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# Charge order versus Zener polarons: ferroelectricity in manganites.

## Abstract

We show that in manganites close to half-doping novel non-bipartite magnetic phases appear due to the interplay between double exchange, superexchange and orbital ordering. In considerable part of the phase diagram the groundstate has a magnetic order that is intermediate between the canonical magnetic CE-phase and a state that we identify as the recently observed Zener polaron state. The intermediate phase shows a type of charge ordering that breaks inversion symmetry and is therefore predicted to be ferroelectric.

Introduction. The wide variety of phenomena that are observed in transition metal (TM) oxides is caused by the interplay of various degrees of freedom. An intrinsic property of doped TM oxides is the formation of superstructures that are related to the charge, spin, lattice and orbital degrees of freedom. Different types of charge ordering (CO), orbital ordering and magnetic ordering may exist depending on e.g. doping concentration, temperature and pressure. Charge order is usually considered to be an ordering of TM ions with different valence, for instance the alternation of Mn3+/4+ in La0.5Ca0.5MnO3 or Fe2+/3+ in Fe3O4. Such a CO state we refer to as a site-centered (or TM-centered) CO, or equivalently, a site-centered charge density wave (SCDW). There is however another possibility for charge ordering —the formation of a bond-centered charge density wave (BCDW). The BCDW is very similar to the state that is observed in Peierls distorted quasi one-dimensional materials. In a TM oxide the BCDW is actually an oxygen-centered charge ordered state as oxygen ions are located on the TM-TM bonds in the typical (e.g. perovskite) crystal structures of these systems. The possibility to have such an oxygen-centered BCDW was studied theoretically for the compounds RNiO3 (with R =Pr, Nd, etc.) Mizokawa .

For about the last 50 years it was presumed that in manganites of the type R1-xCaxMnO3 (with R = La, Pr, etc.) only the Mn-centered SCDW occurs. At e.g. $`x=1/2`$ this SCDW state has the well-known orbital ordered CE-type magnetic structure, see Fig.1a, an ordering for which there is abundant experimental and theoretical support Wollan ; BKK . However, Daoud-Aladine et al. challenge this canonical picture in their recent study Carvajal . These authors conclude that in single crystalline Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 another type of superstructure is more consistent with the experimental data. This superstructure is a BCDW, which they refer to as the Zener polaron state (Fig.1b). This state is made out of dimers in which all Mn ions have the same valence (all Mn3+x), quite different from the canonical SCDW that holds Mn ions with unequal valence. Recently the BCDW state was also found theoretically in Hartee-Fock calculations of the electronic structure Patterson ; Littlewood . The presence of a BCDW amounts to a drastic change in our understanding of charge ordering —not only for manganites. It may imply that in all cases of charge order in oxides one should have in mind, besides the usual site-centered CO, alternative states with bond-centered superstructures.

In this paper we consider the regions of stability of different superstructures in doped manganites close to half-doping, and show that indeed the bond-centered charge density wave (Zener polaron) state may be favorable in part of the phase diagram. Our results reconcile the conflicting conclusions of Refs. Wollan  and Carvajal : the conventional CE state is still better at exactly half-doping $`x=1/2`$, but a BCDW is stable at around $`x0.4`$, as observed experimentally. The most interesting result of our calculation is the following: in a large part of the phase diagram an intermediate state actually turns out to be most favorable. This state is a superposition of a BCDW (Zener polaron) and a SCDW (of CE-type). As one can easily see, a superposition of Figs.1a and 1b results in a state in which the two Mn ions in one dimer are inequivalent. This produces a dipole moment on each pair, and the resulting state is therefore ferroelectric. The appearance of ferroelectricity in the case of coexistence of a bond-centered CDW (Peierls state) and the site-centered CDW was previously observed in some quasi one-dimensional compounds Brazovskii . But, to the best of our knowledge, such a state was never discussed in the context of the three-dimensional TM oxides. In this respect it is noteworthy that first measurements of the dielectric constant in these manganites show a strong anomaly at the CO phase transition, which might be related to ferroelectricity Simon .

Qualitative considerations. It is well established that charge and orbital structures are closely related to the magnetic ordering Goodenough . In all the papers where either the usual SCDW Wollan  or the BCDW (Zener polarons) Carvajal  are considered, the magnetic structure is taken to be of the CE type (ferromagnetic zig-zag chains stacked antiferromagnetically, Fig.1a). However in the BCDW picture the situation can change drastically due to orbital ordering existing in the structure of Fig.1b (predominantly $`d_{x^2}`$-orbitals on horizontal dimers and $`d_{y^2}`$ on vertical ones, see below). Due to the double exchange mechanism the coupling between spins inside a Zener polaron is definitely strongly ferromagnetic. The high-spin polaron dimers —if we treat them as localized spins— form a triangular lattice, see Fig.1c, with a relatively strong antiferromagnetic coupling between neighboring parallel dimers. A different magnetic coupling can be expected when the dimers are are oriented perpendicular to each other. If these couplings would all be comparable in magnitude and antiferromagnetic, then the angle between neighboring high spin polarons on the triangular lattice would be 120 and a tripartite Jaffet-Kittel magnetic structure would be formed, Fig.1c. However from the orbital structure of Zener polaron described above one can immediately conclude that the perpendicular coupling is definitely weaker. We therefore expect that the magnetic structure tends to an ”orthogonal” ($``$) ordered state with four different spin sublattices as shown in Fig.1b. We should mention that the neutron scattering data for Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 can be equally well described both by the conventional magnetic structure of Fig.1a and by the orthogonal structure of Fig.1b Carvajalprivat  that we propose here. In the overdoped manganites R1-xCaxMnO3, with $`x=2/3,3/4`$ a $``$ magnetic structure was already observed Radaelli .

Calculated phase diagram. In our calculations we use a tight binding approach for the band structure of the manganites, where both double exchange and superexchange are incorporated. This approach proved to be quite efficient for overdoped ($`x>0.5`$) vandenBrink99a  and half-doped vandenBrink99b  manganites. In the double-exchange framework with strong on-site Hund’s rule coupling the motion of $`e_g`$-electrons is largely determined by the underlying magnetic structure. In this approach the stability of various magnetic and orbital structures is determined by the competition of the band energy of the $`e_g`$-electrons, favoring ferromagnetism, and superexchange interaction $`J`$ between localized ($`t_{2g}`$) spins, favoring antiferromagnetism. The double degeneracy of conduction electrons significantly modifies the conventional picture and leads to the stabilization of more complicated magnetic structures, besides the simple ferromagnetic (F) or antiferromagnetic (G) ones vandenBrink99a . We calculate the groundstate energy for different magnetic structures: G-, C- and A-and CE-type antiferromagnetic states, the ferromagnetic (F) phase, and, in addition, for two new phases (with orthogonal ($``$) and 120 Jaffet-Kittel type magnetic ordering of spin dimers) that we expect to be relevant close to $`x1/2`$, based on the arguments above.

The effective hopping matrix elements $`t_{ij}^{\alpha \beta }`$ depend on the type of the orbitals $`\alpha ,\beta `$ and relative orientation of a pair $`i`$, $`j`$, so that $`t_{i,jx}^{x^2y^2,x^2y^2}=3/4t`$, $`t_{i,jz}^{z^2,z^2}=t`$ and $`t_{ijx}^{z^2,z^2}=1/4t`$ orbitalnote . Besides this, there is the usual dependence of hopping on the angle $`\theta `$ between neighboring spins: $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{i,j}^{\alpha ,\beta }=t_{ij}^{\alpha ,\beta }\mathrm{cos}\theta _{ij}/2`$. The antiferromagnetic superexchange energy per bond is $`J\mathrm{cos}\theta _{ij}`$. With these expressions it is straightforward to calculate the band dispersion and total energy of different phases, cf. vandenBrink99a . In Fig.2. we show the resulting phase diagram as a function of doping $`x`$ and antiferromagnetic coupling $`J`$. For $`x1/2`$ we find mainly the magnetic CE, C, A and F phase to be stable, in accordance with previous results vandenBrink99a ; ref2 . For $`x0.5`$ we also find a large region where the BCDW magnetic 120 state is stable. Most interestingly, we also find a finite region of the $``$ phase. This phase is stable for doping concentration from around $`x0.4`$, which agrees with the fact that at this concentration the Zener polaron state was found Carvajal .

From the calculation we know the corresponding wave functions so we can find the orbital occupation on a certain site by projecting the wave function on that particular site. In agreement with the standard picture we obtain that for the CE-structure the edge sites A, A’ in Fig.1a. are occupied by orbitals $`d_{x^2}`$ and $`d_{y^2}`$, respectively. On the corner sites predominantly the $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ orbital is occupied with about 10 % admixture of $`d_{z^2}`$ density.

Let us denote the general orbital state as $`|\varphi =\mathrm{cos}\varphi /2|z^2+\mathrm{sin}\varphi /2|x^2y^2`$. For an isolated dimer that points along the $`x`$ direction (the equivalent D, D’ sites in Fig.1.b) we then expect $`\varphi =2\pi /3`$ for both sites in the dimer, which corresponds to occupied $`d_{x^2}`$ orbitals on both sites. For an isolated dimer along the $`y`$ direction (C, C’ sites in Fig.1.b.) we then expect $`\varphi =2\pi /3`$, corresponding to occupied $`d_{y^2}`$ orbitals. From the calculation of the wave functions for the $``$ phase, where there is an interaction between neighboring dimers, we find for the $`x`$-dimer that $`\varphi 130^{}`$, which is mainly a $`d_{x^2}`$-state, as we had for a non-interaction dimer, but with some admixture of $`d_{x^2y^2}`$. Correspondingly, for the $`y`$-dimers we find $`\varphi 130^{}`$, which amounts to a predominantly $`d_{y^2}`$-state with some $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ character. This admixture is important as it is driving the stability of the $``$ phase. The superexchange tends to align the spins of neighboring $`x`$-and $`y`$-dimers antiparallel. But in the $``$ phase these spins are only orthogonal, so that the hopping between the dimers is possible, although reduced by a factor $`1/\sqrt{2}`$ from its maximum value. From this hopping between neighboring dimers, which leads to the admixture of $`d_{x^2y^2}`$ states into the groundstate wavefunction, the system gains kinetic energy. Note that the hopping amplitude between $`d_{x^2}`$ orbitals of neighboring $`x`$-dimers (or between $`d_{y^2}`$ orbitals of neighboring $`y`$-dimers, respectively) is much smaller, so that the spins of neighboring dimers of the same kind tend to align themselves fully antiparallel. Thus we conclude that the stability of the $``$ state is caused by its orbital order that allows for an optimal compromise between electron delocalization, causing ferromagnetic double exchange, and antiferromagnetic superexchange interactions.

