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# GRAPPA: Grid Access Portal for Physics Applications

## I Introduction

As the computational demands of High-Energy Physics (HEP) rises, deploying physics analyses across the computational “Grid”gridbook ; globusweb  promises to meet much of this demand. However, Grid-enabling physics applications adds the complexity of using a wide array of computing systems that differ in their specific configurations and usage policies. We have developed Grappa:Grid portal access for physics applicationsgrappa , a Grid portal that provides a user-friendly approach for performing tasks on the Grid such as: submitting and monitoring jobs, monitoring system performance, and browsing results.

CPUs, Data Storage, software libraries are distributed across the Grid. A Grid portal, accessible from any browser, consolidates access to these resources with uniform interfaces for the end-user who can then think in higher-level terms such as total computational need or data sets rather than individual CPUs or files, for example.

Physicists are typically familiar with HTML for presenting static information, but they are typically less familiar with methods to develop portals with more advanced functionality. Grappa provides to the physicist a modern, user-friendly framework for constructing web portals with HTML forms and commonly understood scripting languages.

The current Grappa prototype uses the scripting language Jythonjython  with the Java Commodity Grid (Java CoG)cog ; cogweb  providing Grid tools. With pre-configured Jython wrapper functions to commonly used Java tools, a physicist-user can readily develop customized portals with a minimum of Java programming experience.

## II The Portal Framework

Grappa has undergone several revisions since the initial prototypes began in the fall of 2001. The initial Grappa portal was based on the XCATSPxcatsp  with demonstrations of several successive notebooks (and xbooks) for ATLASatlas  job submission. Other groups have developed portals with features similar to Grappa, but portals based on differing underlying frameworks have incompatible components, hindering the ability to interchange these portal components. Jetspeedjetspeed  has been widely adopted as a standard framework for portal components (portlets), allowing the development of portlets with generic functionality that can be shared among many different specialties (physics, chemistry, etc.). Several portlets have been developed by the Indiana University Extreme Computing Labextreme  and incorporated into Grappa.

The current Grappa prototype uses four component layers: Tomcat, Jetspeed, Xbooks, and the user’s xbook which consists of scripts and HTML forms. Our Grid portal architecture uses Java ”Portlet” technology to support secure interaction with Globus and Grid web Services. Each portlet defines a window on a Grid service or instances of a Grid application using the Java CoG kit. Users can customize their own portal layouts by choosing and organizing different portlets. Grappa is a deployment of portlet combinations including the xbooks portlet, tailored to some of the specific needs for HEP data analyses.

### II.1 Xbooks

Xbooksxbooks  provides the engine for interpreting the xbook scripts, which in our case use Jython. To use xbooks, a portal (e.g. Grappa) is configured with an xbooks portlet. This portlet contacts an xbooks directory service and the user can choose a particular xbook to run. The xbook portlet finds an xbook server that hosts the xbook, and this server sends the portlet a HTML form. The user-filled form values are sent to the xbooks manager which archives them and uses them to configure and launch the application. The archival of the job input and submission values allows the user to review, monitor, and even re-submit the jobs.

### II.2 Scripting

Xbooks supports multiple scripting languages such as Python, Jython, and Perl. Grappa uses Jython to leverage the availability of Java toolkits. Jython wrapper functions to Java CoG tools provide easy scripting interfaces for gsiftp file transfer, GRAM job submission and GRAM job monitoring. The xbook-developer creates HTML form interfaces for entering information and scripts for processing this information. These scripts are split into 2 groups: scripts that run on the portal host, and scripts that run on the compute host.

Before jobs are submitted onto a Grid-enabled cluster, Grappa makes sure an updated cache of Grappa tools is available on that cluster. These tools are packaged in a jar file that includes the Java CoG kit and a core set of Grappa Jython scripts. Grappa then submits jobs to the Globus job-manager available for that system. When these jobs run, they then have access to the Grappa-installed Java tools which include the Java CoG Globus client tools for gsiftp file transfer, etc.

Jobs can be configured to search for locally installed libraries or to temporarily install these libraries if needed, in our case the ATLAS Athena libraries. Application files, input data, and executables are transferred from the Grid location specified on the web form. The job executes, transfers results to the results location, and finally cleans up after itself.

## III Prototypes

The basic Grappa prototype is illustrated in Figure 1. The user interacts with the portal via web browser or command-line interfaces. The portal scripts use Java CoG to submit to grid resources. The portal can monitor GRAM information for each job and the web interface can be used to monitor portal job ’side-effects’ such as its MAGDA file registration.

We have developed and tested several Grappa prototypes. The initial prototypes, based on the XCATSP demonstrated resource management, job submission, job monitoring, and browsing of results. These features were demonstrated in ATLAS Monte Carlo data challenges on U.S. ATLAS test-beds. The current prototype replaces XCATSP with Jetspeed portlets, but uses essentially the same Jython scripts and HTML forms from previous versions. With the exception of the resource management forms, the Grappa scripts have been successfully ported to xbooks and the new Jetspeed-based portal demonstrates significantly improved flexibility in portal configuration.

### III.1 Resource Management

Information on the cluster, Grid, user, and application installations for a compute resource is needed to submit jobs on that resource. The current model for managing this data in Grappa is to enter this information on a portal web form, and this information is then stored in a portal database. Compute-cluster information stored in the database includes the operating system and Java versions, the number of processors on that cluster, and firewall information. Grid information for a resource includes the type of job manager, the Globus job-manager contact string (as specified in the Globus GRAM specification), and the gsiftp or gridftp server contact strings. Application-specific information, such as the location of application libraries, may also be entered in the resource database. Application-specific information, however, is optional for the resource database since the portal is designed with the flexibility to be able to run applications on generic systems that do not have any application-specific software pre-installed. An improved model for managing this data would be to dynamically access resource information via MDSmds .

The user submits a second resource management web form to test the availability of selected resources. Grappa uses Globus authentication to restrict portal access and provide access by proxy to grid resources. The initial model used credentials obtained from the .globus directory of the user that instantiated the portal. A future model to use a Jetspeed portlet to manage proxies obtained from a MyProxy Server has also been demonstrated.

### III.2 Job Submission

The user specifies additional information on a job submission web form. This information includes locations for input and output data, user-specific applications and libraries, and (for example) collaboration-certified library packages. The user enters these locations with the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) format (protocol/host/path) which generalizes paths to the Grid level, so these locations can be scattered across the Grid while the user thinks in terms of a single form. The portal scripts use this information to dynamically construct a working environment on generic Grid-enabled compute sites.

Additional application-specific information, such as the number of events and the physics model to simulate are entered and passed as arguments from the portal to the application scripts (e.g. jobOptions files).

Rather than submitting jobs to specific sites, the user operates on a higher level and defines an active set of compute resources selected from the compute resources–previously entered into the compute resource database and checked for user accessibility. Grappa submits jobs to this set of resources and, transparent to the user, the number of jobs submitted to each site is proportioned to the relative computing power of that site.

A portion of the job submission form is visible in Figure 2

### III.3 Job Monitoring

The user monitors Grappa jobs in two ways. Submitted jobs appear on a web form. From this, the user selects lists of jobs to monitor. Grappa then queries the GRAM reporters on the compute sites to obtain the status for each job. A screen-shot of the Grappa job monitoring form is shown in Figure 3. Links of system monitors such as Ganglia were added to the portal to provide a second method to monitor Grappa jobs and cluster performance. Additionally links to the ATLAS replica catalog system, MAGDAmagda , provide the user the ability to browse file locations from within the portal.

### III.4 Browsing Results

Visual results of ATLAS Monte Carlo ntuples were generated with PAW. The user enters locations for a PAW package and a user PAW macro (kumac) into a web form. Grappa then installs and runs PAW on the ntuples as they are created. Visual monitors of individual jobs are available upon completion of each job. In addition a summary plot dynamically updates with the results of the entire multi-file dataset as it is being generated. The Grappa-produced graphics files and log files can be browsed using a GridFTP File Manager Jetspeed portlet.

### III.5 Data Challenges

The Grappa framework is packaged and installed on submit hosts with PACMANpacman . As the target application we used the ATLASatlas  analysis and control framework, Athena, configured to run a fast Monte Carlo simulation, Atlfast. Athena libraries and PAW are available as tar files that Grappa dynamically installs on any compute site as needed.

The portal is designed to submit to Globus-supported job-mangers. The U.S. test-bed used for Grappa data challenges provided access to about 100 CPUs across 15 different sites using condor, lsf, pbs, and fork Globus job-managers. The U.S. ATLAS grid test-bed included contributions from the Universities of: Texas (Arlington), Oklahoma, Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, and Boston, plus Fermi, Argonne, Berkeley, and Brookhaven National Labs. To demonstrate interoperability with a European resource broker, the portal communicated with the resource broker (INFN) using the Globus fork job-manager, but the application was packaged to provide a Job Description Language (JDL) script to the broker which then resubmits the job to its own resources.

