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# Spectral ageing: a new age perspective

## 1. One key observational point

Many people (e.g. Winter et al. 1980, Myers & Spangler 1985, Alexander & Leahy 1987) have observed that spectral indices change along the lobes of classical double radio galaxies. The general trend observed is that the lobe spectra are flatter in the outermost regions near the hotspot and steeper in the regions nearer the core. Often the observed change in spectral index, or the spectral gradient, is steady and systematic.

### 1.1. Two a priori interpretations

It is not widely acknowledged that there are in principle two physical interpretations of this behaviour. The traditional interpretation of spectral gradients goes as follows: the radiating electrons nearer the core were dumped by the hotspot much earlier in the past than the radiating electrons near the hotspot now, and so the former will have undergone greater synchrotron cooling compared with the latter. A radiating population whose energy distribution is initially a power-law, which suffered only synchrotron losses, would show a ‘break’ in this power-law at later times. This break frequency moves to lower frequencies as more time elapses (Kardashev 1962, Pacholczyk 1970, Jaffe & Perola 1973) predicting steeper measured spectral indices for the older emission. Thus far, there is consistency with observations. But an alternative physical picture explains the observations just as well: a gradient in magnetic field along the lobe together with a curved energy electron spectrum will result in a spectral gradient being observed along the lobe (see Fig. 1). Indeed, Rudnick, Katz-Stone and Anderson’s (1994) analysis of multi-frequency images of Cygnus A show no evidence for any variation in the shape of $`N(\gamma )`$ across different regions of the lobe.

Without considering the underlying physics more deeply, one cannot distinguish between these two possibilities. So we now examine in turn the individual and collective assumptions which go into these two pictures.

## 2. Assumptions and predictions of the spectral ageing method

The spectral ageing method usually makes the following assumptions: i) the magnetic field strength is constant, ii) each segment or slice of lobe may be regarded as a discrete element of plasma and there is no mixing between the slices, iii) the radiative lifetimes of the synchrotron particles in the plasma are significantly longer than the spectral ages to be measured, and iv) the element of plasma being considered initially has a power-law distribution in energy.

A ‘break-frequency’ $`\nu _\mathrm{B}`$ in this power-law distribution is therefore deemed to evolve with time according to the following formula:

$$\nu _\mathrm{B}\frac{1}{B^3t^2}$$
(1)
where $`B`$ is the magnetic field strength within the element of plasma and $`t`$ is the time which has elapsed since the energy distribution was accelerated to its deemed power-law distribution. Sometimes this expression is slightly modified to incorporate the effects of the equivalent magnetic field due to inverse Compton scattering off the cosmic microwave background.

### 2.1. Spectral ageing assumption I: constancy of the magnetic field

The magnetic field strength at the time of observation is tricky to calibrate: an equipartition field strength has been frequently used in the spectral ageing methods in the past and such a value for the magnetic field strength appears to be correct within a factor of a few (Leahy, these proceedings).

The relationship between the local magnetic field strength $`B`$ and the frequency $`\nu `$ at which most of the energy from particles with Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ will be radiated is given by:

$$\gamma ^2\frac{\nu }{B}.$$
(2)
Thus, when one considers a particular fixed frequency (e.g. 151 MHz in the rest frame) observations of sources with lower magnetic field strengths will be from synchrotron particles with higher Lorentz factors, which are typically from a steeper part of the underlying energy spectrum.

A recent finding casts considerable doubt on the appropriateness of assuming that the synchrotron cooling has taken place in a constant magnetic field strength. Sources with larger physical sizes have steeper spectra111as evaluated at 151 MHz in the rest frame, hence largely uncontaminated by core and hotspot emission, and indeed in the frequency regime whose spectral shape is alleged to be unaffected in the spectral ageing model, see Fig. 2. (Blundell, Rawlings and Willott 1999). This indicates that more expanded sources have lower magnetic field strengths. Consistently with simple physical pictures of the expansion of radio lobes (Blundell & Rawlings 2000) this indicates that the magnetic field decreases as the lobe expands sideways, as the age of the radio galaxy increases.

### 2.2. Spectral ageing assumption II: no mixing of populations

We now consider spectral ageing input assumption II. Jones, Ryu and Engel (1999) pointed out that any mixing of particles within the lobes will contaminate spectral ageing estimates. Possible origins of mixing include: bulk backflow and turbulent backflow as well as a variety of diffusion mechanisms. Which of these is the most effective transport mechanism depends on the details of the magnetic field configuration within the lobe; assuming a diffusion rate of zero is perhaps taking a liberty.

### 2.3. Spectral ageing assumption III: input/hotspot spectra are power-laws

We now consider spectral ageing input assumption III that the initial injection index is a straight power-law. State-of-the-art observations of hotspots over a wide frequency baseline show that their spectra are curved (see e.g. Carilli et al. 1991). Since the hotspots are believed to supply plasma into the lobes, it is hard to see how a curved input spectrum would be able to straighten itself out once in the lobe.

Moreover, the observed low-frequency asymptote is inconsistent with that assumed in the spectral ageing method: spectral gradients are observed well below the break frequencies in some lobes (see Fig. 2). The new 74 MHz receiver system on the VLA has enabled spatially resolved images at super-metre wavelengths for the first time. The spectral gradient in Cygnus A between 74 MHz and 330 MHz first published by Kassim et al (1996), shows a clear spectral gradient at frequencies well below the break frequencies fitted by Carilli et al (1991). This appears to be unexceptional behaviour for classical double radio galaxies (Perley et al. in preparation). This behaviour would not be observed if the spectral shape at these frequencies were power-laws. This observation is more consistent with assuming that there is a magnetic field gradient along the lobe.

### 2.4. Spectral ageing assumption IV: the radiative lifetimes are long enough

The spectral ageing model (e.g. Fig. 2) assumes that the radiative lifetimes of the synchrotron emitting particles (or the ‘cooling times’) are longer than the ages which are to be deduced. Matthews and Scheuer (1990) were the first to consider the evolution of the energies of the synchrotron particles, rather than the more commonly used evolution of the frequency spectrum. Their expression gives $`\mathrm{d}\gamma /\mathrm{d}t`$ if both synchrotron and adiabatic expansion losses are occurring:

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}\gamma }{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{2}{3}\sigma _\mathrm{T}mc\mu _0\gamma ^2b^2+\frac{\gamma }{R}\frac{\mathrm{d}R}{\mathrm{d}t}.$$
(3)
A similar relation, which includes inverse Compton losses off the cosmic microwave background, is given by Kaiser, Dennett-Thorpe and Alexander (1997).

If we consider some particular observing frequency, we can define a maximum time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ which can elapse between an initial time $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ when a particle is injected into the lobe with a particular Lorentz factor $`\gamma `$ and the time of observation if the particle is to emit synchrotron radiation at the specified observing frequency at the time of observation. This $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ can then be compared with the age of the radio source. Prior to this time $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$, even if particles of extremely high Lorentz factor are injected into the lobe, their enhanced energy losses will be so catastrophic that their Lorentz factors will be too low at the time of observation222We use the term ‘time of observation’ quite liberally here to mean ‘when the source is intercepted by our light-cone’ or ‘when the light we ultimately observe leaves the source’. ($`t_{\mathrm{obs}}`$) to contribute to radiation at the given frequency, in a given $`B`$-field.

Thus for the ensemble of particles contributing to the radiation at a given emitted frequency at $`t_{\mathrm{obs}}`$, those which had the largest Lorentz factors at injection are injected at $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and those with the lowest are those actually injected at $`t_{\mathrm{obs}}`$. There is no trivial identity which connects $`t_{\mathrm{min}}`$ with the age of the source, as Fig. 3 shows.

### 2.5. Prediction of spectral ageing I

A prediction of spectral ageing is that the derived spectral ages should be consistent with the dynamical ages. The simplest constraints on source ages come from the measured projected physical size of an object and estimating the speed at which it has expanded to that size. The dimensional model of Falle (1991) has that the expansion speed of a radio galaxy decreases as the source gets older (in a given environment), so although proper motion measurements with VLBI techniques show that the smallest double radio sources appear to expand at $`0.2c`$ (Owsianik & Conway 1998, Owsianik, Conway and Polatidis 1998) this does not much constrain the expansion speeds of the large classical double radio sources. A more promising constraint comes from considerations of lobe-length asymmetries based on light-travel time arguments. These arguments benefit considerably from knowing which lobe is the nearer to us. Peter Scheuer, to whose memory this volume is dedicated, in 1995 used the presence of a jet in FR II quasars to infer speeds of $`<0.05c`$. Arshakian (these proceedings) inferred slightly larger velocities for a somewhat different sample of FR II radio galaxies and quasars. Scheuer’s speeds imply ages which are typically an order of magnitude larger than the spectral ages (Alexander & Leahy 1987).

### 2.6. Prediction of spectral ageing II

It was pointed out a number of decades ago (Jenkins & Scheuer 1976) that if synchrotron cooling played a part in the spectral shape of extended lobes, then the lobes should be more extended at lower frequencies. This rarely appears to be the case. For example, the observations by Leahy, Muxlow & Stephens (1989) of some 3C sources at 151 MHz with MERLIN and the VLA at 1.4 GHz show that the lobe lengths at these different frequencies are the same. (The flux-density measured by MERLIN is consistent with that measured by low-resolution instruments.)

### 2.7. Prediction of spectral ageing III

If the assumptions used in the spectral ageing model were correct, then there should be many more relic radio galaxies observed, i.e. there should be no prohibition on seeing hotspot-less, core-less lobes in the low-frequency sky. Such relic radio galaxies are however very rare with only a very few examples known (e.g. Cordey 1987). This strongly indicates that the radiative lifetimes of synchrotron particles in the lobes are not the three orders of magnitude larger than those of particles in hotspots required by the spectral ageing method.

## 3. Conclusion

The traditional way of interpreting observed gradients in spectral index along the radio lobes is the simple spectral ageing picture; we find that the assumptions which underlie this model, both individually and collectively, are flawed.

A combination of a gradient in magnetic field (which is physically plausible) together with a curved distribution in electron energy (which is measured) produces the same observed behaviour. In addition, this second model explains not just the observed spectral gradients above the break frequency but also those below the break frequencies.