Charge ordering and ferroelectricity. In the CE-phase the edge and the corner sites are crystalographically inequivalent. This results in different total electron occupation numbers on edge and corner sites. Already when the on-site Coulomb interaction $`U`$ between electrons in different orbitals but on the same site is included, the common picture of a checkerboard SCDW arises in this system, with a valence Mn3.5+Δq of the corner sites, Mn3.5-Δq of the edge sites and $`\mathrm{\Delta }q0.1`$ vandenBrink99b . The CE-structure has a center of inversion symmetry and, consequently, there are no electrical dipoles moments present in the groundstate. This is also the case in the pure $``$ structure as both Mn ions in each dimer are equivalent ref1 . But there may exist an intermediate state that does have dipole moments: this intermediate state is a superposition of the CE and $``$ phase. This state has a magnetic structure in which the spins of $`x`$-dimers (spins within each dimer are ferromagnetic) are antiparallel to one another, and the $`y`$-dimers, also antiparallel between themselves, are rotated with a certain angle $`\theta `$ with respect to the $`x`$-dimers. The angle $`\theta `$ characterizes intermediate phase as it determines the amount of mixing between CE and $``$ that is present in the groundstate: $`\theta =0`$ corresponds to the CE-structure, while $`\theta =\pi /2`$ corresponds to the $``$ one.

We find that the region of stability of this intermediate phase is larger than that of a pure $``$-phase, and extends from the concentrations $`x0.4`$ to $`x=0.5`$; Fig.2 shows for which values of $`x`$ and $`J/t`$ this mixed intermediate phase is stable. The angle $`\theta =0`$ for $`x=1/2`$, and it increases with decreasing $`x`$, reaching the value $`\theta =\pi /2`$ ($``$ phase) at $`x0.4`$, see Fig.3. The intermediate phase is therefore in general a superposition of the CE and $``$ phase, except near the phase boundaries in Fig.2. where the pure phases are stable. In the intermediate phase there exist simultaneously a dimer (Zener polaron) bond-centered CDW and a checkerboard site-centered CDW. This implies that in the intermediate state the valence of the two Mn’s in a dimer is different, inversion symmetry is broken and each dimer attains a dipole moment. In this phase the dipole moments of the $`x`$-dimers point e.g. to the right in Fig.1 and all dipole moments of $`y`$-dimers point e.g. up (depending on how precisely the inversion symmetry of the system is broken globally) causing each $`xy`$-plane to acquire a net ferroelectric moment.

We calculate the charge disproportionation $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ due to an on-site Coulomb interaction $`U`$ between the electrons in the Hartree-Fock approximation. In Fig.3. $`\mathrm{\Delta }q`$ is shown as a function of doping. Charge ordering starts at $`x0.4`$ where the intermediate phase appears, and has its maximum at $`x=1/2`$, which coincides with the transition to a pure CE-phase.

It is experimentally observed that the CDW deformations in neighboring planes are in phase with each other. This implies that there is a net polarization of the electric dipole moments when the system is in the intermediate phase, which leads to a ferroelectric ground state. Of course, in real materials ferroelectric domains may appear. As also the conductivity of these materials is not so low, it may not be easy to observe the predicted ferroelectricity in CO manganites. But already first measurements of the dielectric constant $`\epsilon `$ do show a strong peak in $`\epsilon (T)`$ at the charge ordering temperature Simon . A more detailed experimental study of this phenomenon would certainly be of interest in the present context.

A phenomenological symmetry analysis of possible orderings in R1-xCaxMnO3 was carried out in Ref. Plakida . The phases that we find fit exactly into the phenomenological classification that these authors propose. They conclude that three phases may exist: one with P21/m symmetry, which coincides with our SCDW CE-structure; another of the Pmn21 type, corresponding to our BCDW orthogonal (Zener polaron) state, and a structure with Pm-symmetry that corresponds to our ferroelectric intermediate phase. Experimental structural refinements do show that the actual symmetry of the low-temperature phase of Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 is Pm Carvajal , i.e. it is in the intermediate phase. Our calculations provide the microscopic basis for this phenomenological treatment and shows that, indeed, all three phases are stable in a doping region close to $`x0.4`$. Apparently, with increasing $`x`$ Pr1-xCaxMnO3 goes from the $``$ or intermediate phase to the CE-phase at around $`x=1/2`$, and then to the C-phase for overdoped samples. The (LaCa)MnO3-system is, due to a larger hopping $`t`$, apparently below the $``$ phase in Fig.2: with increasing doping it goes from F to CE and then to the C-phase. In our phase diagram the A-phase appears between the metallic F and ”insulating” $``$ and CE-phases ref3 , whereas experimentally the A-phase usually exists only for $`x0.5`$ Kajimoto ; the reason for this discrepancy is not clear at present.

We should remark that we only considered different homogeneous states. It is known, however, that in many correlated electron models for the manganites the doped systems may be unstable with respect to phase separation (PS) Dagotto . Also in our analysis we find for the intermediate phase a convex dependence of the energy on the electron density, i.e. there is the tendency for PS into a pure CE and a pure $``$ phase with their appropriate electron densities. However, the inclusion of the long-range Coulomb interaction in model calculations of the electronic properties prevents large-scale PS. Such a long-range interaction has to be taken into account in the case of PS, in order to guarantee the total charge neutrality of the system. These Coulomb interactions allow only for the formation of weak inhomogeneities with smooth boundaries, which implies that the properties of the resulting PS state are similar to the properties of the homogeneous state. Nevertheless, the question of what the detailed properties of such an inhomogeneous state would be, is an interesting problem and deserves further investigation.

Conclusions. We have shown that in manganites with doping concentrations close to $`x=1/2`$ a novel type of magnetic order can appear besides the well known CE-type ordering. In this ($``$) phase the neighboring spins are, depending on the direction of the bond, either oriented parallel, antiparallel or perpendicular to each other. Due to double exchange and orbital ordering, parallel spins form strong dimer-like bonds, which we identify as the Zener polaron state that was recently observed experimentally close to $`x=1/2`$ Carvajal . In considerable part of the phase diagram an intermediate phase, which is a superposition of a CE-type and orthogonal state, is stable. We predict that in this charge ordered intermediate state inversion symmetry is spontaneously broken and ferroelectric moments appear. This may be the first example of the appearance of ferroelectricity due to charge ordering in transition metal oxides.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to Z. Jirak, T. Fernandez-Diaz, P. Fulde, J. Hill, M. Mostovoy, P. Radelli and J. Rodriquez-Carvahal for useful discussion. This work was supported by the Netherlands Foundation for the Fundamental Research of Matter (FOM) and by SFB608.


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# Variation of Superconducting Transition Temperature in Hole-Doped Copper-Oxides

## Abstract

The experimentally observed difference of superconducting critical temperature $`T_c`$ in hole-doped cuprates is studied by using an extended interlayer coupling model for layered $`d`$-wave superconductors. We show that the change of the maximum $`T_c`$ from series to series is determined by the next nearest neighboring hopping $`t^{}`$, while the difference of the maximum $`T_c`$ among the compounds in a homogeneous series is controlled by the interlayer pairing strength. Our results provide helpful guidelines in the search for new high-$`T_c`$ superconductors.

The nature of high temperature superconductors is a challenge problem in condensed matter physics. A common feature of copper oxide superconductors is the presence of CuO2 plane. It has been observed that the superconducting critical temperature $`T_c`$ varies parabolically with the hole concentration $`n_H`$ in CuO2 plane with a maximum $`T_c^{max}`$ at an optimal doping level torr ; ando . However, $`T_c^{max}`$ attainable is different from series to series, $`e.g.`$ $`35`$ K in La2-xSrxCuO4 cava  and $`97`$ K in HgBa2CuO4+δ wagn . An obvious question is what is the crucial parameter that governs the $`T_c^{max}`$ of each family.

Among various parameters proposed, the Madelung potential at the apical oxygen relative to that at the planar oxygens ohta  was found to correlate with $`T_c^{max}`$ rather well, pointing to the primary importance of the apical oxygens for the electronic structure relevant to superconductivity. Further investigations raim ; pava  revealed that the effect of the apical oxygens on high-$`T_c`$ superconductivity in reality translates into a correlation between $`T_c^{max}`$ and the next nearest neighbor hopping parameter $`t^{}`$ in the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$-$`J`$ model. In these approaches, $`t^{}`$ was considered as a single parameter reflecting the main difference among various cuprates. If we consider the homologous series, the universality of such a correlation would be seriously questioned. For example, the bilayer and trilayer Tl2-based and Hg-based compounds have almost same $`t^{}`$ pava , but their $`T_c^{max}`$’s are significantly different.

Our goal in this work is to extract and identify which parameters govern the $`T_c`$ behaviors in hole-doped cuprates. We apply an interlayer coupling model to CuO2 layer systems and then calculate $`T_c`$ based on the BCS gap equation with $`d`$-wave symmetry. Our results suggest that the difference of $`T_c^{max}`$ from series to series is the result of different next nearest neighbor hopping $`t^{}`$, while the difference of $`T_c^{max}`$ between the compounds in a homologous series is controlled by the interlayer coupling strength $`T_J`$.

