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# Mid-Infrared Conductivity from Mid-Gap States Associated with Charge Stripes

## I Introduction

Studies of optical conductivity can provide valuable information about electronic correlations in solids; however, the proper explanation for the frequency dependence of the conductivity is not always uniquely obvious. One system that has received considerable attention is La2-xSrxNiO4, a compound that is isostructural with superconducting cuprates.Bi et al. (1990); Ido et al. (1991); Bi and Eklund (1993); Crandles et al. (1993); Eagles et al. (1995); Calvani et al. (1996); Katsufuji et al. (1996); Bäuml et al. (1998); Tsutsui et al. (1999); Katsufuji et al. (1999); Pashkevich et al. (2000); Jung et al. (2001) The substitution of Sr2+ for La3+ dopes holes into the NiO2 plane. When the light polarization is parallel to the NiO2 planes, the electronic conductivity exhibits a broad peak at $`0.6`$ eV,Bi et al. (1990) whose intensity grows with the hole concentration.Ido et al. (1991) Katsufuji et al.Katsufuji et al. (1996) showed for La1.67Sr0.33NiO4 that spectacular changes occur on the scale of 1 eV as the temperature is changed from 10 K up to 480 K, the latter being twice the temperature at which the charge is know to order.Lee and Cheong (1997) The mid-infrared (MIR) conductivity peak has been variously interpreted in terms of polarons,Bi and Eklund (1993); Eagles et al. (1995); Calvani et al. (1996); Katsufuji et al. (1996); Bäuml et al. (1998); Jung et al. (2001) $`d`$$`d`$ excitations,Tsutsui et al. (1999); Jung et al. (2001) a doped-semiconductor,Crandles et al. (1993) and conventional charge-density-wave (CDW) orderingKatsufuji et al. (1996); however, none of these interpretations is particularly convincing.

When the first infrared reflectivity studies were performed,Bi et al. (1990); Ido et al. (1991) the nature of the electronic correlations in La2-xSrxNiO4 was a mystery. Today, however, it is firmly established by neutron and X-ray diffraction studies that the holes doped into the NiO2 planes tend to order in charge stripes, separating antiferromagnetic domains.Tranquada et al. (1994); Tranquada (1998); Yoshizawa et al. (2000) Recently it has been demonstrated that the charge stripes survive above the melting transition.Lee et al. (2002) It follows that the optical conductivity must derive from the electronic states associated with charge stripes.

To provide context for our interpretation, we present an infrared reflectivity study of a nickelate system that exhibits long-range, three-dimensional (3D) stripe orderTranquada et al. (1995); Wochner et al. (1998): La2NiO4+δ with $`\delta =\frac{2}{15}`$. The 3D ordering of the oxygen interstitials creates a modulated potential that can couple to the stripes.Wochner et al. (1998) Based on measurements of the in-plane resistance, we argue that the stripe and interstitial orderings appear simultaneously at 317 K, an unusually high temperature for stripe order in the nickelates.

We analyze the optical conductivity in terms of two components: a damped-harmonic oscillator (corresponding to the MIR peak) whose resonance frequency shifts with temperature, and a Drude component. We attribute the MIR peak to transitions from filled valence states to empty mid-gap states associated with the charge stripes.Zaanen and Gunnarsson (1989); Poilblanc and Rice (1989); Schulz (1990); Zaanen and Oleś (1996); Tchernyshyov and Pryadko (2000); Granath et al. (2002); Lorenzana and Seibold (2002); Heeger et al. (1988) The temperature-dependent energy shift of the MIR peak is due to the Franck-Condon effect associated with lattice relaxation about the charge stripes; a greater excitation energy is required in the ordered state than in the melted state. The Drude peak appears at higher temperatures as the MIR shift is reduced and electrons are thermally excited into the mid-gap states. We argue that the excitation of carriers corresponds to local fluctuations of the charge stripes, so that dc conductivity competes with stripe order in this stripe insulator. Such competition would be less significant in a system with partially filled mid-gap states, as should be the case in certain cuprates with metallic stripes. Noda et al. (1999); Ichikawa et al. (2000); Tajima et al. (1999); Dumm et al. (2002)

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. A description of the experimental procedures in the next section is followed by a discussion of the nature of stripe ordering in La2NiO4+δ. In Sec. IV we describe our expectations for the optical conductivity associated with stripes based on available theoretical calculations. The experimental results for the optical conductivity are presented and analyzed in Sec. V. We conclude with a summary of our results and interpretation, and a discussion of the relevance of this picture to the interpretation of optical conductivity in cuprate superconductors.

## II Experimental Procedures

The single crystal studied here was grown by radio-frequency skull melting.Buttrey et al. (1995); Rice and Buttrey (1993) After orienting the crystal by X-ray Laue diffraction, a surface was cut perpendicular to the $`c`$ axis (parallel to the NiO2 planes) and then polished. Subsequently, the oxygen concentration was selected by annealing at 464C for 5 days in flowing O2 (1 bar), followed by a quench to room temperature. The annealing conditions were chosen to give a nominal $`\delta `$ of 0.133, based on earlier work on the phase diagram.Rice and Buttrey (1993) A measurement of the magnetization vs. temperature, with the field applied parallel to the planes, yielded the characteristic ferrimagnetic response on cooling, with an abrupt drop at the magnetic ordering temperature of 110 K, observed in a previous study of the $`\delta =\frac{2}{15}`$ phase.Tranquada et al. (1997)

The in-plane resistance, measured by the four-probe method on a small slice of crystal, is plotted in Fig. 1. The effective cross-sectional area, required for the conversion to resistivity, could not be determined because of the presence of micro-cracks, observed by optical microscopy, that result from quenching. In an attempt to compensate for this problem, we have plotted in the same figure the in-plane resistivity of La1.725Sr0.275NiO4, a sample with a similar nominal hole concentration, normalized to $`\rho _0=1\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm. The normalization factor for the oxygen-doped crystal, $`R_0=200\mathrm{\Omega }`$, has been chosen so that the two curves nearly coincide.

We expect the resistivities for the two samples, $`\delta =\frac{2}{15}`$ and $`x=0.275`$, should be very similar since the hole density for each is $`n_h=x+2\delta 0.27`$, and there is clearly little difference between the temperature dependences. We will use this similarity to estimate the resistivity of the oxygen-doped sample: $`\rho _{ab}=\rho _0(R_{ab}/R_0)`$, with $`\rho _0=1\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm. This estimated resistivity will be used in Sec. V.

For the IR measurements, the crystal was mounted in a cryostat on an optically-black cone. The temperature dependence of the reflectance was measured at a near-normal angle of incidence from $`30`$ to over 24,000 cm-1 on a Bruker IFS 66v/S using an in situ overcoating technique, which has previously been described in detail elsewhere.Homes et al. (1993a) Examples of reflectance measurements with the light polarization perpendicular to and parallel to the $`c`$-axis are shown in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. For the in-plane polarization, little temperature dependence is observed above $`4000`$ cm-1, and hence the reflectance was assumed to be temperature independent for $`\omega >8000`$ cm-1. The optical conductivity has been determined from a Kramers-Kronig analysis of the reflectance, for which extrapolations are necessary for $`\omega 0,\mathrm{}`$. For the in-plane polarization, a metallic low-frequency extrapolation, $`R1\omega ^{1/2}`$, was used for $`T180`$ K; at lower temperatures the reflectance was assumed to continue smoothly to $`0.55`$ at zero frequency.

## III Nature of Ordering in La2NiO4.133

The interstitial oxygen order and the spin and charge stripe order of La2NiO4+δ with $`\delta =\frac{2}{15}`$ have been characterized previously by neutron diffraction.Tranquada et al. (1994, 1995); Wochner et al. (1998) The first studiesTranquada et al. (1994, 1995) were done on a crystal with a net oxygen excess of $`\delta =0.125`$, where the interstitial order developed below $`310`$ K. The magnetic order appears abruptly below a first-order transitionTranquada et al. (1994); Wochner et al. (1998) at 110 K. Measurements on a crystal with $`\delta =0.133`$ showed that the charge order survives well above 110 K, but decays very slowly.Wochner et al. (1998) The intensity of a charge-order peak was followed up to 220 K and was found to decay as $`\mathrm{exp}(T/T_0)`$, similar to a Debye-Waller factor.

