text:
# Topic maps for custom viewing of data

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Over the last couple of years several VO groups have been making steady progress in defining and prototyping various access and interconnectivity tools. It is clear that not only will the VO be internet-based, but also that it will be very XML-heavy. The most important feature of the VO will be to allow access to desired information in a quick and systematic way. All the metadata - handle to the real data - will populate different XML files. XML is highly structured and very readable. However, it does not offer itself to searches trivially. A Topic Map (TM) - an XML file itself - can form a layer of hyperlinks over an information resource and serve as the GPS in a huge database. With TMs one can define complex knowledge structures and attribute them as metadata to information resources allowing one to systematically organize knowledge on a variety of data subjects such that the retrieval and sharing with other users is easy.

As an analogy from everyday life, a Topic Map is like the index at the back of a book. Like an index, a Topic Map presents an array of subjects, along with links to the occurrences of information, which for a book are page numbers. A book index can have entries in italic (indicating, for example, the presence of an image on page so and so), or in bold (the main explanation), and links to other parts of the index (for ‘Active Galaxies’, see ‘Galaxies, Active’). But Topic Maps also provide different kinds of indexes for different purposes, for different users. A TM links all the topics in a given area, letting users find the information they want more transparently by navigating through the concepts of the subject area, rather than having to know the underlying way in which the information has been organized and stored.

Using Topic Maps to interlink datasets goes one step ahead than existing tools and services for two reasons: (1) users will be able to customize Topic Maps to the level that they desire, and (2) new VO services that are developed elsewhere and by other teams will not only be instantly linkable through Topic Maps, but also the Topic Map indexing and querying mechanisms will allow a seamlessly merged appearance of these services allowing for more semantically coherent knowledge discovery.

In this paper we provide an outline of what Topic Maps are and where the Topic Map technology is heading. We then describe the Uniform Column Descriptors (UCDs) and go on to discuss the Topic Map made from the UCDs. We then describe the Topic Map engine we have implemented to allow users to create their own UCD Topic Maps and merge those with the ones we have constructed. Finally we present sketches for more Topic Maps which can be used as VO tools.

## 2 Topic Maps

Topic Maps started life as a standard for software documentation in 1991 (HyTime Hypertext 1991 conference in San Antonio). However, that was much before the time was ripe for the idea. It was only when XML matured that their potential in information and knowledge organization has been realized. In 1996 Topic Maps became a work item in ISO’s SGML working group resulting in a Topic Map standard published in 1999. This has since then led to different working groups on XTM, TMQL and so on and the progress has been rapid. More history can be found in Pepper(1999).

A Topic Map is a collection of topics linked together by associations between the topics. The topics can occur in different contexts (scopes) and the associations qualify the occurrences. In the map, each node is a named topic. Associations between nodes are expressed by links. A Topic Map thus is a structured network of hyperlinks above an information pool from which the topics are drawn. The named topics can be just about anything thereby allowing a Topic Map to discuss abstract relationships between different topics. Depending on the situation, different terms could be chosen to be regarded as topics. In the following sections we will describe in detail the UCD Topic Map. For a more detailed, general introduction to Topic Maps, please see Mahabal et al.(2001).

The real power of Topic Maps comes from the scoping ability. Scopes can be used to categorize different occurrences of a given topic depending on context. A good way to look at Topic Maps with their scoping ability is the following analogy: When searching for something on the internet search engines, one gets a lot of muck in which the real gems are hidden. If proper keywords are used, and if the search engine does not index everything, the gems float to the top. This is exactly what happens when the scoping mechanism is used for discrimination and for qualifying context. It limits the validity of a topic by categorizing it into one or more themes. Thus scoping allows one to zoom in not only on different topics but also very specific subcategories e.g. a quasar could be scoped to be one with a binary companion, and also one with a redshift exceeding 5. It becomes very useful when, for example, searching for specialized entities like high redshift quasar clusters.

In general, a Topic Map can be looked at in many different ways:

* As a semantic network over an information pool. Though a Topic Map connects (associates) different concepts/subjects (topics) within an information pool, it has an existence distinct from the information pool itself. This network of hyperlinks can be used in its own right as a resource.
* A configurable data interconnections viewer. Besides being a network of hyperlinks, the Topic Map is also capable of rendering itself as a configurable viewer of the data resource it is talking about. This comes about because of the possibility of scoping which allows one to prune the Topic Map for viewing purposes in well defined complex ways.
* Basis for structured querying of XML files. This aspect of Topic Maps can not be overstated. Topic Maps are wonderful for structuring and displaying information. In Sec. 6 we describe Topic Map querying mechanisms.
* A data/knowledge discovery tool. This is the aspect we want to stress here. With the Virtual Observatory wanting to deal with extremely large datasets, we need tools that will help us make sense of the multidimensionality (table-widths) as well as the multi-trillion sizes of individual datasets (table-lengths). And then we would want to combine the datasets meaningfully. What better way than to do that while maintaining the semantic structure? Topic Maps allow for the diverse data to be meaningfully combined.

The mathematical model that can be used for Topic Maps is that of a hypergraph. Topics form the vertices, associations are the edges and occurrences form the incidences. A hypergraph representation consisting of neighborhood of a vertex can be found at Kartoo111http://www.kartoo.com. An alternate representation of a hypergraph, a bipatriate graph, can be seen as part of Mondeca’s topic map software222http://www.mondeca.com. More details can be found in Auillans et al.(2002) and Auillans(2002).

## 3 Unified Column Descriptors

VO is about data: access to data, pipelines for data, processing of data, interoperability and so on. The data itself is the main component and is in the form of images, spectra, catalogs etc. An important component of all these is the metadata. UCDs are a first step in bringing about uniformity in the catalog metadata - the different column names that authors use. ESO and CDS have worked together to form a 4-tier hierarchical set of standardized column names - called Unified Column Descriptors - to categorize all the different column names that are used in astronomical catalogs. There are 35 main categories including Photometry, Positions, Physical Quantities etc. We have made use of the 1400+ UCDs as our Published Subject Indicator (PSI) list in generating a template for the Topic Map we present here. Should the PSI evolve to a different set of names, regenerating the Topic Map to reflect that is straightforward. More details about UCDs can be accessed at the Vizier website333http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/doc/UCD.htx, Ortiz et al. (1999) and elsewhere in these proceedings (Genova et al., 2002). Some examples of UCDs are:

* PHOT\_FLUX\_IR\_12: This UCD is used for columns which represent “Flux density (IRAS) at 12 microns, or around 12 microns (ISO at 14.3)”. This pulls together different names that different astronomers have used for this quantity e.g. C, F12, F12umEst, FLUX12, Fnu\_12 etc. (see Fig. 3).
* POS\_EQ\_RA\_MAIN: This UCD is used to describe the Right Ascension and combines various names used over years and epochs e.g. RA(ICRS), RA1855, RAB1900, RAB1950, RAhms, RAJ2000 etc.

## 4 UCD Topic Map

A UCD Topic Map is constructed from the metadata (column names and units) for a set of tables (catalogs). It does not concern itself with the actual data in the catalog. Their sheer number can be overwhelming and that problem can anyway be tackled outside separately. Instead, the UCD Topic Map revolves around Columns, Column Names and Tables. Thus, the main topics include:

* all 1400+ UCD names,
* the corresponding UCD descriptions,
* the column Names from the Tables used in the Topic Map, and
* the Tables themselves (any set of tables can be used to make a Topic Map).

In addition, there are several other topics owing to the hierarchical nature of the UCDs (e.g. the depth of a UCD in the list), units associated with different columns and any number of external links per Table (e.g. a hyperlink to the actual table somewhere on the internet) or even per Column (e.g. a histogram for the column, or quantiles obtained through external CGI programs). It is these external links that provide a great deal of flexibility to the Topic Map.

In the following few paragraphs we will be switching between descriptive and visual views of different aspects of Topic Maps. We show in Fig. 1 the top view of the Topic Map as seen in Ontopia’s freely available Omnigator444http://www.ontopia.net. The view shows the different subject indexes (explicitly defined topics), relationship indexes (defined associations), role indexes (the roles played by the topics in the associations) and resource indexes (external resources e.g. links to tables). As indicated before, the Topic Map is a network of links allowing one to jump from a general topic (e.g. UCD) to a particular instance of it (e.g. the UCD PHOT\_FLUX\_IR\_12) to the Table in which this UCD occurs (e.g. the catalog of Seyfert Galaxies). The display with UCD as the central topic is captured in Fig. 2 while Fig. 3 shows a view with PHOT\_FLUX\_IR\_12 being the central topic and Fig. 4 shows an HST related table to be the central topic. Each of these views is rich in semantic information.

For the UCD Topic Map we have defined very basic associationships between the different topics. Some examples are:

* UCD occurs in Table,
* UCD has description Column Description,
* Column (of Table) has units Unit,
* Column occurs in Table,
* UCD is parent of UCD.

Similarly, the occurrences in the UCD Topic Map can be grouped into a small number of sets:

* UCDs occur in Tables,
* Columns occur in Tables,
* Units occur in Tables,
* Tables occur as external links in many places.

If one is dealing with a single table, one encounters several columns, each column with its corresponding UCD and a few of the columns having units. There are also several tens of associations and occurrences. Together they form a structure which is graspable without any sophisticated arrangements. The HST related view in Fig. 4 is an example. It is when one goes to tens of catalogs that the complexity increases rapidly and a more advanced knowledge organization becomes necessary. In the UCD Topic Map we present here555http://www.astro.caltech.edu/$``$aam/science/topicmaps/ucd.html, we have used the 100 most frequently accessed catalogs at Vizier. A partial list of the catalogs is shown in Fig. 5, and the resulting number of topics, associations etc. are partially sketched in Fig. 6. It is with these large numbers that we can start asking interesting questions. This is where the data/knowledge discovery begins.

In case of a single table one has the table as the main topic with different columns present in the table forming other topics, as also the UCDs associated with these columns and the Units associated with some of the columns. A schematic of the scenario is presented in Fig. 7. When we move to a multitable UCD Topic Map, and select any UCD as the main topic, we can see all the associated tables (in which the UCD is present). Depending on one’s interest, one can then start asking specific questions. One such scenario is summarized in Fig. 8. Consider an astronomer interested in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, in particular the 12$`\mu `$m flux density. She asks for tables (within the 100 most accessed tables in the UCD TM) that have a column which corresponds to the UCD PHOT\_FLUX\_IR\_12. She is returned a list of such catalogs: Catalog of Seyfert Galaxies, IRAS catalog of Point Sources, the extended $`12\mu `$m galaxy sample and so on. Each of these takes her to that table allowing her to explore different columns present in those tables (e.g. which area has been covered, how faint they go, which epoch it is, what the resolution is and so on). In addition, the Topic Map author can choose to add different scopes to each of the table to, for instance, convey if the catalog is galactic or extra-galactic. Such information could then be used by the user to determine if the catalogs contain columns on which a meaningful join can be performed. A very VO like example would be: “choose Elliptical galaxies that are strong in radio, fairly bright in infra-red but do not contain an AGN”. By navigating through the appropriate keywords for IR, radio fluxes and catalogs of elliptical galaxies and catalogs of non-agn galaxies such a search could be achieved. Additionally the Galactic catalogs need not all be thrown away. They can be used to check if there exists a population of objects that can act as a contaminant to the population that the user has chosen.

