is expanding faster in the north-eastern hemisphere comparing, for instance the higher expansion velocities detected in Slits 3W (17.5 km s-1) and Slit 4N (16.9 km s-1) with those in the nebula’s center (typically 15 km s-1, Slit 3E or Slit Center NS) or the southern part of the nebula which expands even slower than the center (see $`pv`$-diagrams in Fig. 5). Even though the difference of the expansion velocities is marginal, it is significantly higher than the expected errors, and therefore most likely real.

Knot E shows an extension of the nebula of about 3$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 (0.8 pc) and moves faster than the shell (red-shifted). Here material seems to surpass the shell and move away from the observer. Similarly, the material of Knot N approaches us faster than most of the shell (see blue-shifted extension in Slit Center NS). In addition to this faster moving material of Knot N, there gas is streaming out. This out-streaming gas—as traced in the spectra—corresponds to the morphologically identified Fil N. Fil N has a length of roughly half the diameter of the shell and moves up to 15 km s-1 faster along the line-of-sight. Throughout the nebula—including Fil N—we find a \[N ii\]$`\lambda `$6583Å/Hα ratio in the range of $`0.650.7`$ and thus further evidence for Fil N being a part of Sk$`69^{}279`$’s nebula.

The spectra also indicate that to the north-east the shell of the nebula around Sk$`69^{}279`$ is not closed. Together with the faster moving Fil N it is therefore most likely that the nebula around Sk$`69^{}279`$ shows an outflow. The north-eastern part of the nebula has opened up and material is streaming out evidenced in particular by Fil N. Both properties, open Doppler ellipses and an increasing velocity extension, were also found in the nebula around the LMC LBV candidate S 119 (Weis et al. 2002). The kinematics and morphology of the nebula around S 119 are very similar to those found here. In particular, it is worthwhile noting that this outflow from Sk$`69^{}279`$’s nebula, shows the same linear increase in velocity as the outflow in S 119. The out-streaming material moves the faster the further it is away from the star. Comparing both objects we conclude that the nebulae of these stars are quite similar and represent (candidate) LBV nebulae with outflows.

It is not clear whether Knot E is also part of an outflow or if this feature resembles more an asymmetry in the nebula comparable to the Caps in WRA 751 (Weis 2000) or R 127 (Weis 2002, in prep). An interpretation as an outflow or as caps is supported by the faster moving extension in Slit 3W.

The dynamic age of a nebula is defined by $`\tau =\eta (r/v_{\mathrm{exp}})`$, with $`\eta `$ depending on whether we model a steady fast wind swept up bubble ($`\eta =1`$, García-Segura & Mac Low 1995), an energy-conserving bubble ($`\eta =0.6`$, Weaver et al. 1977) or a momentum-conserving bubble ($`\eta =0.5`$, Steigman et al. 1975). For Sk$`69^{}279`$ this would yield a range for the dynamic age between $`\mathrm{6.3\hspace{0.17em}10}^4`$ (for a maximum expansion velocity of 17.5 km s-1 and a momentum conserving bubble) to $`\mathrm{1.5\hspace{0.17em}10}^5`$ years (with the slowest expansion of 14 km s-1 and steady sweep-up). Compared to dynamic ages of other LBV nebula (ranging typically between $`0.01\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}10}^4`$, see, e.g., Nota et al. 1995) this value is up to a factor of 10 higher than the average. With the estimated duration of the LBV phase of about 25 000 years (Maeder & Meynet 1987, Humphreys & Davidson 1994, Bohannan 1997) the dynamic age would be too high for the nebula being created during the stars LBV phase. In this context, however, one has to keep in mind that the duration of the LBV phase is mainly estimated by determining the ratio of LBVs stars to Wolf-Rayet stars, i.e., a method with comparatively large inherent errors, due to incompleteness of the respective samples. In the context of Sk$`69^{}279`$ beeing a nebula with an outflow, as proposed here, these age determinations with the help of the nebula’s size and expansion velocity might well be overestimated. If the nebula was disrupted by the outflow, most likely the expansion velocity of the nebula decreased since the pressure dropped. Therefore the dynamic age determination yields a higher age, as a result from the lower expansion velocity. The dynamic age for S 119 another LBV candidate showing outflow, for instance, also seems to be slightly higher compared to other LBV nebulae, reach a maximum of $`\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}10}^4`$ years (Weis et al. 2002).