A piece of the present sample was studied by X-ray diffraction.Wochner et al.  This time it was possible to follow the gradual decay of charge order scattering up to $`300`$ K before it disappeared into the background; the exponential decrease of intensity with temperature makes it difficult to evaluate where the charge-stripe order truly goes to zero. The interstitial order was found to disappear at 317 K.

The interstitial order lowers the symmetry of the lattice, and provides a modulated potential that can pin charge stripes.Wochner et al. (1998) The absence of a clear disordering transition for the charge stripes is consistent with order induced by a symmetry-breaking field, as occurs in the case of a ferromagnet warmed in an applied magnetic field to temperatures above its Curie point. From such an analogy, it appears possible that a finite degree of charge-stripe order appears as soon as the interstitials order.

To pursue this idea further, we have taken a close look at the in-plane resistance. There are two small jumps in the resistance, one at the magnetic ordering temperature of 110 K and the second at 317 K where the interstitials disorder. (Note that the resistance increases on warming through each of these transitions.) To emphasize that these are the only sharply defined transitions, we have plotted the derivative of $`\mathrm{log}(R_{ab}/R_0)`$ with respect to temperature in Fig. 1(b), with the derivative multiplied by $`T^2`$ to make the higher temperature feature clear. The absence of a third transition is consistent with simultaneous disordering of charge stripes and interstitials.

In La2-xSrxNiO4, the highest charge ordering temperature, $`T_{\mathrm{co}}`$, is 240 K at $`x=\frac{1}{3}`$. At a Sr concentration of $`x=0.275`$, closer to the hole concentration of our sample, $`T_{\mathrm{co}}190`$ K. Thus, the likely appearance of charge order at 317 K in the oxygen-doped crystal is quite unusual. Pinning of stripes by the interstitial potential suggests that the stripes would exist dynamically in the absence of the potential. Direct evidence of dynamic stripes in a La2-xSrxNiO4 sample was recently obtained in a neutron scattering study.Lee et al. (2002)

The attentive reader may have noticed the structure that appears in the derivative of the resistivity below the 110 K spike in Fig. 1(b). We have expanded this region in Fig. 4, where we have also plotted the magnetization. The steps in the magnetization, which have previously been shown to correspond to lock-in plateaus of the temperature-dependent inverse stripe spacing,Tranquada et al. (1997) also appear to correlate with changes in the resistivity. The resistivity is clearly sensitive to variations in the stripe order.

## IV Expectations for Optical Conductivity due to Charge Stripes

Before continuing on, let us discuss the possible interpretations of the MIR peak. In La2-xSrxNiO4 with $`x=0`$, there is a charge-transfer-excitation gapIdo et al. (1991); Pellegrin et al. (1996) of 4 eV. Doping introduces states within that gap. At room temperature, the dopant-induced conductivity peak grows with the Sr concentration but does not shift. Integrating the conductivity from 0 to 2 eV yields an effective carrier concentration equal to the Sr concentration (assuming carriers have the free electron mass).Ido et al. (1991) Attempts to fit the MIR peak with the conductivity expected from a small polaron generally give a poor overall fit to the energy and temperature dependence.Bi and Eklund (1993); Crandles et al. (1993); Katsufuji et al. (1996) Alternatively, Katsufuji et al.Katsufuji et al. (1996) extracted a temperature dependent gap from an analysis of the leading edge of the MIR peak, and compared it with the temperature dependence of a CDW gap. Of course, the MIR peak is still present when the putative gap goes to zero, and the system never becomes a truly metallic conductor, so it is difficult to see how a conventional CDW picture could be applied.

Any self-consistent interpretation of the MIR peak must take into account the fact that the doped holes tend to order as stripes. Furthermore, the stripe solid melts into a stripe liquid above the charge-ordering temperature,Lee et al. (2002) and so should still have observable effects on the charge excitations at higher temperatures. Given the topological nature of the observed charge stripes, one expects the electronic states associated with them to occur within the charge transfer gap,Zaanen and Gunnarsson (1989); Poilblanc and Rice (1989); Schulz (1990); Zaanen and Oleś (1996); Tchernyshyov and Pryadko (2000); Granath et al. (2002); Lorenzana and Seibold (2002) similar to the soliton states observed in doped polyacetylene.Heeger et al. (1988) Consistent with this concept, it has been observed experimentally that the chemical potential is pinned within the Mott-Hubbard gap for a substantial part of the doping range over which stripe order is observed.Satake et al. (2000) In the case of nickelates, the mid-gap stripe states should be empty Zaanen and Littlewood (1994); Fig. 5(a) shows a schematic density of states. In models appropriate to cuprates, the stripe states are quarter-filled with electrons.Granath et al. (2002) Numerical calculations of optical conductivity for cuprate stripe models (without electron-phonon coupling) yield both a Drude component and one or more MIR peaks.Vergés et al. (1991); Salkola et al. (1996); Machida and Ichioka (1999); Shibata et al. (2001); Moraghebi et al. (2002); Lorenzana and Seibold  (A related result has been obtained by Caprara et al.Caprara et al. (2002) using a model of charge collective modes close to a charge-ordering instability.) We would attribute the Drude peak to excitations within the partially-filled mid-gap states. In nickelates at higher temperatures it may be possible to thermally excite carriers into the mid-gap states, resulting in a relatively weak Drude peak.

But what about electron-phonon coupling? Static atomic displacements are present in the charge-ordered state,Tranquada et al. (1995) and these presumably occur to lower the energy. An estimate of the energy associated with the lattice displacements is provided by an LDA$`+U`$ calculation by Anisimov et al.Anisimov et al. (1992) for a nickelate with a hole concentration of 0.25. Assuming a breathing-mode pattern of in-plane oxygens about the 1/4 of the Ni sites with an extra hole, with a displacement equal to 4% of the bond length, the energy gain is 210 meV. When an electron is excited from the valence band in an antiferromagnetic domain into a mid-gap stripe state \[see Fig. 5(b)\], the lattice does not have time to relax. As a result, the required excitation energy must be increased beyond the minimum electronic energy by twice the lattice-relaxation energy: once in removing the electron from the antiferromagnetic region and again in adding the electron to a charge stripe. This increase in the excitation energy is known as the Franck-Condon effect. We would expect this “polaronic” energy to appear as a shift of the excitations in the ordered state relative to that in the stripe-liquid state.

If the theoretical estimate of a 4% bond-length relaxation were correct, then we might expect to see a temperature-dependent shift of 0.42 eV. However, the bond-length modulation determined by a fit to superlattice intensitiesTranquada et al. (1995) is approximately 2%. Since the relaxation energy is proportional to the square of the displacement, a better estimate of the shift is 0.1 eV. As we will see below, the latter value is roughly consistent with experiment.

## V Optical Conductivity Results and Analysis

Figure 6 shows the real part of the in-plane optical conductivity. Beyond the sharp phonon peaks that appear below 700 cm-1, one can see that the electronic conductivity is dominated by the MIR peak at $`5000\text{ cm}^10.6`$ eV. The peak shifts to higher energy on cooling from 295 K to 120 K, with no significant change below the latter temperature. The results are qualitatively consistent with previous results,Katsufuji et al. (1996); Pashkevich et al. (2000); Poirot-Reveau et al. (2002) although the size of the shift is closer to that found in La2-xSrxNiO4 with $`x=0.225`$ (Ref. Pashkevich et al., 2000) than that with $`x=0.33`$ (Ref. Katsufuji et al., 1996).

