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# Cerium: the lithium substitute in post-AGB starsbased on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory at Paranal in Chile (66.D-0171A) and at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory at La Palma, Spain

## 1 Introduction

Few chemical species are so important to guide our theoretical understanding of both stellar and primordial nucleosynthesis as lithium (Li). The understanding of the solar Li abundance, the cosmic Li abundance and the evolution of Li in our Galaxy is, however, complicated and at least three different production sites must be explored: (1) big-bang nucleosynthesis; (2) spallation by cosmic ray particles on interstellar matter nuclei, and (3) stellar nucleosynthesis, mainly during the AGB evolution (e.g. Travaglio et al. 2001 and references therein).

The production of Li in AGB stars is an important ingredient in the deciphering of the Galactic chemical evolution. This production site is well documented observationally by the detection of several Li-rich AGB giants both in our Galaxy (e.g. García-Lario et al. 1999) and in the Magellanic Clouds (e.g. Smith & Lambert 1989; Plez et al. 1993). Also the in situ production of Li by the Cameron-Fowler transport mechanism is rather well understood theoretically, by the process dubbed ‘hot-bottom burning’ in which the base of the convective stellar envelope penetrates hot enough layers for nucleosynthesis to take place and which guarantees quick transport of fresh 7Li to cooler layers to prevent destruction by proton capture (e.g. Sackmann & Boothroyd 1992; Lattanzio & Forestini 1999). This hot-bottom process is, however, only expected to be active in intermediate mass stars of around 4-5 M depending on the metallicity (e.g. Travaglio et al. 2001).

The high Li abundance of low-mass post-AGB stars described recently in the literature came, therefore, as a surprise. Indeed, several objects with a low metallicity in the post-AGB phase of stellar evolution were described to be enhanced in Li to such extent that production of Li has to be invoked to explain the derived abundances. The objects are IRAS 05341+0852 (Reddy et al. 1997), IRAS 22272+5435 (Začs et al. 1995; Reddy et al. 2002), IRAS Z02229+6208 and IRAS 07430+1115 (Reddy et al. 1999), IRAS 05113+1347 (Reddy et al. 2002) and they all combine a high Li abundance with a strong overabundance of neutron capture elements and a C/O number ratio larger than one. Their effective temperature and the presence of a significant amount of circumstellar dust indicate these objects to be in a post-AGB evolutionary stage. Their low metallicity and kinematics show these objects to be of low initial mass and for these stars, the 3rd dredge-up phenomenon, although not well understood by itself, is not expected to bring freshly produced Li to the stellar photosphere.

The presence of Li in these stars was inferred from the famous Li resonance doublet at 6707.76 Å and 6707.91 Å but in all stars, the doublet is shifted redwards by about 0.2 Å compared to the expected position based on the other photospheric lines. A differential velocity of the Li line-forming region is invoked to explain this shift. An additional indication for this identification was that similar shifts were found in components of the Na D and K I alkali line profiles (e.g. Reddy et al. 2002). Those profiles are, however, complex and often disturbed by emission components (see e.g. Figs. 5 and 6 of the same paper), making the presence of such a component at the correct velocity not clear. Contrary to the abovementionned older papers, the two newest quantitative Li abundances were derived by spectrum synthesis modelling in the wing of the ”shifted Li line” at the photospheric position (Reddy et al. 2002).

Motivated by this unexplained velocity shift in the Li line, we investigated an alternative identification of this line which was also detected in our high signal-to-noise (S/N) UVES spectra in several objects. Given the facts that the stars are strongly enriched in s-process elements and that the line spectra of (ionised) s-process elements is not well documented, we scanned the newest s-process line lists for possible identifications. Here we report on our alternative identification of the line at 6708.1 Å as due to Ce ii. The paper is organised as follows: In Sect. 2 we document our newest high S/N-spectra of some post-AGB stars; the next section is devoted to the line list update of the lanthanides while Sect. 4 and 5 are devoted to our spectral analysis of the Li line region. We end this paper with a discussion in Sect. 6.

## 2 High S/N post-AGB spectra with VLT+UVES

In the framework of our ongoing program to study the photospheric chemical composition of stars in their last stages of evolution, high resolution, high S/N spectra of a selected sample of 11 post-AGB objects were obtained with the UVES spectrograph mounted on the 8.2 m VLT-KUEYEN telescope. The observations were carried out in service mode during two periods (04-07/2000 and 01-02/2001). The resolving power of these spectra varies between $``$55,000 and $``$60,000. Sample spectra can be found in Fig. 1 (the two spectra on top).

The chemical diversity present in the whole post-AGB class of stellar objects (e.g. Van Winckel & Reyniers 2001) is also reflected in this new sample: only three out of the eleven objects are clearly s-process enhanced, two of which are observed for the first time at high resolution. We already completed a detailed abundance analysis for each of these objects, but these will be published elsewhere.

## 3 The Ce ii D.R.E.A.M. line data

One of the problems in dealing with strongly s-process enriched objects is the lack of accurate atomic data of many s-process elements. Besides the more general lack of accurate oscillator strengths, even the wavelengths of the transitions of neutral and ionised s-process species are badly known. Given the fact that the optical spectrum of the strongly enriched objects like IRAS 05341+0852 is completely dominated by such transitions (Fig. 1), this limits severely the astrophysical interpretation of such data.

The main purpose of the “Database on Rare-Earths At Mons University” (D.R.E.A.M.), created recently and accessible at the address http://www.umh.ac.be/$``$astro/dream.shtml, is to provide such an update concerning the radiative properties of rare-earth atoms and ions. These properties are obtained by systematic and detailed calculations performed within the framework of a pseudo-relativistic Hartree-Fock (HFR) method (Cowan 1981) including core-polarization effects (see e.g. Quinet et al. 1999). In the particular case of doubly ionized cerium, about 15000 lines with wavelengths based on experimental energy levels are listed in the database for which atomic data were obtained using the computational procedures described by Palmeri et al. (2000) and Zhang et al. (2001). This linelist extends considerably the one reported in Kurucz’ database which only contains the Ce ii lines observed by Meggers et al. (1975).

## 4 The identification of the 6708.1 Å line

As soon as the Ce ii line list was released, we realized that the Ce ii line at 6708.099 Å ($`\chi `$ = 0.701 eV, $`\mathrm{log}gf`$ = $``$2.12) was an obvious candidate to identify the “shifted Li line” in the s-process enriched post-AGB stars. We decided to make a complete identification of the 6708 Å region for the s-process enriched post-AGB stars by extracting all spectral lines from the VALD database (Kupka et al. 1999) from 6695 to 6725 Å. From this list, we removed the lithium doublet. Then, we added the Pr iii lines and the Ce ii 6708.099 Å line from the D.R.E.A.M. database. Although the accuracy of an oscillator strength is always hard to assess, it is reasonable to consider that the f value of the 6708.099 Å transition is probably accurate within a few percent (typically 10 to 15%) in view of the moderate complexity of the electronic configurations involved in Ce ii. We chose not to replace all other Ce ii VALD $`\mathrm{log}(gf)`$ values by D.R.E.A.M. data in order not to compromise a comparison with previous results (see later). For two carbon lines in our list, we modified the log$`gf`$ values to more recent values (Hibbert et al. 1991).

We estimated the equivalent widths for all the lines in this region using abundances determined from our new spectra. These calculations were made using R.L. Kurucz model atmospheres in combination with C. Sneden’s latest version (April 2002) of his LTE line analysis program MOOG. We could identify in this way most lines in the Li-region (see Fig. 1), including the line previously identified as the “shifted Li line”, indicated with an arrow.

Moreover, we synthesised the 6708 Å region for IRAS 05341+0852 (Fig. 1). The aim of this synthesis was not to derive abundances, but to test the quality of our constructed line list. It turned out that most of the lines were adequately fitted, but some lines are clearly still missing. It is striking that even relatively strong lines, such as the line at $``$6702.7 Å, are not yet identified, but are very probably also of s-process origin. The region close to the 6708.1 Å line is very well fitted with the new Ce ii covering the “shifted Li line”.

As a final test of our lithium substitute, we calculated the Ce abundance from the 6708.099 Å line for all post-AGB stars showing the “shifted Li line”, and compared it to the calculated or published Ce abundance. The equivalent widths for the different stars are obtained as follows:

* IRAS 05341+0852 and IRAS 06530$``$0213: measured from KUEYEN+UVES spectra. The abundance analyses of these objects will be published elsewhere.
* IRAS 05113+1347 and IRAS 22272+5435: measured from Fig. 7 in Reddy et al. (2002).
* IRAS Z02229+6208 and IRAS 07430+1115: taken from Tab. 10 in Reddy et al. (1999).

For IRAS 05113+1347 we have also an own WHT+UES spectrum (see Fig. 1) from which we obtained $`W_\lambda (6708.1\mathrm{\AA })`$ = 81 mÅ. However, we chose to use the Reddy et al. $`W_\lambda `$ to be consistent with their abundance analysis and model for this star. For IRAS 22272+5435, Začs et al. (1995) mention $`W_\lambda (6708.1\mathrm{\AA })`$ = 106 mÅ.

From the comparison summarized in Tab. 1, we can conclude that there is a good to excellent agreement between the Ce abundance calculated from the 6708.099 Å line and the calculated or published Ce abundance. Only for the stars IRAS Z02229+6208 and IRAS 07430+1115 the difference in abundance is larger (but still $`<`$0.7 dex). However, the Ce abundance for these stars is based on only four lines and therefore it should be reanalysed. It is clear, though, that also for these stars the identification of the 6708.1 Å line as a “shifted Li line” is much less probable than as a Ce ii line. Moreover, it is unlikely that the same velocity shift should prevail for circumstellar Li or Li in photospheric downdrafts (e.g. Reddy et al. 2002) in all post-AGB objects.

## 5 Lithium upper limits

As seen in Fig. 1, the new Ce line matches the “shifted Li line” very well. Reddy et al. (2002) computed a spectrum synthesis of this region and derived the Li abundance from an indication of extra absorption at the photospheric wavelength, without modelling the ”shifted Li line” itself (see Fig. 7 of their paper). Other Li abundances covered in the discussion and Tab. 8 of the same paper were derived from the shifted line equivalent width.

To test this result, we derived upper limits for the lithium abundance in the three stars from Tab. 1 of which we have spectra, one of which was discussed and shown in Fig. 7 of Reddy et al. (2002). For this purpose, we used the same atomic and molecular line list as Reddy et al. (2002) including the s-process line at 6707.74 Å introduced by Lambert et al. (1993) who assumed it to be a Ce ii transition. Sample syntheses and upper limits are given in Fig. 2. If the suspected s-process lines at 6707.74 Å is excluded, the upper limits shift up by $``$0.5 dex for the cooler IRAS 05113+1347 and $``$0.2 dex for IRAS 05341+0852. The upper limit for IRAS 06530-0213 (not shown) was $`\mathrm{log}ϵ`$(Li) $`<`$ 2.9. It is clear that no detection of a contribution due to Li could be made when taken all lines of this complex region into account.