While from the kinematics alone it is not clear yet clear in each case which features are part of an outflow and which are cap-like extension of the shell, the structure of the expansion ellipses as well as Fil N show that at least these features are due to an outflow. The similarity with other LBVs and their nebulae makes it likely that Sk$`69^{}279`$ is at least a good candidate LBV, indeed, and poses the question in how far outflows out of expanding LBV nebulae are a general property of such nebulae—at least during some phases of their evolutions—and thus connects directly to the question for their origin and evolution.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the referee for helpful comments on the manuscript. KW thanks Dr. D.J. Bomans (Bochum) for many helpful discussions of the subject of this paper. Sincere thanks go to Prof. R.M. Humphreys for permitting us to reprint and slighlty varify Fig. 9 from Humphreys & Davidson (1994). The data reduction and analysis was in part carried out on a workstation provided by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung to the ITA, Heidelberg. Their support is gratefully acknowledged.


text:
# Crack path instabilities in DCDC experiments in the low speed regime.

## 1 Introduction

Quasistatic brittle fracture is a subject of importance for both practical and fundamental reasons. Two classes of experimental set-up have been primarily developed in order to propagate cracks in a stable and controllable manner. The first one is based on a thermally induced stress field . An other classical way to propagate slow cracks is to use double cleavage drilled compression (DCDC) specimen. This method initially developed by Janssen  has numerous advantages: compression loading, mid plane crack stability, auto precracking and pure mode I (tensile) crack tip opening. However numerous examples of unstable straight crack propagation were evidenced in thermal experiments even in the low speed regime. According to values of thermal gradient and width of the glass plate, three types of crack propagation regime can develop from the small initial notch made to ensure the nucleation of a single propagating crack : no propagation, straight propagation and wavy propagation. Such propagating cracks were observed for velocities between $`10^2\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`10^5\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$. An attempt to explain this behavior was put forward  using the Cotterell and Rice criterion  but partially failed when the real experimental temperature profile was measured . More recently the concept of maximum tangential stress criterion, first introduced by Erdogan et al. , was used to explain a complete set of thermal experiments . Such unstable behavior in quasi-static crack propagation in uniaxial loading conditions was predicted by Adda-Bedia et al.   but was surprisingly never experimentally observed, probably because of the extreme sensitivity of this phenomenon to experimental conditions . By working at a fixed load on DCDC specimen, the internal residual stresses of which were carefully relaxed by appropriate thermal treatment, we have shown - for the first time to our knowledge - that the crack front line undergoes an oscillating behavior as a result of a reproducible sequence of instabilities. The wavelength of this wavy behavior is in the micrometer range and its amplitude in the nanometer one.

## 2 Experimental

DCDC samples were parallelepipedic ($`4\times 4\times 40\mathrm{mm}^3`$) with a central hole of 1mm in diameter (nominal) drilled perpendicularly to two of the large parallel faces. Details of experiments have been reported in a previous paper . The sample was then placed, vertically, on its smallest face, in equilibrium on the horizontal basis of our experimental set-up. By means of a freely moving piston, the upper face of the specimen was then loaded by an increasing weight at a rate of about 25N.$`\mathrm{s}^1`$ till the crack was initiated. Then the weight on the sample was maintained constant at a value of typically 1.5kN. These experiments were done at a constant temperature of $`22.0\pm 1^{}\mathrm{C}`$ and at a relative humidity of $`50\pm 5\%`$.

