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# Low-Lying States of 6He and 6Be in a Nodal Surface Structure Analysis

## Abstract

The low-lying states of the light nuclei 6He and 6Be are studied. Using the inherent nodal surface(INS) analysis approach, we deduce the quantum numbers and the spatial symmetries of the low-lying states with positive parity and negative parity of the two nuclei. The energy spectrum obtained agrees well with the experimental data.

Keywords: few-body system, energy level, algebraic method, 6He, 6Be

PACS: 21.45+v, 21.10.-k, 03.65.Fd, 27.20.+n

It is known that, when the number of nucleons $`A`$ in a nucleus is 5-10, the convergence of shell model calculations is usually poor, while in the cluster model it is complicated to include many different cluster configurations. Although many attempts have been made to investigate the nuclei with $`A5`$-10 , no general approach has been established because of the complexity due to the many degrees of freedom, for instance, six-nucleon systems have 15 spatial degrees of freedom. Among these nuclei, 6He has received considerable attention since studying such a nucleus at the neutron drip line can further refine our understanding of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. 6He, consisting of two protons and four neutrons, has a level structure which has been investigated over many years in a number of theoretical calculations. However, the existing literature concerns mainly the ground states and a few resonances. Even now, little is known about the spectroscopy and energy level scheme of 6He and 6Be. To shed more light on the situation, we make use of a new approach, namely the inherent nodal surface structure analysis approach, to study the effects of the inherent symmetries. It has been shown that, by investigating the nodal structure of the few-body wave functions, one can obtain certain important features of the wave functions and the energy spectra before actually solving the Schrödinger or Faddeev equation. The properties of the 6-nucleon systems have been studied in this new approach, and the isospin $`T=0`$ energy level scheme of 6Li has been deduced, as an example. In this paper we will extend this approach to extract the qualitative characteristics of the low-lying states of 6He and 6Be with isospin $`T=1`$.

It has been shown in Ref. that the low-lying states of 4He are dominated by the component of total orbital angular momentum $`L=0`$, while the resonances below the 2n+2p threshold are ruled with $`L=1`$. The quite large excitation energies of the resonances ($`20`$ MeV) indicate that the increase of $`L`$ may lead to a great increase in energy. Furthermore, the internal wave-functions (the ones relative to a body-frame) of all the states below the 2n+2p threshold do not contain nodal surfaces. This fact implies that the excitation of internal oscillation takes a very large energy. Since 6-nucleon systems have comparable size and weight with the 4-nucleon ones, it would be reasonable to assume that the $`L=0`$ nodeless component will dominate the low-lying spectra of 6-nucleon systems. The success in describing the positive parity energy spectrum of 6Li indicates that such an assumption is quite practical.

Let $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ be an eigenstate of a quantum system, $`𝒜`$ denote a geometric configuration, in some cases $`𝒜`$ may be invariant to a specific operation $`\widehat{O}`$, we have then

$$\widehat{O}\mathrm{\Psi }(𝒜)=\mathrm{\Psi }(\widehat{O}𝒜)=\mathrm{\Psi }(𝒜).$$
(1)
For example, when $`𝒜`$ is a regular octahedron (OCTA, see Fig. 1) for a 6-body system, $`𝒜`$ is invariant to a rotation about a 4-fold axis of the OCTA by $`90^{}`$ together with a cyclic permutation of the particles 1, 2, 3 and 4. According to the representations of the operation on $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ (e.g., rotation, space inversion, and permutation), Eq. (1) can always be written in a matrix form and appears as a set of homogeneous linear equations. It is apparent that, whether there exists nonzero solution of $`\mathrm{\Psi }(𝒜)`$, in other word, whether the state $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is accessible to the configuration $`𝒜`$, depends on the inherent symmetric property of the configuration. The symmetry imposes then a very strong constraint on the eigenstate so that the $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ may be zero at $`𝒜`$. It indicates that there may exist a specific kind nodal surface. Since such kind nodal surface is imposed by the intrinsic symmetry of the system (fixed at body-frames) and independent of the dynamical property at all, one usually refers it as inherent nodal surface (INS).

The INS appears always at geometric configurations with certain geometric symmetry. For a 6-body system, the OCTA is the configuration with the strongest geometric symmetry. Let us assume that the six particles form an OCTA, $`k^{}`$ is a 4-fold axis of the OCTA, the particles 1, 2, 3 and 4 form a square surrounding $`k^{}`$, $`R_\delta ^k^{}`$ denotes a rotation about $`k^{}`$ by an angle $`\delta `$ (in degree), $`P(ijk)(P(ijkl))`$ denotes a cyclic permutation of the particles i, j, k (i, j, k, l), the OCTA is evidently invariant to operations

$$\widehat{O}_1=P(1432)R_{90}^k^{},$$
(2)
$$\widehat{O}_2=P(253)P(146)R_{120}^{oo^{}}.$$
(3)
Let $`P_{ij}`$ denote an interchange of the locations of particles $`i`$ and $`j`$, $`\widehat{I}`$ stand for a space inversion, along the same way as discussed above, we know that the OCTA is also invariant to the operations

$$\widehat{O}_3=P_{14}P_{23}P_{56}R_{180}^i^{},$$
(4)
$$\widehat{O}_4=P_{13}P_{24}P_{56}\widehat{I}$$
(5)
On the other hand, we can generally express an eigenstate of a 6-nucleon system with given total angular momentum $`J`$, parity $`\pi `$, and isospin $`T`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{L,S,\lambda }{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{LS\lambda }$$
(6)
where $`S`$ is the total spin, and the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{LS\lambda }`$ can be given as

$$\mathrm{\Psi }_{LS\lambda }=\underset{iMM_S}{}C_{LM,SM_S}^{JM_J}F_{LSM}^{\lambda i}\chi _{SM_S}^{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }i},$$
(7)
where $`M`$ is the $`Z`$-component of $`L`$, $`F_{LSM}^{\lambda i}`$ is a function of the spatial coordinates, which is the $`i^{th}`$ basis function of the $`\lambda `$representation of the permutation group S6, $`\chi _S^{\stackrel{~}{\lambda }i}`$ is a basis function in the spin-isospin space with given $`S`$ and $`T`$ and belonging to $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$, the conjugate representation of $`\lambda `$. Taking advantage of group theory, one has obtained the allowed $`\lambda `$, which depends on $`S`$ and $`T`$. The result in the case of $`T=1`$ is listed in Table 1. We shall then figure out which components are favorite to forming bound states.

For the function $`F_{LSM}^{\lambda i}`$ of the spatial coordinates, defining a body-frame, we have

$$F_{LSM}^{\lambda i}(123456)=\underset{Q}{}D_{QM}^L(\gamma ,\beta ,\alpha )F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(1^{}2^{}3^{}4^{}5^{}6^{}),$$
(8)
where $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, $`\gamma `$ are the Euler angles to specify the collective rotation, $`D_{QM}^L`$ is the well known Wigner function, $`Q`$ is the projection of $`L`$ along the $`k^{}`$-axis, the $`(123456)`$ and $`(1^{}2^{}3^{}4^{}5^{}6^{})`$ specify that the coordinates are relative to the laboratory frame and the body-frame, respectively.

Since the $`F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}`$ spans a set of basis of the representation of the rotation group, space inversion group, and permutation group, the invariance of the OCTA to the operations $`\widehat{O}_1`$ to $`\widehat{O}_4`$ leads to four sets of equations. For example, from

$$\widehat{O}_1F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(𝒜)=F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(\widehat{O}_1𝒜)=F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(𝒜),$$
(9)
where $`F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(𝒜)`$ denotes that the coordinates in $`F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}`$ are given at an OCTA, for all $`Q`$ with $`|Q|L`$ we have

$$\underset{i^{}}{}[g_{ii^{}}^\lambda (P(1432))e^{i\frac{\pi }{2}Q}\delta _{ii^{}}]F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i^{}}(𝒜)=0,$$
(10)
where $`g_{ii^{}}^\lambda `$ is the matrix element belonging to the representation $`\lambda `$, which can be fixed with the group theory method (see for example Ref.). Similarly, for $`\widehat{O}_2`$, $`\widehat{O}_3`$ and $`\widehat{O}_4,`$ we have

$$\underset{Q^{}i^{}}{}[g_{ii^{}}^\lambda [P(253)P(146)]\underset{Q^{\prime \prime }}{}D_{QQ^{\prime \prime }}^L(0,\theta ,0)e^{i\frac{2\pi }{3}Q^{\prime \prime }}D_{Q^{}Q^{\prime \prime }}^L(0,\theta ,0)\delta _{ii^{}}\delta _{QQ^{}}]F_{LSQ^{}}^{\lambda i^{}}(𝒜)=0,$$
(11)
$$\underset{Q^{}i^{}}{}[(1)^Lg_{ii^{}}^\lambda (P_{14}P_{23}P_{56})\delta _{\overline{Q}Q^{}}\delta _{ii^{}}\delta _{QQ^{}}]F_{LSQ^{}}^{\lambda i^{}}(𝒜)=0,$$
(12)
with $`\overline{Q}=Q`$,

$$\underset{i^{}}{}[g_{ii^{}}^\lambda (P_{13}P_{24}P_{56})(1)^L\delta _{ii^{}}]F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i^{}}(𝒜)=0.$$
(13)
Eqs. (10) to (13) are the equations that the $`F_{LSQ}^{\lambda i}(𝒜)`$ have to fulfill. In some cases there is one or more than one nonzero solution(s) to all these equations. In some other cases, however, there are no nonzero solutions. In the latter case, the $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{LS}`$ has to be zero at the OCTA configurations disregarding their size and orientation. Accordingly, an INS emerges and the OCTA is not accessible. Evidently, the solution of above equations depends on and only on L, $`\pi `$ and $`\lambda `$. Therefore the existence of the INS does not depend on the dynamics (e.g., not on the interaction, mass, etc.) at all.