## 6 Conclusion

The line at 6708.1 Å which is seen in some heavily s-process enriched post-AGB objects was identified in the literature as due to Li, despite the redward shift of about 0.2 Å compared to other photospheric lines. The line was assumed to be formed in infalling circumstellar gas or photospheric downdrafts to explain the shift. Using the recent atomic data on lanthanides released in the D.R.E.A.M. project, we can safely identify this line as not being due to Li but coming from a Ce ii line transition at 6708.099 Å. Indeed, the Ce abundance derived from this single line is comparable to the Ce abundance derived from other Ce ii lines in the spectra. Moreover no inclusion of a significant amount of lithium at photospheric wavelength was needed in a synthesis of three objects, among which the most s-process enriched object known. We claim that in none of the post-AGB objects there is evidence for in situ Li production and conclude that there is no need to invoke special non-standard mixing during the AGB evolution to explain the claimed high abundances of this fragile element in these stars. Note that this new line identification is no alternative for (super) Li rich lower luminosity objects.

This result dramatically illustrates the importance of reliable and complete line lists when doing analyses of these strongly s-process enriched objects, the spectra of which are dominated by lines coming from s-process elements.

###### Acknowledgements.

MR and HVW, EB and PQ acknowledge support from the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders and the FNRS (Belgium), respectively. This research has made use of the Vienna Atomic Line Database (VALD2). It is a pleasure to thank Prof. C. Sneden for his continuous support of his MOOG Stellar Line Analysis Program.


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# O.P.E. and Power Corrections to the QCD coupling constant.

## 1 The non-perturbative QCD coupling constant from lattice QCD.

The non-perturbative calculation of the QCD coupling constant is a major open question, as it could give some insight into the problem of confinement. This calculation, as a very important task, has already been performed by several different methods,. The method used here is based in the calculation of the coupling constant from the three gluon coupling , that allows an easier physical interpretation than the Schrödinger functional method, for example, and if it does not allow to study a quite wide range of energies, it will allow us to focus on the regime of energies where the transition from perturbative to non-perturbative regimes in QCD occurs.

The calculation of the coupling constant in this method comes from the lattice evaluation of two- and three-point gluon Green functions, the renormalised coupling being defined (according to MOM schemes) as the renormalised three gluon vertex where external propagators are explicitly amputated:

$`g(k^2)={\displaystyle \frac{G^{(3)}(p_1^2,p_2^2,p_3^2)\left(Z_3(k^2)\right)^{3/2}}{G^{(2)}(p_1^2)G^{(2)}(p_2^2)G^{(2)}(p_3^2)}},`$ (1)
where $`G^{(2)}(p_1^2)`$ and $`G^{(3)}(p_1^2,p_2^2,p_3^2)`$ are two- and three- point Green Function form factors , and $`Z_3(k^2)=k^2G_R^{(2)}(k^2)`$ is the gluon propagator renormalization constant.

## 2 O.P.E. and $`A^2`$ condensate.

Lattice calculations of the QCD coupling constant suggest the necessity to add power corrections to the purely perturbative expressions, to correctly describe its running . An Operator Product Expansion (O.P.E.) analysis of the Green functions in Landau gauge111In the lattice we will work in the minimum $`A^2`$ Landau gauge, $`_\mu A_\mu =0`$ (Absolute Landau Gauge), so all gauge dependent quantities will be expressed in this particular gauge. relates this power corrections to the existence of a non-perturbative $`A^2`$ condensate , through expressions:

$`G_{O.P.E.}^{(2)}(p^2)=G_{Pert.}^{(2)}(p^2)+c{\displaystyle \frac{A^2_{R,\mu }}{p^2}},`$
$`\alpha _s^{O.P.E}(p^2)=\alpha _s^{Pert.}(p^2)+c^{}{\displaystyle \frac{A^2_{R,\mu }}{p^2}},`$ (2)
where perturbative expressions are developed at three loops, and the functions $`c`$ and $`c^{}`$ include the Wilson coefficient of the expansion and the anomalous dimension of the condensate at leading logarithm.

By performing a combined fit of lattice results in a wide region of energies (from $`3`$ to $`10\mathrm{GeV}`$) to expressions in (2), in two different $`\mathrm{MOM}`$ schemes, a value of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{\overline{\mathrm{MS}}}`$ is extracted, in fairly good agreement with the one obtained by the ALPHA collaboration , by a completely different method. A value of the $`A^2`$ condensate comes out from the analysis.

The physical meaning of this condensate is still an open question, and a lot of work is being devoted to its study during last years, for example, in relation to confinement . The aim in this work will be to study the possible semiclassical contribution to this condensate coming from instantons, and whether they might explain the presence of power corrections in Green Functions.

## 3 The role of instantons.

Instantons  are classical solutions of QCD equations of motion that have been longly studied as a possible description of QCD vacuum, and claimed to explain some non-perturbative properties of QCD at low energies, as the axial anomaly, $`\eta ^{}`$ mass, chiral condensate, etc (See  for a general overview).

Based in the fact that instantons are saddle points of QCD action, we could think of factorizing the path integral into an integral over semi-classical gauge field configurations (in this case instantons) and the integral of quantum fluctuations around this semi-classical background. This means that the gauge field ($`A_\mu ^a`$) could be decomposed into a instantonic background ($`(A_\mu ^a)_{Inst.}`$) plus quantum fluctuations:

$`A_\mu ^a=(A_\mu ^a)_{Inst.}+Q_\mu ^a((A_\mu ^a)_{Inst.}),`$ (3)
where in principle quantum fluctuations could deppend on the semi-classical background.

If we nevertheless assume the hypothesis that quantum fluctuations are not sensitive to the background , the O.P.E. $`A^2`$-condensate, corresponding to the non-perturbative part of $`A^2`$, will be:

$`A^2_{O.P.E.}(A_\mu ^a)_{Inst.}^2A^2Q^2(0).`$ (4)
The task in this work will be to compute the instantonic contribution to this condensate, that (up to other non-perturbative contributions, that could of course exist) we will finally compare to the O.P.E. one, computed in .

In order to compute $`A^2`$ in an instantonic background, we will consider the gauge field in an ensemble of non-interacting SU(3) instantons ($`\mathrm{I}`$) and anti-instantons ($`\overline{\mathrm{I}}`$) with radii $`\{\rho _i\}`$, centered in $`\{z_i\}`$, and with an orientation in color space given by $`\{(O^{a\alpha })_i\}`$. If they are not interacting and randomly oriented, their contribution to the $`A^2`$ condensate in the absolute Landau gauge would give:

$`A^2_{\mathrm{inst}}{\displaystyle \frac{N}{V}}{\displaystyle d^4xA_\mu ^a(x)A_\mu ^a(x)}=12\pi ^2\rho ^2n,`$ (5)
where $`A_\mu ^a(x)`$ is the standard ’t Hooft Polyakov instanton gauge field , $`\rho `$ the average radius, and $`n=\frac{N_I+N_{\overline{\mathrm{I}}}}{V}`$ the density.

If we accept the phenomenological values assigned to $`n`$ and $`\rho `$ by the Instanton Liquid Model  ($`n0.5fm^4`$ and $`\rho 1/3fm`$), the instantonic contribution will be $`A^2_{Inst.}0.5\mathrm{GeV}^2`$. We will perform, however, our own analysis, thus testing the latter approach.

### 3.1 Cooling.

In principle, a direct measure of $`A^2`$ in the lattice should be possible, but the presence of the UV divergent part is hardly separable from the soft, instantonic one. The other possibility is to perform a cooling procedure, that, through a progressive elimination of UV fluctuations, will allow us to compute the number and size of instantons, giving an indirect measure of the $`A^2`$ condensate through (5). Both methods agree after a high number of cooling sweeps, when quantum fluctuations are almost completely suppressed, but then cooling bias is so strong, as we will see, that no information can be recovered about the original situation.

We will use the traditional cooling method , even if it introduces a number of known biases, as $`\mathrm{I}\overline{\mathrm{I}}`$ annihilation, and a modification of instanton sizes and lattice spacing. The approach proposed here is to compute instanton properties for different number of cooling sweeps, and extrapolate back to the thermalised situation , in order to recover their physical meaning222 The use of improved cooling methods, as the one developed in , could improve this approach, as radii evolution is minimised, but $`\mathrm{I}\overline{\mathrm{I}}`$ annihilation is unavoidable, so the extrapolation will be anyway necessary..

### 3.2 Shape Recognition.

Instantons will be localised in cooled lattices via a geometrical method (Described in .) that accepts a topological charge lump as an instanton when the ratio of the integral over lattice sites with topological charge bigger than a given fraction, $`\alpha `$, of the topological charge at the maximum and its theoretical counterpart,

$`ϵ(\alpha )={\displaystyle \frac{_{x/\frac{|Q_\rho (x)|}{|Q_\rho (0)|}\alpha }d^4xQ_\rho (x)}{13\alpha ^{1/2}+2\alpha ^{3/4}}},`$ (6)
is around $`1`$ for a range of values of $`\alpha `$. To verify that it is really an instanton, we compute (6) both for the topologial charge density and the action, accepting it as an instanton only if it is self-dual.

Once the lump has been identified as an instanton, the radius will be computed from the size of the cluster where the integral has been developed, in agreement with the value of the radius deduced from the value of the topological charge at the maximum.

We have tested this method for different lattice spacings, from $`0.055`$ to $`0.23`$ fm. As a matter of fact, for big lattice spacings, instantons have radii of order of the lattice spacing, being in practice indistinguishable of UV fluctuations. Therefore, only lattices finer than $`0.1`$ fm will be used, otherwise an important number of instantons with small radii will be lost (all for radii below two lattice spacings).

### 3.3 Results.

If we compare the measures of the instanton density for two different lattice spacings, $`0.074`$ and $`0.101\mathrm{fm}`$, and different volumes, as a function of the number of cooling sweeps (Figure 1), we can conclude that no finite volume effect affects our results, as the measures for the $`24^4`$ lattice and $`32^4`$ one are compatible. This is true excepting lattice volumes approaching the instanton volume.

For different values of the lattice spacing, on the contrary, bigger densities are found at the same number of cooling sweeps for finer lattices. In addition to the problems to detect instantons with small radii, there is a known problem of cooling procedures, they are not independent of the lattice spacing , and both effects could play an important role to explain the difference found between different lattice simulations.

To illustrate this, if we fix the value of the density (that is, we perform a different number of cooling sweeps for each lattice spacing) and compare the average radii, they agree within the error limits. Moreover, comparing the distribution of instanton radii, they are in a quite good agreement (Figure 2), even with very few statistics (10 configuration each).

### 3.4 A naive model of annihilation.

With the method outlined above, we compute the density and size of instantons in a lattice, for different numbers of cooling sweeps, $`n_c`$, obtaining values with a strong dependence on $`n_c`$ (See figures), that avoids to obtain any physical information at fixed $`n_c`$. Moreover, this dependence on the number of cooling sweeps is different at different lattice spacing, so an extrapolation of results after cooling is unavoidable to obtain any physical information.

As a first approach to the understanding of this evolution, we will make a simple model, where instantons annihilate with antiinstantons (Being so $`\mathrm{\Delta }N=N_IN_{\overline{I}}`$ a constant) proportionally to their packing ratio, and to the number of antiinstantons, so that the equation for the evolution of $`N=N_I+N_{\overline{I}}`$ is:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{N}{n_c}}={\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{2V}}\rho ^4(n_c)(N(n_c)^2\mathrm{\Delta }N^2).`$ (7)
If we assumed $`\rho (n_c)=cte`$, the solution of Eq. (7) would give $`N(n_c)\frac{N(0)}{1+\kappa n_c}`$, the expression used in , as a first order approach. But our cooling procedure modifies instanton’s size (See figure 3), in a way that we phenomenologically parametrize as:

$`\rho (n_c)=\rho (0)(1+a\mathrm{ln}(1+n_c)).`$ (8)
We will include (8) in equation (7), with $`\rho (0)`$ the extrapolated radius at the thermalised situation and $`a`$ a constant to determine.