Thus data discovery is all about asking the right questions: Can I merge X-Ray and Radio catalogs? Which ones? Do their units match? What are the parameter ranges? What is the basic statistics for them? How does the histogram for a column look and so on. Some of the possibilities mentioned above can also be carried out using tools available elsewhere (e.g. at CDS). However, segregation of different entities by the scoping mechanism affords Topic Maps a stronger semantics allowing a quicker zooming in on the required data. Another aspect is the ability to merge different Topic Maps. We discuss it in the next section.

## 5 TOPIC MAP MERGING

Topic Map merging is not the same as merging of columns from different tables to create a database join. Topic Map merging involves identifying identical Topic Map topics in different Topic Maps and merging their associations and occurrences to give rise to a single merged topic. For doing this, a SubjectIdentity tag is used. As a result, one can have two topics with the same name if they have different SubjectIdentity. This is in fact desirable since we often use the same name in different contexts for different entities e.g. satellite could be a general term for the satellite of a planet, or it could be a man-made communications satellite.

Here we are more interested in topics that can be merged. Continuing to discuss our hypothetical astronomer, now she is equipped with her own dataset of X-Ray observations which she has put in the standard XML format after having identified proper UCDs for the different column names. She would now like to merge the database with the readymade UCD Topic Map (of the 100 most used catalogs) in order to later look for the non-AGN radio ellipticals which are also detected in X-Ray. The Topic Map generator that we have built allows precisely this to be done. It takes as input a list of tables and then generates a Topic Map out of it in exactly the same format as the UCD Topic Map (the new Topic Map is also a UCD Topic Map, though custom built). The topic map then appears as a new entry in the list of Topic Maps available. The merge button available at the top prompts the user to choose which Topic Maps are to be merged (see Fig. 9). Once the user chooses the original UCD Topic Map and the new custom built TM, the merging is done and a new merged topic map is available for exploring. The cgi-bin form through which the topic map generation is carried out is shown in Fig. 10. A flowchart of the merging procedure is shown in Fig. 11. The TM generator can also make a Topic Map from just the list of catalog names in the format Vizier uses. It downloads the catalogs and any sub-catalogs (currently only from Vizier) and forms the Topic Map using the template built into the program.

## 6 QUERYING AND INDEXING

Lastly we talk about two aspects that make knowledge discovery with Topic Maps even more viable. These are querying and indexing. We mentioned earlier that Topic Maps are XML structures working on other XML structures and that querying XML is not straightforward in the usual way. The ISO community has not formalized a TMQL (Topic Map Query Language) yet. However, many precursors like eTMQL666empolis: http://k42.empolis.co.uk/tmql.html, AsTMa777Bond University, Australia: http://topicmaps.bond.edu.au/astma and Tolog888Ontopia: http://www.ontopia.net exist. We found Tolog easy to use and it comes bundled with Ontopia’s free Omnigator. The syntax used is a combination of an SQL like language and the powerful prolog. The use of prolog’s power allows one to make extensive searches. Examples of some queries are given below.

* query: List all UCDs
code: instance-of($A,ucd)?
meaning: give me all instances that match $A=ucd ($A is a variable).
* query: Count number of child UCDs
code: Select $A, count($B) from isParentUCD($A : ucd, $B : ucd)?
meaning: Count all $B such that $A and $B are both UCDs and $B is the child of $A.
* query: Order the above in descending order, sorted on count.
code: Select $A, count($B) from isParentUCD($A: ucd, $B: ucd) order by $B desc?
meaning: Select $A such that $A and $B are UCDs, count the number of $Bs and put it in inverse numeric order.

The queries can be executed on individual Topic Maps or on merged Topic Maps. Unlike an SQL query run on a database, all the returned entries are hyperlinks too, allowing the user to jump to any of the results and continue the data discovery trails.

Indexing is the other important aspect. Topic Maps began life with indexing in mind. It is not surprising that it continues to be one of the strengths of this tool. One can create different indexes per Topic Map so that searching is faster. As for queries, searches return hyperlinked documents and also the type of match it found and the confidence level of the match. The hyperlinked searchable multiple indexes make a Topic Map a combination of indexes, thesauri and glossaries.

## 7 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We have outlined above the construction and use of a UCD Topic Map and how users can create their own UCD Topic Maps and merge them with other UCD Topic Maps. While this can already act as a tool for custom viewing of data and as a knowledge discovery tool, much needs to be accomplished. We will keep adding bells and whistles to the Topic Map page222http://www.astro.caltech.edu/$``$aam/science/topicmaps.

A lot of stress has been placed on the external links. This is because Topic Maps need not reinvent wheels for actions that other services are capable of e.g. Topic Maps facilitate selection of columns for merging. One could then easily use the merging VO service provided by Roy Williams333http://virtualsky.org/conesearch-xmatch.htm to do the actual merging. Similarly, for statistics of columns, one could use the prototype astrostatistics444http://avyakta.caltech.edu:8080/cgi-bin/astrostat3.cgi service. In passing, it must be stressed that Topic Maps are a general knowledge organization tool and many varied Topic Maps can be constructed with the VO in mind. Some example sketches regarding literature searches and observing logs were presented in Mahabal et al.(2001).

We encourage you to explore Topic Maps, generate some of your own, UCD or otherwise. Your comments are most welcome.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported in part by the NASA AISRP program and the NSF ITR program. Many thanks to Vidyullata Mahabal for help with the figures. Many thanks to Francois Ochsenbein for patiently replying queries about UCDs.


format: text

text:
# Low energy monopole Modes of a Trapped atomic Fermi Gas

## Abstract

We consider the low energy collective monopole modes of a trapped weakly interacting atomic Fermi gas in the collisionless regime. The spectrum is calculated for varying coupling strength and chemical potential. Using an effective Hamiltonian, we derive analytical results that agree well with numerical calculations in various regimes. The onset of superfluidity is shown to lead to effects such as the vanishing of the energy required to create a Cooper molecule at a critical coupling strength and to the emergence of pair vibration excitations. Our analysis suggests ways to experimentally detect the presence of the superfluid phase in trapped atomic Fermi gases.

Pacs Numbers: 67., 05.30.Fk, 32.80.Pj

The trapping and cooling of fermionic atoms is attracting increasing attention in the field of ultra cold atomic gases. Temperatures as low as $`T0.2T_F`$ with $`T_F`$ denoting the Fermi temperature have recently been observed experimentally for such gases . One of the intriguing goals of the impressive experimental effort is to observe the theoretically predicted transition to a superfluid state below a critical temperature $`T_c`$ when the effective atom-atom interaction is attractive .

In this paper, the $`T=0`$ low energy collective monopole modes of a weakly interacting fermi gas in the collisionless limit are examined both analytically and numerically. We identify spectral features characteristic of the onset of superfluidity. Since the collective modes of trapped gases can be measured with high precision , this leads us to suggest appealing ways of experimentally observing the predicted phase-transition.

Consider a dilute gas of fermionic atoms of mass $`m`$ with an equal number of atoms $`N_\sigma `$ in two hyperfine states $`|\sigma =,`$ trapped in a spherically symmetric harmonic potential of the form $`U_0(r)=m\omega _T^2r^2/2`$. Assuming that the gas is in the dilute regime $`k_F|a|1`$ with $`k_F=\sqrt{2m\mu _F}`$ ($`\mu _F`$ is the chemical potential), the interaction between atoms in the two different hyperfine states can be described as $`g\delta (𝐫)`$ where $`g=4\pi a/m`$ and $`a`$ is the $`s`$-wave scattering length. We put $`\mathrm{}=1`$ throughout the paper. For $`a<0`$ the effective atom-atom interaction is attractive and the gas is unstable toward the formation of Cooper pairs below a certain critical temperature $`T_c`$ . The quasiparticle excitations of the superfluid state can be calculated by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations .

The collective excitations of the gas can be calculated in the collisionless limit using the random-phase approximation (RPA). In a real space formalism, the poles of the matrix

$$\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega )=\left\{\begin{array}{cccc}\widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\chi }& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\chi }^{}\\ \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\chi }& \widehat{\rho }_{}\widehat{\chi }^{}\\ \widehat{\chi }\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\chi }\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\chi }\widehat{\chi }& \widehat{\chi }\widehat{\chi }^{}\\ \widehat{\chi }^{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\chi }^{}\widehat{\rho }_{}& \widehat{\chi }^{}\widehat{\chi }& \widehat{\chi }^{}\widehat{\chi }^{}\end{array}\right\}$$
(1)
yield the modes of the system. Here, $`\widehat{A}\widehat{B}`$ is the Fourier transform of the retarded function $`i\mathrm{\Theta }(tt^{})[\widehat{A}(𝐫,t),\widehat{B}(𝐫^{},t^{})]`$ and $`\mathrm{}`$ is the thermal average. Also, $`\widehat{\rho }_\sigma (𝐫)=\widehat{\psi }_\sigma ^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }_\sigma (𝐫)`$ and $`\widehat{\chi }(𝐫)=\widehat{\psi }_{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }_{}(𝐫)`$. Correlation functions with the operator $`\widehat{\chi }(𝐫)`$ are included in order to describe the effects of superfluidity. A numerical scheme for calculating $`\mathrm{\Pi }(\omega )`$ within the RPA was described in Ref. .

The nature of the superfluid state depends on two parameters: the number of particles trapped and the interaction strength . When the atom-atom interaction is sufficiently weak and/or there are not too many particles trapped, the gas is in the so-called intrashell regime; it can in many ways best be regarded as a giant nucleus. In this regime, the Cooper pairs are formed only between particles with angular quantum numbers $`(l,m)`$ and $`(l,m)`$ residing in the same harmonic oscillator shell with radial quantum number $`n`$ \[i.e. single particle energy $`ϵ_n=(n+3/2)\omega _T`$\]. For stronger interactions and/or more particles trapped such that $`\xi _{BCS}R`$ where $`\xi _{BCS}=k_F(\pi m\mathrm{\Delta })^1`$ is the coherence length ($`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the pairing gap) and $`R`$ is the size of the system given by the Thomas-fermi result $`R\sqrt{2\mu _F/m}`$, the superfluid state is best described as a quasi-homogenous bulk system. The transition between the two qualitatively different regimes is roughly determined by $`\xi _{BCS}R`$ or equivalently $`\mathrm{\Delta }\omega _T`$. Using the bulk theory prediction $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(2/e)^{7/3}\mu _F\mathrm{exp}(\pi /2k_F|a|)`$  and the Thomas-Fermi result $`\mu _F=(6N_\sigma )^{1/3}\omega _T`$ (neglecting small effects due to the pairing as $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu _F1`$ in the dilute regime), the equation $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\omega _T`$ yields $`N_\sigma ^{}=\frac{1}{6}\left(\frac{e}{2}\right)^7\mathrm{exp}(3\pi /2k_F|a|)`$. For a given coupling strength with $`N_\sigma N_\sigma ^{}`$ atoms trapped, the gas is in the in the intrashell regime and for $`N_\sigma N_\sigma ^{}`$ atoms trapped it is in the bulk regime. With $`k_F|a|=0.1`$ this condition yields $`N_\sigma ^{}=4\times 10^{20}`$ and for $`k_F|a|=0.3`$ we get $`N_\sigma ^{}=9\times 10^6`$. Current experiments have $`N𝒪(10^5)`$ particles trapped . Also, the present experimental effort uses optical traps as the confining potential as they allow greater greater flexibility with respect to which atomic hyperfine states can be trapped . The optical traps used so far have $`1.2`$kHZ$`\omega _T/2\pi 12`$kHZ corresponding to temperatures $`58`$nK$`T580`$nK . Thus, the condition $`k_BT_c\omega _T`$ is less restrictive than for magnetic traps. Note also that $`k_BT_c\mathrm{\Delta }(T=0)/2`$ in the intrashell regime can be orders of magnitude higher than the bulk prediction . The above estimates seem to indicate, that for the gas in the dilute limit it is not unlikely that future experiments on trapped superfluid fermionic atoms will be in the intrashell regime.

