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# Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter

## Abstract

Fluctuations of the color superconducting order parameter in dense quark matter at finite temperatures are investigated in terms of the phenomenological Ginzburg - Landau approach. Our estimates show that fluctuations of the di-quark gap may strongly affect some of thermodynamic quantities even far below and above the critical temperature. If the critical temperature of the di-quark phase transition were rather high one could expect a manifestation of fluctuations of the di-quark gap in the course of heavy ion collisions.

1Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung mbH, Planckstr. 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
2Moscow Institute for Physics and Engineering, Kashirskoe sh. 31, Moscow 115409, Russia

PACS number(s): 11.15.Ex, 12.38.Aw, 12.38.Mh, 25.75.-q, 74.40.+k

keywords: color superconductivity, order parameter, temperature, fluctuations

The quark-quark interaction in the color antitriplet channel is attractive driving the pairing, cf. . The problem has been re-investigated in a series of papers following Refs. , see review  and Refs therein. The attraction comes from the one-gluon exchange, or from a nonperturbative 4-point interaction motivated by instantons  or nonperturbative gluon propagators . The zero-temperature pairing gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ was predicted to be $`(20÷200)`$ MeV for the quark chemical potentials $`\mu _q(350÷500)`$ MeV. The critical temperature can be estimated as $`T_c0.56\mathrm{\Delta }`$, as in the standard BCS theory, cf. .

One expects the di-quark condensate to dominate the physics at densities beyond the deconfinement/chiral restoration transition and below the critical temperature. Various phases are possible. E.g., the so called 2-color superconductivity (2SC) phase allows for unpaired quarks of one color. There may also exist a color-flavor locked (CFL) phase  for not too large strange quark masses , where the color superconductivity (CSC) is complete in the sense that the di-quark condensation produces a gap for quarks of all three colors and flavors. The value of the gap is of the same order of magnitude, as that in the two-flavor case.

The high-density phases of QCD at low temperatures may exist in interiors of most massive neutron stars affecting the cooling, rotation and magnetic field, cf. . It is also possible to ask whether CSC is relevant for the terrestrial experiments? To produce a color superconducting matter in the laboratory one would need to cook a dense and not too hot baryon enriched matter. The nuclear matter prepared in heavy ion collisions at SIS100, AGS, SPS or RHIC in all the cases has presumably not sufficiently high baryon density and, on the other hand, the matter prepared at SPS or RHIC is feasibly too hot in order to expect a manifestation of the CSC. The most relevant is probably the GSI “Compressed baryon matter” heavy ion collision facility which may cook enough dense and not too hot quark-gluon matter. The baryon densities up to ten normal nuclear matter density ($`\stackrel{<}{_{}}10\rho _0`$) at temperatures $`T\stackrel{<}{_{}}170`$ MeV are expected to be reached at an initial collision stage. It is supposed that the system is in the quark-gluon plasma state at such conditions. Then the system expands and cools down. In this process the temperature decreases up to $`T140`$ MeV at still rather high baryon density at an intermediate collision stage. Although the temperatures at relevant densities are most likely larger than the critical temperature $`T_c`$ of CSC, one may rise the question on a possible manifestation of the precursor phenomena of the CSC phase transition, if $`T_c`$ is rather high ($`T_c\stackrel{>}{_{}}(50÷70)`$ MeV). Recently, ref.  considered such a possibility within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model and demonstrated that the fluctuating pair field results in a prominent peak of the spectral function, which survives in the temperature interval $`|TT_c|\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.2T_c`$. Besides, it is interesting to investigate the role of the order parameter fluctuations for $`T<T_c`$, if $`T_c`$ is rather low ($`T_c\stackrel{<}{_{}}(30÷50)`$ MeV), that may affect the neutrino radiation of the most massive hot neutron stars at an initial stage of their evolution.

In this Letter we will study precursor phenomena of the CSC in the framework of the phenomenological Ginzburg - Landau approach. To be specific, we will consider condensates with total angular momentum $`J=0`$ that are antisymmetric in color and flavor. Such pairing states can occur in the weak coupling limit because one-gluon exchange is attractive in the color anti-triplet channel.

The Fourier component of the density of the thermodynamic potential (thermodynamic potential per unit volume $`V`$) in the superconducting quark matter with the di-quark pairing can be written in the following form , cf. ,

$`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_n+{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,i}{}}(c_0|_\tau d_\alpha ^i|^2+c|d_\alpha ^i|^2)+aD+{\displaystyle \frac{b}{2}}D^2,`$ (1)
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,i}{}}|d_\alpha ^i|^2,\gamma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{D^2}}{\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,\beta ,i}{}}|d_\alpha ^{i,}d_\beta ^i|^2,b=b_1+\gamma b_2.`$
The Greek indices $`\alpha ,\beta =\{R,B,G\}`$ count colors, the Latin indices $`i=\{u,d,s\}`$ count flavors. The expansion is presented up to the fourth order in the di-quark field operators (related to the gap) assuming the second order phase transition, although at zero temperature the transition might be of the first order, cf. . $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_n`$ is the density of the thermodynamic potential of the normal state. The order parameter squared is $`D=|\stackrel{}{d}_{\mathrm{IS}}|^2=|\stackrel{}{d}_R|^2+|\stackrel{}{d}_G|^2+|\stackrel{}{d}_B|^2`$, $`\stackrel{}{d}_R\stackrel{}{d}_G\stackrel{}{d}_B`$ for the isoscalar phase (IS), and $`D=3|\stackrel{}{d}_{\mathrm{CFL}}|^2`$, $`|\stackrel{}{d}_R|^2=|\stackrel{}{d}_G|^2=|\stackrel{}{d}_B|^2=|\stackrel{}{d}_{\mathrm{CFL}}|^2`$, $`\stackrel{}{d}_R^{}\stackrel{}{d}_G=\stackrel{}{d}_G^{}\stackrel{}{d}_B=\stackrel{}{d}_B^{}\stackrel{}{d}_R=0`$ for the CFL phase, $`\stackrel{}{d}_\alpha =\{d_\alpha ^u,d_\alpha ^d,d_\alpha ^s\}`$. The so called 2SC phase is the IS phase with unpaired quarks of one color (to say $`R`$). The interaction of the di-quark field with fluctuative gluon fields is usually introduced in the standard way through the corresponding gauge-shifted derivatives. Recent paper  demonstrated that the gluon fluctuations contribute essentially to thermodynamic quantities only at temperatures in a narrow vicinity of the critical temperature, $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T_c\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.1`$ for relevant values of parameters. In this small temperature interval, $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$, gluon field fluctuations change the nature of the phase transition (from the second to the first order). However the value $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ is much less than the temperature region where fluctuations of the di-quark order parameter might be important, as we will show below. Thereby in the latter discussion we suppress the gluon fields as well as the discussion of any peculiarities of this narrow temperature region near $`T_c`$.

Near the critical point coefficients of (1) can be expanded in $`t=(TT_c)/T_c`$. In the weak coupling limit they render:

$`a`$ $`=`$ $`a_0\text{ln}(T/T_c)a_0t,a_0={\displaystyle \frac{2\mu _q^2}{\pi ^2}},b_1=b_2=b/(1+\gamma )={\displaystyle \frac{7\zeta (3)\mu _q^2}{8\pi ^4T_c^2}},`$
$`c`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{b}{3(1+\gamma )}},c_0=3c.`$ (2)
For the classical (mean) fields $`\gamma =1`$ in the IS phase and $`\gamma =1/3`$ in the CFL phase, cf. , $`\mu _q=\mu _B/3`$, $`\mu _B`$ is the baryon chemical potential (the contribution of the strange quark mass is neglected), $`\zeta (3)=1.202\mathrm{}`$ The critical temperature $`T_c`$ is the same for the IS and the CFL phases for $`m_s0`$. For $`m_s0`$, $`T_c`$ would depend on $`m_s`$ that would result in a smaller $`T_c`$ for the CFL phase than for the IS phase.

The value of the order parameter follows by solving the equation of motion for the field operators, $`\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}/\delta d_\alpha ^i=0:`$

$`c_0_\tau ^2d_\alpha ^i+c\mathrm{\Delta }d_\alpha ^iad_\alpha ^ibDd_\alpha ^i=0.`$ (3)
The stationary, spatially-homogeneous mean field solution of (3) (without taking into account of fluctuations) is

$`D_{\mathrm{MF}}=a\mathrm{\Theta }(t)/b,\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{MF}}={\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{2b}}\mathrm{\Theta }(t),`$ (4)
where the step function $`\mathrm{\Theta }(t)=1`$ for $`t<0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(t)=0`$ for $`t>0`$.

To be specific, discussing $`T<T_c`$ we further consider the CFL case. For the finite system of a large spherical size $`R\xi `$, with $`\xi `$ having the meaning of the coherence length, we obtain

$`d_{\alpha ,\mathrm{MF}}^i=\pm {\displaystyle \frac{\delta _\alpha ^i}{(N_cN_f)^{1/4}}}\sqrt{D_{\mathrm{MF}}}\mathrm{\Theta }(t)\text{th}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{(Rr)}{\sqrt{2}\xi }}\right],\xi =\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{c}{|a|}}},`$ (5)
where $`N_c=3`$ is the number of colors, $`N_f=3`$ is the number of flavors and to be specific we assumed the simplest structure $`d_{\alpha ,\mathrm{MF}}^i\delta _\alpha ^i`$.

Now we will consider fluctuations. Below $`T_c`$ we present $`d_\alpha ^i`$, as $`d_\alpha ^i=d_{\alpha ,c}^i+d_\alpha ^{i,}`$, and above $`T_c`$, as $`d_\alpha ^i=d_\alpha ^{i,}`$, where index ”c” labels the classical solution.