To quantitatively analyze the data, we have fit the conductivity using a Drude-Lorentz model for the dielectric function:

$$\stackrel{~}{ϵ}(\omega )=ϵ_{\mathrm{}}\frac{\omega _{p,D}^2}{\omega (\omega +i\mathrm{\Gamma }_D)}+\underset{j}{}\frac{\omega _{p,j}^2}{\omega _j^2\omega ^2i\gamma _j\omega },$$
(1)
where $`\omega _{p,D}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D`$ are the classical plasma frequency and damping of the Drude (zero-frequency) component, and $`\omega _j`$, $`\gamma _j`$ and $`\omega _{p,j}`$ are the frequency, width and effective plasma frequency of the $`j^{\mathrm{th}}`$ vibration or electronic component; $`ϵ_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the core contribution to the dielectric function. (A similar decomposition was used by Bi and Eklund at room temperature.Bi and Eklund (1993)) The real part of the conductivity is given by $`\sigma _1=\omega \mathrm{Im}\stackrel{~}{ϵ}/(4\pi )`$. The conductivity amplitude of the $`j^{\mathrm{th}}`$ contribution is $`\sigma _1(\omega _j)=\omega _{p,j}^2/(4\pi \gamma _j)`$. Four strong phonon modes were included in the model.

An example of fitted Drude and MIR components is presented in the inset of Fig. 6 for $`T=295`$ K; here $`\omega _{p,D}2800`$ cm-1 and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D800`$ cm-1. We find that the electronic conductivity is well described by these two contributions at all temperatures. Now, the MIR peak should involve a convolution of densities of states, and there is no particular reason to expect it to be fitted well by a single Lorentz oscillator. The fact that a single oscillator provides a good fit is a convenient coincidence that simplifies the following analysis. We interpret the width as a measure of the convolved densities of occupied and unoccupied states expected for an interband transition.

The temperature dependence of the MIR peak energy is plotted in Fig. 7(a) in the form $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}=\mathrm{}\omega _{\mathrm{MIR}}(T)\mathrm{}\omega _0`$, with $`\mathrm{}\omega _0=0.5`$ eV. The size of the MIR peak shift, 0.1–0.15 eV, is quite comparable to our estimate of the Franck-Condon shift, 0.1 eV, based on the lattice relaxation energy calculated by Anisimov et al.Anisimov et al. (1992) One might expect such a shift to create an optical gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}`$. Thermal excitations of charge carriers into the mid-gap states would be limited by this minimum gap; excitations at the MIR peak frequency are not relevant for thermal processes. If a gap of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}`$ is present at low temperature in $`\sigma (\omega )`$, it is masked by the phonon conductivity; nevertheless, the Drude conductivity and the dc resistivity should be sensitive to such a gap.

The Drude conductivity is shown in Fig. 7(b). On warming, it rises from zero as the MIR peak shifts to lower energy. The solid line in Fig. 7(b) represents the inverse of $`\rho _{ab}`$. The temperature dependence of the dc conductivity (inverse resistivity) is consistent with the fitted Drude component. Assuming that the Drude conductivity arises from thermal excitation of carriers across $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}`$, we expect the dc resistivity to behave roughly as

$$\rho _{ab}\rho _0e^{\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}/2k_BT},$$
(2)
so that

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}=2k_BT\mathrm{ln}(\rho _{ab}/\rho _0).$$
(3)
The solid line in Fig. 7(a) shows the temperature dependence of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}`$ obtained from $`\rho _{ab}/\rho _0`$, where we have set $`\rho _0=5`$ m$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ cm, a value somewhat lower than the minimum observed resistivity (see Fig. 1). When scaled by a factor of 1.5, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}(T)`$ agrees well with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}(T)`$.

By choosing a plausible $`\rho _0`$, we have extracted from the resistivity a gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{dc}}(T)`$ that is comparable to $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}(T)`$. This is consistent with our argument that the shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{\mathrm{MIR}}(T)`$ results from the Franck-Condon effect. But how does the temperature dependence of the energy shift compare with the actual lattice displacements?

The intensity of a charge-order superlattice peak measured by neutron diffraction is proportional to the square of the lattice displacement. In Fig. 7(c) we have plotted the square-root of such an intensity measurement.Wochner et al. (1998) (The choice of taking the square-root was made to enhance the signal at higher temperatures.) The gradual decrease in the shift energy above the 110-K transition is qualitatively consistent with the decay in magnitude of the lattice displacements. The contrasting behavior observed by Katsufuji et al.Katsufuji et al. (1996) in La1.67Sr0.33NiO4, where the energy-shift was found to exhibit a BCS-like temperature dependence, corresponds with the critical behavior observed in the superlattice intensities by diffraction studies on that compound.Lee and Cheong (1997); Du et al. (2000)

The feature in Fig. 7 that, on first glance, seems inconsistent is the jump in superlattice intensity at the 110-K spin ordering transition—it is certainly not reflected in the optical energy shift. The discrepancy becomes less significant when one realizes that local lattice displacements are not the only factor involved in stabilizing the charge stripes. At the first-order 110-K transition, there is a jump in the ordering wave vector at the transition; the charge stripes are commensurate with the interstitial lattice above the transition, but become effectively incommensurate below.Wochner et al. (1998) In the commensurate phase, the stripes are stabilized by alignment with the Coulomb potential of the interstitials, in addition to the local lattice relaxation. In the incommensurate phase at lower temperatures, the Coulomb stabilization is lost, but the incommensurate phase is favored by the reduction in energy from the ordering of the magnetic moments. In terms of screening the charge stripes, the loss of the interstitial Coulomb energy is balanced by the increase in lattice displacements. Thus, it seems reasonable that the energy shift of the MIR peak is insensitive to the transition at 110 K.

The magnitude of the MIR peak shift we observe is comparable to that found in La2-xSrxNiO4 with $`x=0.225`$ (Ref. Pashkevich et al., 2000) and $`0.5`$ (Ref. Jung et al., 2001), where the stripe order is incommensurate.Tranquada et al. (1996); Kajimoto et al.  In contrast, the shift is larger (0.26 eV) for the $`x=\frac{1}{3}`$ composition, where the order is commensurate.Katsufuji et al. (1996) In the commensurate case, it seems likely that the lattice displacements and the Coulomb energy work together, resulting in an enhanced Franck-Condon energy.

Finally, we note that the electronic dynamical conductivity along the $`c`$ axis (see inset of Fig. 3) remains negligible at all temperatures. This result provides credibility to our assumption that the electronic excitations probed with $`\epsilon 𝐜`$ are confined within the two-dimensional NiO2 planes. The insulating behavior along the $`c`$-axis together with finite conductivity within the planes is reminiscent of cuprate superconductors in the pseudogap regime.Homes et al. (1993b)

## VI Summary and Discussion

We have presented a study of the optical conductivity in La2NiO4.133. While the data are qualitatively similar to those reported for La2-xSrxNiO4, we have introduced a new interpretation of the electronic conductivity. In particular, we have shown that $`\sigma _{ab}(\omega )`$ can be decomposed into the MIR peak, a contribution that is always gapped, and a Drude component that appears at higher temperatures. The two components are consistent with theoretical expectations for the electronic structures associated wiht a stripe-ordered system. Associated with the charge stripes are mid-gap states that, in the case of nickelates, are empty at low temperature. Transitions from the filled valence band to the empty mid-gap states yield the MIR peak. Thermal excitation of carriers into the mid-gap states at higher temperature results in the Drude peak. The temperature-dependent frequency shift of the MIR peak is consistent with a Franck-Condon effect that is dependent on the degree of stripe order.

The electronic structure associated with stripes is inhomogeneous in real space. Thus, the MIR excitation is likely to involve moving an electron from an antiferromagnetic region into a hole stripe, as indicated in Fig. 5(b). Thinking in terms of holes, the transition involves a hole hopping off of a stripe, forming a local fluctuation of that stripe. The connection between stripe fluctuations and conductivity (or hole motion) has been explored in a number of theoretical studies of stripe models relevant to the cuprates.Tchernyshyov and Pryadko (2000); Zaanen et al. (2001); Chernyshev et al. (2000); Lorenzana and Seibold  For the insulating stripes in the nickelates, finite conductivity correlates with disordering of the stripes.

