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# FPGA Co-processor for the ALICE High Level Trigger

## I Introduction

The central detectors of the ALICE experiment alice , mainly its large Time Projection Chamber (TPC) alicetpc , will produce a data size of up to 75 MByte/event at an event rate of up to 200 Hz resulting in a data rate of $``$15 GByte/sec. This exceeds the foreseen mass storage bandwidth of 1.25 GByte/sec by one order of magnitude. The High Level Trigger (HLT), a massive parallel computing system, processes the data online doing pattern recognition and simple event reconstruction almost in real-time, in order to select interesting (sub)events, or to compress data efficiently by modeling techniques rt2003 , berger02 . The system will consist of a farm of clustered SMP-nodes based on off-the-shelf PCs connected with a high bandwidth low latency network. The system nodes will be interfaced to the front-end electronics via optical fibers connecting to their internal PCI-bus, using a custom PCI receiver card for the detector readout (RORC) anders .

Such PCI boards, carrying an ALTERA APEX FPGA, SRAM, DRAM and a CPLD and FLASH for configuration have been produced and are operational. Most of the local pattern recognition is done using the FPGA co-processor while the data is being transferred to the memory of the corresponding nodes.

Focusing on TPC tracking, in the conventional way of event reconstruction one first calculates the cluster centroids with a *Cluster Finder* and then uses a *Track Follower* on these space points to extract the track parameters yepes96 , startrigger . Conventional cluster finding reconstructs positions of space points from raw data, which are interpreted as the crossing points between tracks and the center of padrows. The cluster centroids are calculated as the weighted charge mean in pad and time direction. The algorithm typically is suited for low multiplicity data, because overlapping clusters are not properly handled. By splitting clusters into smaller clusters at local minima in time or pad direction a simple deconvolution scheme can be applied and the method becomes usable also for higher multiplicities of up to dN/dy of 3000 rt2003 .

To reduce data shipping and communication overhead in the HLT network system, most of the cluster finding will be done *locally* defined by the readout granularity of the readout chambers. The TPC front-end electronic defines 216 data volumes, which are being read out over single fibers into the RORC.

We therefore implement the *Cluster Finder* directly on the FPGA co-processor of these receiving nodes while reading out the data. The algorithm is highly local, so that each sector and even each padrow can be processed independently, which is another reason to use a circuit for the parallel computation of the space points.

## II The Cluster Finder Algorithm

The data input to the *cluster finder* is a zero suppressed, time-ordered list of charge values on successive pads and padrows. The charges are ADC values in the range 0 to 1023 drawn as squares in figure 1. By the nature of the data readout and representation, they are placed at integer time, pad and padrow coordinates.

Finding the particle crossing points breaks down into two tasks: Determine which ADC values belong together, forming a cluster, and then calculate the center of gravity as the weighted mean using

$`G_P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle q_ip_i/Q}`$ (1)
$`G_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle q_it_i/Q},`$ (2)
where $`G_T`$ is the center of gravity in the time-direction, $`G_P`$ in the pad direction, $`Q=q_i`$ is the total charge of the cluster.

### II.1 Grouping charges into sequences

Because of the ALTROaltro  data format, we choose to order the input data first along the time direction into *sequences*, before we merge sequences on neighboring pads into clusters.

A sequence is regarded as a continuous (vertical) stack of integer numbers. They are shown in figure 2. For each sequence the center of gravity is calculated using eqn. (2). The result is a non-integer number. This is illustrated by the horizontal black lines.

### II.2 Merging neighboring sequences

Searching along the pad direction (from left to right in the figures), sequences on adjacent pads are merged into a starting cluster if the difference in the center of gravity is less than a selectable *match distance* parameter111Typically we set the match distance parameter to 2.. The center of gravity value of the last appended (rightmost) sequence is kept and used when searching for matches on the following pad, also shown in figure 2.

A cluster that has no match on the next pad is regarded as finished. If it is above the noise threshold (requirements on size and total charge), the final center of gravities in time and pad according to eqns. (1) and (2) are calculated. This is –besides other definitions– illustrated in figure 3. The space-point, given by these two values transformed into global coordinate system, and the total charge of the cluster are then used for tracking .

## III Algorithm adaptions for VHDL

To transform the algorithm into a version which is suitable for a computation in hardware, we define a general cluster as a matrix in the time-pad plane according to figure 4.

Of course, clusters can be any size and shape and can be placed anywhere within the time-pad plane. The upper left corner is chosen as the reference point since this charge will enter the cluster finder circuit first. The values $`a`$ and $`b`$ define the absolute placement of the corner, the size of the cluster is given by $`m`$ and $`n`$. Allowing charge values to be zero covers varying shapes, but since only one sequence per pad is merged, zero charge values in the interior of the clusters can not occur.

Using the general cluster definition, the total charge $`Q`$ is the sum of the total sequence charges $`Q_j`$ according to

$$Q=\underset{j=b}{\overset{b+n}{}}Q_j\text{where}Q_j=\underset{i=am}{\overset{a}{}}q_{ij}$$
(3)
and the formulas for the center of gravity change into

$`G_P`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=b}{\overset{b+n}{}}}jQ_j/Q`$ (4)
$`G_T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=b}{\overset{b+n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=am}{\overset{a}{}}}iq_{ij}/Q`$ (5)
By calculating the center of gravity relative to the upper left corner of the cluster, the multiplicands $`i`$ and $`j`$ in (4) and (5), which start counting from $`a`$ and $`b`$ respectively, are exchanged by indexes starting at 0. Using the definitions (3) and figure 3, we get for the center of gravities the following two equations:

$`G_P`$ $`=`$ $`b+{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}}kQ_{b+k}/Q`$ (6)
$`G_T`$ $`=`$ $`a{\displaystyle \underset{j=b}{\overset{b+n}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{m}{}}}kq_{(a_jk)j}+(aa_j)Q_j/Q`$ (7)
These formulas are better suited for the FPGA implementation because the range of the multiplicands are restricted for all multiplications. $`(aa_j)`$ and $`k`$ are within the height and width of a cluster.

When the relative centroid has been determined, it has to be transformed to the absolute coordinate system (using $`a`$ and $`b`$). Thus, the FPGA implementation has to calculate $`a`$, $`b`$, $`Q`$ and the result of the two sums. Per cluster these 5 integer values will be sent to the host, which in turn uses (6) and (7) for the final result.

## IV VHDL implementation

The FPGA implementation has four components as shown in figure 5. The two main parts are the *Decoder*, which groups the charges into sequences (section II.1), and the *Merger*, which merges the sequences into clusters (section II.2).

### IV.1 Decoder

The *Decoder* handles the format of the incoming data and computes properties of the sequences. We see from (7) that two parts are “local” to every sequence. These are $`Q_j`$ and $`_{k=0}^mkq_{(a_jk)j}`$, where the total charge of the sequence is also used in (6). Calculation of these two sequence properties need the individual charges $`q_{ij}`$ but does not involve computations that require several clock cycles. The two properties are therefore computed as the charges enter the circuit, so that the charges have not to be stored. Additionally, as required by the algorithm, the center of gravity of the sequences needs to be calculated. Only calculating the geometric middle, is sufficiently precise and faster than the exact computation.

When all information about a sequence is assembled, it will be sent to the second part, the *Merger*. That way the narrow, fixed-rate data stream is converted into wide data words of varying rate. That rate is dependent on the length of the sequences. Long sequences give low data rate and vice versa. Because of this, and also because of varying processing speed of the *Merger*, a small FIFO is used to buffer the sequence data. Since the *Decoder* handles data in real time as they come, the sequences will also be ordered by ascending row, ascending pad and descending time.

### IV.2 Merger

The *Merger* decides which sequences belong together and merges them. The merging in effect increases the $`k`$ index of (6) and $`j`$ index of (7) by one, adding one more sequence to the sums in the numerators. It also updates the total charge of the cluster $`Q`$.

Since the *Merger* is processing the data in arriving order, merging will be done with sequences on the preceding pads. And more precisely, since by definition a cluster does not have holes, only the immediately preceding pad needs to be searched. Therefore we need only two lists in memory (see figure 6). One list contains the started cluster of the previous pad; the other list contains started clusters already processed at the current pad. Clusters are removed from the search range when a match is found or when the cluster is finished. Clusters are inserted in the input range after merging or when starting a new cluster. The list of clusters on the current pad, the input range, will be searched when a sequence on the next pad arrives. When that happens, there will be no matches for the remaining clusters on the preceding pad. Hence we output clusters in the old search range and exchange the lists. The old list becomes free memory, the current list becomes the old, and a new current list with no entries is created. At the end of a row or when a pad is skipped the clusters in both the lists must be finished. All the clusters are sent and both the lists are emptied. The two lists are implemented as a ring buffer stored in a dual-port RAM. The beginning and ending of the lists is marked by three memory pointers (*begin*, *end* and *insert* pointer).

The state machine of the *Merger* is shown in figure 7. To prevent overflowing the FIFO, the number of states the *Merger* machine needs to visit for each sequence is kept as low as possible. At the same time every state must be as simple as possible to enable a high clock rate. The ring buffer causes systematic memory accesses; read and write addresses are either unchanged or incremented. To keep the number of states down, the computations of merging are done in parallel, thereby using more of the FPGA resources. The resources needed are two adders (signed), and two “smart multipliers” (see IV.3).

There are three different types of states: States that remove a cluster from the search range sending it to the output (or discarding it if it is a noise cluster or overflow occurred), states that do arithmetic and states that insert a new cluster into the list of the current pad.

Arithmetic is done in three cases. When a new sequence on the current row and pad enters, the distance between starting times, $`(aa_j)`$, is calculated. Because the data type is unsigned, $`a`$ is kept at the top of the cluster by assigning it the highest of the starting times. The roles of the unfinished cluster and sequence are interchangeable. The distance between the middle of the incoming and the middle of the first in the search range is also calculated (*calc\_dist*). If the result is within match distance, merging occurs.

In the *merge\_mult* state the last part in (7), is computed for the lower of the unfinished cluster and the incoming sequence. The rest of the calculations are done unconditionally. They are finished in the *merge\_add* state. After merging the resulting cluster is inserted into the current list (*merge\_store*), at the same time the old unfinished cluster is removed from the search range by incrementing the *begin* pointer.