## References

Alexander, P. & Leahy, J.P., 1987, ‘Ageing and speeds in a representative sample of 21 classical double radio sources’, MNRAS, 225, 1-26

Blundell, K.M. & Rawlings, S., 2000, ‘The spectra and energies of classical double radio lobes’, AJ, 119, 1111-1122

Blundell, K.M., Rawlings, S. & Willott, C.J., 1999, ‘The nature and evolution of classical double radio sources from complete samples’, AJ, 117, 667-706

Carilli, C.L., Perley, R.A., Dreher, J.W., & Leahy, J.P., 1991, ‘Multifrequency radio observations of Cygnus A — spectral aging in powerful radio galaxies’, ApJ, 383, 554-573

Cordey, R.A., 1987, ‘IC 2476 - A possible relic radio galaxy’, MNRAS, 227, 695-700

Falle, S.A.E.G., 1991, ‘Self-similar jets’, MNRAS, 250, 581-596

Jenkins, C.R. & Scheuer, P.A.G., 1976, ‘What docks the tails of radio source components?’, MNRAS, 174, 327-333

Jones, T.W., Ryu, D. & Engel, A., 1999, ‘Simulating electron transport and synchrotron emission in radio galaxies: shock acceleration and synchrotron aging in axisymmetric flows’, ApJ, 512, 105-124

Kaiser, C.R., Dennett-Thorpe, J., & Alexander, P., 1997, ‘Evolutionary tracks of FRII sources through the P-D diagram’, MNRAS, 292, 723-732

Kardashev, N.S., 1962, ‘Nonstationariness of spectra of young sources of nonthermal radio emission’, SvA, 6, 317-327

Kassim, N.E., Perley, R.A., Carilli, C.L., Harris, D.E. & Erickson, W.C., 1996, ‘Low frequency observations of Cygnus A’, in ‘Cygnus A – Study of a radio galaxy’, 182-190, eds C.L. Carilli & D.E. Harris

Leahy, J.P., Muxlow, T.W.B., & Stephens, P.W., 1989, ‘151-MHz and 1.5-GHz observations of bridges in powerful extragalactic radio sources’, MNRAS, 239, 401-440

Matthews, A.P. & Scheuer, P.A.G., 1990, ‘Models of radio galaxies with tangled magnetic fields. I – calculation of magnetic field transport, Stokes parameters and synchrotron losses’, MNRAS, 242, 616-635

Myers, S.T. & Spangler, S.R., 1985, ‘Synchrotron aging in the lobes of luminous radio galaxies’, ApJ, 291, 52-62

Owsianik, I. & Conway, J.E., 1998, ‘First detection of hotspot advance in a Compact Symmetric Object. Evidence for a class of very young extragalactic radio sources’, A&A, 337, 69-79

Owsianik, I., Conway, J.E. & Polatidis, A.G., 1998, ‘Renewed radio activity of age 370 years in the extragalactic source 0108+388’, A&A, 336, L37-L40

Pacholczyk, A.G., 1970, ‘Radio Astrophysics’, pub. W. H. Freeman & Co

Jaffe, W.J. & Perola, G.C. 1973, ‘Dynamical models of tailed radio sources in clusters of galaxies’, A&A, 26, 423–435

Rudnick, L., Katz-Stone, D.M. & Anderson, M.C., 1994, ‘Do relativistic electrons either gain or lose energy, outside of extragalactic nuclei?’, ApJS, 90, 955–958

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Winter, A.J.B., Wilson, D.M.A., Warner, P.J., Waldram, E.M., Routledge, D., Nicol, A.T., Boysen, R.C., Bly, D.W.J. & Baldwin, J.E., 1980, ‘The structure of Cygnus A at 150 MHz’, MNRAS, 192, 931–944


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# Soliton molecules in trapped vector Nonlinear Schrödinger systems

Permanent address:\]Institute for Radiophysics and Electronics, Kharkov 61085, Ukraine

## Abstract

We study a new class of vector solitons in trapped Nonlinear Schrödinger systems modelling the dynamics of coupled light beams in GRIN Kerr media and atomic mixtures in Bose-Einstein condensates. These solitons exist for different spatial dimensions, their existence is studied by means of a systematic mathematical technique and the analysis is made for inhomogeneous media.

Since the begining of its history, physics has studied simple objects and the way they arrange to form more complex structures. Some remarkable successes included the atomic theory of matter, the structure of nucleus in terms of protons and neutrons and the substructure of nucleons in terms of quarks to cite a few examples.

Elementary robust objects made of light have been known since the 70’s. In fact, spatial optical solitons— self-trapped states of light with particle-like properties— have attracted a considerable attention during last years as possible building blocks of all-optical switching devices where light is used to guide and manipulate light itself steg ; science . Another field where robust solitonic structures have been recently found is that of Bose-Einstein condensation where the dilute quantum gas supports robust structures such as one-dimensional dark solitons dark , bright solitons bright  or vortices Fetter .

In nonlinear optics, the robust nature of spatial optical solitons science , allows to draw an analogy with atomic physics treating spatial solitons as “atoms of light”. Furthermore, when several light beams are combined to produce a vector soliton, this process can be viewed as the formation of composite states or “molecules of light”.

Several structures of this type have been studied previously: dipole and multipole vector solitons us ; exper ; multipole ; moti , self-trapped necklace ring beams Segev1 , rotating propeller solitons Carmon  and rotating optical soliton clusters Yuri3 .

In the field of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) vortex solitons arrange to generate lattice structures in rotating ENS  and non-rotating scalar systems Torner . In multicomponent condensates simple stationary solutions involving some type of dynamical equilibria between the constituent solitons have been described PRLdual ; Nature ; Malomed .

The purpose of this letter is to describe and analyze in detail a way to build multidimensional “soliton molecules” in vector systems with applications to nonlinear optics and to Bose-Einstein condensed gases. As new features these solitons will be analyzed using a systematic mathematical technique, the analysis will be made for inhomogeneous media and the soliton molecules exist for different dimensions $`D=2,3`$ thus providing the first soliton molecules shown to exist for $`D=3`$.

The model.- We will consider a system of $`N`$ complex fields $`u_1(t,𝐫),u_2(t,𝐫),\mathrm{},u_N(t,𝐫)`$ ruled by the equations

$$i_tu_j(t,𝐫)=\left[\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }+V(𝐫)+U_j(t,𝐫)\right]u_j(t,𝐫),$$
(1)
for $`j=1,\mathrm{},N`$. The coupling term is given by $`U_j(t,𝐫)=_kg_{jk}\left|u_k(t,𝐫)\right|^2`$ with $`g_{jk}`$. Eqs. (1) are a set of Nonlinear Schrödinger equations (NSE) which in BEC problems describe multicomponent systems, $`u_j`$ being the wavefunctions for each of the atomic species involved PRLdual ; Nature ; Malomed . In optics these equations describe the incoherent interaction between the slowly varying envelopes of the electric field in paraxial beams in Kerr media. We choose $`V(𝐫)=𝐫^2/2`$ which corresponds to an isotropic magnetic trapping in BEC and to a GRIN fiber in the optical case.

Single component case: Soliton atoms.- Let us first consider the scalar case ($`N=1`$). Solitons or stationary solutions of Eq. (1) in the scalar case have the form $`u(t,𝐫)=\varphi _\mu (𝐫)e^{i\mu t}`$ and satisfy

$$\mu \varphi _\mu =\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _\mu +\frac{1}{2}𝐫^2\varphi _\mu +g|\varphi _\mu |^2\varphi _\mu $$
(2)
For a fixed norm of the solution $`\varphi _{L^2}:=|\varphi |^2𝑑V`$, any solution to Eq. (2) will be a valid soliton atom for our purposes. The simplest case corresponds to a nodeless ground state solution which for strong interaction is close to the Thomas-Fermi solution (thus a quasi-compacton type of solution) Malomed  and in the small interaction case (as it happens in nonlinear optics) it is close to a Gaussian function. Many other complex stationary solutions to Eq. (2) are possible such as vortices. These objects will play the role of “atoms” in what follows.

The relevant property to be used here VJV , is that any function of the form

$$u(𝐫,t)=\varphi _\mu \left(𝐫𝐑(t)\right)e^{i\left[\mu t+\theta (𝐫,t)\right]},$$
(3)
is a solution of the scalar time-dependent NLSE provided $`𝐑(t)`$ satisfies $`\frac{d^2}{dt^2}𝐑+𝐑=0`$ and $`\theta (𝐫,t)=(𝐫,\frac{d}{dt}𝐑)+f(t)`$, where $`f(t)=_0^t\left[\left(\frac{d}{dt}𝐑\right)^2𝐑^2\right]𝑑t`$. This means that exact scalar time-dependent solutions whose center evolves according to harmonic oscillator type equations and preserve the shape of the stationary solution during evolution can be built. Remarkably, this property is not exclusive of the Kerr nonlinearity and it is valid for any type of nonlinear term for which localized solutions exist. However, if $`N2`$, the property described previously does not hold except for very trivial situations. Because of the cross-interaction. In a general situation, the pulses collide and lose their individuality. Here we want to give some ideas on how to overcome this problem and build stationary nontrivial vector solitons of Eqs. (1).

Formalism for the multicomponent case.- Let us define the modulus, $`n_j`$, and phase, $`\varphi _j`$, of each wavepacket through $`u_j=\sqrt{n_j}\mathrm{exp}\left(i\phi _j\right)`$. Let us define also the center of mass of species $`j`$, $`𝐑_j(t)=𝑑Vn_j𝐫`$ and their total momenta $`𝐏_j(t)=𝑑Vn_j\phi _j`$, whose evolution laws are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐑_j`$ $`=`$ $`𝐏_j,`$ (4)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐏_j`$ $`=`$ $`𝐑_j+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}g_{jk}𝐅_{jk}`$ (5)
The first term in the r.h.s of (5) corresponds to the external potential, while the nonlinear force is given by

$$𝐅_{jk}=𝑑V\left(n_kn_jn_jn_k\right)$$
(6)
Generally $`𝐅_{jk}`$ may be a rather complex function, but if the $`n_j`$ for $`j=1,\mathrm{},N`$, have small enough overlapping, it is possible to argue that these forces would be central. To prove this affirmation let us first notice that for the scalar case and far from the center of the wavepacket, the self-interaction is small and $`u`$ can be described by the linear theory to be $`n\left(𝐫\right)e^{r^2}\left[r^{2m}+𝒪\left(r^{2m2}\right)\right]`$ for $`r\mathrm{}`$. Similar considerations apply to the multicomponent case. If the wavepackets are separated, then in the region where the $`u_j`$ overlap (i.e., the region which determines the value of the integral in (6)) the nonlinear terms will be small and

$$n_j=2\left(𝐫𝐑_j\right)+𝒪\left(\frac{1}{\left|𝐫𝐑_j\right|}\right),$$
(7)
from which it follows that

$$𝐅_{jk}=2\left(𝐑_j𝐑_k\right)𝑑Vn_jn_k+𝒪\left(\frac{1}{\left|𝐑_k𝐑_k\right|}\right),$$
(8)
i.e., if the wavepackets are separated, in the leading order *the inter-mode force is central*.

As to the factor $`𝑑Vn_jn_k`$, let us evaluate it, for illustrative purposes, for the case when $`u_{j,k}`$ are solutions of linear problem ($`g_{jk}=0`$) of the type $`n_j=N_j\left|𝐫𝐑_j\right|^{2m_j}e^{\left(𝐫𝐑_j\right)^2}`$, where $`N_j`$ are normalization constants (these functions include the fundamental mode $`m_j=0`$ and vortex states)

$$𝑑Vn_jn_k=\frac{\pi }{2}N_jN_ke^{{\scriptscriptstyle \frac{1}{2}}\left|𝐑_j𝐑_k\right|^2}K_{m_j,m_k}(\left|𝐑_j𝐑_k\right|),$$
(9)
where $`K_{m_j,m_k}`$ are polynomial factors, the lowest order ones for $`D=2`$ being $`K_{0,0}(Q)=1`$, $`K_{0,1}(Q)=Q^2/4`$ and $`K_{1,1}(Q)=\left[2Q^2+\frac{1}{4}Q^4\right]/4`$. Thus, in the case of small nonlinearities, we can estimate the force between the wavepackets by using Eq. (9). For our purposes the specific form of the interaction is less crucial than the fact that the forces $`𝐅_{jk}`$ are central.