The charge stripes in cuprates are partially filled with electrons, so that Drude-like conduction should be possible even when the stripes are ordered. This appears to be the case in La2-x-yNdySrxCuO4 based on transportNoda et al. (1999) and IRTajima et al. (1999); Dumm et al. (2002) studies. Comparisons of the MIR conductivity in the nickelates with that in cuprates have been made previously.Bi et al. (1990); Ido et al. (1991); Bi and Eklund (1993) A two-component analysis (Drude$`+`$MIR), though controversial, has been applied to measurements on cuprates where stripes have not been directly detected, such as Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 and Bi2Sr2CuO6 (Ref. Romero et al., 1992; Lupi et al., 2000). We note that the values of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D`$ at room temperature for those samples, 480 cm-1 and 690 cm-1 respectively, are not greatly different from the value of 800 cm-1 for our nickelate sample. On a related point, Ando et al.Ando et al. (2001) have shown that in La2-xSrxCuO4, where stripes are believed to be relevant, the charge mobility at a given temperature changes by only a very modest amount from the underdoped to optimally doped regimes, and that it is quite similar in YBa2Cu3O6+x. The stripe-based interpretation is certainly not the only one that one can imagine applying to the cuprates, but the similarities between measurements on cuprates and on the stripe-ordered nickelates lend considerable support to this interpretation.

## Acknowledgements

We would like to thank S. A. Kivelson, V. Perebeinos, D. N. Basov, M. Strongin, S. Brazovskii, A. L. Chernyshev, R. Werner, T. M. Rice, S. Uchida, and J. Zaanen for helpful discussions. Research at Brookhaven is supported by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886. DJB acknowledges support from DOE under Contract No. DE-FG02-00ER45800.


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# The Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey – IV. Biases in the Completeness of Near-Infrared Imaging Data

## 1 Introduction

The luminosity function as well as the mass function, and to a lesser degree the number counts of galaxies provide an important observational toolset for understanding the evolution of galaxies. Due to their statistical nature, these methods rely on the understanding of sample selection effects, i.e. the knowledge of what fraction of the true number of galaxies, as a function of their intrinsic properties, is actually present in the sample. In order to extract this information from the data, two different approaches are commonly used in the literature, creation of artificial objects or modification of observed objects.

The synthetic objects are, as described by e.g. Martini (2001), usually point-sources or objects with galactic profiles, that are inserted into the observed images. Then the fraction of objects recovered by the applied detection algorithm as a function of, e.g, the assigned apparent magnitude is computed. This approach exhibits two major drawbacks: The galaxies are created using a discrete set of half-light radii and a continuous range of magnitudes, thus ignoring known relations between surface-brightness and effective radius, like the fundamental plane (Bender et al., 1992; Gavazzi et al., 2000). The results show the completeness limits for distinct types of objects, but as the actually observed ratio of these types is unknown, predictions about the total completeness of the data cannot be made.

In the second case, as conducted by e.g.Bershady et al. (1998), Arnouts et al. (1999) or Saracco et al. (1999), images of the observed objects are dimmed or brightened to produce artificial objects. The advantage of this approach is, that it preserves the observed mix of galaxies, assuming that it remains unchanged with time, yet the resulting completeness fractions for extended objects are questionable, as long as the resolution of images is seeing-limited. When the bright extended objects are dimmed, they are still profile dominated, whereas in reality a faint object would be seeing dominated. The same holds true for artificially brightened faint sources. The resulting objects would still be seeing dominated. Furthermore, the observed size of a local object of given magnitude is different from the size of a distant object of the same brightness. Consequently this method only yields information about the probability to detect an object if it was fainter, but not about the probability to detect an intrinsically faint object.

Another drawback of both approaches is that the obtained results can only be used to define the completeness of the survey in apparent magnitudes. The magnitudes and radii of the artificially constructed objects all are physically plausible, but the objects do not occupy one plane in the $`\mu _er_ez`$ parameter space. Therefore the results derived using galactic profiles are not usable to correct absolute magnitudes, as effects of the completeness of different galaxy types at given redshifts are unknown.

In deep extra-galactic surveys, the observed galaxies span a wide range in intrinsic profile shape, intrinsic brightness, and intrinsic size. The apparent quantities vary with cosmological distance, such that the fraction of galaxies visible is also a function of redshift. The need to simulate objects obeying the known scaling relations for galaxies was pointed out several times in the literature. Using profiles obeying the magnitude-radius relations, Yoshii (1993) predicted the number of objects lost in number count analysis. He finds a strong dependence of the detection rate on the applied detection criteria and magnitude measurement algorithm, leading to a larger number of undetected faint galaxies at high redshifts.

Dalcanton (1998) analysed the biases of the luminosity function introduced by the cosmological effects of size variation with redshift, and cosmological dimming for galactic profiles in dependence of size and magnitude, taking into account effects of seeing. Starting from the deficiency that magnitudes are usually measured as some sort of isophotal magnitude, that is directly influenced by the above mentioned effects, she finds the possibility of a severe underestimation of the true luminosity function introduced by the fact that an object and distance dependent part of the light is lost outside the limiting isophote.

The simulations presented in this paper were performed by adding artificially created objects into the $`K^{}`$-band images of the Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS; Drory et al., 2001). We analysed the detection probability and the reliability for recovering the assigned magnitude for point-like sources (Moffat profiles), elliptical galaxies (de Vaucouleurs profiles), and spiral galaxies (exponential profiles). The radii and magnitudes of the simulated galaxies were distributed according to the projected fundamental-plane relation (Bender et al., 1992) for ellipticals and a Freeman law type relation (Freeman, 1970) constructed from observed data for spirals. The galaxies were simulated at five distinct redshifts between $`z=0.5`$ and $`z=1.5`$, taking into account size variation with redshift as well as cosmological dimming and K-correction. A flat universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 was assumed.

The results of the completeness simulations for the different fields of the MUNICS survey presented here, illustrate the principal limitations of imaging surveys. A full correction of the incompleteness would only be possible if the type mix of galaxies was known. The presentation of the results here is limited to the $`K^{}`$-band data, but as the selection biases are caused by the physical nature of the objects, they are applicable in a much wider context to deep extragalactic surveys spanning the optical and near-infrared wavelength regimes. The conclusions drawn here result from the use of a threshold-based detection algorithm. Accordingly they will hold true for other similarly created datasets as well.

Finally, a reliable and handy analytic formula to estimate the completeness limit of a survey for point-like sources is presented. In Section 2 the implementation of the simulations and the generation of the artificial objects is described. Section 3 presents the results of the simulations, and a discussion of these. To compare the results with analytic predictions, we present the results of an analysis using the visibility theory devised by Disney & Phillipps (1983) in Section 4 for the detection probability and in Section 5 for the lost-light fraction. In Section 6 we discuss the effects of seeing in the above mentioned analysis. Finally, in Section 7 we present the results of the completeness simulations for the MUNICS fields.

### 1.1 The Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS)

The Munich Near-Infrared Cluster Survey (MUNICS) is a wide-field medium-deep survey in the near-infrared $`K^{}`$ and $`J`$ pass-bands (Drory et al. 2001; MUNICS1 hereafter). The survey consists of a $`K^{}`$-selected catalogue down to $`K^{}19.5`$ covering an area of 1 square degree. Additionally, 0.35 square degrees have been observed in $`I`$, $`R`$, and $`V`$. The layout of the survey, the observations and data reduction are described in Drory et al. (2001).

## 2 Implementation of the simulations

Detection probabilities and photometry results were analysed for three different profile shapes: de Vaucouleurs profiles, exponential disks and point-like sources.

For each profile type and each image, 200 artificially created objects were added to the image, taking into account the noise properties of the background and the photometric zero-point. The resulting image was processed in the same way as described in MUNICS1 regarding detection and photometry, using the software package YODA (Drory, 2002). The resulting object catalogue was used to calculate the fraction of recovered objects and to compare the resulting photometry in Kron-like elliptical apertures to the quantities in the input catalogue.

This procedure was repeated 500 times resulting in a total of 100 000 artificial objects per type. In each run, the artificial objects were distributed randomly in (x,y)-position across the image, excluding a 25 pixel wide strip along the image borders, and requiring 20 pixel distance to existing objects, as we intentionally avoid crowding which would introduce effects beyond the scope of this work. Extended sources were convolved with a Gaussian with a FWHM of the measured seeing in the image. Poisson noise was added to all profiles. In the following we discuss the generation of objects of each of the examined profile types in more detail.

