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# Extending Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation to the twin-slit case.

## I Introduction

There is a fundamental ambiguity in Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation which dates back to its birth in the famous 1927 paper . Here Heisenberg introduced the relation in the context of a position measurement by a $`\gamma `$-ray microscope, as (in my notation)

$$ϵ_q\times \delta ph,$$
(1)
where $`ϵ_q`$ is “the precision with which the value $`q`$ is known (say the mean error of $`q`$)” and $`\delta p`$ is “the discontinuous change of $`p`$ in the Compton effect.” By “mean error” Heisenberg evidently meant root-mean-square error, or its equivalent, and I will follow this use. The relation (1) we may call the Heisenberg measurement–disturbance relation. As Heisenberg says,

> The instant the position is determined …the electron undergoes a discontinuous change in momentum. This change is the greater the …more exact the determination of the position.

The roles of $`p`$ and $`q`$ in this description are clearly not symmetric. But in the same work Heisenberg talks about the uncertainty relation as referring to “simultaneous determination of two canonically conjugate quantities”, which is a different statement. Not long after Heisenberg, Weyl  put this latter statement on a rigorous footing as

$$\sigma \left(q\right)\sigma \left(p\right)\mathrm{}/2.$$
(2)
Here $`\sigma \left(q\right),\sigma \left(p\right)`$ are the simultaneous values of the standard deviations of $`q,p`$. Following modern use, I will call this an uncertainty relation.

What link is there between the uncertainty relation (2) and Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation (1)? It seems fairest to let Heisenberg speak for himself. In his most complete description of his position, contained in his 1930 book , he first gives a derivation of the relation (2). This derivation, using only “the mathematical scheme of quantum theory and its physical interpretation” says nothing about momentum transfer or position measurement. It is only in the next section, “Illustrations of the Uncertainty Relations”, that he introduces these ideas, and does so very carefully:

> The uncertainty principle refers to the degree of indeterminacy in the possible present knowledge of the simultaneous values of various quantities with which quantum theory deals; it does not restrict, for example, the exactness of a position measurement alone or a velocity measurement alone. Thus suppose that the velocity of a free electron is known, while the position is completely unknown. Then the principle states that any subsequent observation of the position will alter the momentum by an unknown and indeterminable amount such that after carrying out the experiment our knowledge of the electronic motion is restricted by the uncertainty relation.

As Heisenberg appeared to be well aware, this is the only statement about momentum disturbance and position measurement error which one can make as a logical consequence of the uncertainty relation (2). The standard deviations $`\sigma \left(p\right)`$ and $`\sigma \left(q\right)`$ refer to the state of the particle after the measurement. It is only because the particle state prior to the measurement was a momentum eigenstate (having zero dispersion in momentum) that one can equate $`\sigma \left(p\right)`$ with $`\delta p`$, the mean momentum disturbance. Likewise it is only because the particle prior to the measurement had a completely undefined position that one can equate $`\sigma \left(q\right)`$ with the mean error $`ϵ_q`$ of the position measurement. To see this latter point, consider the case where the particle is not in a momentum eigenstate, but instead localized at two narrow slits of width $`a`$, separated by a distance $`d`$. Then a position measurement with an error of order $`d`$ will resolve the two slits, and the particle will become localized at one of them. The resulting final standard deviation in the position $`\sigma \left(q\right)a`$ is not related to the error of the measurement $`d`$.

In the derivation of Eq. (2) in Ref. , Heisenberg does not explicitly use the commutation relations

$$[q,p]=i\mathrm{},$$
(3)
but rather the Fourier-transform relation between the position and momentum representations. It should especially be noted that there is no hint in Heisenberg’s work that the more general Robertson uncertainty relation

$$\sigma \left(A\right)\sigma \left(B\right)\frac{1}{2}\left|[A,B]\right|$$
(4)
leads to a more general measurement–disturbance relation. Instead, there are good reasons for maintaining that it does not. If, unlike $`p`$ and $`q`$, the quantities $`A`$ and $`B`$ are not canonically conjugate, then preparing the system in an eigenstate of $`A`$ need not ensure that all values of $`B`$ are equally likely prior to the measurement. After the measurement, the standard deviation $`\sigma \left(A\right)`$ can still be identified with the disturbance in the quantity $`A`$ caused by the measurement. However the quantity $`\sigma \left(B\right)`$ is not necessarily the accuracy of the measurement of $`B`$, because there may have been some information regarding the value of $`B`$ prior to the measurement (the argument follows the same lines as given above for the twin-slit case). The lesson is that the Heisenberg measurement–disturbance relation is of quite particular content.

In his actual illustrations in the 1930 book (including the famous $`\gamma `$-ray microscope from the 1927 paper), Heisenberg seeks to give an intuitive interpretation of the momentum transfer (in terms of the Compton recoil and such like). But he never claims to rigorously prove any momentum–disturbance relation other than

$$ϵ_q\times \delta p\mathrm{}/2$$
(5)
which applies when the particle is initially in a momentum eigenstate (or at least a state with negligible momentum dispersion).

The problem is that one often wishes to consider position measurements, and hence momentum transfers, in situations in which the particle is not in a momentum eigenstate. A particular example of interest which I have already mentioned is that of the twin slits. This was one of the subjects of the Bohr–Einstein debates  and, more recently, has been surrounded by the controversy over whether there is a momentum transfer (of order commensurate with the uncertainty relation) concomitant with determining which slit a particle passes through. Scully, Englert and Walther  prove that if the particle is already localized at one of the slits then there need be no such momentum transfer. On this basis they say that it is particle-wave complementarity, rather than the uncertainty principle, which explains the loss of the interference pattern when one measures which slit the particle went through. Storey, Tan, Collett and Walls  on the contrary have claimed that there is always a transverse (that is, in the direction of the line connecting the slits) momentum disturbance at least equal to $`\mathrm{}/d`$, where $`d`$ is the slit separation. In this they uphold the opinion of Bohr  that one can regard complementarity as being enforced by the uncertainty principle. Further exchanges are found in Refs..

It was pointed out by myself and Harrison  that the basis of the disagreement lay in a difference over the definition of momentum transfer. As noted above, the momentum transfer is in general defined unambiguously only if the particle is initially in a momentum eigenstate. The calculations of Scully et al. concern the local momentum transfer. This is the momentum transfer which can be seen in the shift or broadening of the momentum distribution of a particle already localized at one of the slits. By contrast, the momentum transfer distribution considered by Storey et al. can perhaps be best characterized as the potential momentum transfer. It would be an actual momentum transfer if the particle were initially in a momentum eigenstate.

In Ref.  myself and Harrison, together with Collett, Tan, Walls and Killip, showed that by using the Wigner function formalism one can identify different types of momentum transfer, which we called local and nonlocal. The local momentum transfer corresponds to the concept of momentum disturbance used by Scully, Englert and Walther . We showed, in agreement with the claims of Scully et al., that this may indeed be zero and that the momentum transfer in the theorem of Storey et al. was not relevant to this calcution. On the other hand, we showed that a particular measure of the nonlocal momentum transfer is always greater than $`\pi \mathrm{}/2d`$, and this is derived in the same manner as the theorem of Storey et al. . It is this nonlocal momentum transfer which caused (in the Wigner function formalism) the loss the loss of the interference fringes.

In this work I want to revisit this question afresh. Rather than concentrating on the issue of interference and the loss of it, I propose to look at the question in the following context. As noted above, Heisenberg was the first to derive a rigorous measurement–disturbance relation (5), in the case when a particle is initially in a momentum eigenstate. Now consider a different situation. The particle, rather than having an equal probability amplitude of being at all points $`q`$, now has an equal probability of being at just two points (or at least two identical small regions) separated by a distance $`d`$. A measurement which can distinguish between these two regions (hereafter known as slits) must have a discrimination length scale $`d`$. Therefore we expect that if any extension of Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation is possible, the particle’s momentum should be disturbed by an amount $`\mathrm{}/d`$.

The aim of this paper is to show that it is indeed possible to derive a relation of this sort. I would not call the relation I derive a Heisenberg relation, because Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation is based on the so-called Heisenberg uncertainty relation (5). The extension of this relation to the twin-slit case need not be based on that particular theorem, in particular because the measure of the momentum transfer cannot be based on the standard deviation. Nevertheless, it will be based in the formalism of quantum mechanics, including the conjugate relation of position and momentum, just as much as Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation was. The momentum transfer I calculate in this paper is different from any of those in Refs. . Moreover, the measure of momentum transfer I propose uses only the momentum distributions of the particle before and after the measurement. As such it could not be criticized as being merely a potential momentum transfer. Despite the importance of nonlocal momentum transfer in the recent work of Ref. , the issue of locality or nonlocality is irrelevant to this work and will not be discussed.

## II Describing the Measurement

The starting point for the calculation is the initial wavefunction for the twin-slit case, which can be written as

$$\psi _i\left(q\right)=2^{1/2}\left[\varphi _a\left(q\right)+\varphi _a\left(qd\right)\right].$$
(6)
Here $`\varphi _a\left(q\right)`$ is a wavefunction parameterized by a positive real number $`a`$ such that its width scales as $`a`$ and

$$\underset{a0}{lim}\left|\varphi _a\left(q\right)\right|^2=\delta \left(q\right).$$
(7)
For example,

$$\varphi _a\left(q\right)=\left(2\pi a^2\right)^{1/4}\mathrm{exp}\left(q^2/4a^2\right)$$
(8)
would do, and I will use this form for some specific calculations. For this example the state (6) is normalized only in the limit $`a0`$, but that is all that we need.

In the momentum representation (indicated by a tilde), the initial state is, up to an irrelevant phase factor,

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_i\left(p\right)=\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_a\left(p\right)\sqrt{2}\mathrm{cos}\frac{pd}{2\mathrm{}},$$
(9)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_a\left(p\right)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi \mathrm{}}}𝑑qe^{ipq/\mathrm{}}\varphi _a\left(q\right).$$
(10)
The momentum probability distribution is therefore

$$P_i\left(p\right)=\left(1+\mathrm{cos}\frac{pd}{\mathrm{}}\right)\left(p\right),$$
(11)
where

$$\left(p\right)=\left|\stackrel{~}{\varphi }_a\left(p\right)\right|^2.$$
(12)
It is the oscillations of period $`2\pi \mathrm{}/d`$ under the envelope $`\left(p\right)`$ which are evidence of the coherent superposition of the particle being at the two slits at $`q=0,d`$.