If a match is not found in the *calc\_dist* state the ordering of data is crucial: The first cluster in the search range is always the one of highest time value, so if it is below the incoming, the rest of the clusters in the search range will also be below. Hence there can be no matches for the incoming sequence and it can be inserted into the current list (*insert\_seq*). In the opposite case, if the cluster in the search range is higher than the incoming, all subsequent incoming sequences will be below or on other pads, so the cluster in search range must be finished. The cluster is output, and the *begin* pointer is incremented (*send\_one*). The same procedure happens in three other states. By definition, on a change of row there will be no more matches neither in the search range nor the current list. Therefore all the clusters are sent (*send\_all*). As described above, motivating the ring buffer: when there is a change of the pad, clusters in the search range are sent and the lists are renamed (*send\_many*). The last case finishing a cluster occurs if convolution is turned on and a local minima in a cluster is detected. The *split\_cluster* state is combination of *send\_one* and *insert\_seq*. The old cluster is sent to the output and the incoming is inserted into the search range.

### IV.3 SmartMult

Both the *Decoder* and the *Merger* do multiplications where the range of the multiplicand is limited to the size of the cluster as intended by (6) and (7). To save resources (logic cells) on the FPGA and increase the clock speed, we replace the standard multipliers by *SmartMult*, which takes the multiplicand and multiplier as arguments and uses left shifts and one or two adders for the calculations. The multiplicand is limited to reduce the number of shifts needed. The limit of the multiplicand determines the highest sequence that is allowed and the highest number of merges possible. Clusters larger than this are flagged as overflowed and ignored when finished.

### IV.4 Verification

For verification purposes the system is stimulated by a testbench. The testbench reads an ASCII file containing simulated ALIROOT raw data in an ALTRO like back-linked list, which is sent to the *Decoder*. Operation of the circuit is then studied in a simulator for digital circuits. Found clusters of the *Merger* circuit are directed back to the testbench which writes the results to a file. That file is then compared to a result file made by a C++ program running nearly the HLT C++ algorithm on the same simulated input data. Since the number of clusters is in the order of thousands and to eliminate human error, another C++ program compares the two result files. The found clusters agree as is graphically shown in figure 8.

### IV.5 Timing

The circuit has been synthesized and currently uses 1937 logic cells. That is 12% of the available resources on the APEX20KE-400-2x, which we are using for prototyping. The clock speed is 35 MHz. For the different input data sets taken for the verification, the *Merger* has been in the *idle* state more than 24% of the time. For two different data sets the distribution of the clock cycles is shown in table 1 for dN/dy of 2500 and 1000 and with/without deconvolution. As merging is the time critical part of the circuit, there is a safety margin for higher multiplicity data.

## V Conclusion

We have developed a fast cluster finding algorithm in VHDL, suitable for implementation in an FPGA. On an APEX20KE-400-2x FPGA from ALTERA, the synthesized circuit uses 12% (1937) of the logic cells and runs at a clock speed of 35 MHz. We measured the time critical paths (in the *Merger* circuit) to be idle more than 24% of the time.


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# Interpretation of the Helix Planetary Nebula using Hydro-Gravitational Theory

## 1 Introduction

By coincidence, the direction opposite to the peak Leonid meteoroid flux in November 2002 includes the closest planetary nebula (PNe) to the earth (150-200 pc $`5\times 10^{18}`$ m) Helix (NGC 7293), so that the Hubble Helix team of volunteers could devote a substantial fraction of the 14 hour Leonid stand-down period taking photographs with the full array of HST cameras including the newly installed wide angle Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). As the closest PNe to earth with one of the hottest known central white dwarf stars (120,000 K) and close (dMe) X-ray companion (Guerrero et al., 2001) to powerfully beam radiation and plasma into their surroundings, Helix provides an ideal laboratory to test predictions of hydro-gravitational theory (Gibson, 1996) and a quasar microlensing interpretation (Schild, 1996) that the ISM of star forming regions of the Galaxy are dominated by primordial densities of baryonic dark matter in the form of frozen H-He primordial-fog-particle (PFP) planets from which all stars and planets have formed. According to HGT, most Galactic star formation occurs in primordial proto-globular-star-cluster (PGC) clumps of PFPs with baryonic mass density $`(31)\times 10^{17}`$ kg m-3 reflecting the large mass density existing at the time of the first gravitational structure formation 30,000 years after the big bang.

Most of the $``$million PGCs in the Galaxy have diffused away from the central core to form the dark matter inner halo. From the HST/ACS images of the Tadpole merger, the inner halo is homogeneous and very large. Its 130 kpc radius is revealed by young globular clusters and stars triggered into formation by tidal forces and radiation from the merging galaxy (Gibson & Schild 2003a, ). Galactic star formation occurs in the disk. From HGT the disk is formed by accreting PGCs, so the interstellar medium of the disk should be that of a PGC; that is, trillions of frozen PFPs in metastable equilibrium with their evaporated gas at the high average baryonic mass density of the time of first structure, $`\rho _B10^4\times \rho _G`$, where the average density of the Galaxy $`\rho _G10^{21}`$ kg m-3. From HGT it is no accident that the outer planets of the solar system are large and gassy and that the hundreds of extra-solar planets discovered are also large Jovians. Hot, central, PNe white dwarfs (generically with companion stars) form plasma beams and radiation that evaporate and photo-ionize surface layers of their invisible surrounding ISM of PFP frozen-gas-planets and their accretional Jovian descendants (JPPs) to large sizes and brightnesses so that their evaporated gas cocoons can be imaged and properties measured for comparison with theory. In this paper we compare the new HST/ACS Helix observations, plus other PNe observations, with hydro-gravitational theory and previously proposed explanations of cometary globule and planetary nebula formation.

According to HGT, gravitational structure formation began in the plasma epoch soon after mass dominated energy at time 25,000 years with gravitational fragmentation of the plasma into $`10^{47}`$ kg proto-supercluster mass (baryonic and non-baryonic) clouds that further fragmented to proto-cluster and then $`10^{42}`$ kg proto-galaxy mass (baryonic) clouds just before the plasma to gas transition at 300,000 years. At that time, fragmentation scales decreased dramatically when the kinematic viscosity decreased from $`\nu 10^{25}`$ m2 s-1 for the primordial plasma to $`\nu 10^{13}`$ m2 s-1 for the H-He gas upon photon decoupling (Gibson, 2000). An important prediction of HGT is that gravitational fragmentation occurred in the primordial plasma at length scales much smaller than the Jeans 1902 acoustic gravitational scale (Table 1) and that the more massive non-baryonic dark matter (possibly neutrinos) diffused into the voids to reduce the gravitational driving force. Thus, the non-baryonic dark matter did not clump to form cold dark matter (CDM) halos that further clumped to form potential wells for galaxy formation as predicted by the standard (but erroneous and misleading) cold-dark-matter-hierarchical-clustering cosmological (CDMHCC) model. Gravitational instability and structure formation begins from non-acoustic density nuclei at the smaller scales permitted by the smaller diffusivity of baryonic matter. Such density nuclei are absolutely unstable to gravity, and immediately grow or decrease in magnitude depending on fluid forces at the largest Schwarz scale, Table 1.

Proto-galaxies formed just before photon decoupling at $`10^{13}`$ s retain the baryonic density existing at the earlier time $`10^{12}`$ s of first structure ($`\rho _B=(31)\times 10^{17}`$ kg m-3) as a fossil of that event, and fragment simultaneously at the Jeans scale and the viscous Schwarz scale determined by the fossilized rate-of-strain ($`\gamma 10^{12}`$ s-1) of the plasma at the time of first structure to form proto-globular-star-clusters (PGCs) and primordial-fog-particles (PFPs). Table 1 lists the critical length scales of primordial self-gravitational structure formation and their physical significance. Table 2 lists some of the acronyms used to describe the process of structure formation by HGT. A full discussion of HGT with comparisons to recent observations is available elsewhere (Gibson & Schild 2003b, ).

In the following we briefly review hydro-gravitational theory and some of the supporting evidence, and compare the predictions of HGT with respect to planetary nebula and star formation with standard models and the observations. Finally, some conclusions are offered.

## 2 Theory

### 2.1 Hydro-gravitational structure formation

Standard CDMHC cosmologies are based on ill-posed, over-simplified fluid mechanical equations, an inappropriate assumption that the fluid is collisionless, and the “Jeans swindle” to achieve a solution. The Jeans 1902 theory neglects non-acoustic density fluctuations, viscous forces, turbulence forces, particle collisions, and the effects of diffusion on gravitational structure formation, all of which can be crucially important in some circumstances where astrophysical structures form by self gravity. Jeans did linear perturbation stability analysis (neglecting turbulence) of Euler’s equations (neglecting viscous forces) for a completely uniform ideal gas with density $`\rho `$ only a function of pressure (the barotropic assumption) to reduce the problem of self-gravitational instability to one of gravitational acoustics. To satisfy Poisson’s equation for the gravitational potential of a collisionless ideal gas, Jeans assumed the density $`\rho `$ was zero in a maneuver appropriately known as the “Jeans swindle”. The only critical wave length for gravitational instability with all these questionable assumptions is the Jeans acoustical length scale $`L_J`$ where

$$L_JV_S/(\rho G)^{1/2}(p/\rho ^2G)^{1/2}L_{JHS},$$
(1)
$`G`$ is Newton’s gravitational constant and $`V_S(p/\rho )^{1/2}`$ is the sound speed.

The related Jeans hydrostatic length scale $`L_{JHS}[p/\rho ^2G]^{1/2}`$ is given in the equation and has been misinterpreted by Jeans 1902 and others as an indication that pressure itself somehow prevents gravitational condensation on scales smaller than $`L_J`$. Although the two scales appear to be equal they are not. The ratio $`h=p/\rho `$ in $`L_{JHS}`$ is the stagnation enthalpy for a condensation streamline and is initially zero from Bernoulli’s equation. Non-acoustic density extrema are absolutely unstable to gravitational structure formation. Minima trigger voids and maxima trigger condensates at all scales not stabilized by turbulent forces, viscous forces, other forces, or diffusion. The Jeans acoustic scale $`L_J`$ is the size for which pressure can equilibrate acoustically without temperature change in an ideal gas undergoing self gravitational collapse or void formation, smoothing away all pressure forces and all pressure resistance to self gravity. The Jeans hydrostatic scale $`L_{JHS}`$ is the size of a fluid blob for which irreversibilities such as frictional forces or thermonuclear heating have achieved a hydrostatic equilibrium between pressure and gravitation. $`L_{JHS}`$ is generically much smaller than $`L_J`$ and has no physical significance until gravitational condensation has actually occurred and a hydrostatic equilibrium has been achieved.