The effective layered Hamiltonian we consider is

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{lk\sigma }{}}\left(\epsilon _k\mu \right)c_{k\sigma }^lc_{k\sigma }^l{\displaystyle \underset{lkk^{}}{}}V_{kk^{}}c_k^lc_k^lc_k^{}^lc_k^{}^l`$ (1)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{<ll^{}>}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}T_J(k)c_k^lc_k^lc_k^l^{}c_k^l^{},`$
where $`\epsilon _k`$ is the quasiparticle dispersion, $`\mu `$ is the chemical potential, $`c_{k\sigma }^l`$ is a quasiparticle creation operator pertaining to the layer ($`l`$) with two-dimensional wave-vector $`k`$ and spin $`\sigma `$. The summation over $`ll^{}`$ runs over the layer indices of the unit cell. The intralayer interaction $`V_{kk^{}}`$ is assumed to be independent of $`l`$. The interlayer tunneling is parameterized by $`T_J(k)=T_J(\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y)^4`$ chak .

We assume that the superconducting gap is characterized by the nonvanishing order parameter $`b_k^l=<c_k^lc_k^l>`$. Based on the BCS theory the gap function $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l`$ satisfies the following equation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l=\underset{k^{}}{}V_{kk^{}}b_k^l+T_J(k)(b_k^{l+1}+b_k^{l1}),$$
(2)
where $`b_k^l=\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l\chi _k^l`$ and the generalized pair susceptibility is $`\chi _k^l=(2E_k^l)^1\mathrm{tanh}(\beta E_k^l/2)`$. The quasiparticle spectrum is $`E_k^l=\sqrt{(\epsilon _k\mu )^2+\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l\right|^2}`$.

The spatial dependence of the gap is taken the form bycz : $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l=\mathrm{\Delta }_k^\pm e^{\pm i\alpha l}`$. Then the general solution of the homogeneous part is

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l=\mathrm{\Delta }_k^+e^{i\alpha l}+\mathrm{\Delta }_k^{}e^{i\alpha l}.`$ (3)
Considering the fact that the gap vanishes on the layer ends $`l=0`$ and $`n+1`$, the natural boundary conditions for the gap are $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^0=\mathrm{\Delta }_k^{n+1}0`$. The wave vector of the oscillating gap is then determined by

$`\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 1\hfill & & \\ e^{i\alpha l}& e^{i\alpha l}\hfill & & \end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\mathrm{\Delta }_k^+& & & \\ \mathrm{\Delta }_k^{}& & & \end{array}\right)=0.`$
The vanishing determinant of the matrix provides a nontrivial solution only when $`\alpha =\xi \pi /(n+1)`$ where $`\xi `$ is an integer. Thus we obtain $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^+=\mathrm{\Delta }_k^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_k`$. The solution of spatial dependence of the gap is then

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_k^l=2i\mathrm{\Delta }_k\mathrm{sin}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\xi \pi m}{n+1}}\right).`$ (5)
The solution with the lowest energy is nodeless inside the $`n`$ CuO2 layers which leads to $`m=1`$ for the superconducting state.

Around critical temperature $`T_c`$, we can take $`\chi _k^l`$ in a simple form: $`\chi _k^l(2E_k)^1\mathrm{tanh}(\beta E_k/2)\chi _k`$ with $`E_k=\sqrt{(\epsilon _k\mu )^2+\left|\mathrm{\Delta }_k\right|^2}`$. Then gap magnitude $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k`$ can be written as

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_k{\displaystyle \underset{k^{}}{}}V_{kk^{}}\chi _k^{}\mathrm{\Delta }_k^{}=f(n)T_J(k)\chi _k\mathrm{\Delta }_k,`$ (6)
where $`f(n)=2\mathrm{cos}(\pi /(n+1))`$.

To account for the experimental observed $`d`$-wave gap, we assume a $`d`$-wave pairing potential

$`V_{kk^{}}=Vg(k)g(k^{}),g(k)=\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y,`$ (7)
The gap magnitude is thus $`\mathrm{\Delta }_k=\mathrm{\Delta }_0g(k)`$ and the parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ is determined by the following self-consistent equation:

$`1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{Vg^2(k)+f(n)T_J(k)}{E_k}}\mathrm{tanh}({\displaystyle \frac{\beta E_k}{2}}).`$ (8)
The value of $`T_c`$ in layered $`d`$-wave superconductors is then obtained by solving Eq. (7) at $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0=`$0.

In order to self-consistently calculate $`T_c`$ for a given $`\mu `$ in conjunction with the equation determining $`n_H`$, we need an explicit form of $`\epsilon _k`$. It has been established hole  that the quasiparticle excitation spectrum of cuprates can be well described by the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$-$`J`$ model. Within the framework of the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$-$`J`$ model, the dispersion $`\epsilon _k`$ is given by maek ; beli

$$\epsilon _k=(J+2t^{})\mathrm{cos}k_xcosk_y+\frac{J}{4}(\mathrm{cos}2k_x+cos2k_y).$$
(9)
For monolayer insulator La2CuO4, experiments sing  and theoretical calculations hybe  give a $`J=`$0.128 eV. There are small variations of $`J`$ among various Cu-O insulators sule  but we expect a value of $`J=`$0.128 eV is a generally good representation for all Cu-O materials. Then one can determine $`T_c`$ as a function of $`n_H`$ based on Eqs. (7) and (8) once having knowledge of $`t^{}`$, $`V`$, or/and $`T_J`$.

First we consider the variation of $`T_c`$ in monolayer ($`n=1`$) hole-doped cuprates. Figures 1 (a) and (b) show the calculated $`T_c`$ in monolayer superconductors as a function of $`n_H`$ in some interested parameters range of $`t^{}`$ and $`V`$. As shown, $`T_c`$ initially increases with increasing $`n_H`$, takes a maximum around an optimal doping level $`n_H^{opt}`$ and then decreases with further increasing $`n_H`$. This parabolic relation between $`T_c`$ and $`n_H`$ agrees with general experimental observations in monolayer cuprates torr ; ando . We notice that $`T_c^{max}`$ systematically changes with $`t^{}`$, but it monotonically increases with $`V`$, as one expects. The difference between these two parameters is that $`n_H^{opt}`$ depends significantly on $`t^{}`$, while it scarcely changes for different values of $`V`$. These results indicate that the parameters controlling $`T_c^{max}`$ would be either $`t^{}`$ or $`V`$ or both of them.

In Fig. 2 we plotted the $`t^{}`$ dependence of both $`T_c^{max}`$ and $`n_H^{opt}`$ for monolayer cuprates. As $`t^{}`$ increases, $`T_c^{max}`$ increases and then decreases through a maximum for all $`V`$ studied. The occurrence of the maximum implies that the enhancement of $`T_c^{max}`$ due to the increase in $`t^{}`$ is limited. $`n_H^{opt}`$ behaves in a similar manner with $`t^{}`$ as $`T_c^{max}`$. For $`J+2t^{}>0`$, $`n_H^{opt}`$ decreases with increasing $`t^{}`$. Although $`T_c^{max}`$ depends on $`V`$, $`n_H^{opt}`$ is nearly independent of $`V`$ over a wide range of $`t^{}`$.

To trace the clue to the change of $`T_c^{max}`$ among monolayer cuprates, we list in Table I the experimental results of $`T_c^{max}`$ cava ; ando ; subr ; tora ; wagn , the distance $`d_{CuO(a)}`$ between the copper and apical oxygen atoms and the distance $`d_{CuO(p)}`$ between the copper and in-plane oxygen atoms taken from the works in Refs. wagn ; ohta , the calculated values of bond valence sums (BVS) of copper $`V_{Cu}`$ and the difference in the Medelung site potential for a hole between the copper and the in-plane oxygen $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_M`$. To get effective BVS of copper, we follow the method proposed by Brown brown . The results of $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_M`$ based on the structural data are taken from the works in Refs. ohta ; muroi . Here we observe one important experimental fact: $`T_c^{max}`$ increases systematically with enlarging $`d_{CuO(a)}`$. Band structure calculations pava  revealed that $`t^{}`$ increases with $`d_{CuO(a)}`$ for the monolayer cuprates reported so far. Thus the increase of $`T_c^{max}`$ with increasing $`t^{}`$ should capture the basic physics of the monolayer cuprates.

It has been proposed leeu ; tana  that $`V_{Cu}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_M`$ are two essential factors governing $`T_c`$ and represent an essentially equivalent physical content. Materials with larger $`T_c^{max}`$ tend to have a smaller $`V_{Cu}`$ leeu  or $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_M`$ tana . Since the variation of $`V_{Cu}`$ or $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_M`$ reflects the corresponding change of $`n_H`$ chen1 ; tana ; whan , the increase of the calculated $`T_c^{max}`$ with decreasing $`n_H^{opt}`$ for a wide $`t^{}`$ range is obviously consistent with the experimental data shown in Table I. This $`n_H^{opt}`$ dependence of $`T_c^{max}`$ is also consistent with the muon spin resonance ($`\mu `$SR) measurements uemu . On the other hand, the fact that the change of $`T_c^{max}`$ with $`V`$ is almost independent of $`n_H^{opt}`$ (Fig. 2(b)) rules out the possibility of $`V`$ being a dominant factor in governing the change in $`T_c^{max}`$. The present results lead us to conclude that the increase of $`T_c^{max}`$ with $`d_{CuO(a)}`$ among the monolayer cuprates is a result of the increase in $`t^{}`$. One prediction is that $`T_c^{max}`$ decreases with further increasing $`t^{}`$ after through a saturation. Thus, materials with a relatively long $`d_{CuO(a)}`$ bondlength would not expect to have a high $`T_c^{max}`$.