Two-component case.- For the two-component symmetric ($`g_{12}=g_{21}=\overline{g}`$) case Eqs. (5) read

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐏_1`$ $`=`$ $`𝐑_1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{g}𝐅,`$ (10a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}𝐏_2`$ $`=`$ $`𝐑_2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\overline{g}𝐅,`$ (10b)
where $`𝐅=𝑑V\left(n_2n_1n_1n_2\right)`$. The modified ’total’ center of mass $`𝐑=𝐑_1+𝐑_2`$ and momentum $`𝐏=𝐏_1+𝐏_2`$ do not ’feel’ the force $`𝐅`$ since they satisfy $`\frac{d}{dt}𝐑=𝐏`$ and $`\frac{d}{dt}𝐏=𝐑`$, i.e. they oscillate harmonically.

The most interesting quantity is $`𝐐=𝐑_1𝐑_2`$ (for the general multicomponent case we define $`𝐐_{ij}(t)=𝐑_i(t)𝐑_j(t)`$), which gives the separation between the centers of mass of the two components and evolves according to

$$\frac{d^2𝐐}{dt^2}+𝐐=\overline{g}𝐅$$
(11)
As discussed above, if $`𝐐`$ is sufficiently large, the force $`𝐅𝐐`$ and it can be presented in potential form $`𝐅=\frac{}{𝐐}W_\mathrm{f}(Q)=W_\mathrm{f}^{}(Q)𝐐/Q`$ and then Eq. (11) reads

$$\frac{d^2𝐐}{dt^2}+W_{\mathrm{tot}}^{}(Q)\frac{𝐐}{Q}=0$$
(12)
where $`W_{\mathrm{tot}}=\frac{1}{2}Q^2+\overline{g}W_\mathrm{f}(Q)`$. It is interesting to note that in the approximation of independent wavepackets the potential $`W_\mathrm{f}`$ is given by $`W_\mathrm{f}(Q)=𝑑Vn_1n_2`$.

It is evident that Eq. (12) has two constants of motion: energy $`E=\frac{1}{2}(\dot{𝐐},\dot{𝐐})+W_{\mathrm{tot}}(Q)`$ and angular momentum, $`𝐋=𝐐\times \dot{𝐐}`$. Since $`\dot{𝐐}^2=\dot{Q}^2+L^2/Q^2`$, we can write $`E=\frac{1}{2}\dot{Q}^2+W_{\mathrm{eff}}(Q)`$, where $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}(Q)=\frac{1}{2}Q^2+\frac{L^2}{2Q^2}+\overline{g}W_\mathrm{f}(Q)`$.

There will exist an equilibrium distance $`Q_0`$, for which the effective potential $`W_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ is minimized. The reason is that the centrifugal contribution is divergent for $`Q0`$ while the trap potential is unbounded for $`Q\mathrm{}`$ and the effective nonlinear interaction should decay for large $`Q`$ and have a maximum finite amplitude \[Fig. 1\].

In particular, if the nonlinear interaction is small then $`Q_0^{\text{lin}}L^{1/2}`$ thus leading to a stationary rotating solution of the vector system (1) provided the distances between the components are kept large enough. The larger the nonlinear terms the larger will the deviation of $`Q_0`$ from $`Q_0^{\text{lin}}`$ be ($`Q_{eq}>Q_0`$ for $`g_{jk}>0`$ and $`Q_{eq}<Q_0`$ for $`g_{jk}<0`$) \[Fig 1(a,b)\]. When $`L=0`$, the combination of the trap force and the nonlinear term may also have minima \[Fig. 1(c)\] corresponding to non-rotating soliton molecules. However, due to the fact that the equilibrium distance is comparable to the wavepacket’s widths, our result must be taken only as an indication that such soliton molecules exist and not as a proof that they will be well approximated by combinations of scalar solitons.

Examples of soliton molecules.- Let us now present several examples of the soliton molecules discussed previously. First we have studied the case of a pair of weakly interacting soliton atoms. The results, obtained with a symplectic second order in time split-step integrator are summarized in Fig. 2 where it is seen how the small interaction induces only small harmonic oscillations of $`Q(t)`$ without appreciable distortion of the wavepackets.

In Fig. 3 three gaussian solitons interact more strongly due to the larger number of components and the smaller distance between the beams. In this case the oscillations of the distances between components, $`Q_{ij}`$, remain small \[Fig. 3(d)\] although some oscillation of the positions of the beams is appreciable \[Fig. 3(a-c)\]. Although this particular configuration is stable, the present example is a three-body problem for which many behaviors are possible: stable solutions, resonances, chaos, etc. In fact, if the values of the nonlinear coefficient are increased the beams deform and the inter-mode distances $`Q(t)`$ suffer strong oscillations \[Fig. 4(d)\] although the structure remains stable after long periods of time containing about one hundred revolutions of the soliton around the center. Finally, in Fig. 5, it is shown that if one of the gaussian solitons is replaced by a vortex soliton the asymmetry of the interaction and the longer interaction range of the vortex soliton (for which $`nr^2e^{r^2}`$) make this configuration unstable and the initial configuration is destroyed after a few rounds.

We have also analyzed several soliton molecules in three spatial dimensions. In Fig. 6 we summarize the results for the situation of a stable configuration made of two weakly interacting gaussian solitons. The evolution for long times shows that the inter-component distance $`Q(t)`$ suffers only small oscillations \[Fig. 6(f)\] which manifest on the plots where more interaction is apparent \[Fig. 6(c,d)\].

Conclusions.- In this paper we have presented several soliton molecules built up from scalar solitons of the trapped NSE. The method presented here allows to generate many different multidimensional soliton molecules.

Between the possible applications of the vector solitons described here, in the field of optics they could be used as a way to transmit different laser beams in a single optical fibers. In any case the vector solitons presented here represent another step into the comprehension of complex objects sustained by nonlinear forces with promising applications in different fields.

This work has been partially supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología under grant BFM2000-0521 and Consejería de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha under grant PAC-02-002. V. V. is supported by Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte under grant SAB2000-0256.


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# Instantons and chiral symmetry breaking in SU(𝑁) gauge theories.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The mechanism behind spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking (S$`\chi `$SB) is an unsolved mystery in QCD. A popular hypothesis is that a weakly interacting dilute gas of instantons and anti-instantons could create a number of small non-zero eigenvalues of the Dirac matrix . By the Banks-Casher relation , this leads to a non-zero chiral condensate, and therefore S$`\chi `$SB. Using chiral Dirac operators, such as the overlap operator , one can examine the scalar and pseudo-scalar densities of the low-lying eigenmodes of the Dirac operator numerically, searching for instantons. Recent studies of these modes in SU(3) have found a lumpy self-dual structure . Although this is predicted by the instanton liquid model (ILM), there is continuing discussion about whether these lumps are instantons.

It has been suggested that ILMs are inconsistent with large $`N`$ expansions. At large $`N`$, it has been proposed that the instanton weight in the partition function vanishes exponentially  (but see ), while effects from large quantum fluctuations decay according to a power law, probably $`1/N`$. This implies that instanton effects are insignificant compared to quantum effects at large $`N`$, and it is unlikely that S$`\chi `$SB in SU($`N`$) gauge theories for large $`N`$ is caused by instantons, and unless there is a phase transition, S$`\chi `$SB in SU($`3`$) will not be caused by instantons either. Partly because of this, some people believe that the instanton liquid is destroyed by quantum effects .

We are investigating what happens to the lumpy structure in the low modes of the Dirac operator when we change the number of colours . To do so, we generated configurations on a $`12^4`$ lattice, for SU($`N`$) gauge theories ($`N=2,3,4,5`$), keeping the lattice spacing fixed at $`a=0.12`$ fm by keeping a constant string tension .

## 2 TOPOLOGICAL CHARGE AND SMALL INSTANTONS

There are two different measures of topological charge which we used. The fermionic charge, $`Q_f`$, is defined as the difference between the number of negative and positive chirality zero-modes of the Dirac operator . Secondly, we can use a lattice equivalent of the continuum topological charge density, $`F\stackrel{~}{F}(x)`$, as a (“field theoretic”) topological charge density, $`q(x)`$. We have to cool the gauge field before calculating $`q(x)`$ to suppress UV fluctuations. A gauge charge, $`Q_g`$, is the sum of $`q(x)`$ over all lattice sites. In the continuum, $`Q_g`$ and $`Q_f`$ are equal. However, lattice artifacts can lead to $`Q_gQ_f`$. We found considerably more discrepancies in SU(2) and SU(3) than in SU(4) and SU(5). In each of the configurations where there was a discrepancy, there was also a small instanton of size $`\rho <0.3`$ fm (found by looking at the size of the peaks in $`q(x)`$. We concluded that for the lattice spacings we used, the overlap operator cannot resolve instantons below this size.

## 3 SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS

For each mode, we identified the peaks in the pseudo-scalar density. Using classical instanton formulae for the height and shape of the peaks , we calculated size distributions for the instantons contributing to the eigenmodes. We saw that as $`N`$ increases, the typical instanton size becomes slightly larger, and small instantons ($`\rho 0.4`$ fm) disappear, in agreement with theoretical predictions .

## 4 LOCAL CHIRALITY

The local chiral orientation angle, $`X`$ , is defined at each lattice site as

$$X=\frac{4}{\pi }\left(\mathrm{arctan}\left(\left[\frac{\psi _{}\psi _{}^{}}{\psi _+\psi _+^{}}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}\right)1\right).$$
(1)
$`\psi _+`$ and $`\psi _{}`$ are the projections of the eigenmodes of the Dirac matrix onto the $`\pm `$ chiral sectors. An isolated (anti-)instanton, will have $`X=\pm 1`$, and for a classical ILM, this would dominate the local chirality distribution, a histogram of the values of $`X`$ on the lattice sites with the highest scalar density. If the modes are not caused by topology, then the distribution would be centred around $`X=0`$. Overlapping instantons, instantons in a background of quantum fluctuations, or a background of large quantum fluctuations will be between the two extremes. Figure 1 shows a histogram of the values of $`X`$ on the 2% of lattice sites with the highest scalar density, averaged over two different ranges of eigenvalues $`\lambda `$.

As $`N`$ increases, or the eigenvalue increases, the peaks in the local chirality distributions move towards zero, behaving less like the expected distribution from classical instantons. If the shape of the distributions is determined by small instantons, then excluding those SU(3) configurations which contain narrow instantons would make the distribution behave more like SU(4), since there are fewer small instantons there. However we did not observe a significant effect when we tried this, and so we conclude that small instantons are not responsible for the different shape of the chirality distributions for the various gauge groups.