Since $`\delta \stackrel{~}{F}(V,T)=\delta \stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Omega }}(\mu ,T),`$ cf. , the density of the free energy of the CFL phase expanded in $`(d_\alpha ^{i,})^2`$ terms renders

$`\delta \stackrel{~}{F}`$ $`=`$ $`\delta \stackrel{~}{F}_c+\delta \stackrel{~}{F}^{}={\displaystyle \underset{\alpha ,i}{}}(c_0|_\tau d_{\alpha ,c}^i|^2+c|d_{\alpha ,c}^i|^2)+aD_c+{\displaystyle \frac{b_1+b_2/3}{2}}D_c^2`$ (6)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}(b_1+b_2/3)D_cN_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2+N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left(c_0\omega ^2+c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+a\right)|\varphi _k^{}|^2`$
$`+`$ $`\nu _H{\displaystyle \frac{b_1+b_2}{2}}[N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2]^2.`$
The last term is introduced within the self-consistent Hartree approximation (within the $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ functional up to one vertex), $`\nu _H=10/9`$ accounts different coefficients in $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ functional for the self-interaction terms ($`d^4`$ \- for the given field $`d`$ and $`(d_\alpha ^i)^2(d_\beta ^j)^2`$ terms), cf . We presented $`d_\alpha ^{i,}=_kd_{\alpha ,k}^{i,}e^{ik^\mu x_\mu }`$, $`k^\mu =(\omega ,\stackrel{}{k})`$, $`x_\mu =(\tau ,\stackrel{}{r})`$, and introduced the notation

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i,\alpha ,k}{}}|d_{\alpha ,k}^{i,}|^2={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2=i{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\frac{1}{c_0\omega ^2c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2}}.`$ (7)
In Matsubara technique the temperature dependence is introduced by the replacements: $`\omega \omega _n=2\pi inT`$, $`i\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}T_{n=\mathrm{}}^{n=\mathrm{}}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}`$. We restricted ourselves by the self-consistent Hartree approximation. Effects of the damping of fluctuations, being produced by the two- and more vertex diagrams of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, are beyond the scope of this simple approximation. As we argue below, the main effects we discuss in this paper are not essentially affected by the width terms.

Variation of eq. (6) over $`\varphi _k^{}`$ yields the spectrum of fluctuations

$`c_0\omega ^2c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2=0,`$ (8)
with the squared mass parameter

$`m^2=\eta |a|={\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}(b_1+b_2/3)D_c+a+\nu _H(b_1+b_2)N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2.`$ (9)
Notice that the real physical meaning of the effective mass has the quantity $`m/\sqrt{c_0}`$ rather than $`m`$, as follows from (8).

Solution of the equation for the fluctuating field presented in the coordinate space is characterized by the length scale $`l=\xi /\sqrt{\eta }`$ and by the time scale $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }=\xi c_0^{1/2}(c\eta )^{1/2}`$. Above the critical point $`D_c=0`$, $`m^2=a+O(_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2)>0`$, and neglecting $`|\varphi _k^{}|^2`$ terms one gets the parameter $`\eta 1`$.

Variation of (6) over $`d_{\alpha ,c}^{i,}`$ yields the equation of motion for the classical field

$`c_0_\tau ^2d_{\alpha ,c}^i+c\mathrm{\Delta }d_{\alpha ,c}^i\left(a+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}(b_1+b_2/3)N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2\right)d_{\alpha ,c}^i`$
$`(b_1+b_2/3)D_cd_{\alpha ,c}^i=0.`$ (10)
Only dropping the term responsible for fluctuations we find $`D_c=D_{\mathrm{MF}}`$, $`d_{\alpha ,c}^i=d_{\alpha ,\mathrm{MF}}^i`$, $`m^2=m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2=\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}|a|`$ for $`T<T_c`$, cf. (4), (9), and we obtain $`\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}=2/3`$. In reality fluctuations affect the classical solution and renormalize the critical temperature of the phase transition $`T_c`$ yielding $`T_c^{\mathrm{ren}}<T_c`$. More generally

$`m^2=m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2+\delta m^2,\delta m^2={\displaystyle \frac{5}{3}}(b_1b_2/9)N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2,`$ (11)
for $`T<T_c^{\mathrm{ren}}`$. From (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter), (11) one finds $`D_c(m^2=0)=0`$, as the consequence of the self-consistency of our approximation scheme. As we have mentioned we neglected fluctuations of the gluon fields which change the nature of the phase transition but yield only a small jump of the order parameter.

In order to demonstrate how fluctuations of the order parameter may affect thermodynamic quantities let us calculate the contribution of fluctuations to the specific heat density $`\stackrel{~}{C}_V=T\left(\frac{^2\delta \stackrel{~}{F}}{(T)^2}\right)_V`$, cf. . The mean field contribution is

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{\mathrm{MF}}=T{\displaystyle \frac{a_0^2}{bT_c^2}}\mathrm{\Theta }(t),`$ (12)
as it follows from (1), (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter) and (4). Here and below we use an approximate expression $`aa_0t`$ valid at $`T`$ near $`T_c`$, see (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter). The contribution to the specific heat from the normal quark excitations is suppressed as $`T^{3/2}e^{\mathrm{\Delta }(0)/T}`$ for $`TT_c`$, cf. . We may reproduce correct low temperature behavior multiplying (12) by a form-factor $`f2e^{\mathrm{\Delta }(0)/T}(T_c/T)^{5/2}(1\frac{2T}{3T_c})^1`$.

The fluctuation contribution $`\stackrel{~}{F}^{}`$ can be determined with the help of the functional integration

$`\text{exp}(\delta W)={\displaystyle D\varphi ^{}\text{exp}(\delta W[\varphi ^{}])},`$ (13)
where $`\delta W`$ is an effective potential. Using (13), (6) we obtain

$`\delta \stackrel{~}{F}^{}=iN_cN_f{\displaystyle \frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}\text{ln}[c_0\omega ^2c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2]}.`$ (14)
Again within the Matsubara technique one still should do the replacement $`\omega \omega _n=2\pi inT`$, $`i\frac{d^4k}{(2\pi )^4}T_{n=\mathrm{}}^{n=\mathrm{}}\frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}`$. We dropped an infinite constant term in (14). However expression (14) still contains a divergent contribution. To remove the regular term that does not depend on the closeness to the critical point we find the temperature derivative of (14) (entropy per unit volume):

$`\delta \stackrel{~}{S}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{\delta \stackrel{~}{F}^{}}{T}}={\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{T}}N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2.`$ (15)
The contribution of fluctuations to the specific heat density is then given by

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}`$ $`=`$ $`T{\displaystyle \frac{m^2}{T}}N_cN_f{\displaystyle \frac{_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2}{T}}T{\displaystyle \frac{^2m^2}{T^2}}N_cN_f{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2`$ (16)
$``$ $`T{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2}{T}}N_cN_f{\displaystyle \frac{_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2}{T}},{\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2}{T}}\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}a_0/T_c.`$
In the second line (16) we remained only the terms quadratic in fluctuation fields, i.e. we assumed $`|\frac{m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2}{T}||\frac{\delta m^2}{T}|`$.

Now we are able to calculate the quantity $`iG^{}(X=0)=_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2`$ and its temperature derivative, where $`iG^{}(X)`$ is the time-ordered Green function. Using the Matsubara replacement $`\omega \omega _n=2\pi inT`$ and the relation $`_n(y^2+n^2)^1=\frac{\pi }{y}\text{cth}(\pi y)`$, or the corresponding relation between the non-equilibrium Green functions $`iG^{}(X)`$ and $`\text{Im}G^{ret}`$ at finite temperature, we arrive at the expression

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\sqrt{c_0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\sqrt{c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}\text{cth}\left(\frac{\sqrt{c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}{2T\sqrt{c_0}}\right)}.`$ (17)
Using that $`\text{cth}(y/2)=2n_B(y)+1`$, where $`n_B(y)=(e^y1)^1`$ are Bose occupations, and dropping the regular contribution of quantum fluctuations we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|_T^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{c_0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\frac{1}{\sqrt{c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}n_B\left(\frac{\sqrt{c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+m^2}}{T\sqrt{c_0}}\right)}.`$ (18)
By index $`\mathrm{"}T\mathrm{"}`$ we indicate the thermal contribution.

The integration is performed analytically in the limiting cases. Let $`mT\sqrt{c_0}`$. Then $`n_B(y)e^y`$. In the very same approximation one has $`c\stackrel{}{k}^2m^2`$ for typical momenta. Then

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|_T^2={\displaystyle \frac{c_0^{1/4}}{8m}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{2mT}{\pi c}}\right)^{3/2}\text{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{m}{T\sqrt{c_0}}}\right),m2T\sqrt{c_0}.`$ (19)
In the opposite limiting case, $`m2T\sqrt{c_0}`$, there are two contributions to the integral (18), from the region of typical momenta $`c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2`$ and from the region $`c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2`$. They can be easily separated, if one calculates the auxiliary quantity $`\frac{_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2}{T}`$. In the region $`c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2`$ one may use an approximation $`n_B(y)1/y`$ and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2}{T}}[c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2](4\pi c^{3/2})^1T{\displaystyle \frac{m}{T}}.`$ (20)
The region $`c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2`$ yields a regular term

$`{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}|\varphi _k^{}|^2[c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2]{\displaystyle \frac{T^2}{12}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{c_0}{c^3}}},{\displaystyle \frac{_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2}{T}}[c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}m^2]{\displaystyle \frac{T}{6}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{c_0}{c^3}}}.`$ (21)
General expression for the fluctuation contribution to the specific heat is given by the first line (16) and can be resolved with the help of the self-consistent solution of (11), (18) (or (19), (20), (21) in the limiting cases). Assuming for rough estimates that fluctuations can be described perturbatively and putting $`m^2m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2=\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}|a|`$, from the second line of (16) we find for $`T\frac{m_{\mathrm{MF}}}{\sqrt{c_0}}`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}{\displaystyle \frac{N_cN_f\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}^{7/4}c^{1/4}T^{3/2}}{4\pi ^{3/2}\sqrt{2}c_0^{1/4}|t|^{1/4}T_c^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_0}{c}}\right)^{7/4}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2|t|T_c}{T}}\right)\text{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}a_0|t|}}{T\sqrt{c_0}}}\right)`$ (22)
and for $`T\frac{m_{\mathrm{MF}}}{\sqrt{c_0}}`$:

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}{\displaystyle \frac{N_cN_f\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}^{3/2}T^2}{8\pi T_c^2|t|^{1/2}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{a_0}{c}}\right)^{3/2}+{\displaystyle \frac{N_cN_f\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}T^2}{6T_c}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_0}{c}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{c_0}{c}}\right)^{1/2}.`$ (23)
In the weak coupling limit for the CFL phase $`\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}=2/3`$, $`a_0/c=6\pi ^2T_c^2/(7\zeta (3)/8)`$, $`c_0=3c`$. Eq. (22) holds in the low temperature limit $`T\pi (|t|/3)^{1/2}T_c`$, whereas eq. (23) is valid in the opposite limit. The first term in (23) dominates over the second one for $`|t|<0.7`$, i.e., in the whole region of validity of (23) the main term is the first one. Its singular behavior, $`1/\sqrt{|t|}`$, is typical for the specific heat in the vicinity of the critical point of the second order phase transition, as in metallic superconductors.