Solving the sets of linear equations, we obtain the accessibility of the symmetry configurations of the OCTA with $`L=0`$. The result is listed in the second row of Table 2, where the numbers in the blocks are the ones of the independent nonzero solutions.

The INS existing at the OCTA may extend beyond the OCTA. For example, when the shape in Fig. 1 is prolonged along $`k^{}`$ (called a prolonged-octahedron and denoted as $``$ ), it is invariant to $`\widehat{O}_1,\widehat{O}_3,`$ and $`\widehat{O}_4`$, but not to $`\widehat{O}_2`$. Hence, the $`F_{LSQ^{}}^{\lambda i^{}}()`$ should fulfill Eqs.(10), (12) and (13). When nonzero common solutions of Eqs. (10) to (13) do not exist, the INS extends from the OCTA to the prolonged-octahedrons. In fact, an OCTA has many ways to deform, for instance, instead of a square, the particles 1, 2, 3 and 4 form a rectangle or form a diamond, and so on. Then, the INS at the OCTA has many possibilities to extend. How it extends is determined by the ($`L^\pi \lambda `$) of the wavefunction. Thus, in the coordinate space, the OCTA is a source for the INS to emerge. For a wavefunction, if the OCTA is accessible, all the shapes in the neighborhood of the OCTA are also accessible. Therefore this wavefunction is inherent nodeless in this domain.

Another shape with a strong geometric symmetry is the regular pentagon pyramid (PENTA, see Fig. 2). In an extreme case, the PENTA can be C-PENTA, which corresponds to that with $`h=0`$ in Fig. 2. Let $`k^{}`$ be the 5-fold axis, the C-PENTA is invariant to (i) a rotation about $`k^{}`$ by $`\frac{2\pi }{5}`$ together with a cyclic permutation of the five particles of the pentagon , (ii) a rotation about $`k^{}`$ by $`\pi `$ together with a space inversion, (iii) a rotation about $`i^{}`$ by $`\pi `$ together with $`P_{14}P_{23}`$ (here $`i^{}`$ is the axis vertical to $`k^{}`$ and connecting O and particle 5). These invariances lead to constraints embodied in a set of homogeneous equations, and therefore the accessibility of the C-PENTA can be identified as given in the third row of Table 2.

In addition to the OCTA, the C-PENTA is another source where the INS may emerge and extend to its neighborhood; e.g., extend to the pentagon-pyramid as shown in Fig. 2 with h$``$0. There are also other sources. For example, the one at triangular-prism and that at the regular hexagons. However, among the 15 bonds, 12 can be optimized at an OCTA, 10 at a pentagon-pyramid, 9 at a triangular-prism and 6 at a hexagon. Therefore in the neighborhood of the hexagon (and also other regular shapes) the total potential energy is considerably higher. Since the wavefunctions of the low-lying states are mainly distributed in the domain with a lower potential energy, we shall concentrate only in the domains surrounding the OCTA and the C-PENTA.

In most cases, the ground state of a nucleus obeys the condition $`T=T_3`$. Thus, we can only consider $`T=1`$ instead of $`T_3=1`$, if we constrict our discussion in the low-lying states.

Referring to Table 2, one can find that, when a $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{LS\lambda }`$ has $`(L^\pi \lambda )=(0^+\{6\})`$, $`(0^+\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\})`$, or $`(0^+\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\})`$, it can access both the OCTA and the C-PENTA. These and only these wavefunctions are inherent-nodeless in the two most important domains, and they should be the dominant components for the low-lying states. All the other $`L=0`$ components must contain at least one INS. Table 1 shows that the ($`0^+\{6\}`$) component can not be contained in any $`T=1`$ state. Then, we obtain that the ($`0^+\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$) component is accessible to $`[T,S]=[1,0]`$ state, and the ($`0^+\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$) component is allowed to $`[T,S]=[1,0]`$ and $`[1,2]`$ states.

Since the state with $`[T,S]=[1,0]`$ is accessible to both the $`\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ components, two $`J^\pi =0^+`$ partner-states would be generated. Each of them is mainly a specific mixture of the $`\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ components. When $`[T,S]=[1,2]`$, there is only one accessibility. We have then only one $`J^\pi =2^+`$ state. Therefore, we predict that the low-lying $`T=1`$ positive parity spectrum of a 6-nucleon system involves totally three states. Two of them have total angular momentum $`J^\pi =0^+`$, and another one has $`J^\pi =2^+`$. All the quantum numbers of these states are listed in Table 3.

According to experiment data, besides positive parity states, some low-lying resonances with negative parity have also been observed in light nuclei. Therefore, in addition to the $`L=0`$ case discussed above, we have to study the case of $`L=1`$.

By evaluating the determinants of the sets of homogeneous linear equations, the inherent nodeless components of a nucleus with 6 nucleons and $`L^\pi =1^{}`$ are identified as the ones holding orbital symmetry

$$\lambda \{\{\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}1}\},\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}1}\},\{\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}3}\},\{\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1}\},\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}1}\}\}.$$
(14)
Since these states have angular momentum $`L=1`$, the total angular momentum $`J`$, which is formed by the coupling of $`S`$ and $`L`$, have always three choices if $`S0`$. From Table 1 one knows that the $`\{\mathrm{5\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$ component is not allowed to the $`T=1`$ states. Then, there exist three groups of P-wave states each with spin $`S=0,1,2`$, respectively. Their quantum numbers and orbital symmetries are listed in Table 3, too.

It has been well known that the states having two or more components will split due to the coupling among them. For the positive parity states, one can obtain that, owing to the interference between the $`\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ components, there would be a large energy gap between the two $`J^\pi =0^+`$ partner-states, so that the lower one becomes the ground state, while another has an energy higher than the first excited state $`2^+`$. Recalling the energy spectrum of 6Li whose gap between the ground state and its partner is $`5.65`$ MeV and considering the charge independent characteristic of nuclear force and the similarity of the nuclei 6He and 6Li, we expect that the $`0_2^+`$ state of 6He would have an energy $`E_x=5.6`$ MeV. Meanwhile, the expected $`J^\pi =2^+([T,S]=[1,2])`$ state is the first excited state at $`E_x=1.797`$ MeV. For the negative parity states (P-wave resonance), the $`J^\pi =1^{}`$ state with $`[T,S]=[1,0]`$ and orbital symmetry $`\{\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$ would be the lowest one. The resonance with $`J^\pi =2^{}`$, $`1^{}`$, $`0^{}`$ and $`[T,S]=[1,1]`$ and those with $`J^\pi =3^{}`$, $`2^{}`$, $`1^{}`$ and $`[T,S]=[1,2]`$ are the second and the third set of resonant states, respectively. In experiments, the lowest $`1^{}`$ resonance once was assigned as a component of the resonance at $`E_x=5.6`$ MeV with a width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=10.9`$ MeV in the 6Li(7Li, 7Be)6He reaction. The subsequent similar experiment provided a clue that it would be the one at $`E_x=4\pm 1`$ MeV with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=4\pm 1`$ MeV. While the recent 6Li(t, 3He)6He experiment indicated that the broad resonance at $`E_x5.6`$ MeV involves at least three Gaussians with energy $`4.4\pm 0.1`$ MeV, $`7.7\pm 0.2`$ MeV, $`9.9\pm 0.4`$ MeV, respectively. And each of these three peaks contains the $`1_1^{}`$ and other components. In some detail, the other constituents of this broad resonance must involve a $`2^+`$ state. Even though the present approach can not give this state naturally since it is not a nodeless accessible one(then we leave the configuration $`\lambda `$ in Table 3 blank), we can assign it as the one dominated by the PENTA-accessible but OCTA-inaccessible S-wave components $`\{\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$, even $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}1}^4\}`$. In a short word, the resonance centred at $`5.6`$ MeV contains at least the $`0_2^+`$, $`1_1^{}`$ and $`2_2^+`$ states. As to the $`1_2^{}`$ and $`2_1^{}`$ states, according to the 6Li(7Li, 7Be)6He experiment, they correspond to the resonance at $`E_x=14.6\pm 0.7`$ MeV with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=7.4\pm 1.0`$ MeV. If the possible splitting of this resonance into two or three components in the range $`E_x=1318`$ MeV proposed in Ref. is confirmed, the $`J^\pi =0^{}`$ resonance may also be included. In addition, the $`3^{}`$ and other $`2^{}`$, $`1^{}`$ resonance may be the constituents of that at $`E_x23.3`$ MeV reported in Ref.. Summarizing these experimental correspondences, we list the data in Table 3 and illustrate the energy spectrum in Fig. 3. From Table 3 and Fig. 3, one can recognize that the energy spectrum of 6He obtained in the present analysis agrees very well with experimental data (for a recent compilation, see Ref.).