The crack front position was measured in the middle of the specimen (at equal distances of the lateral surfaces) by i) a standard video-recorder system for crack speed between $`10^4\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`10^6\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ and ii) an optical system with a magnification of $`\times `$40 for lower crack speeds ($`10^6\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ \- $`10^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$). In the latter case, the position of crack front relatively to the center of the specimen was measured with an accuracy of 10$`\mu `$m. The stress intensity factor, $`K_I`$, as well as the mean crack speed, $`v`$, was deduced from the measured crack length, using reference . The $`v(K_I)`$ curve were then plotted. When the crack speed reached a value lower than $`10^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ the samples were reloaded in order to gently fracture the sample all over its length. Special care was taken in order to preserve the two halves of the specimen from subsequent damage.

The fracture surfaces were analyzed by an experimental system (Veeco, D3100) combining optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Both methods could be simultaneously performed. The samples were glued on the sample holder. This holder was moveable under the fixed AFM-optical system using a stepper motor. The position of the center of the studied portion of surface relatively to the center of the specimen was measured with an accuracy of less than $`10\mu \mathrm{m}`$. In this manner, it was possible to identify for every point of the AFM or optical images the value of $`K_I`$ and the speed the crack had when it passed through this point.

AFM experiments were done in a high amplitude resonant mode ("tapping" mode). Experiments were performed in ambient conditions at a relative humidity of $`35\pm 5\%`$ and a temperature of $`22.0\pm 0.5{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$. More details are given in reference .

Experiments were performed on two kinds of materials. The first one was soda-lime silicate glass. A thermal treatment ($`530^{}\mathrm{C}`$) was done before fracture experiment in order to remove residual stresses. The second set of samples was made from a lithium alumino-silicate glass-ceramics. By modifying thermal treatments three types of structure were observed : the first one (sample A) corresponds to a pure glassy state ($`660^{}\mathrm{C}`$) as identified by X-ray diffraction (Fig. 1a). The second one (sample B) is classified as a slightly unglassy state in which small crystals of $`\beta `$-quartz phase have been nucleated (Fig. 1b). This structure was obtained after a two-step thermal treatment at plateau temperatures of $`T_1`$=$`750{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ and $`T_2`$=$`900{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$ . Samples C exhibits further crystallization (increased number of crystallites of larger size) due to a higher temperature ($`950{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{C}`$) for the second step of thermal treatment (Fig. 1c).

## 3 Results

In the Figure 2 are plotted typical $`v(K_I)`$ curves as obtained with the different types of samples we studied. A noticeable feature is that for the glass ceramics (open symbols) the curves are shifted towards higher $`K_I`$ values when the thermal treatment is performed. The reproducibility of these experiments is revealed by the very good superimposition of the two $`v(K_I)`$ curves performed on two different samples (B1 and B2: up and down triangles) which underwent the same thermal treatment. The fracture surfaces were then systematically characterized by our optical-AFM system. We put a special attention to the part of the surface fracture corresponding to the low speed regime ($`10^4\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ \- $`10^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$). We firstly put the stress on the lowest speed regime ($`v`$ \< $`10^8\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$). Scanning Electron Microsocpy (SEM) experiments revealed that corresponding fracture surfaces became increasingly rougher with harsher thermal treatments -from sample A (Fig. 3a) to sample C (Fig. 3c). These variations of RMS roughness were quantified by AFM measurements on 10$`\mu `$m$`\times `$10$`\mu `$m surfaces where crack speed was in the range of few $`10^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$. The results are reported on Table 1. It must be emphasized that RMS roughness values for pure glassy materials are very similar whatever the chemical composition of glasses. For the glass ceramics with an increasing number of larger $`\beta `$-quartz nanocrystals, however, an important enhancement of the RMS roughness is observed. The values of RMS roughness are thus directly related to the length scale of structural heterogeneities.