After performing a combined fit of our lattice results to the expressions (8) and the one coming from the integration of (7), we can fix the initial values of the density, $`n(0)`$ and the radius $`\rho (0)`$, and the two constants that govern the evolution, $`\lambda `$ and $`a`$. An indirect measure of the $`A^2_{Inst}`$ condensate is obtained.

Nevertheless, the result of the extrapolation is highly dependent on the value of $`\rho (0)`$, which due to its logarithmic behaviour is hardly reliable. We therefore prefer the value of $`A_{Ins}^2`$ at the maximum of figure 3 as a crude estimation of the instantonic contribution to $`A^2`$.

Having a slight dependence on the lattice spacing, the result given here for this quantity has to be understood as a first estimation, that would require for a further analysis .

## 4 Conclussion.

The result of the combined fit gives a value of the instantonic contribution to $`A_{Ins}^20.4\mathrm{GeV}^2`$, however, as reasoned before, we will give the value at the maximum as a more reliable, although crude, estimation of the instantonic contribution to the $`A^2`$ condensate. So our final result will be $`A_{Ins}^2=1.10(10)\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ for the simulation at lattice spacing $`0.101fm`$, and $`1.37(16)\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ for the one at $`0.074fm`$.

This semiclassical evaluation of $`A^2`$, which does not run with the scale, is difficult to relate to that appearing in the O.P.E. expansion, which does depend on the renormalisation scheme and scale. The typical scale of instantons is $`\rho ^10.7\mathrm{GeV}`$. Unluckly it is not possible to run the $`A_{O.P.E.}^2`$ to such a low energy, where pertubative QCD is not valid. The lowest reacheble energy scale is $`2.6\mathrm{GeV}`$ , where the $`A^2`$ condensate takes the value;

$`A_{O.P.E.}^2(2.6\mathrm{GeV})=1.4(3)(3)\mathrm{GeV}^2,`$ (9)
the first error coming from the OPE determination of the condensate renormalised at 10 $`\mathrm{GeV}`$, and the second from higher orders in the running.

Keeping in mind the level of uncertainty of these calculations, we can nevertheless claim a rather encouraging agreement between the instantonic contribution to the condensate and the one computed from the running of the Green Functions.

## Acknowledgements.

F. de Soto wants to thank L.P.T. for its warm hospitality and Fundación Cámara and the MCYT (Contract BFM2002-03315) for financial support.


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# The eclipsing millisecond pulsar PSR J1740-5340 and its red straggler companionBased on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the Paranal Observatories under programme 267.D-5716 and observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the ST-ECF data archive.

## 1 Introduction

In the course of a survey for pulsars in globular clusters, D’Amico et al. (2001a ) discovered an unusual millisecond pulsar (MSP), PSR~J1740$-$5340, in the second-closest globular cluster, NGC 6397. The pulsar has a 3.65 ms spin period, and is in a circular ($`e<10^4`$), 1.35-d orbit around a companion with a minimum mass of $`0.19M_{}`$ (assuming a $`1.4M_{}`$ neutron star). In follow-up observations, D’Amico et al. (2001b ) found that at a frequency of 1.4 GHz, the pulsar signal disappears for about 40% of the orbit around superior conjunction, and in addition shows irregular intensity and arrival-time variations. By selecting unaffected data sets, D’Amico et al. were nevertheless able to derive a good timing solution, including a precise position, which put the system at $`0\stackrel{}{.}55`$, or 11 core radii out of the core.

At the timing position, Ferraro et al. (fpdas01 (2001)) identified a relatively bright ($`V17`$), anomalously red star, which varied at the orbital period. The light curve appeared ellipsoidal, i.e., consistent with what would be expected for a tidally distorted star. This star had been discussed earlier by Taylor et al. (tgec01 (2001)), who did not know about the pulsar, but had noted that the companion was a peculiar, variable star with a H$`\alpha R`$ colour indicating weak H$`\alpha `$ emission. Taylor et al. also noted that its proper motion was consistent with membership. Finally, Grindlay et al. (2001a ) identified an X-ray counterpart, with a luminosity of $`8\times 10^{30}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

The system raises many interesting questions, such as:

1. How could the system have gotten so far from the core of the globular cluster? Given their high mass, pulsar systems should quickly settle in the core, as this is indeed generally where they are found. Did the system get kicked out due to a close encounter?
2. How can one understand the strange position of the companion in the colour-magnitude diagram? The star is as luminous as a turn-off star, but redder. As pointed out by Edmonds et al. (egc+02 (2002)), these properties are similar to what is seen for the ‘red stragglers’ in 47~Tuc and ‘sub-subgiants’ in the old open cluster M 67.
3. What mechanism could cause a wind strong enough to eclipse the pulsar emission? In other eclipsing pulsars, it is thought the pulsar irradiation drives a wind, but the light curve for PSR~J1740$-$5340 shows no indication for heating. Could the wind be intrinsic?

Fortunately, the companion is bright, and hence detailed studies are possible. This opens the possibility not only of addressing the above questions, but also of measuring the system parameters accurately. The latter would be particularly interesting since no accurate masses exist for MSPs. As MSPs are expected to be more massive due to accretion, this might be interesting also from the point of view of constraining the equation of state of ultra-dense matter (for a review, see Lattimer & Prakash lp01 (2001)): neutron stars with masses above $`1.6M_{}`$ cannot exist for so-called soft equations of state, in which matter at high densities is relatively compressible (e.g., due to meson condensation or a transition between the hadron and quark-gluon phases). Obviously, if one were to have solid evidence that massive neutron stars exist, these equations of state would be falsified.

Given the above, a thorough observing programme seems justified. In this paper, we report on the analysis of archive photometry and present the results of a pilot programme designed to test the feasibility of high resolution spectroscopic observations.

## 2 Observations

### 2.1 Photometry

The photometric data we used were taken from the public HST archive. The observations were carried out on 1996 March in the F336W, F439W, F555W, and F814W filters (hereafter $`U_{336}`$, $`B_{439}`$, $`V_{555}`$, and $`I_{814}`$) and 1999 April using the $`V_{555}`$, F675W (hereafter $`R_{675}`$), $`I_{814}`$, and F656N (hereafter $`\mathrm{H}\alpha _{656}`$) filters. Light curves of the companion were constructed using the HSTphot package (version 1.1; Dolphin dol00 (2000)).

In Fig. 1, we show the folded light curves in all bands. As discussed by Ferraro et al. (fpdas01 (2001)), the overall shape of the lightcureve is reminiscent of ellipsoidal variations, in which the maxima are at the orbital quadratures, when the tidally distorted companion is seen from the side. We find that the curves in $`U_{336}`$, $`B_{439}`$, $`R_{675}`$, and $`\mathrm{H}\alpha _{656}`$ curves are reasonably smooth and show the ellipsoidal modulations quite nicely, but that those in $`V_{555}`$ and $`I_{814}`$ have some deviant points. We believe the latter are due to the very close proximity of a bad column on the CCD. Indeed, the $`R_{675}`$ and $`\mathrm{H}\alpha _{656}`$ band data from MJD 51273 show smooth variations whereas the $`V_{555}`$ and $`I_{814}`$ data from that same day both show deviant points. Also, the $`V_{555}`$ and $`I_{814}`$ light curves are the only ones with data from both 1996 and 1999. Removing the 1996 data improves the $`I_{814}`$ band light curve somewhat but does not really improve the $`V_{555}`$ light curve.

The photometric data that we will use in our analysis below are shown as the solid points in Fig. 1. The excluded $`V_{555}`$ data are those from 1996 plus eight points from MJD $`\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}272.807}\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}272.819}`$. The excluded $`I_{814}`$ data are those from 1996 plus five points from MJD $`\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}271.794}\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}271.800}`$ and two points from near MJD $`\mathrm{51\hspace{0.17em}272.818}`$. Also, two points in $`U_{336}`$, two points in $`B_{439}`$, and one point in $`\mathrm{H}\alpha _{656}`$ were excluded owing to the large uncertainties.

As is clear from Fig. 1, the phase coverage of the HST light curves is not complete, and clearly additional photometry would be desirable. Since the field of the pulsar is relatively crowded, we present in Fig. 2 a finding chart as an aid for ground-based observers. This image was obtained May 14, 1999 with the Wide Field Imager on the 2.2m telescope at ESO, La Silla.

### 2.2 Spectroscopy

A 2880-second UVES spectrum in 0.8 arcsecond seeing was obtained for us in Director’s Discretionary Time on 2001 September 20, starting at 23:56 UT. UVES resides at the Nasmyth focus of Kueyen, the second of the four 8.2-m Very Large Telescopes at Paranal (Dekker et al. ddok+00 (2000); D’Odorico et al. docd+00 (2000)). UVES is a double-arm instrument, with a $`2048\times 4096`$ thinned, antireflection-coated CCD (EEV CCD-44, $`15\mu `$m pixels) in the blue arm and a mosaic of two $`2048\times 4096`$ CCDs (EEV CCD-44 and MIT/LL CCD-20, both with $`15\mu `$m pixels) in the red arm. In this paper we will only make use of the data from the red arm. The standard “DIC1 346+580” configuration was used, which gives a wavelength coverage of 4765-6830 Å in the red arm. With a 1″ wide slit, the resolving power is about $`\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$. The CCDs were read out in the $`2\times 2`$ pixel binned mode. We used IRAF to calibrate the data and extract the spectra. The typical signal-to-noise ratio is about 20 per resolution element.

## 3 Analysis

### 3.1 Radius and temperature

We can use the fact that PSR~J1740$-$5340 is a member of the globular cluster NGC 6397 (see also Section 3.2) to measure the radius and effective temperature of the companion. For this exercise we use synthetic photometry for the HST filters derived from the NextGen models (Hauschildt et al. hba97 (1997); F. Allard 2001, priv. comm.) with a metallicity of $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2`$, appropriate for NGC 6397 (e.g., Castilho et al. cpa+00 (2000); Thévenin et al. tcdfp+01 (2001)). The synthetic photometry allows us to compute the expected absolute magnitude of a star in a given HST bandpass and various colours as a function of its effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, surface gravity $`\mathrm{log}g`$, and radius $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}`$.

To compare the synthetic magnitudes with the observations, we need to determine the ‘mean’ apparent magnitudes. For this purpose, we used the ELC code (Orosz & Hauschildt oh00 (2000)), as follows. First, we fit an ellipsoidal model (see Sect. 3.3) to the light curve in the $`R_{675}`$ filter (which has the most complete phase coverage). We then computed the flux of a spherical star with the same effective temperature and effective radius and applied the same scaling as the fitted ellipsoidal model. The spherical star would have an $`R_{675}`$ magnitude of 16.25.