The values of $`t^{}`$ were determined in a self-consistent way as follows. From Fig. 2 (a) we learned that there exists a maximum for given $`V`$. Among the monolayer cuprates discovered so far, HgBa2CuO4+δ possesses the highest $`T_c^{max}`$ of 97 K. Assuming this is the highest value in all monolayer cuprates, we derived a value of $`V=0.03762`$eV from curves of $`T_c^{max}`$ versus $`t^{}`$. Equation (7) yields $`t^{}=0.0183`$ eV for the optimally doped HgBa2CuO4+δ. For other optimally doped monolayer compounds with $`T_c^{max}<97`$K, $`t^{}`$ should be smaller than $`0.0183`$ eV because of their shorter $`d_{CuO(a)}`$. The relative $`t^{}`$ is then obtained by using the experimentally observed $`T_c^{max}`$.

Next we consider $`n`$, the number of CuO2 layers, dependence of $`T_c`$ in the layered homogeneous series. In general, $`T_c^{max}`$ initially increases with $`n`$, maximizes at $`n=3`$, and then decreases with further increasing $`n`$ aiyo . To calculate $`T_c`$ for multilayers, we use the same dispersion $`\epsilon _k`$ and $`V`$ as obtained from the monolayer. The interlayer tunneling strength $`T_J`$ is determined by using the experimental values of $`T_c^{max}`$ for monolayer and bilayer compounds in the same homogeneous series. As an example, in Fig. 3, we show curves of calculated $`T_c`$ versus $`n_H`$ as a function of layer number $`n`$ in the Hg-based series. The parabolic behavior is generally observed for any layered compound. The calculated $`T_c^{max}`$ in four typical homogeneous series are summarized in Table II. The experimental results are also listed for comparison. As can be seen, $`T_c^{max}`$ initially increases with increasing $`n`$ and then saturates as $`n\mathrm{}`$. This behavior is in good agreement with those obtained from both the interlayer mechanism bycz ; whea  and Ginzburg-Landau theory birm ; chen2 . The upper limit of $`T_c^{max}`$ for infinite layer compound is in the range of 139.4 to 164.6 K. The highest $`T_c^{max}`$ of 164.6 K is found in the Tl-based series. Our results for $`n=3`$ agree with experiments very well. The predictions made here for $`T_c^{max}`$ of the trilayer compound is the best ones compared to previous theories bycz ; whea ; birm ; chen2 .

The present study shows that interlayer coupling is the driving force for the enhancement of $`T_c^{max}`$ for multilayer systems. This does not conflict with the experimental fact that $`T_c^{max}`$ saturates as $`n3`$. In fact, there exist five-fold (outer) and four-fold CuO2 (inner) planes surrounded by pyramidal and square oxygens in the multilayer system. Investigations carried out by different experimental techniques and model calculations chen1 ; dist ; trok ; kote  showed that the distribution of charge carriers are nonhomogeneous among the CuO2 sheets and the hole concentration in the outer CuO2 plane is larger than that in the inner CuO2 plane. BVS analyses chen1  and NMR studies kote  on the Hg-based series revealed that the highest $`T_c^{max}`$ corresponds to the smallest difference in $`n_H`$ between two types of CuO2 planes. When the number of CuO2 layer is larger than three, the reduction of $`T_c^{max}`$ comes from the large difference in $`n_H`$ between the outer and inner CuO2 planes. For compounds with more than three CuO2 planes, the enhancement of $`T_c^{max}`$ seems possible at ambient pressure if one can adequately dope the inner planes.

In summary, we have investigated the observed $`T_c`$ variation in hole-doped cuprates on the basis of an extended interlayer coupling model. We demonstrate that the next nearest neighboring hopping $`t^{}`$ dominates the variation of the maximum $`T_c`$ from series to series and the interlayer coupling strength controls the difference of the maximum $`T_c`$ among the compounds in a layered homogeneous series. These results provide helpful guidelines in the search for new high-$`T_c`$ superconductors.

The authors are grateful to J. S. Schilling and W. G. Yin for many helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the Earmarked Grant for Research of Project CUHK 4037/02P.


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# Managing Dynamic User Communities in a Grid of Autonomous Resources

## I INTRODUCTION

The security infrastructure of the European Datagrid (EDG) is based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)PKI . There are a number of independent entities, known as the national Certificate Authorities (CA), that are responsible for identifying the users of the grid and assigning them with authentication credentials (i.e. X.509 certificates); for example, in this project, there are 18 CA’s.

Following a process of harmonization of Certificate Policy (CP) and Certificate Practice Statements (CPS), all these CA’s mutually trust each other and are trusted by all resources participating in the EDG test-bed.

On the other hand, user authorization is a much more complex mechanism and constitutes one of the most challenging issues in Grid computing.

Since resources and users are not typically co-located, it is not feasible to make Authorization decisions for grid users on local (i.e. on the resource) site basis only. Moreover users have normally direct administrative deals only with their own local site (or a few sites) and with the collaborations they work in, but not, generally, with all the entities forming a grid.

Throughout this paper, we will refer to the following terminology:

* Virtual Organization (VO): abstract entity grouping Users, Institutions and Resources (if any) in a same administrative domain fos ; fos2 ;
* Resource Provider (RP): facility offering resources (e.g. CPU, network, storage) to other parties (e.g. VO’s), according to specific “Memorandum of Understanding”.

In the LHC Computing Grid (LCG)lcg  framework, the LHC experiments collaborations are good examples of VO’s, while the Tiers are the RP’s.

From the authorization point of view, a grid is established by enforcing agreements between RP’s and VO’s, where, in general, resource access is controlled by both parties with different roles. More specifically, the general information regarding the relationship of the user with his VO (groups he belongs to, roles he is allowed to cover 222For the definition of group and role, please see far . and capabilities333A capability is intended as a free text string to be interpreted by the local site for special processing purposes. he should present to RP’s for special processing needs) should be managed by the VO itself. The RP’s evaluate locally this information, granted by the VO to the user, taking into account the local policies and the agreements with the VO.

As result of the authorization evaluation process, the RP should eventually grant access to a certain set of resources (CPU, storage etc.) in a controlled way (e.g. by some kind of extended Access Control Lists) and provide mapping from the grid credentials (i.e. X.509 certificates) onto local ones (e.g. Unix credentials on computing elements).

Since, in our opinion, the present mechanisms (e.g. grid-mapfile, VO LDAP servers) are not scalable (as discussed earlier in this Section), it is unfeasible to use them in a production grid, with a potential very large number of users (e.g. exceeding thousands of people); hence we have developed a new set of tools to cope with all these aspects.

In this paper we briefly describe the authorization requirements of a grid, focusing on the framework of the DataGrid and DataTAG (EDT) Projects, and illustrate the architecture of the new services we have developed, the Virtual Organization Membership Service (VOMS) to manage authorization information in VO scope, the LCAS to handle the actual authorization decision at the local site, the LCMAPS to map the grid credentials to local ones, TrustManager to provide GSI compatible authentication in Java and the Authorization Manager for coarse grained access control in Java services.

### I.1 Authorization Requirements

Given the large potential number of users and resources in a grid, the Authorization infrastructure for users needs to be centralized at VO level to satisfy the requirement of scalability. Therefore, as stated before, Authorization is based on policies written by VO’s and their agreements with RP’s, that, in turn, enforce local authorization.

In this VO-centric vision, the first condition for a user to access the grid is to be member of a VO, but in general a user may be member of any number of VO’s and, for this reason, his membership should be considered as a “reserved” information (i.e. its membership in a VO must not be relevant to other VO’s).

A VO can form a complex, hierarchical structure with groups and subgroups in order to clearly divide its users according to their tasks: in general, we can represent the VO structure with a Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG), where the groups are the vertices of the graph and the subgroup-group relationships are the oriented edges.

For scalability reasons, it should be possible to delegate the management of each group.

A user can be a member of any number of these groups and, both at VO and group level, may be characterized by any number of roles and capabilities; moreover roles and capabilities may be granted to the user indefinitely or on a scheduled time basis (e.g. a certain user of the CMS collaboration is granted administrative role only when he is “on shift”) or on a periodic basis (e.g. normal users have access to resources only during working hours). The membership in a subgroup implies the membership in all ancestor groups up to the root (i.e. the VO itself).

The enforcement of these VO-managed policy attributes (group memberships, roles, capabilities) at local level must reflect the agreements between the VO and the RP’s. However it should be possible for RP’s to override the permissions granted by VO’s (e.g. to ban unwanted users). As a consequence, to permit traceability at user level (and not only at VO level) users must present their credential to RP’s along with their authorization info.

As side requirements, we note that authorization servers should not be a single point of failure (this is a particularly critical issue for VO authorization servers) and that all the Authorization communications should be trusted, secured and reserved.

### I.2 Authorization status in EDG

The Authentication and Authorization methods adopted by the EDG are based on the Globus Toolkit’s Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI) globus ; gsi  and on compatible solutions for Java.

In EDG, as originally in Globus, to access the Grid, the user first creates a proxy certificate (via grid-proxy-init procedure) that is then sent to the requested resources in order to access them.

In EDG Test-bed 1 each VO maintains authorization information in a LDAP server. The RP’s, periodically (e.g. daily) querying the LDAP servers, generate a list of VO users (in case banning unwanted entries or allowing non-VO users on their local resources) and map them to local credentials (the so-called “grid-mapfil”) granting users the Authorization to access local resources. A tool, *mkgridmap*, to generate the list is also available (see Figure 1).

In the current implementation, authorization is boolean since neither subgroups nor roles or capabilities are supported; hence a differentiation among users is only manageable at the local sites and can only reflect local policies.

The main missing features of this architecture are flexibility and scalability. No roles, subgroups memberships and any other user peculiarity are supported. Moreover, the use of a RP-based database (i.e. the grid-mapfile), periodically updated, hardly scales in a production environment with a large number of users, each, potentially, with his groups, roles and capabilities, whereas in the test-bed the users situation is almost static, and user policy is very simple.

The solution is to let users present the authorization data as they try to access the local resources (i.e. shifting from pull to push model); on the other hand we suspect that LDAP protocol is not the best choice to sustain the burden of a potentially high number of complex queries.

## II The VOMS system

The Virtual Organization Membership Service (VOMS) has been developed in the framework of EDG and EDT collaborations to solve the current LDAP VO servers limitations (see paragraph I.2). In fact, the purpose of VOMS is to grant authorization data to users at VO level.