Also in the CFL phase ($`T<T_c`$) there is a contribution to the specific heat of Goldstone-like excitations, cf. phonons in the ordinary condensed matter. For $`Tm_{p.G}`$, where $`m_{p.G}`$ is the mass of the pseudo-Goldstone excitation, we get

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{p.G,}={\displaystyle \frac{N_G3^{3/2}\pi ^2T^3}{30}},`$ (24)
where $`N_G`$ is the number of pseudo-Goldstone modes. One can see that the contribution (24) is numerically small compared to those terms (cf. (22), (23)) we have evaluated for temperatures within the fluctuation region.

Comparing the mean field (12) and the fluctuation (16) contributions to the specific heat (in the low and high temperature limiting cases one may use eqs. (22), (23)) we may estimate the fluctuation temperature $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C<T_c`$, at which the contribution of fluctuations of the order parameter becomes to be as important as the mean field one (so called Ginzburg - Levanyuk criterion),

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{\mathrm{MF}},\mathrm{for}T<T_c.`$ (25)
Fluctuations dominate for $`T>T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C`$. For typical values $`\mu _q(350÷500)`$ MeV and for $`T_c\stackrel{>}{_{}}(50÷70)`$ MeV in the weak coupling limit from (25), (22) we estimate $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C(0.6÷0.8)T_c`$. If we took into account the suppression factor $`f`$ of the mean field term $`e^{\mathrm{\Delta }(0)/T}`$, a decrease of the mass $`m`$ due to the fluctuation contribution (cf. (11)), and the pseudo-Goldstone contribution (24), we would get still smaller value of $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C`$ ($`\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.5T_c`$). We see that fluctuations start to contribute at temperatures when one can still use approximate expressions (22), (19) valid in the low temperature limit. Thus the time (frequency) dependence of the fluctuating fields is important in case of CSC.

In the condensed matter physics one usually performs calculations in the high temperature limit. In this limit one neglects the time (frequency) dependent terms considering quasi-static thermal fluctuations of the order parameter. Then the fluctuation contribution is determined with the help of the functional integration

$`\text{exp}(\delta F^{}/T)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle Dd^{}\text{exp}(\delta F^{}[d^{}]/T)},`$ (26)
$`\delta F^{}[d^{}]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,\alpha ,\stackrel{}{k}}{}}(c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+\eta |a|)(d_{\alpha ,\stackrel{}{k}}^{i,})^2.`$
The integration yields

$`\delta \stackrel{~}{F}^{}=TN_fN_c{\displaystyle \frac{d^3k}{(2\pi )^3}\text{ln}[c\stackrel{}{k}^{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}}+\eta |a|]}.`$ (27)
Comparison of eqs. (27) and (14) shows that the high temperature expression (27) is recovered, if one drops all the terms except $`n=0`$ in the corresponding Matsubara sum over $`\omega _n=2\pi inT`$ in eq. (14). The contribution of $`n0`$ terms to the $`_k|\varphi _k^{}|^2`$ is suppressed in the limit $`c_04\pi ^2T^2m^2`$. Then one immediately arrives at the specific heat given by the first term of (23). Thus in our case one may suppress the frequency dependence of fluctuations only for $`|t|1`$.

Simplifying, the energy width of the fluctuation region, where the fluctuation effects prevail over the mean field ones, is usually estimated following the Ginzburg criterion. The probability of the fluctuation in the volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$ is given by $`W\text{exp}(\delta \mathrm{\Omega }(V_{\mathrm{fl}})/T)`$. It is $`1`$ for $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }(V_{\mathrm{fl}})T`$, where $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }(V_{\mathrm{fl}})`$ (the contribution to the thermodynamic potential in the corresponding variables) is the work necessary to prepare the fluctuation within the volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$. The minimal size of the fluctuation region characterized by an order parameter $`d\sqrt{D_{\mathrm{MF}}}`$ is $`\xi (T)\sqrt{2/\eta }`$, cf. (5), (8). Thus, taking $`\delta \mathrm{\Omega }(V_{\mathrm{fl}})=\delta \mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{MF}}(V_{\mathrm{fl}})=T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}`$ for the typical temperature $`T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}`$, when fluctuations start to dominate, we obtain

$`T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}{\displaystyle \frac{a^2}{2b}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi (\sqrt{2/\eta }\xi (T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}))^3}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi a_0^{1/2}c^{3/2}|t(T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G})|^{1/2}}{\eta ^{3/2}b}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{3}}.`$ (28)
Although the above estimate is very rough we took care of all the numerical factors. This allows us to notice that the value $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C`$ estimated from (25), if one uses eq. (23) for $`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}`$ remaining there only the first term, is $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C0.5|t(T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C)/t(T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G})|^{1/2}T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}`$ for $`N_c=N_f=3`$. All the dependencies on the parameters in expressions for $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}^C`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{G}`$ were proven to be essentially the same. Fluctuation region is determined by the Ginzburg-Levanyuk parameter $`Gi=|T_cT_{\mathrm{fl}}^\mathrm{C}|/T_c`$. The larger the value $`Gi`$ is the wider is the fluctuation region. For clean conventional superconductors  $`Gi=10^{12}÷10^{14}`$, whereas for superfluid He4 and in our case $`Gi1`$.

Now we are able to discuss the validity of the self-consistent Hartree approximation in our problem. Adding the contribution to $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ functional with two vertices produces the sun-set diagram in the di-quark self-energy. In such a way beyond the Hartree approximation there appears the width term in the self-energy (behaving as $`i\gamma \omega `$ for small $`\omega `$). Such a term governs the slow relaxation of the order parameter in the phase transition phenomena outside the equilibrium. In our case (thermal equilibrium) this term can be dropped compared to the $`c_0\omega ^2`$ term, which we have in the thermodynamic potential (1) from the very beginning, at least in both the low and high temperature limits. Indeed, in the low temperature limit three Green functions entering the sun-set diagram produce an extra exponentially small particle occupation factor compared to that governs the Hartree term (19). Near $`T_c`$, i.e. in the high temperature limit, we may remain only $`n=0`$ term in the Matsubara sum over frequencies, as we have argued, thus suppressing both the linear and the quadratic terms in $`\omega `$.

All above expressions for fluctuating quantities (except the vanishing of the pseudo-Goldstone contribution above $`T_c`$ and the appearance of an extra diquark decay contribution to the width) are also valid for $`T>T_c`$, if one puts $`D_c=0`$ in general expressions or $`m_{\mathrm{MF}}^2=a>0`$, $`D_c=0`$, $`\eta =\eta _{\mathrm{MF}}=1`$ in the corresponding approximate expressions. Above $`T_c`$ we should compare the fluctuation contribution to a thermodynamic quantity with the quark and gluon contributions of the normal state of the quark-gluon plasma. In the weak coupling limit for the specific heat density of the quark-gluon plasma one has, cf. ,

$`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{qg}6\mu _q^2T+{\displaystyle \frac{42\pi ^2T^3}{15}}+{\displaystyle \frac{32\pi ^2T^3}{15}}.`$ (29)
The first two terms are quark contributions and the third term is the gluon contribution. We omitted a contribution of strange quarks which is rather small for $`T<m_s`$ and we neglected the temperature dependent effective gluon mass. We also disregarded the $`\alpha _s`$ corrections to the quark and gluon terms since such corrections were not taken into account for condensate quantities.

Above $`T_c`$, eqs. (22) and (23) yield rather smooth functions of $`T`$ except the region $`t1`$. The fluctuation region is rather wide since $`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{qg}`$ even at $`T`$ essentially larger then $`T_c`$. The appearance of an extra channel of the di-quark decay width, $`2\gamma _{\mathrm{dec}}\omega `$, beyond the Hartree approximation does not qualitatively change the situation since $`\gamma _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ is a regular function of $`T`$, $`\gamma _{\mathrm{dec}}TT_c`$, and vanishes in the critical point. Thus the applicability of the high temperature limit (one can put $`\omega _n=0`$ in the Matsubara sum) is preserved in a wide temperature region, $`TT_c`$, . Only far above $`T_c`$ situation might be changed. The main uncertainty comes from the values of coefficients (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter) which were derived for $`T`$ rather near $`T_c`$ and in the weak coupling limit. Bearing all this in mind we estimate the value of the fluctuation temperature $`T_{\mathrm{fl},>}^C2T_c`$ for typical value $`T_c/\mu _q0.1÷0.3`$. The higher the value $`T_c`$ is, the stronger is the contribution of fluctuations at the given ratio $`T/T_c`$.

Thus we see that fluctuations of the di-quark gap may essentially contribute to the thermodynamic quantities even well below $`T_c`$ and above $`T_c`$.