For higher crack speeds (except for glass-ceramics sample C; see below) an original phenomenon was observed (Fig. 4). Fracture surface observation revealed the presence of periodic variations in the crack path (in the direction normal to the mean crack plane) along the crack propagation direction. These corrugations in the crack path were observed : i) all along the virtual lines followed by both crack fronts propagating inside the specimen and symmetrically about the central hole, ii) on both fracture surfaces. An example (soda-lime glass, average crack speed $`v`$ 2.$`10^5\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`K_I0.6\mathrm{MPa}.\mathrm{m}^{1/2}`$ ) is shown on Figure 4. The 70$`\mu `$m$`\times `$70$`\mu `$m AFM scan of Figure 4a shows alternate black (deep) and white (high) bands parallel to the crack front. The sine-like shape of these roughness oscillations is better evidenced in Figure 4c where all the lines parallel to the crack propagation direction (i.e. perpendicular to the black and white bands) of an independent 10$`\mu `$m$`\times `$10$`\mu `$m AFM scan (Figure 4b) are averaged. The occurrence (or not) of such a phenomenon was monitored for all the previously described samples. The following common features were found:

* Samples of materials in pure glassy state (soda-lime and glass ceramics) revealed this wavy behavior for a large range of $`K_I`$ values. For instance, in the case of soda-lime glass, the $`K_I`$ domain extended between the following values: $`K_I0.5\mathrm{MPa}.\mathrm{m}^{1/2}`$ and $`K_I0.8\mathrm{MPa}.\mathrm{m}^{1/2}`$ respectively corresponding to crack front speeds of 1.5 $`10^6\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`10^4\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$. Between these two limiting values the crack ran over a distance of 2 millimeters in approximately 5 minutes. However for samples of glass ceramics -in the pure glassy state- the oscillating domain is slightly narrower: $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_I0.17\mathrm{MPa}.\mathrm{m}^{1/2}`$.
* One striking feature is that the $`K_I`$-width of occurrence of the roughness waves is strongly reduced for samples in intermediate unglassy state (sample B): $`\mathrm{\Delta }K_I0.08\mathrm{MPa}.\mathrm{m}^{1/2}`$. Furthermore no such oscillations were observed on highly unglassy samples (sample C);
* The wavelength of these ripples, $`\lambda `$, is in the micrometer range and its scaling with $`K_I`$ values was systematically studied. Figure 5 shows the typical variation of $`\lambda `$ as observed in the case of soda-lime samples. It is shown that a large decrease of the wavelength occurs with decreasing values of $`K_I`$. Similar variations -in the same range of wavelength- were observed for glassy or slightly unglassy samples.
* The amplitude of such corrugated oscillations is in the nanometer range.

## 4 Discussion

The experimental study presented in this paper revealed that fracture surfaces of various glassy materials are modulated by roughness waves the wave vector of which is parallel to the crack propagation direction. These roughness waves were observed for the various materials studied for this paper providing that the length scale of their heterogeneities is lower than a threshold around 10 nm. This length scale of heterogeneities can be very roughly evaluated by the RMS roughness of surface created by crack propagating at low speed (lower than few $`10^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$), see Table 1. It means that this phenomenon is directly correlated to the length scale of microstructural heterogeneities of materials used for these experiments.

It must be noted that a trivial AFM spurious effect can be ruled out because these ripples were observed too by optical microscopy for the largest wavelengths (largest $`K_I`$ values). It must be emphasized that, even if the aspect of these roughness ripples presents similarities with patterns observed in stress wave fractography, such an explanation is not relevant for the observations reported in this paper. Indeed no external transverse stress wave generator  was used. Furthermore the experimental set-up was working in a very quiet acoustical environment. Moreover the role of hypothetical residual external mechanical vibrations of the DCDC apparatus may be excluded. The resonance frequency and the quality factor of the equivalent mechanical system was indeed estimated to be higher than 70Hz and 6.$`10^4`$ respectively. Consequently the hypothetical residual vibrations would have a negligible amplitude at the frequency range (between 0.1Hz to 1Hz) compared to the observed roughness waves and calculated by the ratio between the crack front speed and the related wavelength.