### 2.1 Stars and point-sources

Point-like sources were simulated using a Moffat profile (Moffat, 1969) of the form

$$I(r)=\frac{I_c}{\left(1+\left(\frac{r}{R}\right)^2\right)^\beta }.$$
(1)
with the characteristic intensity $`I_c`$. The size parameter $`R`$, defining the radius of the created object, was set to the measured value from point-like real sources in the analysed image, and the Moffat parameter $`\beta `$ was fixed at the canonical value of $`2.5`$. The apparent magnitudes assigned to the point-sources were chosen randomly from a constant probability density in the range $`15m_K^{}25`$.

### 2.2 Elliptical galaxies

Elliptical galaxies were simulated using a de Vaucouleurs profile (de Vaucouleurs, 1948). For a galaxy with effective radius $`r_e`$ and effective intensity $`I_e`$ (defined as the intensity at $`r_e`$), this profile can be written as

$$I(r)=I_e\mathrm{exp}\left(7.67\left(\frac{r}{r_e}\right)^{\frac{1}{4}}\right).$$
(2)
For the sake of simplicity an $`r^{1/4}`$ law is applied, ignoring relations between luminosity and the shape of the profile. But it should be kept in mind, that an $`r^{1/n}`$ profile with $`n>4`$ would show the same biases as described here. To create a realistic population of elliptical galaxies, the radii and absolute magnitudes of the galaxies were distributed according to the Kormendy relation (Kormendy, 1985), a projection of the local fundamental-plane relation (Burstein et al., 1997). We used the $`K`$-band Kormendy relation published by Pahre et al. (1995) for the effective radius of the galaxy $`R_e`$ in kpc and the mean effective surface brightness $`\mu _e`$ in mag arcsec-2

$$\mathrm{log}R_e=0.332\mu _e5.090.$$
(3)
Using the definition of $`\mu _e`$

$$m=1.9955\mathrm{log}r_e+\mu _e.$$
(4)
equation (3) can be transformed into a relation between absolute magnitude $`M`$ and effective radius $`R_e`$

$$M_K^{}=1.99\mathrm{log}R_e23.235.$$
(5)
The absolute magnitudes were chosen randomly and uniformly in the range $`26.5M_K^{}20.5`$, corresponding to a range of $`\pm 3`$ magnitudes around $`M_K^{}`$ for the local K-band luminosity function (Loveday, 2000).

To simulate a galaxy at redshift $`z`$, the apparent radius was calculated from the given physical radius using the angular distance, and the absolute magnitude was transformed into the apparent magnitude using the luminosity distance. During each repetition of the simulation 40 galaxies for each of the five redshifts $`z\{0.5,0.75,1.0,1.25,1.5\}`$ were created. The axis ratios $`e`$ were selected randomly in the range $`0.7e1.0`$, the position angles were chosen arbitrarily. For the galaxies at $`z=0.5`$ the absolute magnitude range was shifted $`25.5M_K^{}19.5`$ to better trace the faint-end drop-off of the completeness curve. The resulting apparent magnitudes were adjusted using only K-corrections derived from model SEDs from Bender (2001). The used values are listed in Table 1. Possible effects introduced by luminosity evolution with redshift were explored, and are discussed at the end of section 3.

### 2.3 Spiral galaxies

Spiral galaxies were simulated as pure exponential profiles with no bulge component. An analysis of the bulge-disk decomposition for the galaxies published by Gavazzi et al. (2000) shows that the contribution of the bulge to the total luminosity is less than 18%. We therefore neglect the contribution of the bulge.

For a galaxy with half-light radius $`r_h`$ and central intensity $`I_e`$ the intensity profile can be written as

$$I(r)=I_0\mathrm{exp}\left(1.6783\frac{r}{r_h}\right).$$
(6)
To create objects with realistic magnitude-size ratios, all galaxies fitted by a pure exponential profile from $`H`$-band surface photometry data of spiral galaxies published by Gavazzi et al. (2000) were used. The absolute $`H`$-band magnitudes were transformed into the $`K^{}`$-band using $`HK^{}`$ colours derived from empirical SEDs presented in Bender (2001). The mean correction was $`HK^{}0.128`$ mag. Using the objects’ distances, the half-light radii in kpc $`R_H`$ were computed from the published values. The resulting distribution of galaxies in the $`\mathrm{log}R_hM_K^{}`$ plane was then approximated by assuming

$$M_K^{}=5\left(\mathrm{log}R_h\pm 0.25\right)19.7.$$
(7)
For a population of local spiral galaxies, this distribution would be analogous to a Freeman law with a $`K^{}`$-band central surface brightness of $`17.52`$ mag arcsec-2 and an rms of $`1.73`$ mag.

Fig. 1 shows the absolute magnitudes and effective radii of the Gavazzi et al. data and of some artificially created objects. The distribution of the artificial objects reproduces that of the observed population reasonably well, extending to somewhat brighter magnitudes.

The absolute magnitudes of the objects were randomly chosen in the range $`26.5M_K^{}20.5`$, again corresponding to a range of $`\pm 3`$ magnitudes around $`M_K^{}`$ for a local K-band luminosity function (Loveday, 2000). Using the same techniques as for the elliptical galaxies, the spirals were simulated for the same five redshifts, with axis ratios in the range $`0<e1`$ and arbitrary position angles. The resulting apparent magnitudes were adjusted using only K-corrections derived from model SEDs shown in Bender (2001), no evolution corrections were applied. The results of tests for influences of luminosity evolution are discussed at the end of section 3. The applied values are listed in Table 1. The mean surface brightnesses $`\mu `$ were derived from a sample of local spiral galaxies. Brightness evolution with redshift would make the galaxies brighter, while the radii are known not to change significantly up to redshifts of $`z1`$.

## 3 Results and Discussion

The results for one of the MUNICS fields with a seeing of approximately one arcsec FWHM are shown in Fig. 2. The upper panel shows the results for the point-sources, the middle and the lower panel for the de Vaucouleurs and exponential profiles, respectively, for the five redshifts simulated. An interesting effect seen in the figure is that, for higher redshifts $`z1`$, the detection probability does not reach unity even for the brightest objects, forming a plateau at some lower value. This effect is mainly caused by the cosmological surface brightness dimming and discussed in detail in Section 3 below. Fig. 2 shows that the completeness for point-like sources provides a rough but reasonable approximation for the completeness of the analysed extended objects up to a redshift of $`z=1.0`$.

For each detected object, the difference between the input magnitude and the measured Kron-magnitude was computed. Fig. 3 shows the mean magnitude differences for the analysed profiles, averaged in bins of 0.25 mag and with the standard deviation of the measurements in the bin indicated as errorbars.

The object recovery probabilities for the high-redshift de Vaucouleurs profiles, and to a lesser degree for the exponential profiles exhibit a significant detection bias compared to lower redshift objects, as shown in Fig. 2. The fact that the objects at these redshifts never reach a detection probability of one is caused by the distribution of their physical parameters along the fundamental-plane relation – in case of the ellipticals – and according to the Freeman law – in case of the disks. In both cases, as the object’s size increases its radius grows and therefore the average surface brightness decreases. As a result, even the brightest objects of the distribution fail to produce a large enough area above the threshold in surface brightness to be detected with high probability in the presence of noise. In Section 4 these results are compared with the theoretical predictions of the visibility theory, which will confirm the above statement.

The detection deficiencies at low redshifts found for the exponential profiles are caused by the flat light distribution of the objects, resulting in a low central surface brightness even for the luminous objects. The image noise can then scatter these objects below the detection threshold. This result is in general agreement with the predictions of McGaugh et al. (1995). In their paper they re-derive the formalism devised by Disney & Phillipps (1983) using two parameters for the disk galaxies. They predict that disk galaxies would suffer from detection biases introduced by their low central surface brightness.

Martini (2001) performed simulations similar to the ones presented here, analysing the detection probabilities of Moffat, de Vaucouleurs and exponential profiles. The galactic profiles were created for a discrete set of half-light radii and a continuous range of apparent magnitudes. The simulations show a decrease of the limiting magnitude with increasing half-light radius. This effect can be found in the simulations presented here, by comparing the completeness magnitude at different redshifts. With increasing redshift, the sampled range in absolute magnitudes is shifted toward fainter apparent magnitudes, resulting in an increase of effective radius at given apparent magnitude. The detection bias against high redshifted elliptical galaxies we showed cannot be found by the simulations performed by Martini, as these effects are only visible when distributing the objects along a fundamental-plane relation.