For $`k_F|a|0.3`$ the gas is not in the dilute limit. Recently, a number of papers have been dealing with the case of a Feshbach resonance mediated interaction, which is predicted to increase $`T_c`$ dramatically . This could make the experimental observation of the superfluid transition easier. It is however presently unclear what happens in this strongly correlated regime where issues such as the instability toward spinodal decomposition have to be addressed.

The collective modes also depends qualitatively on which regime the gas is in. In the bulk regime, the modes can be calculated by looking at phase fluctuations of the pairing field. A gradient and frequency expansion of the lower right $`2\times 2`$ part of Eq. (1) then yields a hydrodynamic spectrum for the lowest modes of the gas .

In light of the possible experimental relevance, we consider in this paper the collective modes in the intrashell regime. From the fact that there is only pairing between particles with quantum numbers $`(n,l,m)`$ and $`(n,l,m)`$ follows a crucial simplification: Ignoring for the time being the effect of the Hartree field, the monopole pairing correlations of the particles are accurately described by the effective Hamiltonian

$$\widehat{H}_{eff}=\underset{nlm\sigma }{}\xi _n\widehat{a}_{nlm\sigma }^{}\widehat{a}_{nlm\sigma }$$
(2)
$$\frac{2G\omega _T}{\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_F}}\underset{nlm,n^{}l^{}m^{}}{}(1)^{m+m^{}}\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}\widehat{a}_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}\widehat{a}_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}$$
(3)
in the sense that it can be shown that Eq. (2) reproduces the gap equation and thus the results concerning the quasiparticle properties presented in Ref.  in the intrashell regime. Here $`G=32\pi ^2k_F|a|/15`$ is the effective coupling strength and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n_F}=(n_F+1)(n_F+2)/2`$ is the pair degeneracy of the highest harmonic oscillator level occupied with radial quantum number $`n_F`$. The operator $`\widehat{a}_{nlm\sigma }^{}`$ creates a particle with quantum numbers $`(n,l,m,\sigma )`$ and energy $`\xi _n=ϵ_n\mu _F`$. This effective Hamiltonian is much simpler to work with than the full Hamiltonian and it allows several analytic results to be derived. It should be emphasized that Eq. (2) can be derived from the full Hamiltonian in the intrashell regime; it thus describes the actual physical system accurately and is not merely a schematic model as we shall see.

In order to derive analytical results, we write the RPA eqn. for $`T=0`$ in configuration space as

$$\left\{\begin{array}{cc}A& B\\ B^{}& A^{}\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{cc}X^\nu & \\ Y^\nu & \end{array}\right\}=\omega _\nu \left\{\begin{array}{cc}X^\nu & \\ Y^\nu & \end{array}\right\}.$$
(4)
Here $`\omega _\nu `$ is the frequency of the excitation $`|0|\nu =\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\nu ^{}|0`$ where $`|0`$ and $`|\nu `$ is the RPA ground and excited state respectively. The matrices $`A`$ and $`B`$ are given by $`A_{nlm,n^{}l^{}m^{}}=BCS|\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{H}\widehat{\gamma }_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}^{}\widehat{\gamma }_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}^{}|BCS`$ and $`B_{nlm,n^{}l^{}m^{}}=BCS|\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{\gamma }_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}\widehat{\gamma }_{n^{}l^{}m^{}}\widehat{H}|BCS`$. The superfluid ground state $`|BCS`$ and the quasi particle creation operator $`\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm\sigma }^{}`$ with quantum numbers $`(n,l,m,\sigma )`$ can both can be obtained from a solution to the BdG equations . Also, $`X_{nlm}=0|\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}|\nu `$ and $`Y_{nlm}=0|\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}|\nu `$. In the intrashell regime, $`\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm\sigma }=u_n\widehat{a}_{nlm\sigma }\pm v_n\widehat{a}_{nlm\sigma }^{}(1)^m`$, $`u_n^2=(1+\xi _n/E_n)/2`$ and $`v_n^2=(1\xi _n/E_n)/2`$ with $`E_n=(\xi _n^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2)^{1/2}`$ . We have written the RPA equations appropriate for subspace spanned by monopole pairing excitations of the kind $`\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}+c.c.`$

We first discuss the solutions to Eq. (4) when the gas is in the normal phase ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$). Excitations of monopole symmetry are given by $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_\nu ^{}=_{nlm}(1)^m[X_n^\nu \widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}^{}+Y_n^\nu \widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}\widehat{\gamma }_{nlm}]`$, i.e. $`X_{nlm}^\nu =(1)^mX_n^\nu `$ and $`Y_{nlm}^\nu =(1)^mY_n^\nu `$ in Eq. (4). Using this we obtain after some algebra

$$\frac{1}{2G}=\underset{n>n_F}{}\frac{1}{\omega +2\xi _n}\underset{n<n_F}{}\frac{1}{\omega +2\xi _n}.$$
(5)
Equation (5) determines the lowest collective monopole modes of the gas in the normal phase. These modes are not particle conserving. They correspond to adding/removing a pair of particles; i.e. one obtains for the addition mode $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_a^{}=_{n>n_Flm}(1)^mX_n\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}+_{n<n_Flm}(1)^mY_n\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}\widehat{a}_{nlm}^{}`$ with energy $`\omega _a`$ and likewise for the removal mode. The lowest particle conserving monopole excitation is then given by the state $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_r^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_a^{}|0`$ with energy $`\omega _r+\omega _a`$.

Consider the case $`\mu _F=(n_F+2)\omega _T`$ corresponding to a symmetric level distribution around the Fermi level with levels below $`\mu _F`$ (i.e. $`nn_F`$) completely filled. In this case, the system is in the normal phase for $`T=0`$ for weak coupling strengths such that $`G<G_c`$. $`G_c`$ is obtained by setting $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ in the gap equation reading $`G^1_nE_n^1=0`$. This yields $`G_c^12^{5/2}\mathrm{ln}[4\mathrm{exp}(\gamma )n_F]/3`$ where $`\gamma 0.577`$ is Eulers constant . Note that this equation is reproduced by setting $`\omega =0`$ in Eq. (5). We therefore conclude that the closed shell system becomes unstable toward the formation of Cooper pairs when the energy cost of adding/removing a pair of particles goes to zero. Equation (5) can be solved for $`GG_c0_{}`$ yielding

$$\frac{\omega _r+\omega _a}{\omega _T}=2\left[\frac{2}{7\xi (3)}\right]^{1/2}\sqrt{\frac{1}{G}\frac{1}{G_c}},GG_c0_{}$$
(6)
with $`\xi (3)=_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}n^31.202`$. This equation gives the frequency of the lowest particle conserving monopole mode as the closed shell system becomes unstable toward the formation of a superfluid with increasing coupling strength. For $`G0`$, we can also solve Eq. (5) obtaining

$$(\omega _r+\omega _a)/\omega _T=24G,G0.$$
(7)
We have $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_a^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_r^{}_{lm,lm^{}}(1)^{m+m^{}}\widehat{a}_{n_F+1lm}^{}\widehat{a}_{n_F+1lm}^{}\widehat{a}_{n_Flm}\widehat{a}_{n_Flm}`$ for $`G0`$; i.e. we simply take a pair of particles in the highest filled shell and put them into a monopole state in the lowest empty shell. This obviously costs $`2\omega _T`$ in energy for $`G0`$. Equation (7) can also be obtained by a first order perturbative calculation of the first excited state energy . Equation (5-7) give the lowest monopole excitation for a closed shell system in the normal phase.

We now solve Eq. (4) when the gas is in the superfluid phase ($`\mathrm{\Delta }>0`$). Using $`X_{nlm}=(1)^mX_n`$ and $`Y_{nlm}=(1)^mY_n`$, we obtain after some rather lengthy algebra:

$$\left|\begin{array}{cc}G^1+4_n\frac{E_n}{\omega ^24E_n^2}& 2\omega _n\frac{\xi _n}{E_n(\omega ^24E_n^2)}\\ 2\omega _n\frac{\xi _n}{E_n(\omega ^24E_n^2)}& G^1+4_n\frac{\xi _n^2}{E_n(\omega ^24E_n^2)}\end{array}\right|=0.$$
(8)
Equation (8) determines the frequencies $`\omega `$ of the lowest monopole pair vibrations of the gas in the superfluid phase. First, we note that it follows from the gap equation that $`\omega =0`$ is a solution to Eq. (8). This is the spurious solution coming from the fact that BCS theory breaks the $`U(1)`$ gauge symmetry of the pair-field or equivalently particle conservation. We now examine the two opposite cases of interest: The completely filled and the open shell case.