Similar observations of wavy behavior during crack tip propagation were previously reported . The steady propagation of a crack localized within a thermal gradient was studied and an oscillatory behavior for given values of crack speed and glass plate width, $`W`$, was observed. The transition between the regimes corresponding to linear crack propagation and wavy one was studied as a function of specimen width for fixed temperature jump. The experiments by Yuse et al.  revealed that both the wavelength and amplitude of oscillatory behavior induced by thermal stress were in the millimeter range. As these length scales were of the same order of magnitude as the width of the region of rapid temperature change, it was assumed  that the related instability mechanisms were only due to "external" parameters such as stresses induced by the thermal field and were independent of the microstructure of broken materials. Furthermore, Yuse’s experiments  showed that the related wavelength scaled linearly with $`W`$. Referring to the study Marder , it is possible to plot the variation of wavelength, $`\lambda `$, versus $`K_I`$ for the thermal experiments (Fig. 6). This plot reveals that $`\mathrm{log}(\lambda )`$ slightly decreases with decreasing values of $`K_I`$. The data obtained in the present mechanical experiments can also be drawn using the same set of coordinates (see Fig. 6). This plot shows that a similar behavior to that revealed by thermal experiments was observed for mechanical experiments but for slightly lower values of $`K_I`$. This suggests that this wavy behavior could originate from the same phenomenon. The main difference is that, in our case, small variations of $`K_I`$ cause larger changes in related roughness wavelength.

A likely explanation for the occurrence of such oscillations in our DCDC experiments is that the crack front similarly undergoes a reproducible sequence of instabilities. Indeed such destabilizing effects in the case of uniaxial loading have already be predicted by Adda-Bedia et al. . These authors argued that, even in quasi-static conditions, crack propagation may become unstable: it may deviate from straight line in a direction perpendicular to the applied external uniaxial loading after which a wavy crack path may appear. As already mentioned in , stability thresholds drastically depend on both geometric and loading conditions. We think that our experimental set-up (DCDC experiments with a pure dead-weighted loading, carefully prepared samples) has been crucial to reveal such a phenomenon. As both wavelength and amplitude of the observed ripples are in the sub-micrometer range, the destabilizing factor -in the sense of Cotterell and Rice criterion \- from a straight propagation of the crack likely has an "internal" origin as it is connected to the sub-micrometric structure of materials used for these experiments. Indeed, when the length scale of heterogeneity is low enough such wavy propagating behavior is observed. On the opposite, for materials with larger heterogeneities the fracture surface only presents an incoherent structure (with a much higher roughness). The length cutoff is then in the range of 10nm. The origin of this instability has likely to be found in the recently predicted corrugation waves  which can be generated when fracture occurs in mode I. These authors indeed explain that local distortion of the crack front, due for instance to the presence of structural heterogeneities, may give rise to non-planar deformations of the crack front, they called "corrugation waves". As this effect is assumed to be due to long-ranged elastic effects causing dynamic stress transfer along the crack front it likely explains why such phenomenon can be observed on long distances. It must be emphasized that these authors  explain that the corrugation waves may occur even in the case of a very low mean crack speed. Indeed, as experimentally observed  the local crack speed may exceed the mean crack speed by several order of magnitudes and lead to avalanche-like processes. Furthermore the roughness wave amplitude as predicted in Ref.  for glassy materials ($`\delta h2\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m}`$) is in the same order of magnitude than that observed in the current study.

## 5 Conclusion

Experiments were done on a DCDC mechanical set-up working at a fixed load. The internal residual stresses of specimen in different glassy materials were carefully relaxed by appropriate thermal treatment. In the low speed regime ($`10^410^9\mathrm{m}.\mathrm{s}^1`$) we have demonstrated for the first time that the crack front line underwent an out-of-plane oscillating behavior along the direction of crack propagation. The wavelength was in the micrometer range and the peak-to-peak amplitude in the nanometer. This phenomenon was observed for different glassy materials providing that their typical length scale was lower than a threshold limit estimated to few nanometers. This effect was interpreted by the evidence of instabilities and long-range elastic effects occurring during the ’straight’ propagation of the crack front. We believed that these instabilities are generated by structural heterogeneities on which crack front is pinned and depinned. Studies are now performed at sub-micrometer scale in order to better understand how this reproducible sequence of instabilities is developing.