Note that several simplifying assumptions were done. The coefficients (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter) were derived for $`|t|1`$ in the weak coupling limit neglecting the strange quark mass, but applied in a wider temperature region for may be not sufficiently large $`\mu _q`$. Only Gaussian fluctuations were taken into account within the self-consistent Hartree approximation. Thus, di-quark width effects were assumed to be suppressed. We used the expansion of the thermodynamic potential up to the fourth order terms in the mean field neglecting a small jump in the order parameter due to gluon fluctuations. We incorporated in the thermodynamic quantities only the terms which have a tendency to an irregular behavior near $`T_c`$, whereas above $`T_c`$ the short range correlations begin to be more and more important with the increase of the temperature. Therefore one certainly should be cautious applying above rough estimates outside the region of their quantitative validity. However, as we know from the experience of the condensate matter physics, see , such extrapolation equations work usually not too bad even for temperatures well below and above $`T_c`$.

So far we have discussed the specific behavior of fluctuations of the order parameter at fixed temperature and density. There are also fluctuations of the temperature and the local quark density. They are statistically independent quantities , $`<\delta T\delta \rho _q>=0`$, and their mean squares are

$`<(\delta T)^2>={\displaystyle \frac{T^2}{V_{\mathrm{fl}}\stackrel{~}{C}_V}},<(\delta \rho _q)^2>={\displaystyle \frac{T\rho _q}{V_{\mathrm{fl}}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\rho _q}{P}}\right)_T.`$ (30)
The averaging is done over the volume, $`P`$ is the pressure, $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$ is as above the volume related to the fluctuation. In the limiting case $`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{qg}`$, we obtain $`<(\delta T)^2>/T^2\rho _q/(N_q^{\mathrm{fl}}\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{qg})`$, where $`N_q^{\mathrm{fl}}`$ is the number of quarks involved in the volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$. Thus, far from the critical point the contribution of fluctuations is suppressed as $`\sqrt{<(\delta T)^2>/T^2}1/\sqrt{N_q^{\mathrm{fl}}}`$. This standard fluctuation behavior is essentially changed for $`\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{}\stackrel{>}{_{}}\stackrel{~}{C}_V^{qg}`$. Then we get even larger suppression of the temperature fluctuations. For $`|t|1`$ in the high temperature limit we obtain $`\sqrt{<(\delta T)^2>/T_c^2}|t|0`$ for $`|t|0`$, where we assumed that fluctuations are most probable within the typical fluctuation volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}=4\pi \xi ^3/3`$ and $`\xi 1/\sqrt{|t|}`$ for $`t0`$. Thus, if the system is at the temperature $`T`$ in a narrow vicinity of $`T_c`$, fluctuations of the temperature are significantly suppressed. Being formed at $`0<t1`$ the condensate region evolves very slowly, since the heat transport is then delayed (the typical evolution time is roughly $`\tau 1/\sqrt{|t|}`$). At temperatures $`T`$ outside a narrow vicinity of $`T_c`$, fluctuations of the temperature resulting in a significant decrease of the temperature in the volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$ are rather probable, $`\sqrt{<(\delta T)^2>/T_c^2}1`$. This is the consequence of a very short coherence length and, thus, not too large number of quarks contained in the volume $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$, $`\xi 0.13/(T_c\sqrt{|t|})`$ being $`0.5`$ fm for $`T_c50`$ MeV and for $`|t|1`$. Fluctuations of the quark density are also large for typical $`|t|1`$, due to the smallness of $`V_{\mathrm{fl}}`$. Thereby we argue that the system may produce the di-quark condensate regions of the typical size $`\xi `$, thus feeling the possibility of the phase transition even if its temperature and density are in average rather far from the critical values.

Anomalous behavior of fluctuations might manifest itself in the event-by-event analysis of the heavy ion collision data. In small ($`l`$) size systems, $`l<\xi `$, (zero dimension case would be $`l\xi `$) the contribution of fluctuations of the order parameter to the specific heat is still increased, see . The anomalous behavior of the specific heat may affect the heat transport. If thermalization happened at an initial heavy ion collision stage, and a large size system expands rather slowly, its evolution is governed by the approximately constant value of the entropy. Due to a large contribution to the specific heat (and to the entropy) of the di-quark fluctuations, an extra decrease of the temperature may occur resulting in an essential slowing of the fireball expansion process (due to smaller pressure). Having the di-quark quantum numbers, fluctuations of the gap may affect the di-lepton production rate from the quark-gluon plasma, as it has been noted in .

We would like once more to emphasize that the coefficients of the thermodynamic potential (1) obtained in the weak coupling limit might be essentially modified, in case if we applied the results to the fireball produced in a heavy ion collision, somehow changing our conclusions. E.g., the quark chemical potential decreases with the temperature. It results in an additional increase of the contribution of fluctuations, cf. dependences of the coefficients (Fluctuations of the Color-superconducting Order Parameter in Heated and Dense Quark Matter) on $`\mu _q`$. Thus we may need to analyze the strong coupling limit instead of the weak coupling limit we discussed. If $`\mu _q`$ becomes smaller than the strange quark mass we come from the possible 3SC phases to the 2SC phases. A more general discussion of modifications beyond the framework of the weak coupling limit can be found in . A discussion how the coefficients (1) may in general vary within the Ginzburg - Landau approach is given in . Our above arguments are admittedly speculative, and mean only to demonstrate a possibility of their application to heavy ion collisions and to an initial stage evolution of the neutron star. A more detailed treatment of the problem definitely needs a further work.

Other quantities associated with second derivatives of the thermodynamic potential are also enhanced near the critical point demonstrating typical $`1/\sqrt{|t|}`$ behavior, cf. . However numerical coefficients depend strongly on what quantity is studied. E.g. fluctuation contributions above $`T_c`$ to the color diamagnetic susceptibilities

$`\chi _\alpha =\left(^2\delta F/\stackrel{}{}_\alpha ^2\right)_{\stackrel{}{}_\alpha =0},\stackrel{}{}_\alpha =\text{curl}\stackrel{}{𝒜}_\alpha ,`$ (31)
are proven to be $`1`$ everywhere except very narrow vicinity of the critical point. In spite of a smallness, as we know, in ordinary clean superconductors the fluctuation diamagnetism turns out to be of the order of the Pauli paramagnetism even far from the transition .

Concluding, within the Ginzburg - Landau approach we estimated the fluctuation energy region at the CSC phase transition. The quantitative estimates are based on the values of parameters derived in the weak coupling limit for fluctuations of the CFL order parameter. Qualitative results survive also for fluctuations of other possible phases. We found that the frequency dependence of fluctuations is important for CSC in a wide temperature region. Fluctuations may contribute essentially to the specific heat even at $`T`$ rather far below and above $`T_c`$. We estimated $`T_{\mathrm{fl},<}\stackrel{<}{_{}}0.5T_c`$ and $`T_{\mathrm{fl},>}2T_c`$. Our rough estimates show that the high temperature CSC could manifest itself through fluctuations of di-quark gap in the course of the heavy ion collisions at SIS200, if the critical temperature of the phase transition is indeed rather high, $`T_c\stackrel{>}{_{}}(50÷70)`$ MeV. However quantitative results depend on the values of several not sufficiently known parameters and further studies are still needed to arrive at definite conclusions.

The author thanks T. Kunihiro and M.F.M. Lutz for the discussions. He acknowledges the hospitality and support of GSI Darmstadt. The work has been supported in part by DFG (project 436 Rus 113/558/0-2), and by RFBR grant NNIO-03-02-04008.


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# Architecture of the ATLAS High Level Trigger Event Selection Software

## I INTRODUCTION

The Large Hadron Collider LHC, currently under construction at CERN and scheduled to start data-taking in 2007, will collide protons on protons at a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. At the design luminosity of $`10^{34}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$, each bunch crossing, occurring at 25 ns intervals, will result in 23 collisions on average.

The trigger of the ATLAS experiment, one of the multi-purpose detectors at the LHC, must be able to reduce the interaction rate of $`10^9`$ Hz to below the maximum rate that can be processed by the off-line computing facilities, $`𝒪(10^2)`$ Hz. In addition, the ATLAS trigger must be able to handle the full data volume of a detector of the complexity and size of ATLAS, with $`𝒪(10^8)`$ read-out channels. It is under these constraints that the ATLAS trigger must retain the capability of identifying previously undetected and rare physics processes. A Standard Model Higgs particle with a mass of 120 MeV, decaying into two photons, is for example expected to occur at a rate of $`10^{13}`$ of the interaction rate, the proverbial pin in the haystack.

Three distinct trigger steps are foreseen. While the first step (Level-1 trigger) is implemented as a hardware trigger, the second and third steps, Level-2 trigger and Event Filter, are software triggers and are usually referred to as the ATLAS High Level Trigger (HLT).

This article describes the current status of the high-level design and the implementation of the HLT event selection software. The validation of the software is on-going and aims at the imminent goal of the HLT Technical Design Report (TDR), due in summer 2003, as well as at preparing for the first stage of ATLAS commissioning.

After a short overview of the ATLAS trigger, the general strategy of the HLT event selection software and its main software components are described. Subject of this article is the part of the code that provides the infrastructure in which to run the HLT selection algorithms. Specific HLT event selection algorithms are not discussed. Using the same software environment to develop and maintain (off-line) on the one hand and on the other hand to deploy (on-line) the HLT selection software is a central HLT design aim. This article also discusses our experience with appropriating off-line code for on-line use.

## II THE ATLAS TRIGGER

Data at the LHC are produced with the bunch crossing rate of 40 MHz. The ATLAS trigger (see Fig. 1) has the task to reduce this rate to an output rate of $`𝒪(200)`$ Hz after the Event Filter. The Level-1 trigger LVL1TDR  reduces the initial 40 MHz to less than 75 kHz in less than 2.5 $`\mu `$s, the maximum output rate and latency the trigger hardware can tolerate. In the HLT TP , where the boundary between the two trigger steps is purposefully kept flexible, the Level-2 trigger will reduce the rate to $`𝒪(2)`$ kHz and the Event Filter further to $`𝒪(200)`$ Hz. The available average latency of the two steps is substantially different, with $``$10 ms for the Level-2 trigger and $``$1 s for the Event Filter.