Since 6Be and 6He are mirror nuclei, each of which has $`A=6`$ and $`|T_3|=1`$, we can extend the discussion above to induce the quantum numbers of the low-lying states of 6Be and obtain the same result as for 6He. Unfortunately, only two low-lying states have been observed in experiments. For comparison we illustrate these states in Fig. 3, too.

In summary, using the inherent nodal surface structure analysis, we have determined the quantum numbers of the low-lying states of 6-nucleon systems with isospin $`T=1`$. The orbital symmetries $`\{\mathrm{4\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}2}\}`$ are found to be the important components for the S-wave states and the $`\{\mathrm{3\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$, $`\{\mathrm{2\hspace{0.17em}2\hspace{0.17em}1\hspace{0.17em}1}\}`$ symmetries for the P-wave states. The energy spectra of 6He and 6Be obtained in the present analysis agree very well with the experimental data, except for the $`2_2^+`$ state. In fact, although the $`2_2^+`$ state does not appear as a low-lying one in our result, we haven’t excluded its possibility to be resonance at higher energy. On the other hand, a shell model calculation once predicted that the second $`0^+`$ state of 6He is at $`12`$ MeV. However, in our analysis, this state must be much lower, at least as low as $`1_1^{}`$ and $`2_2^+`$ states, which is quite consistent with the available experimental data at present. The present result provides then further evidence for that the inherent nodal surface analysis is a quite powerful approach for few-body problems.

It is evident that, although our analysis is simply based on the INS analysis, the obtained energy level structure agrees quite well with the experimental data. It indicates that the INS embodies the basic and intrinsic properties of the system (e.g., symmetry, configuration’s structure) and with which one can discuss both positive and negative parity states simultaneously. Thus, it can help us to make reasonable choice between dynamical models. Meanwhile, the inherent nodeless wave functions are the most important building blocks of the low-lying states. The identification of these favorite components plays then a key role in understanding the low-lying energy spectrum. However, it is remarkable that the INS analysis can not give accurate numerical results directly. To get numerical results one must implement dynamical calculations. Then combining dynamical calculation and the INS analysis is the efficient way to investigate few-body problems.

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China with Grant No. 10075002, 10135030, 19875001, 90103028, the Major State Basic Research Developing Programme under Grant No. G2000077400 and the Foundation for University Key Teacher by the Ministry of Education, China.


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# Crowding in the GAIA spectrograph focal plane

## 1. Introduction

GAIA RVS is a slitless spectrograph, so some degree of crowding due to spectral tracing overlaps in the focal plane is to be expected. Overlapping spectra increase the effective background signal and make it highly ununiform. In an acompanying paper (Zwitter 2002) we show that superpositions of spectral lines of background stars can be removed by careful modelling. Here we use photometry of actual stellar fields in 66 directions in the Galaxy to assess the probability for an overlap, as well as the typical spectral type of overlappers.

## 2. Observations

We use B, V, and IC photometry of 66 fields around a sample of symbiotic stars (Henden & Munari 2000, 2001). These fields were observed with the USNO Flagstaff Station, 1.0m telescope and two CCD detectors. The exposures were designed to permit accurate photometry of the symbiotic star, and so were of varying depth depending on the brightness of the target star. However, all fields are relatively complete to $`V17`$ with stellar detections reaching $`V=20.5`$. Only photometric, good seeing nights were used, with extinction and transformation coefficients determined from nightly measures of Landolt standard stars. Aperture photometry was used, with a minimum of three observations on separate photometric nights per field. Typical zeropoint errors are around $`0.01`$mag. More complete description of the observations and techniques can be found in the referenced papers. These fields can be used to assess stellar density and distribution of spectral types down to the GAIA faintness limit. A total of 75959 stars were analyzed.

The luminosity function for $`V>15`$ is frequently described by a potential law. Here we adopt a heuristic law

$$dN/dV2.3^{V0.05(V15)^2}$$
(1)
which gives a better fit to the data (see Fig. 1). The relation is compatible with star counts predictions by the Galaxy model (ESA-SCI(2000)4, Torra et al. 1999) using Hakkila et al. (1997) extinction law.

Average star density of ($`V<17`$) stars equals 15100 stars/degree2 close to the Galactic plane ($`|b|<20^o`$) and 1900 stars/degree2 away from it ($`|b|>20^o`$). This is somewhat larger than the corresponding values (6100 and 1200 stars/degree2) from the Galaxy model (ESA-SCI (2000)4). This is probably a statistical anomaly; symbiotic stars tend to lie close to the galactic plane and selection effects may emphasize regions of higher star density. Even so only 10% of directions close to the Galactic plane ($`|b|<20^o`$) reach the density of 40000 ($`V<17`$) stars per degree2. Spectral types of field stars cluster around an early K type at the bright end, reaching a mid-K for the faintest targets (Figure 2).

## 3. Crowding and the sampling law

The sampling law of the GAIA satellite guaranties that the arrangement of stars in the focal plane will be different for each of the $`100`$ transits of a given star, providing that the spin and precession periods of the satellite are kept incommensurate. Two stars that badly overlap in one passage have non-overlapping tracings on the next pass. This is a simple consequence of the fact that the length of the spectral tracing in the dispersion direction is much larger than its width. There will be unfortunate cases, for example close optical doubles, with tracings overlapping in a significant fraction of observations. But such stars are rare and so of no interest to us here. Below we discuss the results on spectral overlaps for typical randomly positioned stars in the focal plane.

Two spectra overlap with a probability $`p`$ if the length of the spectrum is larger than the free length

$$L=(ns)^1\mathrm{ln}[(1p)^1]$$
(2)
where the star density equals $`n`$ stars per degree2 and the width of the stellar tracing is $`s`$ arc-sec ($`s4.5`$ arc-sec for the Astrium design of the GAIA spectrograph). The results are presented in Table 1.

## 4. Conclusions

We shall comment on the result for a resolution of 10,000 assuming a spectral width of 4.5 arcsec. Results for other resolutions and spectral widths can be easily judged from Table 1.

The wavelength interval of GAIA spectra covers 250 Å around $`\lambda _c=8615`$ Å. The spectral length for $`R=10,000`$ is 580 pixels, assuming 2 pixels per resolution element. Since each pixel covers 1 arcsec on the sky in the dispersion direction the spectral overlap with another ($`V<17`$) star will occur if the distance between spectral heads is smaller than 580 arcsec. One can see from Table 1 that this happens in some 21 out of 100 spectra if the star density is 1200 stars/deg2, a typical value for field stars with $`V<17`$ at high Galactic latitudes. Density of fainter stars at the same position is much higher (see Eq. 1), so overlaps with $`V18`$ stars are common even at high latitudes. If one considers overlapping stars down to $`V=20`$ the probability for an overlap increases to 97%. If the resolution were smaller than $`R=10.000`$ the length of the spectral tracing covering the GAIA spectral wavelength interval would be shorter. Still it is clear that lower spectral resolutions cannot make spectra free from spectral overlaps of faint stars even at high Galactic latitudes. Fraction of spectra overlapped with $`V<17`$ background stars increases to 70% at the star density of 6000 ($`V<17`$) stars/deg2 (i.e. a value typical close to the Galactic plane).

Spectral overlap is never complete. Even at extreme star densities of 50.000 stars/deg2 only 16% of the spectra would have an overlapping ($`V<17`$) spectrum starting within 10 arcsec ($`=10`$ pixels) behind its head.

Spectral tracings in the focal planes of the GAIA spectrograph will overlap at all star densities and at all resolutions. The policy cannot and should not be to keep only the spectra that are free from overlaps. Should this be the case one would throw away most of the collected GAIA spectra.