Grappa performance is limited by the wait time between each job submission. The delays in contacting remote resources using Grappa/Java Cog were similar to the delays seen using Globus via a Unix Shell or Condor-Gcondorg . The long wait that occurs when large numbers of jobs (greater than 25) resulted in a “busy” web form for longer than 10 minutes, making these large scale submissions somewhat impractical from an interactive web form. This problem was solved by creating a non-interactive command line interface to the portal using the Cactuscactus  toolkit. For large-scale long-duration data production, cron is used to submit the desired frequency of jobs. This saves the web interface from long wait times so the status and progress of web-submitted and command-line-submitted jobs can then be viewed from the web interface whenever the user wishes.

## IV Summary

Grid Portals promise to simplify for the end-user access to diverse Grid resources. Grappa provides a powerful set of tools allowing development of platform independent user-interfaces accessible via standard Internet protocols. We have demonstrated with ATLAS Monte Carlo data challenges that Grappa can be a useful interface for controlling large scale data production on the Grid.

## V Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.


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# The Arecibo 430-MHz Intermediate Galactic Latitude Survey: Discovery of Nine Radio Pulsars

## 1 Introduction

Most of the pulsars found with the Arecibo radio telescope have been discovered in blind surveys. Since 1991, a series of 430-MHz surveys, which take advantage of the unparalleled gain of the 430-MHz line feed (19 K/Jy) have been carried out. The papers containing the results of most of these have already been published (Nice, Fruchter, & Taylor 1995, Camilo, Nice, & Taylor 1996, Camilo et al. 1996, Foster et al. 1995, Ray et al. 1996, Lommen et al. 2000). Those surveys, together with processing of data taken post-1997 (Lorimer et al. 2002, McLaughlin et al. 2003, Chandler 2002), have uncovered a total of 113 pulsars. Of these, 19 are recycled.

The optimal region for these surveys has always been considered to be the Galactic plane, despite the high sky temperatures involved. This was specifically the target region of the earliest surveys (Hulse & Taylor 1974, Hulse & Taylor 1975a, Hulse & Taylor 1975b). The pulsars normally found in this region of sky are slow rotators with relatively large Dispersion Measures (DM). They present a large dispersive smearing across each of the channels of the back-ends used to carry out the surveys. Such smearing makes the detection of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with rotational periods less than a few times the timescale of the smearing a difficult proposition.

Dispersive smearing could in principle be eliminated by using narrower channels, but at some point a more fundamental problem is found, that of interstellar scattering. This is the broadening of any pulsed signal due to multi-path propagation, and can only be eliminated by observing at higher frequencies, where the pulsars are intrinsically fainter and the telescope beam smaller.

MSPs are therefore difficult or impossible to detect at 430 MHz for the high DMs usually found for the normal pulsar population near the Galactic plane. Looking along the Galactic plane, the distance at which a given DM is reached is much smaller than along lines-of-sight at higher latitudes, this means that the volume within which MSPs can be detected at 430 MHz is much smaller (both compared to normal pulsars, and per square degree, henceforth indicated as ) for the low Galactic latitudes. This applies, to a lesser extent, to the population of normal pulsars (see Fig. 1).

The high Galactic latitudes, with lines of sight containing significantly less plasma, can be considered a better place to look for MSPs from a point of view of their detectability. The survey by Wolszczan (1990) has demonstrated, by finding a millisecond pulsar orbited by the first known planets outside the solar system (PSR B1257+12) and a double neutron-star system (PSR B1534+12) that such studies are rewarding. This is confirmed by the large number of MSPs found in the Parkes 70-cm all-sky survey (Manchester et al. 1996, Lyne et al. 1998).

The scale height for the MSP distribution is of the order of 0.65 kpc (Cordes & Chernoff 1997). A survey with good sensitivity can detect MSPs at larger distances, and therefore more objects will be detectable as we approach the plane of the Galaxy, because there will be more pulsars along the line of sight. At some Galactic latitude $`b`$, the number of MSPs will start to decrease as we approach the plane because of the large amounts of plasma along the line of sight.

This intuitive result, depicted schematically in Fig. 1, is also predicted by detailed simulations carried out by one of us (JN, with Shri Kulkarni) and by more recent simulations of the pulsar population of the Galaxy by Cordes and Chernoff (1997), who estimate the optimal latitude $`b`$ to be about $`20^{}`$ at 430 MHz.

Motivated by our early simulations, we started a 430-MHz pilot survey of a small region of the Galaxy with $`7^{}<|b|<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}20}^{}`$ visible with the Arecibo radio telescope. Our aim was to test the expectation that many MSPs remain to be discovered in these intermediate Galactic latitudes. Some of the results of this Intermediate Latitude Survey (ILS) are presented in this work. The timing solutions for PSR J1756+18, PSR J2050+13 and PSR J2016+1947, and a detailed study of the latter pulsar will be presented elsewhere.

## 2 Search observations and their sensitivity

The ILS observations began in May 1989, and ended in September 1991. They used the 430-MHz Carriage House line feed. The data were acquired with the old Arecibo correlator, using 3-level quantization. The total bandwidth used was 10 MHz, the number of lags being 128. The sampling time used was 506.625 $`\mu `$s, each independent pointing containing $`2^{17}`$ such samples, for a total integration of 66.4 seconds. The total number of pointings processed was 6121, which represents a total observing time of 113 hours and a total survey area of about 130. The pointing positions are indicated in Figure 2 (Galactic coordinates).

The data were processed at Caltech and the Los Alamos National Laboratories with the help of a Cray-YMP computer. The software used for the data reduction was the Caltech pulsar package PSRPACK, developed by Will Deich and one of us (JN). The multi-frequency data were dedispersed at a set of 163 trial DM values between 0 and 200 cm-3 pc. Each dedispersed time series was Fourier transformed, and the strongest periodic components were recorded. In order to increase sensitivity to signals with a small duty cycle, harmonically related components (at $`f`$, 2$`f`$, …, $`nf`$; with $`n=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$, 4, 8 and 16) were summed, and again the strongest peaks were recorded. The power spectrum was also searched for harmonics up to $`n=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}`$ of frequency above Nyquist that might have been aliased back into the power spectrum, in an attempt to improve our sensitivity to millisecond pulsars.

The sensitivity of the ILS as a function of DM and period is displayed in Fig. 3 for a pulsar with a square pulse profile and a pulsewidth of 5%. For this figure, we took into account the observing system’s equivalent flux density, integration time and observing bandwidth, dispersive smearing and the effect of the interstellar scattering as quantified by Cordes (2001).

The DM at which the sensitivity is degraded by half for a 5 ms pulsar is about 150 cm-3 pc. If we find a pulsar with this DM in the direction of our survey for which the electron densities are larger ($`l=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}40}^{}`$ and $`b=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}7}^{}`$); then such a pulsar is at a distance of about 5 kpc, according to the Cordes and Lazio model of the electron distribution in the Galaxy (Cordes & Lazio 2002). The ILS can detect pulsars at these distances (e.g. PSR J1819+1305). For the direction where the electron densities are lower ($`l=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}70}^{}`$ and $`b=20^{}`$), no pulsar should be found with such a large DM. The effect depends mainly on Galactic latitude ($`b`$). To summarize, for the higher Galactic latitudes the detectability of MSPs at 430 MHz is limited only by the sensitivity of the survey system, for the lower Galactic latitudes, it is also limited by pulse smearing.

## 3 Discoveries; pulsar timing

The ILS detected a total of 13 pulsars, or about one per 10. Of these, four were known before the start of our survey: PSR B1737+13, PSR B1842+14, PSR B2034+19 and PSR B2053+21. The remaining nine pulsars were previously unknown. Two of these were later discovered and timed independently at Parkes: PSR J1819+1305 and PSR J1837+1221 (Edwards et al. 2001). The pulse profiles for the 9 new pulsars are presented in Figure 4.

Within the search area, there were 2 known pulsars that we did not detect. One of them, PSR J1838+16 (Xilouris et al. 2000), like seven other pulsars found in the STScI/NAIC drift scan surveys and described in that paper, has a flux density between 0.5 and 1 mJy. It is possible that such a pulsar could have been missed because of interstellar scintillation. The other pulsar, PSR J2030+2228 (Rankin & Benson 1981), has a flux density at 400 MHz of about 5 mJy, i.e, we should expect for it a S/N of about 140. It is not clear why this object was not detected, possible causes are corruption of data with radio frequency interference (RFI) or nulling.

Confirmation and timing of the new pulsars was done using the 430-MHz Carriage House line feed, just as for the discovery observations. The re-observation attempts were made in December 1997, and six new pulsars were confirmed then: PSRs J1814+1130, J1819+1305, J1828+1359, J2016+1948, J2017+2043 and J2048+2255. None of the remaining seven candidates could be re-detected. The back-end used to confirm these six pulsars and then to time them was the Penn State Pulsar Machine (PSPM), a 128-channel filterbank. Each of the individual channels has a bandwidth of 60 kHz, the sampling time is 80 $`\mu `$s and the data are 4-bit sampled. In timing mode, the PSPM-folded, multi-channel pulse profiles were dedispersed using SIGPROC (Lorimer 2001). The topocentric times of arrival (TOAs) of the pulses at the telescope were estimated using another routine from the same package.

The discovery at Parkes of PSR J1837+1221, which coincides in position, period and DM with one of our unconfirmed candidates, led one of us (PCF) to re-observe the positions of the previous candidates. So far, two more pulsars have been confirmed: PSR J1756+18 and PSR J2050+13, again using the 430-MHz line feed and the PSPM. It is unclear why these objects were missed in 1997, but that might be because the telescope pointing had been affected by the telescope upgrade works. One of the pulsars (PSR J2050+13) is also exceedingly faint, being sometimes undetectable in 30-minute observations, it was found while scintillation was amplifying its flux density.

Of the six pulsars we have timed since 1997, one, PSR J2016+1948, is a member of a 635-day pulsar-white dwarf binary system; it still has no phase-connected timing solution. A consequence of this is that the $`\dot{P}`$ has not yet been conclusively measured. For some of the more recent measurements of this pulsar, we have also used the L-narrow receiver at a central frequency of 1410 MHz, and the Wide-band Arecibo Pulsar Processor correlator (WAPP) as a back-end with a total bandwidth of 100 MHz. The signal-to-noise ratio obtained is similar to that of the 430-MHz observations. The newly confirmed pulsars PSR J1756+18 and PSR J2050+13 also lack timing solutions, and they are now being timed at a frequency of 327 MHz. These three pulsars are listed in Table 2.

The remaining 5 pulsars timed since 1997 have phase-coherent timing solutions, which are presented in Table 1. These were obtained and refined using the tempo timing program 111http://pulsar.princeton.edu/tempo/. Their timing parameters are typical of the “normal” pulsar population; the characteristic ages vary from 7 to 300 Myr. The residuals of the TOAs can be seen in Figure 5. For one of the two pulsars discovered independently at Parkes, PSR J1819+1305 (Edwards et al. 2001), the timing parameters obtained at the two sites can be compared for the same reference epoch (Table 1). The other pulsar that was also found at Parkes (PSR J1837+1221) has not been timed at Arecibo.

### 3.1 Understanding the survey results: Comparison with other surveys

A direct comparison can be made between the ILS and the 1400-MHz Swinburne Intermediate Latitude Survey (henceforth SILS), which was made using the Parkes 64-m radio telescope’s multi-beam system (Edwards et al. 2001). The SILS target area was defined by $`5^{}<|b|<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}15}^{}`$ and $`100^{}<l<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}50}^{}`$, so there is some overlap with the area covered by the ILS.

In this overlap area, both surveys detected PSR J1819+1305 and PSR J1837+1221. The SILS did not detect our two other discoveries in the common search area, PSR J1814+1130 and PSR J1828+1359. Although we are dealing with small number statistics, this result shows that the ILS has achieved a greater sensitivity to normal pulsars in the intermediate Galactic latitudes, as expected from Fig. 3.

The SILS detected a total of 170 pulsars (69 of which were new discoveries) in a search area 23 times larger than that of the ILS ($`3000^{\mathrm{}}`$). This represents one detection per $`17^{\mathrm{}}`$, which, as expected, is not as high as the detection density of the ILS. However, the SILS covered regions closer to the Galactic center and also at a slightly lower latitude range ($`5^{}<|b|<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}15}^{}`$), two factors that increased that survey’s detection rate.

The number of normal pulsars detected by the Swinburne survey was not enhanced by the higher frequencies used. The pulsar with the highest DM detected by the SILS, PSR B1620$``$42, has a rotational period of 0.365 seconds and a DM of 295 cm-3 pc. Figure 3 shows that such a pulsar would not have been missed by the ILS because of pulse smearing. Therefore, for the sensitivity of the SILS, observing at 1400 MHz does not improve the detectability of slow pulsars for the Galactic latitudes sampled. This is acknowledged by Edwards et al. (2001), who find that the DM distribution of their slow pulsar discoveries is similar to that of their re-detected pulsars, which with almost no exception were found at lower frequencies. We can therefore conclude that, as expected, our survey is purely sensitivity-limited for this class of pulsars.

The situation changes for MSPs at similar DMs; where the SILS is still capable of making detections, unlike any 430-MHz survey (see Fig. 3). The SILS has detected twelve recycled objects, eight of them new (Edwards & Bailes 2001), with DMs between 26 and 117 cm-3 pc. Fig. 3 shows that our survey could in principle detect such objects. One consequence of this is that the fraction of recycled pulsars detected by the SILS (one in 14) is remarkably similar to ours (one in 13), even when our survey finds twice as many normal and recycled pulsars per square degree. Because of small number statistics, the recycled pulsar fractions would still be consistent had we found one more or one less recycled object.

A more recent Arecibo 430-MHz survey of the Galactic plane (Nice, Fruchter, & Taylor 1995) has covered a region of the sky twice as large (260, with $`|b|<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8}^{}`$) with a sensitivity very similar to that of the ILS. It detected 61 pulsars, of which 4 are recycled. This represents more than twice the detection density of the ILS survey, which is due to the larger concentration of pulsars along the Galactic plane, yet the fraction of detections of recycled pulsars (one in 15) is remarkably similar to that of the ILS and the SILS. It is, however, true that the fraction of recycled objects does increase for the higher Galactic latitudes.

### 3.2 Periodic nulling for PSR J1819+1305

PSR J1819+1305 is by far the most luminous pulsar discovered in this survey. Its pulse profile consists of three components; the relative intensities of these are observed to vary systematically from one 3-minute sub-integration to the next. Using single-pulse data obtained in December 2002, we found that the main cause of this variation is the strong intensity modulation of the first component of the pulse profile.

These single-pulse data also showed that there is further intensity modulation affecting the whole pulse profile, this can be seen in Fig. 6. Most of this is due to nulling, with emission absent for about 50% of the time. This nulling has the peculiarity of having a very marked periodicity at 53$`\pm `$3 rotations, which is both well defined, long and with a large nulling fraction compared to other pulsars known to exhibit periodic nulling (Rankin 1986).

The emission of this pulsar, by its combination of peculiar characteristics, deserves a more careful study. In particular, it will be interesting to determine its polarization characteristics, which might allow a good estimate of the angle between the magnetic and rotation axis and of the latter relative to the line of sight. This will be essential for a proper interpretation of the nulling, and might lead to new insights about the emission mechanism of pulsars.

### 3.3 The PSR J2016+1948 binary system

Perhaps the most important result of this work is the discovery of the 65-ms pulsar PSR J2016+1948. This is a member of a binary system, together with a 0.29 M white dwarf companion (assuming a pulsar mass of 1.35 M and an inclination of 90). The orbital period is 635 days. PSR J2016+1948 is the second most luminous pulsar discovered in the ILS, with $`L_{430}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}35}`$mJy kpc2.

For this binary system, we have not yet determined a phase-coherent timing solution for the whole data set. The position in the sky was determined with a set of 1400-MHz pointings at the source’s nominal position and half a beam width (one beam width is 3 arcmin at Arecibo) north, south, east and west of the nominal position. A position can be determined from the intensity of the pulsed signal of the detections, with an uncertainty that is a small fraction of the beam size. This procedure is known as “gridding” (Morris et al. 2002).

The remaining parameters for this pulsar were determined from the observed barycentric periods. Technically, this was achieved with TOA information: we have used TEMPO to fit for the orbital parameters and rotational period with a different time offset for each day’s TOA set. Each of these sets gives an independent estimate of the barycentric rotation period for its day. The orbital model used was the ELL1 (Lange et al. 2001), which was specially designed for low-eccentricity systems like PSR J2016+1948, where no precise estimates of the longitude of periastron (and therefore, of the time of passage through periastron) can be made. We have used a bootstrap Monte Carlo method (Efron & Tibshirani 1993) to estimate the 1-$`\sigma `$ orbital parameter uncertainties that appear in Table 2.

PSR J2016+1948 has the third longest orbital period known for this type of system; the longest are those of PSR B0820+02, for which $`P_B=`$1232 days (Arzoumanian 1995) and PSR J0407+16 ($`P_B=`$669 days, $`\dot{P}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^{18}`$ and $`e\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.001}`$, Lorimer 2003, private communication). With a rotational period of 0.86 s, PSR B0820+02 has not been significantly recycled by interaction with the progenitor of the companion white dwarf. The much shorter rotational periods of PSR J2016+1948 (65 ms) and of PSR J0407+16 (25 ms), and the low upper limit for the period derivative of the latter pulsar are suggestive of extensive recycling.

The determination of the orbital eccentricities for these systems is important in its own right. The theories that describe the recycling of neutron stars into MSPs (Alpar et al 1982, Zahn 1977, Phinney 1992) predict the order of magnitude of the orbital eccentricity as a function of the orbital period. For $`P_B=`$600–700 days, the eccentricity should be of the order of 10-3 (Phinney 1992). The values derived for the PSR J2016+1948 and PSR J0407+16 binary systems are in excellent agreement with that prediction.

## 4 PSR J2016+1948 as a gravitational laboratory

Pulsars have been used in several different ways for testing the fundamental properties of gravitation (Esposito-Farèse 1999, Bell 1999). One of the most fundamental and distinctive properties of general relativity (GR) is the strong equivalence principle (SEP). Like the weak equivalence principle (WEP), which led Einstein to elaborate GR, it requires the universality of free fall: acceleration of any object in an external gravitational field is independent of the size or chemical composition of the object. However, SEP also requires the same accelerations under external fields for objects that have significantly different gravitational binding energies (Will 1993).

All theories of gravitation that describe gravity as a distortion of space-time; the so-called metric theories of gravitation (Will 1993), “predict” WEP by design. This is not the case for SEP, which is a feature peculiar to GR. If the assumption of SEP is wrong, as postulated in many alternative theories of gravitation, i.e., if

$$\frac{m_I}{m_G}1\mathrm{\Delta }=\eta \times \frac{U_G}{m_Gc^2}0,$$
(1)
(where $`m_I`$ and $`m_G`$ are the inertial and gravitational masses of an object, $`\eta `$ is the Nordtvedt parameter which measures deviations from SEP, $`U_G`$ is the object’s self-gravitational energy and $`c`$ is the velocity of light) then the accelerations in the same external field of two objects will not be exactly equal because of the different gravitational binding energies.

This difference in acceleration causes a “polarization” of the binary, which is an increase in the eccentricity of the system along the direction of the external field known as the “Nordtvedt effect” (Nordtvedt 1968a).

Such an effect has not been found in the weak fields probed by solar system experiments, in particular the Lunar Laser Ranging (Nordtvedt 1968b). This experiment determined that, despite the differences in gravitational self-energy between the Earth and the Moon, these two objects fall at the same rate (to within one part in 1013) in the gravitational field of the Sun (Williams, Newhall, & Dickey 1996). This implies that $`\eta =0.0007\pm \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.0010}`$, which is entirely consistent with GR. However, Damour and Esposito-Farése (1992) have shown that, generally,

$$\eta =\eta _W+\eta _S(c_1+c_2+\mathrm{})+\mathrm{}$$
(2)
where $`\eta _W`$ and $`\eta _S`$ are the weak and strong field components of the Nordtvedt parameter $`\eta `$ and the $`c_i`$ are the compactness of the bodies involved:

$$c_i=\frac{U_{G,i}}{M_ic^2}.$$
(3)
Is there a strong-field component of $`\eta `$? If so, GR is not the right description of gravitation. Such a test cannot be conducted in the solar system, where no strong fields are to be found.

A pulsar- white dwarf system, with the Galaxy generating the external field, provides the ideal laboratory to make such a measurement. Pulsars have very large gravitational binding energies of about $``$15% of the total mass (i.e., $`c_10.15`$, the exact number depends on the equation of state for cold matter at high densities and the mass of the pulsar). The white dwarf companion has, comparatively, a negligible gravitational binding energy, about 104 times smaller than that of the neutron star. If there is any strong-field component of the acceleration, it should be felt just by the pulsar, hence the difference in acceleration compared to the white dwarf and the associated Nordtvedt effect.

The figure-of-merit of a binary system for a Nordtvedt test is $`P_B^2/e`$ (Arzoumanian 1995). However, Wex (1997) has shown that for an unambiguous interpretation of the low eccentricity of a binary system, the system’s age has to be significantly larger than one Galactic orbit.

Among all the known binaries with previously published timing solutions, the $`P_B^2/e`$ number is highest for the PSR B1800$``$27 system. The eccentricity of this system cannot be interpreted unambiguously because of the pulsar’s age ($`\tau _c=`$300 Myr) is of the order of a single Galactic orbit. Of all such binaries that pass the large $`\tau _c`$ criterion, PSR J1713+0747, with $`\tau _c=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}8.5}`$Gyr (Camilo, Foster, & Wolszczan 1994), is the system for which $`P_B^2/e`$ is largest: 6.14$`\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^7`$ days2. For PSR J2016+1948 and PSR J0407+16, the $`P_B^2/e`$ is $`3\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^8`$ days2 and $`5\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^8`$ days2, or factors of $``$4-5 and 7-8 times larger than for PSR J1713+0747.

Using all the binary systems that pass the large age criterion, a value of $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.004}`$ was obtained (Wex 1997). Assuming again that the pulsar’s compactness is 0.15, this implies $`\eta <\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}0.027}`$. The inclusion of PSR J2016+1948 and PSR J0407+16 in that ensemble of binary systems will significantly reduce the upper limits on $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ and $`\eta `$. An interesting aspect of these limits is that they will diminish with the mere addition of binary systems with high $`P_B^2/e`$ to the ensemble being used (Wex 1997).

The upper limit of $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|`$ has been used, together with the measurements of orbital decay for the PSR B1913+16 binary system, to impose fundamental constraints to any alternative theories of gravitation, in particular the tensor bi-scalar theories (Damour & Esposito-Farèse 1992, Esposito-Farèse 1999). These constraints will become significantly more stringent with the inclusion of systems like PSR J2016+1948 and PSR J0407+16. However, we must keep in mind that the determination of the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, particularly when very large self-gravitational energies are involved, is an important measurement in itself, with a significance wider than the tests it introduces to any particular gravitational theory. It will forever remain as a fundamental constraint to our understanding of gravitation.

## 5 Conclusions

We have found nine new pulsars in a small Arecibo 430-MHz survey of the intermediate Galactic latitudes. We have timed six of these, with five now having phase-coherent timing solutions. These are old, normal pulsars; a population similar to that of the earlier Hulse-Taylor survey. As expected, there are no young pulsars among the sample that has been timed. We compare this survey with the SILS (Edwards et al. 2001) and conclude that we have reached greater sensitivity to this population of normal pulsars.

Two of the discoveries, PSR J1819+1305 and PSR J1837+1221, were independently found at Parkes by the SILS and then timed. We found that the former pulsar has strong variation of its integrated pulse profiles. This is partly due to nulling; the nulls exhibit a very strong periodicity at 53$`\pm `$3 rotations.

Because of small number statistics, it is impossible to obtain any firm conclusions, based on our survey alone, as to the number of recycled pulsars to be discovered at the intermediate Galactic latitudes at 430 MHz. We found a single pulsar that is likely to be recycled, PSR J2016+1948, out of a total of 13 detections, a proportion similar to what was obtained by 430-MHz surveys of the Galactic plane. However, a much larger 430-MHz ILS survey would certainly not find a larger fraction of recycled pulsars than the SILS at 1400 MHz (which is also one in 14). Therefore, our initial expectation, and also that of Cordes and Chernoff (1997), that for the latitudes near $`|b|=20^{}`$ there are many recycled pulsars to be found (this being the main motivation of the present survey) cannot be confirmed by the ILS and SILS. This might imply that the scale height for recycled pulsars is larger than the value that was assumed in the previous calculations, 0.65 kpc.

PSR J2016+1947 has a rotational period of 64.9 ms and it forms a binary system with an $``$0.3 M white dwarf companion. This system has an orbital period of 635 days, with an orbital eccentricity of about 0.0012. The more precise determination of the orbital parameters of this binary will, together with the timing of another binary pulsar, PSR J0407+16, lead to much tighter constraints on any violation of the Strong Equivalence Principle.

The Arecibo Observatory, a facility of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, is operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration. We wish to thank Jon Middleditch (LANL) for his hospitality and for making some of LANL’s computer resources available to us; Will Deich (formerly Caltech, now Lick Observatory) for allowing us to use some of his software; Alex Wolszczan for making the PSPM, the instrument used to time the pulsars mentioned in this paper, freely available for use at the Arecibo Observatory; Duncan Lorimer, for comments and ideas that greatly improved the quality of this work and for making his pulsar processing software publicly available, and Chris Salter and Avinash Deshpande for comments that improved the quality of the manuscript. Avinash Deshpande also helped with the preliminary analysis of the PSR J1819+1305 data.


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# Viscosity models for silicate melts

## 1 Introduction

The field of geology attracts scientists from many areas. This scientific field has for obvious reasons a great importance to mankind. In geology, the study of silicate melts attracts the main focus because in nearly all igneous processes silicate melts does play a role. The importance of the field attract many researchers in the search for general models and physical origins to the behaviour of silicate melts. Due to the chemical complexity of silicates occurring in nature the area of rheology of silicates is not easiest field one can choose. Amongst the many studies  can be mentioned. The challenges in rheometry can be seen, when considering the need for temperature spans of more than 2000 C, and viscosities ranging from $`10^{40}`$ Pas  at room temperature to $`10^{12}`$ Pas at $`T_g`$ and $`10^4`$ Pas at supercritical conditions. Finally the melts are chemically very aggressive in the high temperature range. Rheometrical methods that have been used in the study of silicates are nearly all that we know: Concentric cylinder, cone/plate, ”solid” bar oscillatory rheometry, ball indentation, fiber elongation, biaxial compression, ultrasonics and capillary rheometry. Many of these methods does not provide the accuracy that we normally are used to when doing rheometry under more pleasant environmental conditions. In this study an analysis have been made on experimental oscillatory data from  and on extensional data from .

## 2 Analysis of experiments

The raw data for the following analysis work was taken from  and . In the first reference, N. Bagdassarov made oscillatory experiments for GLAFO, The Swedish Glass Research Institute, on an E-glass and a Rock wool composition, both below and above $`T_g`$. In the second reference, 9 different chemical compositions were measured by GLAFO on a Bohlin oscillatory rheometer, in both cases a ”solid” bar type of instrument was used. An example of the raw data for 11 different temperatures for a glass fibre composition can be seen on Figure 1. On the right hand side of Figure 1, the data have been shifted to a master curve at 902 K, using IRIS .

The data falls quite nicely on a single master curve. Now it is possible to apply the Cox-Merz approximation  and obtain Figure 2. The Non-Newtonian onset corresponds to a Deborah number of approximately 0,7 when G is assumed constant 25 GPa no matter temperature and composition. The latter approximation is acceptable, as the viscosity can vary several decades, whereas G only varies a few percent, and remains in the same range even with different chemical compositions. When making this exercise for all the different chemical compositions and temperatures and plotting the Cox-Merz shear viscosity, a very interesting behaviour is observed: The Deborah number for the Non-Newtonian onset remains constant around 0,7. This observation agrees well with the discussion of Webb and Dingwell in .

Similar observations for the extensional viscosity were found by . From the data from , the onset can be calculated to occur at a Deborah number approximately two decades lower than what was observed in this study. This difference is consistent with what one would expect, as an extensional flow is known to be much stronger in aligning structure than shear, thus the onset is lower in an extensional flow. What is really surprising in the study of the extensional properties in  is the fact, that silicates also in extension show an extensional thinning behaviour. But this can be explained from the extremely small size of structures in a silicate melt compared with e.g. polymers.

In the current study, it was observed from the shear viscosity plots that the slope of the graph in the shear thinning region is constant for all compositions. Thus it is possible to merge all shear viscosity curves of the different silicate melts to a single curve for the same Newtonian plateau. This is shown on Figure 3 for two compositions, the E-glas and the Rock wool, (only two in order to make the plot easy to read). In  the same was made for the extensional case, and in  for a single composition but different temperatures. A natural question that can be raised is the origin for this simplicity, when we do have a non-exponential nature of the relaxation (a pluralis of relaxation times). A good discussion have been made by Webb and Dingwell in .

## 3 A Non-Newtonian shear viscosity model for silicates

With the knowledge from Figure 3, it is now possible to propose a shear viscosity relation that fits all the chemical compositions used in this study. A viscosity model is just curve fit; the choice of a good mathematical model to fit experimental data. Many models are all ready available that represents various degrees of complexity depending on the number of parameters. For this study, a simple Carreau type of model was chosen.

$$\eta (\dot{\gamma })=\frac{A_0}{\left(1+(A_1\dot{\gamma })^2\right)^{A_2}}$$
(1)
$`A_0`$ should be the Newtonian shear viscosity plateau at low shear rates. $`A_2`$ affects the slope of the curve in the Non-Newtonian region and was found from fitting experiments on the data sets to be 0,48. $`A_1`$ is the parameter that adjusts the Non-Newtonian onset. We know from the observations in this study , that the onset approximately occur at a Deborah number of 0,7. With this and the definition of the Deborah number , an onset shear rate can be defined:

$$\dot{\gamma }_{onset}=\frac{DeG_{\mathrm{}}}{\eta _0}$$
(2)
$$\dot{\gamma }_{onset}=\frac{0.7G_{\mathrm{}}}{\eta _0}$$
(3)
$`A_1`$ is found to be the reciprocal to the onset shear rate. We now have a suggestion to a simple model for the shear viscosity for silicate melts

$$\eta (\dot{\gamma })=\frac{\eta _0}{\left(1+(\frac{\eta _0}{0.7G_{\mathrm{}}}\dot{\gamma })^2\right)^{0.48}}$$
(4)
Figure 4 and Figure 5, show the comparison of experimental data and the prediction of this model on six different chemical compositions.

The quality of the fits on Figures 4 and Figures 5 depends on the quality of the oscillatory data as some datasets show mores scatter than others. The slight deviation af the data and the curve is due to this scatter in the lower shear region for some measurements, as the curve was drawn in Origin, using a Non-linear curve fit to provide the ”best” fit. All together the model (4) show a fair fit to the data.

## 4 Extensional viscosity

Knowing, that the zero-extensional viscosity is three times the zero-shear viscosity and having the data from the article of  a releation for the extensional viscosity can be proposed.

$$\eta _E(\dot{ϵ})=\frac{3\eta _0}{\left(1+(\frac{3\eta _0}{De3G_{\mathrm{}}}\dot{ϵ})^2\right)^{A_2}}$$
(5)
$$\eta _E(\dot{ϵ})=\frac{3\eta _0}{\left(1+(\frac{\eta _0}{DeG_{\mathrm{}}}\dot{ϵ})^2\right)^{A_2}}$$
(6)
Here in equation (5) the three times the shear viscosity can be replaced by measured data from an extensional experiment and 3G with Youngs Modulus E if extensional data are available. From , the De number for the onset can be found to approximately 0,003. The lower De number for the onset corresponds well to the fact that extension is a structural stronger aligning flow than shear. Thus a first suggestion for an equation would be:

$$\eta _E(\dot{ϵ})=\frac{3\eta _0}{\left(1+(\frac{\eta _0}{0.003G_{\mathrm{}}}\dot{ϵ})^2\right)^{0.48}}$$
(7)
This equation have been tested on the data from . Results can be seen in Figure 6,7 and 8. The suggested model can be seen to represent a fair fit to the data. The model is almost identical to the model of , but it has the advantage, that it can be adjusted through the De number.

## 5 Discussion and conclusions

Oscillatory data from two different laboratories on 11 different chemical compositions have been analysed. Time-temperature superposition have been performed on all dataset, and the Cox-Merz shear viscosity plotted.

It is observed, that the onset to Non-Newtonian behaviour for all chemical compositions in shear occur in the order of a Deborah number of 0,7. All curves can be shifted to a master curve, when scaled to the same Newtonian plateau viscosity. Data was fitted using the Carreau model, and it was observed, that the parameters $`A_1`$ could be found as the reciprocal of the onset shear rate. The onset shear rate can be calculated from the Deborah number.

$`A_2`$ was found by fitting experiments to be approximately 0,48. $`A_0`$ is simply the zero-shear viscosity (Newtonian plateau).

Thus an empiric expression has been proposed, that allows an estimate of the Non-Newtonian shear viscosity curve, and where the only variable is the Newtonian viscosity; an easily found parameter that can be estimated from the viscosity-temperature function that are available in literature  for many different chemical compositions. The model is in extension quite similar to the work of Simmons , but has the adjustable feature of a De number.

The applicability of such relations as proposed here are potentially very big. Geological processes involve variations in chemical composition, and phenomena like melt fracture occur in the Non Newtonian range.

The results reported here and the model proposed agree well with the observations of . In fact it was possible to make a fair fit to the data from this work just modifying the shear equation to an extensional viscosity model with a De=0,003 to compensate for a stronger aligning flow. The other modifications made was straight forward: E=3G and the zero-extensional viscosity equals three times the zero-shear viscosity. The model was demonstrated to fit extensional data from  very well.

The simple relation between  and shear is nice, as it strengthens the conclusion of the applicability of the Cox-Merz approximation after the Non-Newtonian onset and simplifies the models.

Though robust to chemical compositions future work is needed in order to verify the limits of this model regarding compositions. Adjustments to suggested values of Deborah number for the onset and the parameter $`A_2`$ would also be welcome. The Carreau model was chosen as a fit function, but others fit functions can be tested. The chosen value of G of 25 GPa is a minor approximation, as G varies slightly with composition, temperature and pressure.

## 6 Acknowledgements

The author would greatly like to acknowledge GLAFO, the Swedish Glass Research Institute, for making data available for the analysis. Also the author would like to thank Dr Erik Appel Jensen, Aalborg University and Dr. Søren Lund Jensen, Rockwool International for good discussions and Rockwool International A/S for financial support.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Noncommutative Geometry  provides the possibility to describe also ordinary geometries approximating the fields defined on them with finite (matrix) algebras. The archetype of these *fuzzy spaces* is the fuzzy sphere . Along the same lines other fuzzy spaces have been built . There is also the fascinating possibility that the very structure of spacetime at ultrashort length scales might be fuzzy, with a dramatic drop of degrees of freedom at short distances with its consequences on the ultraviolet structure. As additional example matrix models in noncommutative geometry also provide a way  to ask questions (for the moment in a toy model) like the number of points or the average dimension of the universe, questions which was unthinkable to ask in the usual context.

The fuzzy approximation is in some sense similar to the usual lattice one, in that a continuous action is substituted by a model with a finite number of degrees of freedom, thus enabling the possibilities to solve field theories with a approximate path integral formalism. In the limit in which matrices become large the approximation improves. However there are some fundamental differences. One advantage of the fuzzy approximation over the usual lattice is that the basic symmetries of the space at hand are preserved, thus fuzzy spheres are $`SO(3)`$ invariant, fuzzy tori are translationally invariant etc. The original spaces are recovered when the size of the matrices goes to infinity. In this sense noncommutative geometry, and fuzzy spaces in particular, naturally lead to matrix models , which can approximate both commutative and noncommutative spaces. The study of field theory on these spaces with numerical methods has started  and seems very promising. In particular the authors of  solve exactly, on the Moyal plane, a matrix model which has similarities with the one presented in this paper for the disc. The finite matrix model can also be useful as a cutoff for renormalization, as advocated for example in . The connections between finite matrix algebras coming from a noncommutative plane and finite geometries has been noted in  in the context of noncommutative Chern–Simons theory  as a “quantum Hall droplet”, while the connection between the projectors we use and the disc appears in . A model which has several points in common with ours has been independently developed by Balachandran, Gupta and Kürkçüoǧlu  in a matrix model which represents the edge currents of a Chern–Simons theory on an infinite strip. The difference between our model and theirs lies mainly in the way the limit is performed.

In this paper we present a fuzzy approximation to the two–dimensional disc. We hasten to add that although the root of the approximation lies in noncommutative geometry (or even earlier, in quantization) the space of functions being approximated is a normal *commutative* space of functions. In the limit in which matrices become infinite the noncommutativity disappears111In case the field theory under consideration is a nonabelian theory there can of course be other sources of noncommutativity which will remain. It is also possible (depending on the limit taken) to describe theories on noncommutative spaces.. Another important aspect of the model is that, while in the lattice approximation the functions, and hence the correlations, can be calculated only at a finite set of points, in the fuzzy approximation presented here approximate functions have values at all points on the plane. We will argue that the matrix model we present corresponds to a theory on a disc in a variety of ways. We start in section 2 with a brief reminder of the noncommutative plane in the form which is useful for our purposes, which makes evident the map between functions on the plane and infinite matrices. In section 3 we introduce the fuzzy disc, a particular finite matrix subalgebra and we argue that the corresponding functions have mainly support on a disc and decrease exponentially outside it. As the size of matrices increase the boundary becomes sharper. We also discuss the form that the ultraviolet–infrared mixing takes in this case and argue the presence of edge states. In order to show that the algebra we are proposing actually corresponds to a disc, in section 4 we introduce derivatives and Laplacians and compare the spectrum of the latter in the continuum and in the finite approximation. In section 5 we sketch an approach to field theories on a disc based on the fuzzy approximation. Although the construction is well suited for Montecarlo techniques, the correlation of a free massless scalar field can be solved analytically giving the Green’s function in terms of the inverse of a matrix. We calculate it numerically and compare it with the exact case. The final section contains conclusions and outlook. Some technical details of calculations are in the appendix.

## 2 The Noncommutative Plane as a Matrix Algebra

We start from functions on $`\text{}^2`$, with coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$. Consider this plane to be like a ‘quantum phase space’, that is that we “quantize” $`x`$ and $`y`$ and give them a nontrivial commutator:

$$[\widehat{x},\widehat{y}]=i\frac{\theta }{2}.$$
(2.1)
It is convenient to consider the plane as a complex space with $`z=x+iy`$. The quantized versions of $`z`$ and $`\overline{z}`$ are the usual annihilation and creation operators, $`a=\widehat{x}+i\widehat{y}`$ and $`a^{}=\widehat{x}i\widehat{y}`$ with a slightly unusual normalization, so that their commutation rule is

$$[a,a^{}]=\theta .$$
(2.2)
The parameter $`\theta `$, which has the dimensions of a square length, plays the role of $`\mathrm{}`$, but it has no physical meaning, much like the distance between sites in a lattice approximation.

This “quantization” associates operators to functions. There are however ambiguities in this association and in order to give a unambiguous procedure we introduce a map which associates an operator on an Hilbert space to a function on the plane. This is a quantization procedure and it was essentially introduced by Weyl long ago . Given a function on the plane we define a map $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\theta `$ which to the function $`\phi (z,\overline{z})`$ associates the operator $`\widehat{\phi }`$ defined as follows. Given the function $`\phi (\overline{z},z)`$ consider its Taylor expansion:

$$\phi (\overline{z},z)=\phi _{mn}^{\mathrm{Tay}}\overline{z}^mz^n,$$
(2.3)
to this function we associate the operator

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\theta (\phi ):=\widehat{\phi }=\phi _{mn}^{\mathrm{Tay}}a_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{m}a^n,$$
(2.4)
thus we have “quantized” the plane using a normal ordering prescription. To be precise this map is not the one introduced by Weyl (which associates hermitian operators to real functions) but can be cast in the same language since

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\theta (\phi )=\frac{d^2u}{2\pi \theta }\widehat{\phi }(\overline{u},u)e^{ua^{}/\theta }e^{\overline{u}a/\theta },$$
(2.5)
where $`\widehat{\phi }(\overline{u},u)`$ is the Fourier transform of $`\phi `$.

Because of the similarity of its integral expression to the standard Weyl map we will also refer to it as the weighted Weyl map. The map $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\theta `$ is invertible. Its inverse is a variation of the Wigner map  (the inverse of the Weyl map). It can be efficiently expressed defining the *coherent* states:

$$a|z=z|z,$$
(2.6)
then it results

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_\theta ^1(\widehat{\phi })=\phi (\overline{z},z)=z\left|\widehat{\phi }\right|z.$$
(2.7)
There is another useful basis on which it is possible to represent the operators. Consider the number operator

$$\mathrm{N}=a^{}a,$$
(2.8)
and its eigenvectors which we indicate222There is a possible notational confusion here. While it is true that the coherent state for $`z=0`$ is the same as the eigenvector of $`\mathrm{N}`$ with zero eigenvalues, it is not true that the coherent state $`|z|_{z=n}`$ is the same as $`|n`$. Since we never consider coherent states with integer values we refrain from the introduction of another symbol for the eigenvectors of $`\mathrm{N}`$. by $`|n`$:

$$\mathrm{N}|n=n\theta |n.$$
(2.9)
We can then express the operators within a density matrix notation:

$$\widehat{\phi }=\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _{mn}|mn|.$$
(2.10)
The elements of the density matrix basis have a very simple multiplication rule:

$$|mn|pq|=\delta _{np}|mq|.$$
(2.11)
The connection between the expansions (2.4) and (2.10) is given by:

$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sqrt{(n+1)\theta }|nn+1|`$
$`a^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sqrt{(n+1)\theta }|n+1n|.`$ (2.12)
Some useful conversion formulas are collected in appendix A. Note that with our conventions $`x,y,z,a`$ and $`a^{}`$ have the dimension of a length, $`\mathrm{N}`$ and $`\theta `$ those of a length square, while density matrices are dimensionless. Applying the dequantization map (2.7) to the operator $`\widehat{\phi }`$ in the number basis we obtain for the function $`\phi `$ a new expression, analogous to the Taylor expansion (2.3) in terms of the coefficient $`\phi _{nm}`$, that is

$$\phi (\overline{z},z)=e^{\frac{|z|^2}{\theta }}\underset{m,n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _{mn}\frac{\overline{z}^mz^n}{\sqrt{n!m!\theta ^{m+n}}},$$
(2.13)
where we used the expression (A.3). The ordinary Wigner map of these density matrix elements (the Wigner functions) can be found in .

The maps $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }^1`$ yield a procedure of going back and forth from functions to operators. Moreover, the product of operators being noncommutative, a noncommutative $``$ product between functions is implicitly defined as

$$\left(\phi \phi ^{}\right)(\overline{z},z)=\mathrm{\Omega }^1\left(\mathrm{\Omega }(\phi )\mathrm{\Omega }(\phi ^{})\right).$$
(2.14)
This product (which is a variation of the Moyal-Grönewold product  at the basis of deformation quantization) was first introduced by Voros . Its differential expression is

$$\left(\phi \phi ^{}\right)(\overline{z},z)=e^{\theta _{\overline{z}^{}}_{z\mathrm{"}}}\phi (z^{})\phi (z\mathrm{"})|_{z=z^{}=z\mathrm{"}}=\phi \phi ^{}+\theta _{\overline{z}}\phi ^{}_z\phi ^{}+O(\theta ^2).$$
(2.15)
We will indicate the algebra of functions on the plane with this product as $`𝒜_\theta `$.

In the density matrix basis, because of (2.11), the product (2.15) simplifies to an infinite row by column matrix multiplication:

$$\left(\phi \phi ^{}\right)_{mn}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _{mk}\phi _{kn}^{}.$$
(2.16)
Although the map $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is not defined for $`\theta =0`$, using equation (2.15), it is easy to see that, when $`\theta 0`$, the $``$ product goes to the ordinary commutative product. A word of caution, the various maps and products defined here have domains and ranges which are not identical. While the standard Weyl map maps Schwarzian functions into Hilbert Schmidt operators, for the weighted Weyl map (2.4) this is not always the case.