To convert the above apparent magnitude to an absolute one, we need to know the reddening and the distance. For the reddening, we adopt $`E_{BV}=0.179\pm 0.003`$, as determined by Anthony-Twarog & Twarog (att00 (2000)) from $`uvby`$H$`\beta `$ photometry, and use the interpolated extinction curve for the WFPC2 filters appropriate for a K5 spectral type (Holtzman et al. hbc+95 (1995)). For the distance, we use a distance modulus $`(mM)_0=12.13\pm 0.15`$, as inferred by Reid & Gizis (rg98 (1998)) from main-sequence fitting to local metal-poor M subdwarfs with well-determined parallaxes.

We note that the uncertainty in the distance dominates, not only because of the large random error, but also because of possible systematic biases. Indeed, from different methods rather different values are found. In an earlier analysis based on subdwarf G and F stars, Reid (rei98 (1998)) found a distance modulus of $`12.24\pm 0.10`$, i.e., a larger distance. In contrast, Harris (har96 (1996)) finds a smaller distance – 11.80 with an estimated uncertainy of 0.1–0.2 mag – based on the apparent magnitude of the horizontal branch. Finally, Gratton et al. (gcb+02 (2002)) present preliminary results from a more advanced main-sequence fit, based on precise matching of spectral types with high-resolution spectroscopy, and $`E_{BV}=0.183\pm 0.005`$, $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2.03\pm 0.04`$, and $`(mM)_0=12.01\pm 0.06`$. For our analysis, we use the Reid & Gizis (rg98 (1998)) distance, since this seems the most reliable of the published results, and is the one used by most authors so far. However, where appropriate, we will mention explicitly the implications of assuming the shorter Gratton et al. (gcb+02 (2002)) distance.

With our adopted reddening and distance modulus, we find an absolute magnitude in the F675W bandpass of $`M_{675}=(16.250.4412.13)\pm 0.15=3.64\pm 0.15`$, where the error in the absolute magnitude was taken to be the error in the distance modulus. A similar procedure was used to find the colours; we found $`B_{439}V_{555}=0.867`$, $`V_{555}R_{675}=0.597`$, and $`R_{675}I_{814}=0.406`$.

For a given combination of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`\mathrm{log}g`$, and $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}`$, we can form a $`\chi ^2`$:

$`\chi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{[(BV)_{\mathrm{syn}}0.867]^2}{\sigma _{\mathrm{colour}}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{[(VR)_{\mathrm{syn}}0.597]^2}{\sigma _{\mathrm{colour}}^2}}`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{[(RI)_{\mathrm{syn}}0.406]^2}{\sigma _{\mathrm{colour}}^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{[M_{675,\mathrm{syn}}3.64]^2}{0.15^2}}.`$
Here, $`\sigma _{\mathrm{colour}}`$ is the uncertainty in the colours; we adopt $`\sigma _{\mathrm{colour}}=0.0144`$, which gives $`\chi _\nu ^2=1`$ at the minimum. We found that the magnitude and colours hardly depend on gravity, so we fixed $`\mathrm{log}g`$ at its nominally best value of 3.7. This leaves the effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and radius $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ as the two free parameters. Figure 3 shows the contours of $`\chi ^2`$ in the $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ plane. We find $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}=1.60\pm 0.17R_{}`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=5410\pm 50`$ K. These values are consistent with what Ferraro et al. (fpdas01 (2001)) found by independent means. Assuming the Gratton et al. (gcb+02 (2002)) distance modulus, the inferred radius and temperature would be $`1.52\pm 0.08R_{}`$ and $`5420\pm 40K`$, respectively.

### 3.2 Radial and rotational velocities, and metallicity

In Fig. 4, we show the spectrum of PSR~J1740$-$5340 near the Mg b lines. The lines are clearly broadened, as expected if the star is co-rotating with the 1.35-d orbit.

We measured the radial and rotational velocities of the companion star using a template, for which we chose the metal poor star HD 122196 ($`V=8.73`$, $`E_{BV}=0.01`$). This star has an effective temperature and gravity ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=5850\pm 100`$ K, $`\mathrm{log}g=3.5`$; Ryan & Deliyannis rd98 (1998)) quite similar to what we found for the companion star of PSR~J1740$-$5340, as well as a metallicity ($`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=1.93\pm 0.10`$; ibid.) similar to that of NGC 6397 members. Furthermore, this star was observed with UVES using the same instrumental configuration as what was used for PSR~J1740$-$5340, although at a slightly higher resolving power ($`R=\mathrm{50\hspace{0.17em}000}`$).

To measure the radial velocity by cross correlation, we have to iterate a bit, since we have to rotationally broaden the template to match the rotational velocity of the companion. Given a radius of $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}=1.60R_{}`$ and assuming synchronous rotation, one expects $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=42.3\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for an inclination of $`45^{}`$ and $`59.8\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ for an inclination of $`90^{}`$. We initially broadened the spectrum of HD 122196 (which has negligible intrinsic rotational broadening) by $`49\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and measured the radial velocities of each PSR~J1740$-$5340 echelle order with the IRAF task fxcor, an implementation of the Tonry & Davis (td79 (1979)) cross correlation technique. Good cross correlation peaks were found for 14 echelle orders, and the weighted average of the (heliocentric) velocities from each order is $`135\pm 1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (assuming HD 122196 has a heliocentric velocity of $`23\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$).

To find the rotational velocity of the companion, the spectrum of HD 122196 was Doppler shifted to remove the relative velocity difference between it and the PSR~J1740$-$5340 spectrum, and the $`\chi ^2`$-based matching technique of Marsh, Robinson, & Wood (mrw94 (1994)) was used to measure the projected rotational velocity. Using the spectral region near the Mg b lines, which contains the strongest lines, we find $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=52\pm 4\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. This value should be treated with caution owing to the relatively low signal-to-noise and the fact that the template spectrum may not be a perfect match (e.g., owing to differences in the Mg and/or Fe abundances). We re-measured the radial-velocity measurement using this new value of $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$, but found that it did not change the result.

In Fig. 4, we compare the spectrum of PSR~J1740$-$5340 and the spectrum of HD 122196, broadened using $`V_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=52`$ km s-1. To the extent one can judge, given the rather noisy spectrum, the match is reasonable. For comparison, we also show a high resolution spectrum of HR 996, a star with a similar temperature as PSR~J1740$-$5340, but with solar metallicity. The Mg b lines in HR 996 are clearly much stronger than they are in PSR~J1740$-$5340. Given this and the reasonable match between PSR~J1740$-$5340 and the metal poor star HD 122196, we conclude that the companion in PSR~J1740$-$5340 is metal poor, providing further confirmation that it is a member of the globular cluster NGC 6397 and not a foreground object in the Galactic disc.

Assuming the MSP is bound to the cluster, our single radial velocity measurement allows us to make a rough estimate of the radial velocity amplitude $`K_{\mathrm{comp}}`$. This is because the cluster membership constrains the systemic velocity $`\gamma `$, and thus we can calculate $`K_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ from $`K_{\mathrm{comp}}=(v_{\mathrm{obs}}\gamma )/\mathrm{sin}(2\pi \varphi )`$, where $`\varphi =0.368`$ is the phase relative to inferior conjunction of the companion. Given the radial velocity of NGC 6397 of $`18.9\pm 0.1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Harris har96 (1996)) and its escape velocity of $`19\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Webbink web84 (1984)), we take $`0<\gamma <38\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and infer $`132<K_{\mathrm{comp}}<183\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$. The pulsar timing yields $`K_{\mathrm{MSP}}=26.612\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (D’Amico et al. 2001b ), and hence the mass ratio $`QM_{\mathrm{MSP}}/M_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ should be in the range $`5<Q<7`$. Obviously, one should not rely on a single radial velocity point to measure the amplitude of the companion star’s velocity curve. Nevertheless, this exercise at least gives a rough idea of what the mass ratio might be. As we will see below, the values we find are consistent with what we infer from the other data on the system.

### 3.3 Ellipsoidal modelling

The HST lightcurves of PSR~J1740$-$5340 are, as mentioned above, reminiscent of ellipsoidal modulation, with maxima at the quadratures, and minima at the conjunctions. Below, we will use models for a tidally distorted star to reproduce the lightcurve and to estimate some of the system parameters. Before doing so, we should caution that the phase coverage is incomplete, and that, in particular, superior conjunction of the pulsar is missing. Thus, even though we obtain good fits to the data at hand, whether or not our models are appropriate, remains to be fully verified.

For our modeling of the HST light curves, we used the ELC code (Orosz & Hauschildt oh00 (2000)). We have three unknown geometrical parameters: the mass ratio $`Q`$, the inclination $`i`$, and the Roche lobe filling factor by radius $`f`$. Usually, one also has the orbital separation $`a`$ as an unknown. For PSR~J1740$-$5340, however, the projected semi-major axis of the MSPs orbit is known extremely accurately ($`xa_{\mathrm{MSP}}\mathrm{sin}i/c=1.65284\pm 0.00007\mathrm{lt}\mathrm{s}`$; the $`1\sigma `$ error corresponds to about 7 km; D’Amico et al. 2001b ). As a result, we can write the orbital separation as a function of the inclination and the mass ratio, $`a=c(Q+1)x/\mathrm{sin}i`$.

We also require parameters related to the companion. These, however, can be fixed at reasonable values. We assume the companion star is rotating synchronously with the orbit, fix the mean temperature at the value determined above, and fix its gravity darkening exponent at $`\beta =0.1`$ (Claret cla00 (2000)). We used specific intensities for models with $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]=2`$ from Kurucz111http://www.cfaku5.harvard.edu (kur79 (1979)), integrated with the WFPC2 filter response curves. The use of the tabulated specific intensities removes the need for a parameterised limb darkening law.

Finally, we need to consider irradiation by the pulsar. As we will discuss at length in Sect. 4, this should have had a dominant effect on the light curve, but no effect whatsoever is seen. For the remainder of this section, therefore, we will ignore it.

In any fitting procedure, one must assign weights to the observations. We do this by fitting an ellipsoidal model to each bandpass separately, and scaling the error bars of the data points in that bandpass so that the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit equals 1 at the minimum. The scaled errors are typically between about 0.015 and 0.022 magnitudes, which is on the order of the claimed accuracy of HSTphot (Dolphin dol00 (2000)), and thus provides some evidence that our model is appropriate. Next, using these scaled errors, we fit all of the bandpasses simultaneously. With this procedure, somewhat reduced weight is given to bands in which the light curves are relatively ratty, such as $`V_{555}`$ and $`I_{814}`$. For our best fits, we find $`\chi ^2225`$ for 172 data points in the 6 filters, i.e., a reduced $`\chi ^2`$ which is still reasonably close to unity. This shows that best fits to the lightcurves in the different bands are mutually consistent.

For our fits, we found it convenient to define a grid of points in the mass ratio-inclination plane and to make the grid spacing in the inclination axis equal in $`\mathrm{sin}i`$ rather than $`i`$. At each point in this plane, the values of the mass ratio and the sine of the inclination are fixed according to the location in the plane, leaving the Roche lobe filling factor $`f`$ as the only free fitting parameter. In Fig. 5, we show the results of the ellipsoidal fitting as the dashed contours. We find that good fits are possible over a large range of inclinations: the formal $`2\sigma `$ range includes all $`i>49.5^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}i>0.76`$). The mass ratio $`Q`$ is not constrained.