When gas condenses on a non-acoustic density maximum due to self gravity a variety of results are possible. If the amount is large a turbulent maelstrom, superstar and black hole will appear. If the amount is small a gas planet, brown dwarf or star will form in hydrostatic equilibrium as the gravitational potential energy is converted to heat by turbulent friction and radiated. The pressure force $`F_Pp\times L^2`$ matches the gravitational force of the star or gas planet at $`F_G\rho ^2GL^4`$ at the hydrostatic Jeans scale $`L_{JHS}`$. Pressure $`p`$ is determined by a complex mass-momentum-energy balance of the fluid flow and ambient conditions. A gas with uniform density is absolutely unstable to self gravitational structure formation on non-acoustic density perturbations at scales larger and smaller than $`L_J`$ and is unstable to acoustical density fluctuations on scales larger than $`L_J`$ Gibson (1996). Contrary to the common misconception, pressure and temperature cannot prevent structure formation on scales larger or smaller than $`L_J`$.

Density fluctuations in fluids are not barotropic as assumed by Jeans 1902 except rarely in small regions for short times near powerful sound sources. Density fluctuations that triggered the first gravitational structures in the primordial fluids of interest were likely non-acoustic (non-barotropic) density variations from turbulent mixing of temperature or chemical species concentrations produced by the big bang Gibson (2001) as shown by turbulent signatures Bershadskii and Sreenivasan (2002) in the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies. From Jeans’ theory without Jeans’ swindle, a gravitational condensation on an acoustical density maximum rapidly becomes a non-acoustical density maximum because the gravitationally accreted mass retains the (zero) momentum of the motionless ambient gas. The Jeans 1902 analysis was ill posed because it failed to include non-acoustic density variations as an initial condition.

Fluids with non-acoustic density fluctuations are continuously in a state of structure formation due to self gravity unless prevented by diffusion or fluid forces Gibson (1996). Turbulence or viscous forces can dominate gravitational forces at small distances from a point of maximum or minimum density to prevent gravitational structure formation, but gravitational forces will dominate turbulent or viscous forces at larger distances to cause structures if the gas or plasma does not diffuse away faster than it can condense or rarify due to gravity. The erroneous concepts of pressure support and thermal support are artifacts of the erroneous Jeans criterion for gravitational instability. Pressure forces could not prevent gravitational structure formation in the plasma epoch because pressures equilibrate in time periods smaller that the gravitational free fall time $`(\rho G)^{1/2}`$ on length scales smaller than the Jeans scale $`L_J`$, and $`L_J`$ in the primordial plasma was larger than the Hubble scale of causal connection $`L_J>L_H=ct`$, where $`c`$ is light speed and $`t`$ is time. Therefore, if gravitational forces exceed viscous and turbulence forces in the plasma epoch at Schwarz scales $`L_{ST}`$ and $`L_{SV}`$ smaller than $`L_H`$ (Table 1) then gravitational structures will develop, independent of the Jeans criterion. Only a very large diffusivity ($`D_B`$) could interfere with structure formation in the plasma. Diffusion prevents gravitional clumping of the non-baryonic dark matter (cold or hot) in the plasma epoch because $`D_{NB}D_B`$ and $`(L_{SD})_{NB}L_H`$.

Consider the gravitational response of a large body of uniform density gas to a sudden change at time $`t=0`$ on scale $`LL_J`$ of a rigid mass $`M(t)`$ at the center, either a cannonball or vacuum beach ball depending on whether $`M(0)`$ is positive or negative. Gravitational forces will cause all the surrounding gas to accelerate slowly toward or away from the central mass perturbation. The radial velocity $`v_r=GM(t)tr^2`$ by integrating the radial gravitational acceleration and the central mass increases at a rate $`dM(t)/dt=v_r4\pi r^2\rho =4\pi \rho GM(t)t`$. Separating variables and integrating gives $`M(t)=M(0)exp(2\pi \rho Gt^2)`$. Nothing much happens for time periods less than the gravitational free fall time $`t_G=(\rho G)^{1/2}`$ except for a gradual build up or depletion of the gas near the center where the hydrostatic pressure changes are concentrated at the Jeans hydrostatic scale $`L_{JHS}L_J`$. At $`t=0.43t_G`$ the mass ratio $`M(t)/M(0)`$ for $`r<L`$ has increased by only a factor of 2.7, but goes from 534 at $`t=t_G`$ to $`10^{11}`$ at $`t=2t_G`$ during the time it would take for an acoustic signal to reach a distance $`L_J`$. Pressure support and the Jeans 1902 criterion clearly fail in this exercise.

The diffusion velocity is $`D/L`$ for diffusivity $`D`$ at distance $`L`$ and the gravitational velocity is $`L(\rho G)^{1/2}`$. The two velocities are equal at the diffusive Schwarz length scale

$$L_{SD}[D^2/\rho G]^{1/4}.$$
(2)
Weakly collisional particles such as the hypothetical cold-dark-matter (CDM) material cannot possibly form clumps, seeds, halos, or potential wells for baryonic matter collection because the CDM particles have large diffusivity and will disperse, consistent with observations Sand et al. (2002). Diffusivity $`DV_p\times L_c`$, where $`V_p`$ is the particle speed and $`L_c`$ is the collision distance. Because weakly collisional particles have large collision distances with large diffusive Schwarz lengths the non-baryonic dark matter (possibly neutrinos) is the last material to fragment by self gravity and not the first as assumed by CDM cosmologies. The first structures occur as proto-supercluster-voids in the baryonic plasma controlled by viscous and weak turbulence forces, independent of diffusivity ($`D\nu `$). The CDM seeds postulated as the basis of CDMHCC never happened because $`(L_{SD})_{NB}ct`$ in the plasma epoch. Because CDM seeds and halos never happened, hierarchical clustering of CDM halos to form galaxies and their clusters never happened.

Cold dark matter was invented to explain the observation that gravitational structure formed early in the universe that should not be there from the Jeans 1902 criterion that forbids structure in the baryonic plasma because $`(L_J)_B>L_H`$ during the plasma epoch (where sound speed approached light speed $`V_S=c/\sqrt{3}`$). In this CDM cosmology, non-baryonic particles with rest mass sufficient to be non-relativistic at their time of decoupling are considered “cold” dark matter, and are assumed to form permanent, cohesive clumps in virial equilibrium that can only interact with matter and other CDM clumps gravitationally. This assumption that CDM clumps are cohesive is questioned here as unnecessary and unrealistic. Numerical simulations of large numbers of such cohesive CDM clumps show a tendency for the clumps to clump further due to gravity to form “halos”, justifying the cold dark matter hierarchical clustering cosmology (CDMHCC) where the baryonic matter eventually falls into the gravitational potential wells of the CDM halos, cools off, and forms the observed stars and structures. As we have seen, CDMHCC is not necessary since the Jeans criterion is incorrect and baryons can begin gravitational structure formation during the plasma epoch. Furthermore, CDMCC is not possible because the nearly collisionless non-baryonic matter would not clump or form massive halos as assumed but would diffuse away.

Clumps of collisionless or collisional CDM would either form black holes or thermalize in time periods of order the gravitational free fall time $`(\rho G)^{1/2}`$ because the particles would gravitate to the center of the clump by core collapse where the density would exponentiate, causing double and triple gravitational interactions or particle collisions that would thermalize the velocity distribution and trigger diffusional evaporation. For collisional CDM, consider a spherical clump of perfectly cold CDM with mass $`M`$, density $`\rho `$, particle mass $`m`$ and collision cross section $`\sigma `$. The clump collapses in time $`(\rho G)^{1/2}`$ to density $`\rho _c=(m/\sigma )^{3/2}M^{1/2}`$ where collisions begin and the velocity distribution thermalizes. Particles with velocities greater than the escape velocity $`v2MG/r`$ then diffuse away from the clump, where $`r=(M/\rho )^{1/3}`$ is the initial clump size. For typically considered CDM clumps of mass $`10^{36}`$ kg and CDM particles more massive than $`10^{24}`$ kg (WIMPs with $`\sigma 10^{42}`$ m2 small enough to escape detection) the density from the expression would require a collision scale smaller than the clump Schwarzschild radius so that such CDM clumps would collapse to form black holes. Less massive motionless CDM particles collapse to diffusive densities smaller than the black hole density, have collisions, thermalize, and diffuse away. From the outer halo radius size measured for galaxy cluster halos it is possible to estimate the non-baryonic dark matter particle mass to be of order $`10^{35}`$ kg (10 ev) and the diffusivity to be $`10^{30}`$ m2 s-1 (Gibson, 2000). Thus, CDM clumps are neither necessary nor physically possible, and are ruled out by observations (Sand et al., 2002). It is recommended that the CDMHCC scenario for structure formation and cosmology be abandoned.

The baryonic matter is subject to large viscous forces, especially in the hot primordial plasma and gas states existing when most gravitational structures first formed (Gibson, 2000). The viscous forces per unit volume $`\rho \nu \gamma L^2`$ dominate gravitational forces $`\rho ^2GL^4`$ at small scales, where $`\nu `$ is the kinematic viscosity and $`\gamma `$ is the rate of strain of the fluid. The forces match at the viscous Schwarz length

$$L_{SV}(\nu \gamma /\rho G)^{1/2},$$
(3)
which is the smallest size for self gravitational condensation or void formation in such a flow. Turbulent forces may permit larger mass gravitational structures to develop; for example, in thermonuclear maelstroms at galaxy cores to form central black holes. Turbulent forces $`\rho \epsilon ^{2/3}L^{8/3}`$ match gravitational forces at the turbulent Schwarz scale

$$L_{ST}\epsilon ^{1/2}/(\rho G)^{3/4},$$
(4)
where $`\epsilon `$ is the viscous dissipation rate of the turbulence. Because in the primordial plasma the viscosity and diffusivity are identical and the rate-of-strain $`\gamma `$ is larger than the free-fall frequency $`(\rho G)^{1/2}`$, the viscous and turbulent Schwarz scales $`L_{SV}`$ and $`L_{ST}`$ will be larger than the diffusive Schwarz scale $`L_{SD}`$, from (2), (3) and (4).

The criterion for structure formation in the plasma epoch is that both $`L_{SV}`$ and $`L_{ST}`$ become less than the horizon scale $`L_H=ct`$. Reynolds numbers in the plasma epoch were near critical, with $`L_{SV}L_{ST}`$. From $`L_{SV}<ct`$, gravitational structures first formed when $`\nu `$ first decreased to values less than radiation dominated values $`c^2t`$ at time $`t10^{12}`$ seconds Gibson (1996), well before $`10^{13}`$ seconds which is the time of plasma to gas transition (300,000 years). Because the expansion of the universe inhibited condensation but enhanced void formation in the weakly turbulent plasma, the first structures were proto-supercluster-voids in the baryonic plasma. At $`10^{12}`$ s

$$(L_{SD})_{NB}L_{SV}L_{ST}5\times L_KL_H=3\times 10^{20}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{L}_{\mathrm{SD}},$$
(5)
where $`(L_{SD})_{NB}`$ refers to the non-baryonic component and $`L_{SV}`$, $`L_{ST}`$, $`L_K`$, and $`L_{SD}`$ scales refer to the baryonic (plasma) component.