The effect of a position measurement on the particle’s wavefunction is to change it into

$$\psi _f\left(q\right)=N_\xi ^{1/2}O_\xi \left(q\right)\psi _i\left(q\right),$$
(13)
where $`O_\xi \left(q\right)`$ is a function relating to a particular measurement result $`\xi `$ and

$$N_\xi =𝑑q\left|O_\xi \left(q\right)\psi _i\left(q\right)\right|^2$$
(14)
is the probability for obtaining that result . Obviously the sum over all probabilities $`N_\xi `$ must equal unity. We are interested in the case where the particular result $`\xi `$ successfully distinguishes between the two slits. Then $`O_\xi \left(q\right)`$ must be zero in the region of one of the slits. Without loss of generality we may take it to be zero for $`qd`$. Thus the final wavefunction is

$$\psi _f\left(q\right)=N_\xi ^{1/2}O_\xi \left(q\right)2^{1/2}\varphi _a\left(q\right).$$
(15)
Creating a MacLaurin expansion of $`\mathrm{ln}O_\xi \left(q\right)`$ yields

$$\psi _f\left(q\right)\mathrm{exp}\left(\alpha q+\beta q^2+\mathrm{}\right)\varphi _a\left(q\right),$$
(16)
where $`\alpha ,\beta ,\mathrm{}`$ are complex numbers.

Taking the particular form of $`\varphi _a\left(q\right)`$ in Eq. (8), and ignoring the unwritten higher order terms in Eq. (16) we get

$$\stackrel{~}{\psi }_f\left(p\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\alpha ip/\mathrm{}\right)^2/\left(a^2+4\beta \right)\right].$$
(17)
Thus in the limit $`a0`$ we find the final momentum distribution to be

$$P_f\left(p\right)=\underset{a0}{lim}\left|\stackrel{~}{\psi }_f\left(p\right)\right|^2=\frac{a}{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\mathrm{exp}\left[a^2\left(p/\mathrm{}k\right)^2\right],$$
(18)
which has been normalized. Here $`k=\mathrm{Im}\left(\alpha \right)`$. The real part of $`\alpha `$, and the whole of $`\beta `$ (and also the higher order terms) become irrelevant when the limit $`a0`$ is taken. In fact, the Gaussian form of the original wavefunction $`\varphi _a\left(q\right)`$ is not required for this result and we can take the final momentum probability distribution to be more generally

$$P_f\left(p\right)=\left(p\mathrm{}k\right),$$
(19)
where $`\left(p\right)`$ is as defined in Eq. (12).

## III Quantifying the Momentum Transfer

From the preceding section we see that the momentum probability distributions before and after the position measurement which distinguishes between the two slits are respectively

$`P_i\left(p\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(1+\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{pd}{\mathrm{}}}\right)\left(p\right),`$ (20)
$`P_f\left(p\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p\mathrm{}k\right),`$ (21)
where $`\left(p\right)`$ is an envelope which is arbitrarily smooth and broad. Obviously the two momentum distributions are different and so one would be justified in saying that there must have been some momentum transfer. One approach to quantifying this transfer would be to compare the moments of the two distributions. However, for the case $`k=0`$, the mean and standard deviation of $`P_i\left(p\right)`$ and $`P_f\left(p\right)`$ are identical . This case corresponds to the scheme proposed by Scully et al , in which the local momentum transfer (which is the only momentum transfer with which they are concerned) is zero. While comparing the moments of $`P_i\left(p\right)`$ and $`P_f\left(p\right)`$ may identify the local momentum transfer (or lack of it) , it is evidently not a good measure of the overall change in the momentum distribution.

The question we thus face is, what is a better way to quantify momentum transfer? One could seek a measure based on the measurement function $`O_\xi \left(q\right)`$, as done by Storey et al. . The problem with this approach is that it is independent of the initial state. This would seem to imply that there is necessarily a momentum transfer even if the particle is already localized at one slit. While not logically impossible, this is hard to accept on physical grounds given that Scully et al.  have shown that the momentum distributions may be unchanged by the measurement in that case. This difficulty can be overcome by turning to the Wigner function formalism , as mentioned above. Nevertheless the simpler solution would seem to be to abandon $`O_\xi \left(q\right)`$ altogether and seek a (non-moment-based) measure which involves only the initial and final momentum distributions.

Our question is then very closely related to one considered by the 18th century French mathematician, Monge . The problem involves the transportation of a mass of soil from a given configuration (e.g. a heap) to another configuration (e.g. a dike) by haulage. As an idealization, we can assume that the mass of soil is divided into an arbitrarily large number of identical small loads each of which is hauled separately. A particular strategy for shifting the soil will therefore be characterized by an average distance over which the loads are hauled (vertical displacement being assumed negligible). Monge’s problem is to minimize this average distance. The haulage strategy which achieves this is known as the Monge plan and the resulting distance is known as the Monge distance. The Monge distance so defined is a good metric (in the mathematical sense) over the space of all possible soil distributions. The distance resulting from a non-optimal strategy is not a good metric, since inefficient workers could move loads of soil backwards and forwards over a large distance without changing the overall distribution of soil at all.

In modern probability theory, the Monge distance is used to define a metric over the space of probability distributions . For simplicity, consider only distributions in one real variable. Imagine dividing up the area under the two curves into infinitesimal elements of equal area. Then the Monge distance is the minimum mean distance over which elements of the first probability distribution can be shifted so as to transform it into the second probability distribution. Clearly the Monge distance has the same dimension as the variable whose distribution we are considering. There are generalizations of Monge’s distance (such as the Fréchet distance, which is the minimum root-mean-square distance), but there is no particular reason to prefer them for this problem.

For the case at hand, the Monge distance between the initial $`P_i\left(p\right)`$ and final $`P_f\left(p\right)`$ momentum distributions has the dimensions of momentum, and can in fact be identified with the average of the absolute value of the momentum transfer by the measurement. In this one-dimensional case, the Monge plan is to transport the infinitesimal elements along the line without changing their order . Translating these words into mathematics, the Monge distance $`D_M`$ is given by

$$D_M(P_f,P_i)=_0^1𝑑\lambda \left|F_i^1\left(\lambda \right)F_f^1\left(\lambda \right)\right|.$$
(22)
Here $`F^1\left(\lambda \right)`$ is defined by

$$F^1\left(F\left(p\right)\right)p,$$
(23)
where $`F\left(p\right)`$ is the fiducial distribution

$$F_{i/f}\left(p\right)=_{\mathrm{}}^p𝑑p^{}P_{i/f}\left(p^{}\right).$$
(24)
By a change of variable Eq. (22) becomes

$$D_M(P_f,P_i)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑p^{}\left|F_i\left(p^{}\right)F_f\left(p^{}\right)\right|.$$
(25)
In our case we have

$`F_i\left(p\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{d}}\left(p\right)\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{pd}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}}{d}}{\displaystyle _{\mathrm{}}^p}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{p^{}d}{\mathrm{}}}d\left(p^{}\right)`$ (26)
$`F_f\left(p\right)`$ $`=`$ $`\left(p\mathrm{}k\right)`$ (27)
where $`\left(p\right)`$ is the fiducial distribution of $`\left(p\right)`$. Now since $`\left(p\right)`$ has a width of order $`\mathrm{}/a\mathrm{}/d`$, the size of the three terms in Eq. (26) are of order $`1,a/d,\left(a/d\right)^2`$ respectively. As I will show, the first-order term yields a finite contribution to $`D_M`$, so the second-order term can be neglected.

Substituting the expressions for the fiducial distribution into Eq. (25) yields

$$_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑p^{}\left|_{p^{}\mathrm{}k}^p^{}\left(p^{\prime \prime }\right)𝑑p^{\prime \prime }+\frac{\mathrm{}}{d}\left(p^{}\right)\mathrm{sin}\frac{p^{}d}{\mathrm{}}\right|.$$
(28)
Using the fact that $`ka,a/d1`$, in the limit $`a0`$ we can replace this expression by

$$D_M(P_f,P_i)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑p^{}\left(p^{}\right)\left|\mathrm{}k+\frac{\mathrm{}}{d}\mathrm{sin}\frac{pd}{\mathrm{}}\right|=\left|\mathrm{}k+\frac{\mathrm{}}{d}\mathrm{sin}\frac{p^{}d}{\mathrm{}}\right|,$$
(29)
where the average is over one period of the sinusoidal function.

This last expression can be evaluated analytically for any $`k`$. However, in order to derive a relation between the slit separation $`d`$ and the momentum transfer $`D_M`$ we are interested only in the minimum over all $`k`$. It is not difficult to verify that the minimum occurs for $`k=0`$, and has the value

$$D_M^{\mathrm{min}}(P_f,P_i)=\frac{d}{\pi \mathrm{}}_0^{\pi \mathrm{}/d}𝑑p^{}\frac{\mathrm{}}{d}\mathrm{sin}\frac{p^{}d}{\mathrm{}}=\frac{2\mathrm{}}{\pi d}.$$
(30)
Since this is the smallest possible value for $`D_M`$ we can thus write a new momentum-disturbance relation

$$D_M(P_f,P_i)\frac{2\mathrm{}}{\pi d},$$
(31)
where the equality can clearly be attained.

## IV Conclusion

As explained in the introduction, Heisenberg’s measurement–disturbance relation (5) between the accuracy of a position measurement $`ϵ_q`$ and the momentum disturbance $`\delta p`$ applies only when the particle can be treated as being initially in a momentum eigenstate. In any other situation it can be used only heuristically, not rigorously. In this paper I have considered one of these other situations, a particular one which is of continuing interest, the twin slit. Here the particle is prepared in an equal-amplitude superposition of being at both the upper and lower slit, separated by a distance $`d`$. The measurement in this case simply distinguishes between these two possibilities. In this paper, I have argued that a good measure for the momentum disturbance $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ is the Monge distance $`D_M(P_f,P_i)`$ between the momentum distributions before and after the measurement. Using this measure I have derived a new (twin-slit) measurement–disturbance relation:

$$d\times \mathrm{\Delta }p\frac{2\mathrm{}}{\pi }.$$
(32)
It should be emphasized that $`d`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ are not standard deviations for $`q`$ and $`p`$ for any state of the particle. Unlike the Heisenberg measurement–disturbance relation (5), the relation (32) is not derived from Eq. (2). Thus the fact that the right-hand-side of Eq. (32) is different from that of Eq. (5) by a numerical factor of $`4/\pi `$ is not surprising and is of no particular significance. However, I think it is justifiable to call Eq. (32) an extension of the Heisenberg relation because the origin of the relation is exactly the same, namely the conjugate relation between the position and momentum of a particle. This conjugate relation is expressed in the Fourier transform which takes one from the position representation to the momentum representation, and which gives rise to the oscillations of period $`2\pi \mathrm{}/d`$ in the initial momentum distribution of Eq. (11) which are erased by the measurement. The smaller the separation between the two slits, the more accurate the position measurement must be to resolve them, and the larger the momentum transfer.

With regard to the use of the Monge distance as a measure of the momentum transfer, it might be questioned whether this has any “physical” (rather than mathematical) justification for this measure. It turns out that the answer is yes, if one is prepared to accept the Bohmian interpretation  of quantum mechanics as physical. This idea is explored extensively in Ref. , where I show that the individual trajectories taken by particles under Bohmian mechanics can be traced both with and without a measurement for the twin-slit case. In the far-field, the velocities of these particles can be compared in these two cases, and the momentum change caused by the position measurement computed. If one defines $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ to be the absolute value of the momentum change, averaged over all of the possible initial starting points of the particle, then one finds that this measure obeys exactly the inequality (32).