In Fig. 5d, solid contours show the variation of the best-fitting filling factor in the $`Q\mathrm{sin}i`$ plane (here, the filling fraction is defined as $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}/R_{\mathrm{Roche}}`$). From these, the reason for the large allowed range in inclination becomes clear: the amplitude of the ellipsoidal variations can be matched by stars viewed almost edge-on that underfill the Roche lobe significantly and hence are less strongly distorted, as well as by stars viewed more inclined that almost fill the Roche lobe and thus are maximally distorted.

The similarity in the fits can be see in Fig. 6, which shows some representative ellipsoidal fits overdrawn on the folded HST light curves. The first model is very near the formal $`\chi ^2`$ minimum, with $`i=60\stackrel{}{.}5`$, $`Q=6`$, and a filling fraction by radius of 91.1% for the companion star. The second model is also for $`Q=6`$, but for a Roche-lobe filling companion. In this case, $`i=46\stackrel{}{.}7`$. Although the $`\chi ^2`$ values are somewhat different ($`\chi ^2=225`$ and $`\chi ^2=236`$, respectively), the quality of the fits looks very similar to the eye.

Turning back to Fig. 5d, we see that because a star cannot become larger than the Roche lobe, the fits get worse very quickly for inclinations less than $`49^{}`$: the $`3\sigma `$ contour is at $`i46^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}i0.72`$) near $`Q=6`$ and the 99.99% confidence limit is at $`i45^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}i0.71`$). At $`i40^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}i0.64`$; the bottom of all panels) the ellipsoidal fits are hopelessly bad, as can be seen in Fig. 6: the amplitudes are much too small. Thus, we regard $`i>40^{}`$ as a very firm lower limit.

In the other panels of Fig. 5, contours are drawn for various other quantities. The top row shows the MSP mass (Fig. 5a), the companion star mass (5b), and the Roche lobe radius of the companion (5c); these quantities can be calculated from $`Q`$ and $`\mathrm{sin}i`$ directly, and the contours are thus independent of the fit. If we use the limit on the inclination, and restrict ourselves to a reasonable range for the mass of the neutron star ($`1.2M_{}<M_{\mathrm{MSP}}<2.4M_{}`$), then we see from panel (a) that we are left with only a relatively small part of the parameter space: the mass ratio is in the range $`5Q9`$ for $`i45^{}`$. Given this region where the neutron star mass is reasonable, we see in Fig. 5b that the mass of the companion star is in the range $`0.14M_{}<M_{\mathrm{comp}}<0.38M_{}`$. From Fig. 5c, the Roche radius of the companion is smaller than the radius derived from HST photometry for inclinations near $`90^{}`$ unless the mass ratio $`Q`$ is very large.

In the bottom row, quantities are shown that do depend on the light curve fit. Fig. 5e shows the best-fitting radius for the companion star; this is simply the best-fitting filling fraction times the Roche lobe radius. We see that for high inclinations ($`\mathrm{sin}i0.9`$ or $`i>64^{}`$) the fitted radius of the companion star is much smaller than the radius derived from the HST photometry. On the other hand, the fitted radius is comparable to the radius derived from the HST photometry for $`i50^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{sin}i0.77`$) and $`Q6`$. This is also consistent with the rough estimate of $`Q`$ from our single radial velocity.

Finally, Fig. 5f shows contours of the best-fitting projected rotational velocity of the companion star (i.e., proportional to best-fitting radius times $`\mathrm{sin}i`$). The contours bend where the star starts to fill its Roche lobe. We note that our present value of $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=52\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is well outside the range of parameter space where the mass of the MSP is reasonable. However, the statistical error on $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$ is large (e.g., a $`2\sigma `$ deviation down to $`V_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=44\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ would give a reasonable mass for the MSP) and, as mentioned, there may be systematic errors as well. The uncertainties associated with the ellipsoidal modelling are smaller: the 1-$`\sigma `$ uncertainty in the actual predicted rotational velocity of the contours in Fig. 5f is about $`0.1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

## 4 The puzzling lack of heating

We found that the light curve displayed by the companion is described well by ellipsoidal modulation. This is remarkable, as we would have expected to see strong heating: the pulsar’s rotational energy loss, $`L_{\mathrm{sd}}=I\mathrm{\Omega }\dot{\mathrm{\Omega }}=1.4\times 10^{35}I_{45}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (D’Amico et al. 2001b ) is roughly 19 times the bolometric luminosity of the companion. We calculated models in which we included the effect of heating, assuming isotropic emission. If we assume that the companion has an albedo or ‘reprocessing efficiency’ with the canonical value of 0.5, then the expected $`V_{555}`$ light curve would be nearly sinusoidal with an amplitude of 0.4 magnitudes and would have a maximum at phase 0.5, rather than the minimum that is observed. Even an albedo of only 10% leads to a horrible fit, as can be seen in Fig. 6. Indeed, if we leave the albedo as a free parameter, we find that it must be 1% or less in order to match the observed light curves; the best-fitting value is zero.

The limit of 1% is in striking contrast to what is seen in all pulsar systems in which irradiation could be observed. In particular, for the so-called ‘black-widow’ pulsars, which show light curves dominated by heating, the inferred reprocessing efficiencies are $`10`$% for PSR~B1957+20 (Callanan et al. cvpr95 (1995)) and $`40`$% for PSR~J2051-0827 (Stappers et al. svkbk01 (2001)). A high efficiency, of $`60\%`$, has also been inferred for the MSP 47~Tuc~U and its low-mass white dwarf companion (Edmonds et al. egh+01 (2001)), and strong heating is observed for the pulsar, main–sequence star binary 47~Tuc~W (Edmonds et al. egc+02 (2002)).

What could be the cause of this apparent low efficiency? The following seem possible: (i) the pulsar’s luminosity is lower than inferred from its spin period and period derivative; (ii) the pulsar radiation is emitted non-isotropically, largely missing the companion; (iii) the pulsar radiation is absorbed or deflected on the way to the companion; (iv) the radiation is absorbed sufficiently deep that it can be transported, e.g., by winds as in Jupiter, and re-emitted isotropically.

On empirical grounds, we believe we can exclude possibilities (iii) and (iv): no evidence is seen for either in the above-mentioned systems, which include companions ranging from brown dwarfs to main-sequence stars and white dwarfs. Also anisotropy seems excluded: while pulsars winds are far from isotropic, as is clear from the Crab and its nebula (e.g., Weisskopf et al. wei++00 (2000)), it is hard to see how a companion could fail to be irradiated over its whole orbit. Indeed, the smooth light curves of the black widow pulsars and symmetric bow shocks around the MSP binaries PSR~B1957+20 (Kulkarni & Hester hk88 (1988)) and PSR~J0437-4715 (Bell et al. bbm+95 (1995)) argue against the required extreme anisotropies.

If the above reasoning is correct, we are left with the possibility of a spin-down luminosity lower than inferred from the spin period and its derivative. This could happen if the spin period derivative does not reflect actual spin-down, but rather an (apparent) acceleration, of order $`a/c=\dot{P}/P=4.6\times 10^{17}\mathrm{s}^1`$. Expected contributions to $`\dot{P}`$ arise from proper motion, acceleration in the cluster and differential galactic acceleration between the cluster and us. Using estimates from Phinney (phi92 (1992)), we find that the Galactic acceleration is far too small, $`1.6\times 10^{19}\mathrm{s}^1`$, while the required proper motion, $`(c\dot{P}/Pd)^{1/2}85\mathrm{mas}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ or $`1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ at the distance of NGC~6397, is outrageously high (and excluded by the HST observations).

The maximum acceleration in a cluster is approximately $`1.1G\mathrm{\Sigma }_M/c`$ (Phinney phi92 (1992)), where $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_M`$ is the surface density enclosed within the projected distance of the pulsar from the core. With an extinction-corrected V-band surface brightness within 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$55 of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{V,0}=18.0\mathrm{mag}\mathrm{arcsec}^2`$ (Trager et al. tkd95 (1995)), and a mass to light ratio of about 3 (in solar units), we find a maximum acceleration of $`3\times 10^{18}\mathrm{s}^1`$, again far short of that required (as found by D’Amico et al. \[2001b \] using a different method). We note that the mass to light ratio is uncertain; for instance, from negative period derivatives of two pulsars in NGC~6752, D’Amico et al. (dapf+02 (2002)) infer a mass to light ratio of $`10`$. In order for the acceleration to match the period derivative for PSR~J1740$-$5340, however, a mass to light ratio of $`50`$ would be required. This seems excessive.

### 4.1 A third body?

Having excluded all likely causes, what remains, however improbable? One possibility is that the binary is passing another star close by or that it is part of a triple system, and happens to be seen being accelerated away from us. This would not be unprecedented: PSR~B1620$-$26 in M 4 has a $`0.3M_{}`$ white-dwarf companion in a 191 d orbit, as well as a $`0.007M_{}`$ giant planet or brown dwarf like object in a $`300\mathrm{yr}`$, $`e0.45`$ orbit (Ford et al. fjrz00 (2000)). For PSR~J1740$-$5340, a third object with mass $`M_3`$ at separation $`a_3=(fGM_3P/\dot{P}c)^{1/2}=200(fM_3/0.1M_{})^{1/2}\mathrm{AU}`$ would be required; here $`f=\mathrm{sin}i_3\mathrm{sin}\varphi _3`$ with $`i_3`$ the inclination and $`\varphi _3`$ the orbital phase relative to the ascending node (a positive acceleration the third object to be behind the pulsar binary, or $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi _3>0`$). The corresponding period (or timescale in case of a close encounter) is $`P_3=2\pi (a^3/GM)^{1/2}400(fM_3/0.1M_{})^{3/2}(M/1.7M_{})^{1/2}\mathrm{yr}`$. In order for this to be substantially longer than the current observing time span of 1.1 yr, say $`P_3>7`$yr, one requires $`M_3>0.007M_{}`$.

The separation corresponds to an angular separation $`\theta _3=(1f^2)^{1/2}a_3/d=0\stackrel{}{.}08(f(1f^2)M_3/0.1M_{})^{1/2}`$ (note that $`0(f(1f^2))^{1/2}0.62`$). A more massive third object might be visible in the HST images (if not a white dwarf); however, we found no evidence for a close-by object. The closest object is star B of Ferraro et al. (fpdas01 (2001)); with a mass of about a turn-off mass and a separation of $`1\stackrel{}{.}4`$, it is too far away to produce the required acceleration.

### 4.2 X-ray luminosity

An independent measure of the spin-down luminosity can be obtained from the X-ray luminosity, of $`8\times 10^{30}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Grindlay et al. 2001a ). The fraction of the spin-down luminosity that is converted into X rays is not understood theoretically, but one can use other MSPs to make an empirical calibration. From the data collected by Possenti et al. (pccm02 (2002); esp. Fig. 2a), we find that for the observed X-ray luminosity, a spin-down luminosity of about $`10^{34.2\pm 0.6}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$ is expected. The best guess is about an order of magnitude lower than that inferred from the measured period and period derivative, and thus supports the suggestion that the intrinsic period derivative is lower than the measured one. We stress, however, that the estimate is very uncertain. Furthermore, while the MSP in M~28 follows the relation defined by MSPs in the field, the sources in 47 Tuc seem somewhat less X-ray bright than expected from that relation (Grindlay et al. ghec02 (2002)). Indeed, the latter define a different relation which, if extrapolated, fits the observed properties of PSR~J1740$-$5340.