First consider the case of $`\mu _F=(n_F+2)\omega _T`$ with $`G>G_c`$ such that the gas is superfluid. The solutions to Eq. (8) split into an even solution ($`X_{n_F+n}=X_{n_Fn}`$ and $`Y_{n_F+n}=Y_{n_Fn}`$) corresponding to the spurious mode with $`\omega =0`$ and an odd solution with $`X_{n_F+n}=X_{n_Fn}`$ and $`Y_{n_F+n}=Y_{n_Fn}`$. Some algebra yields the odd solution energy as

$$\frac{\omega }{\omega _T}=\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{\omega _T}=\left[\frac{2^{1/2}3}{7\xi (3)}\right]^{1/2}\sqrt{\frac{1}{G_c}\frac{1}{G}},GG_c0_+$$
(9)
where we have used $`\mathrm{\Delta }=[2^{3/2}7^1\xi (3)^13]^{1/2}(G_c^1G^1)^{1/2}`$ for $`G>G_c`$ in the closed shell case . This is the pair vibration mode $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_P^{}|0`$ where the modulus $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ oscillates. Note that $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is smaller than the lowest particle conserving quasiparticle excitation energy: $`2E_{n_F}=2\sqrt{\xi _{n_f}^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}>2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ($`\xi _{n_F}=\omega _T/2`$). The pair vibration mode corresponds to coherent excitations of quasiparticle pairs of monopole symmetry such that the resulting energy is smaller than $`2E_{n_F}`$; the mode is strongly collective. It also conserves the number of particles and can be excited by a particle conserving probe of monopole symmetry. We conclude that in the case of a closed shell configuration, one can detect experimentally the onset of superfluidity with increasing coupling strength by observing the lowest monopole excitation frequency of the gas vanish as given by Eq. (6). The system becomes increasingly unstable toward the excitation of pairs of particles into the lowest empty band as they can use the degeneracy of this band to maximize their spatial overlap and thereby increase the (absolute value of) interaction energy; the energy cost of forming a Cooper molecule simply goes to zero at the critical coupling strength. Once the system is superfluid for $`G>G_c`$, the lowest monopole excitation energy again increases as given by Eq. (9). Now the ground state of the system already consist of correlated pair excitations across the Fermi level to create Cooper pairs with maximum spatial overlap and the lowest excitation is the pair vibration.

In the case of an open shell with $`\mu _F=(n_F+3/2)\omega _T`$, the gas remains superfluid for $`G0_+`$ for $`T=0`$. In this limit, there is only pairing in the shell at the chemical potential ($`n=n_F`$. Solving the RPA equations for this shell, we obtain the $`\omega =0`$ spurious solution and the pair breaking solution with energy $`2E_{n_F}=2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ ($`\xi _{n_F}=0`$). Residual interactions between between the excitations lower the frequency slightly below $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$. To a good approximation however, the lowest monopole excitation energy of the system is

$$\frac{\omega }{\omega _T}\frac{2\mathrm{\Delta }}{\omega _T}=\frac{2G}{12^{5/2}\mathrm{ln}(e^\gamma n_F)G/3},G0_+$$
(10)
where we have used $`\mathrm{\Delta }/\omega _T=G[12^{5/2}\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{exp}(\gamma )n_F)G/3]^1`$ in the open shell case . Superfluidity can thus also in the open shell case be detected by the presence of a low energy $`\omega 2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ mode.

We now compare our analytical results with an exact numerical solution of the RPA equations obtained using the method described in Ref. . First, consider the case of a closed shell system \[$`\mu _F=(n_F+2)\omega _T`$\]. In fig. 1 (a) we plot the lowest monopole excitation energy as a function of the coupling strength $`G/G_c`$. For $`G<G_c`$ the excitation is $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_r^{}\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_a^{}|0`$ whereas for $`G>G_c`$ the excitation is $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Gamma }}_P^{}|0`$. The $`\times `$’s are obtained from a numerical calculation of the matrix given in Eq. (1) and the lines are Eq. (6), (7), and (9). We have chosen $`n_F=50`$ corresponding to $`2\times 10^4`$ particles trapped in each of the two hyperfine states. There is very good agreement between the numerical results and the analytical predictions in their regions of validity. This shows that effective Hamiltonian given by Eq. (2) accurately describes the pairing correlations for the physical system in the intrashell regime. As the coupling strength increases, the intrashell pairing ansatz eventually breaks down; this occurs for $`G/G_c1.2`$ for this set of parameters . For stronger coupling, Eq. (2) is invalid and one needs to work with the full Hamiltonian and Eq. (1). This break down is seen numerically as a fragmentation and disappearance of the $`\omega 2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ pair vibration mode for $`G/G_c1.2`$. Eventually, when $`\xi _{BCS}R`$ or equivalently $`GG_c`$, the lowest collective excitations are not the pair vibrations corresponding to fluctuations in $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ but the Goldstone modes corresponding to *phase* fluctuations of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ . The lowest monopole mode is $`\omega =2\omega _T`$ in this regime.

Let us discuss the open shell case $`\mu _F=(n+3/2)\omega _T`$ with $`n_F=50`$. In fig. 1 (b), we plot the lowest monopole excitation energy as a function of the coupling strength $`G/\omega _T`$. The $`\times `$’s are obtained from a numerical calculation of the matrix given in Eq. (1) and the line is Eq. (10). We see that there is good agreement between the numerical results and Eq. (10) for $`G0`$. This shows that in the open shell case, the lowest excitations are essentially quasi-particle excitations with energy $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in the intrashell regime. The exact mode frequency is somewhat lower than $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as expected reflecting the residual interaction between the quasiparticles. With increasing coupling, the intrashell eventually ansatz breaks down for $`G\mathrm{ln}(N_F)0.4`$  making Eq. (2) and thus Eq. (10) invalid. Again, for stronger coupling when $`\xi _{BCS}R`$ the Goldstone modes are the lowest excitations.

Several other methods to observe the superfluid transition for atomic Fermi gases have been suggested in the literature. They include laser probing of the pairing energy, looking at the expansion properties of the gas, and probing the density profile .

We have up till now ignored the effects of the Hartree field. This field introduces a dispersion on the Harmonic oscillator levels with respect to the angular momentum $`l`$ lifting the shell degeneracy $`\mathrm{\Omega }_n=(n+1)(n+2)/2`$. One should therefore replace $`\xi _n`$ with an $`l`$-dependent $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }_{nl}`$ in Eq. (2), were $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }_{nl}`$ includes the effect of the Hartree field on the single particle energies. The resulting effective Hamiltonian describes the pairing correlations in the intrashell regime including the effects of the Hartree field. When the splitting introduced by the Hartree field is small compared with the pairing energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, it can be ignored. This is the case for systems with $`n_F30`$ (depending on the coupling strength) . For very large systems with $`n_F200`$, there is only pairing within the levels with $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }_{nl}=0`$ and $`m=l,l+1\mathrm{},l`$. An analysis completely similar to the one given above yields the lowest excitation energy $`\omega 2\mathrm{\Delta }_{n_Fl}`$ in this limit with $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{n_Fl}`$ denoting the pairing energy in the level $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }_{nl}=0`$. We plot in fig. 1 (b) as $`+`$’s the results for lowest monopole excitation energy obtained from a numerical calculation based on Eq. (1) including the effects of the Hartree field. For comparison with the results obtained neglecting the Hartree field, the number of particles is fixed in both cases. We see that for $`G0`$, the Hartree field suppresses the pairing energy as it introduces a splitting of the levels in the shell at the chemical potential such that the density of states for $`\stackrel{~}{\xi }_{nl}=0`$ is reduced. For stronger coupling however, the Hartree field increases the pairing energy. This is because the Hartree field increases the density and thus the spatial overlap between particles in the center of trap . From fig. 1 (b), we see that Eq. (10) reproduces qualitatively the energy of the lowest mode as a function of $`G`$ even when the Hartree field is included. This is as expected since $`n_F=50`$ is an intermediate value where the pairing is not in the limit where the Hartree field can be ignored, but also far away from the regime, where the Hartree splitting is much larger than the pairing energy.

It should be noted that the conclusion that there are pair vibration modes with an energy $`2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is independent of the symmetry of the trapping potential. This result simply reflects the energy required to break individual Cooper pairs. However, the exact value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ as a function of the coupling strength depends on the symmetry of the potential and Eq. (6-7),(9-10) are of course only valid for a spherical trap.

In summary, we examined in detail the low energy monopole modes of a trapped fermi gas as a function of the coupling strength and the chemical potential. Using an effective Hamiltonian describing the pair correlations in the intrashell regime we derived analytical results that agree well with numerical calculations. As the gas approaches the superfluid instability with increasing coupling strength for the closed shell case, the lowest excitation energy corresponding to the creation of a Cooper molecule was shown to vanish. In the superfluid phase, the lowest excitation energy is $`\omega 2\mathrm{\Delta }`$ independent of the position of the chemical potential. The results presented should be relevant for the present experimental effort to observe the superfluid transition.

We acknowledge valuable discussions with B. R. Mottelson.

Present address: Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark


text:
# Results of the Hydrodynamics Approach to Heavy Ion Collisions

## 1 Introduction

One of the first measurements at RHIC was the elliptic anisotropy of the particles produced . It was found to be as large as the hydrodynamical prediction  and subsequent hydrodynamical calculations achieved good fits to its centrality and $`p_T`$ dependence . In the following I review how well hydrodynamical models can fit the data published after those early papers and what constraints the data has set on the initial state of hydrodynamical evolution.

## 2 Comparison with the data

As an example of hydrodynamical results, I mostly quote the work of Kolb and Heinz . This is not meant to imply that other calculations are of lesser importance, but rather to emphasize how much of the data can be explained using one set of parameters.

### 2.1 Transverse momentum spectra

The conventional method to initialize hydrodynamical calculations is to fix the initial densities (energy or entropy and net baryon density) to reproduce the observed particle abundancies and to choose freeze-out temperature to reproduce the observed slopes of the spectra. This approach was also applied in  where the initial state was fixed to reproduce the charged particle multiplicity as a function of centrality and the freeze-out temperature was chosen to fit the central collision data. Therefore the good fit to pion and antiproton spectra in the most central collisions shown in the upper left panel of fig. 1 is not surprising. On the other hand, the slope of the spectra as a function of centrality are predictions and, as can be seen, the agreement with data is impressive. For antiprotons the prediction lies within the experimental errors up to $`p_T=3`$ GeV/$`c`$. Only for very peripheral collisions, $`b>10`$ fm, do the data show a significant excess of particles at $`p_T>1.5`$ GeV/$`c`$. In hydrodynamical description the observed excess of antiprotons over pions at $`p_T>2`$ GeV/$`c`$ is simply a consequence of strong transverse flow.

In this calculation local chemical equilibrium is assumed to hold until kinetic freeze-out. Since the favoured kinetic freeze-out temperature, $`T_f=130`$ MeV, is much smaller that the chemical freeze-out temperature, $`T_{ch}=165`$–175 MeV given by thermal models , it is not possible to obtain correct proton and antiproton yields simultaneously. In  this was circumvented by using pion yields at $`T_f=130`$ MeV as they were, but scaling by hand all the other particle yields to their calculated values at hadronization temperature $`T_c=165`$ MeV. The results obtained in this way are very similar to those of  where the hadronic phase is described by a transport model and separate chemical and kinetic freeze-outs are included. Thus one can consider the results of  to be reasonable approximations.

### 2.2 Elliptic anisotropy

Since the initial particle production is azimuthally symmetric, azimuthal anisotropy of the final particle distributions is a signal of rescatterings among the particles produced. More frequent rescattering can be expected to lead to a larger anisotropy, and since hydrodynamics assumes zero mean free path and thus an infinite scattering rate, it provides an upper limit to observable anisotropies. Anisotropy is quantified by measuring the harmonic coefficients $`v_n(y,p_T;b)`$ of a Fourier expansion in $`\varphi _p`$ of the measured hadron spectrum $`dN/(dyp_Tdp_Td\varphi _p)`$ . Anisotropy characterized by a non-zero second coefficient, $`v_2`$, is called elliptic anisotropy or elliptic flow .