Having mentioned the Bohmian interpretation, it is worth re-emphasizing that the results of this paper are completely independent of one’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. The momentum disturbance $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ is just the integral of the absolute value of the difference between the fiducial momentum distributions with and without the measurement. This integral is no harder to calculate from experimental data than the standard deviation of the momentum distribution which appears in the original Heisenberg measurement–disturbance relation (5).

Finally, one might wonder whether the result in this paper points the way towards a more general measurement–disturbance relation which would hold not only for the momentum eigenstate and twin-slit cases but for all initial conditions. Unfortunately I think the answer is no. The problem is not one of the definition of momentum transfer (the one used in this work would seem to be generally applicable), but of the measurement error. As a trivial example, if the initial state is sufficiently well localized in position then a position measurement of finite error may have no effect on the state whatsoever, so that there will be no momentum disturbance $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$. What distinguishes the momentum eigenstate and twin-slit cases is that in these cases a position measurement does have a clear effect on the particle. In the first case the measurement error $`ϵ_q`$ can be chosen arbitrarily; in the second case it is the slit separation $`d`$ which is the relevant length scale (providing the two slits are distinguished by the measurement). It may be possible to work out measurement–disturbance relations for other particular examples, but it seems doubtful that they would supply any more insight than can be obtained from considering the two obvious cases.

###### Acknowledgements.

I am indebted to D.F. Walls for expressing (a number of years ago) the view that there should be a way to work out the momentum transfer just by examining the the momentum distributions before and after the measurement. I would also like to thank D.A. Rice for bringing to my attention the quotation I use from Heisenberg’s 1930 book, and M.J. Gagen for comments on the first draft of this manuscript. This work was supported by the Australian Research Council.


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# Can radiative cooling and nongravitational heating explain simultaneously the global X-ray properties of clusters and the unresolved cosmic X-ray background ?

## 1 Introduction

A substantial fraction of the baryons in the local universe exists in the form of diffuse warm-hot intergalactic medium (IGM) with temperatures of $`T10^5`$$`10^7`$ K as a result of gravitationally driven shocks and adiabatic compression as they fall onto large-scale structures and collapsed dark halos (Cen & Ostriker 1999). In the former case, the warm IGM may escape direct detection, but measurements of the strength and power spectra of the cosmic soft X-ray background (XRB) (e.g. Soltan, Freyberg & Trümper 2001) and the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect (e.g. Bond et al. 2002) can set stringent constraints on its amount and distribution. For the latter, the hot IGM in virialized dark halos such as groups and clusters manifests itself as strong X-ray emission sources through thermal bremsstrahlung, which provides a powerful tool for studying not only the physical processes of the hot IGM but also the formation and evolution of groups and clusters.

While gravity and thermal pressure play potentially important roles in the overall distribution and evolution of the hot IGM in groups and clusters, the IGM also suffers from the influence of nongravitational effects such as radiative cooling, heating by supernovae and/or AGNs, nonthermal pressure, etc. In low-mass groups and the central regions of clusters, nongravitational effect may even become dominant for the evolution of IGM. Indeed, there is growing observational evidence for the presence of nongravitational effects in groups and clusters. Among many arguments, the most convincing observational facts are the significant departure of the observed X-ray luminosity ($`L_\mathrm{X}`$) - temperature ($`T`$) relation of groups and clusters ($`L_\mathrm{X}T^{35}`$) from the prediction ($`L_\mathrm{X}T^2`$) of self-similar model (e.g. Edge & Stewart 1991; David et al. 1993; Wu, Xue & Fang 1999; Helsdon & Ponman 2000; Xue & Wu 2000 and references therein) and the entropy ($`S`$) excess in the central cores of groups and clusters (Ponman, Cannon & Navarro 1999; Lloyd-Davies, Ponman & Cannon 2000). Two prevailing scenarios suggested thus far, preheating and radiative cooling of the hot IGM, both of which tend to suppress the X-ray emission of the hot IGM heated by purely gravitational shocks and compression, have been shown to be indistinguishable in the explanation of the observed X-ray properties of groups and clusters (Voit & Bryan 2001b; Voit et al. 2002; Borgani et al. 2002 and references therein), although each model still has its own problem. For instance, preheating model suffers from the so-called energy crisis that an unreasonably high efficiency of energy injection into the IGM from supernovae must be required in order to bring the IGM to the energy level seen in the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ and $`S`$-$`T`$ relations of groups and clusters (Wu, Fabian & Nulsen 1998, 2000; Tozzi 2001; etc.), although energy supply by AGNs may help to reduce the discrepancy (Valageas & Silk 1999). Radiative cooling model suffers from the overcooling problem, i.e., the material that has cooled out of the hot IGM greatly exceeds the observational limits (Balogh et al. 2001). Moreover, cooling efficiency is also a major concern in the explanation of the X-ray observed properties of groups and clusters (Bower et al. 2001). Nonetheless, both (pre)heating and cooling are two natural processes during the formation of galaxies, which is justified by the measurements of the IGM enrichment at high redshifts and the stellar mass fraction ($`10\%`$) in the local universe. Indeed, it has been realized recently that only can a combination of preheating by supernovae and radiative cooling of the IGM reproduce the observed X-ray properties of groups and clusters (Voit et al. 2002; Borgani et al. 2002).

An independent and sensitive probe of the physical properties of the IGM is through study of the soft XRB. It has been shown that the XRB produced by the gravitationally heated and bound IGM in groups and clusters within the standard framework of hierarchical formation of structures vastly exceeds the upper limits set by current X-ray observations, lending further support to nongravitational heating scenario (Pen 1999; Wu, Fabian & Nulsen 2001; Bryan & Voit 2001). Yet, it is also noted that some hydrodynamical simulations have yielded a soft XRB compatible with current limits without inclusion of nongravitational heating (Croft et al. 2001; Davé et al. 2001; Phillips, Ostriker & Cen 2001). This partially reflects the difficulty in handling the complex processes of IGM evolution in groups and clusters. Essentially, an excess energy of about 1 keV/particle should be injected into the IGM in order to reduce the predicted soft XRB to a reasonable level. On the other hand, it is unlikely that radiative cooling alone is sufficient to eliminate the discrepancy (Wu et al. 2001).

The question we would like to address in this paper is: Can radiative cooling and nongravitational heating explain simultaneously the observed global X-ray properties of groups and clusters and the unresolved cosmic XRB ? Previous studies have reached the following conclusions: If one leaves the energy source problem aside, preheating model is in principle able to reproduce the observed $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation and excess entropy in the central regions of groups and clusters (e.g. Cavaliere, Menci & Tozzi 1997, 1998; Balogh et al. 1999; Tozzi & Norman 2001; Babul et al. 2002; etc.) and predict a consistent XRB with that observed (Pen 1999; Wu et al. 2001; Bryan & Voit 2001). As for radiative cooling, it has successfully accounted for the entropy floor seen in the central cores of groups and clusters (Voit & Bryan 2001b). By properly truncating the outer radii of X-ray surface brightness for groups and clusters in terms of current X-ray flux limits, one is also able to reproduce the observed steepening of the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation of groups and clusters (Wu & Xue 2002a; Voit et al. 2002). In particular, the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation found by hydrodynamical simulations in terms of cooling shows a good agreement with observations (e.g. Muanwong et al. 2001, 2002; Borgani et al. 2002). Consequently, it is crucial to reexamine whether or not cooling model is also sufficient enough to suppress the contribution of the IGM to the soft XRB. If the negative result of Wu et al. (2001) is confirmed, it deserves to explore the combined effect of radiative cooling plus heating by supernovae on the X-ray properties of groups and clusters and the soft XRB. Failure of all these efforts may indicate that our current picture of the physical processes of the hot IGM in groups and clusters is incomplete at some level. Throughout this paper we assume a flat cosmological model ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM) of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}=0.35`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$ and $`h=0.65`$.

## 2 Dark halos

Dark matter distribution in a virialized halo is assumed to follow the universal density profile suggested by numerical simulations (Navarro, Frenk & White 1997; NFW)

$$\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r)=\frac{\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}}{(r/r_\mathrm{s})(1+r/r_\mathrm{s})^2},$$
(1)
where $`\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{s}`$ are the characteristic density and length of the halo, respectively, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is the critical density of the universe. In order to fix the two free parameters, $`\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}`$ and $`r_\mathrm{s}`$, we first specify the concentration parameter $`c=r_{\mathrm{vir}}/r_\mathrm{s}`$ for a given halo of mass $`M`$ through the empirical fitting formula found by numerical simulations (Bullock et al. 2001)

$$c=\frac{10}{1+z}\left(\frac{M}{2.1\times 10^{13}M_{}}\right)^{0.14}.$$
(2)
Next, we define the virial mass $`M`$ such that within the virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ the mean mass density of the dark halo is $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}`$ times the critical density of the universe:

$$M=\frac{4}{3}\pi r_{\mathrm{vir}}^3\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\rho _{\mathrm{crit}},$$
(3)
where for a flat, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmological model, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}=18\pi ^2+82[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)1]39[\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)1]^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(z)=\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3/E^2`$ and $`E^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{M}(1+z)^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Finally, we determine the virial temperature using cosmic virial theorem (Bryan and Norman 1998):

$$kT=1.39\mathrm{keV}\left(\frac{M}{10^{15}M_{}}\right)^{2/3}\left(h^2E^2\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\right)^{1/3},$$
(4)
In which we have taken the normalization factor to be $`f_T=1`$. We have also tested a lower value of $`f_T=0.8`$, and found that our results remain almost unchanged.

We use the modified PS mass function by Sheth & Tormen (1999) to describe the abundance and evolution of virialized dark halos that grow from random-phase Gaussian initial fluctuations:

$$dN=A\sqrt{\frac{2a}{\pi }}\left[1+\left(\frac{\delta _\mathrm{c}^2}{a\sigma ^2}\right)^p\right]\frac{\overline{\rho }}{M}\frac{\delta _\mathrm{c}}{\sigma ^2}\frac{d\sigma }{dM}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{a\delta _\mathrm{c}^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right)dM,$$
(5)
where $`A=0.3222`$, $`a=0.707`$, $`p=0.3`$, $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the mean cosmic density, $`\delta _\mathrm{c}`$ is the linear over-density of perturbations that collapsed and virialized at redshift $`z`$, $`\sigma `$ is the linear theory variance of the mass density fluctuation in sphere of mass $`M=4\pi \overline{\rho }R^3/3`$. We parameterize the power spectrum of fluctuation $`P(k)k^nT^2(k)`$ and take the fit given by Bardeen et al. (1986) for the transfer function of adiabatic CDM model $`T(k)`$. The primordial power spectrum is assumed to be the Harrison-Zel’dovich case $`n=1`$. The mass variance for a given $`P(k)`$ is simply

$$\sigma ^2(M)=\frac{1}{2\pi ^2}_0^{\mathrm{}}k^2P(k)W^2(kR)𝑑k,$$
(6)
where $`W(x)=3(\mathrm{sin}xx\mathrm{cos}x)/x^3`$ is the Fourier representation of the window function. The amplitude in the power spectrum is determined using the rms fluctuation on an $`8`$ $`h^1`$ Mpc scale, $`\sigma _8`$. We adopt a normalization parameter of $`\sigma _8=0.9`$ suggested by weak gravitational lensing measurements (see Refregier, Rhodes & Grith 2002 for a recent summary), and then demonstrate the influence of $`\sigma _8`$ on the evaluation of XRB using a lower value of $`\sigma _8=0.7`$.