The situation is complicated further by the fact that the companion might contribute to the observed X-ray flux. For rapidly rotating, active stars in and out of binaries, the X-ray luminosity saturates at $`0.1`$% of the bolometric luminosity (e.g., Stauffer et al. sta++94 (1994); Patten & Simon ps96 (1996); Dempsey et al. dlfs97 (1997)). For the companion of PSR~J1740$-$5340, $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}2.0L_{}`$, and hence its X-ray flux could be as high as $`8\times 10^{30}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, i.e., 100% of the flux observed. If the companion does contribute to the observed flux, this might also explain the observed variability (Grindlay et al. 2001a ). Interestingly, comparing its relatively hard X-ray colour with BY Dra systems (which contain an active, rapidly rotating star) and other MSPs in NGC~6397 and 47 Tuc (Grindlay et al. 2001b , 2001a ), it seems more consistent with the former. Indeed, as mentioned in Sect. 1, Taylor et al. (tgec01 (2001)) had, when the identification with PSR~J1740$-$5340 was not yet known, classified the companion as a BY Dra system.

### 4.3 Ramifications

D’Amico et al. (2001b ) suggested that, as in the black-widow pulsars, the radio eclipses were due to mass loss driven by pulsar irradiation. Given the observed lack of heating of the companion, this seems rather implausible. Instead, we think that an intrinsic wind of the companion is responsible, as has been suggested for the very unenergetic eclipsing pulsar PSR~B1718$-$19 in NGC 6342 (Wijers & Paczynski wp93 (1993)). Such a wind can be sufficiently strong because of the companion’s rapid (co)rotation.

If the lack of heating is indeed due to an intrinsic spin-down rate lower than that observed, this affects the inferred values of the magnetic field strength and characteristic age of the pulsar. From our observations, we infer a spin-down luminosity a factor $`>10`$ smaller than inferred from the period derivative, implying that the intrinsic period derivative $`\dot{P}_{\mathrm{int}}>\dot{P}_{\mathrm{obs}}/102\times 10^{20}`$. Hence, the inferred magnetic field strength would become $`<3\times 10^8\mathrm{G}`$ and the characteristic age $`>3\times 10^9\mathrm{yr}`$.

## 5 Current and evolutionary state

Based on our analysis of HST photometry of PSR~J1740$-$5340, we found that the companion has radius $`R_{\mathrm{comp}}=1.60\pm 0.17R_{}`$ and temperature of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=5410\pm 50`$ K, implying a luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{bol}}=2.0\pm 0.4L_{}`$ (for the Gratton et al. distance, the radius and luminosity would be $`1.52\pm 0.08R_{}`$ and $`1.8\pm 0.2L_{}`$, respectively). From the ellipsoidal variations, we infer that the system’s inclination is $`>48^{}`$. For a pulsar mass in the range $`1.2<M_{\mathrm{MSP}}<2.4M_{}`$, this implies a companion mass in the range $`0.14<M_{\mathrm{comp}}<0.38M_{}`$. In this range, the companion is just short of filling its Roche lobe (at just over the 2-$`\sigma `$ level, however, it may be filling its Roche lobe completely).

From our UVES spectrum, we find that the companion has low metallicity, as expected for membership of NGC 6397, that its radial velocity is consistent with membership for a mass ratio in the range $`5<Q<7`$, and that it rotates rapidly, $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i=52\pm 4\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, more or less consistent with it rotating synchronously with the orbit.

The largest surprise was that the light curve showed no evidence for heating. We discussed this at length and by an admittedly long chain of reasoning concluded that most likely the measured period derivative was dominated not by intrinsic spin-down, but by acceleration from a third object orbiting or passing by the system.

The picture that emerges is one of a system somewhat like an RS CVn binary, in which the co-rotating companion of the pulsar is an active star with a relatively strong but variable wind, which disperses and absorbs the pulsar signal for extended periods, in particular around superior conjunction of the pulsar. With this, we suggested an answer to the third of the three puzzles mentioned in the introduction, viz., the origin of the material causing the eclipses. We will now discuss the remaining two.

### 5.1 Location in the cluster

The location of the system is puzzling because it is far out of the core, at $`0\stackrel{}{.}55`$ or eleven core radii, even though the total mass of $`1.6M_{}`$ is well above the turn-off mass of $`0.8M_{}`$. At the current position, the mass segregation time is rather short, between 1 and 10 Myr depending on how close to the core the system is brought in its current orbit (Binney & Tremaine bt87 (1987); Spitzer spi87 (1987); we used a system mass of $`1.7M_{}`$, current radius of 0.4 pc, enclosed mass of $`2000M_{}`$, and total number of objects in the cluster of $`3\times 10^5`$). This suggests that the system was kicked out of the core, presumably by a close encounter. Probably, also, this interaction happened not too long ago, since it seems unlikely that the system was kicked out very far, and happens to be in the last stages of sinking back to the core at the present time. On the other hand, if the system really is young, one may wonder why not many more similar systems are known. Independent of the timescale, if there is indeed a third component in the current system, the interaction must have been between (at least) four components, the remaining object(s) to have left the core in the direction opposite to that of the pulsar triple system.

### 5.2 Properties of the companion

The companion of PSR~J1740$-$5350 clearly is an unusual star: given its low mass, it should be on the main sequence, but it is far too large and bright for that. Might the star have been more massive originally? If so, did it lose its mass gradually, due to binary evolution, or impulsively, in an encounter? Alternatively, could the star have gotten bloated? We discuss these options briefly in turn.

#### 5.2.1 Binary evolution

If the star originally was more massive, it could have lost its mass due to mass transfer in ‘regular’ binary evolution. This has been suggested by Burderi et al. (bdab02 (2002)) and Ergma & Sarna (es02 (2002)). Due to the mass transfer, the neutron star is expected to be spun up to millisecond periods. As the suggested solutions stand, there are some small problems: Ergma & Sarna include heating by the pulsar, for which we see no evidence, and Burderi et al. end up with a slightly too massive companion, of $`0.45M_{}`$. We have little doubt, however, that suitable tuning could remedy this. Furthermore, in both models, the mass-transfer rate is only a few $`10^{10}M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, which implies a mass-transfer stage of several Gyr following its ejection from the core. Thus, one has to appeal to a coincidence that we happen to observe it in its last few Myr of sinking back.

A more pressing problem seems to be that in both models the companion is expected to continue to fill its Roche lobe. This is only marginally consistent with the fit to the light curve. Furthermore, it requires the assumption that, somehow, at some point the MSP switches on and manages to blow away all the matter thrown at it (which is a substantial amount in the model of Burderi et al. \[bdab02 (2002)\]). This would seem to require an energetic pulsar; however, we see no evidence for this radiation hitting the companion.

#### 5.2.2 A stripped turn-off star

Could the encounter that kicked the system out of the core also have caused the companion to reach its present state? A possibility is that during a multiple-object interaction, the neutron star passed a star very closely, within about three stellar radii, which caused the star to be partially disrupted. Such a scenario was suggested by Zwitter (zwi93 (1993)) for the eclipsing pulsar PSR~B1718$-$19. In order for the disruption not to be complete, the star would have had to have a well-developed core, i.e., be a sub-giant or giant. During the interaction, some mass may been accreted by the neutron star. This could explain the 1 second period of PSR~B1718$-$19, but would likely be insufficient to spin up a neutron star to the 3.65 ms period observed for PSR~J1740$-$5340. If so, the neutron must have been a MSP already before the interaction.

It is not quite clear how a star reacts after rapidly losing more than half its mass, likely followed by a phase of strong tidal dissipation. Still, given that the luminosity for (sub-)giants depends mostly on the mass of the core, which would not change, one might suppose ending up with a star with roughly the same luminosity as it had before. For PSR~J1740$-$5340, the luminosity of the companion is indeed comparable to the turn-off luminosity. Unfortunately, no prediction seems yet possible for the temperature or radius.

#### 5.2.3 A bloated main-sequence star

For PSR~B1718$-$19, the scenario invoking a stripped turn-off star cannot be correct, as the companion luminosity is far too low (Van Kerkwijk et al. vkkk+00 (2000)). Instead, the observations are consistent with another scenario, suggested by Wijers & Paczynski (wp93 (1993)), viz., that the companion interacted with a neutron star in a less destructive manner, but was bloated during the subsequent circularisation phase. Could the same be true for PSR~J1740$-$5340? We see two possible problems. First, since the orbit has been circularised, there are no energy sources any more in the companion except for nuclear processes. Hence, the companion should be shrinking on its thermal timescale, which is rather short, $`GM^2/RL=1.0\times 10^6\mathrm{yr}`$.

The second problem is that, in contrast to what is the case for PSR~B1718$-$19 (Verbunt ver94 (1994)), the difference in total energy between the original eccentric orbit and the current circular one, $`|E_{\mathrm{circ}}||E_{\mathrm{ecc}}|<|E_{\mathrm{circ}}|=GM_{\mathrm{MSP}}M_{\mathrm{comp}}/2a=1.2\times 10^{47}\mathrm{erg}`$, is substantially smaller than the binding energy of $`\frac{6}{7}GM^2/R=1.0\times 10^{48}\mathrm{erg}`$ for a completely convective, $`0.3M_{}`$, $`0.3R_{}`$ main-sequence star. This makes it doubtful that the star could be bloated sufficiently. Bloating of just the outer layers would not help: at the present luminosity, these would shrink back very rapidly.

### 5.3 Sub-subgiants and red stragglers

The combination of luminosity and temperature shown by the companion of PSR~J1740$-$5350 is unusual, but not unique. Edmonds et al. (egc+02 (2002)) pointed out the similarity with a number of objects found in 47~Tuc by Albrow et al. (agb+01 (2002)). Albrow et al. dubbed these ‘red stragglers,’ and noted that their properties are similar to two so-called ‘sub-subgiants’ in the old open cluster M 67, which are discussed in detail by Mathieu et al. (mvdbt+02 (2002)). All these objects are found well to the red of the main sequence, and about half a magnitude below the bottom of the red-giant branch. For all, the implied luminosities are comparable to those of turn-off stars, like for PSR~J1740$-$5340.

Mathieu et al. (mvdbt+02 (2002)) note that the two M 67 sub-subgiants most likely are in or close to thermal equilibrium, since given the short thermal timescales it would otherwise be unlikely to find two in a (relatively) sparse cluster like M 67. Albrow et al. (agb+01 (2002)) suggest that for all sources the peculiar properties are due to mass transfer driven by evolution. This can indeed produce such stars (as shown also by the models for PSR~J1740$-$5340 discussed above). For both objects in M 67, however, this is not possible: one is in an eccentric orbit, and the other is underfilling its Roche lobe (Mathieu et al. mvdbt+02 (2002)).

Could these sub-subgiants result from a close encounter? Since the luminosities are so close to those of turn-off stars, it seems unlikely they are tidally bloated stars (as also suggested by the thermal timescale argument). In our list of scenarios for PSR~J1740$-$5340 (which may of course be incomplete), this leaves only the possibility of stripped (sub-)giant. As mentioned, it is at present not clear whether such a stripping would lead to a star with the observed temperature, and to what extent the properties would depend on, e.g., the actual amount of mass loss.