Central to the ATLAS trigger design is the Region-of-Interest (RoI) concept. The Level-1 trigger looks for regions of potentially interesting activity in the Calorimeters and the Muon Spectrometer that may correspond to candidates for high $`p_T`$ objects (electromagnetic, muon, tau/hadronic and jet clusters). The Level-2 trigger selection uses the RoI information (its type, position and the $`p_T`$ of the highest trigger threshold passed) of the Level-1 trigger as seeds for its processing. This strategy keeps the amount of raw data to be passed to the Level-2 trigger for processing at only a few per cent of the full event information.

While the raw data of the ATLAS subdetectors are held in readout buffers (ROB), the Level-2 trigger processes RoI information and raw data on a Level-2 Linux PC farm. On each node of the Level-2 farm, a Processing Application executes the Level-2 event selection software. Specialized, speed-optimized Level-2 trigger algorithms carry out the feature extraction in the region-of-interest indicated by the Level-1 trigger. While the Level-1 trigger does not combine the information from different subdetectors, the Level-2 trigger covers all subdetectors sequentially and gains additional information from combining their data.

Once an event has been accepted by the Level-2 trigger, the raw data of the full event are passed to the Event Builder, which in turn passes on the fully-built event to the Event Filter Linux PC farm. On the farm nodes, independent Processing Applications execute off-line-type selection algorithms that have access to the full event data, including the latest calibration and alignment information.

Though the type of selection algorithms used by the Level-2 trigger and the Event Filter are different, the software infrastructure that the algorithms use is kept as similar as possible between the two trigger levels. In order to achieve a high level of flexibility, it is desirable to retain to some degree the possibility to deploy an HLT algorithm either in the Level-2 trigger or in the Event Filter. This article describes the common software infrastructure that is used throughout the HLT. Given the much more stringent performance constraints of the Level-2 trigger, this approach meets limits that will be discussed as well.

## III THE HIGH LEVEL TRIGGER EVENT SELECTION SOFTWARE

The HLT event selection software has four main components: the HLT algorithms that perform event reconstruction and feature extraction, the HLT Steering that calls a certain subset of the available HLT algorithms in a certain sequence depending on the types of RoI received from the Level-1 trigger, the HLT Data Manager that gives access to the information contained in the raw data, and the HLT raw Event Data Model that specifies the object representation of the raw data to be used by the HLT algorithms. This section describes how the four components work together and discusses the design and current implementation of the three components, HLT Steering, HLT Data Manager, HLT Event Data Model, that provide the infrastructure for the HLT algorithms both in the Level-2 trigger and in the Event Filter.

### III.1 Working principle

The following example illustrates the working principle of the HLT event selection software: The Level-1 trigger finds two isolated electromagnetic clusters with $`p_T>20`$ GeV each. This is a possible signature for the decay $`Ze^+e^{}`$ for which the ATLAS trigger accepts an event, if both electrons are isolated and have a minimum $`p_T`$ of 30 GeV.

The HLT validates this hypothesis in a step-by-step process. Intermediate signatures are produced as result of the algorithmic processing of a given step, and each intermediate signature is examined in order to be able to reject the hypothesis at the earliest possible moment. This procedure is managed by the HLT Steering package.

The validation procedure starts from the Level-1 RoI information as seed, as shown in Fig. 2. In this example, there are two isolated electromagnetic RoIs with $`p_T>20`$ GeV (“EM20i” in Fig. 2). The HLT Steering calls an HLT algorithm (“Cluster Shape”) to determine the cluster shape of the first seed. The cluster shape is found consistent with the electron hypothesis and the result is an electron candidate (“ecand”). The HLT Steering proceeds in the same way with the second seed and obtains a second electron candidate. These two electron candidates are considered as an intermediate signature (“ecand + ecand”). Since the event after this first step is still compatible with the $`Ze^+e^{}`$ signature, the HLT Steering starts the second step of the validation procedure. In this second step, the two electron candidates provide the seeds for the algorithmic processing. The HLT Steering calls a track finding HLT algorithm (“track finding”) for each of the two electron candidates. If for each of the electron candidates a track pointing to them is found, this second step results in two electrons that constitute another intermediate signature (“e + e”). Using, in the manner described above, the output of one step of the validation procedure as input to the next, the HLT Steering calls the appropriate HLT algorithms in the appropriate sequence to verify that the two electrons each have $`p_T>30`$ GeV and are both isolated. When finally, after the fourth step, the signature “e30i + e30i” has been reached, the ATLAS trigger accepts the event as a candidate for the decay $`Ze^+e^{}`$ with the desired electron characteristics.

To guarantee early rejection, the HLT Steering can reject an event after any step during the validation procedure. If the first step in the example above had not resulted in two electron candidates with the appropriate cluster shapes, the HLT Steering would have stopped the validation of the specific $`Z`$ decay signature under scrutiny without passing to step 2. Note also that the HLT processing is not organized vertically (carry out the full sequence of algorithms to arrive first at a reconstructed electron for the first RoI and only then do the same for the second) but horizontally (carry out only the reconstruction foreseen in step x for the first and then the second seed and use the output as seeds for the next step).

### III.2 Steering

In this section, the main ingredients of the HLT Steering package, Trigger Menus, Sequence Tables and Trigger Elements, are discussed briefly. For a detailed description, see Steering .

#### III.2.1 Trigger Menu and Sequence Table

In the example above, only one signature (hypothesis) and for this signature only one sequence of algorithms and intermediate signatures was considered. Different from this simple example, the ATLAS HLT accepts an event if it is consistent with at least one signature (hypothesis) in a whole catalog of possible ones. Also, depending on the Level-1 RoIs, there may be more than one possible sequence of algorithms and intermediate signatures per signature. But as in the example above, the HLT processing is organized horizontally, not vertically. This means also that the HLT does not examine one signature and only then the next. Instead, for each signature, the processing is broken up in single steps and the HLT Steering carries out the processing per step, not per signature.

Each step is accompanied by one Trigger Menu and one Sequence Table. A Trigger Menu is a list of all intermediate signatures in its step for which an event can be accepted. The Sequence Table specifies which HLT algorithms are to be executed, given the seeds as input to the step.

For more details, see TriggerMenu .

The HLT Steering deploys algorithms in a very specific way. The task of an HLT algorithm is not to perform a full scan for, e.g., all muon candidates in the event, independent of their location in the detector. Instead, the algorithm has to carry out a localized reconstruction, guided by a seed, limited to the area in the detector indicated by the seed. Hence, in the same event the HLT Steering calls the relevant algorithm once per seed, i.e. depending on the number of seeds possibly several times.

#### III.2.2 Trigger Elements

Communication between the HLT Steering and the HLT algorithms happens with the help of Trigger Elements. The HLT Steering hands over the seeds to a HLT algorithm by means of Trigger Elements. A HLT algorithm returns the result of its processing to the HLT Steering in the form of a Trigger Element.

A Trigger Element has a label, but does not hold any data content. It is related to Data Objects (RoIs, tracks, clusters, etc.) and other Trigger Elements in a navigable way. The signatures in a Trigger Menu consist of logical AND/OR combinations of Trigger Elements.

The following example (see Fig. 3), simplified as compared to the example in Fig. 2, illustrates how the HLT Steering uses Trigger Elements to communicate with HLT algorithms. The Level-1 trigger finds one isolated electromagnetic cluster with $`p_T>20`$ GeV. Assume for the sake of the argument that the ATLAS trigger accepts events with at least one isolated electron with $`p_T>`$ 30 GeV. Then the RoI found by the Level-1 trigger is a possible signature for an event of this type.

In step 1, the electromagnetic RoI found by the Level-1 trigger is the seed for the HLT cluster shape algorithm. The HLT Steering creates a Trigger Element with label “EM20i” that has a navigable “uses” relationship to the Level-1 RoI as Data Object. The output of the HLT cluster shape algorithm is an electron candidate that the algorithm hands back to the HLT Steering as a new Trigger Element with label “ecand”. This Trigger Element has a navigable “uses” relationship to the calorimeter cluster that was the result of the algorithmic processing. Since the HLT cluster shape algorithm was seeded by the Level-1 RoI, its corresponding output Trigger Element, “ecand”, has a navigable “seeded by” relationship with its input Trigger Element, “EM20i”. Navigable “uses” relationships are also possible between Data Objects. This allows the HLT track finding algorithm in step 3 to access the calorimeter cluster on which its seed is based, and to access the calorimeter cells on which the calorimeter cluster is based. In addition, via the “seeded by” relationship between its input Trigger Element and the input Trigger Element of the preceding step, the algorithm has also access to the underlying Data Objects of that previous step.

In the design, the Trigger Elements represent the intermediate hypotheses that correspond to the intermediate signatures that the HLT Steering examines to decide whether to continue with the next step of the algorithmic processing. The Data Objects, on the other hand, represent the information supporting these hypotheses. Differentiating between Trigger Elements and Data Objects has the advantage of differentiating clearly between the HLT Steering realm, containing the hypotheses, and the HLT algorithm reconstruction realm, containing the supporting information.

### III.3 Raw Event Data Model

Unlike the typical off-line situation where the data are stored in a convenient format, e.g. objects in a file or database, the HLT event selection software running on the HLT Linux farms can access data only in their raw format and needs to invoke the ATLAS Data Flow system DataFlow1 ; DataFlow2 ; DataFlow3 ; DataFlow4  in order to do so.

The Data Flow system transfers raw data to the HLT in bytestream format. Figure 4 illustrates where in the ATLAS trigger system raw data is exchanged via bytestreams. In the event of a positive Level-1 trigger decision, the Level-2 trigger receives the Level-1 trigger result, in particular the RoIs, by means of a bytestream. In addition, the Level-2 trigger can demand the bytestream fragment from any of the $``$1600 ROBs that each hold the raw data of a part of the ATLAS detector. When the Level-2 trigger accepts an event, the Event Builder receives the Level-2 trigger result and the bytestream from all $``$1600 ROBs and it passes the fully-built event by way of another bytestream to the Event Filter.