The coefficient $`v_2`$ as a function of transverse momentum $`p_T`$ in minimum bias collisions is shown in fig. 2. The calculation was done using an equation of state with a first order phase transition (EOS Q) and without a phase transition (EOS H). The observed anisotropy of charged hadrons shown in the left panel is seen to reach the hydrodynamical values up to $`p_T<2`$ GeV. Above $`p_T=2`$ GeV the hydrodynamical result keeps increasing monotonically whereas the data saturates, indicating incomplete thermalization of the high momentum particles. The pion and proton anisotropies depicted in the right panel also show the hydrodynamically predicted mass dependence: at low values of transverse momentum, the heavier the particle, the smaller its $`v_2`$ . Interestingly at this conference the pion anisotropy was shown to deviate from hydrodynamical predictions around $`p_T=1.5`$–2 GeV, whereas the proton anisotropy reaches hydrodynamical values even at $`p_T2.5`$ GeV . As can be seen the anisotropy of hadrons or pions is quite insensitive to the phase transition, but the anisotropy of protons shows a clear dependence: the curve calculated assuming a phase transition is very close to the data, but an EoS without a phase transition leads to too large a proton anisotropy at low $`p_T`$.

The fit to the proton data shown in fig. 2 is worse than achieved in earlier calculations . This is due to a different freeze-out temperature, which was $`T_f=120`$ MeV in , but was chosen to be $`T_f=130`$ MeV in  to achieve a better fit to the $`p_T`$ spectra. On the other hand, the hydro + cascade approach of  reproduces well both the $`p_T`$ spectra and differential anisotropy $`v_2(p_T)`$ of pions and protons without such ambiguity. Whether this points to a weakness in the ordinary Cooper-Frye description of freeze-out or is a result of differences in the initialization of the calculations remains to be seen.

In fig. 4 the centrality dependence of the anisotropy coefficient $`v_2`$ is shown. The calculation is similar to that in  and the data is analysed by the STAR collaboration  using the 4th order cumulant method . The fit to the data is slightly worse than shown before  since the 4th order method leads to smaller values of $`v_2`$ than previously published . The new values are, however, within the systematic errors of the older analysis. The present data is below the hydrodynamical limit in all but the most central collisions, but the discrepancy is significant only for large impact parameters, $`b>6`$ fm.

In the calculations mentioned so far the expansion is assumed to be boost invariant. If the assumption of boost invariance is relaxed and expansion in all three dimensions is done numerically, the centrality and $`p_T`$ dependence of the anisotropy at midrapidity is similar to that in the boost invariant case . When compared to the excellent fit to data shown in fig. 2, the pseudorapidity dependence of elliptic anisotropy shown in fig. 4  looks less satisfactory. The data reaches the hydrodynamical value only around midrapidity. On the other hand, even this result reproduces the data within a window of one to two units of pseudorapidity. This region already contains most of the particles produced. It is worth remembering that anisotropy in hydrodynamical models depends strongly on the initial shape of the system. The initialization used in  is relatively simple and a more sophisticated initialization may lead to better fit to the data. Therefore it is premature to conclude, based on this data and calculation alone, that thermalization is reached only at midrapidity.

### 2.3 Two-particle interferometry

The analysis of two-particle momentum correlations known as HBT interferometry provides a method to study the space-time structure of the emitting source . It has been predicted that a first order phase transition would lead to unusually large HBT radii . However, comparisons of calculations  with data  have lead to the so-called *HBT-puzzle*: All calculations give a ratio of HBT radii $`R_{\mathrm{out}}/R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ larger than one, but the experimental value is of order one. As shown in fig. 5 , hydrodynamics usually leads to a too small sideward radius $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ and to a too large outward radius $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$. This is usually interpreted to mean that the system expands more and its lifetime is shorter than given by hydrodynamics.

So far it looks like it is possible to fit either $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ or $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$, but not both simultaneously. A good fit to $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ was achieved in  where the hadronic phase was described using a hadronic cascade. This naturally leads to a spatial freeze-out distribution with a larger average size in the sideward direction and thus to larger $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$. An acceptable fit was achieved also in  where the initial size of the system was larger than in other calculations, but the outward radius $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ is too large in both of these works. In  it was shown that if freeze-out takes place immediately after hadronization, $`T_f=T_c=165`$ MeV, $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ is reproduced, but $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ is even smaller than when the freeze-out temperature is $`T_f=130`$ MeV. The effect of such a high freeze-out temparture on single particle spectra or anisotropies was not checked either.

One interesting detail shown in fig. 5 is that the radii are closest to the data when an equation of state with a smooth crossover is used. One can thus claim that HBT radii favour an equation of state with crossover but, as argued above, proton $`v_2`$ results favour an equation of state with a first order phase transition. The explanation to this seemingly contradictory behaviour, as well as to the entire HBT-puzzle, is still unknown at present. For the most recent developments see .

## 3 Initial conditions

It is well known that even if the hydrodynamical evolution is constrained to reproduce the observed single particle spectra, there still is considerable freedom in choosing the initial state. One degree of freedom which complicates the comparison of the initial state of different hydrodynamical calculations is the initial time, $`\tau _0`$, of the calculation. Its effect is easily seen in the Bjorken estimate  for the initial energy density,

$$ϵ_{Bj}=\frac{dE_T}{dy}\frac{1}{\tau _0\pi R^2},$$
(1)
where a smaller initial time leads to a larger initial energy density and vice versa. Thus a meaningful comparison of initial states from different calculations requires scaling the initial densities to the same initial time $`\tau `$. This is usually done by assuming one dimensional Bjorken expansion with an ideal gas equation of state from the initial time $`\tau _0`$ of a particular calculation to a chosen common time $`\tau `$: $`ϵ=ϵ_0(\tau _0/\tau )^{4/3}`$.

However, even if the difference in initial time is taken into account, the final single particle spectra allow very different initial energy distributions. As an example of this, initial energy distributions used in recent calculations by Morita et al.  and Eskola et al.  are shown in fig. 6. The former is a simple generalization of the one dimensional Bjorken model to transversely expanding central collisions: a flat energy density distribution with gaussian smearing near the edges. The latter is based on a pQCD saturation calculation  of the transverse energy of minijets produced in the primary collisions which leads to a very peaked distribution of energy density. In this approach the net baryon density is also obtained from pQCD calculation and — after fixing the equation of state and equating the initial time with the formation time, $`\tau _0=1/p_{\mathrm{sat}}`$ — the only free parameter is the freeze-out temperature .

Even though the initial states in these two calculations are very different, the final single particle distributions shown in fig. 7 are surprisingly similar and reproduce the slopes equally well! The particle yields must again be treated with caution. In both of these works chemical equilibrium is assumed to hold until kinetic freeze-out. In  the kinetic freeze-out temperature $`T_f=125`$ MeV is well below the chemical freeze-out temperatures given by thermal models. Thus the authors note that their calculation reproduces the observed slopes of the spectra, but to reach the yields, they must scale them by hand. On the other hand, the authors of  employ a considerably high freeze-out temperature, $`T_f=150`$ MeV, which allows them to reproduce also the particle abundancies.

Unfortunately other observables are not helpful in differentiating these two approaches either. Both of the calculations were done for central collisions where the elliptic anisotropy is zero. The HBT radii are sensitive to the build-up of flow and the lifetime of the system and therefore to the initial distributions, but unfortunately HBT radii were not calculated in . As an estimate one can use the HBT radii for a high freeze-out temperature shown in  instead. The radii in  and  are indeed different, but neither of them reproduces the data: the first leads to a correct $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ but too small a $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$, whereas the latter reproduces $`R_{\mathrm{side}}`$ acceptably but $`R_{\mathrm{out}}`$ is too large. Another observable which is sensitive to the maximum temperature reached in heavy ion collisions is the spectrum of direct photons, but there is no photon data available yet, nor was the yield calculated in these papers.

Even if the initial energy density distribution is only weakly constrained by the data, the initial energy per unit rapidity is almost fixed. In Table 1 the initial states of recent hydrodynamical calculations are characterized by scaling to $`\tau =1`$ fm/$`c`$ and calculating the average energy density in the transverse plane. The peak values of the initial energy density have a huge spread from 6 to 160 GeV/fm3 in these works, but the average values at 1 fm/$`c`$ have a much smaller spread from 3.9 to 6.5 GeV/fm3. This spread is partially due to the different values of the effective transverse area, $`\pi R^2`$. If this is taken into account, the average energy density in all works is 5–6 GeV/fm3, very similar to the the Bjorken estimate 4.6 GeV/fm3 .

The initial times of hydrodynamic evolution employed in these calculations have a relatively large spread from 0.2 to 1 fm/$`c`$. However, in all calculations the initial time is shorter than the perturbatively estimated thermalization time of a few fm/$`c`$ . The basic argument in favour of a short initial time is based on elliptic anisotropy; the estimate by Kolb et al.  showed that if there is 1 or 2 fm/$`c`$ delay in thermalization, the value of $`v_2`$ decreases by 10% or 25 %, respectively, which leads to values of $`v_2`$ which are below the data.

There is no similar consensus about the freeze-out temperature at RHIC. The single particle spectra in central collisions can be fitted equally well (fig. 7) if freeze-out takes place almost immediately after hadronization at $`T_f=150`$–160 MeV  or at $`T_f=125`$ MeV , roughly at the same temperature as at the SPS. The elliptic anisotropy of protons provides an additional constraint on the freeze-out temperature. So far it seems to favour a relatively low freeze-out temperature of $`T_f130`$ MeV, but whether it is possible to fit the elliptic anisotropy data using same kind of initial state and freeze-out temperature as in  remains to be seen. While discussing freeze-out temperature at RHIC it is also worth remembering that in the hybrid model of , where the plasma phase is described using hydrodynamics and the hadron phase using hadronic cascade (RQMD), freeze-out temperature is not well defined.

## 4 Summary

Hydrodynamical models have been very successful in explaining the single particle RHIC data at low $`p_T`$. The $`p_T`$ spectra and anisotropies in central and semicentral collisions are well reproduced for $`p_T1.5`$ – 2 GeV, and the $`\overline{p}/\pi `$ ratio at $`p_T2`$ GeV/$`c`$ has a simple explanation due to flow. Especially impressive has been how hydrodynamics is able to create simultaneously an elliptic anisotropy of negative hadrons which is large enough and an anisotropy of protons which is small enough to fit the data. If one considers solely this data the collision system behaves like a thermal system.

However, the reproduction of the HBT radii has been unsuccessful so far. It is unclear whether one should refine the final freeze-out process, the hadronization process, or the initial state to reach an acceptable description of the data. Especially puzzling is the fact that the HBT radii seem to favour a relatively stiff equation of state with a crossover phase transition, whereas the elliptic anisotropy of protons favours a soft equation of state with a first order phase transition.