## References

de Zeeuw P.T., Gilmore G., Perryman M.A.C., et al. 2000, GAIA - Composition, Formation and Evolution of the Galaxy, ESA-SCI(2000)4

Hakkila J., Myers J.M., Stidham B.J., Hartmann D.H. 1997, AJ 114, 2043

Henden A., Munari U. 2000, A&AS, 143, 343

Henden A., Munari U. 2001, A&AS, 372, 145

Torra J., Chen B., Figueras F., Jordi C., Luri X. 1999, Balt. Astr. 8, 171

Zwitter T. 2002, this volume


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# Measurement of Beam-Spin Asymmetries for 𝜋⁺ Electroproduction Above the Baryon Resonance Region

The CLAS Collaboration

## Abstract

We report the first evidence for a non-zero beam-spin azimuthal asymmetry in the electroproduction of positive pions in the deep-inelastic kinematic region. Data for the reaction $`epe^{}\pi ^+X`$ have been obtained using a polarized electron beam of 4.3 GeV with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). The amplitude of the $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ modulation increases with the momentum of the pion relative to the virtual photon, $`z`$. In the range $`z=`$0.5–0.8 the average amplitude is $`0.038\pm 0.005\pm 0.003`$ for a missing mass $`M_X>`$1.1 GeV and $`0.037\pm 0.007\pm 0.004`$ for $`M_X>`$1.4 GeV.

The origin of the spin of the proton has become a topic of considerable experimental and theoretical interest since the EMC EMC  measurements implied that quark helicities account for only a small fraction of the nucleon spin. As a consequence, the study of the gluon polarization and the orbital angular momentum of partons have become of central interest. Single-Spin Asymmetries (SSAs), measured in hadronic reactions for decades heller ; E704 , have emerged as important observables to access transverse momentum distributions of partons and the orbital angular momentum of quarks in the nucleon.

In this paper we present the first measurement of a non-zero beam-spin asymmetry in the electroproduction of positive pions in deep-inelastic kinematic region. Recently measurements of target SSAs have been reported for pion production in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (SIDIS) by the HERMES collaboration HER ; HER2 ; HER4  for longitudinally polarized targets, and by the SMC collaboration for a transversely polarized target SMC . Such SSAs require a correlation between the spin direction of a particle and the orientation of the production (or scattering) plane, and have been linked to the orbital angular momentum of partons in the nucleon BRODY ; JIMA . Two fundamental QCD mechanisms giving rise to single spin asymmetries were identified. First the Collins mechanism COL ; TM ; KO , where the asymmetry is generated in the fragmentation of transversely polarized quarks, and second the Sivers mechanism SIV ; AM ; BOMU ; BRO ; COLL ; JIY ; BELJI , where it arises due to final state interactions at the distribution function level. The interference of wavefunctions with different orbital angular momentum, which is required to generate the SSA BRO ; COLL ; JIY ; BELJI , also yields the helicity-flip Generalized Parton Distribution (GPD) $`E`$ BRODY ; JIMA  that enters Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS) Ji97 ; Rady  and the Pauli form factor $`F_2`$. The connection of SSAs and GPDs has also been discussed in terms of the transverse distribution of quarks in nucleons BURK ; BURKHW .

Physical observables accessible in SSAs include novel distribution and fragmentation functions such as chiral-odd transversity distribution RS ; JAF , the time-reversal odd (T-odd) distribution SIV ; AM ; BOMU ; BRO ; COLL ; JIY ; BELJI  and the Collins COL  T-odd fragmentation functions.

In the partonic description of SIDIS, distribution and fragmentation functions depend on the scaling variables $`x`$ and $`z`$, respectively (see below for the definition). At fixed and moderate values of the four momentum transfer $`Q^2`$ and at large values of $`x`$ and $`z`$, the contribution of multiparton correlations or higher twist effects increases, eventually leading to a breakdown of the partonic description. Model calculations indicate that SSAs are less sensitive to a number of higher order corrections than cross section measurements in both semi-inclusive BAC  and in hard exclusive FRA ; BEL  pion production. The measurement of spin asymmetries could therefore become a major tool for studying quark transverse momentum dependent distributions SIV ; COL ; TM ; KO ; BELJI ; LM  and GPDsFRA ; BEL  in the $`Q^2`$ domain of a few GeV2.

The beam-spin asymmetries in single-pion production are higher-twist by their nature TM ; AFCA ; YUAN  and are expected to increase at low $`Q^2`$. Although large beam-spin asymmetries have been observed in measurements of exclusive electroproduction of photons (DVCS) HERdvcs ; CLASdvcs , the only measurement of the beam-spin asymmetry in semi-inclusive pion electroproduction was reported recently by the HERMES collaboration HER  at $`z0.4`$. Within statistical uncertainties their value is consistent with zero.

The cross section for single pion production by longitudinally polarized leptons scattering from unpolarized protons may be written in terms of a set of response functions. The helicity ($`\lambda _e`$) dependent part ($`\sigma _{LU}`$) TM ; LM  arises from the anti-symmetric part of the hadronic tensor:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma _{LU}}{dxdydzd^2P_{}}}\lambda _e\sqrt{y^2+\gamma ^2}\sqrt{1y{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\gamma ^2}\mathrm{sin}\varphi _{LT}^{}.`$ (1)
The subscripts in $`\sigma _{LU}`$ specify the beam and target polarizations, respectively ($`L`$ stands for longitudinally polarized and $`U`$ for unpolarized). The azimuthal angle $`\varphi `$ is defined by a triple product:

$$\mathrm{sin}\varphi =\frac{[\stackrel{}{k}_1\times \stackrel{}{k}_2]\stackrel{}{P}_{}}{|\stackrel{}{k}_1\times \stackrel{}{k}_2||\stackrel{}{P}_{}|},$$

where $`\stackrel{}{k}_1`$ and $`\stackrel{}{k}_2`$ are the initial and final electron momenta, and $`\stackrel{}{P}_{}`$ is the transverse momentum of the observed hadron with respect to the virtual photon $`\stackrel{}{q}`$. The structure function $`_{LT}^{}`$ arises due to the interference of the longitudinal and transverse photon contributions. The kinematic variables $`x`$, $`y`$, and $`z`$ are defined as: $`x=Q^2/2(P_1q),y=(P_1q)/(P_1k_1),z=(P_1P)/(P_1q),`$ where $`Q^2=q^2`$, $`q=k_1k_2`$ is the 4-momentum of the virtual photon, $`P_1`$ and $`P`$ are the momenta of the target and the observed final-state hadron, and $`\gamma ^2=4M^2x^2y^2/Q^2`$.

The beam-spin asymmetries in single-pion semi-inclusive leptoproduction were measured using a 4.3 GeV electron beam and the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) CLAS  at JLab. Scattering of longitudinally polarized electrons off a liquid-hydrogen target was studied over a wide kinematic region. The beam polarization, frequently measured with a Møller polarimeter, was on average $`0.70\pm 0.03`$. Beam helicity was flipped every 30 msec to minimize the helicity correlated systematics. The scattered electrons and pions were detected in CLAS. Electron candidates were selected by a hardware trigger using a coincidence between the gas Cherenkov counters and the lead-scintillator electromagnetic calorimeters. Pions in a momentum range of 1.2 to 2.6 GeV were identified using momentum reconstruction in the tracking system and the time-of-flight from the target to the timing scintillators. The total number of electron-$`\pi ^+`$ coincidences in the DIS range ($`Q^2>1`$ GeV2, $`W^2>4`$ GeV2) was $`4\times 10^5`$.

A critical issue in SIDIS processes is the assumption of factorization, i.e. that the hadron production cross section can be evaluated as a convolution of a $`x`$-dependent distribution function, a hard scattering and a $`z`$-dependent fragmentation function. This picture is valid if the hadron originates from the fragmentation of the $`current`$ quark, assuming there is sufficient energy so that the 4-momentum of the final hadron is not directly related to that of the struck quark. At low $`z`$ hadrons may additionally originate from the fragmentation of the target, while at large $`z`$, in addition to higher twist effects, diffractive effects are also important. Therefore a restricted range in $`0.5<z<0.8`$ has been selected for the analysis.

The event distributions in the restricted $`z`$-range have been compared with a Monte Carlo based on the LUND generator pepsi  developed to describe high energy processes. In LUND, the pion production is dominated by direct production from string fragmentation, as opposed to other processes such as target fragmentation and hadronic decays. Figure 1 shows comparisons between the experimental yields and the normalized MC distributions for different kinematical variables. The agreement of MC with the data suggests that the high energy-description of the SIDIS process can be extended to the moderate energies of this measurement.

To verify the factorization ansatz, pion multiplicities have been extracted for different $`x`$ ranges. Pion multiplicities have been shown to be approximately equivalent to fragmentation functions PASQ  which depend on the $`z`$ variable only at fixed $`Q^2`$. In Fig. 2 $`\pi ^+`$ multiplicities normalized by the total number of events are shown as a function of $`z`$ for different $`x`$ bins. Within the range and the precision of the present measurement no $`x`$-dependence of multiplicities is seen. This experimental finding is also consistent with the assumption of factorization.