The bias first shown by Disney & Phillipps (1983), that with increased distance more low-luminosity system would be lost from the survey, is reproduced by our simulations as well. With increasing redshift, the magnitude of the completeness limit stays approximately constant, or gets brighter, while the range of sampled absolute magnitudes is shifted to fainter apparent magnitudes. This means, that with increasing redshift, the observable range in absolute magnitudes moves toward higher luminosities, the low-luminosity systems become unobservable.

The deviations of the measured magnitude from the true magnitude for the de Vaucouleurs profiles as seen in Fig. 3, can be explained as resulting from the estimate of the Kron-like aperture radius under the conditions of a surface brightness limited detection procedure and the involved intrinsic brightness profile of the objects. The upper left panel of Fig. 4 shows the intensity of a de Vaucouleurs and an exponential profile with similar total magnitude and effective radius, as a function of the radius in units of the effective radius in absence of seeing. Assuming that both profiles are detected at a similar intensity level, the Kron-radius of the de Vaucouleurs profile would be smaller compared to the exponential profile, even though the effective radius of both objects is the same. The measured light within the underestimated radius results then in a too faint object magnitude. Combined with the previously mentioned surface brightness distribution along the fundamental plane, this leads to an increased amount of lost flux and a larger error in the output magnitude for brighter objects, as these have lower surface brightnesses. In Section 5 we will confirm this explanation with predictions based on computations of the visibility function and the lost-light fraction.

Our results confirm the predictions of McGaugh (1994), that the magnitudes of distant spiral galaxies would be measured correctly for luminous galaxies, and slightly underestimate them for the systems with low-luminosity.

The deviations of the measured from the input magnitude we find, are compatible with the simulations of Martini (2001), who compared the reliability of different photometric methods for point-sources and exponential profiles. For Kron-like magnitude measurements both shapes would be measured correctly at the bright end, and slightly underestimated at the faint end.

To explore the effects caused by the increase of the objects’ surface brightness introduced by luminosity evolution with redshift, an additional set of simulations for objects at $`z=1`$ was created. The brightnesses of the created artificial de Vaucouleurs and exponential profiles was increased by $`0.75`$ magnitudes (de Propris et al., 1999). The results shown in Fig. 5 show no significant change of the magnitude of the 50% completeness limit. The reason for this is that the increase of the detectable area is small in the magnitude range of the 50% limit. The increase in size is larger for brighter magnitudes, but the positive effect is mainly lost due to the already high detection probability, or may result in a slightly higher plateau level.

## 4 Visibility theory

Disney & Phillipps (1983) and Phillipps et al. (1990) analysed the dependence of the visibility of a galaxy on its surface brightness and apparent radius in a survey with given detection constraints in surface brightness and object radius. They estimated the maximum distance at which a galaxy with a given magnitude and effective radius can be seen, by calculating the distance at which the surface brightness at the limiting radius drops below the detection threshold.

Even though our goal is not to predict the maximum distance out to which a given galaxy type can be seen, but to analyse biases that occur when observing galaxies at high redshifts, this theoretical approach can be used here as well to predict the behaviour of the used threshold-based detection algorithms.

To detect an object we require a minimum number of consecutive pixels to lie above a given brightness threshold, usually expressed in units of the standard deviation of the background noise. The area required to be above the threshold is usually determined by the seeing disk (resolution element) size. Both values are adjusted such that faint real objects are detected at a tolerable rate of false detections.

In our case the minimum number $`N`$ of consecutive pixels is chosen to be $`N=\pi (1.4s/2)^2`$, with $`s`$ being the seeing FWHM in the image. The threshold $`t`$ is set to three times the standard deviation $`\sigma `$ of the local background noise, for details see Drory et al. (2001).

In the case of circularly symmetric profiles, the calculation of the area above $`t`$ is trivial, and the limiting surface brightness $`\mu _{lim}`$ may be written as

$$\mu _{lim}=m_{zp}2.5\mathrm{log}\frac{t}{p^2}$$
(8)
for the magnitude zero-point $`m_{zp}`$ and the pixel scale $`p`$ (0.396 arcsec/pixel in MUNICS).

To create comparable completeness curves from the simulations as discussed above, a set of simulations for point-sources with Moffat profiles and circular face-on galaxies were calculated. These results are shown in Fig. 6 for point-sources and in Fig. 7 – in the lower panel of each plot – in the upper row for de Vaucouleurs profiles, and in the lower row for exponential profiles at redshifts $`z=0.5`$ and $`z=1.25`$.

For Moffat profiles, the radius $`R`$ of the circular area $`A`$ above the limiting isophote can be calculated as

$$R=s\sqrt{10^{\frac{\mu _{lim}\mu _c}{2.5\beta }}1}$$
(9)
with seeing $`s`$ and characteristic surface brightness $`\mu _c`$. In the upper panel of Fig. 6 the dashed line shows the area $`A`$ resulting from the analytic calculation following equation (9), the thick solid histogram gives the area integrated over the image pixels for a simulated object. The thin horizontal line indicates the minimum limiting area needed to detect an object.

Equation (9) can be transformed into

$$m=\mu _{lim}2.5\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{\pi s^2\left(1+\left(\frac{R}{s}\right)^2\right)^\beta }{\beta 1}\right).$$
(10)
Using equation (8) this can be written as

$$m=m_{zp}2.5\mathrm{log}\left(\frac{t\pi s^2\left(1+\left(\frac{R}{s}\right)^2\right)^\beta }{p^2\left(\beta 1\right)}\right).$$
(11)
These formulas provide a simple way to estimate the completeness limit for point-like sources for a given image, using easily measurable parameters. Tests using the MUNICS data have shown that this formula provides a robust estimate of the $`50\%`$ completeness level.

For de Vaucouleurs profiles with effective radius $`r_e`$ and effective surface brightness $`\mu _e`$ within $`r_e`$, $`R`$ can be written as

$$R=r_e\left(\frac{\mu _{lim}\mu _e}{8.3268}+1\right)^4$$
(12)
and as

$$R=r_h\left(\frac{\mu _{lim}\mu _0}{1.822}\right)$$
(13)
for exponential profiles with half-light radius $`r_h`$ and the central surface brightness $`\mu _0`$.

The dotted lines in the upper panels of Fig. 7 show the area within the limiting isophote as a function of apparent magnitude, as calculated using equation (12) and Equation (13) for de Vaucouleurs profiles and exponential profiles, respectively. For comparison, the same values extracted from objects in the simulations are plotted as solid lines. The area corresponding to the minimum area required for detection is indicated as a horizontal line. The intersection of this line with the curve then provides an estimate of the completeness limit.

The lower panels of these figures show the detection probability as a function of apparent magnitude. Results are shown both with and without seeing. Seeing was modelled as a convolution with a Gaussian profile. In the case of the de Vaucouleurs profiles, moderate seeing ($``$ 1 arcsec) improves detectability, since it distributes flux outwards, converting the steep core of the de Vaucouleurs profile to a larger and flatter flux distribution. This effect is much weaker for disk profiles since these are flatter, anyway. Note that worse seeing again worsens the detectability of objects, since at some value, it will distribute too much flux outwards and cause the core of the profile to drop beyond the threshold. For a full discussion, see Section 6.

From these plots it becomes apparent, that the theoretical predictions provide a good estimate of the completeness function (as the detectable area drops below the required value at the same apparent magnitude at which the completeness function drops off), but only provided that seeing is taken into account.

In the case of the high-redshift ($`z=1.25`$) galaxies, the detection probability never reaches one. This results from the fact that even for the brightest simulated objects – with an absolute magnitude $`3`$ mag above $`M^{}`$, but lower mean surface brightness – the object’s core lies barely above the detection threshold for all magnitudes. Therefore, noise easily scatters objects below the threshold and the detection probability is always smaller than unity.

Looking at the predictions of the visibility function for the exponential profiles at high redshifts, the low detection probability surprises. Although the detectable area is much larger than the limiting one, the completeness fraction remains low. Due to its rather flat light-distribution, the exponential profile is much more susceptible to distortions caused by noise than the steeper de Vaucouleurs profile. These scattered noise pixels can then either reduce the objects’ size below the limiting radius, or form additional false maxima leading to a mis-detection in the form of several objects, not recognising the artificially created one.