Using relation (A.3) or directly (2.13) it is easy to see that also:

$$d^2z\phi (\overline{z},z)=\pi \theta \mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }=\pi \theta \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _{nn},$$
(2.17)
where we have introduced the matrix $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ with components $`\phi _{nm}`$.

## 3 The Fuzzy Disc Subalgebra

The main point of the previous section is that the map $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and its inverse provide a manner to associate to each function, $`\phi `$ an infinite dimensional matrix $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. The price to pay is that the commutative product of functions gets deformed through a parameter $`\theta `$. In this section we define the subalgebras (with respect to the Voros $``$ product), of *finite* $`N\times N`$ matrices. Considering the functions whose expansion (2.13) terminates when either $`n`$ or $`m`$ is larger than a given integer $`N`$, it is immediate to see that these functions are closed under $``$ multiplication. In the limit of $`N\mathrm{}`$, with $`\theta `$ fixed, the noncommutative plane is recovered.

The subalgebra can be obtained easily from the full algebra of functions via a projection using the idempotent function introduced in a similar context by Pinzul and Stern :

$$P_\theta ^N=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}z|nn|z=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{r^{2n}}{n!\theta ^n}e^{\frac{r^2}{\theta }},$$
(3.1)
where we have used the polar decomposition of $`z=re^{i\varphi }`$ and (A.3). The finite sum may be performed thus yielding

$$P_\theta ^N=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(N+1,\frac{r^2}{\theta })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(N+1)},$$
(3.2)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(n,x)`$ denotes the incomplete gamma function. In this notation it is then clear that, in the limit $`N\mathrm{}`$ and $`\theta 0`$ with

$$R^2N\theta $$
(3.3)
fixed, the sum converges to $`1`$ if $`r^2/\theta <N`$ (namely $`r<R`$), and converges to 0 otherwise. It has cylindrical symmetry since $`\varphi `$ does not appear. For $`N`$ finite the function vanishes exponentially for $`r`$ larger than $`R`$ (see figure 1).

Already for $`N=10^3`$ it is well approximated (see figure 2) by a step function.

The function $`P_\theta ^N`$ is a projector of the algebra of functions on the plane with the $``$ product:

$$P_\theta ^NP_\theta ^N=P_\theta ^N,$$
(3.4)
and the subalgebra $`𝒜_\theta ^N`$ is defined as

$$𝒜_\theta ^N=P_\theta ^N𝒜_\theta P_\theta ^N.$$
(3.5)
Cutting at a finite $`N`$ the expansion provides an infrared cutoff. The cutoff is fuzzy in the sense that functions in the subalgebra are still defined outside the cutoff, but are exponentially damped. For example a Gaussian of width $`\theta `$ (corresponding to the element $`|00|`$) when projected, is mapped into itself, and is nonzero on the whole plane. The map for a normalized Gaussian centred around the origin but with width $`\alpha >\theta `$ also shows the infrared cutoff. Let us investigate the effect of $`P_\theta ^N`$ on some functions. We use the notation

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(\phi )P_\theta ^N\phi P_\theta ^N=\underset{m,n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _{mn}e^{\frac{|z|^2}{\theta }}\frac{\overline{z}^mz^n}{\sqrt{m!n!\theta ^{m+n}}}$$
(3.6)
and talk of “fuzzy functions” for the projected functions so that $`P_\theta ^N=\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(1)`$ is the fuzzy identity. At the level of operators $`P_\theta ^N`$ corresponds to the projector

$$\widehat{P}_\theta ^N=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}|nn|.$$
(3.7)
We call *fuzzy disc* the space corresponding to the algebra $`𝒜_\theta ^N`$, which is isomorphic to the algebra of $`N\times N`$ matrices. This, as a matrix algebra, is the same as the one for the fuzzy torus, the fuzzy disc and any fuzzy spaces in general. In  the fuzzy sphere is indeed obtained with the use a projector on the Voros algebra of $`\text{}^3`$. What makes it a disc are the way to take the correlated limit of $`\theta `$ and $`N`$ keeping the dimensionful quantity $`R`$ fixed, which we now pass to describe, and the extra structures we will discuss in section 4.

The limit discussed here must be understood in an heuristic sense, since the algebra of functions on the disc is not approximatively finite one would have to consider it in a weak sense, like the way it is done in . A more rigorous analysis on the line of what is done in  would also be desirable. It must also be noted that different ways to take the limit give different commutative or noncommutative spaces, as discussed for example in .

We first calculate the effect of the projector on a rotationally symmetric Gaussian centred at the origin of width $`\alpha `$. Any cylindrically symmetric function $`\phi (r)`$ has a simple expansion:

$$\phi (r)=e^{\frac{r^2}{\theta }}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\phi _n\frac{r^{2n}}{\theta ^nn!},$$
(3.8)
where $`\phi _n`$ can be calculated from (A.4). In particular for the normalized Gaussian

$$\phi (r)=\frac{1}{\pi \alpha }e^{\frac{r^2}{\alpha }}$$
(3.9)
we have

$$\phi _n=\frac{1}{\pi \alpha }\left(1\frac{\theta }{\alpha }\right)^n,$$
(3.10)
and the series can be summed to give

$$\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(\phi (r))=e^{\frac{r^2}{\theta }}\underset{n=0}{\overset{N}{}}\phi _n\frac{r^{2n}}{n!\theta ^n}=e^{\frac{r^2}{\alpha }}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(N+1,r^2\left(\frac{1}{\theta }\frac{1}{\alpha }\right))}{\pi \alpha \mathrm{\Gamma }(N+1)}.$$
(3.11)
The map $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N`$ is just an infrared cutoff which in the limit becomes sharper and sharper.

Equation (3.11) is plotted in figure 3 for $`\theta <\alpha `$.

Things are very different if we try to localize the function at a distance smaller than $`\sqrt{\theta }`$. Figure 4 shows what happens in such case: for the larger value, $`\alpha =.6\theta `$, the projected function is undistinguishable from the exact function (both are actually plotted in the figure). For the middle value, $`\alpha =.5\theta `$, with our numerical approximations, a small “bump” at $`r=R`$ appears. Already for $`\alpha =.49\theta `$ the ’bump’ has become a large Gaussian sitting at the infrared cutoff; the part close to the origin is still there, but it is quickly dwarfed by the infrared bump which grows very fast. For $`\alpha .4`$ it is already of the order of $`10^{17}`$. Keeping $`\alpha `$ fixed and increasing $`N`$, with $`R`$ fixed, the bump disappears. The reason for this behaviour is that the factors $`\phi _n`$ in (3.10) become negative and smaller than -1. Therefore the individual terms of the series become larger and larger. Keeping the whole series provides cancellations which do not happen truncating the series at a finite value. In fact the bump becomes negative for $`N`$ odd. This is a reflection of the fact that, with the weighted Weyl map, the operator corresponding to the Schwarzian function (3.9) with $`\alpha \theta /2`$ is not compact, and hence it cannot be approximated by finite rank matrices.

In general the function $`\phi `$ is close to $`\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(\phi )`$ if it is mostly supported on the disc of radius $`R`$ (otherwise it is simply exponentially cut) and if it does not have oscillations of wavelength smaller than $`\sqrt{\theta }`$. It this case the function becomes very large on the boundary. This is a *compact* example of the *ultraviolet-infrared* mixing  which is one of the most interesting characteristics of noncommutative geometry. If we try to localize too much the function, unavoidably an infrared divergence on the boundary of the disc appears.

There are however functions which are localized sharply near the edge of the disc. These are the edge states  which play an important role in Chern-Simons theory and have been introduced in these matrix models by A.P. Balachandran, K, Gupta and S. Kürkçüoǧlu in , and the discussion presented here is inspired by this work. The edge states are simply given by the highest one–dimensional projector:

$$\phi ^{\text{edge}}=\frac{1}{\theta }z|NN|z=e^{\frac{r^2}{\theta }}\frac{r^{2N}}{\theta ^{N+1}N!}.$$
(3.12)
They are plotted in figure 5 for $`N=10`$ and $`N=100`$. It is evident that as $`N`$ increases they become sharper.

## 4 Fuzzy Derivatives and Fuzzy Laplacians

So far we have defined a projection from functions on the plane to a finite dimensional algebra of $`N\times N`$ matrices and discovered that, with an appropriate choice of $`N`$ and $`\theta `$ we obtain a good approximation of functions supported on a disc. But, in the spirit of noncommutative geometry, if we want to talk of geometry, we have to define a Dirac operator or a Laplacian which give the metric properties of the system . To define derivatives thus we define a pair of operators which act on the same space as the elements of $`𝒜_\theta ^N`$. Their commutators with a function define what we usually call the derivatives of a function. Of course we require that in the limit these two derivations converge to the usual derivatives of the disc. Combining them with $`\gamma `$ matrices would give the Dirac operator, to avoid discussing fermions we will concentrate on the Laplacian.