The azimuthal distribution of the beam-spin asymmetry for $`\pi ^+`$:

$$A(\varphi )_{LU}=\frac{1}{P}\frac{N^+N^{}}{N^++N^{}},$$
(2)
is shown in Fig. 3. Here $`N^\pm `$ is the number of events for positive/negative helicities of the electron and $`P`$ is the beam polarization. The data show a clear $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ modulation from which a $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ moment of $`0.038\pm 0.005(stat)`$ can be derived.

The same quantity can be formed by extracting moments of the cross section for the two helicity states weighted by the corresponding $`\varphi `$-dependent functions. In this case the $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ moment is given by:

$$A_{LU}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }=\frac{2}{PN^\pm }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N^\pm }{}}\mathrm{sin}\varphi _i,$$
(3)
The two methods are identical for a full acceptance detector, but in practice have different sensitivities to acceptance effects. In Fig. 4 the comparison of $`A_{LU}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }`$ derived with the two methods is presented as a function of the missing mass $`M_X`$ evaluated in the $`epe^{}\pi ^+X`$ reaction. As can be seen the results agree well with each other over the full $`M_X`$ range. The moments $`A_{LU}^{\mathrm{sin}\varphi }`$ can be also computed for each helicity state and for an average of zero helicity which corresponds to an unpolarized beam. These data shown in Fig. 4 provide an additional test of the absence of spurious azimuthal asymmetries. All these results indicate that within the statistical uncertainties, the acceptance corrections are small and under control.

Contributions to the systematic uncertainties arise from spin-dependent moments of the cross section coupling to corresponding moments in the acceptance to produce corrections to the measured $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$ moment HER . The contribution to uncertainties due to the CLAS acceptance in all relevant kinematic variables ($`x,y,z,P_{},\varphi `$) is evaluated to be less than 0.004 in average and less than 0.007 in all bins. The systematic uncertainties in the measurement of the beam polarization contribute at an even lower level (0.002). Possible particle mis-identification over the accessible kinematic range changes the observed SSA by less than 0.001. To minimize radiative corrections, a cut on the energy of the virtual photon relative to the incoming electron ($`y<0.85`$) was imposed. The estimated radiative corrections do not exceed a few percent of the value of the SSA AFA , and give a minor contribution to the systematic uncertainty. Other systematic uncertainties are negligible.

As can be seen in Fig. 4, the missing mass on the remnant system is mostly occurring in the nucleon resonance region. Despite this, the beam SSA doesn’t show a dependence on any specific final state. A sizable increase of the SSA only appears in exclusive $`\pi ^+`$ production where the missing mass corresponds to the nucleon mass. For this reason, two different cuts on the missing mass $`M_X`$ have been applied in the final analysis. A first cut at $`M_X>1.1`$ GeV was chosen to exclude the contribution of the exclusive $`\pi ^+`$ production on the nucleon. A higher cut at $`M_X>1.4`$ GeV was also considered to reduce, in addition, the contribution of semi-exclusive $`\pi ^+`$ production with a recoiling $`\mathrm{\Delta }^0`$-resonance. For $`M_X>`$ 1.4 GeV multi-hadron production is the dominant mechanism and the possible contribution of higher nucleon resonances in the recoiling system can be interpreted in terms of quark-hadron duality. This seems to be supported by the smooth and almost flat behavior of the data shown in Fig. 4.

A further check is shown in Fig. 5, where the $`z`$-dependence of the beam SSA is presented for increasing values of the missing mass cut. Due to the large correlation between the $`z`$ and the $`M_X`$ variables, an increasing $`M_X`$ cut drastically reduces the number of events with large $`z`$, leaving almost unchanged the beam SSA. This indicates that, within the present statistical uncertainties, the fraction $`z`$ of the virtual photon energy carried by the pion, rather than the missing mass $`M_X`$, is the relevant variable in the scattering process.

Consistency with the factorization assumption, which has been already shown in Fig. 2 for $`\pi ^+`$ multiplicities, has also been investigated for the observable under study. In Fig. 6 the beam SSA is presented as a function of $`z`$ for different $`x`$-bins. Its general behavior suggested by the curve does not exhibit any significant $`x`$-dependence, which is also consistent with factorization in the chosen kinematic range.

The dependence of beam SSA on the $`\pi ^+`$ transverse momentum, $`P_{}`$, is shown in Fig. 7. A linear dependence of SSA on the $`P_{}`$ (with kinematic zero at $`P_{}=0`$ GeV) is expected, at least for the moderate range of $`P_{}`$ TM ; KO .

The beam spin asymmetries averaged over the two spin states as a function of $`x`$ and $`z`$ are plotted in Fig. 8 and listed in Table 1. Table 2 shows the relevant variables for the different $`x`$ and $`z`$ bins. The beam SSA is positive for a positive electron helicity over the entire measured range. The data do not show a significant $`x`$-dependence while the asymmetry is strongly increasing at high $`z`$, where according to LUND MC, the probability of the detected pion to carry the struck quark is maximal.

The size and the behavior of the asymmetry are very similar for the two cases of missing mass cuts. For the case of higher $`M_X`$ cut, the data are compared with a prediction YUAN  based on the Sivers mechanism as the dynamical origin of the observable. Within this framework, the asymmetry is given by the convolution of the T-odd parton distribution $`h_1^{}`$ with the twist-3 fragmentation function $`E(x)`$ JAF1 ; JI2 . The latter function is responsible for the strong $`z`$-dependence of the asymmetry. Despite the fact that the formalism is much better suited for higher energy reactions, the agreement in size and behavior with the data is reasonable.

The CLAS preliminary data on the beam SSA have been also interpreted in terms of the Collins mechanism LM ; EFRPI1 ; EFRhep ; GAM  for a first determination of the twist-3 distribution function $`e(x)`$ EFRPI1 ; EFRhep . The magnitude of their $`e(x)`$ is also consistent with predictions using the chiral quark soliton model SHW1 ; WAK1 ; WAK2 .

At lower $`z`$ HERMES reported results consistent with zero beam-spin asymmetry HER . CLAS asymmetries, obtained at higher $`z`$ and lower $`Q^2`$, should be kinematically enhanced with respect to the higher energy HERMES data HER , as pointed out in Refs. AFCA ; YUAN , so that no evident contradiction can be inferred between the two measurements.

The data at lower $`M_X`$ demonstrate that for this observable the transition from the semi-inclusive to the semi-exclusive and to the exclusive domains is smooth. In addition these data may provide a new field for testing, in the final state, the quark-hadron duality, which has been proved to work in the initial state for other observables, like the spin-independent Nicul  and the spin-dependent Airap  structure functions, down to low values of $`Q^2`$.

In conclusion, we have presented the first measurement of a non-zero beam-spin asymmetry in single $`\pi ^+`$ inclusive electroproduction in the DIS kinematic region. The average asymmetry is $`0.038\pm 0.005\pm 0.003`$ for a missing mass $`M_X>`$1.1 GeV and $`0.037\pm 0.007\pm 0.004`$ for $`M_X>`$1.4 GeV. The asymmetry shows a strong enhancement at large values of $`z`$ while no significant $`x`$-dependence is present within the measured range. Detailed experimental and Monte Carlo studies have been performed showing no large violation of the factorization assumption for the process and suggesting that the partonic description may be applied in the kinematical range of the measurement. New data are expected from experiments utilizing a 6 GeV polarized beam, allowing a more precise test of the factorization ansatz and the investigation of the $`Q^2`$ dependence of the asymmetries.

We thank S. Brodsky, M. Diehl, A. Efremov, A. Kotzinian, A. Metz, and P. Mulders for stimulating discussions. We would like to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the staff of the Accelerator and the Physics Divisions at JLab that made this experiment possible. This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the French Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, an Emmy Noether grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation. The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-84ER40150.


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# A Resolution Requirement for Disk Simulations Modeling Collapse

## Abstract

The accurate simulation of collapsed objects requires that a huge range of spatial scales be well resolved if the result is not to be contaminated by numerically induced fragmentation. In this context, ‘insufficient resolution’ means comparable to the local instability wavelength in the system. I define a minimum resolution criterion for simulations of disk systems, using the critical wavelength appropriate for disks.

School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Scotland, EH9 3JZ, UK

The Criteria in 2d and 3d

A condition on the minimum resolution to ensure the collapse in 3d is of physical rather than numerical origin was defined by Truelove *et al.* 1997 using the ratio of the local grid resolution, $`\delta x`$, and local Jeans wavelength, $`\lambda _J`$:

$$J=\frac{\delta x}{\lambda _J}\mathrm{where}\lambda _J=\left(\frac{\pi c_s^2}{G\rho }\right)^{1/2}.$$
(1)
Here $`c_s`$ is the sound speed, $`\rho `$ is the volume density and $`G`$ is the gravitational constant. An analogous condition can be obtained for rotationally supported (i.e. disk) systems using the local Toomre wavelength, $`\lambda _T`$, at which the disk is neutrally stable to growing axisymmetric instabilities (see e.g. Lin & Lau 1979):

$$T=\frac{\delta x}{\lambda _T}\mathrm{where}\lambda _T=\frac{2c_s^2}{G\mathrm{\Sigma }}.$$
(2)
Here again, $`\delta x`$ is the grid size, while $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the local surface density.