## 5 Lost-light fraction

The magnitude differences between the input and the measured magnitudes shown in Fig. 3 exhibit a strong deviation for elliptical galaxies at the bright end of the distribution. The results from the analysis of the visibility function can be used to calculate the lost-light fraction. Assuming that an object is detected out to the limiting radius $`r_{lim}`$ where the surface brightness drops below the detection limit, the intensity weighted Kron radius $`r_k`$ (Kron, 1980) can be calculated for circularly symmetric objects as

$$r_k=\frac{rI(r)}{I(r)}$$
(14)
The galactic profile is then integrated out to some factor (in our case $`2.5`$) times the Kron radius, and the corresponding magnitude is calculated. Fig. 8 shows the results of this calculation of the lost-light fraction for circular symmetric de Vaucouleurs and exponential profiles in comparison with the results obtained from the completeness simulations.

The measured magnitudes of the elliptical galaxies deviate strongly from the assigned input magnitudes due to underestimation of the Kron radius caused by the steep decline of the profile in the central detectable part. In case of the exponential profiles the differences in the photometry are much smaller, since the flatter profile causes the Kron-radius estimate to be closer to the true value, even if only the inner part of the profile is detected.

The analytically calculated lost-light fraction predicts a slightly lower difference than the measurements show (except for the highest-redshift bin). This can be explained by the fact, that the theoretical approach is based on the ideal case, where the object is detected exactly out to the maximum visible radius, and that the form of the profile is not distorted. In reality, the area is pixelated and integration over the pixels in calculating the Kron radius causes smaller values. Additionally, noise causes mis-measurement of the object size and shape.

In contrast, in the highest redshift bin ($`z=1.5`$) analysed here in the context of MUNICS, the analytically calculated lost-light fraction predicts higher deviations than actually measured in the simulated images. These objects are only detectable due to additional pixels being scattered above the threshold by noise (as can be seen in Fig. 10, which shows that the whole profile is below the threshold). This additional flux causes the photometry to yield too bright magnitudes.

The same effect causes the photometry to yield too bright magnitudes for objects at the faint end of the luminosity function in all redshift bins. These are also too faint to be detected without the presence of pixels scattered above the threshold by noise.

As the mean surface brightness increases towards fainter objects, and as those are also intrinsically smaller, a larger fraction of the total profile is visible around $`M^{}`$, and the measurement of the total magnitude improves.

It should be kept in mind that the largest differences occur for the rather rare objects with absolute magnitudes 3 mag brighter then $`M^{}`$, while the magnitudes of $`M^{}`$ objects are measured correctly. In the calculation of the luminosity function, this would cause the brightest objects to be redistributed to lower absolute magnitudes. But again, the numbers of such bright galaxies are rather low ($`10^4`$ times lower space density than $`M^{}`$ objects), and thus the contamination of the LF by these galaxies should be rather small. At the faint end, the situation is similar. Although these objects are much more numerous, they are actually below the detection limit. Therefore these are only detected by chance (about 200 out of 20000 simulated objects at $`z=0.5`$ were detected beyond 20 mag), Thus the influence of their wrongly measured magnitude on statistics like the luminosity function is almost negligible.

## 6 The effect of seeing

To explore the influence of seeing on the visibility, seeing convolved galactic profiles were used to calculate the visibility function and the lost-light fraction. The seeing was simulated using a two-dimensional Gaussian of the form

$$I(𝐫)=\frac{1}{2\pi \sigma ^2}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{𝐫^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right).$$
(15)
The width of the Gaussian kernel $`\sigma `$ was calculated from the width $`s`$ of the measured seeing PSF as

$$\sigma =\frac{s}{\sqrt{8\mathrm{ln}2}}.$$
(16)
The galactic profiles $`I_g`$ were convolved with the Gaussian resulting in the convolved profile $`I_g^{}`$

$$I_g^{}(r)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{2\pi }{}}r^{}I_g(r)e^{\frac{r^2+r_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}2rr^{}\mathrm{cos}\phi }{2\sigma ^2}}𝑑\phi 𝑑r^{}$$
(17)
Using convolved profiles, the calculation of the visibility function and the lost-light fraction were repeated on images with two different seeing values of 0.8 and 1.6 arcsec.

Fig. 10 shows the results of the completeness simulations and the calculation of the visibility function for de Vaucouleurs profiles with seeing of 0.8 and 1.6 arcsec, Fig. 11 the same for exponential profiles.

An increase of the seeing distributes more light outward from the central parts of the profile within the seeing disk, resulting in a smoothed light distribution in the centre, as shown in Fig. 4. As discussed above, moderate seeing improves detectability of faint objects by distributing light from the bright centre more evenly across a larger area without reducing the light in the centre below the threshold. As the seeing gets larger, this effect is counter balanced by the fact that now the amount of light redistributed away from the centre becomes so large that the central parts of the profile falls below the detection threshold.

Fig. 10 shows this effect for the case of the steep de Vaucouleurs profile The detection limit is fainter by roughly one magnitude in the presence of a seeing of 0.8 arcsec compared to the seeing-free case. On the other hand, once the seeing is as large as 1.6 arcsec, the detection limit has dropped close to the no seeing case. In the highest-redshift bins, detectability of elliptical galaxies is depressed below the no-seeing case, since now the seeing-convolved profile is entirely below the detection threshold.

The exponential profiles – shown in Fig. 11 – suffer from the same effects, resulting in decrease of the completeness limit with increased seeing. The low overall recovery fraction of exponential profiles compared to de Vaucouleurs profiles at high redshift is caused by the flatter light distribution and the lack of a central peak compared with the de Vaucouleurs profiles. Due to this, the objects’ appearance is much more irregular in the images due to the significant fraction of flux in poissonian noise. This results, on the one hand, in pixels dropping below the detection limit, and, on the other hand, false maxima, resulting in the detection of two or more (distinct) structures. These effects have the strongest impact for the circularly symmetric (face-on) objects used here. In the more realistic approach using randomly distributed ellipticities – as shown in Fig. 2 – the impact of these effects is much less significant, due to the steeper apparent profiles for inclined disks.

The lost-light fraction – shown in Figs. 8 and 9 – for objects with seeing, in contrast, shows no significant change with the increase of the seeing except close to the completeness limit and at high redshift.

## 7 $`K^{}`$-band completeness limits for the MUNICS survey

Here we present the results of the completeness simulations for the fields of the MUNICS survey (see Drory et al., 2001) in the $`K^{}`$-band. To parameterise the shape of the completeness curves a combination of two power-laws with the functional form

$$P_D(m)=\frac{p_0}{\left(\frac{m}{m_0}\right)^\alpha +\left(\frac{m}{m_0}\right)^\beta }$$
(18)
was fitted to the results. The best-fitting parameters $`p_0`$, $`m_0`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are given in Table 2 for point-like sources, Tables 4 and 4 for de Vaucouleurs profiles and Tables 6 and 6 for exponential profiles. In case of the latter ones the parameters are given separately for the five analysed redshifts.

## 8 Summary

We presented the results of extensive completeness simulations for imaging surveys of faint galaxies, taking into account their known size – surface-brightness relations. The absolute magnitudes of the elliptical galaxies simulated as de Vaucouleurs profiles following a local fundamental-plane relation. The disk galaxies represented by pure exponential profiles were modelled according to a Freeman law. These physical parameters were converted into apparent sizes, depending on the simulated redshift of the object. The simulations were carried out for the $`K^{}`$-band images of the MUNICS survey, but the deficiencies found should remain valid in other comparable surveys as long as a threshold based detection algorithm and an adaptive isophotal magnitude measurement are used.

We find a strong bias against bright $`r^1/4`$ profiles at higher redshifts in the rate of detection as well in the photometry of the objects. At low redshifts the completeness fraction is comparable to point-like sources. The measured magnitudes underestimate the true magnitudes at the bright end of the distribution. The sharp maximum in the centre of the profile results in an underestimate of the objects’ radius leading to a too small isophotal radius in the magnitude measurement. At high redshifts the detection probability does not reach one even for the brightest objects, forming a plateau at lower values. This stems from the correlation of surface brightness and effective radius along the fundamental-plane relation. Toward the bright end the object’s surface brightness decreases, although the total magnitude increases.