## 5 AUTO-CORRELATORS

To see whether a mode is influenced by topology, one can compare it with the underlying gauge field. We used a scale-invariant (dimensionless) auto-correlator which is (in the continuum) independent of the instanton size,

$`C_d^5\left(0\right){\displaystyle d^4x}`$ $`\left|\psi ^{}\left(x\right)\gamma ^5\psi \left(x\right)\right|^d\text{sign}\left(\psi ^{}\left(x\right)\gamma ^5\psi \left(x\right)\right)`$
$`\left|q\left(x\right)\right|^{1d}\text{sign}\left(q\left(x\right)\right),`$ (2)
where $`d`$ lies in the range $`0d1`$. If the pseudo-scalar density is correlated with topological charge (for example, if the eigenmode contains an instanton/anti-instanton pair), then $`C_d^5(0)>0`$. If the eigenmode is not influenced by topology, then there will be no correlation between the pseudo-scalar and topological charge densities, giving $`C_d^5(0)0`$. We plot the auto-correlator as a function of the number of cooling sweeps at which we calculate $`q(x)`$ (figure 2). The auto-correlator quickly rises to a maximum, and then decreases as the cooling distorts the gauge field. We can calculate, by modelling artificial instanton configurations, that for a classical instanton/anti-instanton pair, the auto-correlator should give a value $`1.1`$. Overlapping instantons, instantons in a background of quantum fluctuations, or non-instanton topological fluctuations would give a smaller value than this. The measured value, at 6 cooling sweeps (the maximum for the non-zero modes), is smaller than the expected classical value, and decreases as we increase the number of colours. Instantons seem to contribute less to the modes as we increase $`N`$. On the other hand, the zero modes, which we know are caused by topology, show a similar decrease. The ratio between the auto-correlators (at 6 cooling sweeps) for the non-zero modes and for the zero-modes is constant ($`1.4`$). This suggests that topology is important in chiral symmetry breaking $``$ SU($`N`$), but that classical instantons become less important as we increase $`N`$.

## 6 CONCLUSIONS

We found that discrepancies between the fermionic and gauge charges are caused by small instantons ($`\rho <0.3`$ fm in this calculation). As we increase $`N`$, small instantons ($`\rho 0.4`$ fm) are suppressed. Examination of the auto-correlator suggests that chiral symmetry breaking at large $`N`$ does have a topological origin. However, as we increase $`N`$, semi-classical instantons seem to become less important. Our results, from sections 4 and 5, imply that if the lumps in the low modes of the Dirac operator are instantons, then as we increase $`N`$, the instantons either overlap more heavily, and/or quantum fluctuations become more important.


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# Monte Carlo studies on the sensitivity of the HEGRA imaging atmospheric Čerenkov telescope system in observations of extended 𝛾-ray sources

## 1 Introduction

During the last decade, very-high-energy (VHE) $`\gamma `$-ray astronomy ($`E_\gamma >100`$ GeV), which utilizes ground-based imaging atmospheric Čerenkov telescopes (IACTs), has made a substantial contribution to the $`\gamma `$-ray astrophysics of a number of extra-galactic and galactic objects (for a review, see ). One of the reasons has been the tremendous progress in the observational technique. One can point out two major trends in this direction. The first is the use of imaging cameras with very fine pixellation (a pixel size of about 0.1), equipped with fast electronics and an intelligent trigger, for a single stand-alone telescope, accomplished by Whipple , CAT  and CANGAROO . Secondly, there has been the development of the stereoscopic observational technique with a number of IACTs with imaging cameras of relatively coarse pixellation (a pixel size of 0.25), primarily by the high-energy gamma-ray astronomy (HEGRA) collaboration . Both trends have finally converged in three future experiments—H.E.S.S. , CANGAROO III  and VERITAS , which are the systems of a 10 m class of telescope. Another major project, called MAGIC , is a single telescope with a very large reflector of 17 m. Aspects of stereoscopic observations with three such telescopes have been discussed in .

For $`\gamma `$-ray point sources, the sensitivity of the imaging atmospheric Čerenkov technique substantially relies on the angular resolution of the instrument. Note that the methods of cosmic-ray rejection based on the analysis of image shape are still not effective enough to reduce entirely the background of hadronic air showers. Thus, in addition, a good angular resolution significantly reduces the background contamination induced by the isotropic cosmic rays.

The observations of $`\gamma `$-ray showers with a single telescope do not allow a complete geometrical reconstruction of the shower axis in space, because only one projection of a shower is available per event. A full reconstruction becomes possible in observations with two or more telescopes offering simultaneously a number of views of an individual shower. However, using advanced methods based on the strong correlation between the shape of the Čerenkov light images and their angular distances to the source position, one can achieve for a single IACT an angular resolution for an individual $`\gamma `$-ray shower of about $`0.12^{}`$  using a fine pixellation camera.

A substantial improvement of the angular resolution has been achieved by the HEGRA collaboration using a stereoscopic system of five IACTs with rather coarse camera pixellation. The stereoscopic observations with such a system allow us to reach, with good quality data, an angular resolution for an individual $`\gamma `$-ray as good as 0.06 . The rich HEGRA data sample of $`\gamma `$-rays from the Crab Nebula , Mkn 501  and Mkn 421  have allowed us to prove in great detail this angular resolution, which is in good agreement with the predictions based on the Monte Carlo simulations (for details, see ). Such an angular resolution has allowed us to perform a systematic search for point-like $`\gamma `$-ray sources at the flux level of $`10^{11}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Such high sensitivity was confirmed by the detection of a very faint $`\gamma `$-ray source, the supernova remnant (SNR) Cas A, which steadily emits $`\gamma `$-rays at the flux level of about $`5.9\times 10^{13}\mathrm{ph}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ above 1 TeV .

The HEGRA system of five IACTs has proved a very effective tool to search for TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emission and to study the energy spectra of point-like sources, which are well established in observations at other wavelengths. However, the potential $`\gamma `$-ray source may appear anywhere within the entire field of view (FoV) of the instrument, or it may have a rather large angular size as compared to the angular resolution of the instrument, for a certain number of important tasks, such as: (i) to search for $`\gamma `$-ray emitters with poorly known position (such as the EGRET unidentified sources); ii) to perform sky surveys; (iii) to study extended $`\gamma `$-ray emission from supernova remnants; (iv) to investigate diffuse emission from the Galactic plane; and finally, (v) to detect the primordial $`\gamma `$-ray bursts. In the following, we investigate the sensitivity in detecting $`\gamma `$-ray emission with the HEGRA system of IACTs in observations of this type. For this purpose, we have performed Monte Carlo simulations of diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays as well as isotropic cosmic rays (see sections 2 and 3). The simulations are compared with real data taken with the HEGRA system of IACTs (section 4). An important issue is the efficiency of applying the orientational and shape cuts in order to distinguish the $`\gamma `$-rays from the background isotropic cosmic rays. Here we study how this efficiency depends on the angular distance of a $`\gamma `$-ray source to the centre of the FoV (section 5). In section 6, we discuss the analysis techniques to search for point-like and extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources with the HEGRA system of IACTs, and finally in section 7 we give sensitivity estimates for shell-type supernova remnants.

## 2 Simulations

The simulations have been carried out using a two-step procedure, which has been described in detail in . In the first step, the showers of primary $`\gamma `$-rays and protons were generated in the atmosphere using the ALTAI Monte Carlo code . The showers were randomized over an impact distance with respect to the centre of the telescope array up to a maximum of 250 m. The major parameters of the samples of the simulated showers are summarized in table 1. The simulations have been carried out for different zenith angles, covering the range of angles usually used in observations of extended sources with the HEGRA system of IACTs. In the second step, the response of the telescope camera was simulated for all previously generated showers. This procedure accounts for all efficiencies of the Čerenkov light detectors (for details, see ). For the protons as well as for the $`\gamma `$-rays, an additional randomization of the images within a solid angle around the telescope axis with a half opening angle of $`4.0^{}`$ was introduced in order to simulate the isotropic flux of the proton showers and the diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays.

The simulations were carried out for the final HEGRA set-up of five IACTs111As the commissioning of the telescope system extended over several years, early data sets use three or four telescopes.. Each of the telescopes consists of an 8.5 m2 reflector focusing the Čerenkov light on to a camera of 271 photo-multipliers arranged in a hexagonal matrix covering a FoV with an effective radius of 2.15. The telescope camera triggers when the signal in two next-neighbours of the 271 photo-multiplier tubes exceeds a threshold of 8 mV ($`6`$ photoelectrons), and the system readout starts when at least two telescopes are triggered by Čerenkov light from an atmospheric shower. The simulation procedure briefly described above was previously used for the production of the simulated data for the HEGRA system of IACTs . Different parameters of the simulated cosmic-ray-induced as well as $`\gamma `$-ray-induced atmospheric showers have been compared to the data (see ).

## 3 Analysis

The HEGRA system of IACTs is the first stereoscopic system to perform routine observations. Its basic idea is to observe atmospheric showers from a number of different viewing angles. The stereoscopic analysis of the system data is based on the geometrical reconstruction of the shower development in space, and consequently allows us to measure the arrival direction of each individual shower (for details, see ). By superposition of the several images in one common focal plane, one can determine the intersection point of the major axes of the ellipsoid-like images. This intersection point gives the direction of the shower. When the telescope system points directly towards the object, the reconstructed source position is in the centre of the FoV. However, in most observations of point-like $`\gamma `$-ray sources with the HEGRA system of IACTs, so-called ‘wobble mode’ observations have been made. In such a case, the position of the source is offset by $`0.5^{}`$ from the camera centre, allowing us to perform continuous ON-source observations with the corresponding OFF region taken at 1 offset from the source position across the camera centre.

In observations of extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources or diffuse $`\gamma `$-ray emission, one can divide the FoV into square bins of a size approximately equal to the angular resolution, accumulate ON-source and OFF-source events in these bins according to the reconstructed shower directions, and calculate the significance of a possible excess for each bin. Events are pre-selected according to their image shapes, to reduce the cosmic-ray background. Such an analysis is discussed below in detail. An alternative analysis technique is to use a grid which is much finer than the resolution, and to accumulate for each grid point the ON-source and OFF-source events with the directions consistent with a source localization at that point . This technique is suitable to search for isolated point sources of an unknown location. But it has the disadvantage that the significances determined for adjacent grid points are highly correlated, which makes it difficult to judge the overall significance for an extended source.

In the case when an appropriate model of diffuse $`\gamma `$-ray emission can be easily constructed, one can use the likelihood ratio method to test the hypotheses (see section 7). If the expected emission region is relatively small, i.e. less than 0.5 in radius, in observations of such sources one can use a wobble mode approach by setting a corresponding offset of the target from the centre of the FoV, and by using the angular area symmetric across the centre of the FoV for the background estimate.

### 3.1 Detection rate

The counting rate of isotropically distributed cosmic rays and diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays after the application of shape cuts, $`\stackrel{~}{R}_{(\gamma ,cr)}\left[\mathrm{Hz}\mathrm{str}^1\right]`$, is defined as

$$\stackrel{~}{R}_{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=R_{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta })\eta _{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta }),$$
(1)
where $`R_{(\gamma ,cr)}`$ is the counting rate of cosmic rays or $`\gamma `$-rays before the cuts, and $`\eta _{(\gamma ,cr)}`$ is the acceptance after applying the shape cuts. $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ is the angular distance from the centre of the FoV. The initial event counting rate $`R_{(\gamma ,cr)}`$ can be calculated as

$$R_{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=N_{(\gamma ,cr)}\mathrm{\Delta }t^1\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }^1,$$
(2)
where $`N_{(\gamma ,cr)}`$ is a number of registered events during the time interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ within the solid angle $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which is usually chosen to reflect the angular resolution of the instrument. In calculations we used the cosmic-ray energy spectra given in .