VOMS provides support for group membership, forced groups (i.e. for negative permissions), roles (e.g. admin, student, etc.) and capabilities (free form string).

The server is essentially a front-end to a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) (in the present implementation, the database used is mysqlmysql ), where all the information about users is kept (see Figure 2).

The VOMS System is composed by the following parts (see figure 3):

* User Server: receives requests from a client and returns information about the user.
* User Client: contacts the server presenting a user’s certificate and obtains a list of groups, roles and capabilities of the user. All client-server communications are secured and authenticated.
* Administration Client: used by the VO administrators (adding users, creating new groups, changing roles, etc.)
* Administration Server: accepts the requests from the clients and updates the Database.

### II.1 Operations

#### II.1.1 User part

For continuity reasons with the present situation, we have added a command (voms-proxy-init) to replace grid-proxy-init. This new command produces a user’s proxy certificate – like grid-proxy-init – but with the difference that it contains the user authorization info from the VOMS server(s). This info is returned in a structure containing also the credentials both of the user and of the VOMS server and the time validity. All these data are signed by the VOMS server itself. We call this structure a “Pseudo-Certificate” (a new release with Attribute Certificates hou ; far  replacing the “Pseudo-Certificate” is in progress).

In more detail (see figure 4):

1. The user and the VOMS server mutually authenticate using their certificates (via standard Globus API);
2. The user sends signed request to VOMS Server;
3. The VOMS Server checks correctness444The server, after checking the user’s signature, verifies the congruity of the requested info. of user’s request;
4. The VOMS Server sends back to the user the required info (signed by itself) in a structured form ( Pseudo-Certificate );
5. The user checks the validity of the info received;
6. The user eventually repeats process for other VOMS s;
7. The user creates the proxy certificates containing all the info received from the VOMS Server into a (non critical) extension;
8. The user may add user-supplied authentication info (kerberos tickets, etc ).

In order to process this authorization information, the *Gatekeeper*, in addition to normal certificate checking, has to extract the additional information embedded in the proxy (the Pseudo-Certificate). This can be easily done with an appropriate LCAS plug-in wp4 . However, as the VOMS info are included in a non critical extension of the certificate, this can be used even by “VOMS-unaware” *Gatekeepers*, thus maintaining compatibility with previous releases.

For the transition phase, we have also developed an enhanced version of *mkgridmap* (*mkgridmap++*) to allow RP’s, with the old *Gatekeeper* installation, to query the VOMS server instead of the LDAP server. We control the access to VOMS allowing only authenticated users via https.

The Java counterpart of LCAS/LCMAPS, the *Authorization Manager* d76  is also capable of parsing and checking the VOMS Pseudo-Certificate and utilise its attributes in the authorization process. To ease the transition it is backward compatible and it is also able to use a grid-mapfile.

#### II.1.2 Administration

The Administration server supports the SOAP protocol for connections, so that it can be easily converted into an OGSA service. It consists of five sets of routines, grouped into services: the Core, which provides the basic functionality for the clients; the Admin, which provides the methods to administrate the VOMS database; the History, which provides the logging and auditing functionality (the database scheme provides full audit records for every changes); Request, which provides an integrated request handling mechanism for new users and for other changes; Compatibility, which provides a simple access to the user list for the *mkgridmap* utility.

Two administrative interfaces (web and command line) are available.

### II.2 Security Considerations

The authentication to the VOMS server makes use of the standard GSI security controls on the user’s certificate before granting rights: it must be signed by a “trusted” CA, be valid and not revoked.

Compromising the VOMS server could allow granting credentials with access rights for any service itself would be not enough to grant illegal, indiscriminate access. However, it should kept in mind that the authorization data must be inserted in a user proxy certificate (i.e. countersigned by the user himself). Large scale vulnerabilities are denial of service attacks (e.g. to prevent VO users to get their authorization credentials).

The main security issue about proxy certificatesproxy  is the lack of a revocation mechanism; on the other hand these certificates have short lifetimes (12 hours, typically).

### II.3 Related Works

In this paragraph, we will briefly compare the VOMS system with some analogous systems, namely the “Privilege and Role Management Infrastructure Standards Validation” (PERMIS), Akenti and the “Community Authorization Server” (CAS).

#### II.3.1 VOMS vs. PERMIS

PERMISpermis , implementing an RBAC (Role Based Access Control) mechanism, has been considered as an alternative to VOMS.

PERMIS has two modes of operation, push and pull. With push, the user sends his attribute certificates to PERMIS; with pull, PERMIS can be configured with any number of LDAP repositories, and it will search all of them for attributes of the user.

This second approach is clearly neither VOMS-oriented nor scalable.

Moreover VOMS, distributing the AC’s to the users themselves, allows a much greater flexibility. For example, with VOMS a user who is a member of several groups and holds several roles can actually choose how much information about himself he may want to present to a site. It is also possible to obtain and present at the same time information on more VO’s, a useful characteristic in case of collaborations between VO’s.

The second major difference is the policy engine, where Permis is really powerful, because it can take a properly formatted policy file and make decisions based on the content of the file and the AC’s it receives. On the contrary, VOMS does not focus on this problem, and it leave the interpretation of the AC’s to other components (i.e. to local sites, namely to LCAS).

In conclusion VOMS and Permis are complementary: VOMS as a AC issuer, and Permis (slightly modified in its AC gathering) as an policy engine.

#### II.3.2 VOMS vs. CAS

CAScas  has been developed by the Globus team to solve the same problem tackled by VOMS in EDG.

There are, indeed, two major differences between CAS and VOMS.

The first is that CAS does not issue AC’s, but whole new proxy certificates with the CAS server Distinguish Name as the subject; the authorization information is included in an extension.

As a consequence, when a service receives this certificate, it cannot effectively decide who the owner is without inspecting the extension. This means that existing services, in Globus-based grids, would need to be modified to use a CAS certificate; on the contrary using VOMS, since it adds the AC’s in a non-critical extension of a standard proxy certificate, does not require this kind of modification to the services.

The second major difference is in the fact that CAS does not record groups or roles, but only permissions. This means that the ultimate decision about what happens in a farm is removed from the farm administrator and put in the hands of the CAS administrator, thus breaking one of the fundamental rules of the grid: the farm administrator has total control about what happens on his machines.

#### II.3.3 VOMS vs. Akenti

Akentiakenti  is an AC-based authorization system.

There are three major differences between Akenti and VOMS.

The first is that Akenti does not use true AC’s since their definition and description do not conform the standard (at present nor VOMS uses standard AC’s, but this will be changed in the next production release).

The second is that Akenti is targeted on authorizing accesses on web resources, and particularly web-sites. This means that it is completely unfeasible to use it for other needs, for example in a VO.

The third is that Akenti does not link identities with groups or roles, but with permissions. This is done on the resource side, not removing the control from the resource itself, like CAS does; on the other hand, not having an intermediary like VOMS (or even CAS) will surely lead to fragmentation and inconsistencies between the permissions.

## III Local Authorization Services

At the resource level, two new services have been introduced to process the authorization data provided by VOMS:

1. For native execution environments, like UNIX, the Local Centre Authorization Service (LCAS) and the Local Credential Mapping Service (LCMAPS) replace the existing grid-mapfile mechanism, since the traditional system as shipped with the *Globus* “gatekeeper” allowed credential mapping based only on user identity. The gatekeeper has been modified to support these new systems (see figure 5).
2. The new Java based web services (e.g. Replica Manager, Spitfire) are based on the GSI compatible authenticaten and coarse grained authorization routines.

### III.1 LCAS

The LCAS system provides a pluggable framework for (possibly centralized) site authorization. LCAS is called from within the *gatekeeper*. Based on identity, authorization data, and the complete job specification, access to can be granted or denied. Several plug-in modules are shipped by default with the system, amongst them modules to support site-specific blacklisting of users and wall-clock time constraints on job submission. RP’s can develop and subsequently include locally developed modules.

A plug-in for VOMS (to process Authorization data) has been developed.

### III.2 LCMAPS

Traditional native execution environments like UNIX, have no ready means to enforce the specific set of rights represented in the Authorization data used in the Grid environment. For such environments, those rights have to be *mapped* to credential mechanisms supported by these native environments, like *user id*s and *group id*s. The mapping created should result in the rights and limitation as expressed on the Grid be enforced when running jobs on a particular system. The mapping is thus based on user identity, VO affiliation and, necessarily, site-local policies. LCMAPS is, like LCAS, a pluggable framework system. It supports both standard UNIX (*uid,gid*)-pair accounts, either predefined for individual users, or allocated on-the-fly from a pool of generic “leased” accounts via the Gridmapdir mechanismsgridmapdir . These mappings can be enforced both in the local process as well as in central user directories based on LDAP. Further plug-ins support the acquisition of local Kerberos5 credentials and AFS tokens.

### III.3 Java Security

The TrustManager is certificate validator, authentication subsystem for Java services: it supports the X.509 certificates (and CRL’s) and GSI style proxy certificates, making possible to (mutually) authenticate the client-server connections.

In the EDG Java security package the authorization is implemented as role based authorization. Currently the authorization is done in the server end and the server authorizes the user, but there are plans to do mutual authorization where also the client end checks that the server end is authorized to perform the service or to save the data.

## IV Future Developments

Future developments will include use of Attribute Certificates for all the Authorization process, replica mechanisms for the RDBMS containing the Authorization data, and more sophisticate time validity for the VOMS certificates.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors wish to thank the EU and our national funding agencies for their support.


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# Evidence for a Significant Blazar Contamination in CMB Anisotropy Maps

## 1 Introduction

The Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter CMB) contains - in nuce \- a large amount of cosmological information. The paradigm follows from the fact that the CMB power spectrum is sensitive to the cosmological parameters which describe the fundamental properties of the universe (see, e.g., Jungman et al. 1996, Bond et al. 1997). The ability of the CMB data to constrain the cosmological parameters hinges upon the existence of acoustic oscillations in the primordial plasma at the last scattering epoch and on the ability of CMB experiments to disentangle such primordial fluctuations from those induced by cosmic structures at lower redshift.