The detection of spiral galaxies at high redshift shows similar deficiencies. Here the effective radius increases with magnitude, but the intrinsic mean surface brightness stays constant as predicted by the Freeman law. The rather flat light distribution of the exponential profile helps to estimate the object’s radius correctly and accordingly to measure the magnitudes without large errors.

These results are in general agreement with the prediction of the visibility function theory (Disney & Phillipps, 1983) and the brightness defects predicted by Dalcanton (1998) – except in the two most distant redshift-bins, where the predictions break down – using calculations of the lost-light fraction, as long as the effects of seeing are taken into account.

With equations (10) and (11) we provide a rather simple way to estimate the $`50\%`$ completeness limit of point-like sources represented by Moffat profiles.

## Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the staff at Calar Alto Observatory and McDonald Observatory for their extensive support during the many observing runs of this project. The authors also thank the anonymous referee for his comments, which helped to improve the presentation of the paper. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Abstract Service and the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). The MUNICS project was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 375, Astroteilchenphysik.


text:
# Mass dependence in vector–meson electroproduction

## Introduction

Besides the most known studies of DIS at low $`x`$ important measurements of cross–sections of the elastic vector meson production were performed in the experiments H1 and ZEUS at HERA . As it follows from these data the integral cross section of the elastic vector meson production increases with energy in a way similar to the $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}(W^2,Q^2)`$ dependence on $`W^2`$ . It appeared also that the growth of the vector–meson electroproduction cross–section with energy is steeper for heavy vector mesons and when the virtuality $`Q^2`$ increases.

In this note we show that the approach based on the off-shell extension of the $`s`$–channel unitarity (cf.  and references therein) and its application to the elastic vector meson production in the processes $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ allows in particular to consider mass dependence of these processes. It appears that the obtained mass and $`Q^2`$ dependencies are in a quantitative agreement with the high–energy HERA experimental data.

## 1 Vector–meson electroproduction

The extension of the $`U`$–matrix unitarization for the off-shell scattering was considered in . It was supposed that the virtual photon fluctuates into a quark–antiquark pair $`q\overline{q}`$ and this pair can be treated as an effective virtual vector meson state in the processes with small Bjorken $`x`$. There were considered limitations the unitarity provides for the $`\gamma ^{}p`$–total cross-sections and geometrical effects in the energy dependence of $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}`$. In particular, it was shown that an assumption of the $`Q^2`$–dependent constituent quark interaction radius leads to the following asymptotical dependence: $`\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}(W^2)^{\lambda (Q^2)}`$, where $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ will be saturated at large values of $`Q^2`$. This result is valid when the interaction radius of the virtual constituent quark is rising with virtuality $`Q^2`$. The form corresponding to the virtual constituent quark interaction radius was chosen as following

$$r_Q^{}=\xi (Q^2)/m_Q.$$
(1)
Thus, the dependence on virtuality $`Q^2`$ comes through the dependence of the intensity of the virtual constituent quark interaction $`g(Q^2)`$ and the $`\xi (Q^2)`$, which determines the quark interaction radius (in the on-shell limit $`g(Q^2)g`$ and $`\xi (Q^2)\xi `$).

The reason for the rising interaction radius of the virtual constituent quark with virtuality $`Q^2`$ might be of a dynamical nature and it could originate from the emission of the additional $`q\overline{q}`$–pairs in the nonperturbative structure of a constituent quark. In this approach constituent quark consists of a current quark and the cloud of quark–antiquark pairs of the different flavors . Available experimental data are consistent with the $`\mathrm{ln}Q^2`$–dependence of the radius of this cloud. The introduction of the $`Q^2`$ dependence into the interaction radius of a constituent quark which in this approach consists of a current quark and the cloud of quark–antiquark pairs of the different flavors is the main issue of the off–shell extension of the model, which provides at large values of $`W^2`$

$$\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^{tot}(W^2,Q^2)G(Q^2)\left(\frac{W^2}{m_Q^2}\right)^{\lambda (Q^2)}\mathrm{ln}\frac{W^2}{m_Q^2},$$
(2)
where

$$\lambda (Q^2)=\frac{\xi (Q^2)\xi }{\xi (Q^2)}.$$
(3)
The value and $`Q^2`$ dependence of the exponent $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ is related to the interaction radius of the virtual constituent quark. The value of parameter $`\xi `$ in the model is determined by the slope of the differential cross–section of elastic scattering at large $`t`$  and from the $`pp`$-experimental data it follows that $`\xi =2`$. From the data for $`\lambda (Q^2)`$ obtained at HERA the “experimental” $`Q^2`$–dependence of the function $`\xi (Q^2)`$ has been calculated :

$$\xi (Q^2)=\frac{\xi }{1\lambda (Q^2)}.$$
(4)
The rise of the function $`\xi (Q^2)`$ is slow and consistent with $`\mathrm{ln}Q^2`$ extrapolation:

$$\xi (Q^2)=\xi +a\mathrm{ln}\left(1+\frac{Q^2}{Q_0^2}\right),$$

where $`a=0.172`$ and $`Q_0^2=0.265`$ GeV2.

The inclusion of heavy vector meson production into this scheme is straightforward: the virtual photon fluctuates before the interaction with proton into the heavy quark–antiquark pair which constitutes the virtual heavy vector meson state. After an interaction with a proton this state turns out into a real heavy vector meson.

Integral exclusive (elastic) cross–section of vector meson production in the process $`\gamma ^{}pVp`$ when the vector meson in the final state contains not necessarily light quarks can be calculated directly:

$$\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^V(W^2,Q^2)G_V(Q^2)\left(\frac{W^2}{m_{Q}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\right)^{\lambda _V(Q^2)}\mathrm{ln}\frac{W^2}{m_{Q}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}},$$
(5)
where

$$\lambda _V(Q^2)=\lambda (Q^2)\frac{\stackrel{~}{m}_Q}{m_Q}.$$
(6)
In Eq. (6) $`\stackrel{~}{m}_Q`$ denotes the mass of the constituent quarks from the vector meson and $`m_Q`$ is the mean constituent quark mass of system of the vector meson and proton system. For the on–shell scattering we have a familiar Froissart–like asymptotic energy dependence

$$\sigma _{\gamma ^{}p}^V(W^2,Q^2)\frac{\xi ^2}{m_{Q}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}\mathrm{ln}^2\frac{W^2}{m_{Q}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}}.$$
(7)
It is evident from Eq. (5) that $`\lambda _V(Q^2)=\lambda (Q^2)`$ for the light vector mesons. In the case when the vector meson is very heavy, i.e. $`\stackrel{~}{m}_Qm_Q`$ we have

$$\lambda _V(Q^2)=\frac{5}{2}\lambda (Q^2).$$

We conclude that the respective cross–section rises faster than the corresponding cross–section of the light vector meson production, e.g. Eq. (6) results in

$$\lambda _{J/\mathrm{\Psi }}(Q^2)2\lambda (Q^2).$$

To perform a fit to the high–energy HERA experimental data  we have chosen the functional dependence of $`G_V(Q^2)`$ in the form

$$G_V(Q^2)=g\left(1+\frac{Q^2}{Q_0^2}\right)^a.$$
(8)
The agreement of Eqs. (5) and (7) with experiment when the function $`G_V(Q^2)`$ has the form of Eq. (8) is illustrated by the Figs. (1-4). The values of the three adjustable parameters $`g`$, $`Q_0^2`$ and $`a`$ are given in the Table 1.

## Conclusion

A quantitative agreement with the high–energy HERA experimental data on elastic vector–meson electroproduction is in favor of relation (6) which provides explicit mass dependence of the exponent in the power–like energy dependence of cross–sections. It means that the dependence of the constituent quark interaction radius in the form $`r_Q^{}=\xi (Q^2)/m_Q`$ on its mass and virtuality has an experimental support and corresponding non–universal energy dependence predicted in  does not contradict to the high–energy experimental data on elastic vector–meson electroproduction.

## Acnowledgement

We are grateful to N. E. Tyurin for the useful comments and discussions and A. Prokudin for communications on experimental data analysis.