As proto-supercluster mass plasma fragments formed, the voids filled with non-baryonic matter by diffusion, thus inhibiting further structure formation by decreasing the gravitational driving force. The baryonic mass density $`\rho 2\times 10^{17}`$ kg/$`\mathrm{m}^3`$ and rate of strain $`\gamma 10^{12}`$ $`\mathrm{s}^1`$ were preserved as hydrodynamic fossils within the proto-supercluster fragments and within proto-cluster and proto-galaxy objects resulting from subsequent fragmentation as the photon viscosity and $`L_{SV}`$ decreased prior to the plasma-gas transition and photon decoupling Gibson (2000). As shown in Eq. 5, the Kolmogorov scale $`L_K[\nu ^3/\epsilon ]^{1/4}`$ and the viscous and turbulent Schwarz scales at the time of first structure matched the horizon scale $`L_Hct3\times 10^{20}`$ m, freezing in the density, strain-rate, and spin magnitudes and directions of the subsequent proto-cluster and proto-galaxy fragments of proto-superclusters. Remnants of the strain-rate and spin magnitudes and directions of the weak turbulence at the time of first structure formation are forms of fossil vorticity turbulence Gibson (1999).

The quiet condition of the primordial gas is revealed by measurements of temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation that show an average $`\delta T/T10^5`$ much too small for any turbulence to have existed at that time of plasma-gas transition ($`10^{13}`$ s). Turbulent plasma motions are strongly damped by buoyancy forces at horizon scales after the first gravitational fragmentation time $`10^{12}`$ s. Viscous forces in the plasma are inadequate to explain the lack of primordial turbulence ($`\nu `$ $`10^{30}`$ m2 s-1 is required but, after $`10^{12}`$ s, $`\nu 4\times 10^{26}`$, Gibson 2000). The observed lack of plasma turbulence proves that large scale buoyancy forces, and therefore self gravitational structure formation, must have begun in the plasma epoch.

The gas temperature, density, viscosity, and rate of strain are all precisely known at transition, so the gas viscous Schwarz mass $`L_{SV}^3\rho `$ is easily calculated to be about $`10^{24}`$ kg, the mass of a small planet, or about $`10^6M_{\mathrm{}}`$, with uncertainty about a factor of ten. From HGT, soon after the cooling primordial plasma turned to gas at $`10^{13}`$ s (300,000 yr), the entire baryonic universe condensed to a fog of planetary-mass primordial-fog-particles (PFPs) that preventing collapse at the Jeans mass. These gas-cloud objects gradually cooled, formed H-He rain, and eventually froze solid to become the baryonic dark matter and the basic material of construction for stars and everything else, about $`30\times 10^6`$ rogue planets per star.

The Jeans mass $`L_J^3\rho `$ of the primordial gas at transition was about $`10^6M_{\mathrm{}}`$ with about a factor of ten uncertainty, the mass of a globular-star-cluster (GC). Proto-galaxies fragmented at the PFP scale but also at this proto-globular-star-cluster PGC scale $`L_J`$, although not for the reason given by the Jeans 1902 theory. Density fluctuations in the gaseous proto-galaxies were absolutely unstable to void formation at all scales larger than the viscous Schwarz scale $`L_{SV}`$. Pressure can only remain in equilibrium with density without temperature changes in a gravitationally expanding void on scales smaller than the Jeans scale. From the second law of thermodynamics, rarefaction wave speeds that develop as density minima expand due to gravity to form voids are limited to speeds less than the sonic velocity. Cooling could therefore occur and be compensated by radiation in the otherwise isothermal primordial gas when the expanding voids approached the Jeans scale. Gravitational fragmentations of proto-galaxies were then accelerated by radiative heat transfer to these cooler regions, resulting in fragmentation at the Jeans scale and isolation of proto-globular-star-clusters (PGCs) with the primordial-gas-Jeans-mass.

These $`10^{36}`$ kg PGC objects were not able to collapse from their own self gravity because of their internal fragmentation at the viscous Schwarz scale to form $`10^{24}`$ kg PFPs. The fact that globular star clusters have precisely the same density and primordial-gas-Jeans-mass from galaxy to galaxy proves they were all formed simultaneously soon after the time of the plasma to gas transition $`10^{13}`$ s. The gas has never been so uniform since, and no mechanism exists to recover such a high density, let alone such a high uniform density, as the fossil turbulent density value $`\rho 2\times 10^{17}`$ kg/$`\mathrm{m}^3`$. Young globular cluster formation in BDM halos in the Tadpole, Mice, and Antennae galaxy mergers (Gibson & Schild 2003a, ) show that dark PGC clusters of PFPs are remarkably stable structures, persisting without disruption or star formation for more than ten billion years.

### 2.2 Observational evidence for PGCs and PFPs

Searches for point mass objects as the dark matter by looking for microlensing of stars in the bulge and the Magellanic clouds have detected only about 20$`\%`$ of the expected amount, leading to claims by the MACHO/OGLE/EROS consortia that this form of dark matter has been observationally excluded (Alcock et al., 1998). These studies have assumed a uniform rather than clumped distribution for the “massive compact halo objects” (MACHOs) and used sampling frequencies appropriate for stellar rather than small planetary mass objects. Furthermore, since the PFPs within PGC clumps must accretionally cascade over a million-fold mass range to produce JPPs and stars their statistical distribution becomes an intermittent lognormal that profoundly affects the sampling strategy and microlensing data interpretation and makes the exclusion of PFP mass objects as the baryonic dark matter (BDM) of the Galaxy premature (Gibson & Schild, 1999). Recent OGLE campaigns focusing on planetary mass to brown dwarf mass objects have revealed 121 transiting and orbiting candidates, some with orbits less than one day indicating the end of the PFP accretional cascade predicted by HGT as the mechanism of star formation (Udalski et al., 2003).

Evidence that planetary mass objects dominate the BDM in galaxies has been gradually accumulating and has been reviewed (Gibson & Schild 2003b, ). Cometary knot candidates for PFPs and JPPs appear whenever hot events like white dwarfs, novas, plasma jets, Herbig-Haro objects, and supernovas happen, consistent with the prediction of HGT that the knots reveal Jovian planets that comprise the BDM, as we see for the planetary nebulae in the present paper. However, the most convincing evidence for our hypothesis, because it averages the dark matter over much larger volumes of space, is provided by one of the most technically challenging areas in astronomy; that is, quasar microlensing (Schild, 1996). Several years and many dedicated observers were required to confirm the Schild measured time delay of the Q0957 lensed quasar images so that the twinkling of the subtracted light curves could be confirmed and the frequency of twinkling interpreted as evidence that the dominant point mass objects of the lensing galaxy were of small planetary mass. By using multiple observatories around the Earth it has now been possible to accurately establish the Q0957 time delay at $`417.09\pm 0.07`$ days (Colley et al. 2002, 2003). With this unprecedented accuracy a statistically significant microlensing event of only 12 hours has now been detected (Colley & Schild., 2003) indicating a PFP with Moon-mass only $`7.4\times 10^{22}`$ kg. An additional microlensing system has been observed (Schechter et al. 2003) and confirmed, and its time delay measured (Ofek and Maoz 2003). To attribute the microlensing to stars rather than planets required Schechter et al. to propose relativistic knots in the quasar. An additional four lensed quasar systems with measured time delays show monthly period microlensing that support dominant BDM objects in the lens with planetary mass (Burud et al. 2000, 2002; Hjorth et al. 2002).

Flux anomalies in four-image gravitational lenses have been interpreted as evidence for the dark matter substructure predicted by CDM halo models (Dalal and Kochanek, 2002), but the anomalies can also be taken as evidence for concentrations of baryonic dark matter such as PGCs, especially when the images are found to twinkle with frequencies consistent with the existence of planetary mass objects. Further evidence that the planetary objects causing the high frequency twinkling are clumped as PGCs is provided by evidence that the HE1104 system (Schechter et al., 2003) has a damped Lyman alpha lensing system (DLA $``$ neutral hydrogen column density larger than $`10^{24.3}`$ m-2), which is therefore a PGC candidate from the evidence of gas and planets. Active searches are underway for lensed DLAs with planetary frequency twinkling that can add to this evidence of PGCs. Perhaps the most remarkable evidence suggesting galaxy inner halos consist mostly of baryonic PGC-PFP clumps are the recent HST/ACS images of aligned rows of YGCs precisely tracking the merging galaxy in the Tadpole system (Gibson & Schild 2003a, ).

Numerous YGCs are also seen in the fragmenting galaxy cluster Stephan’s Quintet (Gibson & Schild 2003c, ). The mysterious red shifts of the dense-cluster support the HGT model of sticky beginnings of the cluster in the plasma epoch, where viscous forces of the baryonic dark matter halo of the cluster have inhibited the final breakup due to the expansion of the universe to about 200 million years ago and reduced the transverse velocities of the galaxies to small values so that they appear aligned in a thin pencil by perspective. Close alignments of QSOs with bright galaxies (suggesting intrinsic red shifts) have been noted for many years (Hoyle et al., 2000) that can more easily be explained by HGT without requiring new physics.

### 2.3 Planetary Nebula formation

#### 2.3.1 The standard model

According to the standard model of planetary nebula formation, an ordinary star like the sun eventually burns most of its hydrogen and helium to form a hot, dense, carbon core. In its last stages the remaining H-He fuel forms a progressively less dense atmosphere that expands from $`10^9`$ m to $`10^{11}`$ m or more to form a cool 3000 K red giant cocoon around the carbon center. This neutral atmosphere of the red giant with density $`10^{17}`$ kg m-3 is eventually expelled by dynamical and photon pressures when the hot $`10^5`$ K, dense $`10^{10}`$ kg m-3, carbon core is exposed as a white dwarf star with no source of fuel unless accompanied by a donor companion. The density of this $`10^{16}`$ kg atmosphere at a distance of $`3\times 10^{15}`$ m corresponding to the inner Helix radius is only $`3.7\times 10^{31}`$ kg m-3, which is $`2.7\times 10^{16}`$ times smaller than the observed density of the cometary knots. Larger stars up to $`5M_{\mathrm{}}`$ form white dwarfs and have complex histories with super-wind Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) periods where many solar masses are expelled into the ISM (Busso et al., 1999). At most this could bring the density within a factor of $`10^3`$ of that observed in the knots. It has been proposed in versions of the standard model that either the cometary knots are produced by shock wave instabilities and are somehow ejected by the central stars (Vishniac, 1994) or the photo-ionized inner surface of the denser ejected atmosphere forms Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities so that fingers like dripping paint break into the cometary globules and radial wakes observed (Capriotti, 1973).