#### III.3.1 Raw Data Objects and Detector Elements

In order to allow the HLT algorithms access to the raw data information in these bytestreams, this information has to be represented in object form, as Raw Data Objects (RDOs). The HLT algorithms access the raw data information by means of the RDOs and the transient event store, where the RDOs are stored.

The Raw Event Data Model (Raw EDM) is part of the HLT EDM and specifies the design of the RDOs for each ATLAS subdetector and each bytestream in the Data Flow system. The Raw EDM has to map onto one another data of very different granularity. The Data Flow system provides data with a minimum granularity of one ROB, while a HLT algorithm typically needs data organized by geometric detector unit.

For example, in the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer, a geometric detector unit of interest for a HLT selection algorithm is a chamber. A chamber is a physical unit, for example of Monitored Drift Tubes (MDT), that share the same physical support structure, are installed as a whole and may be described by a single set of condition (e.g. alignment, etc.) constants. The Raw EDM specifies for all ATLAS subdetectors the object representation of the relevant geometric detector units, the Detector Elements (see Fig. 5).

In the case of the MDT chambers of the Muon Spectrometer, the Detector Element corresponds to a chamber. In the same way as a chamber can be viewed as a collection of readout channels, a Detector Element object is a collection of RDO objects which each hold the information of one readout channel.

RDOs are stored in the transient event store ordered according to Detector Elements. The transient store contains for each subdetector a container of Detector Elements (see Fig. 6). Each Detector Element has a unique identifier ID  by which it can be retrieved from the store, thus allowing with one request to the transient store to retrieve collections of RDOs, which respresent collections of readout channels in geometric detector units.

### III.4 Bytestream converters

The raw data in the bytestream format in which they are held by the ROBs can be viewed as a representation of the raw data information in an event. The RDOs, organized by Detector Element, are another representation of this information. The conversion from bytestream representation to RDO representation is the task of Bytestream Converters. They carry out the conversion on demand of an HLT algorithm. Their implementation consists of a general infrastructure part that uses subdetector specific methods for decoding the information from bytestream format to RDO format. The general part is, for example, responsible for storing the RDOs in the correct Detector Element order in the transient store.

Raw data access via Bytestream Converters proceeds in the following way (see Fig. 7). The HLT Steering calls an HLT algorithm by passing to it a Trigger Element with a navigable link to a RoI Data Object that contains the RoI position. This RoI can, for example, be located in the Muon Spectrometer. The HLT algorithm typically needs access only to the raw data in those Muon Spectrometer chambers within a certain region around the RoI position (see Fig. 8). These chambers correspond to a certain set of Detector Elements. The task of identifying this set of Detector Elements, given a region in the pseudorapidity $`\eta `$ and the polar angle $`\varphi `$, is performed by the Region Selector RegionSelector . The Region Selector returns to the calling HLT algorithm the list of identifiers of the appropriate set of Detector Elements. The HLT algorithm requests the Detector Elements from the transient store with the help of this identifier list.

At this stage, two situations can occur. If the requested Detector Elements are already available in the transient store, the store simply returns them. If they are not available, however, the corresponding raw data information first has to be requested from the Data Flow system. In this case, the transient event store invokes the correct Bytestream Converter, which in turn requests the raw data in bytestream format from the appropriate ROBs. From the succession of 32-bit words sent by each ROB, the Bytestream Converter extracts the relevant information and uses it to initialize the collections of RDOs. The thus obtained collections of RDOs, or Detetcor Elements, are stored in the transient store, which passes them on to the HLT algorithm.

The extraction of raw data information into RDOs can be supplemented by additional data preparation algorithms, e.g. cluster finders for the Silicon Trackers. The object representation of extracted and prepared raw data are called Reconstruction Input Objects. Their definition is part of the HLT EDM. They are organized inside the transient store in collections as are RDOs, and can be requested by an HLT algorithm in the same way as RDOs.

## IV OFF-LINE CODE IN ON-LINE CONTEXT

A high level of integration of the code designed for off-line use and the code designed for on-line use is clearly a desirable design goal. Ideally, it should be possible to develop and maintain on-line software on simulated and real data in a well-tested, flexible and user-friendly environment as is offered by the off-line software. This does not only apply to the HLT algorithms, but also to the HLT infrastructure code used by them. Furthermore, it clearly enhances the HLT flexibility in dealing with changes in the LHC running conditions when it is possible to migrate software freely between off-line environment and Event Filter and between Event Filter and Level-2 trigger.

In the previous sections, the common software infrastructure of Level-2 trigger software and Event Filter software has been described. In order to use this HLT software infrastructure and the HLT algorithms in an off-line environment, the HLT software has to comply with the basic design principles of the ATLAS off-line framework.

The ATLAS off-line framework, Athena Athena , is based on a GAUDI GAUDI  (developed by the LHCb experiment) core. As a consequence, Athena has adopted a number of the basic principles of the GAUDI design. Examples are the separation of the data from the algorithms producing and consuming the data, separation of the transient and the persistent representation of data and the use of converters that convert one data representation into another.

For the HLT event selection software this means, for example, that HLT algorithms are forced to communicate indirectly, via the transient event store. This requirement is met by the use of Trigger Elements, as described in Sec. III.2.2. It also means that persistent data can be made available to the HLT event selection software only by means of converters that convert them into a transient representation that is then stored in the transient event store, from where HLT algorithms can request data. The Bytestream Converters discussed in Sec. III.4 and their use as illustrated in Fig. 7 comply with this requirement. Furthermore, using the HLT event selection software in Athena implies at the very least common interfaces to general services, and may even mean using the very same services, e.g. database access tools, geometry service etc., by Athena and by the on-line framework.

The HLT event selection software also needs to comply with the much more stringent on-line performance requirements concerning speed and robustness. Hence, also any off-line-imposed elements or code elements imported from the off-line environment must meet the on-line performance requirements. They are considerably more stringent than would be otherwise needed for pure off-line use.

The following section describes the current off-line dependencies introduced into the HLT software for the above mentioned reasons. The experience gained so far in the attempt of using off-line code in the on-line context of the trigger is discussed.

### IV.1 Current Off-Line Dependencies

A high level of integration between off-line and on-line code can be achieved in different ways. One possibility consists in choosing the interfaces in the off-line and in the on-line code such that on-line software can be used in the off-line framework and vice versa. Another possibility is to use the same framework for off-line and on-line purposes. In the concrete ATLAS situation, this means using Athena as on-line framework as well. In addition, any combination of these two extremes is possible.

In the current implementation of the HLT software, Athena is used as framework in the Event Filter. Level-2 employs a specialized framework that uses interfaces compatible with those in Athena, so that any Level-2 infrastructure and algorithm code can also be used within Athena (see next section). The HLT infrastructure code (e.g. transient event store, Bytestream Converters, etc.) currently re-uses code developed in Athena.

Figure 9 depicts the current off-line dependencies in the HLT event selection software. The HLT framework depends on the off-line framework. For the Event Filter this means re-use of Athena as framework, for the Level-2 trigger this means use of a slightly modified version (see next section) of the Athena core software, based on GAUDI. The Data Manager in the current implementation is the off-line transient event store, StoreGate StoreGate . The HLT EDM re-uses the off-line EDM. In the Event Filter, off-line algorithms are re-used as selection algorithms. In the Level-2 trigger, specialized Level-2 algorithms are employed which, however, are set up such that they can also be run in the Athena framework.

The execution of the HLT event selection software is controlled by a Processing Application that is part of the HLT Data Flow and Data Acquisition software.

### IV.2 The Special Level-2 Environment

The performance constraints imposed by the HLT are most stringent for the Level-2 trigger. There, the average latency available to the HLT selection software for accepting or rejecting an event is $``$10 ms. The Level-2 software needs to be able to handle a data input rate of up to 75 kHz and to sustain a data output rate of $`𝒪(2)`$ kHz error-free and deadtime-free for extended periods of time. Requirements of such stringency with respect to speed and robustness are usually not met by software designed for pure off-line use. An additional complication arises from the need for multi-threading in the Level-2 trigger.

In order to keep the idle time of the CPUs in the Level-2 Linux PC farm to a minimum, each CPU processes in parallel three different events, i.e. each Level-2 CPU carries out at the same time three execute loops. This is in marked difference to the situation foreseen in Athena, where the initialization phase is followed by a single execute loop that ends in a finalization phase (see Fig. 10). In the case of running inside Athena, Athena controls the event execute loop; in the multi-threaded Level-2 software the control needs to be with the HLT Data Flow software. In addition, in the Level-2 software, all algorithms and services have to be configured and initialized strictly outside of the event execute loop. Hence Athena cannot be used as HLT framework for the Level-2 trigger.

In order to comply nonetheless with the design goal that the Level-2 event selection software be usable with the Athena framework for development and maintenance purposes, an interface layer between the HLT selection and the HLT Data Flow software was implemented, the so-called Steering Controller GAUDIL2 . The Steering Controller uses only a minimal set of GAUDI features. In addition, it uses a modification to the GAUDI base libraries that allows thread-specific instantiation. The standard GAUDI command $`EventLoopMgrexecuteEvent()`$ is, for example, replaced by $`EventLoopMgr\mathrm{\_}(threadID)executeEvent()`$, where $`threadID`$ corresponds to the number of the thread (1, 2, 3). Accordingly, GAUDI services are called with the command $`AnyServiceNeededByAlgo\mathrm{\_}(threadID)`$ and algorithms with $`AnyHLTALgorithm\mathrm{\_}(threadID)`$, etc. The possibility of thread-specific instantiation has since been included in GAUDI as a standard feature. The Steering Controller can be used within the off-line framework Athena because in a single-thread environment the $`\mathrm{\_}(threadID)`$ suffix collapses to a blank. Beyond this the Steering Controller uses only standard GAUDI features, which are all contained in the GAUDI-based Athena.