To obtain a form more useful in particle based numerical methods (e.g. SPH), Bate & Burkert (1997) using the Jeans mass to define an analogous criterion for the maximum resolvable volume density. We can obtain a similar quantity in 2d by defining a ‘Toomre mass’ and a maximum resolvable surface density. The two criteria are:

$$\rho _{\mathrm{max}}=\left(\frac{2\pi ^3}{9G^3}\right)\frac{c_s^6}{m_pN_{\mathrm{reso}}}\mathrm{and}\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{max}}=\left(\frac{\pi }{G^2}\right)\frac{c_s^4}{m_pN_{\mathrm{reso}}}.$$
(3)
$`N_{\mathrm{reso}}`$ is the number of particles (of mass $`m_p`$) required to resolve the Jeans mass.

In 3d, Truelove *et al.* 1997 found emperically that $`J<1/4`$ was sufficient to suppress numerical collapse. Bate & Burkert (1997) arrived at a similar result for particle simulations: numerical instability could be suppressed by resolving the local Jeans mass with $`N_{\mathrm{reso}}>2N_{\mathrm{neigh}}(100)`$ neighbor particles. I will define the same critical values for 2d as in 3d, i.e. $`T<1/4`$ and $`100`$ particles per Toomre mass, saving a more exact specification for later work.

Examples from the Literature

Nelson *et al.* (1998) modeled the evolution of self gravitating disks with masses between 0.05 and 1.0 times the mass of the central star, using SPH. From the suite of models in that work, I choose as an example the model with disk dimensions $`M_\mathrm{D}/M_{}`$=0.2 and $`Q_{\mathrm{min}}`$=1.5, resolved with 7997 particles, implementing an isothermal equation of state. Using physical dimensions, the disk has a radius $`R_\mathrm{D}`$=50 AU, mass $`M_\mathrm{D}`$$`=0.2M_{}`$ and $`M_{}=0.5`$$`M_{}`$.

Figure 1 shows the surface densities produced at resolutions of 8000 (the original) and 397000 particles. At lower resolution, filamentary spiral arms develop that later collapse into multiple clumps, as in the Nelson *et al.* work, but such surface densities clearly violate criterion of eq. 3. The higher resolution model did not produce any clumps, even after evolving for three times as long (about 1500 yr). We originally concluded that although our physical model was insufficent to correctly model clump formation, if it was to occur at all it would be most likely between 10 and 40 AU. The statement that the physical model in Nelson *et al.* was insufficient is certainly valid (see e.g. Nelson *et al.* 2000). However, and clump formation was definitely invalid: it was due to failure of the Toomre criterion and not to any physical process, however modeled.

Armitage & Hanson (1999) showed collapse occured in disks in which a 1$`M_\mathrm{J}`$ point mass was embedded in a self-gravitating 0.1$`M_{}`$ disk with an $`r^{3/2}`$ density profile and no initial gap, resolved with 60000 SPH particles. The minimum stability of the disk using the Toomre parameter, was $`Q_{\mathrm{min}}`$=1.5, as in Nelson *et al.* . Temperature was defined using a locally isothermal equation of state.

Figure 2 shows a reproduction of this model. As in the original, the planet both accretes a large amount of disk matter and generates large amplitude spiral structures that began to collapse after $`2025`$yr. Also as in the original, the initial radial positions correspond closely to the outer and inner Lindblad resonances for the lowest order spiral patterns, since the patterns reach their largest amplitudes there. These collapsed objects are clearly numerical artifacts and the author’s conclusion that if a planet could grow sufficiently rapidly (to 4-5$`M_\mathrm{J}`$) sufficiently early enough in the disk’s evolution, it would trigger further planet formation in the disk, is not supported.

In the most recent of a series of papers studying collapse in disks, Boss (2002) models a disk in 3d (reflected through the midplane), between 4 and 20 AU, with $`100\times 23\times 256`$ grid zones asymmetrically distributed primarily near the disk midplane. He includes an ideal gas equation of state and a radiative cooling model. He evolves a disk for 359 yr, when the simulation begins to violate the Jeans criterion due to the onset of clump formation.

Figure 3 shows the critical wavelength at 359 yr defined using the Jeans criterion (Boss: personal communication) and using eq. 2. The values from the two criteria coincide at the location of the clump. Elsewhere, the Toomre wavelength exceeds the Jeans wavelength. Thus the evolution of the Boss simulation leading up to its termination passes this test, and the conclusions made from it are valid numerically.

Concluding Questions and Remaining Work

What is the proportionality factor for the 2d criterion? So far, I have only assumed that the spatial resolution required in the 3d case would carry over in 2d as well, but this may not be correct.

Which critical wavelength criterion is more applicable: Toomre or Jeans? The universe is (spatially) a 3d place, so a criterion based on only two coordinates is necessarily approximate. On the other hand, the geometry of a disk is highly flattened. The assumption made in the Jeans analysis–of an infinite (in all directions) homogenous medium–is not satisfied and may incorrectly capture the physical behavior of the system. Further, correspondence between the two criteria in the forming clump of Boss’s simulation may be coincidental. The two criteria have differing functional dependences on the temperature.

Except for the simulation discussed in figure 3, generously shared prior to its publication by Alan Boss, the computations reported here were performed using the UK Astrophysical Fluids Facility (UKAFF). I also gratefully acknowledge financial support from UKAFF.

References

Armitage, P. J., Hansen, B. M. S., 1999, Nature, 402, 633

Bate, M. R., Burkert, A., 1997, MNRAS, 288, 1060

Boss, A. P., 2002, ApJ, 576, In press

Lin, C. C. & Lau, Y. Y., 1979, Studies in Applied Mathematics, 60, 97

Nelson, A. F., Benz, W., Adams, F. C., Arnett, W. D., 1998, ApJ, 502, 342

Nelson, A. F., Benz, W., Ruzmaikina, T. V., 2000, ApJ, 529, 357

Truelove, J. K., Klein, R. I., McKee, C. F., Holliman, J., H., Howell, L. H., Greenough, J. A., 1997, ApJL, 489, 179


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# A new method of estimating the mass-to-light ratio of the Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidal galaxy

## 1 Introduction

The simplest galactic systems, the dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs), reveal high velocity dispersions that imply the highest known mass-to-light ratios ($`M/L`$) (see Mateo 1998 for a review). These large velocity dispersions are commonly interpreted in terms of the galaxies being embedded in a massive dark-matter halo. Alternative explanations are these mass-to-light ratios may be inflated owing to tidal effects (Hodge & Michie 1969; Gómez-Flechoso, Fux, & Martinet 1999), or that these systems are actually long-lived tidal remnants oriented close to the line of sight (Kroupa 1997).

Ursa Minor (UMi) is one of the closest satellites of the Milky Way ($`d=69`$ kpc; Carrera, Aparicio, & Martínez-Delgado 2002) and, of these, shows, together with Draco, the highest observed velocity dispersion ($`M/L=60`$; Mateo 1998). The discovery of a tidal extension in UMi (Martínez-Delgado et al. 2001) indicates that this galaxy is at an advanced stage of complete tidal disruption (see also Palma et al. 2002). In addition, the presence of lumpiness and asymmetry in the stellar distribution of UMi along its major axis (Olszewski & Aaronson 1985; Irwin & Hatzidimitriou 1995; Kleyna et al. 1998; Martínez-Delgado et al. 2001) could be reminiscent of tidally disrupted satellites (Kroupa 1997). The overall shape of the outer contours appears to be clearly S-shaped (Palma et al 2002; Martínez-Delgado et al. 2002, submitted), as is expected for a tidally disrupted system (i.e., the globular cluster Pal 5; see Odenkirchen et al. 2001). These observational features suggest that UMi may not be in virial equilibrium, supporting the idea of a possible tidal origin for UMi’s observed high radial velocity dispersion. This fuels the debate about the validity of the methodology used to infer the high $`M/L`$ in dSphs and therefore the presence of large quantities of dark matter in these galaxies.

In this paper, we introduce a new method of estimating the mass of satellite dSph galaxies that are subjected to tidal forces. This method does not involve assumptions about the internal dynamics of the satellite can and therefore be used for satellites that are out of virial equilibrium. Using this method, we have analyzed the case of UMi and obtained an new value for the $`M/L`$ ratio of this galaxy.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS AND TIDAL TAIL FORMATION MODEL

Observations, data reduction, and photometry of the UMi dSph galaxy used in this paper are described in detail in Martínez-Delgado et al. (2001) and Carrera et al. (2002). This wide-field survey revealed the presence of stellar members of UMi beyond the previous measured tidal radius, indicating the existence of a tidal extension in this galaxy. This tidal extension could be spread out well beyond the area covered in our survey ($`R>80\mathrm{}`$), as suggested by the presence of a “break” to a shallower slope observed in its density profile (see figure 3 in Martínez-Delgado et al. 2001).