Several problems exist for this standard model. The huge masses of the observed planetary nebulae H-He gasses are much larger and richer in other species and dust than one would expect to be expelled as stellar winds or cometary bullets during any reasonable model of star evolution, where most of the star’s H-He fuel should be converted by thermonuclear fusion to carbon in the core before the star dies. Instead, more than a solar mass of gas and dust is found in the nebular ring of Helix, with a dusty H-He-O-N-CO composition matching that of the interstellar medium rather than winds from the hydrogen-depleted atmosphere of a carbon star. The cometary globules are too massive and too dense to match the Rayleigh-Taylor instability model. The maximum density increase due to a shock wave is a factor of six: less from Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. Turbulence dispersion of nonlinear thin shell instabilities (Vishniac, 1994) should decrease or prevent shock induced or gravitational increases in density. The measured density of the Helix cometary globule atmospheres is $`10^{14}`$ kg m-3 and their masses are a few times $`10^{25}`$ kg. No mechanism is known by which such massive dense objects can form or exist near the central star, or be ejected without disruption to the distances where they are observed.

#### 2.3.2 The HGT model

According to HGT, stars are formed by accretion of PFP planets and the larger Jovian PFP planets (JPPs) and red dwarf stars accreted from PFPs within the PGC interstellar medium. The accretion mechanism is likely to be binary, where two PFPs or Jovians experience a near collision so that frictional heating of their atmospheres produces evaporation of the solid planets and an increase in the amount of gas in their atmospheres. This results in a non-linear “frictional hardening” of the binary planets until the two objects merge, and explains why “3 out of every 2 stars is a binary” (Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin). Heating from the merger will result in a large atmosphere for the double-mass PFP that will increase its cross section for capture of more PFPs. The large atmosphere also increases the friction with randomly encountered ambient PFP atmospheres that will slow the relative motion of the objects and increase the time between their collisions and mergers. Radiation to outer space will cause the PFP atmospheres to cool and eventually rain out and freeze if no further captures occur, leading to a new state of metastable equilibrium with the ambient gas. To reach Jupiter mass, $`10^6M_{\mathrm{}}`$ mass PFPs and their growing sons and daughters must pair 10 times ($`2^{10}10^3`$). To reach stellar mass, 20 PFP binary pairings are required ($`2^{20}10^6`$). Because of the binary nature of PFP structure formation, it seems likely that double stars will result, as observed, and that the stars will have large numbers of large gassy planets, as observed. Rocky planets like the Earth in this scenario are simply the rocky cores of Jupiters that have processed the dust accumulated gravitationally from supernova remnants in their cores and in the cores of the thousands of PFPs that they have accreted to achieve their masses. Without PFPs, the existence of rocks is a mystery.

Large gas planets from PFP accretion cascades may form gently over long periods, with ample time at every stage for their atmospheres to readjust with ambient conditions and return to metastable states of random motion. These are probably the conditions under which the old globular star clusters (OGCs) in the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy formed their small long-lived stars. However, if the PFP accretional cascade is forced by radiation or tidal forces from passing stars or ambient supernovae, a more rapid cascade will occur where the PFP atmospheres become large and the relative motions become highly turbulent. The turbulence will mix the PFPs and their large planet descendants and inhibit large average density increases or decreases. In this case another instability becomes possible; that is, if the turbulence weakens the creation of large central density structures, but enhances accretion to form large planets and brown dwarfs, the increased densities can become so rapid that buoyancy forces may develop from the density gradients. This will suddenly damp the turbulence at the Schwarz turbulence scale $`L_{ST}`$ (see Table 1) to produce fossil turbulence (Gibson, 1999) in a volume containing many solar masses of gas, PFPs and JPPs.

Turbulence fossilization due to buoyancy creates a gravitational collapse to the center of the resulting non-turbulent gas and PFPs from the sudden lack of turbulence resistance. A fossil turbulence hole in the ISM will be left with size determined by the turbulence levels existing at the beginning of fossilization. The accretion of the planets and gas within the hole will be accelerated by the rapidly increasing density. The total mass of the stars produced will be the size of the hole times the ISM density. If the mass is many solar masses then the superstars formed will soon explode as supernovae, triggering a sequence of ambient PFP evaporations, accretional cascades, and a starburst that may consume the entire dark PGC and PFPs to produce a million stars and a young globular cluster (YGC) or a super-star cluster (Tran et al., 2003). Numerous YCCs are triggered into formation by galaxy mergers, such as the merging of two galaxies and some fragments revealing a 130 kpc ($`4\times 10^{21}`$ m) radius baryonic dark matter halo in the VV29abcdef Tadpole complex imaged by HST/ACS immediately after installation of the ACS camera. Figure 1 shows a dark dwarf galaxy, revealed in the baryonic dark matter halo of the central Tadpole galaxy VV29a by a dense trail of YGCs pointing precisely to the spiral star wake produced as the dwarf blue galaxy VV29c and companions VV29def merged with VV29a (Gibson & Schild 2003a, ).

Planetary nebula form when one of the smaller stars formed by PFP accretion uses up all its H-He fuel to form a dense carbon core with temperature less than $`8\times 10^8`$ K, the star forms a white dwarf and the high temperatures and radiation pressure of the white dwarf expel the atmosphere of the final asymptotic giant branch red giant star (eg: Betelgeuse). Red giant stars have envelope diameters $`10^{12}`$ m and atmospheric densities $`10^{17}`$ kg m-3 with a $`6\times 10^6`$ m diameter $`\rho 10^{10}`$ kg m-3 carbon star core (Chaisson $`\&`$ McMillan, 2001), so the total mass expelled is only $`10^{16}`$ kg, or $`10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$, much less than the gas mass values $`(31)\times M_{\mathrm{}}`$ observed in planetary nebulae. Without HGT, this much gas is mysterious.

Because the white dwarf is likely to have a companion star (Guerrero et al., 2001), it is likely that the companion will donate mass to the white dwarf. The white dwarf has small size and high density, and is likely to spin rapidly with a strong magnetic field near its spin axis. The spinning magnetic field lines at the white dwarf poles capture the incoming plasma to produce powerful plasma jets perpendicular to the plane of rotation of the two stars. The accretion disk of the white dwarf may shield some of its radiation and broadly beam its radiation. When the plasma jet encounters a frozen PFP or Jupiter at the edge of the star accretion hole it increases the evaporation rate of the frozen gas planet and forms a cometary globule with an outward radial wake and inward ionization front, as observed.

## 3 Observations

Figure 2 shows a mosaic of nine HST/ACS images from the F658N filter (Hα and N II) that enhances the ionized cometary globules and their hydrogen tails. See http: //archive.stsci.edu/hst/helix/images.html. A sphere with radius $`3\times 10^{15}`$ m is shown corresponding to the volume of primordial-fog-particles (PFPs) with mass density $`2\times 10^{17}`$ kg m-3 required to form two central solar mass stars by accretion of PFPs. The large comets closest to the central stars must be evaporating massive planets (Jupiters) to survive measured evaporation rates of $`2\times 10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$ year-1 (Meaburn et al., 1998) for the 20,000 year age of Helix. Massive planets are formed in the accretional cascade of PFPs to form stars according to HGT. The younger (2,000 year old) planetary nebula Spirograph (IC 418) shown below shows shock wave patterns from the supersonic stellar winds but no cometary PFP candidates within its fossil turbulence accretion sphere. The extended spherical nebular shell for Helix contains $`20M_{\mathrm{}}`$ of dark PFPs, from which $`1.5\times M_{\mathrm{}}`$ has been evaporated as gas and dust (Speck et al., 2002). Evidence for bipolar beamed radiation is shown by the brighter regions of the nebula in Fig. 2 at angles 10 and 4 o’clock, and by the light to dark transition after 11:30 suggesting the bipolar beam is rotating slowly clockwise. Note that the tails of the comets are long ($`10^{15}`$ m) before 11:30 and short or nonexistent afterward. Rayleigh-Taylor instability as a mechanism to produce the globules (Capriotti, 1973) gives densities much too low. The beam appears to have started rotation at about 1 o’clock with deep penetration of the radiation on both sides, revolved once, and is observed with its bright edge at 11:30 having completed less than two revolutions to form the Helix spiral.

Figure 3 shows a Hubble Space Telescope Helix WFPC2 1996 image to the northeast in Helix where the closest comets to the center are found (O’Dell & Handron, 1996). The large cometary globules shown have size about $`10^{13}`$ m and measured atmospheric mass $`3\times 10^{25}`$ kg, with spacing $`10^{14}`$ m, as expected for gas planets with some multiple of this mass in a relic concentration corresponding to the primordial plasma density $`(31)\times 10^{17}`$ kg m-3 at the time of first structure 30,000 years after the big bang. Most of these largest cometary globules probably have larger mass planets than PFPs at their cores to have survived the 20,000 year lifetime of the Helix planetary nebula with measured mass loss rates of order $`10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$ year-1 (Meaburn et al., 1998). These are termed Jovian PFP planets (JPPs). The spacing of the cometary knots becomes closer for distances farther from the central stars, consistent with these objects having PFPs or small JPPs at their cores.

Figure 4 shows an example from the new ACS/WFPC composite images from the northern region of Helix confirming the uniform density of the cometary globules throughout the nebula, and presumably reflecting the ambient dark frozen PFPs and JPPs in the surrounding ISM. Larger JPPs are more likely to be found near the edge of the star accretional cavity, although the intervening PFPs at the edge would have evaporated.

Figure 5 shows the Eskimo planetary nebula, which is about twice the distance as Helix but is still close enough for the numerous cometary globules to be resolved. The PNe is smaller than Helix and has a central shocked region with no comets like the young Spirograph nebula shown at the bottom of Fig. 2. Gas planets with primordial plasma densities appear to be a generic feature of the ISM of this region of the Galaxy disk within a kpc of earth where PNe are resolved clearly by HST cameras.

Figure 6 shows details of the central region of the Dumbbell planetary nebula featuring numerous cometary globules and knots. The spacing of the objects is consistent with PFP and JPP planets with average mass density thousands of times the average for the Galaxy dominating the mass and species content of the ISM, and close to the primordial baryonic density of the time of first structure in the plasma epoch 30,000 years after the big bang as predicted by HGT.