The special Level-2 feature of running in multi-thread mode may cause problems when using standard software tools as, e.g., the Standard Template Library (STL), even when the software components used are in principle thread-safe. An unexpected problem of this kind arose with the specific implementation of STL containers in use in the HLT code. The container implementation, though thread-safe, proved highly thread-inefficient by setting unnecessary locks. The problem was overcome by modifying by hand the container allocator implementation MultiThreading .

It should be noted that the problems arising from the use of multiple threads in the Level-2 trigger software are not present for the Event Filter. The Event Filter uses multiple threads, but the Data Flow and HLT event selection software are set up in a different way. As a result, it is possible to use Athena as is as the framework for running HLT selection algorithms in the Event Filter AthenaEF . However, when Athena was used for the first time in the Event Filter, it became aparent that an inacceptable 30% of the total processing time per event was spent in the off-line Raw EDM available at that time. This problem has since been remedied, but illustrates the need for a thorough evaluation of the suitability of off-line code for use in the HLT software. It also illustrates the need for a close and continuous collaboration between the HLT (“on-line”) and the “off-line” communities in order to adopt successfully “off-line” software for “on-line” use.

## V CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK

The architecture of the HLT selection software described in this article is currently being validated by implementing the software for full vertical trigger slices. Two vertical slices are currently under development, an electron/gamma slice and a muon slice. The vertical trigger slices comprise the software to simulate the full chain of trigger decisions, starting with the Level-1 trigger, that leads to identifying an event as containing a single electron, gamma or muon. Integration of the HLT selection software with the other components of the HLT software is on-going with the goal of running the electron/gamma and muon vertical slices in testbeds of the foreseen Linux PC farms. Detailed measurements of timing and physics performance of each part of the HLT software are under way and will be reported in the HLT Technical Design Report in summer 2003.

A central goal of the current implementation of the HLT selection software is a high level of integration between off-line and on-line code. This goal has sparked off a very fruitful collaboration between the HLT and the on-line software developer communities. The attempt of adapting and re-using off-line code in the HLT software has been carried furthest in the specific way of accessing raw data in the HLT by means of Bytestream Converters that are hidden behind a call to the off-line transient event store, StoreGate.

Given the ever increasing available CPU speed, allowing an ever higher level of abstraction, the concept of re-using off-line code in the on-line context appears a logical development. However, given the stringent constraints and performance requirements of the HLT, the present implementation of the HLT selection software and the heavy re-use it makes of off-line software is clearly experimental. This is in particular true for the Level-2 trigger. The results of the on-going validation effort will show if the chosen ansatz is sustainable.

## VI ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to acknowledge the help and support of the ATLAS Data Acquisition Group and the ATLAS Off-Line and Detector software groups.


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# Cosmic Microwave Background Polarisation: foreground contrast and component separation

## 1 Introduction

Among all cosmological observables, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarisation stores cosmological perturbations in the smartest way. The Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$ are non-locally combined to get the $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes, featuring opposite parity relations; as for total intensity ($`T`$), $`E`$ modes are activated by all cosmological perturbations, and indeed the two are strongly correlated ($`TE`$); on the other hand, $`B`$ modes are excited by vectors and tensors only; since no significant power is experted from vectors, a detection of $`B`$ modes would be a strong indication of the presence of cosmological gravitational waves. For a comprehensive review of the CMB physics, see Hu et al. (1998) and references therein.

On the observation side, we are right now in the epoch in which the CMB is revealing its finest structure. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite111map.gsfc.nasa.gov released recently the first year CMB data, for $`T`$ and $`TE`$, unveiling all sky anisotropies with about $`20`$ arcmin. resolution on a frequency range between $`22`$ and 90 GHz (see Bennett et al., 2003, and references therein); balloon-borne and ground-based $`T`$ observations cover angular scales from a few arcminutes to tens of degrees, and also aim at measuring CMB $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes (see Kovac et al., 2002, for a first $`E`$ mode detection). The Planck satellite222astro/estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Planck will provide total intensity and polarisation full sky maps with $`5^{}`$ resolution and a sensitivity of a few $`\mu `$K, on nine frequency channels between 30 and 857 GHz.

This work focuses on the foreground contamination to the CMB polarised emission. This issue is gathering greater and greater attention as the importance of the CMB polarisation measurements increases (see De Zotti, 2002, for reviews). In Section 2 we estimate the expected strength of foreground polarised emission with respect to the CMB; in Section 3 we describe the recent progresses in the design of data analysis tools designed to reduce such a contamination; in Section 4 we make some concluding remarks.

## 2 Foreground contamination to the CMB

We focus on the diffuse emission from our own Galaxy. Indeed, at microwave frequencies, the contamination from Galactic, extra-Galactic radio and infrared sources (see De Zotti, 2002, and references therein), as well as the polarised Sunyaev-Zel Dovich emission (see White, 2003, proceedings of this conference), are likely to be relevant for the damping tail of the CMB power spectrum, i.e. at arcmin. angular scales, corresponding to multipoles $`\mathrm{}`$ of the order 1000, which sets the limit of validity for our analysis.

The main diffuse foreground at low microwave frequencies, say $`\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}100}`$ GHz is expected from Galactic synchrotron. The available high resolution data in the radio band, approximately $`10`$ arcmin., are at low and medium Galactic latitudes, $`|b|\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{<}{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}20}^{}`$ (Duncan et al., 1999; Uyaniker et al., 1999); degree resolution data (Brouw & Spoelstra, 1976) cover about half of the sky and reach high latitudes. These templates have been used to evaluate the angular power spectrum of synchrotron in the radio band, up to arcmin. scale (Tucci et al., 2000; Baccigalupi et al., 2001; Giardino et al., 2002; Tucci et al., 2002; de Oliveira-Costa et al., 2003, proceedings of this conference).
Tucci et al. (2000) estimated $`C_{\mathrm{}}^{E,B}\mathrm{}^{1.5÷2}`$, regardless of the Galactic region considered; note that the same behavior was quoted for the first time by Tegmark et al. (2000). Baccigalupi et al. (2001) found the same result, regardless also of the Galactic latitude, up to the highest probed $`|b|20^{}`$; they also estimated the level of Faraday depolarisation to be important, but not such to mask substantially the true synchrotron emission; moreover, they estimated the power on super-degree angular scales, corresponding to multipoles $`\mathrm{}200`$, using the Brouw & Spoelstra (1976) data, finding a steeper behavior, $`C_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{}^3`$. Giardino et al. (2002) estimated the power spectrum of the cosine and sine of the polarisation angle up to the arcmin. scale, and out of that constructed a spatial template assuming Gaussian distribution; the resulting pattern was then used to simulate templates for $`Q`$ and $`U`$ out of the total intensity Haslam map at 408 MHz, assumed to be synchrotron dominated and theoretically polarised at $`75\%`$; they also estimated the synchrotron spectral index as inferred by multi-frequency radio observations. Tucci et al. (2002) extended the power spectrum analysis up to a few thousand multipoles, and de Oliveira-Costa et al. (2003) performed a detailed study of the $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes in the large scale data.

The CMB contamination from diffuse Galactic dust is much more uncertain. The main emission mechanism arises from the thermal emission of magnetized dust grains, which get locally aligned by the Galactic magnetic field (Lazarian & Prunet, 2002). Moreover, indications of a non-thermal dust emission, possibly connected with rapid rotations of the grains and extending to much lower frequencies, has been conjectured in several works, although in the WMAP data there is no evidence of such component (see Bennett et al., 2003, and references therein). In total intensity, a $`6^{}`$ resolution all sky template of dust emission is available at 100 $`\mu `$m, and on the basis of a correct interpretation it can be scaled at microwave frequencies and compared with the CMB (see Finkbeiner et al., 1999, and references therein). In polarisation, a great achievement has been obtained by Archeops (see Ponthieu et al., 2003, proceedings of this conference), which measured a $`35\%`$ polarised dust signal on the Galactic plane. On the basis of these two ingredients, we propose here a naively simulated template of the polarised dust emission, which agrees remarkably well with previous estimates (Lazarian & Prunet, 2002; Prunet et al., 2000). We assume perfect correlation between total and polarised intensity and a $`5\%`$ polarisation degree. Then we assume the same polarisation angle pattern of the synchrotron emission (Giardino et al., 2002). That is certainly quite drastic, but it corresponds to the assumption that the Galactic magnetic field is 100% efficient imprinting the polarisation direction to the dust and synchrotron emission.

The $`Q`$ Stokes parameter template333Unless otherwise specified, the maps and power spectra we show are in Kelvin, antenna temperature. obtained by Giardino et al. (2002), hereafter $`S_G`$, is shown in figure 1, together with the spectral index template, upper and lower left panels, respectively; we also show the $`S_B`$ template obtained rescaling $`S_G`$ to match the power spectrum predicted by Baccigalupi et al. (2001), upper right panel; we also show the $`Q`$ template for the polarised thermal dust emission as described above, in the right lower panel. $`S_G`$, $`S_B`$ and dust are shown in a non-linear scale in order to highlight the behavior at high Galactic latitudes; the corresponding template for $`U`$ is qualitatively equivalent; they have been extrapolated to 100 GHz, in antenna temperature, using the spectral index template for synchrotron and the latest recipe by Finkbeiner et al. (1999) for dust. By visual inspection, the $`S_B`$ model appear to be less structured on small angular scales with respect to the $`S_G`$ and the dust template; the latter has the sharpest decrease with Galactic latitude, as we discuss below.

Before quantifying the contamination to the CMB polarisation angular power spectrum, it is useful to give a look at the whole foreground statistics and sky distribution, plotted in figure 2; from top to bottom, the left and right panels represent signal distribution and root mean square as a function of $`b`$ for $`S_G`$, $`S_B`$ and dust. The signal distributions are far from Gaussianity, and exhibit a marked super-Gaussian behavior, as the total intensity maps from which all these templates were derived. Also, as we anticipated, the dust and $`S_B`$ templates present the strongest and weakest dependence on the Galactic latitude, respectively. For the dust, the reason is the assumed perfect correlation between total and polarised intensity. For $`S_B`$, as we see now more in detail, most of the power lies on the small angular scales, which propagate well outside the Galactic plane.

