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# A class of counter-examples to the hypersection problem based on forcing equations

## Abstract.

We give a class of three-dimensional Stein spaces $`W`$ together with a hypersurface $`H`$, such that the complement $`WH`$ is not Stein, but such that for every analytic surface $`SW`$ the complement $`SSH`$ is Stein. This class is constructed using forcing equations and gives new counter-examples to the hypersection problem.

Mathematical Subject Classification (1991): 14J26, 32C25, 32L05, 32E10

0. Introduction. Let $`W`$ be a complex Stein space of dimension $`3`$ and let $`HW`$ be an analytic hypersurface, $`U=WH`$. Suppose that for every analytic hypersurface $`SW`$ the intersection $`US`$ is Stein, is then $`U`$ itself Stein? This question is called the hypersection problem, see  for a general treatment and related problems. The first counter-example to this question was given by Coltoiu and Diederich in , using the affine cone over the complement of two sections on some ruled surface over an elliptic curve. In this way they get a normal three-dimensional isolated singularity.

In this paper we present another class of three-dimensional Stein spaces $`W`$ together with a hypersurface $`H`$ fulfilling the assumptions in the hypersection problem, but not its conclusion. The class is constructed in the following way: we start with a two-dimensional normal affine cone $`X`$ over a smooth projective curve and the vertex point $`PX`$. Suppose that we have three homogeneous functions $`f_1,f_2`$ and $`f_0`$ on $`X`$. Then, under suitable conditions, $`W=V(f_1t_1+f_2t_2+f_0)X\times ^2`$ and the hypersurface $`H=p^1(P)`$ have the desired properties, see Theorem 7. These conditions reduce to numerical conditions, which are easily to verify, see Corollary 8 and Example 9.

1. Forcing equations. Let $`X`$ be an irreducible normal complex Stein space of dimension $`d`$ together with a point $`PX`$. Let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$ be holomorphic functions on $`X`$ such that the common zero set of these functions is exactly $`P`$. Let $`f_0`$ be another holomorphic function vanishing at $`P`$. Then we consider the complex space $`WX\times ^n`$ defined by the equation $`f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n+f_0=0`$,

$$W=\{(x,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)X\times ^n:f_1(x)t_1+\mathrm{}+f_n(x)t_n+f_0(x)=0\}.$$

The equation $`f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n+f_0=0`$ is called a forcing equation, since it forces $`f_0`$ to lie in the ideal generated by $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$. Forcing equations and the algebras defined by them play an important role in the theory of closure operations for ideals, e.g. tight closure and solid closure, see . Let $`p:WX`$ be the projection. If $`d2`$, then $`n2`$ and $`W`$ is an irreducible Stein space of dimension $`d+n1`$. Let $`U_i=\{xX:f_i(x)0\}`$ and $`U=_{i=1}^nU_i=XP`$. Resolving $`t_i`$ shows that $`p^1(U_i)U_i\times ^{n1}`$. The transition mappings however are only affine-linear, not linear, hence $`W|_U`$ is not a vector bundle. $`H:=p^1(P)^n`$ is a closed subset in $`W`$, which is a hypersurface in case $`d=2`$. The existence of a section $`XW`$ is equivalent with $`f_0(f_1,\mathrm{},f_n)`$ over $`X`$.

###### Lemma 1.

Let $`X`$ be a normal irreducible Stein space together with a point $`P`$ and let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n,f_0\mathrm{\Gamma }(X,𝒪_X)`$ be holomorphic functions on $`X`$. Let $`X^{}`$ be another irreducible Stein space of the same dimension and let $`\psi :X^{}X`$ be a holomorphic mapping such that $`\psi ^1(P)`$ contains isolated points. Suppose that $`f_0\psi (f_1\psi ,\mathrm{},f_n\psi )`$ in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(X^{},𝒪_X^{})`$. Then $`f_0(f_1,\mathrm{},f_n)`$ in $`𝒪_{X,P}`$.

###### Proof.

Let $`Q`$ be an isolated point over $`P`$. Then there exist open neighborhoods $`QU`$ and $`PV`$ such that $`\psi :UV`$ is finite, see , Ch. 3.2. Due to the finite mapping theorem, $`\psi _{}(𝒪_X^{})`$ is a coherent analytic algebra on $`PVX`$. Furthermore it is torsionfree due to the assumptions on the dimension. Since $`X`$ is normal, we have the trace map $`tr:\psi _{}(𝒪_U)𝒪_V`$, which gives the result. ∎

###### Corollary 2.

Let $`X`$ be a normal irreducible Stein space of dimension $`d`$ together with a point $`P`$ and let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n,f_0\mathrm{\Gamma }(X,𝒪_X)`$ be holomorphic functions such that $`f_0(f_1,\mathrm{},f_n)𝒪_P`$. Let

$$W=V(f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n+f_0)X\times ^n\stackrel{p}{}X.$$

and $`H=p^1(P)`$. Let $`T`$ be an irreducible complex space of dimension $`d`$ and let $`\phi :TW`$ be a holomorphic map. Then $`\phi ^1(H)T`$ contains no isolated points and the codimension of $`\phi ^1(H)`$ is $`d1`$.

###### Proof.

We look at the composed mapping $`\psi =p\phi :T\stackrel{\phi }{}W\stackrel{p}{}X`$. Since it factors through $`W`$ it follows that $`f_0\psi (f_1\psi ,\mathrm{},f_n\psi )`$ in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(T,𝒪_T)`$. Due to the Lemma $`\psi ^1(P)=\phi ^1(H)`$ cannot contain isolated points. ∎

With this result we can establish the hypothesis of the hypersection problem in a broad class of example where the base space $`X`$ is two-dimensional, $`n=2`$ and $`H=p^1(P)^2`$ is a hypersurface in three-dimensional $`W`$.

###### Proposition 3.

Let $`X`$ be a normal irreducible two-dimensional Stein space together with a point $`P`$. Let $`f_1,f_2,f_0\mathrm{\Gamma }(X,𝒪_X)`$ be holomorphic functions such that $`P=\{f_1=f_2=0\}`$ and suppose that $`f_0(f_1,f_2)𝒪_P`$. Let

$$W=Z(f_1t_1+f_2t_2+f_0)X\times ^2\stackrel{p}{}X.$$

and let $`H=p^1(P)W`$. Then for every analytic surface $`SW`$ the complement of $`SHS`$ is Stein.

###### Proof.

We may assume that $`S`$ is irreducible, let $`\stackrel{~}{S}`$ be its normalization and let $`\phi :\stackrel{~}{S}W`$ be the corresponding mapping. Due to Cor. 2 we know that $`\phi ^1(H)\stackrel{~}{S}`$ contains no isolated points. Hence $`\phi ^1(H)`$ is a pure curve on a normal Stein surface and due to  its complement is Stein. But then also $`SSH`$ itself is Stein. ∎

2. The graded situation. We have to look for examples of the type described in Proposition 3 where $`WH`$ is not Stein. To this end we look at the graded situation. Let $`Y^N`$ be a smooth projective variety with the very ample line bundle $`H_YY`$ (which is the restriction of $`𝒪_^N(1)`$ to $`Y`$) and let $`X^{N+1}`$ be the corresponding affine cone. Let $`P`$ be the vertex of the cone and assume that $`X`$ is normal. Recall that we have an action of $`^{}`$ on $`X`$, which is free on $`U=XP`$. $`Y`$ is the quotient of this action and $`UY`$ is a $`^{}`$-principal bundle. A number $`e`$ defines the action on $`X\times `$ by $`\lambda (x,t):=(\lambda x,\lambda ^et)`$, this action is free over $`U`$ and the quotient is the line bundle $`H_Y^eY`$.

Suppose that the holomorphic functions $`f_i`$ are homogeneous of degree $`d_i`$, i.e. $`f_i(\lambda x)=\lambda ^{d_i}f(x),xX,\lambda ^{}`$. We may consider a homogeneous holomorphic function $`f`$ of degree $`d`$ as a section $`YH_Y^d`$ and as a mapping of line bundles $`H_Y^dY\times `$ or $`H_Y^eH_Y^{e+d}`$.

###### Proposition 4.

Let $`X`$ be a normal affine cone over a smooth projective variety $`Y`$ and let $`P`$ be the vertex point. Let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$ be homogeneous functions such that $`P=\{f_1=\mathrm{}=f_n=0\}`$, $`U=XP`$. Let $`d_i`$ be the degrees of $`f_i`$ and let $`e_i`$ numbers such that $`m=d_i+e_i`$ is constant. Then the following hold.

1. There is an exact sequence of vector bundles

$$0V_mH_Y^{e_1}\times _Y\mathrm{}\times _YH_Y^{e_n}\stackrel{{\scriptscriptstyle f_i}}{}H_Y^m0.$$
2. $`V_m`$ is the quotient of $`V(f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n)|_U`$ by the action of $`^{}`$ given by $`\lambda (x,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)=(\lambda x,\lambda ^{e_1}t_1,\mathrm{},\lambda ^{e_n}t_n)`$.
3. We have $`\mathrm{Det}V_mH_Y^k`$, where $`k=_{i=1}^ne_im=_{i=1}^nd_i+(n1)m`$.
4. $`V_m^{}=V_mH_Y^{(m^{}m)}`$. The projective bundle $`(V_m)`$ is independent of the choosen degree $`m`$.

###### Proof.

(i). We consider the $`f_i`$ as morphisms $`H_Y^{e_i}H_Y^m`$. The morphism of vector bundles $`H_Y^{e_1}\times _Y\mathrm{}\times _YH_Y^{e_n}\stackrel{{\scriptscriptstyle f_i}}{}H_Y^m`$ over $`Y`$ is surjective, because the $`f_i`$ do not have a common zero on $`Y`$. Hence the kernel is a vector bundle $`V_m`$ on $`Y`$ of rank $`n1`$.

(ii). The pull back under $`q:UY`$ of the exact sequence in (i) gives

$$0q^{}V_mU\times ^n\stackrel{{\scriptscriptstyle f_i}}{}U\times 0$$

together with the described action, and $`q^{}V_m=V(f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n)|_U`$. (iii) and (iv) follow. ∎

###### Proposition 5.

Let $`X`$ be a normal affine cone over a smooth projective variety $`Y`$ and let $`P`$ be the vertex point, $`U=XP`$. Let $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$ be homogeneous functions such that $`P=\{f_1=\mathrm{}=f_n=0\}`$. Let $`f_0`$ be another homogeneous function, $`d_i=\mathrm{deg}(f_i)`$, and let $`e_i`$ be numbers such that $`m=d_i+e_i`$ is constant for $`i=0,\mathrm{},n`$. Let $`V_m`$ (resp. $`V_m^{}`$) be the vector bundle on $`Y`$ defined in Proposition 4 with respect to $`f_1,\mathrm{},f_n`$ (resp. $`f_0,\mathrm{},f_n`$). Then the following hold.