For diffuse and extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources there is no direct correlation between the impact distance of a shower (the distance of the shower axis to the geometrical centre of the array) and the location of the image centroid position in the FoV. Showers detected at the same impact distance but of different inclinations with respect to the telescope axis could produce an image positioned anywhere in the FoV, which is limited by the angular size of the telescope imaging camera.

The calculated $`\gamma `$-ray detection rate, $`R_\gamma `$, as a function of the angular distance from the telescope axis is shown in figure 1 for different trigger multiplicities (the number of triggered system telescopes). One finds a constant detection rate up to $`\mathrm{\Theta }=1^{}`$ (within 10%) from the centre of the FoV and a rather sharp decrease beyond that region. For the higher trigger multiplicities, the fall-off in the detection rate starts at smaller angular distance from the telescope axis.

This rather sharp decrease can be explained as follows. In a toy model one can assume that most of the detected $`\gamma `$-ray showers have an impact distance around $`R_o120`$ m (see, for example, ). The $`\gamma `$-ray-induced atmospheric showers, which have a primary energy above the energy threshold of the instrument ($`E>500`$ GeV), and which have shower axes directed along the joint optical axis of the system telescopes, will produce the Čerenkov light images with the centroid positions shifted from the camera centre by approximately $`\mathrm{\Theta }_o1^{}`$. These images are well within the effective radius of the HEGRA cameras of $`2.15^{}`$. Diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays, coming at the inclination angle of about $`\mathrm{\Theta }_s1.1^{}`$ with respect to the telescope axis, will often be truncated by the camera edge (see figure 2), and the acceptance of these showers will be substantially lower due to this effect. From such a toy model, one can expect a rather stable $`\gamma `$-ray rate, $`R_{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta })`$, up to $`\mathrm{\Theta }1.1^{}`$. Note that, by increasing the energy of the detected $`\gamma `$-ray showers, the effective impact distance increases as well and consequently this effect of the camera edge shows up at smaller shower inclinations.

The detection rate as a function of the angular distance from the centre of the FoV can be well fitted as

$$R_{(\gamma ,cr)}(\mathrm{\Theta })=\mathrm{a}_0(1+\mathrm{\Theta })^{\mathrm{a}_1}[1+\mathrm{exp}(\mathrm{a}_2(\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{a}_3))]^1.$$
(3)
The parameters of the fit are given in table 2 for the $`\gamma `$-ray-induced and cosmic-ray-induced showers (see figure 1).

### 3.2 Angular resolution

The angular resolution of the IACT array heavily relies on the accuracy of the reconstruction of the image major axis, which in turn depends mainly on the image size and the distance of the shower axis to the centre of the array (impact distance). The images taken at relatively large impact distances have an elongated angular shape and offer an accurate determination of the image orientation. Note that at very large impact distances (only for a central point source) the images can be truncated by the camera edge. These images may distort the reconstruction, but they can be removed from the analysis by using the cut on angular distance of the image centre of gravity (centroid) to the camera centre (here we use a cut on distance $`<1.8^{}`$). Thus, images with a rather large number of photoelectrons (well above 40), and which are detected at impact distances within the range of 50–200 m, offer the best determination of the direction of the arriving shower . This explains why, with the increase in primary energy of the shower, the angular resolution improves so much (for detailed discussions, see ).

Finally, the angular resolution of the IACT array strongly depends on the multiplicity of the system trigger . The analysis of the HEGRA Mkn 501 data sample  has shown that using three images out of four allows us to achieve an angular resolution which is by roughly two times better than the resolution achieved when using two images. At the same time, the use of higher trigger multiplicities leads to a slightly higher energy threshold of the instrument. All this may constrain the choice of the optimum analysis scheme.

The angular resolution for a $`\gamma `$-ray source placed at a different angular distance from the centre of the FoV is illustrated in figure 3 and table 3. One can see that the geometrical reconstruction of the direction of the arriving shower also works very well for slightly inclined $`\gamma `$-ray showers, and the angular resolution almost does not depend on the angle $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ within the range of $`\mathrm{\Theta }1.5^{}`$. However, beyond this region the images detected with the telescope system are often truncated by the camera edge, which worsens the angular reconstruction. For the precise measurements of an angular extension of a $`\gamma `$-ray source one should take into account the actual angular resolution at a certain angular distance from the centre of the FoV, and perform the deconvolution to obtain the measured angular extension of the source.

### 3.3 Rejection of cosmic rays

Apart from the excellent angular resolution, the IACT system offers the ability to reject cosmic-ray showers using the shape of the Čerenkov light images registered in a number of telescopes. Imaging cameras detect, in addition to the Čerenkov light from the atmospheric showers, all kinds of background light (e.g. night sky background light, direct star light, etc). To remove most of the camera pixels containing exclusively the background light, a specific image clearing procedure is usually applied. The pixels with light intensity below some fixed intensity limit are sorted out of the image. The images of the high-energy $`\gamma `$-ray showers detected close to the telescope system embrace many more pixels as compared to low-energy events or to the same event but at rather large impact distance. Using the standard second moment analysis, one can obtain very different angular sizes of recorded images, depending on the primary shower energy and shower impact distance.

In order to avoid the dependence of an image on the shower energy and impact distance, one can derive using the standard image parameter width, the parameter mean scaled width, $`\stackrel{~}{w}`$  for each individual event:

$$\stackrel{~}{w}=1/n\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}w_k/w_k^{ij}.$$
(4)
Here $`n`$ is the number of triggered telescopes, $`w_k`$ is the width for the $`k`$th image and $`w_k^{ij}`$ is the expected mean image width calculated beforehand from the Monte Carlo simulations over a number of bins on the impact distance ($`\mathrm{\Delta }r_i,i=1,n`$) and image size ($`\mathrm{\Delta }log(S_j),j=1,m`$) . The mean scaled width parameter has been proven to be an effective tool in rejection of a substantial fraction of the cosmic-ray showers. For central point-like $`\gamma `$-ray sources, applying a cut on mean scaled width of $`\stackrel{~}{w}<1.1`$ provides for the system trigger 4/4 an acceptance of $`\gamma `$-rays at 65%, whereas the cosmic-ray contamination is reduced by this cut by a factor of 30, corresponding to an enhancement of the $`\gamma `$-ray sample (Q-factor = $`k_\gamma k_{CR}^{1/2}`$) of 3.7.

Here we study how the cut on mean scaled width works for the $`\gamma `$-rays coming off the telescope optical axis. The calculations have been made for six bands, each of a size of 0.2, centred at the angular distances of $`0.5^{}`$, $`1^{}`$, $`1.5^{}`$, $`2.0^{}`$, $`2.5^{}`$ and $`3.0^{}`$, from the centre of the FoV. The distributions of the mean scaled width for the $`\gamma `$-ray showers within three of these bands are compared in figure 4. With an increasing angle relative to the axis, the distributions remain peaked at 1, but develop a tail towards larger $`\stackrel{~}{w}`$. The acceptances of the $`\gamma `$-rays after applying the cut on mean scaled width are almost identical for these bands. We may conclude that the shape of the images for the $`\gamma `$-ray showers coming off the telescope optical axis at angles less than $`1.5^{}`$ are still not noticeably affected by the telescope camera edge. One can see a slight decrease in the $`\gamma `$-ray acceptance, $`k_\gamma `$, towards larger displacements from the centre of the FoV, which is related to the effect of the camera edge. For the isotropically distributed cosmic rays, the acceptance after applying the mean scaled width cut ($`k_{cr}`$) also does not depend on the angular distance within the range of $`\mathrm{\Theta }2^{}`$ (see table 4), whereas it increases slightly towards larger angular distances.

## 4 Simulations versus data

The simulations of the diffuse $`\gamma `$-rays can be verified by the observations of the Crab Nebula. The observations in the wobble mode correspond to the angular displacement of the source by $`0.5^{}`$ from the centre of the FoV. Assuming in the simulations the Crab Nebula flux and spectrum as measured by the HEGRA collaboration , one can calculate the corresponding $`\gamma `$-ray rate at the same angular distance from the centre of the FoV. The results for different trigger multiplicities are summarized in table 5. The Monte Carlo simulations reproduce well the relative rates for two, three and four telescopes. Note that the possible systematic error of the Monte Carlo simulated rates is estimated to be less than 10%.

The distributions of the mean scaled width parameter for the $`\gamma `$-ray-induced and cosmic-ray-induced showers are shown in figure 5. The Monte Carlo distributions fit very well with the data. Here, the same Monte Carlo tables of mean width as function of impact distance and image size have been used for the simulated and recorded events. For each individual event, the Monte Carlo tables were interpolated according to the reconstructed impact parameter and measured image size in simulations and in the data. Simulations are in very good agreement with the data. The position of the peak of the simulated $`\gamma `$-ray showers agrees within 3% with the data. The data distribution of the $`\gamma `$-rays was produced using the HEGRA Crab Nebula data sample .

## 5 Sensitivity over FoV

The sensitivity of the HEGRA system over the whole FoV can be estimated using the detection rates and acceptances previously discussed. To parametrize the sensitivity of the instrument one can use the $`Q`$-parameter calculated as

$$Q(\mathrm{\Theta })=k_\gamma R_\gamma [k_{CR}R_{CR}]^{1/2}$$
(5)
where the rates of the $`\gamma `$-rays and cosmic rays are normalized to 1 at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=0`$. The results of such calculations are shown in figure 6. One can see that the value of the $`Q`$-parameter is constant up to $`\mathrm{\Theta }=1^{}`$. Even though the $`\gamma `$-ray detection rate decreases noticeably beyond that region the $`Q`$-parameter at $`\mathrm{\Theta }=1.5^{}`$ is only 5% less than in the central part of the FoV.

The higher telescope multiplicities provide a better Q-factor. This is due to the fact that for higher multiplicities the cosmic-ray rejection is substantially better, even though the detection rate of the $`\gamma `$-rays decreases at larger angular distances from the centre of the camera. The sharp decrease in $`\gamma `$-ray rate at large angular distances ($`\mathrm{\Theta }2.5^{}`$) finally makes observations with higher telescope multiplicities less effective.

Note that the angular resolution is almost constant up to the angular distance of $`1^{}`$.

In observations of the Crab Nebula with the HEGRA system of IACTs at zenith angles $`35^{}`$, the numbers of $`\gamma `$-ray and cosmic-ray showers detected in one angular bin ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }5\times 10^5`$ str), placed at the centre of the camera, in one hour (before applying the shape cuts) are about 80 and 406 ($`\mathrm{counts}\mathrm{hr}^1`$), respectively. These measured rates can be reproduced with high accuracy using the Crab Nebula spectrum as measured by HEGRA , and using the fluxes and spectra of cosmic rays given in . One can calculate the signal-to-noise ratio after 1 h observations as $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}=(\mathrm{ON}\mathrm{OFF})/(\mathrm{ON}+\mathrm{OFF})^{1/2}=\mathrm{N}_\gamma /[(\mathrm{N}_\gamma +\mathrm{N}_{\mathrm{cr}})+\mathrm{N}_{\mathrm{cr}}]^{1/2}\mathrm{Q}(\mathrm{\Theta })`$. Thus, in the centre of the FoV the signal-to-noise ratio is $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}7.5\sigma \mathrm{hr}^1`$ for the trigger multiplicity 2/5, which agrees with the value directly measured in observations of Crab Nebula ($`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}7.6\sigma \mathrm{hr}^1`$). One can obtain an improvement by a factor of 1.25 and 1.5 for the multiplicities of 3/5 and 4/5, respectively, on the Crab Nebula data sample as well as for the simulated data.