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# Beam–Charge Asymmetry associated with DVCS at HERMES

## 1 Introduction

Inclusive and semi–inclusive deep–inelastic scattering (DIS) is and has been extensively used to study the internal structure of the nucleon. Recent theoretical progress is mostly related to exclusive reactions and their description in terms of generalized parton distributions (GPDs), also referred to as off–forward or skewed parton distributions . This theoretical framework takes into account the dynamical correlations between partons of different momenta in the nucleon. The well–known parton distribution functions and form factors turn out to be the limiting cases and moments of GPDs. Of particular interest is the second moment of two unpolarized quark GPDs, which for the first time offers a possibility to determine the total angular momentum carried by the quark in the nucleon . Very recent theoretical ideas indicate that GDPs might be able to describe correlations between the longitudinal and transverse structure of the nucleon .

## 2 Deeply–Virtual Compton Scattering

The theoretically cleanest way to access GPDs appears to be the deeply–virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) process, i.e. the hard exclusive leptoproduction of real photons with the target nucleon remaining intact. Since the Bethe–Heitler (BH) process has an identical final state and therefore the amplitudes of both processes add coherently, the interference between them can be used to access the DVCS amplitudes. The leading–order and leading–twist interference term

$$I=\pm \frac{4\sqrt{2}me^6}{tQx_{Bj}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{1x_{Bj}}}\times [\mathrm{cos}\varphi \frac{1}{\sqrt{ϵ(ϵ1)}}\mathrm{Re}\stackrel{~}{M}^{1,1}P_l\mathrm{sin}\varphi \sqrt{\frac{1+ϵ}{ϵ}}\mathrm{Im}\stackrel{~}{M}^{1,1}]$$
(1)
depends on the charge and the helicity of the incident lepton, where +(-) denotes a negatively (positively) charged lepton with polarization $`P_l`$. Note that terms suppressed by $`O(1/Q)`$ and involving higher $`\varphi `$–moments, were omitted in the above equation. Here m represents the proton mass, t the square of the four–momentum transfer to the target, $`Q^2`$ the virtual–photon four–momentum squared and $`ϵ`$ is the polarization parameter of the virtual photon. Measuring the dependence of certain cross section asymmetries on the azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$, defined as the angle between the lepton scattering plane and the photon production plane, provides information about the DVCS amplitude combination $`\stackrel{~}{M}^{1,1}`$ which can be expressed in terms of GPDs. The extraction of an asymmetry with respect to the beam spin, accessing the imaginary part of $`\stackrel{~}{M}^{1,1}`$, has already been carried out by the HERMES experiment . The extraction of a beam–charge asymmetry, accessing the real part of $`\stackrel{~}{M}^{1,1}`$, is described in the following.

## 3 The Beam–Charge Asymmetry

The data have been accumulated with the HERMES spectrometer  at DESY during the 1998 (2000) running periods. The HERA 27.6 GeV electron (positron) beam was scattered off an unpolarized hydrogen gas target. Events were selected if they contained exactly one photon and one charged track, identified as the scattered electron (positron) and fulfilling the kinematical requirements $`Q^2>1`$ GeV2, $`W^2>4`$ GeV2 and $`\nu <23`$ GeV. Here $`W`$ denotes the photon–nucleon invariant mass and $`\nu `$ is the virtual–photon energy. The angle between the real and the virtual photon was required to be within 15 and 70 mrad.