## 3 IGM

### 3.1 Global quantities

Following conventional definition, we use

$$S=\frac{kT}{n_\mathrm{e}^{2/3}}$$
(7)
to measure the entropy of IGM, in which $`T`$ and $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ are the electron temperature and number density, respectively. The total X-ray luminosity in terms of thermal bremsstrahlung is

$$L_\mathrm{X}=n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)𝑑V,$$
(8)
where $`n_\mathrm{H}`$ is the number density of hydrogen, and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)`$ is the cooling function which is calculated from the Raymond-Smith (1977) code. Whenever theoretical predictions are compared with observations, we work with the emission-weighted temperature

$$T=\frac{T(r)\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}𝑑V}{\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}𝑑V}.$$
(9)
Furthermore, we assume that the IGM with and without cooling/preheating is always in hydrostatic equilibrium with the underlying gravitational potential of groups/clusters dominated by dark matter:

$$\frac{1}{\mu m_\mathrm{p}n_\mathrm{e}(r)}\frac{d[n_\mathrm{e}(r)kT(r)]}{dr}=\frac{GM_{\mathrm{DM}}(r)}{r^2},$$
(10)
where $`\mu 0.593`$ is the mean molecular weight. Finally, we evaluate the total XRB intensity at frequency $`\nu `$ by integrating the X-ray emission of all halos over mass range and redshift space

$$J(\nu )=\frac{dL_\mathrm{X}/d(h_\mathrm{p}\nu )}{4\pi D_\mathrm{L}^2(z)}\frac{dN}{dVdM}\frac{dV}{d\mathrm{\Omega }dz}𝑑M𝑑z,$$
(11)
where $`h_\mathrm{p}`$ is the Planck constant, $`D_\mathrm{L}`$ is the luminosity distance, and $`dN/dVdM`$ is the mass function given by equation (5).

### 3.2 No cooling and no heating

In the absence of radiative cooling and nongravitational heating, we assume that IGM traces dark matter

$$\rho _{\mathrm{gas}}(r)=f_\mathrm{b}\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r).$$
(12)
We solve the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium under the boundary restriction $`T(\mathrm{})=0`$, which yields

$$kT(r)=kT^{}\frac{r}{r_\mathrm{s}}\left(1+\frac{r}{r_\mathrm{s}}\right)^2_{\frac{r}{r_\mathrm{s}}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{(1+x)\mathrm{ln}(1+x)x}{x^3(1+x)^3}𝑑x,$$
(13)
where $`kT^{}=4\pi G\mu m_\mathrm{p}\delta _{\mathrm{ch}}\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}r_\mathrm{s}^2`$. This allows us to calculate straightforwardly the X-ray luminosity, entropy and total XRB. Our numerical computations show that these quantities are rather insensitive to the radial variation of temperature described by equation (13). Consequently, we may adopt a constant temperature instead of equation (13) in the evaluation of the global X-ray properties of groups and clusters and the XRB. It is well known that the results predicted by this so-called ‘self-similar’ model (hereafter Model I) depart remarkably from X-ray observations. Here we use this model as a reference point only.

### 3.3 Radiative cooling

Conservation of energy ensures that the energy loss due to bremsstrahlung emission is balanced by the decrease in the specific energy of IGM in groups/clusters:

$$\frac{3}{2}n_\mathrm{t}kT=n_\mathrm{e}n_\mathrm{H}\mathrm{\Lambda }(T)t_\mathrm{c},$$
(14)
where $`n_\mathrm{t}`$ is the total number density of the IGM. Setting the cooling time $`t_\mathrm{c}`$ to equal the age of groups/clusters, or simply the age of the universe at the redshift of the groups/clusters determines the cooling radius $`r_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ and the total mass $`M_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ of the cooled material if the IGM is assumed to follow the dark matter distribution before cooling. Following Voit & Bryan (2001b) and Wu & Xue (2002a), we can find the distribution of the remaining IGM after cooling by solving the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium under the conservation of total baryonic mass

$$M_{\mathrm{cool}}(r_{\mathrm{vir}})+M_{\mathrm{gas}}(r_{\mathrm{vir}})=f_\mathrm{b}M,$$
(15)
and the conservation of entropy

$$\frac{T(r)}{[n_\mathrm{e}(r)]^{2/3}}=\frac{T^0(\overline{r})}{[n_\mathrm{e}^0(\overline{r})]^{2/3}},$$
(16)
where $`r`$ is related to $`\overline{r}`$ through

$$M_{\mathrm{gas}}(r)=M_{\mathrm{gas}}^0(\overline{r})M_{\mathrm{cool}}.$$
(17)
Here we use superscript 0 to denote the quantities before cooling. The above two equations demonstrate that the IGM originally distributed between $`r_{\mathrm{cool}}`$ and $`\overline{r}`$ before cooling is transported to a smaller region of radius $`r`$ after cooling. We consider an evolving metallicity model of $`Z=0.3Z_{}(t/t_0)`$ (Model II) and a constant metallicity model of $`Z=0.3Z_{}`$ (Model III), where $`t_0`$ is the present age of the universe.

### 3.4 Preheating

A phenomenological treatment of (pre)heating is to raise the specific energy or entropy of the IGM in groups and clusters to a certain level regardless of whatever the energy sources would be. Usually, an energy budget of 0.1 – 3 keV/particle or an entropy of 50 – 400 keV cm2, depending on the epoch and environment of (pre)heating, is needed in order to reproduce the observed X-ray properties of groups and clusters. Here we consider two simple approaches to demonstrating the effect of (pre)heating on the X-ray properties of groups and clusters.

Model IV: We begin with the IGM distribution predicted by self-similar model (Model I), and then simply raise the specific energy of each particle in groups and clusters by a constant amount of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$:

$$kT(r)=k\mathrm{\Delta }T+kT_{\mathrm{self}}(r).$$
(18)
The corresponding distribution of electron number density $`n_\mathrm{e}(r)`$ can be obtained by solving the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium. A critical point in such an exercise is the boundary condition. To a first approximation we may assume that the gas density at virial radius $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is universal, $`n_\mathrm{e}(r_{\mathrm{vir}})=(f_\mathrm{b}/\mu _\mathrm{e}m_\mathrm{p})\rho _{\mathrm{DM}}(r_{\mathrm{vir}})`$. Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that this restriction may fail for low-mass systems. Another commonly adopted, inaccurate method is to take the total gas mass fraction within $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ to be universal $`M_{\mathrm{gas}}(r_{\mathrm{vir}})=f_\mathrm{b}M`$. Actually, one still has no better choice of boundary condition in the determination of the gas distribution from the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium.

Model V: Instead of raising the specific energy of the IGM particles, we add a constant entropy floor $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ to the entropy profile given by self-similar model $`S_{\mathrm{self}}(r)`$

$$S(r)=\mathrm{\Delta }S+S_{\mathrm{self}}(r).$$
(19)
We then solve the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium to get the electron pressure distribution $`P_\mathrm{e}=n_\mathrm{e}kT`$

$$P_\mathrm{e}(r)=\left[\frac{2G\mu m_\mathrm{p}}{5}_r^{\mathrm{}}\frac{M_{\mathrm{DM}}(r)}{S^{3/5}(r)r^2}𝑑r\right]^{5/2},$$
(20)
where we have adopted the boundary condition $`P_\mathrm{e}(\mathrm{})=0`$. Note that this restriction should not be taken too literally because the equation of hydrostatic equilibrium may break down beyond $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$.

### 3.5 Radiative cooling plus heating

We first work with the IGM temperature and entropy distributions, $`T_{\mathrm{cool}}(r)`$ and $`S_{\mathrm{cool}}(r)`$, predicted by cooling (Model II), and then raise either the specific energy of each particle by a constant amount of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ (Model IV) or the entropy by a constant floor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ (Model V) so that the new temperature (Model VI) and entropy profiles (Model VII) become

$$T(r)=\mathrm{\Delta }T+T_{\mathrm{cool}}(r),$$
(21)
and

$$S(r)=\mathrm{\Delta }S+S_{\mathrm{cool}}(r),$$
(22)
respectively. In a way similar to Models IV and V, we can find the new density profile of the IGM for our combined model of radiative cooling plus heating. Note that our heating model differs from the conventional preheating model. For the latter, the IGM is heated before cooling, while in our model we address the issue of how large an extra energy budget should still be added to the IGM after the cooled gas is removed from groups and clusters.

The parameters of the seven IGM models are summarized in Table 1.

## 4 Results

Our strategy is as follows: For each model listed in Table 1, we first compute the expected entropy and X-ray luminosity distributions of groups and clusters, and then compare with X-ray measurements, which constitutes a fundamental test for each of the proposed models. For the heating models (Model IV and Model V) and cooling plus heating models (Model VI and Model VII), this allows us to work out the most probable energy budget $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ with which the observed entropy and X-ray luminosity distributions of groups and clusters can be simultaneously accounted for. We then compute the XRB predicted by these models, and examine whether their predictions are compatible with current observational limits.

### 4.1 Entropy distribution

The entropy at $`0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ against the emission weighted temperature $`T`$ predicted by all the models is shown in Figure 1, together with the updated measurements of $`S(0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}})`$ by Ponman et al. (1999), Lloyd-Davies et al. (2000) and Xu, Jin & Wu (2001). Essentially, all models except self-similar model can roughly reproduce the overall $`S(0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}})`$-$`T`$ distributions. In the preheating model (Fig.1b and Fig.1c) and the combined model (Fig.1d) we have tested a set of energy input values $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, in attempt to estimate the most probable parameters which give the closest fits of both the $`S`$-$`T`$ distribution and the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation (see below). In several cases we have also shown the curves for two sets of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ around the best-fit values in order to demonstrate how sensitively the results depend on the input energy/entropy. While there are some differences in the predicted $`S`$-$`T`$ relation among various IGM models and for different input $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ values especially below temperature $`T1`$ keV, a decisive conclusion regarding which model provides the most satisfactory explanation of the entropy data cannot be drawn, because of sparse data points and associated large uncertainties. It is emphasized that the entropy profile expected from radiative cooling alone (Fig.1a) is consistent with observed data (Voit & Bryan 2001b), although with an additional energy supply by preheating model the predicted entropy distribution seems to yield a better fit to the data points for low-temperature systems of $`T<1`$ keV (Fig.1d).