## 6 Estimate of the significance of excess

In observations of extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources or diffuse $`\gamma `$-ray emission from certain regions of the sky, it is not trivial to calculate properly the significance of a possible excess of the $`\gamma `$-ray candidates. In order to calculate this significance, one could follow different procedures, depending on whether the OFF-runs (data taken out of the source direction) are available or not. However, in both cases it is necessary to calculate the detection efficiency versus the radial distance from the centre of the FoV directly from the data and, afterwards, to apply a flat fielding in order to compensate for the non-uniform response of the camera at different angular distances. One can fit the detection rate of the cosmic rays versus the angular shift from the centre of the FoV and then apply that fit to all angular bins over the entire FoV. Such a fit can vary accordingly to the source zenith angle and the night sky background, and can also have an azimuthal dependency. However, our studies of the azimuth dependence did not reveal a significant effect for the rather symmetric HEGRA system of IACTs.

Since the stereoscopic reconstruction of atmospheric showers with the HEGRA system of IACTs allows us to calculate the right ascension (RA) and declination (DEC) for each individual event as well as the angular slopes of the shower axis in the joint focal plane, it is possible to produce a two-dimensional map of the reconstructed events over the FoV, after applying the standard cut on mean scaled width, e.g. $`\stackrel{~}{w}<`$1.1, in order to separate $`\gamma `$-rays from hadrons. The observational window can be divided into square cells of size $`0.2^{}\times 0.2^{}`$, which is close to the optimum, given the angular resolution of the HEGRA system of IACTs (RMS$`0.1^{}`$). At the same time such bin size allows us to have a relatively large number of pixels for computing the average number of cosmic-ray hits per angular bin, which can be used to estimate the average background content per angular bin. As noted in section 3, the region of almost constant sensitivity is limited by roughly 1 from the centre of the FoV. Given the number of counts for each bin, one can calculate the significance for each bin, $`S`$, using the corresponding OFF data sample.

Let us now examine two cases separately. If both ON-source and OFF-source data are available, after applying the mean scaled width cut the mean number of counts per angular bin in ON-source and OFF-source data samples can be calculated as

$$N_{(on,off)}=\frac{1}{M}\underset{i=1}{\overset{M}{}}N_{(on,off)}(i,\mathrm{\Theta })f^1(\mathrm{\Theta })$$
(6)
where $`N_{(on,off)}(i,\mathrm{\Theta })`$ is the number of counts in $`i`$th bin at a certain distance, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$, from the centre of the FoV. Function $`f(\mathrm{\Theta })`$ accounts for the non-constant event rate at different radial distances. $`M`$ is the total number of bins in the grid. $`N_{off}`$ is the mean number of counts per bin placed at the centre of the camera’s FoV in the OFF-source sample. Given this number, one can estimate the background content for each camera pixel (i) for ON-source data as

$$N_{off}^{(1)}(i)=\alpha f(\mathrm{\Theta })N_{off}$$
(7)
The scaling factor $`\alpha `$ can be determined as

$$\alpha =N_{on}(N_{off})^1,$$
(8)
which equalizes the difference in observational time for ON-source and OFF-source samples, as well as possible differences in corresponding zenith angle distributions.

In the case when only ON-source data are available, one can use a mean number of counts per bin222Note that in observations of extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources with well-defined location and extension one can exclude from the averaging loop (equation (6)) the angular bins, which are a priori covered by the source. However, the source extension has to be significantly smaller than the observational window used. averaged over all bins in the ON-source data sample, $`N_{on}`$. It is assumed here that the expected rate of the $`\gamma `$-rays is very low and is negligible compared with the cosmic-ray rate.

Thus, the mean number of predicted background counts in each angular bin is given by

$$N_{off}^{(2)}(i)=\alpha f(\mathrm{\Theta })N_{on}.$$
(9)
Here the scaling factor $`\alpha `$ is calculated as $`\alpha 1/M`$, where $`M`$ is a total number of bins used in equation (6).

Finally, the significance for each individual angular bin can be estimated using the approach suggested in . Assuming that the bins with high signal-to-noise ratio ($`3.5\sigma `$) contain an excess of $`\gamma `$-rays one can exclude these pixels from calculating the average number of background counts per bin and recalculate the significances again. Such an iterative procedure can be repeated a number of times before the values of the significances finally converge.

The background model constructed from the ON-source data itself cannot be applied for observations of a presumably diffuse $`\gamma `$-ray source of a large angular size, which is comparable with the angular size of the entire FoV of the instrument. However it might be effective in a discovery mode while scanning very extended sky regions.

For a positive detection of a quite extended $`\gamma `$-ray source (with a size larger than $`0.5^{}`$), one can expect that a few contiguous pixels should show a high value of significance. One can calculate the confidence level of the excess using the approach suggested by Li and Ma  for such a particular case. This approach takes into account that the confidence level of an excess in each bin depends, in addition, on the total number of bins (number of trials) $`M`$, which may be considered as $`M`$ independent measurements.

After the average background calculation, we can calculate the standard deviation for each pixel from the average background. Naturally, only those pixels which show an excess in the ON data sample, (for instance, with $`S>3.5\sigma `$, where $`\sigma `$ is one standard deviation for the Gaussian distributed background events), might be considered for statistical analysis. The probability $`p`$ to achieve 3.5$`\sigma `$ excess due to fluctuations in background for each individual pixel, can be simply calculated as

$$p=1\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }}_{\mathrm{}}^{3.5}e^{\frac{1}{2}t^2}𝑑t.$$
(10)
Eventually, the probability to obtain $`k`$ pixels within our FoV will be given by

$$p_k=C_M^kp^k(1p)^{Mk}$$
(11)
($`C_M^k`$ is the binomial coefficient). The results of calculations for different pixel multiplicities in excess and $`M=80`$ using equation (11) are provided in table 6.

The calculations show, for example, that a four-pixel coincidence within the observational window composed of 80 pixels is an extremely rare case with a probability less than $`10^8`$ and the corresponding estimate of confidence at 6$`\sigma `$ level. But, in practice, one could observe one, two, three or even many more bins with a significant excess in the event rate. All these cases should be statistically tested taking into account the total number of selected angular bins within the FoV, which corresponds to the number of independent trials.

In order to prove the formulae given by equation (11), we have also made straightforward Monte Carlo simulations, randomizing the number of entries for $`M=80`$ pixels according to a Gaussian distribution with average value $`N_{ON}(i)=300`$. The results are summarized in table 6 (see column $`p_k`$ MC). One can see a rather good agreement between the direct Monte Carlo simulations and the values obtained from equation (11), taking into account a limited statistics in the Monte Carlo simulations which finally limits the accuracy of the calculations.

An alternative approach to estimate the significance for extended sources would be to make some assumptions about the position and the extension of the $`\gamma `$-ray source, based on physical arguments, taking as ON, the correspondent sky region, and as OFF, several sky regions of the same shape (if possible). One can calculate the corresponding significance using the approach of Li and Ma .

## 7 Sensitivity to extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources

TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emission, resulting from the $`\pi ^{}`$-decay produced in nearby supernova remnants (SNR) by the accelerated protons colliding with the ambient thermal gas nuclei, is marginally high enough to be detectable by currently operating imaging atmospheric Čerenkov telescopes (see, for example, ). Given the angular size of the shell-type SNRs, which has been measured in radio wavelength range, the emission region in TeV $`\gamma `$-rays is expected to be significantly extended . In good approximation, the source is characterized by the constant brightness in $`\gamma `$-rays all over the SNR radio extent.

Based on the detailed Monte Carlo simulations for the HEGRA system we have estimated the sensitivity of the instrument in observations of extended $`\gamma `$-ray sources. The results of the simulations can be interpreted using the established sensitivity for a point-like $`\gamma `$-ray source. Thus, the resulting signal-to-noise ratio for a $`\gamma `$-ray source of an arbitrary angular size, $`\theta `$, can be calculated as

$$S/N=\stackrel{~}{R}_\gamma /[\stackrel{~}{R}_{CR}(\theta /\theta _0)^2]^{1/2}t^{1/2}=\stackrel{~}{R}_\gamma /[\stackrel{~}{R}_{CR}]^{1/2}(\theta /\theta _0)^1t^{1/2}$$
(12)
where $`\stackrel{~}{R}_\gamma `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{R}_{CR}`$ are the detection rates of $`\gamma `$-rays and cosmic rays, respectively, after applying the analysis cut. Values $`\theta _0`$ and $`\theta `$ correspond to the orientational cuts for a point-like source ($`\theta _0`$= 0.1) and extended $`\gamma `$-ray source ($`\theta `$ is a source extension). $`\stackrel{~}{R}_{CR}`$ is a cosmic-ray rate for a standard orientational cut applied for a point source search. For the isotropic cosmic-ray background, the total number of background counts for an extended $`\gamma `$-ray source is proportional to the angular area covered by this source ($`R_{CR}\theta ^2`$). For a 5 $`\sigma `$ detection and fixed observational time333For instance, SNR Cas A was observed with HEGRA system of IACTs for a total exposure time of 250 h . ($`t=100`$ h) one can calculate the minimum detectable flux from the point-like $`\gamma `$-ray source. For the HEGRA array of five IACTs such a minimum detectable flux is $`F_\gamma ^{p.s.}(1TeV)=1.110^{12}\mathrm{photon}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Finally, the minimum detectable flux for an extended $`\gamma `$-ray source is given by

$$F_\gamma ^{ex.s.}=F_\gamma ^{p.s.}(\theta /0.1\mathrm{deg}),$$
(13)
where $`\theta `$ is an angular radius of a source region. Note that for an extended $`\gamma `$-ray source of large extension ($`\theta >0.5`$ degree) the integral rates $`\stackrel{~}{R}_\gamma `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{R}_{CR}`$ need to be corrected for the fall-off in the camera response function (see figure 1). For $`\gamma `$-ray sources of large extension ($`\theta >1`$ degree) one has to perform observations preferably in ON/OFF mode, i.e. taking the same amount of OFF data as for the ON data sample, because almost the entire sensitive area is covered by a source region. The results of the detailed Monte Carlo simulations may deviate from the estimates given by equation (13) for the $`\gamma `$-ray sources of angular extension substantially larger than 1 .