CMB temperature fluctuations have been measured and studied in detail for the past decade starting with the large angular scale ($`\theta >\text{ }9`$ deg corresponding to a scale $`\mathrm{}<\text{ }20`$) COBE detection (Smooth et al. 1992) up to the more recent and small-scale detection by BOOMERANG (deBernardis et al. 2000), MAXIMA (Hanany et al. 2000), DASI (Halverson et al. 2002), VSA (Grainge et al. 2002), CBI (Pearson et al. 2002) and, lastly, by WMAP (Bennet et al. 2003) which probes the CMB angular spectrum till $`\mathrm{}800`$ over the whole sky with unprecedented precision. Extracting constraints on the cosmological parameters from the measurements of the CMB power spectrum is conceptually simple, but much more delicate in practice. In fact, the ability of the present and upcoming CMB experiments to determine the cosmological parameters requires a careful cleaning of the CMB maps from the galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds (see, e.g., Refregier & Spergel 2000).

At high Galactic latitudes point-like sources are one of the main contaminants at small angular scales where, even when the brightest sources are identified and then subtracted, their residual contribution may dominate over the cosmic variance uncertainty. It has been shown, in fact, that point-like sources are one of the main foreground issue for the CBI experiment which is sensitive up to $`\mathrm{}3500`$ (Myers et al. 2002). However, such an issue also applies to other CMB experiments like VSA, DASI, or WMAP which probe the CMB angular spectrum at lower $`\mathrm{}<\text{ }1000`$ and it is nonetheless crucial for the up-coming space missions like PLANCK. Along this line of reasoning, Pierpaoli (2003) has recently shown that point-like sources induce a contamination of $`20\%`$ level in the CMB power spectrum reconstruction even at $`\mathrm{}200`$ in the simulated WMAP map at $`90`$ GHz. This level of contamination grows for increasing values of $`\mathrm{}`$ (i.e., for smaller angular scales) reaching a level of $`80\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}300`$. This implies that point-like sources must be successfully identified and efficiently subtracted off the CMB maps before recovering the true primordial fluctuation spectrum. Pierpaoli (2003) also showed that bright sources have the greatest impact on the power spectrum at moderate $`\mathrm{}`$ values ($`\mathrm{}400`$) while the fainter sources have a greater impact at high-$`\mathrm{}`$ values.

The recent WMAP experiment (Bennet et al. 2003) resolved 208 bright pointlike sources, the vast majority of which are Blazars. We show in this paper that recent Blazar surveys, combined with detailed multi-frequency Spectral Energy Distribution analysis, provide evidence that a much larger number of Blazars and active galaxies must be present as positive temperature fluctuations already visible in the available CMB maps with even moderate spectral and spatial sensitivity. To this end, we discuss in Sect.2 the astrophysical aspect of Blazars at radio and sub-mm frequencies and we discuss in Sect.3 their contribution to the BOOMERANG 90/150 GHz anisotropy map. We also compare our results with the catalog of bright sources derived from the WMAP team. Based on an updated derivation of the Blazar counts, we derive in Sect.4 the average sky brightness of the mm sky due to the Blazar population and we compute in Sect.5 their angular power spectrum compared to the CMB power spectrum. We summarize our conclusions and we discuss the relevance of our results for the present and for the next coming CMB precision experiment in the final Sect.6.

## 2 Blazars at cm and mm wavelengths

Blazars are a type of radio loud Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) distinguished by their extreme, in some cases unique, properties. These include large amplitude rapid variability, apparent superluminal motion, high level of polarization and emission of radiation across the entire electromagnetic (e.m.) spectrum, from low frequency radio waves to gamma rays, up to TeV energies in some cases. This peculiar behaviour is thought to be due to physical phenomena observed under very special circumstances such as the emission of radiation from a relativistic jet of material ejected by a radio galaxy in the direction of the observer and seen at small angle with respect to the line of sight (Urry & Padovani (1995), Blandford & Rees (1978)).

The broad band e.m. spectrum of Blazars \[represented in a $`\nu f(\nu )vs.\nu `$ plane and usually referred to as the Spectral Energy Distribution or SED\] is marked by a flat radio spectrum, widely believed to be due to synchrotron radiation, whose luminosity increases with frequency until it reaches a maximum that is normally located at $`10^{12}10^{14}`$ Hz but can also reach $`10^{17}`$ Hz in some extreme cases. Above the synchrotron peak the spectrum falls sharply until Inverse Compton (IC) emission emerges and rises again to form a second luminosity peak which is typically located at frequencies $`\nu 10^{17}10^{19}`$ Hz \[see, e.g., Fig.1 for two examples of Blazar SEDs; many other examples of Blazar SEDs can be found in the catalog of Giommi et al. (2002a)\].

Because the special conditions that make a radio galaxy appear like a Blazar are rather improbable, Blazars are much rarer than other AGN. However, since Blazars emit over the entire e.m. spectrum, while other types of AGN emit most of their radiation in the radio (radio loud only), infra-red, optical, and X-ray band, Blazars remain the extragalactic sources more frequently found in the remaining parts of the e.m. spectrum, that is the Gamma-Ray, the TeV and the microwave bands.

There are two types of Blazars: those showing a featureless spectrum, called BL Lacs, which are rare and do not show a strong cosmological evolution, and the flat radio spectrum QSOs (FSRQ), which have broad lines in their optical spectrum, are much more abundant and evolve strongly on cosmological times (Urry & Padovani (1995), Padovani (2002)). Intensity and spectral variations are conspicuous at optical frequencies and become even larger at higher frequencies. Variability in the radio part of the e.m. spectrum, as demonstrated by a monitoring program lasting more than 25 years, can reach factors of $``$ 2 to 10 on typical time-scales of weeks to years with a clear tendency to become more pronounced and more frequent at higher frequencies; polarization at radio frequencies is often present at a level of a few percent and in some case up to 10% (see, e.g., Hughes et al. (1992) and the on-line UMRAO database http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/obs/radiotel/umrao.html).

Radio sources of this type display a spectral shape which is not too different from that of the CMB spectrum before and around the peak of its power in the frequency range $`50200`$ GHz (see, e.g., Fig.1). For this reason Blazars can easily contaminate CMB maps (e.g., they can be confused with CMB fluctuations) if they are bright enough to be detected by CMB experiments. The recent results of the WMAP satellite experiment (Bennett et al. (2003)) clearly demonstrate that Blazars are present in large numbers in CMB fluctuation maps. In fact, we found, from a cross-correlation of the 208 sources of the WMAP catalog with catalogs of known sources and with the NED database, that $`85\%`$ of the WMAP sources are Blazar-like objects. Specifically, we found 139 FSRQ, 24 BL Lacs, and 15 radio galaxies. In addition to this evidence, we found that the three extragalactic sources detected well above the sensitivity threshold of the BOOMERANG maps (De Bernardis et al. (2000), Coble et al. (2003)) are also Blazars.
To produce a more quantitative analysis of the contamination of CMB anisotropy maps by Blazars, we provide in the following, a list of the bright known Blazars which can be found in the 90/150 GHz BOOMERANG map. We choose to analyze the BOOMERANG maps because it covers a statistically representative large area of the sky $`1800deg^2`$) and because they are available (even though in a low resolution format) on the web (see, e.g., http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/boomerang/).

## 3 Blazars in the BOOMERANG CMB anisotropy maps

We search here for Blazars that might have already been detected in the BOOMERANG maps but not yet recognized as such. To this aim, we have built the SED of all known Blazars for which that are enough published measurements (taken from NED and from various other surveys) to allow for a reasonably safe extrapolation of the flux intensity at the frequencies 90 and 150 GHz of the BOOMERANG maps.

We started our analysis from the few point-like sources that have already been recognized in the BOOMERANG maps (De Bernardis et al. (2000)). Their follow-up (Coble et al. 2003) has shown their galactic (6 out of 9 sources) or extra-galactic (3 out of 9 sources) nature. The three extragalactic foreground sources are namely a Blazar (PKS0537-441), a BL Lac (PKS0521-365) and a Flat Spectrum Radio QSO (PKS0438-43). For one of these, namely PKS0438-436, we report the SED in Fig.1 where filled circles represent NED measurements and the three open diamonds at 90, 150 and 240 GHz represent the BOOMERANG measurements taken from Coble et al. (2003). To obtain a flux estimate around the peak of the CMB we fitted the multi-frequency points with a Synchrotron Self Compton (SSC) model (Perri et al. (2002), see also Perri 2003, PhD Thesis, University of Rome, La Sapienza) which is a very good approximation of the SED of Blazars in the radio and mm band. The dotted and dashed-dotted curves in Fig.1 represent the spectral distribution of typical CMB temperature fluctuations of the order of 300 and 50 $`\mu K`$ respectively, which can be clearly detectable in the BOOMERANG maps. Based on the SED shown in Fig.1, the source PKS0438-436 is then associated with a fluctuation of order $`>\text{ }300\mu K`$, as already recognized in the BOOMERANG maps. The SED of the other sources PKS 0521-365 and PKS 0537-441 are similar to the previous case but are not reported here for the sake of brevity.

Following a similar procedure we found more than 50 Blazars, or Blazar candidates, selected through a multi-frequency technique like that used in the DXRBS (Landt et al. (2001); Padovani (2002)) using the NVSS (radio), GSC2 (optical) and the Rosat (X-ray) all sky survey, for which the extrapolation of the radio data is above the detection limit of the BOOMERANG experiment. Since the SED of Blazars allows for fluxes above the BOOMERANG sensitivity and below the Rosat all sky survey sensitivity limit, the number of objects found is only a lower limit.

As an example of our findings, we show in the right panel of Fig.1 the SED of the source PKS 0454-483 whose expected emission at mm frequencies is similar to that of the three Blazars already found in the BOOMERANG map. Whenever a Blazar was found to have a flux corresponding to a CMB fluctuation significantly above $`50\mu `$K, we have identified its position in the 150 GHz BOOMERANG map.