1. There is an exact sequence of vector bundles on $`Y`$:

$$0V_mV_m^{}\stackrel{t_0}{}H_Y^{e_0}0.$$
2. The corresponding embedding $`(V_m)(V_m^{})`$ is independent of $`m`$, $`(V_m)`$ is a divisor on $`(V_m^{})`$.
3. Let $`e_0=0`$. The normal bundle for $`(V)(V^{})`$ on $`(V)`$ is $`H_{(V)}`$, where $`H_{(V)}`$ denotes the relative very ample line bundle on $`(V)`$.
4. Let $`e_0=0`$. $`W|_U(V^{})(V)`$ is a quotient of the action on $`W=V(f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_nt_n+f_0)`$ given by

$$\lambda (x,t_1,\mathrm{},t_n)(\lambda x,\lambda ^{e_1}t_1,\mathrm{},\lambda ^{e_n}t_n).$$

###### Proof.

(i). The mappings in the sequence follow from the defining sequences for $`V_m`$ and $`V_m^{}`$. The exactness of the sequence follows from diagramm chasing. (ii) is clear.

(iii). Since we assume $`e_0=0`$, $`t_0`$ is a global function on $`V^{}`$ and it is a global section in the relative very ample line bundle $`H_{(V^{})}`$ on $`(V^{})`$, and $`(V)`$ is the corresponding divisor. Therefore the normal bundle of this embedding is $`i^{}H_{(V^{})}H_{(V)}`$.

(iv). First we may identify the closed subset $`\{QV^{}:t_0(Q)=1\}`$ with $`(V^{})(V)`$. The described action on $`W`$ respects the forcing equation, for $`f_1(\lambda x)\lambda ^{e_1}t_1+\mathrm{}+f_n(\lambda x)\lambda ^{e_n}t_n+f_0(\lambda x)=\lambda ^{d_1}\lambda ^{e_1}f_1(x)t_1+\mathrm{}+\lambda ^{d_n}\lambda ^{e_n}f_n(x)t_n+\lambda ^{d_0}f_0(x)=\lambda ^m(f_1(x)t_1+\mathrm{}+f_n(x)t_n+f_0(x))=0`$. This action on $`W|_U=Wp^1(P)`$ is the same action as the action on the vector bundle $`V(f_1t_1+\mathrm{}+f_0t_0)|_U`$ restricted to $`t_0=1`$ described in Proposition 4(ii). Its quotient is $`\{QV^{}:t_0(Q)=1\}`$. ∎

Now we specialize to the two-dimensional situation.

###### Corollary 6.

Let $`X`$ be a normal affine two-dimensional cone over a smooth projective curve $`Y`$ and let $`P`$ be the vertex point. Let $`f_1,f_2`$ be homogeneous functions such that $`P=\{f_1=f_2=0\}`$. Let $`f_0`$ be another homogeneous function, $`d_i=\mathrm{deg}(f_i)`$, and let $`e_i`$ numbers such that $`m=d_i+e_i`$ is constant for $`i=0,1,2`$. Let $`V_m`$ ($`V_m^{}`$) be the corresponding vector bundles on $`Y`$. Then the following hold.

1. $`(V^{})`$ is a ruled surface and $`(V)(V^{})`$ is a section (independent of $`m`$).
2. We have $`V_mH_Y^{e_0+d_0d_1d_2}`$ and the exact sequence

$$0H_Y^{e_0+d_0d_1d_2}V^{}H_Y^{e_0}0.$$
3. Let $`e_0=0`$. The normal bundel of the embedding $`Y(V)(V^{})`$ is $`H_Y^{d_1+d_2d_0}`$.
4. The self intersection number of $`Y(V)(V^{})`$ is $`(d_1+d_2d_0)\mathrm{deg}H_Y`$.

###### Proof.

(i) is clear due to Proposition 5.

(ii) From the defining sequence in Proposition 4 it follows that we have $`V_mH_Y^{e_1}H_Y^{e_2}H_Y^m=H_Y^{e_1+e_2m}=H_Y^{e_0+d_0d_1d_2}`$.

(iii). The normal bundel on $`(V)`$ is $`H_{(V)}`$ due to Proposition 5. But for a line bundle this is just the negative tautological bundel $`V`$, therefore $`N=V=H^{d_1+d_2d_0}`$.

(iv). The self intersection number is $`(V)^2=\mathrm{deg}_YN=\mathrm{deg}_YH^{d_1+d_2d_0}=(d_1+d_2d_0)\mathrm{deg}H_Y`$. ∎

3. A class of examples.

###### Theorem 7.

Let $`X`$ be a normal affine two-dimensional cone with vertex point $`P`$ over a smooth projective curve $`Y`$, let $`f_1,f_2`$ and $`f_0`$ be homogeneous holomorphic functions on $`X`$ with degrees $`d_1,d_2,d_0`$ such that

$$(1)V(f_1,f_2)=P,(2)f_0(f_1,f_2)𝒪_{X,P}\text{ and }(3)d_1+d_2d_0<0.$$

Let $`W=V(f_1t_1+f_2t_2+f_0)X\times ^2`$ and $`H=p^1(P)W`$. Then $`WHW`$ is not Stein, but for every analytic surface $`SW`$ the intersection $`(WH)S`$ is Stein.

###### Proof.

We have to show that $`WH`$ is not Stein. Since $`WH=W|_U`$, $`U=XP`$, the quotient of this open subset under the action of $`^{}`$ is $`(V^{})(V)`$. Due to  it is enough to show that this complement of the section in the ruled surface $`(V^{})`$ is not Stein. The self intersection of $`(V)`$ is $`(d_0+d_1d_0)\mathrm{deg}H_Y<0`$, hence $`(V)`$ is due to  contractible and the complement cannot be Stein. ∎

###### Corollary 8.

Let $`h`$ be an irreducible homogeneous polynomial of degree $`r`$ in the three variables $`x,y,z`$ and suppose that $`x,y`$ are homogeneous parameters (i. e. that $`h=cz^r+`$ other terms, $`c0`$) and let $`X=V(h)^3`$. Suppose that $`X`$ is normal (hence $`Y`$ is smooth). Let $`d_1,d_21`$ and $`d_0`$ be degrees such that $`d_1+d_2<d_0<r`$. Then $`f_1=x^{d_1},f_2=y^{d_2}`$ and $`f_0=z^{d_0}`$ fulfill the conditions of the theorem.

###### Proof.

We have to show that $`z^{d_0}(x^{d_1},y^{d_2})𝒪_P`$. For this we look at the completion of the local ring, $`\widehat{O}_P/(x^{d_1},y^{d_2})=[[x,y,z]]/(h,x^{d_1},y^{d_2})`$. Since $`d_0<r=\mathrm{deg}(h)`$ we see that $`z^{d_0}0`$ in this residue class ring. On the other hand, the self intersection number is $`(d_1+d_2d_0)\mathrm{deg}H_Y<0`$. ∎

###### Example 9.

Let $`X=V(x^r+y^r+z^r)^3,r4`$ be a Fermat type hypersurface, let

$$W=V(x^r+y^r+z^r,xt_1+yt_2+z^s)^5,\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}s<r\text{ and }H=V(x,y).$$

Then the conditions in the corollary are fulfilled.

The easiest example of this type is the Fermat quartic $`x^4+y^4+z^4`$ together with $`f_1=x,f_2=y`$ and $`f_0=z^3`$. Therefore

$$W=V(x^4+y^4+z^4,xt_1+yt_2+z^3)\text{ and }H=V(x,y)$$

gives an counter-example to the hypersection problem.

###### Remarks 10.

The hypersurface $`H`$ in our example is the singular locus of $`W`$. Since the normalization does not change the complement of $`H`$ and since its preimage is still a hypersurface due to Corollary 2, we also may get normal examples.

The condition $`f_0(f_1,f_2)𝒪_P`$ in Corollary 8 ensures that the divisor $`(V)(V^{})`$ intersects every curve $`C(V^{})`$ positively. For a disjoined curve would yield a closed punctured surface (its cone) inside $`WH`$. If additionally $`d_1+d_2d_0>0`$, then $`(V)`$ is an ample divisor and its complement is affine, hence Stein. What happens if $`d_1+d_2d_0=0`$? Then the complement is not affine, but it may be Stein. For $`h=x^3+y^3+z^3=0,f_1=x,f_2=y`$ and $`f_0=z^2`$ we get an instance of the classical construction of Serre of a Stein, but non-affine variety, see .


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# Polarization Properties of Extragalactic Radio Sources and Their Contribution to Microwave Polarization Fluctuations

## 1 Introduction

Polarization measurements provide crucial information on the physics of radio sources. At high enough frequencies for Faraday rotation to be negligible we can reliably assume that the magnetic field direction lies perpendicular to the observed polarization position angle. On the other hand, determinations of the Faraday rotation measures (RMs) are informative on the magneto-ionic properties of the medium embedding the emitting region or along its line-of sight.

Another very important use of polarization measurements of large samples of radio sources is to quantify the contamination by these sources of polarization maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The astonishing advances in our understanding of the basic properties of the Universe and in precision determinations of its fundamental parameters made possible by the recent accurate measurements of acoustic peaks of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power spectrum by the TOCO (Miller et al. 1999), BOOMERanG (de Bernardis et al. 2002), MAXIMA (Lee et al. 2001), DASI (Halverson et al. 2002), and CBI (Pearson et al. 2002) experiments, have put further impetus in experimental efforts to exploit the extraordinary wealth of cosmological information carried by the CMB.

A Gaussian CMB fluctuation field is fully characterized by four power spectra, $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{TT}`$, $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{EE}`$, $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{BB}`$, $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{TE}`$, where $`T`$ stands for “temperature”, while $`E`$ and $`B`$ are rotationally invariant fields, which are linear, but non-local, combinations of the Stokes parameters Q and U (Seljak 1997; Kamionkowski et al. 1997; Zaldarriaga & Seljak 1997). It is then clear that polarization measurements are crucial to fully exploit the CMB information content. In particular, detection of CMB polarization is critical for tests of Planck-scale physics (Hu & White 1997; Kamionkowski & Kosowski 1999; Hu & Dodelson 2002). This has motivated experimental efforts by many groups (see Staggs et al. 1999; Cecchini et al. 2002; De Zotti 2002). Although these measurements are very challenging because of the weakness of the expected signal (at, or below, several $`\mu `$K level), recent upper limits (Hedman et al. 2001; Keating et al. 2001) have already got close to it, and a detection may be achieved in the next few years.

It is not yet clear, however, whether the ultimate limit to our ability of measuring the CMB polarization will be set by detector sensitivity or by foregrounds, because the latter are still very poorly understood. On small angular scales, foreground intensity fluctuations at cm and mm wavelengths are dominated by extragalactic radio sources (Toffolatti et al. 1998, 1999), which are significantly polarized and are therefore expected to dominate also foreground polarization fluctuations up to at least $`100`$GHz. Preliminary investigations have been carried out by Sahzin & Korölev (1985) and De Zotti et al. (1999). These works assumed a constant mean polarization degree for all classes of radio sources (estimated from rather small samples), a Poisson space distribution, and adopted mean values of the spectral indices to extrapolate to high frequencies.

The NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS, Condon et al. 1998), covering $`82\%`$ of the sky to a flux density limit of $`2.5`$mJy at 1.4 GHz and containing data on Stokes $`I`$, $`U`$, and $`Q`$ parameters for almost $`2\times 10^6`$ sources, has provided an extensive data base for a statistical investigation of the polarization properties of extragalactic sources. Important complementary information comes from the multifrequency study of over 100 sources drawn from the B3-VLA sample (Mack et al. 2002), which allows us to get insight into the effect of Faraday depolarization, which strongly affects polarization measurements at 1.4 GHz. Our analysis is presented in Sect.$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$. The data by Condon et al. (1998) and Mack et al. (2002) also allow us to considerably improve on the available estimates of polarization fluctuations due to extragalactic sources in the microwave region. The new analysis, presented in Sect.$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}3}`$, exploits the real space distribution of NVSS sources, which covers the flux density range relevant for CMB experiments, the true 1.4–5.85 GHz spectral index distribution of sources, obtained combining NVSS and GB6 (Gregory et al. 1996) data, the polarization degree distribution at 1.4 GHz, and the correction for Faraday depolarization, based on the data by Mack et al. (2002). The new constraints on the high frequency spectral indices set by the 15 GHz survey by Taylor et al. (2001) are also taken into account. Our main conclusions are summarized and discussed in Sect.$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$.

## 2 Polarization Properties of Extragalactic Radio Sources

The 1.4–4.85 GHz spectral indices $`\alpha (S_\nu \nu ^\alpha )`$ of a complete sub-set of NVSS sources were obtained via a cross-correlation with the Green Bank 4.85 GHz catalogue (GB6, Gregory et al. 1996) covering 6.07 sr ($`48.3\%`$ of the sky) to a flux limit of $`S_{4.85}=18`$mJy and comprising $`75,162`$ sources111The cross-correlation was made using the DIRA2 database and software (Nanni & Tinarelli 1993; Battistini et al. 1994) developed by the Astronet Database Group – Italy, available at the Institute of Radio Astronomy (IRA) of the National Research Council (CNR). DIRA2 is at http://www.ira.bo.cnr.it/dira2/. The distribution of the polarization degree $`\mathrm{\Pi }=(U^2+Q^2)^{1/2}/I`$ at 1.4 GHz for a complete sub-sample of NVSS sources brighter than $`S(1.4\text{GHz})80`$mJy is shown in Fig. 1 for steep- ($`\alpha >0.5`$) and flat/inverted-spectrum ($`\alpha 0.5`$) sources separately. Note that the the low–$`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ tail of the distribution is contaminated by the residual instrumental polarization which is estimated to be $`0.3\%`$ (Condon et al. 1998). For this reason, in investigating correlations, sources for which the NVSS catalog yields a polarization degree $`\mathrm{\Pi }1\%`$ are attributed an upper limit of 1%.

As illustrated by Figs. 2 and 3, the mean polarization degree is anti-correlated with the flux density, especially in the case of steep-spectrum sources. The median $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ steadily decreases from $`1.8\%`$ for the 100–200 mJy bin (both for steep- and flat-spectrum sources) to $`<1\%`$, for steep-spectrum sources, or to $`1.05\%`$ for flat-spectrum sources, at flux densities $`>800`$mJy.

We have tested the statistical significance of the correlation using the computer package ASURV Rev 1.2, developed by Isobe, La Valley & Feigelson (La Valley et al. 1992), which implements the methods presented in Feigelson & Nelson (1985) and in Isobe et al. (1986). For sources with $`S(1.4\text{GHz})80`$mJy the test by Cox proportional hazard model yields a global $`\chi ^2`$, with one degree of freedom, of 573 for flat-spectrum and of 800 for steep-spectrum sources. In both cases the null hypothesis is rejected to a very high level of significance (probability $`10^5`$).

The origin of this correlation is unclear. One possibility is that it may come from a change in the composition of the source population with decreasing flux density. In fact, Snellen et al. (2002) find that the fraction of flat-spectrum radio sources identified with point sources (i.e. quasars) in APM scans decreases, compared to the fraction of extended objects (i.e. galaxies), with decreasing radio flux density. But the distributions (see Fig. 4) of the polarization degrees of NVSS compact and extended sources with $`S(1.4\text{GHz})500`$mJy in the sample by Snellen et al. (2002) show that extended sources tend to be less polarized than the compact ones, and therefore their effect goes in the direction opposite to the observed anti-correlation. We caution however that the situation may be different for steep-spectrum sources.

As a second attempt, we exploited the redshift data determined by Sadler et al. (2002) by cross-matching the NVSS with the first 210 fields observed in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, covering an effective area of 325 square degrees. There is an indication that the sources with the highest radio power tend to be less polarized at 1.4 GHz (see Fig. 5). The standard statistical tests, taking into account upper limits, do not detect, however, a significant correlation between polarization degree and luminosity. On the other hand, as will be seen in the next section, there are clear evidences of substantial Faraday depolarization at 1.4 GHz, at least for steep-spectrum sources. But if the intrinsic polarization is uncorrelated with radio luminosity, we would expect a positive correlation between observed polarization and luminosity, since the more luminous sources are, on average, at higher redshifts and the Faraday rotation measures (RM) are proportional to $`(1+z)^2`$. Thus, the null result may be indicative of an anti-correlation between the intrinsic polarization degree and radio luminosity or of an increase of the intrinsic RM with $`z`$ compensating the decrease due to the cosmological shift of frequencies to the red. Evidences in favour of the latter possibility have been reported by Pentericci et al. (2000). In the case of galaxies with intense star-formation activity we may expect higher depolarization at higher luminosities as the effect of both more chaotic magnetic fields and of higher RMs, due to a higher abundance of ionized gas and stronger magnetic fields.

If, on the other hand, the polarization degree is uncorrelated with luminosity, the observed anti-correlation of the polarization degree with flux density might be interpreted in terms of a decreasing effect of Faraday depolarization if the average redshift of sources increases with decreasing flux density.

## 3 Faraday depolarization

The exploitation of the NVSS data to estimate the contamination of CMB polarization maps by radio sources requires the extrapolation of 1.4 GHz polarized fluxes to high frequencies ($`\nu 20`$GHz) as used for CMB polarization experiments. At the latter frequencies the Faraday depolarization is probably small or negligible, while it is generally important at 1.4 GHz.

An extensive multifrequency study of the linear polarization properties of a representative sub-sample, comprising 192 sources, of the B3 VLA survey (Vigotti et al. 1989) has been recently carried out by Mack et al. (2002), using the Effelsberg 100-m telescope. They made polarization measurements at 2.695 and 4.85 GHz of sources they had earlier detected in polarization at 10.6 GHz. All sources in this sample were observed with a resolution larger than their angular extension, which was found to be always significantly smaller than $`60^{\prime \prime }`$, while the Effelsberg beam-widths are $`69^{\prime \prime }`$ at 10.6 GHz, $`143^{\prime \prime }`$ at 4.85 GHz and $`261^{\prime \prime }`$ at 2.7 GHz; this excludes any frequency-dependent differential depolarization. Their data, combined with the NVSS data at 1.4 GHz, have allowed them to estimate the rotation measures for 143 sources.

As illustrated by Fig. 6, the distribution of polarization degrees of steep-spectrum sources shifts to increasingly higher values as the frequency increases, as expected in the presence of substantial Faraday depolarization at 1.4 GHz. For such sources we have $`\mathrm{\Pi }=2.93\%`$, 4.68%, 6.04%, and 8.65% at 1.4, 2.7, 4.85, and 10.6 GHz, respectively. This frequency dependence of $`\mathrm{\Pi }`$ is consistent with depolarization in uniform slabs with effective rotation measure $`\text{RM}260`$, implying that the Faraday depolarization is small at $`10`$GHz. The mean polarization degree at 1.4 GHz of these sources is significantly higher than found for the full NVSS sample in the same flux density interval, reflecting the selection criterion requiring sources to have detected polarization at 10 GHz. On the other hand, since there is no significant correlation between the ratio $`\mathrm{\Pi }(10.4\text{GHz})/\mathrm{\Pi }(1.4\text{GHz})`$ and flux density at either frequency, we assume that the mean ratio between the polarization degrees at the two frequencies, $`\mathrm{\Pi }(10.4\text{GHz})/\mathrm{\Pi }(1.4\text{GHz})3`$, is representative of the mean correction for Faraday depolarization.

The standard statistical tests applied to the 99 sources with measured or estimated redshift detect a highly significant correlation between intrinsic RMs (i.e. observed RM $`\times (1+z)^2`$) and radio luminosity (see Fig. 7): Cox’s proportional hazard model gives $`\chi ^2=29`$ for 1 degree of freedom; Kendall’s and Spearman’s correlation tests give a z-value of 4.5 and $`\rho =0.44`$, respectively. According to each test the null hypothesis (no correlation) has a probability $`10^5`$. The correlation remains highly significant ($`\chi ^2=16`$, probability of no correlation $`10^4`$) even if we remove the point in the lower left-hand corner of Fig. 7.

In the case of flat-spectrum sources we have, for the same frequencies, $`\mathrm{\Pi }=1.66\%`$, 2.19%, 2.63%, and 2.66%, respectively, consistent with the Faraday depolarization being relatively small, for most sources of this type, already at 1.4 GHz. This result is in agreement with earlier multifrequency polarization studies of compact flat-spectrum sources (Jones et al. 1985; Rudnick et al. 1985), which found a median value of polarization $`2.5\%`$ between 1.4 and 90 GHz, independent of frequency, although some sources do show a systematic increase of polarization with frequency (see Fig. 6 and Rudnick et al. 1978). It should be noted, however, that Mack et al. (2002) could not determine reliable RMs for flat-spectrum sources. On the other hand, the mm/sub-mm polarization survey of flat-spectrum radio sources by Nartallo et al. (1998) has yielded significantly higher polarization degrees. If for each object we take the mean of measurements made at different epochs, we find that the median polarization degree at $`1.1`$mm of High Polarization Quasars (10 objects) is 7.3%, that of Low Polarization Quasars (4 objects) is 4.3%, and that of BL Lacs (11 objects) is 6.3%. For comparison, the median polarization degrees given by the NVSS for the same objects are 2.4% for HPQs, $`<1\%`$ for LPQs, and 1.9% for BL Lacs. Only the 3 flat-spectrum radio-galaxies in the sample by Nartallo et al. (1998) have a polarization degree at $`1.1`$mm comparable or lower than that measured by the NVSS. The median $`1.1`$mm polarization for the full sample by Nartallo et al. (1998) is 5.5%; at 1.4 GHz its median polarization is 2%. This would again suggest a factor of 3 increase of the polarization degree from 1.4 GHz to high frequencies.

## 4 Power spectrum estimates

As mentioned above, we aim at estimating the power spectrum of polarization fluctuations due to extragalactic radio sources at the high frequencies ($`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}20}`$GHz) at which CMB polarization experiments are carried out. We will make reference, in particular, to the frequencies of the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) of ESA’s Planck mission (30, 44, 70, and 100 GHz), which span a range similar to that covered by NASA’s Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) mission (22, 30, 40, 60, 90 GHz).

Based on the discussion in the previous section, we assume that the polarization degree of steep-spectrum sources increases, on average, by a factor of 3 from 1.4 to 10 GHz and stays constant at still higher frequencies. As for flat-spectrum sources, we consider two possibilities: their polarization degree is either frequency-independent, or increases, on average, by a factor of 3 at high frequencies, as is the case for sources in the sample by Nartallo et al. (1998). In the latter case, we assume that the increase applies to frequencies $`\nu 30`$GHz.

A second issue is the extrapolation of source spectra. Adoption of the 1.4–4.85 spectral indices up to high frequencies leads to over-predicting the surface density of inverted- ($`\alpha <0`$), flat- ($`0\alpha 0.5`$), and steep-spectrum sources brighter than $`30`$mJy at $`15`$GHz by a factor of 9.2, 2.2, and 1.2, respectively, compared to the findings by Taylor et al. (2001). This indicates average steepenings above 4.8 GHz of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _{\mathrm{steep}}0.12`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _{\mathrm{flat}}0.47`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _{\mathrm{inverted}}1.35`$, that we incorporate in our flux density extrapolations.

In estimating the power spectra we assume that sources above the detection limits estimated by Toffolatti et al. (1998) for the Planck channels, namely 650, 480, 330, and 350 mJy at 30, 44, 70, and 100 GHz, respectively, are removed.

We have selected the portion of the sky region covered by both the NVSS and the GB6 survey at $`b>10^{}`$ (area of 16,726 square degrees). The power spectrum has been computed using the HEALPix package (Górski et al. 1999). An analysis of the NVSS data alone (which reach lower fluxes and therefore allow us to derive the power spectrum for a broader range of angular scales) shows no evidence for departures from Poisson noise (which produces a simple white noise power spectrum, with the same power in all multipoles). The same conclusion was reached by Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996) from an analysis of a point-source catalogue (Becker et al. 1995) from the VLA FIRST survey. This is not in conflict with the evidences for clustering of radio-sources in the GB6 (Kooiman et al. 1995) and in the FIRST (Cress et al. 1996) survey. In fact, as shown by Toffolatti et al. (1999), the contribution of the observed clustering to the power spectrum of the source distribution is small in comparison with the Poisson contribution, not surprisingly in view of strong dilution of the clustering signal, due to the broad redshift distribution of radio sources. The same conclusion holds for steep- and flat- plus inverted-spectrum sources separately, although in this case the range of scales that can be investigated is more limited, due to the higher flux limit of the GB6 survey.

The power spectrum of fluctuations due to a Poisson distribution of sources whose differential source count per steradian, as a function of the flux density $`S`$, is $`n(S)`$, writes (Tegmark & Efstathiou 1996):

$$C_{\mathrm{}}=_0^{S_c}n(S)S^2𝑑S,$$
(1)
where $`S_c`$ is the minimum flux density of sources that can be individually detected and removed. Clearly we can derive only a lower limit to $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ because we can estimate the high frequency counts only for sources brighter than $`S_{4.85\mathrm{GHz}}18`$mJy, and we are therefore missing the contribution of fainter sources. However, since the slope of $`n(S)`$ in the relevant flux density range is $`\beta =d\mathrm{log}n/d\mathrm{log}S2`$ (Taylor et al. 2001), the underestimate of $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ is probably no more than $`10\%`$. We have tested this by attributing to NVSS sources not detected at 4.85 GHz a spectral index drawn at random from the spectral index distribution of sources also present in GB6 catalogue, after having checked that no dependence of such a distribution on flux density is indicated by the (very limited) data on sources down to $`S(1.4\text{GHz})\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$mJy (Fomalont et al. 1984; Donnelly et al. 1987). This implies extending the high-frequency counts of ”flat”-spectrum sources downwards in flux by a factor $`7`$ (and by a factor of $`20`$ those of the steep-spectrum ones, which however yield a smaller contribution to fluctuations at high frequencies). As expected, the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$’s increased by only a few percent. We also investigated the effect of missing polarization measurements by attributing to sources whose polarization was not measured a polarization degree and a polarization angle drawn at random from the observed distributions. Again, the derived power spectra did not change appreciably.

As expected (Seljak 1997), sources yield essentially identical contributions to $`E`$\- and $`B`$-mode power spectra; therefore only the $`E`$-mode is plotted in Fig. 8. We have also checked that the $`TE`$ ($`T`$ representing temperature fluctuations) power spectrum vanishes, as expected due to the random distribution of polarization position angles of sources.

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

Until adequate high frequency “blind” polarization surveys will become available, estimates of the contamination of CMB polarization maps by extragalactic sources will require delicate extrapolations of data from low-frequency surveys.

The main strength of the present analysis, compared with previous ones, is the use of a far more extended data-base. The NVSS survey has yielded polarization data for a very large, complete sample of extragalactic sources, allowing a direct observational determination of the power spectrum of polarization fluctuations due to them at $`1.4`$GHz. The data also show a previously unnoticed anti-correlation of the polarization degree with flux density, which deserves further investigation.

Furthermore, coupling NVSS with GB6 data made possible to separately determine the contributions of steep and “flat”-spectrum sources. The median polarization degree of the two populations for $`S(1.4\text{GHz})80`$mJy turns out to be essentially equal (at the level of 2.2%) and shows a similar decrease with increasing flux density.

The data by Mack et al. (2002) have allowed us to investigate how the polarization properties of sources vary with frequency. For steep-spectrum sources we found clear evidence of Faraday depolarization corresponding to an effective value of the rotation measure $`\text{RM}260\text{rad}\text{m}^2`$. The average intrinsic polarization degree of these sources, observed at $`\nu \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{>}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$GHz, is estimated to be, on average, 3 times higher than at 1.4 GHz.

On the other hand, the mean polarization degree of flat-/inverted-spectrum sources increases only weakly from 1.4 to 10.6 GHz, suggesting that these sources have either small or really extreme RMs. Of course, polarization properties of radio sources may change with frequency not only by Faraday rotation but also for other reasons, such as the appearance of new emission components with different polarization properties. Only high-frequency polarization surveys may resolve this issue. We have considered two possibilities: either the mean polarization degree is frequency-independent, as indicated by the multifrequency studies by Jones et al. (1985) and Rudnick et al. (1985), or it increases, at high frequencies, by a factor $`3`$ compared to 1.4 GHz, as is the case for the sample of Nartallo et al. (1998).

Another critical issue is the extrapolation in frequency of the observed flux densities. Adoption of the observed 1.4–4.85 GHz spectral indices leads to over-predicting the 15 GHz counts by a factor $`3`$, compared with results of the survey by Taylor et al. (2001). Predictions of the most commonly used evolutionary models (Dunlop & Peacock 1990; Toffolatti et al. 1998), accounting for existing source counts up to 8.4 GHz and for the associated redshift/luminosity distributions, yield 15 GHz counts in excess by similar factors. Therefore, to extrapolate the 1.4 GHz flux densities we have exploited the observed spectral indices only up to 5 GHz. Above this frequency we have adopted the average spectral steepenings necessary to ensure, for each population (steep-, flat- and inverted-spectrum sources), consistency with the results by Taylor et al. (2001).

An estimate of the power spectrum of polarization fluctuations at Planck frequencies obtained extrapolating the $`1.4`$GHz fluxes as described in Sect. 2, with an upper flux-density cut-off corresponding to the source detection limit in each Planck channel as estimated by Toffolatti et al. (1998) and applying the average correction for Faraday depolarization derived in Sect. 3, is shown in Fig. 8. The present estimates are significantly below those by De Zotti et al. (1999), mostly due to the substantial steepening of the source spectra between 5 and $`15`$GHz implied by the results of the survey by Taylor et al. (2001). As illustrated by Fig. 8, extragalactic radio sources are not expected to be a serious hindrance for measurements of the CMB $`E`$-mode power spectrum at $`\nu 30`$GHz. They are even less of a problem for measurements of the temperature-$`E`$-mode correlation since their $`TE`$ power spectrum vanishes, owing to the random distribution of their polarization position angles.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank E. Sadler and I. Snellen for having made available their data in computer readable form, and M. Nanni for assistance in the use of the DIRA2 database. KHM was supported through a European Community Marie-Curie fellowship. Work supported in part by ASI and MIUR.


text:
# Conformal fields, restriction properties, degenerate representations and SLE 11footnote 1To appear in C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I Math.

## 1 Introduction

Conformal field theory has been remarkably successful in predicting the critical behaviour of two-dimensional systems from statistical physics (see  and for instance the compilation of papers in ). One of the starting points  for this theory is that each system should be (in its scaling limit) correspond to a conformal field (these fields are classified according to their central charge). The behaviour of the system should then be described by critical exponents which physicists identify as highest-weights of certain degenerate representations of infinite-dimensional Lie Algebras (this motivated also many mathematical papers on representation theory, one should probably cite here at least all the papers reprinted in , for the representation theory of the Virasoro Algebra and background, see ). This applies for instance to Ising and Potts models, percolation, self-avoiding walks. However, as for instance pointed out in , many fundamental features have remained unclear at least for mathematicians. For instance, the actual relation between the discrete system and the fields ie. the meaning of the field in terms of the discrete system, the interpretation of the equations leading to the highest-weight representation were rather mysterious.

In 1999, Oded Schramm  defined a one-parameter family of random curves based on Loewner’s differential equation, SLEκ indexed by the positive real parameter $`\kappa `$ (SLE stands for Stochastic -or Schramm- Loewner Evolution). These random curves are the only ones which combine conformal invariance and a Markovian-type property. Provided that the scaling limit of interfaces in the above-mentioned models exist and are conformally invariant, then the limiting objects must therefore be one of the SLEκ curves. This has now been rigourously proved in some cases (critical site percolation on the triangular lattice  and uniform spanning trees ). For a general discussion of the conjectured relation between the discrete models and SLE, see . In this SLE setting, the critical exponents are simply principal eigenvalues of some differential operators . This led to a complete mathematical proof for the value of critical exponents for those models that have been proved to be conformally invariant. In order to confirm rigorously the conjectures for the other models, the missing step is to derive their conformal invariance.

It is therefore natural to think that SLE should be related to conformal field theory (as for instance hinted at in ) and to highest-weight representations of the Virasoro Algebra. Our goal in the present note is to explain that it is indeed the case. In order to make this exposition as clear and rigorous as possible (and also to keep this note short), we will restrict ourselves to the simplest case: The “boundary behaviour” of SLE8/3 that corresponds in the field theory language to a zero central charge and conjecturally corresponds to the scaling limit of the half-plane self-avoiding walk . The other cases (non-zero central charge, behaviour in the bulk) will be detailed in forthcoming papers.

## 2 SLE facts

The chordal SLEκ curve $`\gamma `$ is characterized as follows: The conformal maps $`g_t`$ from $`\gamma [0,t]`$ onto $``$ such that $`g_t(z)=z+o(1)`$ when $`z\mathrm{}`$ solve the ordinary differential equation $`_tg_t(s)=2/(g_t(z)W_t)`$ (and is started from $`g_0(z)=z`$), where $`W_t=\sqrt{\kappa }\beta _t`$ (here and in the sequel, $`(\beta _t,t0)`$ is a standard real-valued Brownian motion with $`\beta _0=0`$). In other words, $`\gamma _t`$ is precisely the point such that $`g_t(\gamma _t)=W_t`$. See e.g.  for the definition and properties of SLE, or  for reviews.

In the recent paper , it is shown how to measure the distortion of the law of an SLE when its image is mapped conformally from a subdomain onto some other domain. In particular, for the special value $`\kappa =8/3`$, the SLE curve $`\gamma `$ (which is conjectured to be the scaling limit of a certain measure on self-avoiding curves, see  for a discussion of this conjecture and some of its consequences – this conjecture is conforted by numerical simulations ) has the conformal restriction property that we now briefly describe:

Suppose that $`H`$ is a simply connected open subset of the upper-half plane $``$ such that $`H`$ is bounded and bounded away from $`0`$. Assume also that $`\gamma `$ is chordal SLE8/3. Then, the law of $`\gamma `$ conditioned to remain in $`H`$ is identical to the law of $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\gamma )`$ where $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the conformal map from $``$ onto $`H`$ that fixes the two boundary points $`0`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }(z)z`$ as $`z\mathrm{}`$. Actually , SLE8/3 is the unique simple random curve with this property. As argued towards the begining of the paper , if $`\gamma `$ satisfies the restriction property, then there exists $`\alpha >0`$ such that

$$P[\gamma H]=\mathrm{\Phi }^{}(0)^\alpha .$$
(1)
It is proved in  that the value of $`\alpha `$ corresponding to SLE8/3 is $`5/8`$ (but we will not use this fact in this note, as one of our goals is to explain why one can recover it from algebraic considerations as was for instance predicted in ).

## 3 Boundary behaviour

When $`\kappa <8`$ and $`\epsilon 0`$, the probability that chordal SLEκ intersects the $`\epsilon `$-neighbourhood of the real point $`x0`$ can be shown to decay (up to a multiplicative constant) like $`\epsilon ^s`$ when $`\epsilon 0`$, where $`s=(8/\kappa )1`$. More generally, one defines for $`x_1,\mathrm{},x_n\{0\}`$,

$$B_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\underset{\epsilon _1,\mathrm{},\epsilon _n0}{lim}\epsilon _1^s\mathrm{}\epsilon _n^s𝐏[_{j=1}^n\{\gamma [x_j,x_j+i\epsilon _j\sqrt{2}]\mathrm{}\}]$$

(the choice of these vertical slits enables one to have simple renormalizing constants later on). It is easy to see using (1) that if the restriction property holds, then $`s=2`$ and $`B_1(x)=\alpha /x^2`$. The functions $`B_n`$ correspond to correlation functions in conformal field theory. They have the following properties:

###### Proposition 1.

1. Ward-type identity: If the restriction property holds (with the exponent $`\alpha `$), then for all $`n1`$,

$`B_{n+1}(x,x_1,x_2,\mathrm{},x_n)={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha }{x^2}}B_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\left\{({\displaystyle \frac{1}{x_jx}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{x}})_{x_j}{\displaystyle \frac{2}{(x_jx)^2}}\right\}B_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n).`$
2. Evolution equation:

$$2s\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{1}{x_j^2}\right)B_n+\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\frac{2}{x_j}_{x_j}\right)B_n+\frac{\kappa }{2}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}_{x_j}\right)^2B_n=0,$$
(3)

Proof (sketch). The first identity is in fact a direct consequence of the restriction property: Suppose that the real numbers $`x_1,\mathrm{},x_n`$ are fixed and let us focus on the event that $`\gamma `$ does intersect all the slits $`[x_j,x_j+i\epsilon \sqrt{2}]`$. Let us also choose another point $`x`$ and a small $`\delta `$. Now, either $`\gamma `$ avoids $`[x,x+i\delta \sqrt{2}]`$ or it does also hit it. The probability of the first event can be expressed using the restriction property, while the second one involves the $`(n+1)`$-points functions $`B_{n+1}`$. The sum of the two probabilities remains independent of $`\delta `$. Looking at the $`\delta ^2`$ term in its expansion yields (2). Let us stress that these identities together with the knowledge of $`B_1(x_1)=\alpha /x_1^2`$ fully determine all the functions $`B_n`$. One can also write $`B_0=1`$ as a function of $`0`$ variables.

The Markovian property of the SLE curves (which is a straightforward consequence of the stationarity of the increments of the Brownian motion $`\beta `$) goes as follows: The law of $`\gamma [t,\mathrm{})`$ given $`\gamma [0,t]`$ is the image of an independent copy $`\stackrel{~}{\gamma }`$ of $`\gamma `$ under a conformal map from $``$ on $`\gamma [0,t]`$ which maps $`0`$ onto $`\gamma (t)`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ onto itself. In other words, the conditional law of $`g_t(\gamma [t,\mathrm{}))W_t`$ is independent of $`\gamma [0,t]`$ and identical to that of the initial SLE. This shows immediately that for all fixed reals $`x_1,\mathrm{},x_n`$, the processes

$$|g_t^{}(x_1)|^s\mathrm{}|g_t^{}(x_n)|^sB_n(g_t(x_1)W_t,\mathrm{},g_t(x_n)W_t)$$

are local martingales. Itô’s formula then yields immediately (3). ∎

## 4 Representations

It is interesting to focus on the asymptotic expansion of $`B_{n+1}(x,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)`$ when $`x0`$. It is natural to define the operators

$$_N=\underset{j}{}\left\{x_j^{1N}_j+2(N1)x_j^N\right\}.$$

Note that these operators satisfy the commutation relation

$$[_N,_M]=(NM)_{N+M}.$$
(4)
The Algebra generated by vectors satisfying this commutation relation will be denoted by $`𝒜`$ and is often viewed as the Lie algebra of vector fields of the circle i.e. the algebra generated by $`e_N=z^{N+1}d/dz,N`$ (which satisfy the same commutation relation). One can rewrite the previous Proposition using the operators $``$: The Ward-type identity becomes

$$B_{n+1}(x,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\frac{\alpha }{x^2}B_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)+\underset{N1}{}x^{N2}_NB_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)$$
(5)
if $`|x|<\mathrm{min}(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)`$. The evolution equation becomes (if $`s=2`$ i.e. if the restriction property holds)

$$(\frac{\kappa }{2}_1^22_2)B_n=0.$$
(6)
It is easy to make a little computation to see that $`\kappa =8/3`$ and $`\alpha =5/8`$ if the previous Proposition holds for some family of functions $`B_n`$. This computation has some similarities with the computation that shows that a highest-weight representation of $`𝒜`$ that is degenerate at level two has a highest weight equal to $`5/8`$. We now show that this is not just a similarity. Note that scaling implies that $`_0B_n=0`$, so that the representation is not simply given in terms of the $``$’s.

Here is one way to construct a highest-weight representation of $`𝒜`$. Define the vector $`B=(B_0,B_1,\mathrm{})`$. Suppose that $`w=(w_0,w_1,\mathrm{})`$ is such that $`w_n`$ is a (rational) function of the $`n`$ variables $`x_1,\mathrm{},x_n`$. We define the operators $`l_N`$ is such a way that

$$w_{n+1}(x,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)=\underset{N}{}x^{N2}(l_N(w))_n(x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)$$
(7)
when $`x\mathrm{}`$. In other terms the function of $`n`$ variables in $`l_N(w)`$ is the $`x^{N2}`$ term in the Laurent expansion of $`w_{n+1}(x,x_1,\mathrm{},x_n)`$. Equation (5) shows that

$$l_N(B)=\{\begin{array}{cc}(0,0,\mathrm{})\text{ if }\hfill & N>0\hfill \\ (\alpha B_0,\alpha B_1,\mathrm{})\text{ if }\hfill & N=0\hfill \\ (_NB_0,_NB_1,\mathrm{})\text{ if }\hfill & N<0\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
We then define the vector space $`V`$ generated by $`B`$ and all the vectors $`l_{N_1}\mathrm{}l_{N_r}(B)`$ for $`N_1\mathrm{}N_r<0`$. It is then possible to prove (without using the evolution equation) that:

###### Proposition 2.

* For $`N_1\mathrm{}N_r<0`$, the function of $`n`$ variables in $`l_{N_1}\mathrm{}l_{N_r}(B)`$ is $`_{N_1}\mathrm{}_{N_r}B_n`$.
* $`V`$ is stable under all $`l_N`$’s (for all $`N`$, not only for $`N0`$).
* $`[l_M,l_N]w=(MN)l_{M+N}w`$ for all $`wV`$ and all $`N,M`$ (note again that $`M`$ and $`N`$ can be positive).

Proof (sketch). The first statement can be proved inductively using (5). It implies immediately the third statement for all negative $`N,M`$. In order to obtain the commutation relation for all $`N,M`$, and due to the fact that $`l_N(B)=0`$ for all positive $`N`$, it in fact suffices to check it if only $`M`$ is positive. This can then be done again thanks to (5) and the first statement. Finally, note that the second statement is a consequence of the third one and of the fact that $`l_N(B)=0`$ if $`N>0`$. ∎

Equation (8) shows that this representation of the algebra $`𝒜`$ generated by the $`l_N`$’s is a highest-weight representation with highest weight $`\alpha `$. Equation (6) means that this representation is degenerate at level 2, and it is easy to verify that this implies that the highest weight $`\alpha `$ is equal to $`5/8`$ (see ). In other words, the fact that one obtains a representation of $`𝒜`$ is a consequence of the restriction property, and its degeneracy follows from the Markovian property.

## 5 Generalizations

Analogous arguments can be used to relate other chordal SLE’s to degenerate highest-weight representations of the Virasoro algebra (which is the central extension of $`𝒜`$). When $`\kappa 8/3`$, SLE does not satisfy the conformal restriction property. However, it is possible to quantify how much the property fails to be true and this  involves the integral of a certain constant $`c(\kappa )`$ times the Schwarzian derivative of some conformal maps (see also  for another interpretation). This constant $`c(\kappa )`$ will turn out to be exactly the central charge of the corresponding representation. The highest-weight is the exponent of the restriction measure that is naturally associated to the SLE via the correspondance derrived in . This will be detailed in a forthcoming paper.

One can also make a similar analysis for the SLE behaviour in the bulk, and make the link to Ward-type identities and representation theory. However, in this case, there are some additional questions to solve if one looks for a completely rigorous link. For instance, the very definition of the “correlation function” (see  to see the difficulty of estimating precisely the probability that the SLE paths passes in the neighbourhood of $`n`$ given points in the upper half-plane) is problematic.

Acknowledgements. This work ows a lot to stimulating discussions with Vincent Beffara and Yves Le Jan. Thanks are also due to Greg Lawler and Oded Schramm, in particular because of the instrumental role played by the ideas developed in . R.F. acknowledges support and hospitality of IHES.

——————

Laboratoire de Mathématiques

Université Paris-Sud

91405 Orsay cedex, Fracne


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# FUSE Observations of the Post-AGB Star ZNG 1 in the Globular Cluster M5 (NGC 5904)

## References

Harris, W. E. 1996, AJ, 112, 1487

Hubeny, I. & Lanz, T. 1995, ApJ, 439, 875

Zinn, R. J., Newell, E. B., & Gibson, J. B. 1972, A&A, 18, 390


text:
# Photometry and Spectroscopy of the Optical Companion to the Pulsar PSR J1740-5340 in the Globular Cluster NGC 6397

## 1 Introduction

The millisecond radio pulsar PSR J1740-5340 was discovered in the field of the globular cluster NGC 6397 by D’Amico et al. (2001a) in the course of a survey conducted with the Parkes radio telescope. Follow up pulse timing observations (D’Amico et al. 2001b) led to a determination of several parameters of the system, including orbital period, projected semi-major axis and mass function. Ferraro et al. (2001) identified the optical companion of the pulsar with a variable object detected earlier by Taylor et al. (2001). Photometry presented by both groups shows that the optical companion to the MSP is a relatively bright star, $`V_{max}16.7`$, located slightly to red of the turn-off region on the cluster color-magnitude diagram. Remarkably, despite being located only 26$`\mathrm{}`$ from the cluster center, the variable is a relatively isolated star (see Fig. 2 in Ferraro et al. 2001), permitting optical observations with ground-based telescopes. In this paper we present the results of photometric and spectroscopic observations obtained to determine the masses for both components of the binary.

The evolutionary status of PSR J1740-5340 has been discussed by Burderi et al. (2002) and Ergma & Sarna (2002). Both groups present some detailed scenarios which attempt to explain the current status of the binary and the observed position of its optical component on the cluster color-magnitude diagram. The system has been detected in the X-ray domain with the $`Chandra`$ observatory by Grindlay et al. (2001, 2002).

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 Photometric Observations

Observations in $`B,V`$, and $`I`$ filters were obtained with the 2K2 TEK#5 CCD camera on the 2.5-m du Pont telescope at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) in May and June 2002. The cluster was observed on 7 nights for a total of 32 hours. The camera has a pixel scale of 0.259$`\mathrm{}`$/pixel. Only 600 rows of the CCD were read out during observations of the cluster in order to reduce dead time between exposures, resulting in a field of view of 8.65x2.60 arcmin2 centered on the cluster.

Preliminary processing of the CCD frames was done with the IRAF-CCDPROC package.111 IRAF is distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the NSF. For the photometric analysis we used stacked images each consisting of 3 to 8 individual short exposures. All co-added images span less than 10 minutes and in most cases less than 6 minutes. In the order of $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`I`$-bands, the total number of stacked images is 69, 197 and 59, while average effective exposure times are 136 s, 75 s and 50 s. In the same order of the bands, the average seeing for the stacked images is 1.04″, 1.03″and 0.87″.

We used the ISIS-2.1 image subtraction package (Alard & Lupton 1998; Alard 2000) to extract differential light curves of the optical counterpart of the pulsar, following the prescription given in the ISIS.V2.1 manual. For each band a template image was constructed from several stacked frames of the best image quality. Magnitude zero points for the ISIS differential light curves were measured from the template images using the DAOPHOT/ALLSTAR software package (Stetson 1987), and aperture corrections were measured with the DAOGROW program (Stetson 1990). Instrumental magnitudes were transformed to to the standard $`BVI`$ system using the following relations:

$`V=v0.0134(BV)+0.1279(X1.25)+0.7737`$ (1)
$`B=b0.0690(BV)+0.2243(X1.25)+1.1254`$ (2)
$`I=i+0.0059(VI)+0.0382(X1.25)+1.3080`$ (3)
where $`b`$, $`v`$ and $`i`$ are instrumental magnitudes and $`X`$ is the air-mass. The coefficients of the transformation were measured from 12 observations of 5 Landolt fields (Landolt 1992) obtained on the night May 2 (UT). The standard fields were observed over a range of air-mass covering 1.16 to 2.00. Figure 1 shows the residuals of the photometric solution. We conclude that the uncertainties of the zero points of our photometry do not exceed 0.02 mag.

$`BVI`$ light and color curves of the variable are presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3. We phased our observations using the ephemeris derived from radio timing observations from D’Amico et al. (2001b). The phase was shifted by 0.25 so that at phase 0.0 the optical component is in conjunction (in front of the radio pulsar).222The ephemeris derived by D’Amico et al. (2001b) locates phase 0.0 at the ascending node of the pulsar orbit. This convention implies that for an inclination $`i=90\mathrm{deg}`$ at phase 0.75, the observer sees the side of the companion facing the pulsar. In our convention the observer sees that side of the companion at phase 0.50. Throughout this paper we use the ephemeris:

$`HJD(MinI)=\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}451\hspace{0.17em}750.549336}(7)+E\times 1.35405939(5)`$ (4)
where the numbers in parentheses represent formal $`3\sigma `$ uncertainties, in units of the last significant digit, of the very high precision determination of D’Amico et al. A program based on the KWEE algorithm (Kwee & van Woerden 1956) was used to determine moments of both minima for the phased light curves. It was found that after averaging the results for all 3 filters the observed photometric minima occurred $`0.006\pm 0.004`$ of the orbital period earlier than times of minima predicted by the above radio ephemeris.

The phase coverage is generally good with the exception of the quadrature at phase 0.75 which is covered by only a few data points in the $`V`$ filter and only single data points in the $`B`$ and $`I`$ filters. The light curves show symmetric minima and there is no indication for any significant difference in the light level at the two quadratures. The color curves show some reddening near phase 0.5. All of these features indicate that the observed variability is caused mostly, if not entirely, by ellipsoidal effects. In particular, the slight difference in the depths of the minima (with the secondary minimum being deeper) is consistent with such an interpretation.

In Table 1 we list $`BVI`$ magnitudes observed at the extrema of the light curves as determined by parabolic fits to points located with phase $`\pm 0.05`$ from a given extrema. The full amplitude of the light variation is 0.172(4), 0.152(4) and 0.139(5) magnitude for the $`B`$, $`V`$ and $`I`$ bands, respectively. We note that the HST observations collected in April 1999 indicate a noticeably larger amplitude. Taylor et al. (2001) report an amplitude of 0.21 mag in an unspecified band. However, the $`V`$ band is the bluest of all bands they consider in their study. The lower limit on the amplitude of variation in the $`H\alpha `$ band was 0.20 mag from photometry published by Ferraro et al. (2001). We have extracted a $`V`$-band light curve of the variable from time series observations of NGC 6397 obtained in July 1995 with the 0.9m telescope at the CTIO (Kaluzny 1997). The data were reduced using the image subtraction technique, and the derived light curve is presented in Figure 4. The scatter visible in the light curve near phase 0.5 is consistent with the formal errors of the photometry. The zero point of the 1995 photometry was set to the zero point of the the 2002 data by comparing photometry of several stars located in the field of the variable. We conclude that in 1995 the amplitude of variability in the $`V`$ band was about 0.23 mag and that the variable showed the same level of maximum light in 1995 and 2002. However, the system was fainter at secondary minimum in 2002 in comparison with the 1995 observations. We comment on possible interpretations of these changes in the last section of the paper.

### 2.2 Spectroscopic Observations

Spectra were obtained with the B&C spectrograph on the 6.5-m Baade telescope at LCO on the nights of (UT dates) 30 May, 1 - 2 June, 8 June, and 29 July, 2002. The spectral resolution was 2.0 A, and the wavelength coverage was 3880 A to 5510 A (May and early June) and 3760 A to 5380 A (data taken on June 7 and July 29). The weather conditions were poor, with most of the data taken through clouds with seeing between 1.0 arcsec and 1.5 arcsec. The integration time for all exposures was 1800 seconds. Observations were also obtained of the velocity templates HD 74000 (sdF6, velocity = +204.2 km/sec) in May and June, and HD 116064 (sdF0, velocity = +143.4 km/sec) in July. These templates were selected from among low-metallicity stars to match the program star spectra.

Figure 5 shows a mean spectrum of the optical companion of PSR J1740-5340 from our observations on June 8 UT and July 29 UT, 2002, all shifted to the systemic velocity of the binary (see below). We also show for comparison a spectrum of the template star HD 74000. Despite the position of the optical system well off the cluster main sequence, the spectra of the stars are remarkably similar. The metallicity of HD 74000 is $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.07`$ (Beveridge & Sneden 1994) compared to the cluster metallicity of \[Fe/H\] = -1.95 (Harris 1996).

Velocities of the optical companion were measured using the RVSAO cross-correlation package (Kurtz and Mink 1998) running under IRAF, and errors were adopted from the XCSAO program. The results are given in Table 2. HD 74000 was used as the template for all of the May and June observations, and HD 116064 for the July observations. The relative velocity (HD 74000 $``$ HD 116064) was measured to be 56.2 $`\pm `$ 2.6 km/sec compared to our adopted value of 60.8 km/sec.

We made a least squares fit to the radial velocity data using GaussFit (McArthur et al. 1994), solving for the system velocity $`\gamma `$ and the velocity amplitude of the optical companion. We assumed a circular orbit, and adopted the ephemeris given by Eq. (4). The results were $`K_1=136.03\pm 2.75`$ km/sec, and $`\gamma =17.62\pm 1.69`$ km/sec. The heliocentric velocity of NGC 6397 is 19.2 km/sec (Gebhardt et al. 1995), and we conclude that this system is a cluster member. It has to be noted, however, that due to the non-spherical shape of the optical companion its radial velocity curve is expected to show some departures from purely sinusoidal motion. Therefore the above values of $`K_1`$ and $`\gamma `$ have to be treated as first approximations only for further improvement in a combined photometric-spectroscopic solution given in the next section. The radial velocity observations are presented in Figure 6 using the ephemeris from Equation 4. Figure 6 also shows the GaussFit solution, and the velocity curve of the pulsar itself ($`K_2=26.6121\pm 0.0004`$ km/s, as derived from the radio pulsar timing data, D’Amico et al 2001b) shifted to a systemic velocity of 17.6 km/sec.

## 3 Photometric and Spectroscopic Solutions

To solve the light and velocity curves of the optical component of the binary pulsar we used the Wilson-Deviney (1971, hereafter W-D) model as implemented in the 1986 version of the code. The code is described in some detail by Wilson (1979) and by Leung & Wilson (1977). The MINGA333 The MINGA package can be obtained from http://www.camk.edu.pl/$``$plewa minimization package (Plewa 1988) was used for the actual fitting of the observed light curves and the derivation of the system parameters. It was assumed that the only source of light in wavelengths covered by our data is the surface of the non-degenerate component. Using the $`T_{eff}`$ versus $`(BV)`$ calibration of Alonso et al. (1996) we estimated an effective temperature $`T_1=5630`$ K. Appropriate values of the limb darkening coefficients were taken from Wade & Rucinski (1985): $`X_B=0.679`$, $`X_V=0.577`$, $`X_I=0.40`$. The gravity brightening coefficient was set to $`g_1=0.32`$, an appropriate value for stars with convective envelopes. The secondary component was assumed to be dark and very small so that it does not influence the shape of the light curve. This was achieved by setting $`T_2=1000`$ K and adopting a very high value of the gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2=900`$.

There are some arguments for assuming that the binary is in a semi-detached configuration, filling its Roche lobe. This case is advocated by Burderi et al. (2002) who point out that a relatively high rate of mass loss of $`\dot{M}10^{10}M_{}`$ $`\mathrm{yr}^1`$ is implied by estimates of the mass of the gaseous envelope causing the radio eclipses of PSR J1740-5340 to last about 40% of the orbital period. Further evidence supporting a semidetached configuration is the fact that the binary harbors an extended x-ray source, suggestive that the x-ray flux results from the interaction of a relativistic wind with mass loss from the optical companion (Grindlay et al. 2001). We show below that there is no evidence for heating of the optical companion by the MSP, and so the mass loss is likely to arise from Roche lobe overflow. In this case the mass needed to power the extended X-ray source could be supplied directly through the inner Lagrangian point.

However we cannot completely reject the possibility that the binary has a detached configuration, and in the following two sub-sections we present light and radial velocity solutions for both semi-detached and detached configurations.