### 4.2 $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation

We now compare the bolometric X-ray luminosity - temperature relations of groups and clusters predicted by different IGM models with X-ray observations. For the latter we use the catalog of X-ray groups and clusters compiled by Wu et al. (1999) and Xue & Wu (2000). The updated sample contains 57 groups and 192 clusters whose X-ray temperature and luminosity are both available. We have converted the X-ray luminosity in the Einstein-de Sitter universe into the one in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmological model.

The $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relations predicted by cooling models II and III are shown in Figure 2. While there is a good agreement between the predicted and observed $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relations on cluster scale $`T>4`$ keV, cooling models become to be insufficient to recover the observed data at temperature below $`4`$ keV. One possible reason for this discrepancy may arise purely from selection effect: The theoretically predicted X-ray luminosity accounts for all emission inside virial radii of groups, while current X-ray observations have not corrected for lost flux falling out the detection aperture for majority of groups with $`\beta `$ parameters less than $`1/2`$ (e.g. Ponman et al. 1996; Helsdon & Ponman 2000). For this reason, following Wu & Xue (2002a) and Voit et al. (2002) we re-calculate the X-ray luminosity for Model II by excluding the contributions of the IGM in the outer regions of groups and clusters set by a given X-ray surface brightness limit $`S_{\mathrm{limit}}`$. The expected X-ray luminosity of clusters is almost unaffected by this truncation. However, the X-ray luminosity of groups suffers seriously from this selection effect, and the resulting $`L_\mathrm{X}`$ drops remarkably at low-temperature end. This may partially eliminate our concern about the efficiency of cooling in the explanation of $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation. Moreover, the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relations of groups and clusters with and without the inclusion of the cosmic variation of metallicity (II and III) show little evolution at least out to $`z=1`$.

Figure 3 illustrates the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relations predicted by preheating model (IV and V). Adding an extra energy of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T=0.25`$ keV to each particle in groups and clusters roughly reproduces the observed $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation. Note, however, that there is a small but significant vertical shift between our predicted and observed data in the temperature range $`2<T<8`$ keV (Fig.3a). We have then tried a larger value of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T=0.3`$ keV, which indeed reduces somewhat the difference. A further increase of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ leads the entropy curve in Fig.1b to rise too high to be consistent with observations. When $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ exceeds the virial temperature of a given group, we assume that the IGM cannot be trapped in the system. This is responsible for the cutoff of our $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation at low temperature end. For Model V, in which we have raised the entropy by a constant floor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=120`$ keV cm2, the predicted $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation of clusters matches perfectly the observed one. For low-temperature groups, the agreement becomes only marginal. Increasing slightly the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ improves the match. But, it meanwhile raises the entropy distribution (Fig.1c). We have tried a value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=200`$ keV cm2, and found that the entropy at low-temperature becomes too large to be reconciled with the observed data. In a word, it turns out that Model V is marginally acceptable. Alternatively, our numerical computations show that there is no apparent cosmic evolution of the predicted $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relations for both Model IV and Model V, regardless of whether or not the metallicity varies with cosmic time in terms of $`0.3Z_{}(t/t_0)`$.

Because either cooling or preheating alone can reproduce or marginally reproduce the observed $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ and $`S(0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}})`$-$`T`$ relations, it is naturally expected that a combination of the two mechanisms should be successful in the explanation of the two relationships. Indeed, within the framework of radiative cooling, an additional energy input of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T=0.1`$ keV in Model IV and an entropy input of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=50`$ keV cm2 in Model IIV both result in the X-ray luminosity and entropy distributions which agree nicely with X-ray observations (see Figure 4). We have also considered the situation of a constant metallicity of $`0.3Z_{}`$ and at high redshifts out to $`z=1`$, and found that the corresponding modifications are only minor.

### 4.3 XRB

A considerably large fraction of soft and hard XRB has been resolved into discrete sources (e.g. McHardy et al. 1998; Hasinger et al. 1998, 2001; Mushotzky et al. 2000; Giacconi et al. 2001, 2002; Tozzi et al. 2001; Hornschemeier et al. 2001; Rosati et al. 2002; Bauer et al. 2002; etc.). The maximum admitted ranges of the unresolved flux at different energy bands have been summarized in Wu & Xue (2001). Here we only add a new upper limit in the 2-8 keV band from the 1 Ms Chandra observation of the Chandra Deep Field North (Cowie et al. 2002): $`0.5\times 10^{11}`$ ergs s-1 cm-2 deg-2. It should be kept in mind that the diffuse X-ray emission from some of the nearby, bright galaxies, groups and clusters has also been included in the current resolved soft XRB, although the fractions of these diffuse X-ray sources in the resolved and unresolved XRB are still uncertain. In this regard, the residual soft XRB after the removal of the discrete sources may not be taken to be a very stringent upper limit on the contributions of groups and clusters.

The expected XRB spectra from different IGM models in terms of Equation (11) are shown and compared with the observational upper limits in Figure 5. Meanwhile, we also demonstrate the XRB by summing up the contributions of groups and clusters described by their X-ray luminosity functions (Wu & Xue 2001). The good agreement between the XRB produced by the ‘known’ population of groups and clusters and the current limits indicates that the diffuse IGM confined in groups and clusters is probably the major source of the unresolved soft XRB. This may help to eliminate the above concern that some of the bright groups and clusters have been resolved and thus removed from the residual XRB, and the unresolved XRB may not constitute a robust constraint on the diffuse IGM of groups and clusters. Actually, nearby bright and massive clusters (e.g. $`z<0.2`$ and $`M>5\times 10^{14}M_{}`$) only make a minor contribution to the total soft XRB (Wu & Xue 2001; see also Figure 5).

It turns out from Figure 5 that the soft XRB predicted by the self-similar model (Model I) vastly exceeds the observational limits (Pen 1999; Wu et al. 2001). The huge difference of up to two orders of magnitude at $`E0.1`$ keV implies that the IGM should have a much shallower distribution than dark matter especially in low-mass systems. Preheating was thus advocated as a potentially important mechanism to break the similarity between dark matter and IGM.

We first begin with the radiative cooling scenario. The predicted XRB remains almost unchanged if a constant metallicity of $`0.3Z_{}`$ (Model III) is replaced by a time-varying quantity of $`0.3Z_{}(t/t_0)`$ (Model II). Actually, our numerical computations show that this conclusion applies to all the models in Table 1. In the hard energy band $`E>2`$ keV, the XRB produced by groups and clusters within the framework of cooling is well below the observational limits. By contrast, in the soft energy band $`E0.1`$-$`2`$ keV the cooling results are about 2–4 times larger than the current upper limits placed on contribution from diffuse IGM to the XRB. This is consistent with previous findings by Wu et al. (2001) based on N-body simulations of halo merger trees coupled with semi-analytic models. We have also studied the contributions of different halos to the total XRB, and found that most of the soft XRB is produced by groups of mass $`M10^{14}`$ $`M_{}`$. Note that very low-mass halos make almost no contribution to the XRB because they contain very little hot IGM due to their too short cooling time (see Fig.5a). It appears that although cooling provides a more or less reasonable explanation of the X-ray luminosity and entropy distributions, it is insufficient (by a factor of 2–4) to account for the unresolved soft XRB.

We now turn to preheating model. For Model IV, in which the specific energy of each particle in groups and clusters is raised by a constant amount of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T=0.25`$ keV, we have successfully recovered the observed $`S(0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}})`$-$`T`$ relation (see Fig.1b) and roughly reproduced the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation (see Fig.3). Our expected XRB from this model is shown in Fig.5b. Unfortunately, we reach a result very similar to the cooling prediction discussed above: Model IV fails to efficiently suppress the X-ray emission of groups and clusters to a level below the unresolved XRB, and the difference in the soft energy band $`E=0.1`$-$`2`$ keV is approximately by a factor of 2–4.

For another preheating model V, in which we have raised the entropy of IGM by a constant floor $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$ instead of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ for Model IV, we present the XRB in Figure 5c for two choices of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S`$, 120 and 200 keV cm2, respectively. The former nicely reproduces the entropy distribution but only marginally explains the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation, while the latter turns to be successful in the recovery of the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation but results in an overestimate of the entropy distribution. Now, in terms of their predicted XRB spectra alone, the model with $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=200`$ keV cm2 becomes acceptable, while the entropy level of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=120`$ keV cm2 is not sufficiently large to reduce the XRB to the observational limits. This is roughly consistent with simulation results that an entropy floor of $`100200`$ keV cm2 is needed to suppress the expected unresolved X-ray background below the observational limits (Voit & Bryan 2001a).

Finally, we come to the cooling plus heating model. Adding an energy budget of $`k\mathrm{\Delta }T=0.1`$ keV to each particle in addition to radiative cooling (Model VI) has allowed us to reproduce remarkably well the entropy and X-ray luminosity distributions of groups and clusters, as are shown in Fig.1d and Fig.4. The XRB predicted from this model is consistent with the observational constraints above $`T1`$ keV (see Fig.5d). Nonetheless, the theoretical prediction becomes to be larger than the observational limits by a factor of 2–3 in the energy range from 0.1 to 1 keV. Because of the apparent success of Model VI in the explanation of the X-ray properties of groups and clusters, it deserves further investigation of whether this disagreement arises from other effects. First, we exclude the contribution of nearby ($`z<0.2`$) and massive ($`M5\times 10^{14}M_{}`$) clusters to the XRB, in the sense that these bright, diffuse X-ray sources may have been resolved by current deep X-ray observations. This leads to a moderate decrease of the expected XRB in high energy band but has only a minor effect on the soft XRB. Second, we attempt to include the absorption of X-ray emission by the neutral hydrogen in groups and clusters as a consequence of radiative cooling. To this end, we assume a simple King model for the density distribution of the cooled material, in which we take the core size to be $`r_\mathrm{c}=0.1r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$. Moreover, we normalize this density profile using the total mass of the cooled IGM given by cooling scenario, Equation (14). The total X-ray luminosity at frequency $`\nu `$ with self-absorption for a given halo reads

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dL_\mathrm{X}}{dh_\mathrm{p}\nu }}`$ $`=`$ $`1.15\times 10^{56}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{keV}\mathrm{s}^1}{\mathrm{keV}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_{\mathrm{vir}}}{\mathrm{Mpc}}}\right)^3{\displaystyle _0^\pi }\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta `$ (23)
$`{\displaystyle _0^c}e^{\sigma N_i}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_\mathrm{H}}{n_\mathrm{e}}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{d\mathrm{\Lambda }/dh_\mathrm{p}\nu }{10^{23}\mathrm{ergs}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{keV}^1}}\right)`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_\mathrm{e}}{10^2\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^2x^2dx,`$
where $`\sigma `$ is the effective absorption cross-section, $`N_i`$ is the hydrogen column density, and

$`\sigma N_i`$ $`=`$ $`0.31\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sigma (h_\mathrm{p}\nu )}{10^{22}\mathrm{cm}^2}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_{\mathrm{H0}}}{10^3\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{r_\mathrm{c}^3}{r_\mathrm{c}^2+r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}\right)`$ (24)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{r\mathrm{cos}\theta }{\sqrt{r^2+r_\mathrm{c}^2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{r_{\mathrm{vir}}^2r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta }}{\sqrt{r_{\mathrm{vir}}^2+r_\mathrm{c}^2}}}\right),`$
in which $`n_{\mathrm{H0}}`$ is the central number density of neutral hydrogen, $`r`$ and $`r_\mathrm{c}`$ are in units of Mpc. We adopt the fitting formula of Morrison & McCammon (1983) to calculate $`\sigma `$. The XRB with the correction for hydrogen absorption is shown in Figure 5d. It appears that the inclusion of self-absorption results in a significant decrease of the XRB below $`E0.2`$ keV, while the rest XRB at $`E>0.2`$ keV remains almost unchanged.

As for Model VII, the fact that the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation at the low temperature slightly exceeds the observed data (see Fig.3), despite the excellent agreement between the model-predicted entropy distribution for $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=50`$$`100`$ keV cm2 and the observations, indicates that the expected XRB at soft energy band will exhibit an excess relative to the observational limits. Indeed, although raising the extra entropy floor to $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=100`$ keV cm2 leads to a decrease of the expected XRB relative to the cooling model prediction, in the low energy range $`E<1`$ keV the prediction by model VII and observation limits still differ by a factor of $`2`$.

We notice, however, that the XRB spectra predicted by cooling, preheating and cooling plus heating models actually have similar shape except that they are displaced upward in amplitude by a factor of 2–5 as compared with the unresolved soft XRB. This may suggest a common origin of the discrepancies if they are not due to our incomplete knowledge of gas physics in groups and clusters. We thus recalculate the XRB for all the models adopting a lower value of the normalization of the mass function of clusters and groups $`\sigma _8=0.7`$, instead of $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, (e.g. Seljak 2001; Schuecker et al. 2002; etc.). The corresponding XRB spectra are illustrated in Figure 6. It appears that cooling model is still insufficient to bring the expected XRB to the observational limits in the soft energy band below $`E<1`$ keV. However, both preheating (especially Model V) and cooling plus heating models now yield the XRB spectra which agree nicely with the unresolved XRB. Perhaps, this indicates that the diffuse XRB could also be used as an independent constraint on the normalization of group and cluster abundance.

## 5 Conclusions

We have explored a set of simple analytic models for the distribution and evolution of the IGM in groups and clusters, aiming at highlighting the dominant physical process for the hot IGM, which may complement our understanding of the essential physics in addition to employment of hydrodynamical simulations. In particular, we have addressed the question of whether the prevailing scenarios, namely, radiative cooling, preheating and a combination of cooling and heating, can explain both the global observed X-ray properties (entropy distribution and $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation) of groups and clusters and the observational limits on the contribution of the diffuse IGM in virialized halos to the XRB within the framework of standard CDM structure formation with an amplitude of matter power spectrum $`\sigma _8=0.9`$. Our main conclusions are summarized as follows:

Without radiative cooling and extra heating in addition to gravitational shocks and adiabatic compression, the IGM appears to be too concentrated in halos to explain all the X-ray observations, especially in low-mass systems.

Inclusion of radiative cooling may allow one to marginally reproduce the entropy floor seen in the central regions of groups and clusters (Voit & Bryan 2001b). However, it is still insufficient to account for the steepening of the $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation on group scale, if X-ray surface-brightness bias is not included, and the observational upper limits on the diffuse XRB. For the latter, the difference is by a factor of $`2`$$`5`$, consistent with the previous findings of Wu et al. (2001). Although cooling is certainly an important process in the formation and evolution of galaxies, groups and clusters, and also for the explanation of the entropy floors shown in Fig.1, and even responsible for the scale-dependence of the IGM mass fraction (Wu & Xue 2002b), energy feedback from galaxy formation should be included in order to resolve the inefficiency problem and the cooling crisis (Balogh et al. 2001).

A phenomenological treatment of preheating, regardless of whatever the heating sources and mechanisms would be, may allow us to both reproduce the X-ray luminosity distribution of groups and clusters and explain the observational limits on the XRB from IGM, provided that the level of entropy floor can be raised to as large as 200 keV cm2 at present epoch. Apparently, the entropy profile in this case exceeds the measurements (Fig.1c). When we fix the value of input entropy floor to $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=120`$ keV cm2, which gives a nice fit to the observed central entropy distribution of groups and clusters, our predicted $`L_\mathrm{X}`$-$`T`$ relation and XRB both show an excess at low-temperature/energy range. In a word, a naive preheating model may meet difficulty in the recovery of all the observational phenomena.

Our cooling model with extra heating also fails when the predicted soft XRB is compared with the observational limits. It has been shown that the inclusion of self-absorption by the cold gas in groups and clusters and the exclusion of the contribution of nearby, massive clusters to the XRB do not alter the conclusion significantly. Of course, our cooling plus heating scenario differs from the commonly used preheating plus cooling model in which the IGM was preheated before radiative cooling comes into effect.

Despite of their oversimplification, our analyses as a whole suggest that none of the present models can simultaneously account for the observed X-ray properties of groups and clusters and the residual soft XRB. Actually, the latter constitutes a very stringent constraint on the content and physical processes of the IGM in groups and clusters. Recall that the current observational limits even do not account for the fact that a large fraction of the unresolved soft XRB ($`10\%`$ of the total XRB) which we have adopted in this paper may still arise from the X-ray emission of discrete sources (e.g. faint galaxies). More sophisticated models in combination with hydrodynamical simulations will thus be needed to further address the issue.

Finally, the theoretically predicted XRB depends sensitively on the normalization of group and cluster abundance. If a lower value of $`\sigma _8=0.7`$ is adopted instead of $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, it has been shown that the expected XRB spectra from preheating model and cooling plus heating model agree nicely with current observational limits. In other words, the observational constraints on the unresolved diffuse XRB lends support to a lower amplitude of matter power spectrum $`\sigma _80.7`$ (e.g. Seljak 2001; Schuecker et al. 2002). Indeed, the discrepancy between theoretical predictions (at least for preheating model and cooling plus heating model) and X-ray observations, if it is not a result of the oversimplification of our analytic models, may have simply arisen from the too high normalization of the present matter power spectrum.

We thank an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, under Grant No. NKBRSF G19990754.


text:
# References

$`pp`$ Elastic Scattering at LHC and Nucleon Structure

M. M. Islama,111E-mail: islam@phys.uconn.edu, R. J. Luddya,222E-mail: rjluddy@attbi.com and A. V. Prokudinb,c,333E-mail: prokudin@to.infn.it
(a) Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA  (b) Dipartimento di Fisica Teorica, Università Degli Studi Di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, ITALY and Sezione INFN di Torino, ITALY (c) Institute For High Energy Physics, 142281 Protvino, RUSSIA

Abstract

High energy elastic $`pp`$ scattering at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at c.m. energy 14 TeV is predicted using the asymptotic behavior of $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ and $`\rho (s)`$ known from dispersion relation calculations and the measured elastic $`\overline{p}p`$ differential cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=546\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}`$. The effective field theory model underlying the phenomenological analysis describes the nucleon as having an outer cloud of quark-antiquark condensed ground state, an inner core of topological baryonic charge of radius $`0.44F`$ and a still smaller valence quark-bag of radius $`0.1\mathrm{F}`$. The LHC experiment TOTEM (Total and Elastic Measurement), if carried out with sufficient precision from $`|t|=0`$ to $`|t|>10\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, will be able to test this structure of the nucleon.

High-energy elastic $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ scattering have been measured at CERN ISR  and SPS Collider  and at Fermilab ,  over the energy range $`\sqrt{s}=23.5\mathrm{GeV}`$ to $`1.8\mathrm{TeV}`$. These measurements provide a broad perspective of the energy dependence of elastic differential cross sections and of the asymptotic behavior of total cross section $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ and of the ratio of real to imaginary part of the forward amplitude $`\rho (s)`$. They have led to various phenomenological models of elastic scattering, such as (1) impact-picture model , (2) Regge pole-cut models ,, (3) QCD motivated eikonal model , (4) cloud-core model . Theoretical investigation of the last model has shown that – an effective field theory model with quarks interacting via a scalar field underlies it . Soft diffractive processes mediated by Pomerons including high-mass diffractive dissciation have also been proposed to describe elastic scattering at LHC for small $`|t|0.5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ .

Study of the field theory model further indicates that the nucleon has an outer cloud of quark-antiquark condensed ground state analogous to a superconducting state, an inner core of topological baryonic charge and a still smaller quark-bag of valence quarks. The elastic scattering experiment TOTEM at LHC , if carried out with sufficient precision, will be able to identify these three regions inside the nucleon by their characteristic behaviors reflected in the elastic differential cross section. The present investigation reports our quantitative prediction of $`d\sigma /dt`$ at LHC at $`\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$. Preliminary calculation of this differential cross section was reported earlier . We show how the behavior of $`d\sigma /dt`$ in different ranges of $`|t|`$ relates with the three regions inside the nucleon. The parameters in our model are determined such that the high-energy asymptotic behavior of $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ and $`\rho (s)`$ based on dispersion relation  and the measured elastic $`\overline{p}p`$ differential cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=546\mathrm{GeV}`$  are satisfactorily described. General asymptotic requirements of the diffraction amplitude are shown to be satisfied by our phenomenological diffraction amplitude. We also present our predicted $`pp`$ elastic differential cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=500\mathrm{GeV}`$ – measurement of which is planned at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider .

We describe the crossing even ($`C`$-even) diffraction amplitude using the impact parameter representation

$$T_D^+(s,t)=ipW_0^{\mathrm{}}b𝑑bJ_0(bq)\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,b)$$
(1)
with a profile function

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,b)=g(s)\left[\frac{1}{1+exp[(bR)/a]}+\frac{1}{1+exp[(b+R)/a]}1\right],$$
(2)
where $`W=\sqrt{s}`$, $`q=\sqrt{|t|}`$, $`R`$ and $`a`$ are energy dependent:$`RR(s)=R_0+R_1(\mathrm{ln}si\pi /2)`$, $`aa(s)=a_0+a_1(\mathrm{ln}si\pi /2)`$. $`g(s)`$ is a crossing even function: $`g^{}(se^{i\pi })=g(s)`$ which asymptotically goes to a real positive constant. Besides the diffraction amplitude, the model has a hard scattering amplitude originating from one nucleon core scattering off the other core via vector meson $`\omega `$ exchange, while their outer clouds overlap and interact independently. The hard scattering amplitude is given by an amplitude $`T_1(s,t)`$ due to a single hard collision multiplied by an absorption factor $`[1\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{\overline{p}p}(s,0)]`$ or $`[1\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{pp}(s,0)]`$. In the absorption factor, the possibility of a $`C`$-odd contribution at zero impact parameter is taken into account, so that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{\overline{p}p}(s,0)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,0)+\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{}(s,0)`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{pp}(s,0)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,0)\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{}(s,0)`$.