We report in Fig.2 the location of the whole set of Blazars found in the 150 GHz BOOMERANG map. Their sky coordinates (RA and DEC), radio flux, optical V-band magnitude and redshift are also reported for completeness in Tab.1.

To summarize, we found 54 known Blazars with flux greater than $``$ 200 mJy that are probably associated with fluctuations of amplitude $`>\text{ }50\mu K`$, in the 150 GHz BOOMERANG map. The number of these Blazar point-like sources is a factor $`>15`$ larger than previously reported (Coble et al. (2003)). A much larger number of fainter Blazars are evidently expected to be associated with lower amplitude ($`<\text{ }50\mu K`$) CMB fluctuations due to the fact that the Blazar counts steeply increase at flux fainter than $`200`$ mJy, as will be discussed in the next Sect.4.

The analysis of the BOOMERANG map is just an example of what we could find in a specific area of the sky surveyed at mm wavelenghts. In particular, we estimate that more 200 Blazars should be found above the BOOMERANG sensitivity limit in 1000 $`deg^2`$ area. The WMAP anisotropy maps have basically the same sensitivity threshold and spatial resolution of the BOOMERANG maps and thus our results can be quite easily rescaled to the WMAP all-sky survey. Given the previous results, the Blazar populations are expected to produce a non-negligible contamination of the CMB maps as well as of the CMB power spectrum. We will address this point more specifically in the next Sects.4 and 5.

## 4 The sky brightness due to Blazars at cm and mm wavelengths

Precise estimates of the contribution of Blazars to the sky brightness at radio and mm frequencies have so far been hampered by the lack of sufficiently deep surveys. For a long time only very shallow (1 or 2 Jy) surveys have been available at cm frequencies (Stickel et al. (1991), Wall & Peacock (1985)). However, the recent multi-frequency approach to Blazar search is changing the picture (e.g. Laurent-Muehleisen et al. (1998), Giommi et al. (1999), Padovani (2002), Giommi et al. 2002b  Giommi et al. 2002c ), making it possible to detect many fainter Blazars.

The integrated radio flux due to a population of discrete sources in the flux range $`S_{min}S_{max}`$ can be calculated as follows:

$$I=_{S_{min}}^{S_{max}}S\frac{dN}{dS}𝑑S,$$
(1)
where the quantity $`dN/dS`$ is usually referred to as the differential LogN-LogS distribution that, for a population of sources with constant density, is given by a power-law with slope equal to 2.5 which then flattens at faint fluxes of order of $`<\text{ }110`$ mJy, depending on the Blazar luminosity function. The LogN-LogS of BL Lacs is presently known down to $``$ 3.5 mJy for the subsample of extreme High Energy Synchrotron peaked (HBL) sources (Giommi et al. (1999), Giommi et al. 2002b ) while the best estimate of the LogN-LogS of the full population of BL Lacs and FSRQs currently comes from the Deep X-Ray Blazar Survey (DXRBS, Landt et al. (2001)). This is the deepest complete and radio-flux limited Blazar survey presently available which extends to 50 mJy (Padovani et al. (2003)). At radio frequencies, FSRQs are more abundant than BL Lacs by about a factor of $`4`$ and show a strong cosmological evolution, while BL Lacs either do not evolve or show negative cosmological evolution (Padovani (2002), Giommi et al. (1999), Bade et al. (1998), Rector et al. (2000) ). The LogN-LogS of BL Lacs is approximately euclidean up to at least 50 mJy, while below 20 mJy it flattens substantially, at least in the subsample of extreme HBL BL Lacs (Giommi et al. 2002b ). From the DXRBS survey we know that the surface density of sources brighter than 0.1 Jy at 5 GHz is 0.1 object per square degree for FSRQs and 0.025 objects per square degree for BL Lacs (Giommi et al. 2002b , Padovani et al. (2003)). We can then assume a Blazar overall density of 0.125 $`deg^2`$ with flux $`S0.1`$ Jy.

Since FSRQs (the dominant Blazar population) evolve strongly, while BL Lacs show no evolution (or slightly positive) at high radio fluxes (Padovani (2002)), and negative evolution below 20 mJy (Giommi et al. (1999), Giommi et al. 2002b ), we can conservatively assume an overall Blazar differential LogN-LogS with an ”Euclidean” slope of 2.5 which extends up to a break flux of the order of 10 mJy below which it flattens significantly to a slope of $`2.2`$. This assumption is fully supported by the LogN-logS (see Fig.3) that we have built using a sample of 135 Blazars (BL Lacs + FSRQs) from the NVSS-RASS 1Jy and the 0.1 and 0.05 Jy points of the DXRBS (Padovani et al. (2003)). While this LogN-logS is consistent with the counts of flat spectrum radio sources derived by Toffolatti et al. (1998) at $`1`$ Jy, it does not show any flattening until a rather faint radio flux is reached and not just below 1 Jy as in the predictions based on Toffolatti et al. (1998).

Thus, given the previously discussed LogN-LogS, and setting consistently the lower integration limit to 0.1 mJy, Eq.(1) yields a radio brightness of $`0.71.0Jy/deg^2`$ at 5 GHz. In order to properly extrapolate this brightness to higher frequencies, we have to make use of the distribution of radio to mm spectral slopes for the Blazar population. To estimate realistic slope values we have built the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of all Blazars in the NVSS-RASS 1Jy survey (Giommi et al. 2002c ) using the many radio measurements available from the literature (mostly taken from NED). Since all objects in the NVSS-RASS survey are brighter than 1 Jy, several radio data points are normally available for each Blazar over a wide frequency range. We have then fitted a a power law to the radio part of spectrum and measured the distribution of spectral slopes $`\alpha `$ \[here $`f(\nu )\nu ^\alpha `$\] between the cm (e.g., $`5`$GHz) and mm region (e.g., $`41,90,94`$ and $`150`$ GHz). We have derived the normalized distribution shown in Fig.3 using the subsample of 135 objects with $`\alpha <0.5`$ which is a requirement normally applied to build Blazar samples. Using such a spectral slope distribution, the expected 150 GHz sky brightness due to Blazars ranges from $`7\times 10^{10}`$ to $`1\times 10^{11}JyHzdeg^2`$ depending mildly on the assumptions for the LogN-LogS parameters. Since the CMB brightness at 150 GHz is $`\mathrm{2.1\; 10}^{16}JyHzdeg^2`$ (e.g. Hasinger (2000)), the Blazars brightness is $`(35)\times 10^6`$ that of the CMB, which is only a factor of a few below the level of the presently measured CMB fluctuations and similar to the sensitivity planned for the upcoming PLANCK mission. At 41 and 94 GHz we obtain a sky brightness of 3-5 $`\mu K`$ assuming that the slope of the LogN-LogS flattens from 2.5 to 2.1 at 10 mJy and integrating it down to 1 and 0.1 mJy, respectively.

This estimate is only a lower limit to the average sky brightness induced by Blazars since the DXRBS and NVSS-RASS 1Jy surveys only include sources with flat radio spectrum between 1.4 and 5 GHz, while it is well known that a number of radio source spectra that are steep at low frequencies progressively flatten at higher frequencies. Through direct 15 GHz source counts measurements (see Taylor et al. 2003) estimate that the contribution of steep-spectrum sources at 1.4-5 GHz increase the extrapolated source counts at high frequency by a factor of $`2`$.

In addition, other sources that are not accounted for in Blazar surveys have been detected, as a minority population but still in fair numbers, in the WMAP experiment. These are, e.g., radio galaxies which have a often extended emission with steep radio spectrum, that outshines a much flatter spectrum nuclear component which may emerge and dominate the emission above a few tens of GHz. One example of such sources is Pictor A, a bright radio galaxy with extended steep-spectrum emission and a flat-spectrum Blazar like, nuclear component (Fiocchi & Grandi 2003, in preparation), which is included in the WMAP source catalog and is also present in the BOOMERANG maps (see Sect.2).

## 5 The angular power-spectrum contributed by Blazars

Assuming that the Blazar are spatially distributed like a Poissonian random sample, then the angular power spectrum, $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$, contributed by these sources is given by

$$C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}=_{S_{min}}^{S_{max}}𝑑S\frac{dN}{dS}S^2,$$
(2)
(Tegmark and Efstathiou 1996, Scott and White 1999). The quantity at right hand side in Eq.(2) is the usual Poisson shot-noise term (Peebles 1980, Tegmark and Efstathiou 1996) and a further term, $`\omega (I)^2`$, adds to it if the clustering of sources is not negligible (Scott and White 1999). This last clustering term can be even a factor $`10`$ larger than the Poissonian term at large and intermediate angular scales, $`\mathrm{}<1000`$ (Scott and White 1999).

For the Blazar population described by the LogN-LogS given in Fig.3 we found $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}31Jy^2sr^1`$ at 41 GHz and $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}30Jy^2sr^1`$ at 94 GHz. Our results can be translated into temperature units, as is usual in CMB anisotropy studies, using the conversion between the isotropic black-body (Planckian) brightness $`B_0(\nu )`$ and the CMB temperature $`T_0`$ which writes as

$$\frac{B_0}{T_0}=\frac{k}{2}\left(\frac{kT_0}{hc}\right)^2\times \left[\frac{x^2}{sinh(x/2)}\right]^2=\left(\frac{24.8Jysr^1}{\mu K}\right)\times \left[\frac{x^2}{sinh(x/2)}\right]^2,$$
(3)
where $`xh\nu /kT_0=\nu /56.84GHz`$ is the a-dimensional frequency given in terms of the Planck constant $`h`$, of the speed of light $`c`$ and of the Boltzmann constant $`k`$. For WMAP, we found $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}1.310^2\mu K^2sr`$ at 41 GHz and $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}6.510^4\mu K^2sr`$ at 94 GHz. In Fig.4 we plot the quantity $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)/(2\pi )`$ and we compare it to the CMB fluctuation power spectrum which best fits the available data.