In this paper, UMi’s observed surface brightness profile is compared with a theoretical model of tidally disrupted dSph satellites. The tidal tail is assumed to be formed by the tidal forces of the Milky Way potential, which are important at the galactocentric distance of UMi. The tidal forces produce deformations in the satellite structure and the disruption of the dwarf. The limit of the bound material, that is, the tidal radius, is determined by the equilibrium between the satellite potential well and the Milky Way halo potential well. This equilibrium can also translate into a relation between the satellite average density, $`\overline{\rho _\mathrm{S}}(<r_t)`$, and the local and averaged densities of the Milky Way halo, $`\rho _\mathrm{H}(R)`$ and $`\overline{\rho _\mathrm{H}}(<R)`$ respectively. Details of the tidal limit calculations are given in Gómez-Flechoso & Domínguez-Tenreiro (2001). The unbound material, that forms the tidal tail and is placed beyond the tidal radius, is diffused into the Milky Way halo. As explained in Johnston, Sigurdsson, & Hernsquist (1999), the surface density of the tidal tail approximately follows a power-law profile in the regions close to the dwarf. Obviously, the exponent of this power law depends on the amount of extra-tidal material close to the dwarf and has a steeper density profile when the amount of stripped material is low and vice versa. This amount of stripped material correlates with the strength of the Milky Way tidal force and therefore varies along the orbit, since the satellite travels through regions with different tidal fields. If the amount of stripped material is large, the tidal tail will have an almost constant mass density region close to the satellite (one example of that is the UMi tidal extension) with a tidal tail mass density similar to the satellite mass density at the tidal radius. In this case, the tail mass density correlates with the Milky Way potential at the position of the dwarf, since the satellite mass density at the tidal radius is proportional to the Milky Way potential, as we have explained above. So, for a given halo potential, shape of the satellite density profile, and position of the satellite in the halo, the mass density of the tidal tail in the region close to the tidal radius is fixed independently of the satellite mass. In Figure 1a the projected mass density profiles of three evolved satellite models have been plotted. These satellites have different initial-mass models and have formed a tidal tail after a few orbits. As can be seen in this figure, the central-region of the projected mass density of the satellites differs by up to a factor ten when comparing the different models; however, the tail mass density is almost the same independently of the models. More details of these models are given in Section 3.

Using these results, if we know the halo potential field we can estimate the mass density of the satellite galaxy at the tidal radius and therefore the tidal tail mass density. Once the mass density profile of the satellite and its tail are estimated, the $`M/L`$ ratio of the dwarf can be calculated by fixing this $`M/L`$ ratio to reproduce the observed central luminous surface brightness of the satellite. Given two satellites with different mass densities and with the same central luminous surface brightness, the highest mass density satellite will have a larger $`M/L`$ ratio than the low mass density one. Following this relation, if the two satellites with the same central luminous surface brightness are placed at the same point in the main galaxy potential, as the mass density of the tidal tail is the same for both satellite, the tail surface brightness of the denser satellite will be fainter than that of the low mass density satellite (assuming that a tidal tail has the same $`M/L`$ ratio as its satellite). In Fig. 1b, the three satellite models of Figure 1a have been plotted assuming that all of them have a central surface brightness of 26 mag arcsec-2. As can be seen in this figure, the denser model needs to have a larger $`M/L`$ ratio to reproduce the same central surface brightness as the other models, and consequently its tidal tail is fainter. Assuming the same central luminous surface brightness for the satellite models, the differences in the central mass density translate into differences in the tail surface brightness. Only one satellite model will be able to reproduce, at the same time, the central luminous surface brightness and the tail luminous surface brightness of an observed satellite dwarf galaxy at a given position in the halo. Using this method, we can estimate the $`M/L`$ ratio of the dwarf independently of its internal kinematics.

## 3 CALIBRATION OF THE TIDAL TAIL MODEL

As has been explained in the previous section, the mass density of a satellite tidal tail is independent of the satellite mass (given the shape of the satellite density profile and its position in the orbit). Using the observed surface brightness profile of the satellite, we can select the model that fits the luminous surface brightness of the satellite + tail system, and therefore the mass of the best fit model is a good estimate of the mass of the observed satellite galaxy. Consequently, the $`M/L`$ ratio of the satellite dwarf can be calculated. Before using this method to estimate the mass of the dwarf satellites, we have to calibrate the sensitivity of the method to small differences in satellite mass (in other words, to study whether satellite models with different masses can reproduce the same satellite + tail density profile or not), to differences in the shape of the main galaxy potential and to variations of the dwarf orbit. In this way, we will know the accuracy of the calculations.

### 3.1 Effects of satellite total mass on tidal tail formation

To analyze how the mass content of a satellite is related to the tidal tail surface brightness, we have selected three satellite models with a King–Michie profile with the same dimensionless central potential, $`W_o=4`$, and the same core radius, $`r_o=0.3`$ kpc (which corresponds to a tidal radius $`r_\mathrm{c}=2.1`$ kpc), but different total mass. The three total masses are $`0.4\times 10^7,1.6\times 10^7`$, and $`4\times 10^7`$ $`M_{}`$. These satellites have been placed in an orbit similar to that of UMi (Schweitzer, Cudworth, & Majewski 1997). In these models, we have selected an analytical logarithmic potential to roughly reproduce the Milky Way potential.222In this section we are only interested in analyzing the effects of the satellite mass content in the tidal tail formation and not in reproducing the details of the morphological evolution of UMi. The shape of this logarithmic potential is $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\mathrm{H}=v^2\mathrm{log}(R^2+z^2/h^2+a^2)`$ where $`v=170`$ km s-1, $`a=19.9`$ kpc and $`h=1.0`$. For this potential, the apocenter and pericenter of the orbit of the models are approximately 80 and 20 kpc, respectively.

In Figure 1b, we have plotted the surface brightness of the three satellite models with different initial total masses. The initial masses of the models do not give information about their masses at the moment of the figure snapshot, since the satellites have undergone tidal disruption. In order to better compare the models, the masses inside 1 kpc of each model are also listed in the figure. The three models have been calibrated in luminosity to have the same central surface brightness ($`\mu _{v,o}=26`$ mag arcsec-1). The calibration can be translated in terms of different $`M/L`$ ratios, as as explained in Section 2. This figure shows that the three brightness profiles have the same slope in the central regions. However, the luminous surface brightness of the tidal tails are closely related to the mass content. The lowest-mass satellite, with $`M/L=3.5`$, develops quite a luminous tidal tail. In fact, this satellite only survives a few orbits in the halo potential. In contrast, the highest-mass satellite forms a low brightness tidal tail ($`\mu _{v,\text{tail}}33.5`$ mag arcsec-1) and has a larger tidal radius ($`r_\mathrm{t}1.5`$ kpc). The tidal tail of this massive model ($`M/L=50`$) will not be observationally detected, assuming a typical satellite central surface brightness. Finally, the model with a moderate $`M/L`$ ratio ($`M/L=13`$) develops a tidal tail that could be detected with the present observational resolution, as its tidal tail surface brightness is $`\mu _{v,\text{tail}}32`$ mag arcsec-1. In the same figure, the observational data for the surface brightness of UMi are plotted (black dots) in order to compare the models properly.

Summarizing these results, the effect of satellite mass content on tidal tail formation is quite important, as a variation of a factor 10 in mass produces a variation of a factor of 15 in the $`M/L`$ ratio, assuming the same central surface brightness.

### 3.2 Effects of halo potential oblateness of the main galaxy on tidal tail formation

The tidal tail surface brightness of a satellite in a given orbit is related not only to its mass content but also with the shape of the potential of the main galaxy. For this reason, we have estimated the importance of the main galaxy oblateness in satellite disruption. We have modeled the halo of the primary galaxy using the logarithmic potential of the previous section with the same $`v`$ and $`a`$ parameters, but with three different oblateness values, $`h=1.0,0.8`$, and $`0.6`$ (oblateness values smaller than $`0.6`$ in the potential are unrealistic, since they cannot be reproduced with any mass distribution). The satellite model is a King–Michie model with initial total mass $`M_{\mathrm{ini}}=2\times 10^7M_{}`$, core radius $`r_o=0.3`$ kpc and dimensionless central potential $`W_o=4`$. The satellite orbit has been fixed on the assumption that it has the energy needed to reproduce the present position and velocity of UMi.

Figure 1c shows the surface brightness of the satellite after a few orbits for the three halo potential models. The snapshots used in this plot represent a satellite with the same position and velocity as UMi. This figure shows that it is possible to reproduce the same satellite and tidal tail profiles using a different halo potential; however, the final satellite mass content varies. The formation of dense tidal tails is more efficient in oblate potentials (for orbits such as that of UMi); therefore, the satellite needs fewer orbits to develop an observable tidal tail. Therefore, for the same initial satellite model, the larger oblateness of the halo is, the higher satellite mass content is necessary to reproduce the same satellite+tail surface brightness profile and, consequently, the larger $`M/L`$ will be.