The observed positions in the colour-magnitude diagram, close to the extension of the giant branch, might be taken to suggest the star has turned into a giant, but of lower mass than is possible by normal evolution. If so, since the lowest possible core masses for (sub-)giants are similar even among different (old) clusters, the similarity in their (starting) luminosities follows naturally. Also, since the further evolution would be on the slow nuclear timescale, finding relatively many would be possible. Finally, if this explanation holds, ‘red stragglers’ would be an appropriate name: just like blue stragglers are not strange in their properties as such, but rather in their apparent youth (relative to what should be their contemporaries), the red stragglers would be strange in their apparent old age.

## 6 Future work

We have shown that it is possible to obtain reasonably good echelle spectra of the companion star in PSR~J1740$-$5340. The next obvious step is to obtain several more spectra and measure the full radial velocity curve of the companion star. It should not be unduly difficult to obtain an accuracy of $`K_{\mathrm{comp}}`$ well below $`1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, which in turn will yield a mass ratio accurate at well below the 1% level. Apart from the double neutron star binaries, the mass ratio of PSR~J1740$-$5340 would be the most accurately known mass ratio of a binary with a compact object.

Given that the mass ratio $`Q`$ can in principle be known extremely accurately, the only remaining quantity needed to obtain good component masses is the inclination $`i`$. In this case we are at a slight disadvantage compared to, e.g., studies of X-ray binaries, since we cannot assume the companion fills its Roche lobe for the purposes of ellipsoidal modelling. As a result there is a large range of inclinations where the fits to the light curves are good (Fig. 5). We must use other constraints to narrow down this range, namely the radius of the companion from the HST photometry and the rotational velocity of the companion. Improvement of the former requires a better distance, which may already have become available with the detailed work of Gratton et al. (gcb+02 (2002)); for a very precise distance, one will have to wait for dedicated astrometric space missions. The precision of the measurement of the rotational velocity of the companion star, however, will improve with additional echelle spectra. From Fig. 5f, one sees that very high accuracy is required: even given a precisely known value of $`Q`$, an uncertainty in $`v_{\mathrm{rot}}\mathrm{sin}i`$ of $`1\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ corresponds to a final uncertainty in the mass of $`0.2M_{}`$.

The allowed inclination range can also be reduced by using light curves with better phase coverage and higher statistical quality. Observations over several binary orbits should be obtained in order to verify that the light curves are indeed ellipsoidal, check that they are stable, and look for the presence of short-period variations such as those caused by star spots (if present, these could be used to verify the assumption of co-rotation). NGC 6397 has been well studied, and a large number of suitable observations no doubt exist in personal archives (e.g. Rubenstein & Bailyn rb96 (1996); Kaluzny kal97 (1997)), although likely advanced techniques such as image subtraction will be needed to recover good light curves.

It should be relatively easy to obtain an average echelle spectrum of the companion star with a signal-to-noise ratio on the order of 100. This would allow one to do a detailed abundance analysis, and search for clues to the evolution of this system; e.g. a captured and perturbed low-mass main sequence companion will have a different composition than an initially higher-mass star that has lost a substantial amount of mass (e.g., Ergma & Sarna es02 (2002)).

Finally, further radio timing, as well as detailed inspection of a good set of spectra, would allow one to search for evidence for the third star that we suggested was present. Higher signal-to-noise and time resolved X-ray observations might clarify whether the X-ray emission arises from the pulsar or from the companion.

While revising this article, we became aware of a preprint of Kaluzny et al. (krt02 (2002)) reporting ground-based photometry and low-resolution spectroscopy of the companion of PSR~J1740$-$5340. They also find that the lightcurves, which have good phase coverage, are well described by ellipsoidal modulation. In detail, however, the results show small but significant differences from ours, mostly because their 2002 lightcurves turns out to have slightly smaller amplitude than our 1995 HST lightcurves. The main conclusions of our work, however, remain unchanged, in particular that there is no evidence for irradiation. Kaluzny et al. discuss the change in lightcurve amplitude and mention that it could reflect a change in inclination due to a third body, which we invoked above to explain the lack of irradiation. As said, this hypothesis can be tested with further timing. A more mundane and therefore perhaps better solution, also suggested by Kaluzny et al., is the presence of star spots. Finally, Kaluzny et al. measure radial velocities and derive a value for the radial-velocity amplitude, of $`137.2\pm 2.4\mathrm{km}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}^1`$. This would imply $`Q=5.15`$. This value is consistent with the limits derived above, but significantly lower than our preliminary result based on further UVES observations, possibly because of blending with other stars in the bad-seeing conditions Kaluzny et al. were faced with.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the staff at Paranal Observatory for performing the observations in a timely fashion, and the staff at ESO Garching for delivering the data to us in an expedited manner. This research made extensive use of ADS and SIMBAD. MHvK is supported by a fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science.


text:
# 1 Dark energy models

## 1 Dark energy models

Two competitive scenarios have been proposed to take into account for the observed accelerated expansion of the universe , the cosmological constant and a plethora of ‘quintessence’ scalar field models. It has been recently shown that an appropriate parameterization of the time behavior of the dark energy equation of state, can reproduce the dynamics of several quintessence potentials and many other models for the acceleration . In particular different models are specified by the value of the equation of state today $`w_Q^o`$, its value during the matter dominated era $`w_Q^m`$, the value of the scale factor $`a_c^m`$ where the equation of state changes from $`w_Q^o`$ to $`w_Q^m`$ and the width $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ of this transition. We refer to the formula (4) of the equation of state in reference . We may distinguish two different classes of dark energy models, those with a rapid transition, characterized by the ratio $`a_c^m/\mathrm{\Delta }>1`$, and those with a slowly varying behavior, for which $`0<a_c^m/\mathrm{\Delta }<1`$. For instance the ‘Albrecht-Skordis’ model  belongs to the former class while the latter includes the inverse power law potential . We shall study the dark energy effects in the CMB power spectrum and we will discuss the possibility to detect these imprints with the next generation of CMB experiments.

## 2 Acoustic peaks

The angular size of the sound horizon at the decoupling sets the location of the acoustic peaks. Different dark energy models can lead to a different angular diameter distance to the last scattering surface and consequently to a shift of the peaks. For instance if $`w_Q^o`$ is close to the cosmological constant value, the universe starts to accelerate at earlier times, the distance to the last scattering surface is farther and the peaks are shifted toward larger multipoles. The opposite effect occurs if $`w_Q^m`$ tends to the dust value or if $`a_c^m`$ tends to its present value $`a_o=1`$, but in these cases the amplitude of the shift depends on the value of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. In fig.1 we plot the relative difference to a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model of the position of the first, second and third peaks for rapidly varying models (fig.1a-1b) and slowly varying ones (fig.1c-1d). We set $`w_Q^o=1`$. As we can see, in models with a rapidly varying equation of state the discrepancy with respect to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM increases for $`a_c^m1`$ (fig.1a), while for slowly varying behaviors of the equation of state there is not dependence on $`a_c^m`$ (fig.1c). This is what we expect since in the latter class of models a different value of $`a_c^m`$ does not affect the evolution of the dark energy density. We notice that in general the shift of the position of the first peak is always larger than that of the second and third ones. This is due to the ISW effect that is a characteristic signature of dark energy at low multipoles.

The location of the Doppler peaks is an efficient tool to test the dark energy , however we should consider the degeneracy with other cosmological parameters. For example, for small values of $`H_o`$ the peaks are shifted toward large multipoles. The same effect occurs for large values of the physical baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, since the size of the sound horizon becomes smaller. Therefore we expect the value of the dark energy parameters to be degenerate mainly with $`H_o`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$.

## 3 ISW effect

The ISW produces late time anisotropies at the large angular scales of the CMB and is caused by the decay of the gravitational potentials . In a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model such a decay starts as soon as the universe enters in the cosmological constant dominated phase. On the other hand the quintessence contributes to this decay not only with the dynamics of the background but with its clustering properties as well. In fact the quintessence is not a smooth component, it has fluctuations that can cluster at the very large scales and modify the evolution of the matter perturbations. Therefore the imprint of the dark energy in the ISW depends on its specific features . In fig.2 we plot the power spectrum $`C_l^{ISW}`$ for the models of fig.1, the red line corresponds to the ISW contribution in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model. As we can see, for rapidly varying models, there is a boost of power for transitions occurring at close redshifts (fig.2a). The $`C_l^{ISW}`$ then decreases toward the cosmological constant case as the transition moves at higher redshifts (fig.2a). The largest amplitude is obtained for $`w_Q^m=0.0`$, but the signal is suppressed for $`w_Q^m<0.0`$ (fig.2b). In the case of slowly varying models the ISW is almost independent of $`a_c^m`$ (fig.2c). It is larger than the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM for $`w_Q^m=0.0`$, becomes smaller for negative values of $`w_Q^m`$ and tends to the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ case for $`w_Q^m<0.3`$ (fig.2d). The result of this qualitative analysis suggests that amid the dark energy models with $`w_Q^o`$ close to $`1`$, those with a rapid transition occurring at low redshifts produce the most distinctive signature in the CMB power spectrum. On the contrary those with a slowly varying behavior are more difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant model.

## 4 Ideal CMB measurements

In order to test the sensitivity of an ideal CMB experiment to the dark energy effects, we simulate a sample of $`C_l`$s with cosmic variance errors. We assume a fiducial model with a slowly varying equation of state with the following parameters: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q=0.68`$, $`H_o=70`$ Km $`s^1`$ $`Mpc^1`$, $`w_Q^o=1`$, $`w_Q^m=0.4`$, $`a_c^m=0.2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0.3`$. We assume a flat geometry, no tensor contribution, the scalar spectral index $`n=1`$ and the baryon density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.021`$. We assume a gaussian prior on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=1\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ with $`\sigma _m=0.05`$. We perform a likelihood analysis over $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, $`H_o`$, $`w_Q^o`$, $`w_Q^m`$ and $`a_c^m`$. The results are shown in fig.3. As we may note, unless we take a prior on $`H_o`$, the value of $`w_Q^o`$ is poorly constrained. More important is the likelihood plot in the $`w_Q^ma_c^m`$ plane. As we expect, $`a_c^m`$ is undetermined. On the other hand $`w_Q^m`$ is not very well constrained even with the $`H_o`$ prior. This is because $`w_Q^o`$ and $`w_Q^m`$ are degenerate, hence marginalizing the likelihood over $`w_Q^o`$ shifts the best fit value of $`w_Q^m`$. In particular we cannot exclude the case $`w_Q^m=1`$. Therefore we conclude that if the present value of the dark energy equation of state is close to $`1`$, a large class of models will not be distinguished from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM scenario even with ideal CMB measurements. It is possible that combining different cosmological data, as SN Ia, large scale structure and quasar clustering we can break the degeneracy and infer more information on this class of dark energy models.

Acknowledgements.  We are grateful to Bruce Bassett, Carlo Ungarelli and Ed Copeland, with whom much of the work reviewed here has been done. PSC is suported by a University of Sussex bursary.


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# DESY 02-158hep-ph/0210209Vacuum structure and high-energy scatteringTalk presented at QCD 02, Montpellier/F, July 2002.