## 4 Conclusions

High resolution wide angle HST/ACS images confirm and extend the previous WFPC2 HST picture of the Helix planetary nebula (O’Dell & Handron, 1996) showing thousands of mysterious, closely spaced cometary globules with atmospheric masses ($`2\times 10^{25}`$ kg) larger than Earth-mass ($`6\times 10^{24}`$ kg), comets larger than the solar system out to Pluto ($`10^{13}`$ m), and globule atmospheric densities ($`10^{14}`$ kg m-3) a thousand times greater than the atmosphere of the red giant star before its expulsion to form the planetary nebula. The standard model of planetary nebula formation (Capriotti, 1973), where Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities of a denser outer shell are triggered by collision with a high speed inner shell to form the globules, cannot account for the globules and cannot account for the large observed density and mass of the nebular gas and globules. The idea that accretional shocks can trigger gravitational instabilities (Vishniac, 1994) to achieve such densities neglects turbulence dispersion, and no mechanism exists to expel such objects from the central stars. Shocks are seen in younger PNe than Helix (Figures 2 and 5) but are not accompanied by any cometary globules.

We conclude that a better model for interpreting the observations is that provided by hydro-gravitational theory (HGT) where the brightest cometary globules are Jovian accretions of primordial-fog-particle (PFP) Mars-mass frozen H-He planets formed at the plasma to gas transition 300,000 years after the big bang (Gibson, 1996), consistent with quasar microlensing observations showing the lens galaxy mass is dominated by rogue planets “likely to be the missing mass” (Schild, 1996). From HGT and all observations, these planetary PFPs and JPPs dominate the mass and gasses of the Galaxy disk interstellar medium (ISM) and the inner halo mass of galaxies within a radius from the core of about 100 kpc. Proto-galaxies formed during the plasma epoch fragmented after transition to gas at primordial Jeans and Schwarz scales (Table 1) to form proto-globular-star-cluster (PGC) clouds of PFPs that comprise the baryonic dark matter of the ISM and the inner galaxy halo. From HST Helix images, the density of the Galaxy disk ISM is that of proto-superclusters formed 30,000 years after the big bang; that is, $`\rho 2\times 10^{17}`$ kg/$`\mathrm{m}^3`$, preserved as a hydrodynamic fossil and revealed by the $`(104)\times 10^{13}`$ m separations of the PFP candidates (cometary globules) observed in Helix that imply this density.

HST images of other nearby planetary nebula support our interpretation. Cometary globules brought out of the dark by beamed radiation from a central white dwarf and companion star appears to be a generic feature of planetary nebulae, showing that the disk ISM is dominated by small frozen accreting planets with such small separations that the mass density is that of a PGC, which is $`10^4`$ larger than that of the Galaxy.

Most of the information in this paper would not be available without the heroic work and dedication of astronaut John Mace Grunsfeld whose amazing preparation and skills exhibited during the fourth space telescope repair mission made HST/ACS images possible.


text:
# On recent puzzles in the production of heavy quarkonia

## Abstract

Recently, several surprising experimental observations in the production of heavy quarkonium have been reported. In $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV, Belle Collaboration finds that $`J/\psi `$ mesons are predominantly produced in association with an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair, with $`\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)=0.59_{0.13}^{+0.15}\pm 0.12`$, and the BaBar collaboration reports that the produced $`J/\psi `$’s have mostly longitudinal polarization. In $`\overline{p}p`$ collisions at the Tevatron, the CDF Collaboration reported an excess of $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ mesons at high $`p_{}`$ over the perturbative QCD predictions; non–perturbative approach of NRQCD can accomodate the magnitude of the production cross section but not the observed experimentally polarization of quarkonia. In this note we propose possible solutions to these puzzles, and devise further experimental tests.

Experimental and theoretical investigations of heavy quarkonium have been very important in establishing QCD as a true theory of strong interactions. The properties of charmonium and bottomonium states have been found in qualitative and in some cases quantitative agreement with theoretical expectations based on QCD. Nevertheless, since many important non–perturbative problems, including confinement and the spontaneous violation of chiral symmetry, are still not solved, one may expect that a closer look at the properties and the production of quarkonium states will help in elucidating the interplay of short and long distances in this theory. This is why new experimental results on quarkonium production always attract much interest and attention.

Recently, Belle Collaboration reported the measurement of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV . It was found that the cross section of $`J/\psi `$ production significantly exceeds theoretical expectations based on the Color Singlet Model (CSM)  and non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) . Even more surprisingly, it was found that most of the observed $`J/\psi `$’s were accompanied by an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair, with $`\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)=0.59_{0.13}^{+0.15}\pm 0.12`$. This ratio exceeds the existing theoretical predictions by about an order of magnitude. The problem has recently attracted attention of many theorists – see, e.g. .

At first glance, it seems impossible to understand this result within the framework of QCD, where the production of an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair should be suppressed both by the large mass of the heavy quarks and by extra powers of the strong coupling constant $`\alpha _s`$. However, this conclusion may be premature. To explain our point, let us consider the diagrams of $`J/\psi `$ production in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation.

There are three types of such diagrams. In the diagrams of the first type (Fig.1a) $`J/\psi `$ is formed by the fusion of $`\overline{c}c`$ pair produced by the initial virtual photon. This means that $`\overline{c}c`$ quarks, which initially were moving in the opposite directions, turn around and have almost equal and parallel momenta in the final state (up to the terms $`r_{J/\psi }E_{J/\psi }/M_{J/\psi }`$, where $`r_{J/\psi }`$ and $`E_{J/\psi }`$ are the radius and the energy of $`J/\psi `$). The momentum conservation is ensured by the radiated gluons which may produce light ($`q=u,d,s`$) $`\overline{q}q`$ or charmed $`\overline{c}c`$ pairs. The diagrams of the second type (Fig.1b) correspond to the fragmentation of $`c`$ (or $`\overline{c}`$) into $`J/\psi `$. This process requires the production of an additional $`\overline{c}c`$ pair by emission of at least one gluon by initial $`c`$ or $`\overline{c}`$. Finally, the third type of processes are described by the diagrams in which the initial virtual photon creates a pair of light quarks and the $`J/\psi `$ is formed from the $`\overline{c}c`$ pair produced by an exchange of gluons (Fig.1c). Evidently, the diagram of Fig.1c is suppressed in comparison to diagrams of Figs.1a,1b by a factor of $`\alpha _s(m_c)`$ and will be disregarded in what follows.

On general grounds one may expect that the diagrams of Fig.1b dominate at very high energies of the colliding $`e^+e^{}`$, when the ladder of $`\overline{c}c`$ pairs is formed and the process may be described by Regge theory (such process was considered by Kaidalov ). It is easy to estimate the energies starting from which one may expect the dominance of the diagrams of Fig.1b. Let $`p_c`$ be the momentum of the $`c`$quark (in the $`e^+e^{}`$ c.m. system) fragmenting into $`J/\psi `$ (see Fig.2). Then the minimal value of the recoil momentum $`q`$, corresponding to the forward production, is equal to

$`q{\displaystyle \frac{M_{J/\psi }^2m_c^2}{2p_c}}.`$ (1)
By requiring $`q`$ to be at least as small as $`q0.5`$ GeV (typical for Regge asymptotics), we get $`p_c>10`$ GeV, i.e. $`\sqrt{s}>20`$ GeV. In fact one may expect that the energy should be $`\sqrt{s}>50`$ GeV.

Fig.1a dominates at low and intermediate $`\sqrt{s}`$. Our main interest here will be concentrated on the qualitative and semi–quantitative consideration of its contribution at intermediate $`\sqrt{s}10`$ GeV where the measurements of Belle and BaBar were done.

We will use the well–established notion of duality between the quark–antiquark continuum of pQCD and the spectrum of physical bound states, and assume that in order to produce the $`J/\psi `$ (or any bound charmonium state in general) the integral over the invariant mass $`\sqrt{s_c}`$ of the $`\overline{c}c`$ pair in the diagrams of Fig.1 should be restricted to small values corresponding to the typical velocity of charm quark in the $`J/\psi `$ wave function, $`v_\psi 0.45`$. Using $`v=\sqrt{14m_c^2/s_c}`$, and the pole mass of the charm quark $`m_c1.3`$ GeV, one finds that this corresponds to the invariant mass $`\sqrt{s_c}=2m_c/(1v_\psi ^2)^{1/2}M_{J/\psi }`$.

This means that the invariant mass of the hadron system produced in association with $`J/\psi `$ in the $`e^+e^{}J/\psi X`$ process at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV can be quite large. Belle Collaboration  measured the distribution of events as a function of the mass of the system recoiling against the $`J/\psi `$. The recoil mass was defined as

$`M_{recoil}=\sqrt{(\sqrt{s}E_{J/\psi }^{})^2p_{J/\psi }^2}`$ (2)
where $`E_{J/\psi }^{}`$ and $`p_{J/\psi }^{}`$ are the energy and momentum of $`J/\psi `$ in the c.m. frame. It was found that $`M_{recoil}`$ concentrates in the domain $`M_{recoil}5`$ GeV, with almost no events below $`2.8`$ GeV .

We note that this invariant mass is sufficiently larger than the threshold for the production of an additional $`\overline{c}c`$ pair. Let us now estimate the relative probabilities of the associated with $`J/\psi `$ production of heavy and light quark–antiquark pairs.

As the recoiling invariant mass available for the extra quark pair production is large, $`M_{recoil}5`$ GeV, let us, in the first rough approximation, treat $`c`$ quarks as massless. Since three different flavors $`(q=u,d,s)`$ of light quark pairs can be produced, in perturbation theory one should sum over them incoherently, and we expect $`\sigma (J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (J/\psi X)1/4`$ for $`X=\overline{c}c+\overline{q}q`$. Non-perturbative effects, however, can induce correlations in the production of quark pairs. In this case, since the $`\overline{q}q`$ pairs are produced by gluons, the wave function of the light quark state $`X_{light}`$ has to be an $`SU(3)`$ singlet:

$`|X_{light}={\displaystyle \frac{|\overline{u}u+\overline{d}d+\overline{s}s}{\sqrt{3}}}.`$ (3)
Therefore, light and charm quarks should be produced in association with the $`J/\psi `$ with equal probabilities, and we find

$$R=\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)=$$

$$\frac{|e^+e^{}|J/\psi \overline{c}c|^2}{|e^+e^{}|J/\psi \overline{c}c|^2+\frac{1}{3}|e^+e^{}|J/\psi \overline{u}u+\overline{d}d+\overline{s}s|^2}$$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1O\left({\displaystyle \frac{4m_c^2}{M_{recoil}^2}}\right)\right],`$ (4)
The result (4) corresponds to the assumption of maximal coherence in the production of light quarks. Under the opposite assumption of completely incoherent production of light flavors we would have $`R1/4`$. Basing on the data  $`M_{recoil}`$ may be estimated as $`M_{recoil}5.5`$ GeV and $`4m_c^2/M_{recoil}^20.2`$. Therefore, we estimate $`m_c`$ corrections in (4) as $`O(4m_c^2/M_{recoil}^2)0.2`$ and our expectation for $`R`$ is

$`R0.4`$ (5)
which is not far from the Belle result.

Theoretically the suppression of the spectrum at $`M_{recoil}<3`$ GeV may be understood if we account for the fact that the two gluon state recoiling against $`J/\psi `$ is a scalar; because of the scale anomaly in this channel, there are strong nonperturbative effects resulting in the high mass of the produced gluonic states.

In addition to the diagram of Fig.1a, at sufficiently large $`\sqrt{s}`$ one should also consider the diagram of charm quark fragmentation, see Fig.1b. This diagram always produces an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair in association with the $`J/\psi `$, giving the ratio (4) equal to unity, and the admixture of the heavy quark fragmentation will thus increase our estimate for the ratio (4).

Let us now turn to the discussion of $`J/\psi `$ polarization. Since the photon in $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation is mostly transverse, it has helicity $`\lambda =\pm 1`$. Therefore the $`\overline{c}c`$ produced by the photon should have opposite helicities of $`\lambda _c=+1/2,\lambda _{\overline{c}}=1/2`$ or $`\lambda _c=1/2,\lambda _{\overline{c}}=+1/2`$. Initially, heavy quark and antiquark move in the opposite directions in the center of mass system of $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation with the velocities $`v=\sqrt{14m_c^2/s}`$ which are close to $`v1`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV. However, to become bound in the $`J/\psi `$ (or any other bound state of charmonium), at least one of the quarks has to change the direction of its momentum by radiating gluons (and extra quark–antiquark pair(s)) since the relative velocity of heavy quarks in a bound state should be small. Since the coupling of quarks to gluons $`\overline{q}\gamma _\mu qA_\mu `$ in QCD conserves the helicity of the quark, a change in the direction of its momentum should be acoompanied by the spin flip. We thus come to the conclusion that in the case of $`J/\psi `$ produced at high momentum, the total spin of $`J/\psi `$ should have zero projection on its direction of motion, which corresponds to the longitudinal polarization.

This is in agreement with the experimental result of the BaBar Collaboration, which states that the angular distribution of positively charged lepton decay product with respect to the direction of $`J/\psi `$ measured in the CM frame is $`W(\theta )1+\alpha cos^2\theta `$ with $`\alpha =0.46\pm 0.21`$ for CM momentum $`p^{}<3.5`$ GeV, and $`\alpha =0.80\pm 0.09`$ for CM momentum $`p^{}>3.5`$ GeV. (In this distribution, $`\alpha =1`$ corresponds to longitudinal polarization, $`\alpha =+1`$ to transverse, and $`\alpha =0`$ indicates no polarization).

Let us discuss now the case of very high $`\sqrt{s}>50`$ GeV, when the dominant process of $`J/\psi `$ production is the $`c(\overline{c})`$ quark fragmentation, see Fig.1b. It is evident that in this case any produced $`J/\psi `$ is acompanied by an extra $`\overline{c}c`$ pair, and therefore the ratio

$$\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi \overline{c}c)/\sigma (e^+e^{}J/\psi X)1.$$

As is clear from Fig.1b one of the $`c`$ quarks has helicity, say, $`\lambda =+1/2`$; the helicity of the other quark created from the vacuum is uniformly distributed. Therefore the mean value of $`\alpha `$ is equal to zero (it is easy to see that the cases of $`\alpha =+1`$ and $`\alpha =1`$ have equal probabilities), and the produced $`J/\psi `$ is unpolarized.

These two observations show that the fragmentation mechanism cannot describe the data ,  at $`\sqrt{s}=10.6`$ GeV, in agreement with our expectations.

A similar mechanism can be expected to work in $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ production at high $`p_{}`$. Indeed, the dominant mechanism of $`\overline{c}c`$ production in this kinematical region is the gluon fragmentation  ; at high $`p_{}2m_c`$ we may assume that the gluon is almost on shell and thus is transversely polarized. Apart from the overall color charge, the process thus becomes analogous to the $`e^+e^{}`$ annihilation that we considered above, and we expect that the same conclusion about the longitudinal polarization of $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ should hold there as well. We thus predict that the polarization of $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$, as well as of bottomonium states, will become increasingly longitudinal with the increase of $`p_{}`$. This observation seems to be consistent with the CDF data , but better statistics and a larger range in $`p_{}`$ would be needed to establish this conclusively. Recently it was suggested that the fragmentation of charm quarks can dominate the production of $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi ^{}`$ at $`p_{}`$ ; if this is the case, then as we argued earlier, no polarization should be present at high $`p_t`$.

B.I. is thankful to Larry McLerran for the hospitality at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where this work was done. The work of B.I. was supported in part by INTAS Grant 2000–587 and RFBR Grant 03–02–16209. D.K. is grateful to Maurice Goldhaber for stimulating discussions. The research of D.K. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886.


text:
# Radio structure of the most distant radio-detected quasar at the ten milli-arcsecond scale

## 1 Introduction

The object SDSSp J083643.85+005453.3 (hereafter: SDSS 0836+0054) is the highest redshift radio-detected quasar known to date ($`z=5.82`$) discovered using multicolor imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) (Fan et al., 2001). The object is one of the seven $`z>5.7`$ quasars known. Six of them form a complete colour-selected flux-limited sample from an area of 2870 deg2 (Fan et al., 2003). The quasar SDSS 0836+0054 was identified with an unresolved radio source within $`1\mathrm{}`$ in the VLA FIRST survey (White et al., 1997)111http://sundog.stsci.edu, where the source total flux density was $`1.11\pm 0.15`$ mJy at 1.4 GHz (21 cm wavelength). The total flux density in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS, Condon et al., 1998)222http://www.cv.nrao.edu/nvss was $`2.5\pm 0.5`$ mJy at the same frequency.

According to the recent studies (e.g. Barkana, 2002, and references therein), $`z6`$ is close to the reionization epoch of the Universe. In the optical spectrum of SDSS 0836+0054, however, the Gunn–Peterson effect is not seen. There is detectable emission blueward of the Ly$`\alpha `$ line, i.e. the intergalactic medium is already highly ionized at $`z5.8`$ along this line of sight (Fan et al., 2001).

The estimated mass of the central black hole in SDSS 0836+0054 is $`4.8\times 10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$, assuming that the quasar is emitting at the Eddington luminosity and its apparent flux is not significantly magnified by beaming or gravitational lensing (Fan et al., 2001). There are, however, indications that the latter assumptions may not be correct. Simulations show that up to one third of $`z6`$ quasars may be magnified due to gravitational lensing by a factor of ten or more. Therefore their black hole masses are overestimated by the same factor (Wyithe & Loeb, 2002a, b). The probability estimations strongly depend on the quasar luminosity function used. Considering a wider range of possible luminosity functions, Comerford et al. (2002) conclude that present data allow lensing probability of essentially 100%. In turn, the luminosity function can be constrained using the detections or absence of lensing events with multiple images of $`z6`$ quasars.

Black hole mass values of $`z6`$ quasars have great importance for hierarchical structure formation models in the early Universe, placing important constraints on parameters such as the seed mass, velocity dispersion, radiative efficiency and accretion luminosity. The time needed for a supermassive $`10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$ black hole to grow from a stellar-mass seed may be comparable to the age of the Universe at this redshift (Haiman & Loeb, 2001).

The first four $`z>5.7`$ SDSS quasars (Fan et al., 2001) including SDSS 0836+0054 are detected in X-rays (Brandt et al., 2002). Short exploratory Chandra observations revealed that SDSS 0836+0054 is consistent with a point-like X-ray source (Brandt et al., 2002; Mathur et al., 2002; Schwartz, 2002; Bechtold et al., 2003). Its position agrees with the optical position within the astrometric precision of Chandra ($`1\mathrm{}`$). Based on the limited data available, the broad-band X-ray and optical properties of the extremely distant quasars are apparently similar to those of lower redshift ones, implying no strong evolution out to $`z6`$ (Mathur et al., 2002). On the contrary, Bechtold et al. (2003) found that high-redshift quasars are significantly more X-ray quiet than their low-redshift counterparts.

Any indication of a milli-arcsecond scale “core–jet” radio structure revealed by Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) could be considered as a strong support for the existence of a supermassive black hole powering SDSS 0836+0054. These structures are common in radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the broadest range of redshifts from $`z0.01`$ to $`z4`$ (e.g. Paragi et al., 1999; Fomalont et al., 2000). According to the AGN paradigm, the radio emission originates from incoherent synchrotron emission in compact (parsec-scale) jets in the close vicinity of the central black hole.

Here we describe a 1.6-GHz European VLBI Network (EVN) observation of SDSS 0836+0054 and present the high resolution radio image of the quasar. Based on our phase-reference VLBI observation, we derive the accurate astrometric position of the object. We conclude that the image of the quasar is unlikely to be split by gravitational lensing. Throughout this letter, we adopt a flat cosmological model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$ and $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. In this model, 1 milli-arcsecond (mas) angular separation corresponds to a linear separation of 6.25 pc at the distance of SDSS 0836+0054.

## 2 Observation and data reduction

We used ten antennas of the EVN to observe SDSS 0836+0054 at 1.6 GHz (18 cm wavelength) in phase-reference mode. The radio telescopes and their parameters are listed in Table 1. Due to the redshift, the observing frequency corresponds to 11 GHz in the rest frame of the source.

Phase-referencing is a technique of extending the signal coherence time in order to increase the sensitivity of the VLBI array. This is done by regularly interleaving observations between the weak target source and a nearby strong reference source. Delay, delay rate and phase solutions obtained for the phase-reference calibrator are interpolated and applied for the target source, thus removing most of the phase errors introduced by geometric, ionospheric, atmospheric and instrumental effects (e.g. Beasley & Conway, 1995). The ability of the EVN to detect weak (sub-mJy), compact radio sources has been demonstrated recently (e.g. Garrett et al., 2001; Garrington et al., 2001).