### 3.1 Semi-detached configuration

The shape of optical light curves of the binary indicates that observed variability is dominated by ellipsiodal effect. Experiments show that the light curves can be in fact quite well approximated by a sine function. That means that any model used to reproduce the observed light curves could have no more than one free parameter, the sine-curve amplitude. In our light curve solution conducted for the assumed semi-detached configuration that free parameter translates into $`i`$, the inclination of the binary orbit.

We started the analysis by modeling the light curves with an assumed value of the mass ratio $`q=m_2/m_1=5.11`$, where the index $`1`$ refers to the optical component, and where $`q`$ is derived from the $`K`$ amplitudes listed in the previous section. The W-D code was run in Mode-4, the configuration with the primary component filling its Roche lobe.

The solution converged to a model with inclination $`i=44.12\pm 2.15`$ degrees. The next step involved a determination of the radial velocity amplitude $`K_1`$ by fitting the observed velocity curve with model curves generated with the W-D code. The W-D code allows one to calculate the non-dimensional velocity curve, $`v_{1th}`$, and the $`K_1`$ amplitude is calculated using the relation:

$`v_{1obs}=v_{1th}\times K_1\times sin(i)\times (1+1/q)+\gamma `$ (5)
where $`v_{1obs}`$ is the observed photocenter velocity and $`\gamma `$ is the systemic velocity. We derive $`K_1=137.2\pm 2.4`$ km/s and $`\gamma =17.6\pm 1.5`$ km/s. This in turn gives a new value of the mass ratio $`q=K_2/K_1=5.15`$ which was used to get an improved solution of the light curves. This procedure converged after one more iteration and we derive the following set of final parameters: $`i=43.9\pm 2.1`$ degrees, $`K_1=137.2\pm 2.4`$ km/s and $`\gamma =17.6\pm 1.5`$ km/s.

In Figure 7 we show the residuals for the final solution of the light curves. Note that while the fit is generally good, some systematic errors are present in fits obtained for the $`V`$ and $`B`$ bands at the level of 0.01 mag. These systematic errors cannot be corrected without introducing some additional features to the pure W-D model. The deviations have a tendency to diminish with increasing wavelength and indicate the presence of some extra light near phase 0.5 where we see the hemisphere of the optical component facing the pulsar. Some irradiation processes may be responsible for this effect. Figure 8 shows residuals for the model fit to the radial velocity curve. The observed residuals are consistent with the formal errors of the measured velocities. Figure 9 shows how the $`\chi ^2`$ statistic changes as a function of assumed inclination of the binary. The fit is excellent with a well defined minimum in $`\chi ^2`$ at $`i44`$ deg.

Using these values of the radial velocity amplitudes and the inclination we obtain masses of the components of the binary pulsar PSR J1740-5340 of $`M_1=0.296\pm 0.034M_{}`$ and $`M_2=1.53\pm 0.19M_{}`$. Note that the errors of the masses are dominated by the accuracy of the derived inclination. The absolute size of the orbit is $`A=6.30\pm 0.09R_{}`$ and the average radius of the optical component is $`R_1=1.67\pm 0.02R_{}`$.

## 4 Detached configuration

In the detached configuration, the light curve of the system depends mostly on the inclination $`i`$ and the gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$. These two parameters are strongly correlated and therefore we decided to obtain a grid of solutions for several fixed values of $`i`$. The results are given in Table 3 which lists the adopted value of inclination, the average relative radius of the optical component, its ratio to the inner Roche lobe radius, and the $`\chi ^2`$ of the model. Note that for a given mass ratio $`q`$, the radius $`r_1`$ is only a function of the gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$. Table 3 shows that fits of comparable quality were obtained for the whole range of adopted inclinations. In particular the solution for $`i=45`$ degrees is very close to the semi-detached configuration considered in the previous section. Taken at face value, the fits for the detached case and $`i>50`$ are marginally better that the fit derived for the semi-detached case. Hence we believe that we cannot with confidence determine the configuration of the binary solely from the light curve solution. Table 4 lists some absolute parameters of the binary corresponding to the solutions from Table 3. Note that the formal errors of the masses in Table 4 do not include an uncertainty in the inclination as it was fixed for each entry in the table.

An additional and entirely independent constraint on the system inclination arises from information about its cluster membership. Reid (1998) and Reid & Gizis (1998) have used main-sequence fitting to derive $`V`$-band apparent distance moduli for NGC 6397 of $`12.80\pm 0.1`$ and $`12.69\pm 0.15`$, respectively. Adopting a distance modulus $`(mM)_\mathrm{V}=12.72\pm 0.18`$ and using $`<V>=16.71`$ (see Table 1) we obtain $`<M_\mathrm{V}>=3.99\pm 0.18`$ as an estimate of the average absolute magnitude of the optical component for an assumed reddening of $`E(BV)`$ = 0.18 (Reid & Giziz 1998). This gives $`<M_{bol}>=3.72\pm 0.18`$ for $`BC=0.27`$ which is appropriate for the observed color and metallicity of the star (Houdashelt et al. 2000). Using the relation, $`R/R_{}=(L/L_{})^{1/2}\times (T_{eff}/T_{eff})^2`$, we obtain $`R_1=1.68\pm 0.14R_{}`$. This apparently eliminates all solutions with $`i>47`$ degrees listed in Table 4.

A further constraint on the inclination could come from a measurement of the rotational velocity of the optical companion. Our spectra do not have high enough resolution, however the optical companion is bright enough that such measurements could be made with echelle spectrographs on 6.5-m class telescopes.

## 5 Discussion

An additional complication to the interpretation of the optical observations of the optical companion is the fact that its light curve clearly evolves on a time scale of a few years. The range of variability in the $`V`$ band has changed from $`\mathrm{\Delta }V0.23`$ mag in 1995 to $`\mathrm{\Delta }V0.15`$ in 2002. We discuss briefly 3 possible interpretations of these changes.

1. Secular change of the inclination of the orbit of binary: Assuming a semi-detached configuration the observed change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ requires a change of orbital inclination of about 8 degrees (from $`i=52`$ deg in 1995 to $`i=44`$ deg in 2002). There are a few eclipsing binaries with observed variation in the inclination of their orbital plane due to an interaction with a third body (Drechsel et al. 1994; Milone et al. 2000). However the rate of variation is at a level of a few tenths of a degree per year at best. Pulsar timing observations covering a 6 month interval (D’Amico et al. 2001b) show no evidence for a dynamical interaction of PSR J1740-5340 with a hypothetical ”third body”. Further radio timing observations of the pulsar should provide very strong limits on any changes of orientation of the orbital plane of the binary.

2. Variable ”third light” contributions to the light curve: Luminous streams of gas around pulsar or variable heating of the optical component of the system could lead to changes in the light curve. However in this case we should observe not only changes in the amplitude of the light curves but also changes in the maximum observed light. One may estimate how much of 3rd light is needed to diminish $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ from $`0.23`$ (1995 season) to $`0.15`$ (2002 season), where $`\mathrm{\Delta }V`$ is magnitude difference for phases 0.25 and 0.50. Denoting the flux level at phase 0.25 in 1995 season by $`l_{1V}`$ we obtain $`l_{3V}=0.48l_{1V}`$. That in turn implies that at quadrature the system would be brighter by 0.42 mag in 2002 season as compared with 1995 season. Our data show no indications for any change of light level at quadratures between the 1995 and 2002 seasons, which would exceed 0.02–0.03 mag.

3. Intrinsic variability of the optical companion: It is possible that the observed variability is intrinsic to the optical companion, perhaps in the form of star-spots. The companion has a high rotational velocity if it is tidally locked ($`v_{rot}50`$ km/sec) and such a high rotational velocity in a fully convective atmosphere normally leads to the formation of star-spots. We have used WD code to perform some light curve simulations for a model including one dark spot. The starting point was the light curve solution obtained for the semi-detached configuration and the 2002 data. It turns out that one may indeed increase the depth of the minimum observed at phase 0.5 to 0.23 mag, as seen in 1995 season, by putting a dark spot in a region around inner Lagrangian point $`L1`$. Specific parameters of such a spot are $`\mathrm{\Delta }T=1000`$K and radius equal to 20 degrees (as seen from the center of the star). The corresponding change of $`V`$ magnitude at quadratures would then amount to only 0.02 mag. It is worth to note in that context that light curves presented by Ferraro et al. (2001; Fig. 4) show a clear asymmetry at minimum light which occurs at phase 0.5. Spot hypothesis offers a possible way to explain such a distortion.

We do not have a definite explanation for the observed variations in the amplitude of the light curves. The hypothesis invoking stellar spots seems to be a viable option for a moment. Clearly further monitoring of the system would be desirable.

## 6 Summary

Our analysis indicates that the observed modulation of the optical light from the optical companion of the pulsar PSR J1740-5340 can be fully explained by ellipsoidal variations. There is no indication for any detectable light due to heating of the companion by radiation from the pulsar. However, the light curve amplitude appears to evolve on a time scale of a few years, a phenomenon without a clear interpretation which may systematically affect our results.

An analysis of the radial velocity curve indicates that, if the velocities are modeled with a simple sinusoidal variation, neglecting the non-spherical shape of the optical component, $`K_1=137.2\pm 2.4`$ km/sec, and $`\gamma =17.6\pm 1.5`$ km/sec. The measured systemic velocity of the system is is consistent with cluster membership of the binary. Gebhardt et al. (1995) obtained for NGC 6397 $`\gamma =19.2\pm 0.5`$ and measured $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_{rad}5.0`$ km/sec at radius $`r=30\mathrm{}`$ from the cluster center. This observation is interesting in light of speculations about the possible formation of the system in a relatively recent three body interaction (eg. Grindlay et al. 2002).

The low amplitude of the observed light variations and lack of optical eclipses precludes a determination of the inclination of the orbit of the binary without making any assumptions. A well constrained solution for the light and velocity data (taking into account the photocenter velocity correction) was obtained by assuming a semi-detached configuration for the binary, resulting in $`i=43.9\pm 2.1`$ degrees for the system inclination and $`M_1=0.296\pm 0.034M_{}`$ and $`M_2=1.53\pm 0.19M_{}`$ for the masses of optical companion and the pulsar, respectively. Measurements of the masses of radio pulsars are know to show a remarkably narrow Gaussian mass distribution with $`M=1.35\pm 0.04M_{}`$ (Thorsett and Chakrabarty 1999), and our measurement of the mass of PSR J1740-5340 is consistent with this result.

Relaxation of the assumption of a semi-detached configuration leads to light curve fits of similar quality for a wide range of inclinations, $`44<i<90`$ degrees. If we assume a bolometric correction of the optical companion of $`BC=0.27`$ then the distance modulus of the cluster constrains the inclination to a range of $`44<i<47`$ degrees. In such a case our spectroscopic data give $`M_21.31\pm 0.06M_{}`$ as a lower limit on the pulsar mass. The lower limit to the mass of the optical companion is $`M_20.255\pm 0.007M_{}`$. The low mass of the optical companion of PSR J1740-5340 resulting from our analysis supports evolutionary scenarios presented recently by Burderi et al. (2002) and Ergma & Sarna (2002).

###### Acknowledgements.

JK was supported by the Polish KBN grant 5P03D004.21 and by NSF grant AST-9819787. IT was supported by NSF grant AST-9819786. SMR was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank Jennifer Johnson and Steve Shectman for sharing some telescope time with us. We are grateful to Bohdan Paczynski for useful comments on the manuscript.