The details of the initial state required to fit the data are not yet completely fixed. The common features of all calculations are that the collision system thermalizes rapidly — initial time is $`\tau _01`$ fm/$`c`$ — and that the average initial energy density is well above the critical energy density.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the US Department of Energy grant DE-FG02-87ER40328.


text:
# Searching for Stars in Compact High-Velocity Clouds. I First Results from VLT and 2MASS

## 1 Introduction

Cold Dark Matter (CDM) cosmogonies foretell the existence of a significant amount of substructure in galaxy halos (Klypin et al. 1999, Moore et al. 1999). However, the frequency of low-mass dark-matter halos around the Milky Way predicted in numerical simulations of structure formation, is an order of magnitude higher than the known number of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group (Mateo 1998). Theoretical solutions of this CDM “crisis” include propositions to change the properties of the dark matter particle (e.g., Spergel & Steinhardt 2000; Colín, Avila-Reese & Valenzuela 2000), as well as proposals which seek to change with cosmic time the astrophysical conditions that make gas conducive to star formation in small halos (e.g. Bullock, Kravstov & Weinberg 2001). An alternative solution is the hypothesis that the subhalos predicted by CDM simulations have been overlooked so far observationally. A potential source for these “missing” dwarf systems is the large population of Compact High-Velocity Clouds (CHVC).

High-Velocity Clouds are concentrations of neutral hydrogen with extremely high radial velocities that are inconsistent with Galactic rotation models. In spite of decades of intense investigation, the nature of HVCs remains unknown. In their seminal review, Wakker & van Woerden (1997) distinguished three different origins of HVCs: Galactic fountain, particularly for those clouds seen in absorption against halo stars within the Milky Way, the tidal debris of the Magellanic Stream, and “others”.

Blitz et al. (1999) proposed that some of the “other” HVCs could be distant, extragalactic HI clouds distributed throughout the Local Group. They suppose such HVCs could in fact represent primordial gas clouds or protogalaxies, which could be interpreted as the leftover building blocks from which Local Group galaxies have formed. These HVCs are compact, and isolated from the large HVC complexes. Blitz et al. suggest that these compact and isolated HVCs, have a characteristic mean distance of about 1 Mpc. Do compact, isolated HVCs trace the substructures predicted by CDM simulations?

Braun & Burton (1999, 2000) identified an intial catalog of 65 Compact HVCs, and conducted detailed follow-up observations. CHVCs have a mean infall velocity of 100 km s-1 in the Local Group reference frame, have angular sizes less than 2o FWHM, are isolated, and, at an assumed distance of 1 Mpc, have HI masses of a few times 107 M. Their rotation curves imply a high dark-to-visible mass ratio of 10 to 50. Deep integrated HI maps reveal a core-halo structure (Brüns, Kerp & Pagels 2001). The highest column density and coldest HI gas is situated in a compact region no more than several arcmin across, whereas the large-scale gas distribution consists of warm, lower column density gas. The cold, dense regions, would be the regions which are most conducive to star formation. The HI column densities of these regions are in excess of NHI$`>`$3$`\times `$1020 cm-2 (Herbstmeier, Heithausen, and Mebold 1993), sufficiently high to form molecules and star-forming cores. Putman et al. (2002) recently identified additional CHVCs in the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey (HIPASS). There are 179 objects on the southern hemipshere which share many of the properties of the original CHVCs identified by Braun & Burton. Additionally, de Heij, Braun & Burton (2002) re-analyzed the Leiden/Dwingeloo Survey data from which the original Braun & Burton list was drawn, and recognise 67 CHVCs. The current source count of CHVCs thus stands at 246.

A major hurdle in understanding the nature of HVCs in general, and that of CHVCs in particular, has been the lack of distance information. Braun (2001) recently reviewed existing, and hitherto unsuccessful, attempts to derive distances. The goal of identifying stars associated with CHVCs is that stars would supply distance indicators. Yet, CHVCs have no optical counterparts on sky survey plates; this rules out resolved stars down to V$``$21. An associated content of bright young supergiants seems highly unlikely. Simon & Blitz (2002) recently inspected digitized Palomar Sky Survey (POSS) plates with a spatial filtering method, for 264 northern HVCs. The surface brightness limits reached by their analysis (26 magnitudes arcsec-2 in V) would have recovered all known Local Group galaxies except for four of the very diffuse, extended dwarf Spheroidal (dSph) galaxies within 100 kpc of the Milky Way. Follow-up imaging of several “suspicious” CHVCs at 1-m and 3-m telescopes did not reveal a stellar content to a typical limiting stellar magnitude of RS = 22.2. Simon & Blitz rule out the possibility that HVCs are associated with a sub-population of dwarf galaxies within the range of known dwarf galaxy properties. Other attempts to resolve a faint stellar content in CHVCs with 4-m class telescopes have failed due to crowding of potential stars in CHVCs with foreground stars and background galaxies at the arcsec level, although Braun (2001) reports there is tantalizing evidence of the possible detection of tip-of-the-red-giant-branch (TRGB) stars in a few, which awaits confirmation.

We here present two new and complementary searches for the elusive stellar content of CHVCs. The first approach uses deep imaging in the optical with the 8.2-m Very Large Telescopes (VLT). The data are presented and discussed in section 2. The VLT data consist of optical imaging with a reasonably sized field of view, 6$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8 x 6$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8, centered on the highest column density regions of five CHVCs. We show that these observations have sufficiently high angular resolution and limiting magnitude to be sensitive to red giant branch stars (the brightest phase of a 1–12 Gyr stellar population), throughout the Local Group. The second is near-infrared single-star photometry using 2MASS data. We selected all stars within a radius of 1o of the CHVC positions for analysis. The data are presented and discussed in section 3. We show that the 2MASS data are sensitive to intermediate and old stellar populations in the dwarf Spheroidal companions of the Milky Way.

Since our observations do not reveal a stellar content in five HVCs, we conclude in section 4 that the five objects studied by us did not experience any star formation over cosmic time. Even with such a small sample, we can already place some interesting constraints on the putative stellar content of HVCs.

## 2 VLT Data

We submitted a target list of southern CHVCs for VLT service observing to the good, $`<`$0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$6, seeing queue. Here, we report on the results of our first semester of observations, with a fall right ascension coverage. The results of VLT service mode observations to be conducted in the spring of 2003 will be the subject of our paper II.

In order to minimise contamination of the images by foreground stars in the Galaxy, we chose targets at Galactic latitudes above $`|`$30o$`|`$. The target list was drawn from Braun & Burton (1999) and emphasises CHVCs observed with radio interferometers from Braun & Burton (2000), Brüns et al. (2000), and from unpublished HI observations by one of us (Kerp). We added to our target list, HIPASS J1712-64. Kilborn et al. (2000) drew attention to this isolated, star-free cloud of neutral hydrogen, which they report could be at a distance of 3.2 Mpc (based on its HI velocity and Hubble’s law).

We obtained observations of five HVCs (including HIPASS J1712-64). Details of the targets are presented in Table 1. The coordinates reflect the J2000 centres of our VLT poitings. According to the naming convention of Braun & Burton (1999), the name consists of a three-digit Galactic longitude, followed by a two-digit Galactic latitude, and a three-digit local-standard-of-rest velocity. The Galactic coordinates for HIPASS J1712-64 are l$``$326$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5, b$``$-14$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5. Notice that this cloud is at a lower Galactic latitude than the remainder of the sample. The Galactic absorptions were obtained using NED111The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.. NED provides Galactic extinctions from Schlegel, Finkenbeiner & Davis (1998), and assumes a Galactic extinction law with RV=3.1 (Cardelli, Clayton & Mathis 1989).

The observations were carried out at the VLT UT1 “ANTU” with the FORS1 instrument. They consisted of dithered exposures in I and V, for each of the CHVCs. The intregration times measured 5 $`\times `$ 300s in I and 3 $`\times `$ 300s in V, except for HVC039-33-260, for which they were 5 $`\times `$ 200s in I and 3 $`\times `$ 200s in V. Each observation was accompanied by a quality file. We checked that the conditions during the observations were photometric, and that the seeing was no worse than 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$6. We used the pipeline-reduced data in our analysis. The individual exposures were shifted and added. The I-band data needed additional flat-field correction beyond that already applied in the pipeline. Single-star photometry was carried out with DAOPHOT II (Stetson 1992). We used isolated stars in each field in order to determine the point-spread function (PSF). We find that the FWHM was between 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$52 and 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8, with a mean of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$65. Photometric zero points for each night and in each filter were obtained from the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) homepage. Extinction terms in V and I, and V-I colour terms needed to transform to the Johnson-Cousins photometric system, were gleaned from the ESO homepage as well. We used the PSF stars to find the zero points, determine aperture corrections, and define the transformation of the data into the Johnson-Cousins V, I system. The DAOPHOT parameters sharpness and roundness were used to clip extended sources, i.e., mainly background galaxies, with sizes larger than the PSF from the data tables. The last column in Table 1 (N stars) lists for each CHVC, the number of objects classed to be stars and detected in V and I.

Our data achieve limiting magnitudes in V$``$25–26, and in I$``$23–24. In Figure 1, we display the \[V-I, I\] CMDs of the four CHVCs located at similar Galactic latitudes (see Table 1). In Figure 2, we show the \[V-I, I\] CMD of HIPASS J1712-64. As an assessment of the data quality we reproduce in Figure 3 the DAOPHOT photometric errors in the V & I bands. We overplotted the errors for all five fields, since the data were obtained with the same (or similar) exposure times and have similar properties.

### 2.1 CHVCs versus Local Group Dwarf Galaxies

We have no a priori knowledge of the star-formation history (SFH) of CHVCs. CHVCs could have just started to form stars, and then their CMDs would exhibit nothing but the “blue plume”. This seems somewhat unlikely given the non-detection of stellar content on survey plates. If CHVCs started to form stars more than a Gyr ago, their CMDs should exhibit the “red plume”. Indeed, the dwarf galaxies of the Local Group, which experienced a variety of SFHs, always show stars on the red plume. The CMDs of Local Group dwarfs exhibit either the red plume only (dSph), a weak blue plume as well as a red plume (dIrr/dSph), or a strong blue plume combined with a red plume (dIrr). These morphologies serve as a guide to our exploration of CHVC CMDs.

We display in Figure 4 the \[V-I, I\] CMD of the transition dIrr/dSph galaxy Phoenix. The observations were obtained with the VLT UT2 “KOYEN” and FORS2 under good seeing conditions. The exposure times were 3 $`\times `$ 300s each, in V and I. The data were reduced, and single-star photometry applied in the same way, as described above for the CHVCs. We measure a FWHM in V of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$54, and in I of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$7. The total number of stars detected in V and I is 8780, much higher than in any of the CHVC fields. The DAOPHOT photometric errors are displayed in Figure 5, in order to emphasise that the quality of these data is similar to that of the CHVC data sets. Phoenix is located at high Galactic latitude, near –69o. The foreground contamination and extinction are small. It has a distance modulus of about 23.25 (Mateo 1998) or a distance of about 450 Kpc. The CMD of Phoenix shows why it is classed as having a mixed morphology: it exhibits both a blue plume of relatively young stars, and a red plume which includes the RGB.