In Fig. 3 we report the power spectra of the $`S_G`$, $`S_B`$ and dust templates, compared to the CMB444We realize a CMB template according to the WMAP data: $`h=0.72,\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7,\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.0228,\tau =0.117,n_S=0.96`$, also assuming a tensor to scalar ratio $`r=30\%`$, rather close to the current upper limit (see Bennett et al., 2003, and references therein)., on all sky and with a Galactic cut excluding the region with latitude $`|b|20^{}`$. The plots are at 100 GHz, in antenna temperature. The synchrotron frequency scaling according to the template in figure 1 is approximately $`[100/\nu (\mathrm{GHz})]^{5.5}`$, making the contamination rapidly worse at lower frequencies. For the dust, the scaling is given by Finkbeiner et al. (1999), which in the frequencies of interest here, say the interval covered by WMAP and Planck, is approximately $`\nu ^{4.7}/[\mathrm{exp}(h\nu /k_BT_D)1]`$, where $`h`$ and $`k_B`$ are the Planck and Boltzmann constant, and the thermodynamical dust temperature $`T_D18`$ Kelvin; the departure from a pure black body behavior is due to the heating that the interstellar medium gets from stars (see Prunet et al., 2000, and references therein). The CMB fluctuations in antenna temperature scale as the derivative of the black body brightness $`\nu ^2\mathrm{exp}(h\nu /k_BT_{CMB})/[\mathrm{exp}(h\nu /k_BT_{CMB})1]^2`$. As a general feature, it can be noted how the Galactic emission has almost equal power on $`E`$ and $`B`$ modes, according to the most natural expectation for a non-cosmological signal (Zaldarriaga 2001).
On a full sky analysis, the polarised dust dominates. This is likely to be the case if the observed $`35\%`$ polarisation degree really holds for all scales and the polarisation angle statistics is not too far from the synchrotron one. On the other hand, this signal does show the most abrupt drop when the Galaxy is cut out, which cleans almost completely the CMB $`E`$ and $`TE`$ modes, remaining however substantial for the $`B`$ ones; note that this case agrees remarkably well with the level quoted by Prunet et al. (2000) at intermediate Galactic latitudes.
On all sky, the synchrotron contamination is severe on large angular scales, almost covering the CMB reionization bump for $`E`$ and $`B`$, being somewhat less important for $`TE`$. On $`E`$, the $`S_B`$ signal drops rapidly below the CMB at a few tens in $`\mathrm{}`$, while $`S_G`$ affects the first CMB $`E`$ acoustic oscillation. An important point is that the Galactic cut is not as effective as for the dust: the reason is the weaker Galactic latitude dependence for synchrotron, as it is evident in figure 2. As a result, the CMB $`B`$ modes are likely to be severely contaminated even when the Galaxy is cut out.

We conclude that our present knowledge of the diffuse Galactic polarisation emission indicate that CMB $`TE`$ and $`E`$ modes are relatively clean, at least at medium and high Galactic latitudes and at frequencies around 100 GHz, while the $`B`$ modes are likely to be severely contaminated, at all frequencies and Galactic latitudes.

## 3 Component Separation

Despite of the severe foreground contamination, the CMB $`B`$ modes are expected to carry most important details on the nature of cosmological perturbations, as we stressed in the Introduction. For this reason it is worth to study data analysis techniques capable to clean the CMB from foreground contamination. This is feasible by exploiting the statistical differences of CMB and diffuse foregrounds, starting from a wide enough multi-frequency coverage of a given observation. The data can be sketched as

$$𝐱(n_f,n_p)=𝐀(n_f,n_c)𝐬(n_c,n_p)+𝐧(n_f,n_p),$$
(1)
where $`𝐱`$ represents the data at the $`n_f`$ frequencies, $`𝐬`$ the $`n_c`$ components corresponding to each emission, and $`𝐧`$ the instrumental noise; $`𝐀`$ is the mixing matrix, scaling and mixing the emissions $`𝐬`$ at any observed frequency, while $`n_p`$ is the number of pixels of the observation, or equivalently the number of harmonic coefficients if the analysis is performed in the spectral domain. Note that in general the angular resolution varies among the frequency channels. The target is to recover $`𝐬`$ from $`𝐱`$; as we saw in the previous Section, the problem is undetermined since we know A only partially, and the guesses on s are not reliable for stabilizing the inversion of the relation (1), either if the noise statistical properties are very well known, or even in a noiseless case. On the other hand, a well established expectation is that the CMB and foreground emission are statistically independent. It has been recently shown that this feature can be exploited to design “blind” component separation tools, i.e. able to recover $`𝐬`$ even without any prior on s or A; a first algorithm of this class was proposed for use in astrophysical component separation by Baccigalupi et al. (2000) based on the novel concept in signal processing science, the Independent Component Analysis: that works by finding a $`𝐖(n_c,n_f)`$ matrix which applied to $`𝐱(n_f,n_c)`$ in (1) brings to $`𝐬+\mathrm{𝐖𝐧}`$. The criterion to find $`𝐖`$ is to look for the statistically independent patterns in $`𝐱`$: that is clearly not unique and can be specialized for the problem at hand. A fast version (FastICA) adapted for satellite observations has been proposed by Maino et al. (2002); this technique has been further developed to account for any available and reliable prior, and successfully applied to the real COBE data by Maino et al. (2003). Recently, a different and promising blind technique based on a spectral matching of real and modeled data Delabrouille et al. (2003).

The first application of component separation to polarisation radiation has been performed by Baccigalupi et al. (2003), with a FastICA approach: separation is conducted on $`Q`$ and $`U`$ Stokes parameters separately or considered as a single signal provided that they obey the same statistics; we refer to that work for any detail on the algorithm procedure. Here we show a very simple application, with rather impressive results, to highlight the potentialities of this technique. We consider a noiseless mixture of polarised CMB and synchrotron $`S_G`$, scaling uniformly in frequency, at 50 and 80 GHz, on all sky and pixel size of about 3.5 arcmin.; note that we do not refer to any operating or planned experiment, and choose the frequencies among those in which CMB and synchrotron are roughly comparable. The two channels are input to the FastICA to recover synchrotron and CMB separately. Figure 4 show the input sky angular power spectra for $`E`$ (left) and $`B`$ (right) together with the spectra of the recovered CMB as output by FastICA. As it is evident, a CMB major cleaning was achieved: the dotted line is the input sky $`B`$ power, while the recovered CMB (solid) line is actually almost indistinguishable from the input one (dashed). We stress that this is without the use of any prior, i.e. not knowing any piece of A or $`𝐬`$. The algorithm knows only the data at the two frequencies, and looks for the most statistically independent components in those data. In addition, applying this technique in particular is computationally free: the results in figure were obtained in about five minutes on an ordinary single processor personal computer.
In particular, the CMB $`B`$ modes have been impressively cleaned: interpreting the foreground emission as noise, the signal to noise ratio is 0.1 or less, at all multipoles, as it can bee seen in the right panel of the figure. CMB $`E`$ modes have also been cleaned wherever the foreground contamination was relevant. The algorithm outputs also A, which differs from the real one by percent or less.

The reason of such an excellent performance is just the high level of detail of the underlying data. At arcmin. resolution, the maps are almost ideal datasets where the algorithm can look for the least statistically linked templates present into the maps themselves. Even if all the instrumental details were neglected, what we show here should be enough to gather attention on these new data analysis techniques, as we further stress in the next Section.

## 4 Concluding remarks

In this work we show that at frequencies around 100 GHz the diffuse Galactic polarisation emission is likely to be rather weak in comparison to the CMB $`TE`$ and $`E`$ modes, at least at medium and high Galactic latitudes, while the $`B`$ ones are seriously contaminated on all sky. At lower and higher frequencies, the contamination gets rapidly worse because of the steep frequency behavior of synchrotron and dust, respectively.

We stress that the new concepts in signal processing science can be exploited in this context, to cancel or greatly reduce such a contamination. In particular, the statistical independence of CMB and foreground emission is suitable to achieve this goal: we give an impressive example based on the FastICA technique in polarisation (Baccigalupi et al., 2003), where CMB $`B`$ modes are recovered out of a foreground emission about ten times stronger, without any prior information but their statistical independence, and at an almost null computational cost.

These features represent the “nominal” capabilities of these algorithms, i.e. their performance on ideal datasets: cleaning the cosmological signal from substantial foreground contamination, exploiting only their natural diversity. This is in our opinion a great achievement, providing the basis on which the implementation to any particular observation can be built. The latter step, of course, presents challenging issues: the noise level, sky distribution and non-stationarity, as well as the non-uniform spectral index of the components to recover, are good examples. However, we have already the indications of a substantial stability of the nominal performance against instrumental features and systematics: Maino et al. (2002) and Baccigalupi et al. (2003), respectively for total intensity and polarisation, perform a whitening of simulated Planck data in order to get rid of the noise bulk in the FastICA separation process. Most importantly, the results of Maino et al. (2003) show that these techniques are flexible enough to be applied to real data, the COBE ones, getting outstanding results, namely the correct large scale CMB power spectrum amplitude and shape.

While waiting for the era of large scale CMB polarisation measurements, the next obvious target is a successful application to the WMAP data, meaning the recovery of CMB data on sky regions affected by Galactic contamination which are normally cut out.

The author warmly thanks Gianfranco De Zotti, Giovanna Giardino, Eric Hivon, Francesca Perrotta, George Smoot and Radek Stompor for useful discussions. The HEALPix pixelisation scheme, available at www.eso.org/healpix, by A.J. Banday, M. Bartelmann, K.M. Gorski, F.K. Hansen, E.F. Hivon, and B.D. Wandelt, has been extensively used.