The observation of SDSS 0836+0054 took place on 2002 June 8. We selected PKS 0837+012 (J0839+0104; $`z=1.123`$, Owen et al., 1995) as the phase-reference calibrator. The angular separation between the target and the reference source is $`0.8\mathrm{°}`$. The ICRF coordinates of PKS 0837+012 are available from the VLBA Calibrator Survey333http://magnolia.nrao.edu/vlba\_calib (Beasley et al., 2002), with an accuracy of 0.35 and 0.58 mas in right ascension and declination, respectively. In principle it allows us to make a precise determination of the poorly known position of SDSS 0836+0054 through differential astrometry inherently provided by the phase-referencing technique. The source J0825+0309 was used as a fringe-finder.

At the frequency of 1.6 GHz, variations in the ionospheric electron column density dominate the propagation effects affecting the quality of phase transfer between the target and calibrator sources. These variations have static and dynamic components, both spatial and temporal, which limit the maximum achievable dynamic range ($`D`$) of VLBI phase-referencing. According to Beasley & Conway (1995), the upper limit of $`D`$ is given by $`D30\nu \theta ^1(\mathrm{\Delta }I)^1`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }I`$ is peak daily residual total electron content (TEC, in units of $`10^{17}`$ m-2), $`\nu `$ is the observing frequency in GHz, $`\theta `$ is the angular distance between the target and reference sources (in degrees). Our observation took place relatively close after the peak of the solar cycle. Considering the worst case of the maximum TEC as $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=5\times 10^{17}`$ m-2 (which corresponds to the solar maximum daytime value, Beasley & Conway, 1995), the conservative estimate of the maximum achievable dynamic range is $`D12`$. The dynamic component is caused essentially by medium-scale travelling ionosphere disturbances (MSTIDs). These are time-variable and highly unpredictable. MSTIDs are known to vary on the time scale of tens of minutes to hours and linear scale of hundreds of kilometres (e.g. van Velthoven & Spoelstra, 1992). At the maximum, which normally lasts for up to 5% in time, the amplitude of MSTIDs could worsen the upper limit of the achievable dynamic range by a factor of $`2`$ at our target–reference separation comparing to the worst case of static component (e.g. Conway & Vermeulen, 1993). By splitting up the data set into four equal time intervals, we did not notice any significant difference between our results on this time scale.

The total observing time was 5 hours with dual circular polarization at all antennas but Sheshan where only left circular polarization was observed. The data were recorded with the Mark IV VLBI data acquisition system at the rate of 256 Mbit/s per station with 2-bit sampling, resulting in 64 MHz total bandwidth. The correlation took place at the EVN Data Processor at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE), Dwingeloo, The Netherlands.

We used 5-min switching cycles between SDSS 0836+0054 and the phase-reference calibrator quasar J0839+0104. The target source was observed for $`210`$-s intervals in each cycle. The total on-source time for SDSS 0836+0054 was 2.9 hours. The achievable 1-$`\sigma `$ image noise was estimated to be 27 $`\mu `$Jy/beam.

The NRAO AIPS package (e.g. Diamond, 1995) was used for initial data calibration and imaging. A priori calibration of visibility amplitudes was done using measured system temperatures for all antennas. The data for the calibrator and fringe-finder sources (J0839+0104 and J0825+0309, respectively) were fringe-fitted in AIPS using 3-min solution intervals. The solutions were interpolated and applied to the data of SDSS 0836+0054 as well. We then imaged the phase-reference calibrator source with the conventional self-calibration and CLEAN technique (e.g. Walker, 1995) using the AIPS tasks CALIB and IMAGR. The images obtained with two different data weighting schemes are shown in Fig. 1.

In the uniform weighting scheme, the weights associated with the data points are inversely proportional to the local density of visibility data, i.e. the longer projected baselines are generally overweighted. As a result, the angular resolution becomes relatively high but the image noise level increases. On the other hand, natural weighting minimizes the image noise by associating weights proportional to the power of $`2`$ of the RMS noise with each data point.

The residual amplitude and phase corrections derived during the hybrid mapping of the reference source using natural weighting were also applied to the data of the target quasar. The naturally weighted image of SDSS 0836+0054 after one cycle of CLEAN iterations is shown in Fig. 2. The measured off-source RMS noise in the image is 34 $`\mu `$Jy/beam, close to the theoretical value.

## 3 Results and discussion

The quasar SDSS 0836+0054 is clearly detected with VLBI and appears somewhat resolved at a linear resolution of $`70`$ pc (Fig. 2). However, the apparent structural extension may be due to the remaining residual phase errors after phase-reference calibration.

As seen in Fig. 2, the position of SDSS 0836+0054 differs from the optical position reported by Fan et al. (2001), but is within the given error of 200 mas in both right ascension and declination. The optical position was used in the correlation of our VLBI data as the phase center. Also within the errors, the coordinates are consistent with the values taken from the VLA FIRST survey. Our values $`\alpha _{\mathrm{J2000}}=8^\mathrm{h}36^\mathrm{m}43\stackrel{s}{.}8606`$ and $`\delta _{\mathrm{J2000}}=0\mathrm{°}54\mathrm{}53\stackrel{}{.}232`$ are determined with respect to the accurately known position of the phase-reference calibrator J0839+0104.

However, the differential astrometry is complicated by the fact that the structure of our reference source, J0839+0104, is rather complex. As seen in Fig. 1b, there is a low surface brightness extended feature to the SW of the brightest component. A similar structure in terms of position angle is seen in snapshot VLBA images taken at higher frequencies (2.3 and 8.4 GHz) in the VLBA Calibrator Survey (Beasley et al., 2002). With a higher E-W resolution (uniform weighting, Fig. 1a), the “core” splits into two distinct components 6.6 mas apart. Supposing that the jet is one-sided, we suspect that the true flat-spectrum VLBI core of the quasar is the eastern one which is weaker at 1.6 GHz. Most likely this is the reference point of which the accurate coordinates are determined using 8.4-GHz VLBI observations. On the other hand, the brightest feature in our image may well be a steep-spectrum jet component which appears stronger than the core at this lower frequency. It could not be excluded, however, that the brightest component in Fig. 1a coincides with the core. This remains to be checked with high-resolution VLBI imaging of J0839+0104 at frequencies higher than 1.6 GHz.

Since the brightest component of the reference source, which is presumably not identical with the radio core, is in the phase center of our image, the relative position determination of the target source may be corrupted by a systematic error. Therefore we give a conservative error estimate of 8 mas for the position of SDSS 0836+0054. This reflects the uncertainty in the identification of the reference point in the radio image of the phase-reference calibrator source J0839+0104.

We searched for possible multiple images of SDSS 0836+0054 that might have been caused by gravitational lensing. To this end, we investigated a large ($`4\mathrm{}\times 4\mathrm{}`$) field of view centered around the a priori position of SDSS 0836+0054. To avoid distortion of the field of view due to frequency-average smearing, we averaged our data over only 8-MHz channels for imaging. We used the correlator output averaging time of 4 s which did not limit our field of view. No source of compact radio emission has been detected at the brightness level of $`100`$ $`\mu `$Jy/beam (3 times the image noise), apart from what is seen in Fig. 2. Moreover, the total flux density in the CLEAN component model corresponding to the naturally weighted image of SDSS 0836+0054 (Fig. 2) is 1.1 mJy. This is equal to the flux density in the VLA FIRST survey. Although the source total flux density recently measured with the VLA at 1.4 GHz is 1.76 mJy (A. Petric et al., in preperation), the difference may be attributed to source variability and, to a lesser extent, amplitude calibration uncertainties in our VLBI data as well.

Our result suggests that most if not all of the radio emission of SDSS 0836+0054 is confined to a single compact object within an angular extent of $`10`$ mas. Thus we can conclude that the quasar is not multiply imaged by gravitational lensing at the level of brightness ratio $`7`$. Outside of our field of view, there are no indications of multiple images neither in the VLA FIRST and NVSS surveys, nor in the Chandra X-ray image (e.g. Schwartz, 2002). Most recently, Fan et al. (2003) found that the high resolution ($`0\stackrel{}{.}1`$) HST optical image of SDSS 0836+0054 is consistent with an unresolved point source. However, it does not exclude the possibility that its flux is magnified by a factor of up to $`2`$ (Wyithe & Loeb, 2002b). Note that, based on the size of the ioinized region around another SDSS quasar at $`z=6.28`$, Haiman & Cen (2002) place an upper limit of 5 for the magnification factor in that case.

Using the two-point radio spectral index of $`\alpha =0.9`$ (based on VLA total flux density measurements at 1.4 and 5 GHz, A. Petric et al., in preperation; $`S\nu ^\alpha `$, where $`S`$ is the flux density and $`\nu `$ is the frequency), the luminosity of SDSS 0836+0054 at 5 GHz (rest frame) is $`L_5=1.1\times 10^{25}`$ W Hz-1 sr-1. Together with the estimated black hole mass of $`M_{\mathrm{bh}}=4.8\times 10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$ (Fan et al., 2001), this value is consistent with the $`L_5M_{\mathrm{bh}}^{2.5}`$ relation found for radio quasars at $`z1`$ (Jarvis & McLure, 2002, and references therein).

## 4 Conclusions

SDSS 0836+0054, the most distant ($`z=5.82`$) radio-emitting quasar known to date, is clearly detected with VLBI observations at 1.6 GHz using the EVN. A VLBI image with a dynamic range of 10:1 is made (Fig. 2). The radio structure of the quasar at $`10`$-mas angular resolution is characterized by a compact component. Using phase-reference observations to a nearby calibrator, we derived the most accurate astrometric position of SDSS 0836+0054 available at present. The accuracy of the coordinates is limited by the complex radio structure of the calibrator quasar PKS 0837+012, which we imaged for the first time at 1.6 GHz. The extremely distant quasar SDSS 0836+0054 is unlikely to be multiply imaged by gravitational lensing. Magnification of its flux due to gravitational lensing or relativistic beaming cannot be ruled out.

## Acknowledgments

We thank Chris Carilli for informing us about the results of their VLA observations, and the anonymous referee for useful suggestions. The European VLBI Network is a joint facility of European, Chinese and South African radio astronomy institutes funded by their national research councils. SF, LM and ZP acknowledge partial financial support received from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) (grant no. N31721 & T031723). This research was supported by the European Commission’s IHP Programme “Access to Large-scale Facilities”, under contract No. HPRI-CT-1999-00045. We acknowledge the support of the European Union - Access to Research Infrastructure action of the Improving Human Potential Programme. SF and LM acknowledge the hospitality and support of JIVE personnel during the scheduling of the observations, and the data correlation and analysis. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.