As an example, we consider here a shell-type SNR with an angular size of 0.25 (such as SN 1006). Three different models of TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emission have been discussed in . The profiles of $`\gamma `$-ray brightness are taken from . The leptonic model of $`\gamma `$-ray emission yields the uniform distribution of emitted $`\gamma `$-rays (‘circle’ model), whereas for hadronic models the brightness might peak around the shock front (‘ring’ model) or concentrate around two emission poles (‘double-pole’ model)  (see figure 7). We have modelled the response of the HEGRA system of five IACTs for the fluxes and brightness profile given in  after 100 h of observations (see figure 7) assuming the $`\gamma `$-ray flux given in . The minimal observing time for a 5 $`\sigma `$ detection depends on the assumed morphology of the $`\gamma `$-ray emission. Thus, for the ‘circle’, ‘ring’ and ‘double-pole’ models the minimal detection times are 16 h, 5 h and 2 h, respectively. Deep observation of such an SNR could allow us to study in detail the morphology of the TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emission and finally to distinguish between different models of $`\gamma `$-ray emission.

## 8 Conclusion

The response of the HEGRA system of IACTs to the diffuse and extended $`\gamma `$-ray emission over the FoV of the instrument was studied by means of detailed Monte Carlo simulations. Within the angular region limited by 1 from the centre of the FoV the detection rate of the $`\gamma `$-rays as well as the quality factor, characterizing the efficacy of the $`\gamma `$-ray selection, are constant. Further extension of the observational window up to 1.5 still allows us to have the same sensitivity to the $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes but with noticeably reduced $`\gamma `$-ray detection rate. An analysis of different trigger multiplicities reveals an improvement in the sensitivity, whereas higher multiplicities lead to the substantial decrease in the $`\gamma `$-ray detection rate.

We have modelled the response of the HEGRA system of five IACTs for observations of nearby SNRs. Even though the final sensitivity estimate depends on the actual morphology of the TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emitting region, in a simple case of a ‘circular’ emission region the sensitivity might be derived by rescaling the sensitivity for a point-like source.

The studies discussed here could have a general use for the forthcoming arrays of IACTs such as CANGAROO, H.E.S.S. and VERITAS.

Acknowledgments. This work was supported by CICYT (Spain) and BMBF (Germany).


text:
# The Chiral Limit of Non-compact QED3

## 1 Introduction

Over the last few years, QED3 has attracted a lot of attention because of its potential applications to models of high $`T_c`$ superconductivity. It is believed to be confining and exhibit features such as dynamical mass generation when the number of fermion flavors $`N_f`$ is smaller than a critical value $`N_{fc}`$. It is therefore an interesting and challenging model and an ideal laboratory in which to study more complicated gauge field theories.

We are considering the four-component formulation of QED3 where the Dirac algebra is represented by the $`4\times 4`$ matrices $`\gamma _0`$, $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _2`$. This formulation preserves parity and gives each spinor a global $`U(2)`$ symmetry generated by $`\mathrm{𝟏}`$, $`\gamma _3,\gamma _5`$ and $`i\gamma _3\gamma _5`$; the full symmetry is then $`U(2N_f)`$. If the fermions acquire dynamical mass the $`U(2N_f)`$ symmetry is broken spontaneously to $`U(N_f)\times U(N_f)`$ and $`2N_f^2`$ Goldstone bosons appear in the particle spectrum.

At the present time the issue of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QED3 is not very well understood. Studies based on Schwinger-Dyson equations (SDEs) using the photon propagator derived from the leading order $`1/N_f`$ expansion suggested that for $`N_f`$ less than some critical value $`N_{fc}`$ the answer is positive with $`N_{fc}3.2`$ . Apparently, for $`N_f>N_{fc}`$, the attactive interaction between a fermion and an antifermion due to photon exchange is overwhelmed by the fermion screening of the theory’s electric charge. More recent studies which treat the vertex consistently in both numerator and denominator of the SDEs have found a value for $`N_{fc}`$ either in agreement with the original study or slightly higher, with $`N_{fc}4.3`$ . Finally an argument based on a thermodynamic inequality has predicted $`N_{fc}\frac{3}{2}`$ . There have also been numerical attempts to resolve the issue via lattice simulations. The obvious advantage in this case is that one can study any $`N_f`$ without any assumption concerning the convergence of expansion methods. However, the principal obstruction to a definitive answer has been large finite volume effects resulting from the presence of a massless photon. Numerical studies of the quenched case have shown that chiral symmetry is broken , whereas in the case of simulations with dynamical fermions opinions have divided on whether $`N_{fc}`$ is finite and $`3`$ or whether chiral symmetry is broken for all $`N_f`$ . Recent studies of the $`N_f=1`$ model on small lattices appear in .

In our study we used the Hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm to simulate the non-compact version of lattice QED3 with staggered fermions. In the continuum it corresponds to the four-component spinor formulation of the model . We implement even-odd partitioning which implies that a single flavor of one-component staggered fermions can be simulated, which corresponds to $`N_f=2`$ in the continuum limit.

## 2 Results

In this section we discuss the results of lattice simulations of QED3 with $`N_f2`$. In our study we tried to detect and control the various drawbacks of the lattice method: (i) The lattice itself distorts continuum space-time physics considerably unless the lattice spacing $`a`$ can be chosen small compared to the relevant physical wavelengths in the system. (ii) the size of the lattice $`L^3`$ must be large compared to the dynamically generated correlations in the system; and (iii) the chiral limit can only be studied by simulating light fermions of mass $`m_0`$ in lattice units.

In Fig.1 we plot the dimensionless chiral condensate $`\beta ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vs. the dimensionless bare mass $`\beta m_0`$ (where $`\beta \frac{1}{g^2a}`$) for $`N_f=2,4,8,16`$. The coupling $`\beta =0.6`$ and the lattice volume is $`16^3`$. As $`N_f`$ increases the chiral condensate decreases (for $`m_00`$) because the interaction between the fermion and the antifermion is screened. However, as $`m_00`$ all the curves tend to pass smoothly through the origin. This motivated us to study in more detail the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking at small $`N_f`$ on larger volumes near the chiral limit.

In order to check whether our lattice data are characteristic of the continuum limit we plot in Fig.2 $`\beta ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vs. $`\beta m_0`$ for $`N_f=2`$ and coupling $`\beta =0.45,0.60,0.75,0.90`$. To disentangle the lattice discretization effects from the finite size effects we keep the volume in physical units $`(L/\beta )^3`$ constant. It can be inferred from the graph that discretization effects are small for $`\beta 0.60`$, because the data almost fall on the same line within the resolution of our analysis.

In Fig.3 we present our results for the chiral condensate vs. bare mass for $`N_f=2`$ and $`\beta =0.6`$ on lattice sizes varying from $`8^3`$ to $`48^3`$. We infer that finite size effects become small for $`L24`$ and all the lines tend to pass smoothly through the origin. Our analysis of meson masses and susceptibilities in scalar and pseudoscalar channels showed that these quantities suffer from very strong finite size effects and therefore did not allow us to reach such a definitive conclusion .

Next we discuss the results from $`N_f=2`$ simulations at $`\beta =0.75`$. The $`\beta =0.75`$ data set is closer to the continuum limit than the data extracted at $`\beta =0.60`$. However, particular care is required because weak coupling data are very sensitive to finite size effects and accurate measurements require simulations on large lattices. In Fig.4 we present the results for the chiral condensate vs. fermion bare mass extracted from simulations with lattice sizes ranging from $`10^3`$ to $`50^3`$. These simulations were performed very close to the chiral limit, i.e. with $`m_00.005`$. We can see from the figure the finite size effects are under relatively good control and the data tend to pass smoothly through the origin. Therefore, we conclude that for $`N_f=2`$ $`\beta ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }5\times 10^5`$, which is a strong indication that QED3 may be chirally symmetric for $`N_f2`$.

## 3 Conclusions

In our study of QED3 with $`N_f2`$ we attempted to establish whether chiral symmetry is broken or not by studying the behavior of the chiral condensate close to the continuum limit $`g0`$, on different volumes in order to detect and control finite size effects and near the chiral limit $`m_00`$.

Our upper bound for the condensate in the $`N_f=2`$ case is $`\beta ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }5\times 10^5`$ and all the lines of $`\beta ^2\overline{\mathrm{\Psi }}\mathrm{\Psi }`$ vs. $`\beta m_0`$ tend to pass smoothly through the origin which may imply that chiral symmetry is restored for $`N_f2`$. We are continuing this study to check if chiral symmetry is broken in the case of $`N_f=1`$.

## Acknowledgements

SJH and CGS were supported by the Leverhulme Trust. JBK was supported in part by NSF grant PHY-0102409. The computer simulations were done on the Cray SV1’s at NERSC, the IBM-SP at NPACI, and on the SGI Origin 2000 at the University of Wales Swansea.


text:
# Associated production of neutral toppion with a pair of heavy quarks in 𝛾𝛾 collisions

## Abstract

We have studied a neutral toppion production process $`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0(f=t,b)`$ in the topcolor-assisted technicolor(TC2) model. We find that the cross section of $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ is much larger than that of $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. On the other hand, the cross section can be obviously enhanced with the increasing of c.m.energy. With $`\sqrt{s}=1600`$ GeV, the cross section of $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production can reach the level of a few fb. The results show that $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{t}(t\overline{c})`$ is the most ideal channel to detect neutral toppion due to the clean SM background. With such sufficient signals and clean background, neutral toppion could be detected at TESLA with high c.m.energy.

PACS number(s): 12.60Nz, 14.80.Mz,.15.LK, 14.65.Ha

I. Introduction

At present the success of electroweak standard model is well known and doubtness. However, the mechanism of the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) is not yet quite understood. The Higgs particle that is assumed to trigger the EWSB in the EWSM has not been found. In addition,there are prominent problems of triviality and unnaturalness  in the Higgs section in the EWSB. Generally, it is said that the present theory of EWSB is only valid up to a certain energy scale $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, and new physics beyond the EWSB will become dominant above $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Possible new physics are supersymmetry (SUSY) and dynamical EWSB mechanism concerning new strong interactions, etc.

The advantage of dynamical EWSB is that it discards the elementary scale field in the theory, so, it can completely avoid the problems of triviality and unnaturalness. The simplest model realizing this idea is the initial technicolor (TC) model proposed independently by Weinberg and Susskind . However, such a simple model predicts a too large oblique correction parameter S and has been refused by LEP data . In order to overcome the shortcomings of the simplest model and explain the large mass difference between the top quark and the bottom quark, an important model called topcolor-assisted technicolor (TC2) model is proposed by Hill  which is of great value to be studied in the future high energy experiment.

In TC2 theory, the EWSB is driven mainly by technicolor interactions. The extended technicolor gives contributions to all ordinary quark and lepton masses including a very small part of the top quark mass: $`m_t^{^{}}=\epsilon m_t(0.03\epsilon 0.1)`$ . The topcolor interaction also makes small contributions to the EWSB and gives rise to the main sector of the top mass $`(1\epsilon )m_t`$. One of the most general predictions of TC2 model is the existence of three physical partical Pseudo-Goldstone Boson called toppion: $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^\pm ,\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$, which mass is in the range of hundreds of GeV. The toppions can be regarded as the typical feature of TC2 model. Thus, studying the possible signatures of toppions and toppion contributions to some processes at the high energy colliders is a good method to test TC2 model.