The diffraction amplitude obtained from Eqs.(1) and (2) satisfies the general properties associated with the phenomenon of diffraction:

1. It leads to $`\sigma _{tot}(s)(a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}s)^2`$, i.e. qualitative saturation of Froissart-Martin bound.
2. It yields $`\rho (s)\pi a_1/(a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}s)`$ asymptotically, so that the derivative dispersion relation result  $`\rho (s)=\pi /\mathrm{ln}s`$ is satisfied.
3. It obeys the Auberson-Kinoshita-Martin scaling, i.e. $`T_D^+(s,t)is\mathrm{ln}^2sf(|t|\mathrm{ln}^2s)`$ asymptotically.
4. It is $`C`$-even, and therefore yields equal $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ total and differential cross sections.

The asymptotic properties 1-3 of the diffraction amplitude $`T_D^+(s,t)`$ can be seen in the following way: We express the profile function $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,b)`$ in the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,b)=g(s)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}R/a}{\mathrm{cosh}R/a+\mathrm{cosh}b/a}.$$
(3)
Then we change the variable of integration from $`b`$ to $`\zeta =b/a`$ and rotate the line of integration a little to the real axis. This leads to

$$T_D^+(s,t)=ipWg(s)a^2_0^{\mathrm{}}\zeta 𝑑\zeta J_0(\zeta qa)\frac{\mathrm{sinh}R/a}{\mathrm{cosh}R/a+\mathrm{cosh}\zeta }.$$
(4)
We observe that, when $`a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}s\mathrm{}`$,

$$\frac{R_0+R_1(\mathrm{ln}si\pi /2)}{a_0+a_1(\mathrm{ln}si\pi /2)}=\frac{R_0ra_0}{a_0+a_1(\mathrm{ln}si\pi /2)}+rr,$$
(5)
where $`rR_1/a_1`$ is a real quantity. Using this in the integrand in (4), we obtain the first three properties. The fourth one follows from the $`C`$-even form (2) of the profile function. We note that the $`\mathrm{ln}s`$ dependence in the diffraction amplitude always occurs in the combination $`(a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}s)`$, which is independent of the scale of $`s`$.

For $`|t|0`$, $`T_D^+(s,t)`$ is given by the crossing symmetric form

$$T_D^+(s,t)isg(s)a\frac{1}{2}\{\pi i(R+i\pi a)H_0^{(1)}[q(R+i\pi a)]+\pi i(Ri\pi a)H_0^{(2)}[q(Ri\pi a)]\}.$$
(6)
When $`q|R\pm i\pi a|1`$, the Hankel functions fall off exponentially, which leads to $`|T_D^+(s,t)|/sexp[q\pi (a_0+a_1\mathrm{ln}s)]`$ as $`s\mathrm{}`$. Since $`d\sigma /dt=4\pi |T(s,t)/s|^2`$, we find that for $`q`$ fixed and $`s\mathrm{}`$, the differential cross section due to diffraction vanishes. On the other hand, the total cross section due to diffraction tends to infinity as $`\mathrm{ln}^2s`$. Hence, Martin’s theorem  predicts a zero of $`\mathrm{Re}T_D^+(s,t)`$ in the near forward direction. Indeed, in our calculations we find such zeros indicating further the asymptotic nature of our diffraction amplitude.

To extend our previous calculations to the LHC energy, we needed a way to determine the $`s`$ dependence of $`g(s)`$. Accurate model independent analysis by Kundrat and Lokajicek  has shown that inelasticity due to diffraction at $`b=0`$, i.e. $`|exp[i\chi _D^+(s,0)]|`$ is small but finite at high energy and decreases slowly with increasing $`s`$. This has led us to consider the following simple crossing even parameterization:

$$e^{i\chi _D^+(s,0)}=\eta _0+\frac{c_0}{(se^{i\pi /2})^\sigma }.$$
(7)
As $`g(s)`$ is related to $`exp[i\chi _D^+(s,0)]=1\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^+(s,0)`$ via Eq.(3), the three energy independent parameters in (7) together with other diffraction parameters allow us to obtain $`g(s)`$ at different values of $`s`$. To take into account the energy dependence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{}(s,0)`$, we have assumed a similar parameterization:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{}(s,0)=i\lambda _0i\frac{d_0}{(se^{i\pi /2})^\alpha },$$
(8)
which of course has the required crossing odd property. Finally, for the energy dependence of the term $`\widehat{\gamma }(s)exp[i\widehat{\theta }(s)]=\stackrel{~}{\gamma }exp[i\widehat{\chi }(s,0)]`$, we have taken the parameterization:

$$\widehat{\gamma }(s)exp[i\widehat{\theta }(s)]=\widehat{\gamma }_0+\frac{\widehat{\gamma }_1}{(se^{i\pi /2})^{\widehat{\sigma }}}.$$
(9)
We note an odderon contribution (an asymptotic crossing-odd amplitude) in our analysis:

$$\pm \eta _0s\widehat{\gamma }_0\frac{F^2(t)}{m^2t}(+\mathrm{sign}\mathrm{for}\overline{\mathrm{p}}\mathrm{p},\mathrm{sign}\mathrm{for}\mathrm{pp}),$$
(10)
where $`F(t)`$ is the $`\omega NN`$ form factor. As in the previous work , we take

$$F^2(t)=\beta (m^2t)^{1/2}K_1[\beta (m^2t)^{1/2}].$$
(11)
This corresponds to a smoothed Yukawa potential $`e^{m(r^2+\beta ^2)^{1/2}}/(r^2+\beta ^2)^{1/2}`$ between nucleons due to $`\omega `$ exchange and leads to an exponential fall-off ( Orear fall-off ) of the differential cross section: $`d\sigma /dtexp(2\beta \sqrt{|t|})`$, when hard scattering dominates.

There are now thirteen energy-independent parameters in our model: $`R_0`$, $`R_1`$, $`a_0`$, $`a_1`$, $`\eta _0`$, $`c_0`$, $`\sigma `$, $`\lambda _0`$, $`d_0`$, $`\alpha `$, $`\widehat{\gamma }_0`$, $`\widehat{\gamma }_1`$, $`\widehat{\sigma }`$. As mentioned earlier, we determine these parameters by requiring that they satisfactorily describe the high energy asymptotic behavior of $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ and $`\rho (s)`$ given by dispersion relation calculations  and the experimental $`\overline{p}p`$ elastic differential cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=546\mathrm{GeV}`$ . The values of the parameters obtained by us are: $`R_0=2.50`$, $`R_1=0.0385`$, $`a_0=0.57`$, $`a_1=0.106`$, $`\eta _0=0.02`$, $`c_0=1.40`$, $`\sigma =0.50`$, $`\lambda _0=0.375`$, $`d_0=13.0`$, $`\alpha =0.38`$, $`\widehat{\gamma }_0=2.81`$, $`\widehat{\gamma }_1=400.0`$, $`\widehat{\sigma }=1.30`$. (Our unit of energy is $`1`$ GeV.) $`\beta `$ and $`m`$ are not free parameters in our present analysis. They are kept fixed at values found previously: $`\beta =3.075`$, $`m=0.801`$, which correspond to a radius $`0.44\mathrm{F}`$ for the nucleon repulsive core.

In Fig.1, our calculated $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ is shown as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$ (solid curve). We find $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ for $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ essentially overlap. The dotted lines represent the region of uncertainty for $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ obtained by Augier et al.  from dispersion relation calculations . In Fig.2, we show our calculated $`\rho (s)`$ as a function of $`\sqrt{s}`$ (solid curve: $`\overline{p}p`$ , dashed curve: $`pp`$ ). As in Fig.1, the dotted lines represent the region of uncertainty for $`\rho (s)`$ obtained by Augier et al. . Experimental data are shown for comparison with the theoretical calculations. In Fig.3, we show our calculated $`d\sigma /dt`$ for $`\overline{p}p`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=546\mathrm{GeV}`$ (solid curve) together with the experimental data of Bozzo et al. . Also shown are $`d\sigma /dt`$ due to diffraction alone (dotted curve) and due to hard scattering alone (dot-dashed curve). As in earlier calculations, there is destructive interference between diffraction amplitude and the hard scattering amplitude resulting in a dip at $`|t|1.0\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. The thick-dashed curve in Fig.3 shows our predicted $`d\sigma /dt`$ for $`pp`$ elastic scattering at $`\sqrt{s}=500\mathrm{GeV}`$, which will be measured at RHIC in the small $`|t|`$ region .

With the parameters determined from $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ (Fig.1), $`\rho (s)`$ (Fig.2), and $`d\sigma /dt`$ at 546 GeV (Fig.3), we have asked ourselves: What are our predictions for $`d\sigma /dt`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV and $`\sqrt{s}=630`$ GeV, and how do they compare with the existing experimental measurements? The results are shown in Figs.4 and 5. As can be seen, our description of the differential cross section at 1.8 TeV is quite satisfactory. As for the differential cross section at 630 GeV, we notice that the predicted $`d\sigma /dt`$ for $`|t|>1\mathrm{G}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}^2`$ is higher than the large $`|t|`$ data . This reflects the fact that non-asymptotic terms are present in our analysis and contribute non-negligibly to $`d\sigma /dt`$ for large $`|t|`$. This is also seen in Fig.3 for $`\overline{p}p`$ differential cross section at 546 GeV. Our model describes the asymptotic behavior and the approach to the asymptotic behavior of the elastic scattering amplitude. But, it cannot exclude the possibility of non-asymptotic terms contributing at some finite high energy such as 630 GeV and 546 GeV. The fact that our hard scattering contribution alone accounts for the large $`|t|`$ differential cross section at 630 GeV and 546 GeV supports the point that the core-core scattering is showing up. Furthermore, it is because of the possibility of non-asymptotic terms being present that we determine our parameters not by $`\chi ^2`$ analysis, but by requiring that they describe well $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ , $`\rho (s)`$ and $`d\sigma /dt`$ at 546 GeV. Finally, as far as odderon contribution to $`d\sigma /dt`$ is concerned, we find it quite small and only noticeable in the dip region.

In Fig.6, we show our predicted $`pp`$ elastic differential cross section at the LHC c.m. energy 14 TeV (solid curve). Also shown for comparison are $`d\sigma /dt`$ predicted by the impact picture model at $`\sqrt{s}=14\mathrm{TeV}`$ (dashed curve) and $`d\sigma /dt`$ predicted by the Regge pole-cut model at $`\sqrt{s}=16\mathrm{TeV}`$ (dot-dashed curve) ,,. We find that the real part of the diffraction amplitude has a zero at $`|t|=0.087\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ as expected from Martin’s theorem . The dotted line in Fig.6 represents schematically the expected change in our model in the behavior of $`d\sigma /dt`$ from Orear fall-off: $`d\sigma /dte^{a\sqrt{|t|}}`$ to a power fall-off: $`d\sigma /dt1/t^{10}`$ due to quark-quark scattering ,. It corresponds to a transition from the nonperturbative regime to the perturbative regime and should appear as a distinct change in the slope of $`d\sigma /dt`$ at large $`|t|8\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ . We further note that in our model $`d\sigma /dt`$ falls off smoothly for $`|t|1.5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. On the other hand, impact-picture model and Regge pole-cut model predict in this $`|t|`$ region oscillatory behavior typical of diffraction models .