The stellar distributions on the CMDs of the CHVCs are quite different from that of known Local Group dwarfs. The morphology of the CHVC CMDs does not reveal either of the two plumes. Instead, the CMDs of the CHVCs are reminiscent of other, deep HST pointings into the disk and halo of our Galaxy (e.g., Richer et al. 2002).

We overplotted on Fig. 1 theoretical isochrones from the database of Girardi et al. (2000) for ages of 10 and 100 Myr, and for 1 and 10 Gyr. We adopted a metallicity of 1/5 of Solar, as dwarf galaxies tend to have sub-Solar metallicities. In general, the effect of varying metallicity at a given age is that more metal-poor isochrones shift to bluer V-I colors, while more metal-rich ones show redder colors. This shift in minimal for the “young” isochrones (e.g., 10 & 100 Myr), but noticable for the “old” isochrones (1 & 10 Gyr). We show the set with a metallicity of 1/5 of Solar because the 1 & 10 Gyr isochrones have sufficiently red colors to encompass the data distribution.

When comparing the data with the “young” isochrones, we notice there are virtually no stars observed with V-I$`<`$1, where we expect to find a young population. This emphasises the absence of young MS and blue supergiant stars in the CHVCs.

The brightest evolutionary phase of stars with ages larger than about one Gyr occurs on the red giant branch. Furthermore, the TRGB, at MI of –4, is a well calibrated distance indicator (Lee, Freedman & Madore 1983), and at a distance of 1 Mpc, it would appear at I$``$21. We overplotted on Fig. 1 theoretical isochrones with ages of 1 and 10 Gyr. Note that the Girardi et al. isochrones extend above the RGB into the thermally pulsing AGB phase. A TRGB would have been detected for the entire metallicity range appropriate for dwarf galaxies, to I magnitudes of at least 22.5, or to a distance of up to 2 Mpc, in the four CHVCs whose CMDs are shown in Fig. 1. Notice that the absence of stars with V-I$`<`$1 rules out extremely metal-poor RGBs, which can be observed in dwarf Spheroidal galaxies. Since no RGB is obvious, a straightforward conclusion is that there is none, and that these objects are not faint galaxies within the Local Group.

### 2.2 HIPASS J1712-64

The absence of a TRGB with I$``$21 suggests the hypothesis that HIPASS J1712-64 is a faint dwarf galaxy of the Local Group is similarly unlikley. To illustrate the expected locations of RGBs in our data if HIPASS J1712-64 were at a distance of 3.2 Mpc as proposed by Kilborn et al. (2000), we overplotted in Fig. 2 the shifted Globular Cluster ridgelines from da Costa & Armandroff (1990) of M 15, \[Fe/H\]=-2.17, NGC 6397, -1.91, M 2, -1.58, NGC 6752, -1.54, NGC 1851, -1.29, and 47 Tuc, -0.71. Even if HIPASS J1712-64 were as far as 3.2 Mpc, with a corresponding TRGB I-magnitude of 23.5, we could have detected it if its metallicity were low enough, although this is clearly at the very limit of our data. Lewis et al. (2002) recently presented single-star photometry obtained under sub-arcsec seeing conditions in a 0°5$`\times `$0°5 field of view centered at 17 12 35.7, –64 38 12 (J2000) and reaching magnitudes fainter than r=24 and g=25. They, too, failed to detect an obvious stellar content associated with HIPASS J1712-64. Furthermore, they rule out any underlying unresolved diffuse components within their large field of view to deep surface-brightness limits.

### 2.3 Detection Limits

We can set upper limits on the non-detection of a possible CHVC stellar population in the VLT/FORS data, by constructing CMDs and luminosity functions (LF) with added sub-populations. This is accomplished by using the VLT FORS2 observation of Phoenix obtained under very similar conditions and with similar photometric limits, as a template stellar population with which we “contaminate” the observed CHVC CMDs.

We added Phoenix stars to the HVC CMDs at their location in the Phoenix CMD. In other words, we added the stars at the Phoenix distance. We did not vary the distance, since shifting the data would require us to make a model for how to vary the errors and completeness fractions accordingly. If we consider about 1 Mpc the radius of the Local Group, than the Phoenix population, situated at a distance of 0.45 Mpc, yields an appropriate template at a typical, mean distance under the hypothesis that CHVCs are dwarf galaxies scattered throughout the Local Group.

We reduced the number of stars in the Phoenix CMD before adding them to the HVC CMDs. The number of stars was reduced by up to a factor of 200. Any young MS population is easily detected (even with $``$20 stars only). This is because the HVCs do not show any stars (or very few stars/noise spikes) with colours of the Phoenix MS. Because there are simply no stars at magnitudes where we would expect to see a main-sequence, or a luminous blue supergiant stellar content in a \[V-I, I\] colour magnitude diagram, it is even safe to say that if there had been a young stellar population in the high column density regions of the HVC centres, then we would have detected it out to the very limits of the Local Group ($``$ 1 Mpc).

A scarce RGB population is more difficult to detect. We therefore performed a one-dimensional KS test to compare the original and simulated RGB populations. We constrained the test range to 18.5$`<`$I$`<`$22.25 and 0.5$`<`$V-I$`<`$1.5, as expected for RGB stars. The HVCs typically show 100 to 150 stars in this colour and magnitude range, with the exception of HIPASS J1712-64, which exhibits 477 stars. We obtained I-band LFs of the HVCs, and of the HVCs plus fractional Phoenix RGB populations. We used the D-statistic to decide whether or not we detected the population of red giants in the simulated (original HVC plus fractional Phoenix) data as compared with the original HVC data.

When the Phoenix RGB population is reduced to one fiftieth or less of its original strength (i.e., we are adding 26 or fewer stars from the Phoenix RGB), we cannot recover it. The probability that the original and the simulated populations are identical is equal to or above 95% in all cases. We increased the strength of the Phoenix RGB in steps. Inspecting the simulated CMDs by eye, results in the recognition of dilute RGBs when the strengths are between about 1/40 (30 stars) to 1/30 (56 stars) of the Phoenix RGB. At this level of “contamination”, the probability of the LFs being identical is still high, around 50%. At 1/20 of its strength, we are adding 73 Phoenix RGB stars to the HVCs. The probability for the simulated and the original RGB populations to be identical is now small, less than or about 10%. The added population is so obvious in the CMDs by eye, that it is likely that we would indeed conclude to the presence of an RGB population.

These tests suggest up to about 70 RGB stars could comprise a hidden, undetected dwarf galaxy population among the foreground contamination within our field of view. In other words, we believe that we were sensitive to detecting fewer than about 1.5 Phoenix-like RGB stars per arcmin2, for a distance of 0.5 Mpc. None are seen. We calculate that this corresponds to a V-band surface brightness of 29 magnitudes arcsec-2, or an MV of about -5.8 (compare Simon & Blitz 2002, Fig. 6).

So far, we analyzed data for five HVCs. We interpret our result to indicate that we detect zero stellar content in five cases observed. We use the binomial statistic to ask what is the probability of getting zero successes in five trials. The hypothesis that all five HVCs contain stars which escaped us by chance, can be ruled out with great confidence (the probability is smaller than 10-8). The probability that half of the HVCs contains stars is also quite unlikely given our results, 3%. There is, however, a 50% probability of obtaining our result if the fraction of HVCs which contains stars is less than 13%. As the sample of CHVCs searched for stellar content grows, these fractions may change, and will become better defined.

The result of our VLT observations allow us to set rather strong limits on the absence of a dwarf-galaxy like stellar population for five CHVCs.

1. Any young stellar population contributes less than a few percent (0.5 to 3%) of the stars seen in the FORS field of view centered on HI high-column-density regions of five CHVCs.
2. An old population cannot exceed several percent of the stars detected (1 to 5%) in the same fields.
3. It is highly unlikely that all five CHVCs contain stellar populations which all went undetected by chance; but there is a fifty-fifty chance for obtaining our result if the fraction of CHVCs with stars is less than 13%.

## 3 2MASS Data

Having ruled out a faint population in the central regions of the clouds with the VLT data, we now consider the possibility of more extended, nearby, and brighter populations. To this end we make use of near-infrared photometry in the public domain.

Two Micron All Sky Survey data222The 2MASS project is a collaboration between The University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (JPL/Caltech). Funding is provided primarily by NASA and the NSF. were extracted via the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) WWW site. 2MASS has finished uniformly scanning the entire sky in three near-infrared bands, J, H, and KS, using a pixel size of 2”. 2MASS point-source photometry achieves a 10-$`\sigma `$ (0.109 mag) detection at the following magnitude levels: J = 15.8, H = 15.1, and KS = 14.3 for unconfused sources outside of the Galactic plane.

The second incremental data release contains data for four of our CHVCs (there are no data available for HIPASS J1712-64). A major advantage of using the 2MASS archive for our search for stellar content is that we can easily obtain data covering a field of view which is well matched to the angular size of a CHVC. To this end we extracted from the point source catalog all sources within a 1o radius of the centre of each CHVC (as well as for several companion galaxies of the Milky Way). A further advantage of the 2MASS data is that they allow us to investigate Galactic foreground contamination. We thus also extracted data in comparison fields, at the same Galactic latitude, b, but at longitudes of l+3o, and l-5o, for each cloud (no data are available for the l-5o field of HVC039-37-231). The source count in each of these fields is around tenthousand, but with considerable variation. The latter is explained in part by the differences in area coverage within each of the 2o fields illustrated in Figs. 6 & 7 (in addition to true variation due to different Galactic coordinates).

In Figure 6, we display positional plots of the sources detected by 2MASS. Figure 7 shows results for offset fields. There are no enhancements of stellar density visible toward the centres of the “ON” fields which could be interpreted as dwarf galaxies in the clouds. The “OFF” fields exhibit a high stellar density, showing that even at Galactic latitudes above 30o, the Galactic foreground contamination is strong in the near infrared. The ON and OFF fields are qualitatively similar. A one-dimensional KS test on the K-band LFs agrees with this statement (although the probabilities differ largely from case to case – possibly due to small real variations with position over a few degrees in the Galaxy). The distribution of sources on the ON CMDs is concluded to be consistent with a population of Galactic foreground stars. This leads us to favor the hypothesis that there are no associated stellar populations detected in these CHVCs.

In Figure 8, we show the \[J-KS, KS\] CMDs of the data. We do not show CMDs of the OFF fields because there is no obvious difference between the CMDs of the ON and the OFF fieds. The same is true for other filter combinations, such as the \[J-H, H\], or \[H-KS, KS\] CMDs. We overplotted Girardi et al. (2000) isochrones onto one of the \[J-KS, KS\] CMDs. At distances of around 150 kpc (as shown in Fig. 8), we can expect to detect the full range of red stellar populations, supergiants, AGB stars and also, stars along the RGB. Only for distances of less than about 300 Kpc do the data include the TRGB. For a distance of 1 Mpc, we could at best expect to detect red supergiants in associated galaxies with these data. This limits the tests we can perfom with the 2MASS data. On the other hand, as shown by Fig. 8, the 2MASS data complement the optical data in ruling out the presence of a young stellar population. They do so even in the presence of a small amount of internal dust, since absorption is much smaller in the near-IR than in the optical.