In figure 1 the azimuthal dependence of the extracted beam–charge asymmetry (BCA)

$$A_C(\varphi )=\frac{N^+(\varphi )N^{}(\varphi )}{N^+(\varphi )+N^{}(\varphi )}$$
(2)
is shown, where $`N^+`$ ($`N^{}`$) represent the luminosity–normalized yields for the corresponding beam charges. Using only events with a missing mass $`M_x`$ between -1.5 GeV and +1.7 GeV, the data show the expected $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi `$–behavior as can be seen by the solid line which represents a $`P_1+P_2\mathrm{cos}(\varphi )`$ fit. The missing mass is defined as $`M_x=\sqrt{(q+P_pk)^2}`$ with $`q`$, $`P_p`$ and $`k`$ being the four–momenta of the virtual photon, the target nucleon and the real photon, respectively. Negative values of the missing mass are due to the finite momentum resolution of the spectrometer, in which case $`M_x=\sqrt{M_x^2}`$ was defined. The beam used at HERMES is polarized; to minimize its effects, positron (electron) data sets were selected to have opposite polarizations $`P_l`$ ($`P_l`$) to eliminate the $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$–dependence in the numerator of equation (2). This dependence still exists in the denominator but should be negligible compared to the size of the BH amplitudes. The fit reveals a positive $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi `$ amplitude with a value of $`0.11\pm 0.04`$ (stat) and an offset of $`P_1=0.05\pm 0.03`$ (stat). The latter value could possibly be related to a constant term in the interference, omitted in equation (1) since it appears at twist–3 . However, the sign and the size of the amplitude might already contain some valuable information as can be seen by a comparison to model calculations  which were carried out in a kinematic regime ($`<Q^2>`$ = 2.5 GeV2, $`<x_{Bj}>`$ = 0.11, $`<t>`$ = -0.25 GeV2) close to the HERMES kinematics ($`<Q^2>`$ = 2.8 GeV2, $`<x_{Bj}>`$ = 0.12, $`<t>`$ = -0.27 GeV2). The calculations are the same as described in reference . Certain GPDs are parameterized assuming that the t–dependent part factorizes, while the t–independent part is modelled by a two–component form, using the so–called double–distribution formalism  completed by the D–term . The D–term is related to the previously unstudied “stress tensor” of hadronic matter. It contributes to the real part of the DVCS amplitude only and therefore can be investigated with the BCA for the first time. Calculating the D–term contribution in the chiral quark soliton model results in the dashed (twist–2) and the dashed–dotted line (twist–3) in figure 1. The twist–2 result without the additional D–term is represented by the dotted line. The long–spaced dashed line is the twist–2 DVCS charge asymmetry when reversing the sign of the D–term. Thus the preliminary HERMES data already favor the existence of the D–term whereby, if it exists, the data clearly determine its sign. However, very recent calculations including twist–3 effects, but using a different GPD model without D–term contribution describe the HERMES data as well .

To be able to compare the result in the exclusive region with that in the non–exclusive region, the difference between the $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi `$–weighted moments for either beam charge,

$$A_\mathrm{C}^{\mathrm{cos}\varphi }=\frac{_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \mathrm{cos}\varphi \frac{d\sigma ^+}{d\varphi }}{_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \frac{d\sigma ^+}{d\varphi }}\frac{_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \mathrm{cos}\varphi \frac{d\sigma ^{}}{d\varphi }}{_0^{2\pi }𝑑\varphi \frac{d\sigma ^{}}{d\varphi }},$$
(3)
is shown in figure 2 versus the missing mass $`M_x`$. As expected, the asymmetry appears to be non–zero only in the exclusive region, while in the non–exclusive region it is consistent with zero. The asymmetry given by this formula is not due to the real part of the DVCS amplitudes alone, but has a small modulation from the BH amplitudes. However, for this preliminary result this method is advantageous due to reduced systematic uncertainties.

In summary, the beam–charge asymmetry in the hard electroproduction of real photons has been measured for the first time. A sizeable asymmetry of $`0.11\pm 0.04`$ (stat) $`\pm 0.03`$ (sys) has been found in the exclusive region confirming the theoretical expectation.