In conclusion, we have been able to extend previous $`\overline{p}p`$, $`pp`$ elastic $`d\sigma /dt`$ calculations at ISR and SPS Collider energies  to the high energy asymptotic region. This has been possible by parameterizing the energy-dependent parameters suitably consistent with their crossing properties and by requiring that the model describes satisfactorily: (1) the high energy behavior of $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$ and $`\rho (s)`$ as given by dispersion relation calculations, and (2) the experimentally measured elastic $`\overline{p}p`$ differential cross section at $`\sqrt{s}=546\mathrm{GeV}`$. We then obtain a quantitative prediction of $`pp`$ elastic $`d\sigma /dt`$ at LHC at the c.m. energy 14 TeV. Our phenomenological investigation of elastic $`\overline{p}p`$ and $`pp`$ scattering is based on nucleon having an outer cloud of quark-antiquark condensed state, an inner core of topological baryonic charge, and a much smaller quark-bag of radius $`0.1`$ F . Correspondingly, in $`d\sigma /dt`$ we have diffraction scattering dominating the small $`|t|`$ region, hard scattering dominating the intermediate $`|t|`$ region ($`1.5|t|8.0\mathrm{GeV}^2`$) and quark-quark scattering taking over in the large $`|t|`$ region (see Fig.6). The $`|t|`$ dependence of these three regions are very different, so that accurate measurement of $`d\sigma /dt`$ in the TOTEM experiment  will be able to identify these three regions. We also note that the underlying field theory model of the above nucleon structure based on gauged linear $`\sigma `$-model indicates that the transition from the nonperturbative regime of diffraction and hard scattering to the perturbative regime of quark-quark scattering is a chiral phase transition . Therefore, observation of a distinct change in the slope of $`d\sigma /dt`$ at large $`|t|8.0\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ will provide an important signature of this phase transition.

The authors would like to thank Enrico Predazzi for his interest and comments. RJL would like to thank Ben Luddy for his programming assistance. MMI would like to thank Mike Albrow for bringing Fermilab E-811 Collaboration result to his attention.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently there has been much interest in studying events with tagged forward protons at present and forthcoming hadronic colliders, see, for example, . This may not only allow the luminosity of the colliding protons to be monitored with high accuracy , but also can provide new ways to investigate the subtle issues of QCD and to search for the manifestations of the New Physics. As discussed in  the programme with the tagged forward protons is in many aspects complementary to both the standard physics at hadron colliders and to studies at a future linear collider.

The physics potential of high energy proton colliders can be significantly increased by studying exclusive double-diffractive-like processes of the type $`ppp+M+p`$. Here $`M`$ represents a system of invariant mass $`M`$, and the $`+`$ signs denote the presence of rapidity gaps which separate the system $`M`$ from the protons. Such processes allow an exceptionally clean experimental environment to identify New Physics signals (such as the Higgs boson, SUSY particles, etc., see ). In such events we produce a colour-singlet state $`M`$ which is practically free from soft secondary particles. Moreover, if forward going protons are tagged we can reconstruct the ‘missing’ mass $`M`$ with good resolution, and so have an ideal means to search for new resonances and to study threshold behaviour phenomena. We have to pay a price for ensuring such a clean diffractive signal. In particular, the diffractive event rate is suppressed by the small probability, $`\widehat{S}^2`$, that the rapidity gaps survive soft rescattering effects between the interacting hadrons, which can generate secondary particles which populate the gaps, see, for example,  and references therein.

## 2 Exclusive Higgs Production

Double-diffractive Higgs production, $`ppp+H+p`$, at the LHC, is a good example to illustrate the pros and cons of exclusive processes. Let us assume a Higgs boson of mass $`M_H=120\mathrm{GeV}`$ and consider detection in the $`b\overline{b}`$ channel. It is possible to install proton taggers so that the ‘missing mass’ can be measured to an accuracy $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{\mathrm{missing}}1\mathrm{GeV}`$ . Then the exclusive process will allow the mass of the Higgs to be measured in two independent ways. First the tagged protons give $`M_H=M_{\mathrm{missing}}`$ and second, via the $`Hb\overline{b}`$ decay, we have $`M_H=M_{b\overline{b}}`$, although now the resolution is much poorer with $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_{b\overline{b}}10\mathrm{GeV}`$. The existence of matching peaks, centered about $`M_{\mathrm{missing}}=M_{b\overline{b}}`$, is a unique feature of the exclusive diffractive Higgs signal. Besides its obvious value in identifying the Higgs, the mass equality also plays a key role in reducing background contributions. Another advantage of this exclusive process, with $`Hb\overline{b}`$, is that the leading order $`ggb\overline{b}`$ background subprocess is suppressed by a $`J_z=0`$ selection rule . The disadvantage is that, to ensure the survival of the rapidity gaps, the predicted $`Hb\overline{b}`$ cross section is low, $`\sigma 2`$ fb, corresponding to a soft survival factor $`\widehat{S}^2=0.02`$. It is estimated that there is a factor two uncertainty in this prediction .

For an integrated luminosity of 30 fb-1 the number of signal (background) events for this method of Higgs detection at the LHC is expected to be 11 (4). These include a factor 0.6 for the efficiency associated with proton tagging, 0.6 for $`b`$ and $`\overline{b}`$ tagging and 0.5 for the $`b,\overline{b}`$ jet polar angle cut, $`60^{}<\theta <120^{}`$ (necessary to reduce the $`b\overline{b}`$ QCD background) .

There exists a huge spread of predictions of the cross sections for diffractive Higgs production, see, for example, , which can differ from  by orders of magnitude. A critical comparison between these predictions, and an explanation of their differences with our results, is given in .

A way to check experimentally the reliability of the predictions of exclusive production is to measure the much larger cross section for an analogous process: double-diffractive central production of a pair of high-$`E_{}`$ jets . Some of the existing approaches overshoot the current CDF dijet data  by a few orders of magnitude; others are just normalized to the experimental rates in order to account for the survival effects. However, the latter procedure is not unambiguous, since there is no direct way of using the dijet overshoot factors to correct the expectations for Higgs production. The perturbative approach  predicts about 1 nb  for the exclusive central production of dijets with $`E_{}>7\mathrm{GeV}`$, corresponding to the CDF kinematics  to be compared with the observed exclusive dijet bound of less than 3.7 nb. Moreover, in the case of central inelastic production (when secondaries are allowed in some central rapidity interval), our estimates give about 40 nb (with a factor two uncertainty) for the cross section in the CDF kinematical range, while the observed value  is $`43.6\pm 4.4\pm 21.6`$ nb. Bearing in mind that the accuracy of the theoretical predictions for $`E_{}>7\mathrm{GeV}`$ jets at the Tevatron energy is far from perfect, we find this preliminary comparison quite encouraging.

Another valuable check of the calculations of the soft survival factor $`\widehat{S}^2`$ (which originates from the non-perturbative sector) is the description of diffractive dijet production at the Tevatron  in terms of the diffractive structure functions measured at HERA . The remarkably good agreement of these predictions with the CDF measurements is a confirmation that our calculations of $`\widehat{S}^2`$  are trustworthy. Moreover, the new fit to the H1 diffractive data  makes the agreement with the CDF results even better222Another probe of the calculations of $`\widehat{S}^2`$ could come from the experimental studies of the central $`Z`$ production by $`WW`$ fusion, see, for instance, ..

Details of the calculation of exclusive Higgs production are given in Ref. . The main sources of the $`b\overline{b}`$ background are, at leading order, caused by gluon jets being misidentified as a $`b\overline{b}`$ pair, by a $`J_z=2`$ admixture due to non-forward protons and by a $`J_z=0`$ contribution arising from $`m_b0`$. Also there is a background contribution from $`b\overline{b}g`$ events in which the emitted gluon is approximately collinear with a $`b`$ jet. These backgrounds were considered in detail in Ref. , leading to a prediction of the signal-to-background ratio of about 3. Note that in  only the $`ggb\overline{b}g`$ hard subprocess was considered at NLO, and radiation for the spectator, screening gluon was not discussed. However, this latter process is numerically small because of the additional suppression of colour-octet $`b\overline{b}`$ production around $`90^{}`$; rotational invariance around the $`b`$ quark direction causes the cross section to be proportional to $`\mathrm{cos}^2\theta `$ in the $`b\overline{b}`$ c.m. frame.

The cross sections for inclusive and central inelastic diffractive Higgs production are larger than for exclusive production. However, for these non-exclusive processes it is hard to suppress the QCD $`b\overline{b}`$ background and the signal-to-background ratio is small. Second, we cannot improve significantly the accuracy of the measurement of the mass of the Higgs boson by tagging the forward protons and measuring the missing mass.

Recall that, at medium and high luminosity at the LHC, the recorded events will be plagued by overlap interactions in the same bunch crossing. For example, at the medium luminosity of $`10^{33}`$ cm-2s-1, an average of 2.3 inelastic events are expected for each bunch crossing. Hence the rapidity gaps occurring in one interaction may be populated by particles created in an accompanying interaction. It is, however, possible to use detector information to locate the vertices of the individual interactions and, in principle, to identify hard scattering events with rapidity gaps. For the exclusive and central inelastic processes, the use of proton taggers makes it much more reliable to select the rapidity gap events.

## 3 Conclusion

The Physics menu for LHC studies with tagged forward protons looks quite attractive and promising . In particular, the exclusive $`ppp+H+p`$ process has the advantage that the signal exceeds the background. The favourable signal-to-background ratio is offset by a low event rate, caused by the necessity to preserve the rapidity gaps so as to ensure an exclusive signal. Nevertheless, as shown in , the signal for a ‘light’ Higgs has reasonable significance in comparison to the standard $`H\gamma \gamma `$ and $`t\overline{t}H`$ search modes. Moreover, the advantage of the matching Higgs peaks, $`M_{\mathrm{missing}}=M_{b\overline{b}}`$, cannot be overemphasized.

We stress that the predicted value of the exclusive cross section can be checked experimentally. All the ingredients, except for the NLO correction to the $`ggH`$ vertex, are the same for our signal as for exclusive double-diffractive dijet production, $`ppp+\mathrm{dijet}+p`$, where the dijet system is chosen in the same kinematic domain as the Higgs boson, that is $`M(jj)120\mathrm{GeV}`$. Therefore by observing the larger dijet production rate, we can confirm, or correct, the estimate of the exclusive Higgs signal.

## Acknowledgements

We thank Albert De Roeck, Aliosha Kaidalov and Risto Orava for valuable discussions, and the EU, PPARC and the Leverhulme Trust for support.