The 2MASS data are a powerful tool to separate a potential very young stellar population in HVCs from Galactic foreground stars. Notice how the 10 Myr isochrone of Fig. 8 runs through a part of the CMD where HVC039-37-231 does not exhibit any stars. The 2MASS data are actually sensitive to 10-Myr-old MS stars for distances of up to 125 Kpc, and for 10-Myr-old BSG stars for distances of up to 500 Kpc. The lack of stars with colours J-KS$`<`$0.2 demonstrates that we do not detect a young stellar component in the CHVCs out to large distances.

The 2MASS data are also uniquely sensitive to young and intermediate-age AGB stars for distances of less than about 300 Kpc. See how old isochrones in Fig. 8 stick out of the data distribution. They terminate at the first thermal pulse and so, do not extend as far red in colour as the full range of AGB stars seen, e.g., in the LMC and SMC (see below). There are no stars with KS$`<`$14 and J-KS$`>`$1, where we would expect to see the AGB component of CHVCs for distances less than about 300 Kpc. The distribution of sources in this colour and magnitude range is instead fully consistent with Galactic foreground, only.

### 3.1 CHVCs versus Local Group Dwarf Galaxies

The CMDs of the CHVCs are quite different from 2MASS-based CMDs of the centres of the star-forming Irregular companions of the Milky Way, the LMC and the SMC. Their CMDs, shown in Figure 9, exhibit the blue plume near J-H, J-KS of zero. They also show a well populated RGB, which turns into a luminous, extended AGB for J-H, J-KS colours larger than one. The CMDs of the CHVCs do not exhibit a blue plume at colours similar to those seen in the Magellanic Clouds. They do not show AGB stars with colours similar to those seen in the MCs. This rules out the presence of a young stellar content in the CHVCs with properties similar to those of Irregular galaxies of the Local Group.

The AGB stars are a particularly prominent feature in the CMDs of the LMC and the SMC. Following Nikolaev & Weinberg (2000) the tail of AGB stars extending redward of J-KS$`>`$1.4 is identified with carbon rich thermally pulsing, or TP-AGB stars, having presumed ages of 1—4 Gyr. On CMDs in 2o fields centered on the LMC and the SMC, we find that the brightest such AGB stars occur at K$``$10 in the LMC, and at K$``$10.5 in the SMC. Adopting the LMC & SMC distances given in Mateo (1998), 18.5 & 18.8 (or 49 & 58 Kpc), respectively, the K-band absolute magnitudes of these C-rich TP-AGB stars are about –8.5. We would have cleary seen such an AGB feature to within about half a magnitude of the detection limit. Since a prominent AGB is not seen to K$``$14, then the CHVCs are either more distant than m-M=22.5 or d=0.3 Mpc, or, if they are within about 0.3 Mpc, they do not contain a population of C-rich TP-AGB stars similar to that seen in the LMC and the SMC.

Another Milky Way companion with a well-known population of bright, and intermediate-age AGB stars is the dSph Fornax. Saviane, Held & Bertelli (2000) analyzed it most recently, and emphasised the presence of bright AGB stars, which they attribute to an intermediate-age (2–10 Gyr) stellar population. Fornax is at quite a high Galactic latitude, of almost -66o, and suffers less from Galactic foreground contamination than do our CHVCs, the LMC and the SMC. Fornax has a distance modulus of 20.70, or a distance of 138 Kpc, a V-band central surface brightness of 23.4 magnitude arcsec-2, and an exponential scale length of 10$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2 (Mateo 1998).

The 2MASS data of Fornax, shown in Figure 9, exhibit a population of AGB stars with J-K$`>`$1, and possibly of up to 2, near K$``$13.5. The C-rich TP-AGB stars with colours of J-KS$`>`$1.4 identified in the MCs are very sparse in Fornax. These stars extend to the red from a more strongly populated AGB feature seen between 1.0$`<`$J-KS$`<`$1.4. The magnitudes of these AGB stars, most probably the young AGB component of Fornax, are near K$``$13.5. This implies absolute K magnitudes of $``$–7.2. Since similar AGB stars are not seen to K$``$14 in the CHVCs, then the CHVCs are either more distant than m-M=21.2 or d=0.17 Mpc, or, if they are within 0.17 Mpc, they do not contain a population of AGB stars similar to that seen in Fornax.

We also culled data for the dSph galaxies Sextans (b$``$42o), Sculptor (b$``$–83o) and Ursa Minor (b$``$45o) from the 2MASS database. Data for Carina and Draco are not available in the second incremental data release. All four dSph observed have exponential scale lengths of the order of 10 arcmin. Fornax and Sculptor have rather high V-band central surface brightnesses, of 23.4 and 23.7 mag acrsec-2 (see Mateo 1998), and they are easily seen as concentrations in the position plots shown in Fig. 10. The surface brightnesses Ursa Minor and Sextans are only 25.5 and 26.2 magnitude acrsec-2 respectively. They are not distinguishable on position plots against their respective Galactic foreground contaminations, although their H-band luminosity functions exhibit a feature where we would expect to find their TRGBs (compare Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 1999).

### 3.2 Detection Limits

We performed KS tests using the K-band RGB LF of Sculptor (whose distance is about 80 Kpc, see Mateo 1998). We first selected stars by position to occur near the centre of the field of view. This emphasises true member over Galactic foreground stars. We then constrained the colour and luminosity range for the RGB to be 0.7$`<`$J-KS$`<`$1.4, and KS$`>`$15. The Galactic foreground of the CHVCs is much stronger than that of Sculptor, since the former are situated at about 50o lower Galactic latitude. We needed to add multiples of the Sculptor RGB stars to the \[J-KS, KS\] CMDs of the CHVCs before we could discriminate the additional RGB stars against the strong Galactic foreground of the CHVC fields. The data start to suggest the presence of a Sculptor-like RGB when four times the Sculptor stars are added to the data. Significant differences with probabilities of less than 2% for a chance event occur when about eight times the amount of Sculptor RGB stars is added to the data. A factor of eight in flux corresponds to about 2.3 mag. Therefore, in order to detect a Sculptor-like RGB population in our CVHC fields, it would have to have a V-band surface brightness of about 21.4 magnitude acrsec-2. This is much higher than exhibited by any of the dSph or dIrr/dSph companions of the Milky Way. We note that M 31, however, has such high-surface-brightness companions, e.g., NGC 147.

The 2MASS data allow us to set additional limits on the absence of a dwarf-galaxy like stellar population for four CHVCs.

1. The distribution of stars on the sky in 2o fields centered on four CHVCs is similar to the distribution of stars on the sky at the same Galactic latitude and a few degrees away in Galactic longitude. A KS test cannot distinguish the K-band LFs of the ON from the OFF fields.
2. 2MASS data are sensitive to young MS stars out to about 125 Kpc and to BSGs out to 500 Kpc. None are seen. Any luminous young stellar population contributes less than a few percent of the stars.
3. 2MASS data are sensitive to AGB stars out to about 300 Kpc. None are seen. Any luminous AGB stellar population contributes less than a few percent of the stars.
4. An old RGB population needs to have a high surface brightness to be distinguishable against high Galactic foreground at low latitudes. Such a high-surface-brightness galaxy would be recognized in the optical on Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) plates (compare Simon & Blitz 2002).

## 4 Conclusions

We conducted a two-pronged search for stellar content in five HVCs. Our optical data are sensitive to the presence of RGB stars for distances of up to 2 Mpc, i.e., throughout the entire Local Group. The near-infrared data are uniquely sensitive to luminous AGB stars with distances of up to 300 Kpc.

We show that the optical data rule out the presence of young, blue stars in the small, 6$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8 x 6$`\stackrel{}{.}`$8, fields observed and centered on the highest column density regions of five HVCs. Our strong quantitative limits on the absence of RGB stars, the type of stellar population seen in all Local Group dwarf galaxies, in the HVCs leads us to conclude that it is highly likely that no star formation has occurred in them over the Hubble time.

We use 2MASS data (readily available for four of the five HVCs from the 2MASS archive) to investigate the stellar content in 2o fields centered on the CHVCs. The near-IR CMDs are sensitive to reveal the presence of nearby young main-sequence, and of young and intermediate-age AGB stars. None are seen. We also place further quantitative limits on the RGB population. In addition, we show that the spatial distribution of stars in the 2MASS fields is indistinguishable from that in adjacent fields. In particular, the CHVCs data lack a central concentration that gives away the presence of Milky-Way dSph companions with typical scale-lengths of order 10 arc min (but not of the lowest-surface brightness ones, such as, e.g., Ursa Minor dwarf Spheroidal). We did not try to search very large fields for extremely diffuse populations of AGB or RGB stars.

We detect zero associated resolved stellar content in five HVCs investigated. The probability that all five HVCs contain stars which escaped us by chance is extremely small. Our data therefore add to the accumulating evidence that the Local Group may contain dark matter halos in which no star formation ever took place.

We also conclude that our result of zero detections in five trials is yet consistent with the hypothesis that 13% of CHVCs contain stars. A better knowledge of the true numbers of CHVCs with and without stars will help us to differentiate between possible scenarios, thus serving as a guide toward improvements to models of galaxy formation. For example, Bullock, Kravstov & Weinberg (2001) propose that if gas accretion and star formation are suppressed in low-mass dark matter halos after intergalactic gas is reheated during reionization, then the observed dwarf satellites around our Galaxy are only those that assembled a large fraction of their mass before reionization and survived until today. As a consequence, only 1% of satellite halos would contain stars. Given the statistics discussed above, it is clear that our observations cannot as yet place any constraints on a scenario in which a diminishing number of CHVCs contains stars. This can only be accomplished by observing a larger sample. We will present results of a wider search for resolved stars in CHVCs in paper II.

In light of the new results presented by Simon & Blitz (2002), Lewis et al. (2002), and by us, HVCs are an unlikely repository to increase significantly the dwarf-galaxy population of the Local Group of galaxies. Recent searches for additional Local Group dwarf galaxies not targeted at HVCs (e.g. Whiting, Hau & Irwin 2003) have similarly revealed that there is no large population of Local Group dwarf galaxies of familiar type awaiting discovery. Therefore, there appears to be a true discrepancy between the number of dark-matter subhalos predicted in CDM models, and the observed number of satellite galaxies.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Drs. Appenzeller and Stahl for obtaining the Phoenix data during a FORS2 comissioning run. The observations of the CHVCs were obtained with the FORS1 instrument for the observing proposal 67.B-0060(A). This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. We made extensive use of the NED database. RS-L thanks the Universities of Bochum and Bonn for hosting a visit sponsored by the DFG Graduiertenkolleg 118 “The Magellanic System, Galaxy Interaction, and the Evolution of Dwarf Galaxies”. She also acknowledges support from the Max-Planck Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik Garching.