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Non-Abelian gauge theories like QCD are known to possess a rich vacuum structure. Notably, there are topologically non-trivial vacuum fluctuations of the gauge fields, whose simplest examples are instantons . Instantons have been argued to play an important role in various long-distance aspects of QCD, such as giving a possible solution to the axial $`U(1)`$ problem  or being at work in $`SU(n_f)`$ chiral symmetry breaking . Recently, also a number of QCD lattice studies elucidated the topological structure and the instanton content of the vacuum .

Another prominent feature of the QCD vacuum is its apparent dual superconductivity. The latter has been recognized since long as an explanation of confinement  and is also intensively studied on the lattice . These investigations seem to indicate that the fundamental dual excitations are monopoles or vortices, while instantons might be composite objects of those.

The QCD vacuum structure may be studied on the lattice, starting from first principles. Alternatively, low-energy phenomenology can be exploited to learn about the vacuum, at the expense of introducing model assumptions as for example in the instanton liquid model  or in the model of the stochastic vacuum , which incorporates the dual superconductor picture of the vacuum.

In this short review, I shall emphasize that manifestations of the vacuum structure of non-Abelian gauge theories can also be searched for in high-energy scattering. I shall concentrate in Sect. 2 on instanton-induced hard scattering processes in the electroweak gauge theory (Quantum Flavor Dynamics (QFD))  and in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) in QCD , which are calculable from first principles within instanton-perturbation theory. In Sect. 3, I shall discuss briefly soft scattering processes in QCD.

## 2 HARD SCATTERING PROCESSES INDUCED BY INSTANTONS

Instantons ($`I`$) are minima of the Euclidean action, localized in space and Euclidean time, with unit topological charge $`Q=1`$. In Minkowski space-time, they describe tunneling transitions between classically degenerate, topologically inequivalent vacua, differing in their winding number by one unit, $`\mathrm{}N_{\mathrm{CS}}=Q=1`$ . The corresponding energy barrier, under which the instantons tunnel, is inversely proportional to the gauge coupling $`\alpha _g`$ and the effective $`I`$-size $`\rho _{\mathrm{eff}}`$, $`M_{\mathrm{sp}}\pi /(\alpha _g\rho _{\mathrm{eff}})`$, and of order $`\pi M_W/\alpha _W10`$ TeV in QFD  and $`𝒬`$ in hard scattering in QCD, where $`𝒬\text{ }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}`$ GeV is a large momentum transfer e.g. in DIS .

### 2.1 Instanton-induced processes

Due to axial anomalies , $`I`$-induced hard scattering processes are always associated with anomalous fermion-number violation , in particular baryon plus lepton number violation, $`\mathrm{}(B+L)=12Q`$, in the case of QFD, chirality violation, $`\mathrm{}Q_5=2n_fQ`$, in the case of QCD. Generically, $`I`$-induced total cross-sections for hard parton scattering processes are given in terms of an integral over the instanton-antiinstanton ($`I\overline{I}`$) collective coordinates (sizes $`\rho ,\overline{\rho }`$, $`I\overline{I}`$ distance $`R`$, color orientation $`U`$ (see also )

$`\sigma _{p_1p_2}^{(I)}`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle d^4R\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\rho \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝑑\overline{\rho }D(\rho )D(\overline{\rho })𝑑U\mathrm{e}^{\frac{4\pi }{\alpha _g}\mathrm{\Omega }(U,\frac{R^2}{\rho \overline{\rho }},\frac{\overline{\rho }}{\rho })}}`$
$`\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i}(p_1+p_2)R_{i=1}^2\sqrt{p_i^2}(\rho +\overline{\rho })}\mathrm{}.`$
Here, the basic blocks arising in $`I`$-perturbation theory are the $`I`$-size distribution $`D(\rho )`$ and the function $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which takes into account the exponentiation of gauge boson production  and can be identified with the $`I\overline{I}`$-interaction defined via the valley method .

The $`I`$-size distribution $`D(\rho )`$ is known in $`I`$-perturbation theory, $`\alpha _g(\mu )\mathrm{ln}(\rho \mu )1`$, up to two-loop renormalization group invariance . At one-loop, it reads

$`D(\rho )={\displaystyle \frac{d}{\rho ^5}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2\pi }{\alpha _g(\mu )}}\right)^{2N_c}(\rho \mu )^{\beta _0S^{(I)}}\mathrm{e}^{\frac{2\pi }{\alpha _g(\mu )}S^{(I)}}`$ (2)
with $`\beta _0=11N_c/32n_f/31/6n_s`$ the first coefficient in the $`\beta `$ function,

$`S^{(I)}=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{QCD\hspace{0.17em};}\hfill \\ 1+M_W^2\rho ^2/2\hfill & \text{QFD\hspace{0.17em},}\hfill \end{array}`$ (3)
the $`I`$-action, $`\mu `$ the renormalization scale, and $`d`$ a scheme-dependent constant. The quite differenct $`\rho `$ dependence of the size distribution (2) for QCD and QFD has important consequences for the predictivity: whereas large-size instantons, $`\rho \text{ }>M_W^1`$, are exponentially suppressed in QFD (cf. (3)) and thus the relevant contributions to the size integrals in (1) arise consistently from the perturbative region ($`\alpha _W(\rho ^1)1`$) even if both initial partons are on-shell, $`p_i^20`$, in QCD the power-law behavior of the size distribution, $`\rho ^{\beta _05}`$, generically causes the dominant contributions to (1) to originate from large $`\rho \mathrm{\Lambda }^1\alpha _s(\rho ^1)1`$ and thus often spoils the applicability of $`I`$-perturbation theory. In DIS (cf. Fig. 1), however, one parton, $`p_1=q^{}`$ say, carries a space-like virtuality $`Q^2=p_1^2>0`$, such that the contribution of large instantons to the integrals is suppressed by an exponential factor in (1), $`\mathrm{e}^{Q^{}(\rho +\overline{\rho })}`$, and $`I`$-perturbation theory becomes exploitable, i.e. predictable, for sufficiently large $`Q^{}`$ . In this connection it is quite welcome that lattice data on the instanton content of the quenched ($`n_f=0`$) QCD vacuum  can be exploited to infer the region of validity of $`I`$-perturbation theory for $`D(\rho )`$ : As illustrated in Fig. 2 (left), there is very good agreement for $`\rho \text{ }<\text{ }0.35`$ fm.

As far as the $`I\overline{I}`$-interaction $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is concerned, it is seen from simple Fourier correspondences in (1), e.g. $`R^21/(p_1+p_2)^21/s^{}`$, that at high center-of-mass (cm) energies $`\sqrt{s^{}}`$ small $`I\overline{I}`$-distances are probed, i.e. $`\rho \overline{\rho }/R^2s^{}/Q^21/x^{}1`$ (DIS) or $`s^{}/M_W^2`$ (QFD). Thus, in order to make a reliable prediction of $`I`$-induced hard scattering at high energies, we need to know the interaction for small distances. Again, for QCD one may exploit lattice data on the $`I\overline{I}`$-distance distribution  to infer the region of validity of the description of the $`I\overline{I}`$-interaction by its exact expression given in the valley method : one finds good agreement for $`R/\rho \text{ }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1.0}÷1.05`$  (cf. Fig. 2). In this case, however, there are remaining theoretical ambiguities: The integrations over $`\rho `$, $`\overline{\rho }`$ in the $`I\overline{I}`$-distance distribution imply significant contributions also from larger instantons with $`0.35\mathrm{fm}\text{ }<\text{ }\rho ,\overline{\rho }\text{ }<\text{ }0.6`$ fm, outside the strict region of perturbation theory. It is not excluded that the valley interaction reliably describes the interactions of small-size instantons, $`\rho \overline{\rho }\rho 0.5`$ fm, at smaller $`R/\rho `$, say $`R/\rho \text{ }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.5}`$.

The energy dependencies of the $`I`$-induced parton-parton cross sections illustrated in Fig. 3 for DIS ($`x^{}=Q^2/(Q^2+s^{})`$ and in Fig. 4 for QFD  are easily understood on the basis of above mentioned Fourier correspondences and associated saddle-point relations: At increasing energies, smaller and smaller $`I\overline{I}`$-distances are probed, and the cross-sections are rapidly growing due to the attractive nature of the $`I\overline{I}`$-interaction in the perturbative semi-classical regime (cf. Fig. 2 (right)). This goes along with the production of $`n_g1/\alpha _g`$ gauge bosons, in addition to the minimal number of fermions required by the axial anomaly. Furthermore, in the case of DIS, at increasing virtuality $`Q^{}`$ smaller and smaller instantons are probed and the cross-section diminishes in accord with the size distribution (Fig. 2 (left)).

### 2.2 QCD-instantons at HERA

With my colleague Fridger Schrempp we have conducted a long-term research program at DESY to work out the theory and phenomenology of hard QCD $`I`$-induced processes in DIS at HERA . Meanwhile, the first dedicated search by the H1 collaboration has been published . Several observables characterising the hadronic final state of QCD $`I`$-induced events were exploited to identify a potentially $`I`$-enriched domain. The results obtained are intriguing but non-conclusive. While an excess of events with $`I`$-like topology over the expectation of the standard DIS background is observed, which, moreover, is compatible with the $`I`$-signal, it can not be claimed to be significant given the uncertainty of the Monte Carlo simulations of the standard DIS background. The data do not exclude the cross-section predicted by $`I`$-perturbation theory for quite small $`I`$-sizes $`\rho _{}\text{ }<\text{ }0.2`$ fm and $`(R/\rho )_{}\text{ }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.9}`$.

### 2.3 QFD-instantons at VLHC?

In the early ‘90s the possibility of observable QFD $`I`$-effects at cm energies $`10`$ TeV was quite intensively investigated . But despite considerable theoretical efforts the actual size of the cross-sections in the relevant energy regime was never established. In view of the similarity between QFD and hard QCD $`I`$-induced processes in DIS and of the recent information about the latter both from the lattice and from experiment, it seems worthwhile to reconsider the subject . Figure 4 represents a state-of-the-art evaluation of the QFD $`I`$-induced quark-quark cross-section, which neglects Higgs production . It demonstrates that the cross-section is unobservably small in the conservative fiducial region corresponding to $`(R/\rho )_{}>1`$. However, it becomes of observable size if the $`I\overline{I}`$-attraction remains valid also for slightly smaller values of $`(R/\rho )_{}\text{ }>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.7}`$ at $`\sqrt{s^{}}4\pi M_W/\alpha _W=30`$ TeV. This opens up exciting opportunities at future colliders  such as VLHC  or at cosmic ray facilities and neutrino telescopes .

## 3 SOFT HIGH-ENERGY PROCESSES

One of the main challenges of QCD is to understand the high-energy, but small momentum transfer cross-sections of hadrons from first principles. In this domain, perturbation theory is not applicable and direct lattice simulations are not possible until now. There have been recently several attempts to face this challenge . Most of them are based on the eikonal representation of the amplitudes in terms of correlators of Wilson lines or loops , which thereafter are evaluated using different model assumptions. The most advanced attempt is certainly the one of the Heidelberg group  based on the model of the stochastic vacuum , which has been already successfully applied to a variety of soft high-energy processes (e.g. ). Less developed but rapidly evolving is the understanding of a possible connection of semi-hard instantons to diffraction . There exists the intriguing possibility that larger-size instantons build up diffractive scattering, with the marked $`I`$-size scale $`\rho 0.5`$ fm (Fig. 2 (left)) being reflected in the conspicuous “geometrization” of soft QCD .