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# Variability of Fundamental Constants

## Abstract

If the fine structure constant is not really constant, is this due to a variation of $`e`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, or $`c`$? It is argued that the only reasonable conclusion is a variable speed of light.

There have recently been indications that the fine structure constant slowly changes over cosmological times . There is a lively controversy  whether this is due to variations of $`e`$, $`\mathrm{}`$, or $`c`$. In this note, it is argued that the speed of light $`c`$ may not be constant.

It is customary in theoretical texts to use “natural units” $`c=\mathrm{}=1`$. The rationale is that relativistic transformations mix time and space coordinates, so that $`c`$ is only a conversion factor which can conveniently be set to unity. However, relativistic transformations never change the nature of timelike and spacelike intervals. Time is not a fourth dimension of space.

Likewise $`h`$ can be used to convert joules to hertz and it is convenient to set $`h=2\pi `$. Yet, energy and frequency are different concepts and Planck’s constant is more than a conversion factor. Quantum systems are not localized, they are pervasive. In particular, entangled systems may be spread over arbitrary distances. A value of $`\mathrm{}`$ varying in spacetime would necessitate a complete revision of quantum theory.

Can the electric charge vary? It is a historical accident that Coulomb’s law of force between macroscopic charges was discovered before it was known that the electric charges of all particles are integral multiples of $`e`$ (or $`e/3`$ if we include quarks). This indicates that we should define $`e=1`$ as the unit of charge (this is a natural unit, not a conversion factor).

We must therefore have a closer look at $`c`$. In general relativity, all four coordinates may have different dimensions and the constant $`c`$ does not appear in the fundamental equations (it may appear in particular solutions, once sources that are not generally covariant have been specified with arbitrary units). In the early universe, where background radiation cannot be ignored, Lorentz invariance does not hold. There is a preferred frame. It is then plausible that, in such an environment, the “vacuum” behaves as a dielectric medium where the speed of light acquires a factor $`(ϵ\mu )^{1/2}`$ . It thus appears that a variable $`c`$ is the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from a variation of the fine structure constant. However this phenomenon is not yet fully understood and more work is clearly needed.


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# Temporal meson correlators at finite temperature on quenched anisotropic latticePoster presented by K. Nomura

## 1 Introduction

It is expected that the hadronic excitation modes strongly change their properties around the QCD phase transition. Such changes of hadron properties may signal the occurrence of phase transition in heavy ion collision experiments. With the potential model approach, it has been expected that the charmonium masses are shifted in the vicinity of $`T_c`$ . In the plasma phase, they are expected to dissolve, and resultant suppression of $`J/\psi `$ formation has been regarded as one of most important signals of plasma formation . Therefore it is important to verify these phenomena using lattice QCD in a model independent way.

In principle, information of excitation modes can be extracted from the Matsubara Green function in the Euclidean time direction. In practice, however, there are several problems at finite temperature. One problem is that the degrees of freedom is restricted by the short temporal extent. To avoid this difficulty, we use an anisotropic lattice, on which temporal lattice spacing is finer than the spatial one. The other problem is that one need to extract the low energy structure from the correlator at the region of $`O(1/T)`$, where the correlator contains contribution from wide range of frequency of the spectral function. We circumvent this problem by applying the smearing technique, which enhances the low energy part of the correlator.

In order to extract a reliable information on the spectral function, we suggest to use maximum entropy method (MEM)  and $`\chi ^2`$ fit method in a complementary manner. The former has an advantage that it does not require to assume specific form for the spectral function. Once the form of spectral function is estimated, however, the latter approach is more quantitative for evaluation of properties of the mode, such as mass and width. We first discuss how the applicability of these procedures to finite temperatures is justified using correlators at $`T=0`$ by varying numbers of degrees of freedom used in analyses. Then we discuss changes of spectral function below and above $`T_c`$. Details of this work will be presented in future publication.

## 2 Lattice setup

We use quenched lattices of the sizes $`20^3\times N_t`$, where $`N_t=160`$, 32, and 26 which roughly correspond to $`T0`$, 0.9$`T_c`$, and 1.1$`T_c`$, respectively. The zero temperature lattice, and the setup of lattice parameters are the same as those used in Ref. . The gauge configurations are generated with the Wilson plaquette action at $`\beta =6.10`$ with the anisotropy $`\xi =a_\sigma /a_t=4`$. The spatial cutoff set by the hadronic radius $`r_0`$ is $`a_\sigma ^1=2.030(13)`$ GeV. $`N_t=28`$ is close to the phase transition. The quark action is the $`O(a)`$ improved Wilson action , with the hopping parameter corresponding to the quark mass $`m_Q=0.98`$ GeV.

The correlator is represented as

$$C(t)=\underset{𝒙}{}O(𝒙,t)O^{}(0,0).$$
(1)
The operator $`O(𝒙,t)`$ is

$$O(𝒙,t)=\underset{𝒚}{}\varphi (𝒚)\overline{q}(𝒙+𝒚,t)\mathrm{\Gamma }q(𝒙,t),$$
(2)
where $`4\times 4`$ matrix $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ specifies the quantum number and $`\varphi (𝒚)`$ is the smearing function for which we use the wave function observed at $`T=0`$. The correlators are measured on 500 configurations at $`T=0`$ and 1000 configurations at $`T>0`$. In order to reduce the statistical error, we average 16 correlators measured with different source points on each configuration.

## 3 Analysis procedure

We focus on the low energy structure of the spectral function. We use two types of analysis method: the maximum entropy method (MEM), and the standard $`\chi ^2`$ fit with ansatz for the shape of spectral function $`A(\omega )`$. MEM has an advantage that it does not require to assume a specific form for the spectral function. When the number of temporal points is sufficiently large, and the data region is also in sufficiently long distance, MEM can reproduce the spectral function successfully . However, when the number of temporal points is small, the extracted spectral function has a large uncertainty quantitatively, and sometimes even qualitatively. On the other hand, once a rough estimate of shape of the spectral function is in hand, $`\chi ^2`$ fit gives more quantitative result for the parameters of assumed form. Therefore, complementary use of these methods are preferable for justification of their applicability and quantitative analysis. We use MEM for rough estimation of a shape of spectral function, and $`\chi ^2`$ fit for more quantitative analysis.

In MEM analysis we test several values of $`m_0`$ for the default model function, $`m(\omega )=m_0\omega ^2`$, and fitting ranges $`[t_{min},t_{max}]`$, where $`t_{min}=1`$ is fixed. For the $`\chi ^2`$ fit, we adopt two forms for each peak of spectral function: $`\delta `$ function (denoted as pole) form, and the relativistic Breit-Wigner (BW) form,

$$A(\omega )=\frac{\omega ^2m\gamma R}{(\omega ^2m^2)^2+m^2\gamma ^2}.$$
(3)
Combining them, we apply 2-pole, 1-BW, and BW+pole fits to the correlators. In BW+pole fit the $`\delta `$ function is used for subtraction of contribution from larger $`\omega `$ region (such as an excited state).

## 4 Results of analysis

In the following, we show only the result for the vector channel, while similar result is observed for the pseudoscalar channel. In order for MEM works at $`T>0`$, it should produce at $`T=0`$ a structure which is stable under the change of fitting range, $`t_{max}`$. We regard this as a necessary condition for applicability of MEM to problems at $`T>0`$. Figure 1 shows the result of MEM at $`T=0`$ with several values of $`t_{max}`$. The position of peak corresponding to the ground state is stable, while the width becomes broader for smaller $`t_{max}`$. Although the position of the first excited state changes with $`t_{max}`$, we do not consider this seriously, since we are interested only in the ground state, and the contribution of excited states are small owing to the smearing of operator. Therefore, using only restricted numbers of points, which are inevitable at $`T>0`$, MEM can produce a consistent result with the case of sufficiently large $`t_{max}`$, at least for a rough estimate of lowest peak structure. This is in contrast to the case of a correlator of local operators, for which our MEM analysis does not produce a stable result under the same change of $`t_{max}`$. The correlator is well fitted to the 2-pole form, and both 1-BW and BW+pole fits give the values of width $`\gamma `$ consistent with zero.

Now we turn to the study of spectral function at $`T>0`$. At $`0.9T_c`$, MEM gives a similar result as $`T=0`$ case. The BW+pole fit gives almost the same mass as at $`T=0`$, and small value of width (top panel of Fig. 2). Since this is the most general fit form, we conclude that at $`T0.9T_c`$, the ground state has almost the same mass as at $`T=0`$ and almost vanishing width. The other fits support this conclusion. The 2-pole fit is rather well applied, while the obtained mass of the ground state slightly decreases as increasing $`t_{min}`$. The result of 1-BW fit approaches to the consistent value with BW+pole fit as $`t_{min}`$ increases.

The result of MEM at $`T1.1T_c`$ is displayed in Fig. 2 (bottom). Although the width is larger than $`T<T_c`$, the result still exhibits a peak structure around the same energy region as at $`T<T_c`$. Therefore we perform the same types of fit analysis as at $`T<T_c`$. The 2-pole fit and BW type fits give inconsistent results, and the latter fits indicate that the spectral function has a peak with almost the same mass at $`T<T_c`$ and the width of order of 200 MeV, as shown in Fig. 2 (top). This result indicate that the charmonium correlator may still have a nontrivial structure slightly above $`T_c`$ . In this analysis, we use specific smearing function. In order to verify that the observed spectral function is not an artifact , comparative study with different smearing function is necessary, which is now underway.


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# UVES Abundances of Stars in Nearby Galaxies: How Good are Theoretical Isochrones?

## 1. Determining Ages from Isochrones

In principle it ought to be a straight forward task to plot the theoretical isochrones at all ages (2$``$15 Gyr) for a star with an accurately determined metallicity, and find the best fitting age. We have found that isochrones of different groups do not always produce the same results, and on occasion none of the isochrones of any group go through the position of the star in a Colour-Magnitude Diagram. This is not found to be such a major problem for globular clusters. To highlight the issues we plot in Figure 1 the results for three stars in one of the four dwarf spheroidal galaxies in our sample - Fornax, along with the Yale-Yonsei ($`\alpha `$=0) isochrones of Yi et al. (2001, ApJS, 136, 417) at 2 Gyr & 15 Gyr. In one case the isochrones are too red, one too blue, and one has no apparent problem.

Even though we reveal some worrying problems, in general we are confident that we can attach ages to the stars we observe which may lack some accuracy in absolute value, but they are appear to be accurate relative to each other. We find that stars which are more metal poor are older than the more metal rich stars. This combination of metallicity and Colour-Magnitude Diagram analysis is the only way to be able to disentangle the star formation history and the corresponding chemical evolution in nearby galaxies.

This work highlights the difficulties in using theoretical stellar evolution tracks verified to work for globular clusters to interpret ages of stars in galaxies. This is not a particular problem of the Yi et al. isochrones. This might be due to fundamental differences in the formation and/or evolution of stars between a globular cluster environment and that of field stars in a galaxy. It is well known that stars in globular cluster stars contain different abundance patterns from all field stars. We need a lot more high resolution spectra of stars in nearby galaxies to better quantify the problem, because there is cuurently no straight forward solution.

Acknowledgements: I thank the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences for a research fellowship and travel support to attend this meeting.