It is remarkable that the effect of the halo potential shape on the determination of the mass–luminosity ratio is fainter than the effect of the initial satellite mass. It can be seen that there is only a factor of two in the $`M/L`$ ratio for the whole range of realistic values of the potential oblateness (that is, $`h`$ between 1.0 and 0.6). However, a variation of a factor of 10 in the satellite mass produces a variation of a factor of 15 in the $`M/L`$ ratio. This means that the potential shape only introduces a small indeterminacy in the satellite mass calculation.

### 3.3 Effects of small variations in the satellite orbit on tidal tail formation

Variations in the satellite velocity within the observational errors produce differences in the dwarf orbit and, consequently, in its apocenter and pericenter. As the tidal stripping of satellites depends on the orbit (the smaller pericenter of the orbit, the larger the tidal stripping), small differences in the orbit can affect the tidal tail formation. In order to calibrate this effect, we have placed the same satellite model in three different orbits. One of these fits UMi’s velocity and position at the end of the simulation, while the other two orbits differ by $`\pm `$10% in velocity from the previous one. The satellite model corresponds to a King–Michie model with core radius $`r_o=0.3`$ kpc, initial total mass $`M_{\mathrm{ini}}=1.6\times 10^7M_{}`$, and dimensionless central potential $`W_o=4.0`$. The halo potential of the main galaxy is the spherical logarithmic potential described in Section 3.1. In Figure 1d, the surface brightness profiles of the models are shown. These three profiles, corresponding to the three orbits, are quite similar, only small differences in the $`M/L`$ ratio can be observed. The satellite in the highest-velocity orbit shows the largest $`M/L`$ ratio and vice versa, however, the $`M/L`$ ratio difference between models are of the same order as their difference in orbital velocity.

The error in the $`M/L`$ ratio calculation due to the observational errors of the satellite velocity is of the same order of magnitude as these observational errors. For observational errors of 10–20%, the satellite mass content is more important in the $`M/L`$ determination than the effects introduced by small variations in the satellite orbit.

## 4 THE $`M/L`$ RATIO OF THE URSA MINOR dSph

UMi shows observational features that reveal the existence of large tidal forces. Therefore, the simplify virial equilibrium theorem assumption is not justified for measuring the $`M/L`$ ratio, but we should include all the variables in a more generalized expression. Instead of doing this, we have introduced a new method of mass calculation that does not involve the kinematics of the dwarf. In this section, we have analyzed the $`M/L`$ ratio of the UMi dSph using the method described in Sections 2 and 3.

The Milky Way halo density is one of the parameters that determines the tidal tail density. Therefore assuming a realistic value for it is very important. The halo density can be deduced from the shape of the Milky Way halo potential. Such a potential can be inferred from the dynamics of stars of the Milky Way and the orbits of the dwarf satellite galaxies. Observational data of the tidal stream of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy are therefore very valuable. The shape of the Sagittarius orbit is traced with the tidal debris of this satellite in a strip $`100^{}`$ long (see Martínez-Delgado et al. 2002 for details). We have used these observational data to fix the parameters of the Milky Way model. This is a quite realistic three-component model (halo + disk + bulge) that is described in detail in Fux (1997). The parameters of the final numerical model that reproduce the Milky Way potential are described in Gómez-Flechoso et al. (1999). Other density distributions of the Milky Way can also reproduce a similar potential well, compatible with the Sagittarius orbit. It is important to remark that the physical quantity that determines the satellite orbits is the potential of the main galaxy, not its density distribution, and that, therefore, density distributions of the Milky Way halo with different shape and oblateness could reproduce the same results if they had similar potential wells. However, we recall that small variations in the shape of the main galaxy potential do not significantly change the results of the $`M/L`$ ratio of the analyzed satellite, as shown in Section 3.2.

The UMi satellite has been represented by an $`N`$-body model orbiting in this Milky Way potential. The orbit is consistent with the observational proper motion of UMi (Schweitzer et al. 1997). We assume a UMi model of one component given by a King–Michie model and therefore the observed luminosity profile must be reproduced by the model density profile. The parameters of the King–Michie model that reproduces more accurately the shape of the density profile of UMi and its tidal tail are a core radius $`r_o=0.3`$ kpc and a dimensionless central potential $`W_o=4.0`$. However, the total mass of the model is still a free parameter that we calculated reproducing the central brightness of the dwarf and the tidal tail brightness at the same time (as described previously). The best fit is obtained with a model of total initial mass $`M_{\mathrm{ini}}=4\times 10^7M_{}`$. The surface brightness profile of the UMi model and its tidal tail after roughly seven orbits is plotted in Figure 2 (dashed line). The observational UMi profile has also been represented in the same Figure (dots). As can be seen, the model provides a good fit of the observational data. We have assumed a mass-to-luminosity ratio $`M/L=12`$ to adjust the central surface brightness of the model to that observed. In this snapshot, the total mass in the inner kiloparsec of the model is $`0.79\times 10^7M_{}`$.

The value of the $`M/L`$ ratio obtained using this new method of mass calculations is different from the matter content derived from the virial theorem ($`(M/L)_{\mathrm{virial}}=60`$; Mateo 1998). However, this lower value is very consistent with the new mass-to-light ratio estimate obtained by Palma et al. (2002), who reduce the mass-to-light ratio to $`M/L16`$, using a new estimate of the UMi total luminosity (which is 2.7 times greater than the previous values) and considering the (possible) effects of anisotropic velocity dispersions (Hodge & Michie 1969).

The observed velocity dispersion obtained for UMi is 7.6 km s-1 (Armandroff, Olszewski, & Pryor 1995). In our UMi model, the velocity dispersion at the center is 4 km s-1 and presents a rising profile that reaches 8 km s-1 on the outskirts of the dwarf (Martínez-Delgado, Gómez-Flechoso, Alonso-García & Aparicio 2003, in preparation). However, the observed velocity dispersion includes the effects of the substructures of the main body of UMi, and that could increase the velocity dispersion. This substructure cannot be reproduced with a numerical model because we do not have sufficient resolution to form condensations inside UMi and, therefore, the velocity dispersion of the UMi models is not expected to fit that observed. On the other hand, if UMi is assumed to be in virial equilibrium, the mass-to-luminosity ratio obtained from its observational velocity dispersion ($`(M/L)_{\mathrm{virial}}=60`$) will produce a very low surface brightness tidal tail, which could not be observationally detected (see Figure 1b). Furthermore, the signatures of tidal disruption observed in UMi (internal substructure and tidal extension) make doubtful the existence of simple virial equilibrium in the internal region of UMi. In these dynamical conditions, our method seems to be more reasonable for the satellite mass calculation. However, new models with a higher resolution reproducing the internal dynamics of the UMi dSph and new observations of the UMi velocity dispersion profile are needed in order to understand the dynamical state of the dwarf.

## 5 CONCLUSIONS

We have developed a new method of estimating the mass of satellite galaxies subjected to tidal forces. This method does not involve suppositions about the internal dynamics of the satellite and can therefore be used for satellites that are out of virial equilibrium.

The main results of this model are that massive and dense satellites form low brightness tidal tails (for a given satellite central surface brightness), and that low-density satellites undergo strong tidal forces that produce comparatively bright tidal tails. Once the satellite central surface brightness is known, the main parameters that determine the tail brightness in the region close to the satellite tidal radius are the density profile and the mass content of the bound part of the satellite.

The shape of the primary galaxy potential can introduce small uncertainties in the satellite mass estimates that are no larger than a factor of two over the whole physical range of oblateness. The larger the halo oblateness is, the denser the tidal tail that is formed. The observational errors of the satellite orbital velocity can also introduce an uncertainty in the $`M/L`$ ratio calculation, but this uncertainty is no larger than the errors in the satellite velocity.

Obviously, the tidal tail brightness depends on the satellite’s position in its orbit, since tail mass density depends on the halo potential at the satellite’s position. As the satellite travels along its orbit, it goes through different density regions and produces variations in the tidal tail brightness. So it is very important to know the satellite’s position in its orbit in order to estimate its mass content using this method. A satellite tidal tail can be observed when the satellite is in a given region of its orbit, but it can be too faint to be detected in other regions of the orbit.

Finally, we have applied the new method for the mass calculations to UMi. The results shows $`M/L12`$, in order to reproduce its luminosity profile and tidal tail brightness. The tidal disruption features observed in UMi suggest that this dwarf is not in virial equilibrium. The observational data of the velocity dispersion profile could confirm this if they show the same rising profile as that of the model.


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# Explicit, analytical solution of scaling quantum graphs

## I Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9984075.