The starting point to define the matrix equivalent of the derivations is:

$`_z\phi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }}z\left|[a^{},\mathrm{\Omega }(\phi )]\right|z`$
$`_{\overline{z}}\phi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }}z\left|[a,\mathrm{\Omega }(\phi )]\right|z.`$ (4.1)
The above expression is exact. Acting on an element of the subalgebra $`𝒜_\theta ^N`$ the derivative takes the functions out of the algebra, a phenomenon not uncommon in noncommutative geometry. However

$$_z(𝒜_\theta ^N)𝒜_\theta ^{N+1}$$
(4.2)
analogously for $`_{\overline{z}}`$, so that the derivatives of functions of the subalgebra can still be considered finite matrices. Notice that

$$_z\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(\phi )\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(_z\phi ),$$
(4.3)
the equality obviously holding in the limit. We will use $`_z\mathrm{\Pi }_\theta ^N(\phi )`$ to define the Laplacian below.

The fact that we keep $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ operators on the full space (hence they are still infinite matrices) is crucial for the identification of the algebra of $`N\times N`$ matrices with the approximation to the disc. If we were just to truncate the matrices $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$, their commutator would not be proportional to the identity. For the fuzzy torus the derivations cannot be expressed as commutators, while for the fuzzy sphere there are three derivations which are not however independent, but are connected by a Casimir. This goes just to say that the same algebra, with different structures, can approximate different spaces.

Rotations are well defined, in fact the generator of rotations on the fuzzy disc is nothing but the number operator $`\mathrm{N}`$ introduced in (2.8) which commutes with $`\widehat{P}_\theta ^N`$ just as the generator of rotations on the ordinary disc, the angular momentum operator $`_\varphi `$, commutes with $`P_\theta ^N`$. Just as the fuzzy sphere maintains the invariance group of the sphere, the fuzzy disc retains the fundamental symmetry of the disc.

Note that the eigenvalue equations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }}[a,\phi ]=\lambda \phi `$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }}[a^{},\phi ]=\lambda \phi `$ (4.4)
have no solution in the space of $`N\times N`$ matrices, just as in the commutative case translations on the disc have no eigenvectors. Nevertheless the fuzzy Laplacian

$$\widehat{}^2\widehat{\phi }:=\frac{4}{\theta ^2}[a,[a^{},\phi ]]=\frac{4}{\theta ^2}[a^{},[a,\phi ]]$$
(4.5)
can be defined. In particular consider the following matrix model:

$$S=\frac{1}{2\pi \theta }d^2z\phi ^{}(^2\phi )=\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }_{mn}^{}\left(^2\right)_{mnpq}\mathrm{\Phi }_{pq},$$
(4.6)
where $`\left(^2\right)_{mnpq}`$ is implictly defined by (4.5). It is an operator acting on a finite space of dimension $`(N+1)^2`$, and its eigenvalues can be calculated and compared with the exact commutative case.

As is well known the eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on a disc with Dirichlet boundary conditions are the Bessel and the Neumann functions of integer order multiplied by $`\mathrm{exp}(im\varphi )`$. The eigenvalues, $`E_{mn}`$, are related to the zeroes of these functions. More precisely, we have

$$E_{mn}=(\frac{zeroes}{R})^2.$$
(4.7)
In figure 6 we show a comparison between the eigenvalues for the exact and approximate Laplacians for three values of $`N`$.

The agreement is fairly good, a fuzzy drum sounds pretty much like a regular drum. Discrepancies start occurring for the $`4N^{th}`$ eigenvalues, this is to be expected because $`4N/R^2=4/\theta `$ is the energy cutoff of the theory333We use units for which $`\mathrm{}=c=1`$. Most of the eigenvalues (but not all) of the fuzzy Laplacian are doubly degenerate, but the unmatched ones become sparser as $`N`$ increases.

## 5 Free Field Theory on the Fuzzy Disc: Green’s functions

The formalism we have developed lends itself readily for matrix approximations to field theories on a disc. For the real scalar case described by the action

$$S=d^2z\phi ^2\phi +\frac{m^2}{2}\phi ^2+V(\phi ),$$
(5.1)
we consider the fuzzy action

$$S_\theta ^2=\frac{1}{\pi }\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Phi }\widehat{}^2\mathrm{\Phi }+\frac{m^2}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }^2+V(\mathrm{\Phi }).$$
(5.2)
We stress that this is an action entirely of finite dimensional matrices, which can be approached numerically, using for example Montecarlo techniques, a method currently in use for other fuzzy spaces . Here we will content ourselves in calculating the two points Green function for the free massless scalar theory. In this case the path integral may be performed yielding just the inverse of the Laplacian with Dirichlet boundary conditions which we have calculated in section 4:

$$\phi (\overline{z},z)\phi (\overline{z}^{},z^{})=G(z,z^{})=z\left|(^2)^1\right|z^{}.$$
(5.3)
In the continuous theory on the disc this can be calculated exactly using standard techniques of classical electrodynamics(see for example ) yielding

$$G(z,z^{})=\frac{1}{2\pi }\mathrm{ln}\frac{|zz^{}|}{|z^{}|z|z|z|^1|}.$$
(5.4)
The fuzzy approximation is

$$G_\theta ^{(N)}(z,z^{})=4\underset{m,n,p,q=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{e^{\frac{|z|^2+|z^{}|^2}{\theta }}(^2)_{mnpq}\overline{z}^pz^qz^m\overline{z}^n}{\sqrt{p!q!m!n!\theta ^{m+n+p+q}}}.$$
(5.5)
This expression can be evaluated numerically.

In figures 7 and 8 we show a comparison between the exact Green function on the disc (5.4) and (5.5).

The agreement is, in our opinion, quite remarkable already for a limited number of points, the logarithmic divergence ha been smoothened by the ultraviolet cutoff, but apart from that the two functions are quite similar. The choice of different values of $`z^{}`$ gives similar pictures.

## 6 Conclusions and Outlook

We have seen as the fuzzy approximation to the disc works fairly well for the calculations we have attempted, which were based on the structure of the algebra and on the Laplacian. The first conclusion that can certainly be drawn is that the fuzzy disc, as a drum, sounds very much like a commutative disc even with an approximation based on relatively small matrices. We performed only one exact analytical calculation as a comparison with the continuum case, but the method can be extended to more involved calculations where it can be a very useful tool. Although the approximation is finite the resulting (fuzzyfied) functions, correlation functions etc. are defined for all points on the disc, and rotational invariance is maintained, thus enabling better comparisons with the continuum theory.

Even though the main stress of this paper has been on the numerical approximations, the fuzzy disc is also an interesting object from the mathematical point of view, and its setting on a more rigorous footing would not only have an intrinsic value, but also help understanding the role of the limits in the approximation of field theory and renormalization.

## A Conversions between different basis

In this section we collect some useful conversions formulas between the various basis. They are all standard expressions, but care has to be taken because of the nonstandard commutation relation (2.2). The resolutions of the identity are

$$1=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|nn|=\frac{1}{\pi \theta }d^2z|zz|.$$
(A.1)
Coherent states are an overcomplete basis and they are not orthogonal, their inner product is:

$$z|z^{}=e^{\frac{|z|^2+|z^{}|^22\overline{z}z^{}}{\theta }},$$
(A.2)
while the inner products between a coherent state and an eigenstate of $`N`$ are given by:

$`z|n`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\frac{|z|^2}{2\theta }}{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{z}^n}{\sqrt{n!\theta ^n}}}`$
$`n|z`$ $`=`$ $`e^{\frac{|z|^2}{2\theta }}{\displaystyle \frac{z^n}{\sqrt{n!\theta ^n}}}.`$ (A.3)
Known $`\phi _{mn}^{\mathrm{Tay}}`$ is possible to calculate $`\phi _{mn}`$ from

$$\phi _{lk}=\underset{q=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(l,k)}{}}\phi _{lqkq}^{\mathrm{Tay}}\frac{\sqrt{l!k!\theta ^{l+k}}}{\theta ^qq!},$$
(A.4)
while the converse is given by

$$\phi _{mn}^{\mathrm{Tay}}=\underset{p=0}{\overset{\mathrm{min}(n,m)}{}}\frac{(1)^p\phi _{mpnp}}{p!\sqrt{(mp)!(np)!\theta ^{m+n}}}$$
(A.5)
### Acknowledgments

We thank A.P. Balachandran, B. Dolan, G. Immirzi, G. Landi, G. Marmo, X. Martin, D. O’Connor, P. Presnajder, R. Szabo, A. Stern and J. Varilly for useful discussions. In particular D. O’Connor’s questions on the spectrum of the Laplacian and G. Landi’s on the nature of the subalgebra helped very much the sharpening of our ideas. We especially thank A.P. Balachandran, K, Gupta and S. Kürkçüoǧlu for communicating to us their work before publication, and for sharing with us their thoughts. This work has been supported in part by the Progetto di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale SInteSi.