The neutral toppion can be probed directly in the decay processes $`\pi _t^0\gamma \gamma ,gg,\gamma z`$ through an internal top quark loop, and the decay processes $`\pi _t^0\overline{t}c,b\overline{b},t\overline{t}`$ (if this is kinetically allowed). These possible decay modes have been calculated in detail  and it shows that the dominant decay mode is $`\pi _t^0\overline{t}c`$ if $`\pi _t^0\overline{t}t`$ is not allowed. The alternative way to probe toppions is to study some toppion production processes. The future linear colliders(LC) will provide an almost unique place to explore the toppion due to its clean environment and high luminosity. Recently, we have studied the neutral toppion production processes in high energy $`e^+e^{}`$ and $`e\gamma `$ collision, the studies provide the feasible ways to detect toppion events and test TC2 model.

In this paper, we shall study an associated production of neutral toppion with a pair of quarks in $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions. i.e., $`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0(f=t,b)`$. The advantage of photon colliders for some process has been extensively explained in the literature . Some similar processes have been thoroughly studied in the standard model(SM)($`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}H`$) and in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM(MSSM) ($`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\varphi `$ $`(\varphi =h^0,H^0,A^0)`$). In the SM, the results show that the cross section of $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}H`$ is at the level of a few fb. In MSSM, it is shown that when tan$`\beta `$ is not too large the associated $`h^0`$ production is dominant, with the cross sction of 1.0 fb or higher for phenomenologically favored values of the parameters. The studies in Ref. have shown that $`\gamma \gamma `$ colision have the significient advantage to probe charged Higgs boson and a polarized $`\gamma \gamma `$ collider can determine the chirality of the Yukawa couplings of fermions with charged Higgs boson via single charged Higgs boson production, and thus discriminate models of new physics.

This paper is organized as follows. In set.II, we will present the calculations of the production cross section of the process $`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\pi _t^0`$ $`(f=t,b)`$. The results and conclusion will be shown in set.III.

II The calculation of the production cross section

As it is known, the couplings of toppions to the three family fermions are non-universal and the toppions have large Yukawa couplings to the third generation. The coupling of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ to a pair of top or bottom quarks is proportion to the mass of quark and the explicit form can be written as

$$\frac{tan\beta }{v_w}[(1\epsilon )m_t\overline{t}r_5t+m_b^{}\overline{b}r_5b]$$
(1)
Where tan$`\beta =\sqrt{(\frac{v_w}{v_t})^21}`$,$`v_w=246`$ GeV is the EWSB scale and $`v_t60100`$ GeV  is the toppion decay constant. $`m_b^{}6.6k`$ is an instanton induced b-quark mass, and $`k`$ 1 to 0.1. With above couplings, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ can be produced associated with a pair of top or bottom quarks in $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions. The Feynman diagrams for the process $`\gamma (p_1)\gamma (p_2)f(p_3)\overline{f}(p_4)\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0(p_5)`$ $`(f=t,b)`$ are shown in Fig.1 in which the cross diagrams with the interchange of the two incoming photons are not shown.

The amplitudes for the process are given by

$`M_f^{(a)}`$ $`=`$ $`C_fG(p_3+p_5,m_f)G(p_2p_4,m_f)`$
$`\overline{u}_f(p_3)(\text{ /}p_3+\text{ /}p_5m_f)\text{ /}e(p_1)(\text{ /}p_2\text{ /}p_4m_f)\text{ /}e(p_2)\gamma _5v_f(p_4)`$
$`M_f^{(b)}`$ $`=`$ $`C_fG(p_3p_1,m_f)G(p_2p_4,m_f)`$
$`\overline{u}_f(p_3)\text{ /}e(p_1)(\text{ /}p_3\text{ /}p_1+m_f)(\text{ /}p_2\text{ /}p_4m_f)\text{ /}e(p_2)\gamma _5v_f(p_4)`$
$`M_f^{(c)}`$ $`=`$ $`C_fG(p_3p_1,m_f)G(p_4p_5,m_f)`$
$`\overline{u}_f(p_3)\text{ /}e(p_1)(\text{ /}p_3\text{ /}p_1+m_f)\text{ /}e(p_2)(\text{ /}p_4+\text{ /}p_5m_f)\gamma _5v_f(p_4)`$
The amplitudes for the diagrams with the interchange of the two incoming photons can be directly obtained by interchanging $`p_1,p_2`$ in above amplitudes. Here, the subindex $`f=t,b`$, the coefficent

$`C_t={\displaystyle \frac{16\sqrt{2}}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_ttan\beta }{v_w}}M_Z^2G_Fc_w^2s_w^2(1\epsilon )`$ (3)
$`C_b={\displaystyle \frac{4\sqrt{2}}{9}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_b^{}tan\beta }{v_w}}M_Z^2G_Fc_w^2s_w^2.`$ (4)
and $`G(p,m)=\frac{1}{p^2m^2}`$ is the propagator of the particle, $`s_w^2=sin^2\theta _w,c_w^2=cos^2\theta _w`$ ($`\theta _w`$ is the Weinberg angle)

With above amplitude, we can directly obtain the cross section $`\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s})`$ for the subprocess $`\gamma \gamma f\overline{f}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$, the total cross section at the $`e^+e^{}`$ linear collider can be obtained by folding $`\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s})`$ with the photon distribution function which is given in Ref

$$\sigma _{tot}(s)=_{x_{min}}^{x_{max}}𝑑x_1_{x_{min}x_{max}/x_1}^{x_{max}}𝑑x_2F(x_1)F(x_2)\widehat{\sigma }(\widehat{s})$$
(5)
where $`s`$ is the c.m. energy squared for $`e^+e^{}`$ and the subprocess occurs effectively at $`\widehat{s}=x_1x_2s`$, and $`x_i`$ are the fraction of the electrons energies carried by the photons. The explicit form of the photon distribution function $`F(x)`$ is

$`F(x)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{D(\xi )}}\left[1x+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{1x}}{\displaystyle \frac{4x}{\xi (1x)}}+{\displaystyle \frac{4x^2}{\xi ^2(1x)^2}}\right],`$ (6)
with

$`D(\xi )`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\xi }}{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\xi ^2}}\right)\mathrm{ln}(1+\xi )+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\xi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2(1+\xi )^2}},`$ (7)
$`x_{max}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\xi }{1+\xi }},\xi ={\displaystyle \frac{4E_0\omega _0}{m_e^2}}.`$ (8)
where $`E_0`$ and $`\omega _0`$ are the incident electron and laser light energies. To avoid unwanted $`e^+e^{}`$ pair production from the collision between the incident and back-scattered photons, we should not choose too large $`\omega _0`$. This constrains the maximum value for $`\xi =2(1+\sqrt{2})`$. We obtain

$`x_{max}=0.83,D(\xi )=1.8`$ (9)
The minimum value for x is then determined by the production threshold,

$`x_{min}={\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}_{min}}{x_{max}s}},\widehat{s}_{min}=(2m_t+M_\mathrm{\Pi })^2`$ (10)
III The results and conclusions

In our calculations, we take $`m_t=174`$ GeV, $`m_b=4.9`$ GeV, $`v_t=60Gev`$, $`M_Z=91.187`$ GeV, $`s_w^2=0.23`$, $`G_F=1.16639\times 10^5`$ $`(GeV)^2`$. There are three free parameters involved in the production amplitudes, i.e., $`\epsilon ,M_\mathrm{\Pi },\sqrt{s}`$(for $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production) and $`k,M_\mathrm{\Pi },\sqrt{s}`$(for $`b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production). To see the influence of these parameters on the production cross section, we take the mass of toppion $`M_\mathrm{\Pi }`$ to vary in certain ranges 150 GeV$`M_\mathrm{\Pi }`$ 350 GeV, $`\epsilon =0.03,0.06,0.1`$ and $`k=0.3,0.7`$ respectively. Considering the center-of-mass energies $`\sqrt{s}`$ in planned $`e^+e^{}`$ linear colliders (for example: TESLA), we take $`\sqrt{s}`$=500 GeV, 800 GeV, 1600 GeV, respectively(but for $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production, $`\sqrt{s}`$=500 GeV is too low to produce $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$).

In Fig.2, taking $`\sqrt{s}`$=800 GeV and $`\epsilon =0.03,0.06,0.1`$ respectively, we show the total cross section of $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production as a function of $`M_\mathrm{\Pi }`$. We can see that the cross section falls sharply as the $`M_\mathrm{\Pi }`$ increasing and the maximum of the cross section reach the level of 0.1 $`fb`$. The phase space is depressed strongly by large $`M_\mathrm{\Pi }`$. For $`\sqrt{s}`$=1600 GeV, the results of the cross section is shown in Fig.3. The results shown that the large $`\sqrt{s}`$ can enhance the cross section significantly and the value of the cross section is at the level of a few $`fb`$. This means that large $`\sqrt{s}`$ is favorable for detecting $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$.

The another associated production of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ is $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. The results are shown in Fig.4-5. We find that the cross section of $`b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production is at least two orders of magnitude smaller than that of $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ production. This is because the coupling of $`b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ is much smaller than the coupling of $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. So, it is difficult to detect $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ via the process $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. We will not discuss the results of $`\gamma \gamma b\overline{b}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ in detail.

Now, we will focus on considering how to detect $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ via the process $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. It can be concluded that the high c.m. energy is needed in order to enhance the production rate and produce enough signals. On the other hand, we should find the best channel to detect $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$. The possible decay modes of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ are: $`t\overline{t}`$(if $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0>2m_t`$),$`t\overline{c},b\overline{b},gg,\gamma \gamma ,Z\gamma `$. For $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0>2m_t`$, the main decay mode is $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{t}`$. As it is known, the couplings of toppion to the three families fermions are non-universal and therefore do not posses a GIM mechanism, this non-universal feature results in a large flavor changing coupling of neutral toppion to top and charm. So, the decay branching ratio $`Br(\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{c})`$ is the largest one when $`t\overline{t}`$ channel is forbidden. In SM, the cross section of the processes with $`t\overline{c}`$ production should be very small because there is no tree level flavor-changing neutral current(FCNC) in SM. Therefore, $`\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{t}(t\overline{c})`$ is the most ideal channel to detect neutral toppion with the clean background in SM. Taking $`M_\mathrm{\Pi }=160`$ GeV, we can easy get the branching ratio of $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{c}`$ as $`66\%`$. The cross section of $`e^+e^{}\gamma \gamma t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0t\overline{t}(t\overline{c})`$ is about 4.2 fb for $`\sqrt{s}=1600`$ GeV and $`\epsilon =0.06`$. There are about 2000 signals can be produced via $`t\overline{c}`$ channel with annually integral luminosity of $`500fb^1`$ at the TESLA. Such sufficient signals can be easily detected with the clean background.

In summary, we have studied a associated production of neutral toppion with a pair of heavy quarks in $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions in TC2 model. We find that the production rate for $`t\overline{t}\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ in $`\gamma \gamma `$ collisions is at the level of serval fb with high c.m. energy(for example: $`\sqrt{s}=1600`$ GeV). With such production rate and clean SM background, $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ should be dectectd experimentally at the TESLA. But due to heavy $`t\overline{t}`$ pair, it is difficult to find $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$ for $`\sqrt{s}=800`$ GeV, except for light $`\mathrm{\Pi }_t^0`$.