The solid line in Fig.4 shows the contribution of Blazars to the CMB fluctuation spectrum in the WMAP Q channel at 41 GHz as evaluated from the LogN-LogS given in Eq.1 which yields $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}1.310^2\mu K^2sr`$. We stress here that the previous value is a definite lower limit for $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ since it neglects the contribution of steep-spectrum sources at low frequencies which flatten at these frequencies (41 and 94 GHz) and the effect of flux variability. For this reason we also show a more realistic case for the Blazar power spectrum by adding the contribution of radio sources with steep-spectrum at low radio frequencies which flatten at higher frequencies (the dashed line in Fig.4). These sources likely provide a value of $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ which is higher by a factor $`2`$ (see also discussion in Taylor et al. 2003). The effect of spectral and flux variability also allows for an increase of the fluctuation level $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ because many Blazars which are below the sensitivity threshold of CMB experiments can be detected during flares. The Blazar flux variability at millimeter wavelengths may be very substantial (higher than the factors 3-10 on time scales of weeks to years seen at cm wavelengths) and could definitely increase the level of contamination of CMB maps when these are built over long integration periods. The dotted line in Fig.4 shows the Blazar power spectrum when also this last contribution is taken into account.

To better quantify the level of contamination of the CMB power spectrum induced by Blazars we show in the right panel of Fig.4 the ratio $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}/C_{\mathrm{},CMB}`$ where $`C_{\mathrm{},CMB}`$ has been evaluated in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65,\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.05`$ which best fits the available data. It is evident from our results that, even in the case of the lower limit to $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ (solid curve in Fig.4), the population of flat spectrum radio sources produces a power spectrum which amounts to $`20\%`$ of the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}500`$ and reaches $`50\%`$ of the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}600`$. In this case the Blazar power spectrum equals the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}<\text{ }10^3`$. In a more realistic case, the addition of steep-spectrum radio sources at low-$`\nu `$ which flatten at higher $`\nu `$’s makes the contamination of the primordial CMB spectrum more significant. In fact, in this last case, the Blazar power spectrum (dashed curve in Fig.4) reaches a level $`40\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}500`$ and nearly reaches equality at $`\mathrm{}600`$. Inclusion of variability effects increases even more the contamination (dotted curve in Fig.4) reaching a level of $`60\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}500`$ and equalizing the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}550`$. Here we have not considered the statistical uncertainties of the CMB power spectrum data. These results show that Blazar-like (flat-spectrum) radio sources introduce a non-negligible contamination in CMB maps and in the CMB power spectrum reconstruction, even in the lower-limit case of considering just the flat-spectrum sources at high frequencies. Notice, that the Blazar contamination of CMB maps decreases with increasing frequency and it becomes $``$$`<`$  a few % at $`\mathrm{}<\text{ }500`$ for $`\nu >\text{ }90`$ GHz.

We also stress that the previous calculations are performed neglecting the clustering term $`\omega (I)^2`$ and thus they must be considered again as a lower limit to the realistic angular power spectrum contributed by the Blazars. Such a clustering term could produce even a factor $`10`$ amplification of the power spectrum at any $`\mathrm{}<10^3`$ (see, e.g., Scott and White 1999). We will consider more specifically this additional contribution elsewhere (Giommi & Colafrancesco in preparation).

It stems from the previous analysis, that the low-$`\mathrm{}`$ part of the reconstructed CMB power spectrum is heavily contaminated by Blazars even at $`\mathrm{}400`$, where the second and third acoustic peaks are expected in the best-fit cosmological model (i.e., a scenario with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.3,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.65,\mathrm{\Omega }_b0.05`$). Thus, the non-negligible Blazar contamination of the CMB anisotropy spectrum at $`\mathrm{}>\text{ }400`$ has evidently an impact on the derivation of the cosmological information which is contained in the CMB anisotropy spectrum. The second acoustic peak at $`\mathrm{}500`$ is considered as an incontrovertible evidence of inflationary sound waves (see, e.g., Hu & White 1997) and its amplitude is mainly sensitive to the values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh^2`$. Increasing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ has the effect of decreasing the amplitude of the second peak relative to the first and third peaks. A contamination of $`2050\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}500`$ would tend to decrease the power of the CMB spectrum at the position where the second peak is expected in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ CDM scenario. This effect, by itself, would bias the quantities $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$ and/or $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh^2`$ toward high values. The third acoustic peak (and in principle all the acoustic peaks) is mainly depending on the amount of Dark Matter in the universe and its amplitude decreases for increasing values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh^2`$. The high level of contamination ($`50100\%`$) of the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}800`$ as well as the intrinsic uncertainty of the data render the determination of the third acoustic peak problematic. The first acoustic peak at $`\mathrm{}300`$ is contaminated at a level $`<\text{ }10\%`$ and hence the constraint on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ set by CMB anisotropy data are little affected by the Blazar contamination, unless a substantial clustering of these sources can be considered as realistic. The present data do not provide strong insights on this last point and we will study it in more details in a forthcoming paper (Giommi & Colafrancesco, in preparation).

Finally, we stress that the Blazar emission is significantly polarized at the level of $`210`$ % at radio and optical frequencies. As a consequence of the non-negligible Blazar contamination of the CMB maps, the primordial polarization patterns could be heavily contaminated by these polarized sources. Hence, a significant contamination of CMB fluctuation maps and the non-negligible fraction of residual unresolved sky brightness will complicate the detection of primordial polarization fluctuations, as these are expected to be present only at a very low level, i.e. at a level $`2050`$ lower than the primary CMB fluctuations (see, e.g., Hu & White 1997).

## 6 Conclusions

In this paper we studied the contamination of CMB fluctuation maps induced by flat-spectrum extragalactic radio sources which shine in the frequency bands probed by BOOMERANG and WMAP. Blazars have in fact a typical spectrum which is similar to the CMB spectrum in the range 40 - 150 GHz. We predicted the level of brightness and of the induced CMB anisotropy using the most updated version of the Blazar LogN-LogS.
In view of the results presented in the previous sections, the main conclusion of this paper can be summarized as follows:

* Blazars are the major point-like, bright source contaminant of CMB maps.
* We expect more than 100 Blazars to be present in the BOOMERANG 90/150 GHz maps above the sensitivity limit. We already identified more than 50 of these sources on the basis of a detailed analysis of known and candidate Blazars. We have also identified a large number of Blazars (178 out of a total of 208 sources) among the sources of the WMAP bright source catalog.
* The importance of Blazars as contaminants of CMB fluctuation maps stems from the fact that their LogN-LogS is steeper than that of flat spectrum radio sources previously used to estimate the contamination of CMB maps by extragalactic sources. The observed Blazar LogN-LogS at 5 GHz combined with the measured spectral slope distribution implies a LogN-LogS at higher frequencies which is steeper than Euclidean at least down to 50 mJy at all frequencies relevant for CMB experiments. We expect, in fact, $`0.4`$ sources per deg<sup>2</sup> at $`F50`$ mJy, quite independently of the frequency.
* We expect an induced fluctuation amplitude of the CMB map of order of $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}31Jy^2/sr`$ which corresponds to a temperature fluctuation of $`0.013\mu K^2sr`$ at 41 GHz. The corresponding Poissonian spectrum of the Blazar population equals the CMB power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}1000`$, and contaminates it at levels $`20\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}500`$ and $`50\%`$ at $`\mathrm{}800`$.
* The previous estimates of $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ are a firm lower limit to the level of CMB fluctuation induced by the Blazar population. In fact, the value of the Poissonian term $`C_{\mathrm{},Blazar}`$ is likely to be higher by a factor at least $`>\text{ }23`$ considering both the Blazar variability and the contribution of steep-spectrum sources at low frequencies, radio-galaxies and possibly starburst galaxies at lower fluxes. We also stress that allowance for an appropriate clustering term might enhance substantially the angular power spectrum of the point-like sources and hence increase the level of contamination of the CMB power spectrum.
* It is important to stress that flux variability at millimeter wavelengths may be very substantial (higher than the factors 3-10 on time scales of weeks to months seen at cm wavelengths) and definitely increases the level of contamination of CMB maps when these are built over long integration periods. Moreover, the Blazar variability increases with increasing frequency so that such a bias is more relevant for high-frequency CMB detections.
* As a consequence of the non-negligible Blazar contamination of the CMB maps, the primordial CMB polarization seems to be greatly affected by the presence of polarized Blazars. Thus, the significant contamination of CMB fluctuation maps and the non-negligible fraction of residual unresolved sky brightness will render difficult to detect primordial polarization fluctuations.

The many high-sensitivity and high-resolution CMB experiments planned for the near future will definitely face with the problems highlighted in this paper. In fact, we predict at least 1300 sources/sr at 90 GHz which produce a flux excess corresponding to $`>10\mu K`$ in a pixel of 15 arcmin size. One proven way of finding Blazars down to faint radio fluxes ($``$ mJy) is to use highly efficient multi-frequency selection techniques, similarly to the DXRBS survey which has an efficiency of $`90\%`$ (Landt et al. (2001)), by cross correlating deep radio surveys (e.g., NVSS, FIRST etc.) with deep X-Ray data over the largest possible area of sky. However, to reach flux levels lower than $`10`$ mJy, this approach requires an X-ray sensitivity of $`10^{15}`$erg cm<sup>-2</sup>s<sup>-1</sup> . Such a sensitivity is reached in XMM-Newton and Chandra X-ray images only for a very limited area of sky. In conclusion, it is crucial to determine the level of Blazar contamination in precision CMB experiments in order to separate the contaminating foreground from the primordial CMB fluctuations and to provide a reliable determination of the cosmological parameters.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are grateful to E. Massaro for useful discussions, to P. Padovani for providing DBRBS results in advance of publication, and to M. Perri, E. Cavazzuti and S. Piranomonte for their help in the analysis of part of the NVSS-RASS 1JY data. We also thank N. Panagia for useful comments on a preliminary version of the paper. This research has made use of data from the ASI Science Data Center and from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED).