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# Surfaces, submanifolds, and aligned Fox reimbedding in non-Haken 3-manifolds

## 1. Introduction

A closed orientable irreducible 3-manifold $`N`$ is called Haken if it contains a closed orientable incompressible surface; otherwise $`N`$ is non-Haken. In Section 2 we describe some results for surfaces in non-Haken manifolds. Generalizing a theorem of Fox (\[F\]), we show in Section 3 that a $`3`$-dimensional submanifold of a non-Haken manifold $`N`$ is homeomorphic either to a handlebody complement in $`N`$ or the complement of a handlebody in $`S^3`$. Sections 2 and 3 are independent, but both represent progress towards understanding submanifolds of non-Haken manifolds. In Section 4 we combine the techniques from Section 2 with the results from Section 3 to show that if the submanifold $`MN`$ is $``$-reducible and has connected boundary, then the embedding can be chosen to align a full collection of separating $``$-reducing disks in $`M`$ with similar disks in the complement of $`M`$.

## 2. Handlebodies in non-Haken manifolds

Let $`N`$ be a closed orientable 3-manifold, $`F`$ a closed orientable surface of non-trivial genus imbedded in $`N`$. Recall that $`F`$ is compressible if there exists an essential simple closed curve on $`F`$ which bounds an imbedded disk $`D`$ in $`N`$ with interior disjoint from $`F`$. $`D`$ is a compressing disk for $`F`$.

###### Definition 1.

Suppose $`F`$ is a separating closed surface in an orientable irreducible closed $`3`$-manifold $`N`$. $`F`$ is reducible if there exists an essential simple closed curve on $`F`$ which bounds compressing disks on both sides of $`F`$. The union of the two compressing disks is a reducing sphere for $`F`$.

Suppose $`𝐒`$ is a collection of disjoint reducing spheres for $`F`$. A reducing sphere $`S𝐒`$ is redundant if a component of $`F𝐒`$ that is adjacent to $`SF`$ is planar. $`𝐒`$ is complete if, for any disjoint reducing sphere $`S^{}`$, $`S^{}`$ is redundant in $`𝐒S^{}`$.

Let $`\sigma (𝐒)`$ denote the number of components of $`F𝐒`$ that are not planar surfaces.

Since $`N`$ is irreducible, any sphere in $`N`$ is necessarily separating. Suppose a reducing sphere $`S^{}`$ is added to a collection $`𝐒`$ of disjoint reducing spheres. If $`S^{}`$ is redundant, the number of non-planar complementary components in $`F`$ is unchanged, since $`S^{}`$ necessarily separates the component of $`F𝐒`$ that it intersects and the union of two planar surfaces along a single boundary component is still planar. If $`S^{}`$ is not redundant then the number of non-planar complementary components in $`F`$ increases by one. Thus we have:

###### Lemma 2.

Suppose $`𝐒𝐒^{}`$ are two collections of disjoint reducing spheres for $`F`$ in $`N`$. Then $`\sigma (𝐒)\sigma (𝐒^{})`$. Equality holds if and only if each sphere $`S^{}`$ in $`𝐒^{}𝐒`$ is redundant in $`S^{}𝐒`$. In particular, $`𝐒`$ is complete if and only if for every collection $`𝐒^{}`$ such that $`𝐒𝐒^{}`$, $`\sigma (𝐒)=\sigma (𝐒^{})`$.

Let $`H`$ be a handlebody imbedded in $`N`$. $`H`$ has an unknotted core if there exists a pair of transverse simple closed curves $`c,dH`$ such that $`cd`$ is a single point, $`d`$ bounds an embedded disk in $`H`$ and $`c`$ (the core) bounds an imbedded disk in $`N`$.

###### Lemma 3.

Let $`F`$ be a connected, closed, separating, orientable surface in a closed orientable irreducible 3-manifold $`N`$. Suppose that $`F`$ has compressing disks to both sides. Then at least one of the following must hold:

1. $`F`$ is a Heegaard surface for $`N`$.
2. $`N`$ is Haken.
3. There exist disjoint compressing disks for $`F`$ on opposite sides of $`F`$.

###### Proof.

The proof is an application of the generalized Heegaard decomposition described in \[ST\]. As $`F`$ is compressible to both sides, we can construct a handle decomposition of $`N`$ starting at $`F`$ so that $`F`$ appears as a “thick” surface in the decomposition. If $`F`$ is not a Heegaard surface, then this decompostion contains a “thin” surface $`G`$ adjacent to $`F`$. If $`G`$ is incompressible in $`N`$, then $`N`$ is Haken. If $`G`$ is compressible we apply \[CG\] to obtain the required disjoint compressing disks for $`F`$. ∎

###### Theorem 4.

Let $`H`$ be a handlebody of genus $`g`$ imbedded in a closed orientable irreducible non-Haken 3-manifold $`N`$. Let $`G`$ be the complement of $`H`$ in $`N`$. Let $`F=H=G`$. Suppose $`F`$ is compressible in $`G`$. Then at least one of the following must hold:

1. The Heegaard genus of $`N`$ is less than or equal to $`g`$.
2. $`F`$ is reducible.
3. $`H`$ has an unknotted core.

###### Proof.

The proof is by induction on the genus of $`H`$. If $`g=1`$, then the result of compressing $`F`$ into $`G`$ is a $`2`$-sphere, necessarily bounding a ball in $`N`$. If a ball it bounds lies in $`G`$ then the Heegaard genus of $`N`$ is $`1`$. If a ball it bounds contains $`H`$ then $`H`$ is an unknotted solid torus in $`N`$ and so it has an unknotted core.

Suppose then that $`genus(H)=g>1`$ and assume inductively that the theorem is true for handlebodies of genus $`g1`$. Suppose that $`G`$, the complement of $`H`$, has compressible boundary. If $`G`$ is a handlebody then $`G_FH`$ is a Heegaard splitting of genus $`g`$ and we are done. So suppose $`G`$ is not a handlebody. Then by Lemma 3 there are disjoint compressing disks on opposite sides of $`F`$, say $`D`$ in $`H`$ and $`E`$ in $`G`$. Without loss of generality we can assume that $`D`$ is non-separating. Compress $`H`$ along $`D`$ to obtain a new handlebody $`H_1`$ with boundary $`F_1`$; let $`G_1`$ be the complement of $`H_1`$.

If $`E`$ is inessential in $`F_1`$ then it bounds a disk in $`H_1H`$ as well, so $`F`$ is reducible.

If $`E`$ is essential in $`F_1`$ then $`E`$ is a compressing disk in $`G_1`$ so we can apply the inductive hypothesis to $`H_1`$. If 1 or 3 holds then it holds for $`H`$, and we are done. Suppose instead $`F_1`$ is reducible. Let $`𝐒`$ be a collection of disjoint reducing spheres for $`F_1`$ chosen to maximize $`\sigma `$ among all possible such collections and then, subject to that condition, further choose $`𝐒`$ to minimize $`|E𝐒|`$. Clearly $`E𝐒`$ contains no closed curves, else replacing a subdisk lying in the disk collection $`𝐒G_1`$ with an innermost disk of $`E𝐒`$ would reduce $`|E𝐒|`$. Similarly, we have

Claim 1 Suppose $`ϵ`$ is an arc component of $`E𝐒`$ and $`F_0`$ is the component of $`F_1𝐒`$ in which $`ϵ`$ lies. If $`ϵ`$ separates $`F_0`$ (so the ends of $`ϵ`$ necessarily lie on the same component of $`F_0`$) then neither component of $`F_0ϵ`$ is planar.

Proof of claim 1: Let $`c_0`$ be the closed curve component of $`F_0𝐒F_1`$ on which the ends of $`ϵ`$ lie and, of the two arcs into which the ends of $`ϵ`$ divide $`c_0`$, let $`\alpha `$ be adjacent to a planar component of $`F_0ϵ`$. Then the curve $`ϵ\alpha `$ clearly bounds a disk in both $`G_1`$ and $`H_1`$ and then so does the curve $`c^{}=ϵ(c_0\alpha )`$. Let $`S^{}`$ be a sphere in $`N`$ intersecting $`F_1`$ in $`c^{}`$ and $`S_0`$ be the reducing sphere in $`𝐒`$ containing $`c_0`$. Replacing $`S_0`$ with $`S^{}`$ (or just deleting $`S_0`$ if $`c^{}`$ is inessential in $`F_1`$) gives a new collection $`𝐒^{}`$ of disjoint reducing spheres, intersecting $`E`$ in at least two fewer points. Moreover $`\sigma (𝐒^{})=\sigma (𝐒)`$ since the only change in the complementary components in $`F_1`$ is to add to one component and delete from another a planar surface along an arc in the boundary. Then the collection $`𝐒^{}`$ contradicts our initial choice for $`𝐒`$, a contradiction that proves the claim.

Let $`H^{}`$ be the closed complement of $`𝐒`$ in $`H_1`$, so $`H^{}`$ is itself a collection of handlebodies.

Claim 2 Either $`F`$ is reducible or $`H^{}`$ is compressible in $`NH^{}`$.

Proof of claim 2: If $`E`$ is disjoint from $`𝐒`$ and is inessential in $`H^{}`$, then $`E`$ bounds a disk in $`H^{}`$, hence in $`H`$, so $`F`$ is reducible. If $`E`$ is disjoint from $`𝐒`$ and is essential in $`H^{}`$, then $`E`$ compresses $`H^{}`$ in $`NH^{}`$, verifying the claim. Finally, if $`E`$ intersects $`𝐒`$, consider an outermost disk $`A`$ cut off from $`E`$ by $`𝐒`$. According to Claim 1, this disk, together with a subdisk of $`𝐒`$, constitute a disk $`E^{}`$ that compresses $`H^{}`$ in $`NH^{}`$, proving the claim.

Following Claim 2, either $`F`$ is reducible or the inductive hypothesis applies to a component $`H_0`$ of $`H^{}`$. If 2 holds for $`H_0`$ then consider a reducing sphere $`S`$ for $`H_0`$, isotoped so that the curve $`c=SH_0`$ is disjoint from the disks $`𝐒H_0`$. The disk $`SH_0`$ may intersect $`H_1`$; by general position with respect to the dual 1-handles, each component of intersection is a disk parallel to a component of $`𝐒H_1`$. But each such disk can be replaced by the corresponding disk in $`𝐒H_1`$ so that in the end $`c`$ also bounds a disk in $`NH_1`$. After this change, $`S`$ is a reducing sphere for $`F_1`$ in $`N`$ and, since $`c`$ is essential in $`H_0`$, $`\sigma (𝐒S)>\sigma (𝐒)`$, contradicting our initial choice for $`𝐒`$. Thus in fact 1 or 3 holds for $`H_0`$, hence also for $`H`$. ∎

In the specific case $`N=S^3`$, we apply precisely the same argument, combined with Waldhausen’s theorem \[W\] on Heegaard splittings of $`S^3`$, to obtain:

###### Corollary 5.

Let $`H`$ be a handlebody imbedded in $`S^3`$, and suppose $`G`$, the complement of $`H`$, has compressible boundary. Then either $`H`$ has an unknotted core or the boundary of $`H`$ is reducible.

This corollary is similar to (\[MT\], Theorem 1.1), but no reimbedding of $`S^3H`$ is required.

## 3. Complements of handlebodies in non-Haken manifolds

In \[F\] (see also \[MT\] for a brief version) Fox showed that any compact connected $`3`$-dimensional submanifold $`M`$ of $`S^3`$ is homeomorphic to the complement of a union of handlebodies in $`S^3`$. We generalize this result to non-Haken manifolds, showing that a submanifold $`M`$ of a non-Haken manifold $`N`$ has an almost equally simple description, that is, $`M`$ is homeomorphic to the complement of handlebodies either in $`S^3`$ or in $`N`$.

###### Definition 6.

Let $`N`$ be a compact irreducible $`3`$-manifold, and let $`M`$ be a compact $`3`$-submanifold of $`N`$. We will say the complement of $`M`$ in $`N`$ is standard if it is homeomorphic to a collection of handlebodies or to $`N`$#(collection of handlebodies). (We regard $`B^3`$ as a handlebody of genus $`0`$.)

Note that in the latter case $`M`$ is actually homeomorphic to the complement of a collection of handlebodies in $`S^3`$.

###### Theorem 7.

Let $`N`$ be a closed orientable irreducible non-Haken $`3`$-manifold, and let $`M`$ be a connected compact $`3`$-submanifold of $`N`$ with non-empty boundary. Then $`M`$ is homeomorphic to a submanifold of $`N`$ whose complement is standard.

###### Proof.

The proof will be by induction on $`n+g`$ where $`n`$ is the number of components of $`M`$ and $`g`$ is the genus of $`M`$, that is, the sum of the genera of its components. If $`n+g=1`$ then $`M`$ is a single sphere. Since $`N`$ is irreducible, the sphere bounds a $`3`$-ball in $`N`$. So either $`M`$ or its complement is a $`3`$-ball and in either case the proof is immediate.

For the inductive step, suppose first that $`M`$ has multiple components $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_n,n2`$. Each component $`T_i`$ must bound a distinct component $`J_i`$ of $`NM`$ since each must be separating in the non-Haken manifold $`N`$. Let $`M^{}=MJ_n`$; by inductive assumption $`M^{}`$ can be reimbedded so that its complement is standard. After the reimbedding, remove $`J_n`$ from $`M^{}`$, to recover a homeomorph of $`M`$ and adjoin $`J_1`$ (now homeomorphic either to a handlebody or to $`N`$#(handlebody)) instead. Reimbed the resulting manifold so that its complement is standard and remove $`J_1`$ to recover $`M`$, now with standard complement.

Henceforth we can therefore assume that $`M`$ is connected and not a sphere. Since $`N`$ is non-Haken there exists a compressing disk $`D`$ for $`M`$.

Case 1. $`D`$ is non-separating on $`M`$.

If $`D`$ lies inside $`M`$, compress $`M`$ along $`D`$ to obtain $`M^{}`$ and use the induction hypothesis to find an imbedding of $`M^{}`$ with standard complement. Reconstruct $`M`$ by attaching a trivial 1-handle to $`M^{}`$, thus simutaneously attaching a trivial 1-handle to the complement.

If $`D`$ lies outside $`M`$, attach a 2-handle to $`M`$ corresponding to $`D`$ to obtain $`M^{}`$, whose connected boundary has lower genus. Invoking the inductive hypothesis, imbed $`M^{}`$ in $`N`$ with standard complement. Reconstruct $`M`$ from $`M^{}`$ by removing a co-core of the attached 2-handle, thus adding a 1-handle to the complement of $`M^{}`$.

Case 2. $`D`$ is separating on $`M`$.

Suppose $`D`$ lies outside $`M`$. Then $`D`$ also separates $`J`$ into two components, $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$, since $`H_2(N)=0`$. Denote the components of $`MD`$ by $`_1J_1`$ and $`_2J_2`$, both of positive genus. Let $`M^{}=MJ_2`$. Reimbed $`M^{}`$ so that its complement is standard. The boundary of $`M^{}`$ consists of $`_1`$ together with a disk. Since the complement of $`M^{}`$ is standard, there is a non-separating compressing disk $`D^{}`$ for $`M^{}`$ contained in the complement of $`M^{}`$. $`D^{}`$ is also a non-separating compressing disk for the reimbedded $`M`$ (which is contained in $`M^{}`$). Apply case 1 to this new imbedding of $`M`$.

We can now suppose that the only compressing disks for $`M`$ are separating compressing disks lying inside $`M`$. Choose a family $`𝐃`$ of such $``$-reducing disks for $`M`$ that is maximal in the sense that no component of $`M^{}=M𝐃`$ is itself $``$-compressible. Since each compressing disk is separating, $`genus(M^{})=genus(M)>0`$ so $`M^{}`$ is compressible in $`N`$. Such a compressing disk $`E`$ can’t lie inside $`M^{}`$, by construction, so it lies in the connected manifold $`NM^{}`$; let $`M_1`$ be the component of $`M^{}`$ on whose boundary $`E`$ lies. Since each disk in $`𝐃`$ was separating, $`M`$ has the simple topological description that it is the boundary-connect sum of the components of $`M^{}`$. So $`M`$ can easily be reconstructed from $`M^{}`$ in $`NM^{}`$ by doing boundary connect sum along arcs connecting each component of $`M^{}M_1`$ to $`M_1`$ in $`N(M^{}E)`$. After this reimbedding of $`M`$, $`E`$ is a compressing disk for $`M`$ that lies outside $`M`$, so we can conclude the proof via one of the previous cases. ∎

## 4. Aligned Fox reimbedding

Now we combine results from the previous two sections and consider this question: If $`M`$ is a connected $`3`$-submanifold of a non-Haken manifold $`N`$ and $`M`$ is $``$-reducible, to what extent can a reimbedding of $`M`$, so that its complement is standard, have its $``$-reducing disks aligned with meridian disks of its complement. Obviously non-separating disks in $`M`$ cannot have boundaries matched with meridian disks of $`NM`$, since $`N`$ contains no non-separating surfaces. But at least in the case when $`M`$ is connected, this is the only restriction.

###### Definition 8.

For $`M`$ a compact irreducible orientable $`3`$-manifold, define a disjoint collection of separating $``$-reducing disks $`𝐃M`$ to be full if each component of $`M𝐃`$ is either a solid torus or is $``$-irreducible.

For $`M`$ reducible, $`𝐃M`$ is full if there is a prime decomposition of $`M`$ so that for each summand $`M^{}`$ of $`M`$ containing boundary, $`𝐃M^{}`$ is full in $`M^{}`$.

$`MN`$ a $`3`$-submanifold is aligned to a standard complement if the complement of $`M`$ is standard and there is a (complete) collection of reducing spheres $`𝐒`$ for $`M`$ so that $`𝐒M`$ is a full collection of $``$-reducing disks for $`M`$.

There is a uniqueness theorem, presumably well-known, for full collections of disks, which is most easily expressed for irreducible manifolds:

###### Lemma 9.

Suppose $`M`$ is an irreducible orientable $`3`$-manifold with boundary and $`M`$ is expressed as a boundary connect sum in two different ways: $`M=M_1\mathrm{}M_2\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}M_n=M_1^{}\mathrm{}M_2^{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}M_n^{}^{}`$, where each $`M_i,M_j^{}`$ is either a solid torus or $``$-irreducible. Then, after rearrangement, $`n^{}=n`$ and $`M_iM_i^{}`$.

###### Proof.

One can easily prove the theorem from first principles, along the lines of e. g. \[H, Theorem 3.21\], the standard proof of the corresponding theorem for connected sum. But a cheap start is to just double $`M`$ along its boundary to get a manifold $`DM`$. The decompositions above double to give connected sum decompositions of $`DM`$ in which each factor consists of either $`S^1\times S^2`$ or the double of an irreducible, $``$-irreducible manifold which is then necessarily irreducible. Then \[H, Theorem 3.21\] implies that $`n=n^{}`$ and that the two original decompositions of $`M`$ also each contain the same number of solid tori. After removing these, we are reduced to the case in which the only $``$-reducing disks in $`M`$ are separating and $`n^{}=n`$.

Following the outline suggested by the proof of \[H, Theorem 3.21\], choose a disk $`D`$ that separates $`M`$ into the component $`M_n`$ and the component $`M_1\mathrm{}M_2\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}M_{n1}`$. Choose disks $`E_1,\mathrm{},E_{n1}`$ that separate $`M`$ into the components $`M_1^{},M_2^{},\mathrm{}M_n^{}^{}`$. Choose the disks to minimize the number of intersection components in $`D(\{E_i\})`$. Since each manifold is irreducible and $``$-irreducible, a standard innermost disk, outermost arc argument (in $`D`$) shows that in fact $`D`$ is then disjoint from $`\{E_i\}`$, so $`DM_n^{}`$ (say). Since $`M_n^{}`$ is $``$-irreducible, $`D`$ is $``$-parallel in $`M_n^{}`$ so in fact (with no loss of generality) $`M_nM_n^{}`$ and $`M_1\mathrm{}M_2\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}M_{n1}M_1^{}\mathrm{}M_2^{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}M_{n1}^{}`$. The result follows by induction. ∎

###### Theorem 10.

Let $`N`$ be a closed orientable irreducible non-Haken $`3`$-manifold, and $`M`$ be a connected compact $`3`$-submanifold of $`N`$ with connected boundary. Then $`M`$ can be reimbedded in $`N`$ with standard complement so that $`M`$ is aligned to the standard complement.

###### Proof.

The proof is by induction on the genus of $`M`$. Unless $`M`$ has a separating $``$-reducing disk, there is nothing beyond the result of Theorem 7 to prove. So we assume that $`M`$ does have a separating $``$-reducing disk; in particular the genus of $`M`$ is $`g2`$. We inductively assume that the theorem has been proven whenever the genus of $`M`$ is less than $`g`$.

The first observation is that it suffices to find an embedding of $`M`$ in $`N`$ so that there is some reducing sphere $`S`$ for $`M`$ in $`N`$. For such a reducing sphere divides $`J=NM`$ into two components $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$. Apply the inductive hypothesis to $`MJ_1`$ to reimbed it with aligned complement $`J_2^{}`$. Notice that by a standard innermost disk argument, the reducing spheres can be taken to be disjoint from $`S`$. After this reimbedding, apply the inductive hypothesis to $`MJ_2^{}`$ to reimbed it so that its complement $`J_1^{}`$ is aligned. After this reimbedding, $`M`$ has aligned complement $`J_1^{}_{SM}J_2^{}`$.

Our goal then is to find a reimbedding of $`M`$ so that afterwards $`M`$ has a reducing sphere. First use Theorem 7 to reimbed $`M`$ in $`N`$ so that its complement $`J`$ is standard, i. e. either a handlebody or $`N`$\# (handlebody). Since $`M`$ is $``$-reducible, Lemma 3 applies: either $`M`$ is itself a handlebody (in which case the required reimbedding of $`M`$ is easy) or there are disjoint compressing disks $`D`$ in $`J`$ and $`E`$ in $`M`$. Since $`J`$ is standard, $`D`$ can be chosen to be non-separating in $`J`$. Then $`E`$ is not homologous to $`D`$ in $`M`$ so $`E`$ is either separating in $`M`$ or non-separating in $`MD`$. In the latter case, two copies of $`E`$ can be banded together along an arc in $`MD`$ to create a separating essential disk in $`M`$ that is disjoint from $`D`$. The upshot is that we may as well assume that $`DJ`$ is non-separaring and $`EM`$ is separating.

Add a $`2`$-handle to $`M`$ along $`D`$ to get $`M^{}`$, still with standard complement $`J^{}`$. Dually, $`M`$ can be viewed as the complement of the neighborhood of an arc $`\alpha M^{}`$. If $`E`$ is inessential in $`M^{}`$, it bounds a disk $`D^{}`$ in $`J^{}J`$. Then the sphere $`D^{}E`$ is a reducing sphere for $`M`$ as required. So we may as well assume that $`E`$ is essential in $`M^{}`$ and of course still separates $`M^{}`$. By inductive assumption $`M^{}`$ can be embedded in $`N`$ so that its complement is aligned, but note that this does not immediately mean that $`E`$ itself bounds a disk in $`NM^{}`$. Let $`𝐒`$ be a complete collection of reducing spheres for $`M^{}`$ intersecting $`M^{}`$ in a full collection of disks.

$`E`$ divides $`M^{}`$ into two components, $`U`$ and $`V`$ with, say, $`\alpha U`$. If $`M^{}`$ is reducible (i.e. contains a punctured copy of $`N`$) an innermost (in $`E`$) disk argument ensures that the reducing sphere is disjoint from $`E`$. By possibly tubing $`E`$ to that reducing sphere, we can ensure that the $`N`$-summand, if it lies in $`M^{}`$, lies in $`UM^{}`$. That is, we can arrange that $`V`$ is irreducible. $`E`$ extends to a full collection of disks in $`M^{}`$, with the new disks dividing $`U`$ and $`V`$ into $``$-connected sums: $`U=U_1\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}U_m,V=V_1\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}V_n,m,n1`$, with each $`U_i,V_j`$ either $``$-irreducible or a solid torus (with one of the $`U_i`$ possibly containing $`N`$ as a connect summand). By Lemma 9, some component $`V^{}`$ of $`M^{}𝐒`$ is homeomorphic to $`V_n`$. Tube together all components of $`𝐒`$ incident to $`V^{}`$ along arcs in $`V^{}`$ to get a reducing sphere $`S^{}`$ dividing $`M^{}`$ into two components, one homeomorphic to $`V_n`$ and the other homeomorphic to $`U\mathrm{}V_1\mathrm{}V_2\mathrm{}\mathrm{}\mathrm{}V_{n1}`$. The latter homeomorphism carries $`\alpha U`$ to an arc $`\alpha ^{}`$ that is disjoint from the reducing sphere $`S^{}`$. Then $`M^{}\eta (\alpha ^{})`$ is homeomorphic to $`M`$ and admits the reducing sphere $`S^{}`$. In other words, the reimbedding of $`M`$ that replaces $`M^{}\eta (\alpha )`$ with $`M^{}\eta (\alpha ^{})`$ makes $`M`$ reducible in $`N`$, completing the argument. ∎

###### Corollary 11.

Given $`MN`$ as in Theorem 10, suppose $`𝐃`$ is a full set of disks in $`M`$. Then, with at most one exception, each component of $`M𝐃`$ embeds in $`S^3`$.

###### Proof.

Following Theorem 10 reimbed $`M`$ in $`N`$ with standard complement so that $`M`$ is aligned to the standard complement. Then there is a collection $`𝐒`$ of disjoint spheres in $`M`$ so that, via Lemma 9, $`M𝐒`$ and $`M𝐃`$ are homeomorphic. Since $`N`$ is irreducible, each component but at most one of $`N𝐒`$ is a punctured $`3`$-ball. Finally, each component of $`N𝐒`$ contains at most one component of $`M𝐃`$ since each component of $`𝐒`$ is separating. ∎


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# Using Globular Clusters to Test Newton s Law of Gravity

## 1. Introduction and Discussion

We present the results of a study of the kinematics of the external regions of $`\omega `$ Centauri and M15, a work triggered by the increasing evidences that Newton s law of gravity may not apply to acceleration smaller than $`a_0=1.2\times 10^8`$ cm s-2 (Begeman et al. 1991), as proposed within the contest of the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND; Milgrom 1983). We focused on globular clusters because they are believed to be dark matter free and hence should agree precisely with Newton s law at any acceleration. Interestingly, in $`\omega `$ Centauri the velocity dispersion does not show the typical Keplerian falloff remaining constant at large radii (Fig. 1). It is worth to point out that assuming a mass to light ratio M/L=1 in solar units, appropriate for globular clusters as suggested by dynamical study (Mandushev et al. 1991), it turns out that the dispersion flattens for $`a=2.1\pm 0.5\times 10^8`$ cm s-2, similar to $`a_0`$. A similar set of data for M15 (Drukier 1998) shows that also in this globular cluster the velocity dispersion profile remains flat (within errors) at large radii (Fig. 1). The flattening of the velocity dispersion occurs for $`a=1.7\pm 0.6\times 10^8`$ cm s-2, again similar to $`a_0`$.

Though it is conceivable the observed flattening of the velocity dispersion profile is due to either tidal heating or to a massive dark matter halo surrounding the clusters, both scenarios require ad hoc assumptions to make the profile flat. What is striking is that these two clusters have very little in common, having different masses, different positions and different orbits in the galactic halo. Their dynamical evolution was also different to such an extent that while M15 is a textbook example of a globular cluster, $`\omega `$ Centauri has been claimed to be the merger of two cluster (Lee et al. 1999) or the remnant of a dwarf galaxy (Hilker 2000). Thus we find the fact that the two profiles are so similar a significant one. Globular clusters are hundreds of times smaller and thousands of time less massive than galaxies, nonetheless the velocity dispersion profile of at least these two clusters precisely mimics, both in shape and absolute acceleration, the one of elliptical galaxies (explained invoking dark matter; Carollo et al. 1995). There is no reason for the flattening in globular clusters and galaxies to occur for the same value of the acceleration. Therefore, our result finds its simplest explanation within the framework of MOND, supporting the suggestion that Newton s law of gravity may fail in the low acceleration limit.

## References

Begeman K.G., Broeils A.H. & Sanders R. H. 1991, MNRAS 249, 523

Carollo C.M., de Zeeuw P.T., van der Marel R.P., et al. 1995, ApJL 441, 25

Drukier, G.A., Slavin, S.D., Cohn, H.N. et al 1998, ApJ 115, 708.

Hilker M. & Richtler T. 2000, A&A 362, 895

Lee Y.W., Joo J.M., Sohn Y.J. et al. 1999, Nature 402, 55

Mandushev G., Spassova N. & Staneva A. 1991, A&A 252, 94

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Fig 1. Left: The velocity dispersion profile of $`\omega `$ Centauri. Proper motion (Circles and Squares, Van Leeuwen et al. 2000) and radial velocities (Crosses, Meylan et al. 1995 and Meylan & Mayor 1986) data show the velocity ellipsoid is isotropic. Our radial velocities measurement (Diamonds) extend the profile to 45 pc showing the velocity dispersion remains constant for R$`>27\pm 3`$ pc. Right: Dispersion profile of the globular cluster M15, from data by Drukier et al. (1998). Also in this case the velocity dispersion remains basically constant for R$`>18\pm 3`$ pc. In both panel the solid line is not a fit to the data. It is meant to visualize that the velocity dispersion remains constant at large radii.


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# Mass segregation in the young open cluster NGC 2547

## 1 Introduction

Most stars do not form in isolation, but in rich clusters of stars, with sizes ranging from several tens of stars to clusters containing several thousand stars. Observations of young clusters typically find that the most massive stars are located near the cluster centre (Hillenbrand & Hartmann, 1998; Raboud, 1999). What is not certain is whether this reflects the initial conditions of star formation, or the process of dynamical evolution.

Dynamical evolution in a stellar cluster drives the system towards equipartition, the natural result of this being that the lower-mass stars attain higher velocities and hence occupy larger orbits around the cluster centre. In turn, the higher mass stars will sink towards the cluster centre. Bonnell & Davies (1998) showed that the timescale for significant dynamical mass segregation to occur is comparable with the relaxation time for a cluster,

$$\tau _r\frac{N}{8\mathrm{ln}N}\tau _{cr},$$
(1)
where $`N`$ is the number of stars within the cluster and $`\tau _{cr}`$ is the crossing time. Another measure of the clusters relaxation timescale is its half-mass, or median timescale (de Grijs et al., 2002),

$$\tau _{r,h}=\left(8.92\times 10^5\right)\frac{M_{tot}^{1/2}}{m}\frac{R_h^{3/2}}{\mathrm{log}_{10}\left(0.4M_{tot}/m\right)}\mathrm{yr},$$
(2)
where $`R_h`$ is the half-mass radius in parsecs, $`m`$ is the mean stellar mass, and $`M_{tot}`$ is the total cluster mass, both expressed in solar units. This equation represents the relaxation timescale for the inner half of the cluster mass, for stars with characteristic velocity dispersions and average masses.

In practice the situation is complicated because mass segregation is a local, not a global effect. The mass segregation timescale is smaller for the higher mass stars (e.g. Kontizas et al., 1998), is smaller in the cluster core than in the outer regions (e.g Hillenbrand & Hartmann, 1998) and is larger for stars with higher velocity dispersions. Even the concept of a local relaxation time is approximate as mass segregation is an ongoing process. For example, the relaxation time for high mass stars is a decreasing function of time, as the orbits of the high mass stars evolve closer to the cluster core with time. Complicating matters even further, the time-scale for a cluster to lose all traces of its initial conditions depends on the number of stars (Bonnell & Davies, 1998) the frequency of binary stars and the slope of the mass function.

Bearing this is mind, it is not surprising that it is often difficult to establish how much dynamical evolution a cluster should have undergone. Determining this is important because the initial distribution of mass within the cluster may not be uniform, due to the details of the star formation process. Although in the classic picture of star formation (Shu et al., 1987) mass segregation does not occur, there are competing models in which the most massive stars are expected to form near the cluster centre. One such model proposes that high mass stars are formed by mergers of lower mass protostellar clumps (e.g. Bonnell et al., 1997) \- implying that high mass stars form in the centre of the cluster, where the density of these clumps is highest. Alternatively, it has been suggested that protostars are competing for the accretion of gas (Bonnell et al., 2001) \- implying that the higher mass stars form in the centre of the cluster because that is where the gas density is highest.

Studies of mass segregation in very young open clusters seem to suggest that primordial mass segregation is a reality; mass segregation is already present in the clusters NGC 2024, NGC 2071 and Mon R2 (Lada & Lada, 1991; Hillenbrand & Hartmann, 1998), despite the fact that these clusters are still embedded in their parental cloud and are not even a crossing time old. Both Hillenbrand & Hartmann (1998) and Bonnell & Davies (1998) argue convincingly that the mass segregation observed in the Orion Nebular Cloud is, at least partly, due to primordial mass segregation.

Observations of older clusters usually reveal the mass segregation expected of a dynamically relaxed cluster. Mass segregation has, for example, been observed in the Pleiades, NGC 2516, Praesepe and M67 (Raboud & Mermilliod, 1998; Mathieu & Latham, 1986; Jeffries et al., 2001), with ages of 100, 150, 800 and 5000 Myr respectively. However, Raboud & Mermilliod (1998) found the degree of mass segregation for stars between 1.5 and 2.3 $`M_{}`$ is less pronounced in Praesepe than in the Pleiades, which is unexpected given their ages.

Here we present a study of mass segregation in the young open cluster NGC 2547. At an age of 20–35 Myr this cluster represents an intermediary between very young open clusters like the Orion Nebular Cluster, and older clusters like the Pleiades. Studies of mass segregation in clusters of this intermediate age are useful because mass segregation should just be starting to appear. Furthermore, it has been suggested that a subset of clusters at this age should show no mass segregation, due to violent relaxation following the loss of the highest mass stars through supernovae (Raboud & Mermilliod, 1998). In section 2, we describe the catalogue used to select cluster members. Section 3 outlines the process of member selection, whilst in section 5 we determine the degree of mass segregation present in the cluster, and compare this to expectations from theoretical arguments.

### 1.1 NGC 2547

The open cluster NGC2547 (= C0809-491) lies at Galactic co-ordinates $`l=264.45^{}`$ $`b=8.53^{}`$ ($`\alpha `$ = 08 10 25.7, $`\delta `$ = -49 10 03; J2000). Clariá (1982) derived a reddening for the cluster of $`E(BV)=0.06`$. Naylor et al. (2002) revisited the dataset of Jeffries & Tolley (1998), improving their photometry by using optimal photometry techniques. They determined an age of 20–35 Myr and an intrinsic distance modulus of 8.00–8.15 magnitudes (400–425 parsecs). They estimated the cluster mass at 370 M. Hence, NGC 2547 is much less massive than previously well studied open clusters like the Pleiades and NGC 2516 and less massive than the well studied Orion Nebular Cluster (ONC).

NGC 2547 is a cluster of intermediate age, although the exact age remains uncertain. Whilst isochronal fitting to colour magnitude diagrams suggests an age of 20–35 Myr (Naylor et al., 2002), the location of the lithium depletion boundary suggests that the age is between 35 and 54 Myr (Olivera et al., 2003). For the purposes of this paper we adopt the isochronal age, although our results are not affected if the older age is assumed.

## 2 The Catalogue

The analysis which follows in sections 3 and 4 is based upon the wide photometric catalogue of Naylor et al. (2002). The catalogue is the result of a $`BVI_\mathrm{c}`$ survey of NGC 2547, centred on $`\alpha `$ = 08 10 17.4, $`\delta `$ = -48 57 00. The survey consists of 9 fields covering a total of 34$`\times `$34 arcmins. The survey contains no information for the brightest objects, as stars brighter than $`V8`$ saturated in the exposure times used. Naylor et al. (2002) obtained this information from the photometry of Clariá (1982). As a consequence of this, the brightest stars only have $`V`$ magnitudes and $`BV`$ colours. The catalogue in which the photometry for the brightest stars has been added is referred to as enhanced. Colour magnitude diagrams for the enhanced catalogue are shown in figures 1 and 2.

### 2.1 Completeness

The catalogue of Naylor et al. (2002) has been produced using optimal photometry techniques, detailed within that paper. These techniques have the advantage of producing colour-magnitude diagrams with well understood completeness properties. Naylor et al. (2002) measure the completeness of our catalogue in the regions where it overlaps their, deeper, catalogue, and find that it is essentially complete, down to a $`V`$ magnitude of 20.5. Also, the completeness drops sharply from 90% to 10% in half a magnitude. In this paper we are interested in the completeness of our catalogue as a function of position. We assessed this by injecting a simulated sequence of pre-main sequence stars into the data and determining what fraction are selected as cluster members in our final catalogue (see Naylor et al., 2002, for details). Figure 3 shows that the completeness properties do not vary between the inner and outer regions, and that the wide catalogue is complete to $`V=20.5`$, with a very sharp cut-off below this. These properties mean that corrections for completeness can be ignored in the following analysis, without introducing significant error.

## 3 Selection of cluster members

Selection of candidate members of NGC 2547 proceeds largely as described in Naylor et al. (2002). Each star is tested against a number of criteria for membership. If a star does not fail any of these tests then it is retained as a candidate member. Briefly, these tests consist of investigating whether a star is: (a) close to the best fitting $`V`$ vs $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ isochrone, defined in Naylor et al. (2002); (b) close to the $`V`$ vs $`BV`$ isochrone; (c) close to the $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ vs $`BV`$ locus for cluster members. At the referee’s request, we also attempted to use the UCAC1 proper motion catalogue (Zacharias et al., 2000) to refine our membership selection, but the data were not precise enough for our purposes.

In addition we apply a final test for possible binarity. If a star lies more than 0.3 mag. above the $`V`$ vs $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ isochrone (or the $`V`$ vs $`BV`$ isochrone for stars with $`VI_\mathrm{c}<0.5`$) we class them as candidate unresolved binary systems. Naylor et al. (2002) calculate that this method is sensitive to binaries with mass ratio $`q0.6`$ for $`V<14`$ and $`q0.5`$ for fainter cluster members.

For the brightest objects, for which we have no $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ colour, we were forced to use slightly different selection criteria. For these objects, membership was allocated to those stars which are close to the $`V`$ vs $`BV`$ isochrone. We reject those measurements which are affected by bad pixels, have poor sky subtraction, are flagged as non-stellar or which have uncertainties of greater than 0.2 mag. Above $`V=8`$ the $`V`$ vs $`BV`$ isochrone lies nearly vertical and here members have been selected “by-eye”. From the objects with no $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ colour, we selected a further 24 members, out of 39 objects.

For this paper we have introduced two further selection criteria. The membership selection for the very brightest stars was checked using the HIPPARCHOS proper motions (Baumgardt et al., 2000) and the radial velocities from the Revision of the General Catalogue of Radial Velocities (Evans, 1967). In each case, our results for membership using the photometric cut described above agreed with the membership results using the proper motions and radial velocities. The only exception was the variable star KW Vel. Although this star was selected as a member on the basis of its photometric colours, Baumgardt et al. (2000) classified the object as a non-member on the basis of its proper motion. Hence, we removed KW Vel from our catalogue of members. As an aside, three objects (HIP # 40336, 40385 and 40427) were discovered in the HIPPARCHOS proper motions of Baumgardt et al. (2000) which lay well outside our surveyed region, but were selected as cluster members on the basis of their proper motions and HIPPARCHOS photometry. These stars lie about a degree away from the cluster centre, and we identify them as potential escaped cluster members.

We used the method described above to find 327 cluster candidates from the enhanced catalogue, of which 95 are probable unresolved, high mass ratio binaries. Figure 1 shows the $`V`$ vs. $`VI_\mathrm{c}`$ colour-magnitude diagram, with cluster candidates indicated.

### 3.1 Field Star Contamination

We are confident that the membership selection criteria have included almost all the true cluster members. A crucial question regards the number of non-members which we have erroneously classed as members. We note that the NGC 2547 isochrone for PMS stars lies more than a magnitude above the ZAMS in the colour-magnitude diagram, and hence clear of background contamination. The exception is between $`14.0<V<15.5`$ (0.75–0.9M) where a “finger” of background giants intrudes onto the PMS locus. Here, integration of an interpolation of the density of stars above and below the cluster sequence suggests that the field star contamination could be as high as 40% in this region of colour-magnitude space.

The assumption that background contamination is negligible outside the contaminating finger has been tested by Jeffries et al. (2000), who performed high-resolution spectroscopy of 23 of the stars selected as cluster members by Naylor et al. (2002), with magnitudes in the range $`12<V<15`$. From the radial velocities there is good evidence that at least 20, and probably all, of these stars are indeed cluster members. Therefore, following Naylor et al. (2002), we assume contamination is negligible in the analysis which follows.

## 4 NGC 2547 as a cluster

### 4.1 The cluster centre

There are several ways to define a cluster centre; theoretically, it can be defined as the centre of mass, or the location of the deepest part of the gravitational potential, observationally the centre is often defined as the region of highest surface brightness, or the region containing the largest number of objects. Here we define the cluster centre as the being the location of maximum stellar density.

The cluster centre was found by fitting Gaussians to the profiles of star counts in right ascension and declination. These profiles are shown in figure 4.

This method gives both a location for the cluster centre, and a formal error. Using this method, the cluster centre is found to be at $`\alpha =8.169_{0.01}^{+0.02}`$ hours and $`\delta =49.20_{0.02}^{+0.02}`$ degrees.

### 4.2 Is NGC 2547 bound?

We can determine an approximation to (strictly, a lower limit to) the half-mass radius of the cluster, by finding the radius which contains half the total mass in our survey. Unresolved binarity can be a problem for this technique if the binary fraction or distribution of mass ratios is a strong function of position within the cluster. Hence, we determined the half-mass radius by two methods; first by ignoring the problems raised by unresolved binary companions, and second using the scheme outlined in Naylor et al. (2002) to account for the high mass ratio binaries.

We find that the half mass radius of NGC 2547 is 10.7 arcmins, regardless of whether binaries are accounted for or not. We note here that the method used assumes spherical symmetry for the cluster. The effect of this assumption on the value of the half-mass radius was investigated by determining the half mass radius obtained for four quadrants of the cluster. The half mass radii found for these four quadrants ranged from 10 to 11 arcmins. Hence, we believe that the assumption of spherical symmetry does not introduce errors greater than 10%.

Using the half-mass radius as a lower limit to the total radius of the cluster, and the the velocity dispersion of Jeffries et al. (2000) of $`\overline{v}1`$ km s-1, the virial mass is $`M2R_{tot}\overline{v}^2/G600M_{}`$. This value is highly uncertain, however, because the total radius of the cluster, and the velocity dispersion are basically unknown. The final result could easily vary by a factor of two either way. The total mass of NGC 2547 is 370$`M_{}`$, and therefore it is not possible to determine if NGC 2547 is bound with the data available at present. However, given its continued existence after 20–35 Myr, it seems likely that the cluster is at least close to being bound.

## 5 Mass segregation in NGC 2547

The evidence for mass segregation in NGC 2547 can be seen from a plot of radius against mass for the cluster members (figure 5). Masses were allocated to stars following the procedure in Naylor et al. (2002), which makes corrections for binarity. The key features of this plot are: the “finger of contamination”, see section 3.1, which is just visible as a strip of increased stellar density between 10 and 20 arcmins and $`0.8<M/M_{}<0.9`$, and the sharp drop in the number of stars at around 18 arcmins. The mass segregation is visible as an absence of stars in th top-right of the diagram. In particular, the maximum radius seems to decrease above 2M.

In an attempt to quantify the significance of this feature, we start from the null hypothesis that there is no mass segregation in NGC 2547. The approach used to test this hypothesis is described below.

* We use the radial distribution and mass function for NGC 2547 to create a model of the null hypothesis, in which there is no mass segregation (i.e. the radial distribution is independent of mass).
* The distribution of stars in NGC 2547 in the V-magnitude, radius plane is compared to that of the model, by measuring the D-statistic111The D statistic is the largest difference between the fractions of data points which lie in the four quadrants around a point ($`x`$,$`y`$), and the corresponding fractions of data points from a model which corresponds to the null hypothesis, where the point ($`x`$, $`y`$) has been selected to maximise the D-statistic from a two-dimensional, 1-sample K-S test.
* We now generate many fake clusters, which share the mass function and radial distribution of NGC 2547, but show no mass segregation.
* We now perform the same K-S test applied previously to NGC 2547 to our fake clusters, in order to discover the distribution of the D-statistic in the null hypothesis.
* The D statistic from the real NGC 2547 data is compared to the distribution in the null hypothesis

The test described above gives a formal probability that there is no mass segregation in NGC2547 (mass function is independent of radius) of 95 per cent, in stark contrast to what we would expect from visually inspecting figure 5. Hence we see that the 2-d K-S test is not a powerful test for the presence of mass segregation. This lack of power arises because there are many possible deviations from the null hypothesis (independent mass and radius distributions) which do not correspond to the distributions expected from mass segregation. In testing the distribution of stars in NGC 2547 against all these possible deviations, we lose the sensitivity to detect the deviation we are interested in. We can see this is true if we formulate a different test, which only looks for deviations from the null hypothesis in the sense expected from mass segregation. In this test we generated 8000 fake clusters, of the same size as NGC 2547, which show no mass segregation. We then asked how many of these clusters showed a lack of high mass stars at large radii which was comparable with the data. Strictly, we determined the percentage of our clusters in which there was fewer than two stars whose radii in arcminutes obeyed $`R305M`$, where M is the stellar mass in solar units (NGC 2547 has only one such star). Only $`2`$% of our fake clusters met our criteria. What this test shows is that it is possible to gain sensitivity to the presence of mass segregation, by only testing for deviations in the sense expected. Hence, increased power comes at the cost of increased bias.

Having determined the presence of mass segregation in NGC 2547, it is pertinent to ask at what masses it is present. Figure 6 shows cumulative radial distributions for non-binary members of NGC 2547 in 3 mass bins. The “finger” of background giants (i.e. stars in the $`V`$ magnitude range 14–15.5) has been excluded. A 1-D K-S test gives a 0.5 per cent probability that the $`V<9`$ (approximating to $`M>3`$ $`M_{}`$) stars have the same radial distribution as the stars with $`V>9`$, and a 3 per cent probability that the $`V<9`$ stars have the same distribution as the stars with $`9<V<13`$. The results described above do not change if we move the cluster centre around 1$`\sigma `$ in RA and Dec (i.e a 1.4 $`\sigma `$ shift in centre position). In summary, the data show good evidence that the stars above 3$`M_{}`$ exhibit mass segregation.

A word of caution: the numbers above should not be regarded as representative of the formal significance, because we chose the mass bins as such because there were no stars with $`V<9`$ outside the half mass radius (i.e. we have seen what we think is an effect in the data, and then set out to prove it is present). The K-S test assumes that the bin boundaries are chosen at random and will therefore have overestimated the significance of our results. The situation is somewhat analogous to the difficulties we found in applying the 2-d K-S test - the ability to detect mass segregation has come at the cost of some unknown level of bias. We also note here that, to our knowledge, all previous studies of mass segregation have used a similar 1-d K-S test, and suffer from the same limitations.

If there is mass segregation above 3M, and none in the lowest mass stars in our census, it is relevant to ask at what point mass segregation becomes important. This is revealed by the results of the 1-d KS test between the radial distributions of stars with $`9<V<13`$ and $`V>13`$ ($`V=13`$ is approximately 1$`M_{}`$). The 1-d K-S test gives a probability that these distributions are the same of 7 per cent. Although this result is not formally significant, it suggests that some mass segregation in NGC 2547 has occurred for stars with masses greater than somewhere between 1 and 3M.

Hence we conclude that there is good evidence for mass segregation for the stars above 3$`M_{}`$. Weak evidence exists that mass segregation may have occurred down to 1$`M_{}`$ and there is no evidence that mass segregation has occurred for stars less massive than this.

### 5.1 Binary Stars

Several theoretical studies of mass segregation conclude that binary stars tend to be more centrally condensed than single stars because they are, on average, more massive. An early study by Abt (1980) found that this was indeed the case, but only for clusters older than $`10^8`$ yr. Raboud & Mermilliod (1994) studied the distribution of red giant stars in 14 clusters with ages between 3$`\times 10^8`$ and 40$`\times 10^8`$ yr. They found that only M67 (the oldest cluster observed) showed a significant difference between the spatial distribution of red giant binaries and single red giants, confirming an earlier result by (Mathieu & Latham, 1986). In contrast to these results, Raboud & Mermilliod (1998) find that the binary stars in the $`3`$ Myr old cluster NGC 6231 are centrally condensed.

In agreement with the findings of Abt (1980), there is no evidence that the binary stars in NGC 2547 are more centrally condensed than the single stars: the 1-d K-S test gives $`P_{null}=70`$ per cent.

### 5.2 Timescales

The radial velocity dispersion in NGC 2547 is 1 km s-1 (Jeffries et al., 2000), though this is dominated by errors, and should be considered an upper limit. The total mass is 370 $`M_{}`$ (Naylor et al., 2002), with 323 members down to a mass of 0.26 $`M_{}`$ and out to radii of 20 arcmins (this paper).

With an age estimate for NGC 2547 of 20–35 Myr, this allows us to calculate a crossing time for the cluster of $`\tau _{cr}3`$ Myr. Bonnell & Davies (1998) show that mass segregation occurs for the higher mass stars in a cluster on the order of the relaxation time (see equation 1). For NGC 2547, this gives a relaxation time of $`\tau _r20`$ Myr, comparable with the age of the cluster.

Hence, NGC 2547 lies in an interesting region of parameter space where the cluster age is comparable to the time taken for mass segregation to appear. Because of this, detailed modelling is necessary to determine if the mass segregation observed in NGC 2547 is caused by dynamical evolution, or primordial effects.

### 5.3 Modelling

We modelled the dynamical evolution of NGC 2547 using the nbody2 code. A model cluster was created by generating stars until the model cluster matched the total mass of NGC 2547. The probability of selecting a star of given mass and radius from cluster centre was weighted in order to match the observed mass function and half mass radius. The initial conditions in the model follow a Plummer distribution with an isothermal velocity distribution. The model contained no initial mass segregation.

Figure 7 shows the cumulative fraction profiles of distance from cluster centre for 10 models of NGC 2547 at 35 Myr with identical statistical properties but different initial random realisations. It can be seen that the high mass (M $`>3`$M) stars are slightly centrally condensed, but that the low and medium mass stars show no mass segregation.

The model cluster shows less mass segregation at 35 Myr than observed in NGC 2547. This is most strongly seen in the high mass stars. In the model cluster 55% of the high mass stars lie outside the half-mass radius, whereas in NGC 2547 all of the high mass stars lie within this radius. If we assume that the high mass stars in NGC 2547 have the same radial distribution as seen in our model cluster, there is only a 0.2% chance of finding all eight high mass stars in NGC 2547 within the half mass radius. Hence dynamical evolution alone cannot explain the central concentration of high mass stars in NGC 2547 and we conclude that some, but not all of the mass segregation observed in NGC 2547 is primordial in origin.

## 6 Conclusions

We find evidence for the onset of mass segregation amongst the high mass ($`>3M_{}`$) members of NGC 2547. Weaker evidence exists for mass segregation down to $`1M_{}`$. Modelling of NGC 2547 produces clusters with weaker mass segregation, implying a primordial origin for some of the mass segregation observed. Hence we conclude that, in some cases, primordial mass segregation can still be observed in intermediate (20–35 Myr) age clusters.

It is likely that NGC 2547 has suffered the loss of high mass stars through supernovae in its history. Supernovae are expected to have occurred at the age of NGC 2547 for stars more massive than roughly 8M. Extrapolating the mass function of Naylor et al. (2002) we would expect to find around 2 stars more massive than this in NGC 2547, implying that at least one supernova has occurred in NGC 2547 in the past. It is therefore difficult to reconcile the mass segregation clearly observed in NGC 2547 with the suggestion by Raboud & Mermilliod (1998) that supernovae might remove traces of primordial mass segregation from a cluster.

## Acknowledgements

We are grateful to PPARC for supporting SL. We would like to thank the director and staff of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. ,under contract to the US National Science Foundation.


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# The Effects of Relativistic Corrections on Cosmological Parameter Estimations from SZE Cluster Surveys

## 1 Introduction

With fast advances in astronomical observations, the determination of cosmological parameters has become one of the most important studies in cosmology (e.g., Eisenstein, Hu & Tegmark 1999; Spergel et al. 2003). Different kinds of observables are sensitive to different underlying physical processes, and thus can be used to probe different cosmological parameters. The local abundance and the evolution of clusters of galaxies have been used extensively in the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ determination, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is the present matter density parameter of the universe and $`\sigma _8`$ is the rms of the extrapolated linear density fluctuation smoothed over $`8\text{ Mpc}h^1`$ (e.g., Bahcall & Fan 1998; Pen 1998; Haiman, Mohr & Holder 2001; Holder, Haiman & Mohr 2001; Fan & Chiueh 2001; Rosati, Borgani & Norman 2002). Supernova type Ia (SNeIa) (Schmidt et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999) and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation observations (e.g., Spergel et al. 2003) provide convincing evidences that we are living in a flat universe with about $`70\%`$ of the matter being in the form of dark energy. As the properties of dark energy affect the global geometry of the universe and the growth of matter density fluctuations, the abundance and the evolution of clusters are dependent of the $`w`$ parameter of the equation of state of dark energy, where $`w=p/\rho `$ with $`p`$ the pressure and $`\rho `$ the density of dark energy (e.g., Caldwell, Dave, & Steinhardt 1998). Studies show that deep and large cluster surveys could constrain $`w`$ to about $`5\%`$ level (e.g., Mohr et al. 2002). In order to reach such a precision, however, we have to understand different types of systematic effects. Investigations indicate that the incompleteness of the knowledge about the intracluster gas (ICM) affects the cosmological parameter determination from X-ray cluster surveys, but influences less on the results from Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Effect (SZE) cluster surveys (Majumdar & Mohr 2003). In this paper, we study the impact of relativistic corrections of thermal SZE on the $`w`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ estimation from SZE cluster surveys.

The typical gas temperature in clusters of galaxies is about a few kev, but clusters with temperatures as high as about $`17\text{ kev}`$ have been observed (e.g., Pointecouteau et al. 1999; 2001). Thus relativistic corrections on SZE can be significant (e.g., Birkinshaw 1999; Carlstrom, Holder & Reese 2002; Rephaeli 2002). For a SZE cluster survey, the selection function is mostly related to a mass threshold that depends on the sensitivity of the instrument and is also a function of redshift. For a survey with a relatively high flux limit, only clusters with large masses, and therefore high temperatures, can be detected. In this case, we expect that relativistic corrections will impact the theoretical estimations of the survey results considerably. The amplitude of the change of SZE due to relativistic effects also depends on observing frequencies, with a relatively large correction around $`400\text{ GHz}`$. For Planck, one of the best frequencies for SZE observation is $`353\text{ GHz}`$ and the flux limit is about $`30\text{ mJy}`$ (e.g., Diego et al. 2002). Both numbers indicate that we need to take relativistic effects into account in relating cosmological models to survey results. Diego, Hansen & Silk (2003) discussed how the corrections affect the extraction of SZE signals from Planck survey. Here we study the impact on the SZE cluster number counts for different $`w`$ models. Keeping other cosmological parameters fixed, we particularly investigate the influence on the $`w`$ and $`\sigma _8`$ determination.

For the redshift distribution of SZE clusters, the differences of different $`w`$ models mainly show up at high redshifts. To extract $`w`$ and $`\sigma _8`$, we then propose to use the total number of SZE clusters $`N_{tot}`$ and the number of clusters with redshift $`z>=z_m`$ (denoted as $`N_{zz_m}`$) as constraints, where $`z_m`$ is flux dependent. Thus to apply our method, one needs to know the redshift range of a cluster, but not its exact value. Therefore it provides an economic way to estimate cosmological parameters from large surveys, such as Planck.

To demonstrate relativistic effects clearly, we consider single-frequency measurements with $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$ and the flux limit $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$. Real Planck observations will be multi-frequency. Therefore for a particular cluster-detecting method, realistic simulations including survey characteristics are needed to quantify carefully the influence of relativistic corrections. More discussions on this regard are presented in Section 4.

Our study finds that for a survey of $`10000\text{ deg}^2`$, $`\sigma _8`$ can be constrained to a narrow range with about $`\pm 1\%`$ accuracy around its central value if $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties are allowed for both $`N_{tot}`$ and $`N_{z0.5}`$. The corresponding range for $`w`$ is $`\pm 8\%`$. Relativistic effects are significant in terms of locating the central values of cosmological parameters. If they are ignored in deriving $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ from the observed $`N_{tot}`$ and $`N_{z0.5}`$, the misplaced location of $`(\sigma _8,w)`$ in $`\sigma _8w`$ plane is outside the $`3\sigma `$ region around the real central ones.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 contains the relevant analytical formulation. Section 3 presents numerical results. Discussions are made in Section 4.

## 2 Formulation

### 2.1 Thermal SZE with Relativistic Corrections Included

The thermal SZE, i.e., the thermal distortion of the CMB spectrum, is generated through the scattering of CMB photons with thermalized hot electrons in, e.g., clusters of galaxies (e.g., Sunyaev & Zel’dovich 1980; Birkinshaw 1999; Carlstrom, Holder & Reese 2002). Because the temperature of electrons is generally much higher than that of the CMB photons, inverse Compton scatterings are dominant, and the distribution of photons shifts toward high-frequency side. In terms of the dimensionless quantity $`x=h_p\nu /k_BT_{CMB}`$, where $`h_p`$ and $`k_B`$ are the Planck’s constant and the Boltzmann’s constant, respectively, and $`\nu `$ and $`T_{CMB}`$ are, respectively, the frequency and the temperature of CMB photons, in the nonrelativistic limit, the change of the CMB intensity can be written as

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I}{I_0}=Q(x)y,$$
$`(1)`$
where $`I_0=(2h_p/c^2)(k_BT_{CMB})^3/h_p^3`$,

$$Q(x)=\frac{x^4e^x}{(e^x1)^2}\left[\frac{x}{\text{tanh}(x/2)}4\right],$$

and the Compton y-parameter

$$y=n_e\sigma _T\left(\frac{k_BT_{gas}}{m_ec^2}\right)𝑑l,$$

where $`n_e`$ is the number density of hot electrons, $`\sigma _T`$ is the Thomson cross section, $`T_{gas}`$ is the intracluster gas temperature, $`m_e`$ is the electron mass, and $`c`$ is the speed of light. The integral is along the line of sight.

In this limit, the shape of the distortion is independent of the gas temperature. For $`\nu <218\text{ GHz}`$, $`Q(x)<0`$, and the SZE shows as an absorber (or decrement) of CMB. For $`\nu >218\text{ GHz}`$, $`Q(x)>0`$, and the SZE shows as a source (increment) of radiation.

For relativistic corrections, we use the analytical formula of Itoh, Kohyama & Nozawa (1998), which includes terms up to $`(k_BT_{gas}/m_ec^2)^5`$. Then we have

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }I}{I_0}=\frac{yx^4e^x}{(e^x1)^2}(Y_0+\theta _eY_1+\theta _e^2Y_2+\theta _e^3Y_3+\theta _e^4Y_4),$$
$`(2)`$
where $`\theta _e=k_BT_{gas}/(m_ec^2)`$ and

$$Y_0=\frac{x}{\text{tanh}(x/2)}4,$$

and $`Y_1`$, $`Y_2`$, $`Y_3`$ and $`Y_4`$ are complicated functions of $`x`$ \[see Itoh et al. (1998) for detailed expressions\].

In Figure 1 we show the single-scattering $`\mathrm{\Delta }I/I_0`$ for $`k_BT_{gas}=5\text{ kev}`$ and for $`k_BT_{gas}=20\text{ kev}`$. For each pair, the solid and the dashed lines are the results without and with relativistic corrections, respectively. It is seen that the effects are significant for $`k_BT_{gas}=20\text{ kev}`$, with about $`25\%`$ reduction of SZE signals at $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$. It is also noted that the $`\nu `$ value for the zero thermal SZE point depends on the gas temperature, in contrast with that of the nonrelativistic case (e.g., Birkinshaw 1999; Rephaeli 1995). As pointed out by Itoh et al. (1998), their perturbative approximation is valid up to $`k_BT_{gas}=15\text{ kev}`$ in comparison with that from exact numerical calculations. At $`k_BT_{gas}20\text{ kev}`$, the approximated result deviates from the full numerical one significantly at $`\nu >500\text{ GHz}`$. At $`\nu 353\text{ GHz}`$, however, equation (2) is still a good approximation even for $`k_BT_{gas}20\text{ kev}`$.

Consider unresolved clusters, the total flux of the thermal SZE from a cluster at redshift $`z`$ is

$$S=\frac{1}{R_d^2(z)}\mathrm{\Delta }I𝑑A,$$
$`(3)`$
where $`R_d(z)`$ is the angular diameter distance to the cluster, and the integral is over the surface area of the cluster.

With the isothermal assumption, equation (3) can be written as

$$S=I_0\frac{x^4e^x}{(e^x1)^2}(Y_0+\theta _eY_1+\theta _e^2Y_2+\theta _e^3Y_3+\theta _e^4Y_4)\text{ Y},$$
$`(4)`$
where

$$Y=\frac{1}{R_d^2}y𝑑A.$$
$`(5)`$
If we denote $`f_b`$ as the gas fraction that is assumed to be a constant and $`X`$ as the hydrogen mass fraction, then

$$Y=\frac{\sigma _T}{2m_em_pc^2}f_b(1+X)k_BT_{gas}MR_d^2,$$
$`(6)`$
where $`M`$ is the total mass of the cluster, and $`m_p`$ is the proton mass. Further under the equilibrium condition, the temperature $`T_{gas}`$ and the mass $`M`$ are related through the following relation (e.g., Wang & Steinhardt 1998)

$$k_BT_{gas}=0.944f_\beta (1+z)[\mathrm{\Omega }_m(0)\mathrm{\Delta }_c]^{1/3}\times \left[1\frac{2\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)}{\mathrm{\Delta }_c\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z)}\right]^{3/2}\left(\frac{M}{10^{15}h^1M_{}}\right)^{2/3},$$
$`(7)`$
where $`f_\beta =f_\mu \mu /\beta `$ with $`f_\mu `$ a constant factor of order unity that reflects the deviation from the simple spherical model, $`\mu `$ the mean molecular weight of the gas, and $`\beta `$ the ratio of the kinetic energy of galaxies to the thermal energy of the gas, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }(z)`$ are the matter density parameter and the dark energy density parameter at redshift $`z`$, respectively, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ is the ratio of the mean density of the cluster to the background matter density at redshift $`z`$. Here $`\mu `$ is related to $`X`$ by $`\mu =4/(5X+3)`$.

Then given a flux limit for a SZE survey, one can get the corresponding mass limit $`M_{lim}(S_{lim},z)`$ from equations (4), (6) and (7). Note that the mass limit depends on cosmological models.

### 2.2 Cluster Number Densities and Cosmological Models

For the comoving number density of clusters, we use the fitting formula of Jenkins et al. (2001). Then we have

$$\frac{dn}{dM}(z,M)=0.315\frac{\rho _0}{M}\frac{1}{\sigma _M}|\frac{d\sigma _M}{dM}|\mathrm{exp}[|0.61\mathrm{ln}(D_z\sigma _M)|^{3.8}],$$
$`(8)`$
where $`\rho _0`$ is the present matter density of the universe, $`\sigma _M`$ is the rms of the linearly-extrapolated-to-present matter density fluctuation over the mass scale M, and $`D_z`$ is the linear growth factor of density perturbations.

For $`\sigma _M`$, we adopt the form given by Viana & Liddle (1999)

$$\sigma _M=\sigma _8\left[\frac{R(M)}{8h^1\text{Mpc}}\right]^{\gamma [R(M)]},$$
$`(9)`$
where $`h`$ is the Hubble constant in units of $`100\text{ kms}^1\text{Mpc}^1`$, the spatial scale $`R`$ is related to $`M`$ through

$$R(M)=\frac{M}{(4\pi /3)\rho _0},$$

and

$$\gamma (R)=(0.3\mathrm{\Gamma }+0.2)\left[2.92+\mathrm{log}_{10}\left(\frac{R}{8h^1\text{Mpc}}\right)\right],$$
$`(10)`$
with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ the shape parameter of the linear density fluctuation spectrum.

In this paper, we consider flat cosmological models with the dark energy part described by the equation of state $`w=p/\rho `$. The density parameter of dark energy is then specifically denoted by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$. The linear growth factor $`D_z`$ is given by the analytical formula of Wang & Steinhardt (1998)

$$D_za\mathrm{exp}\left\{_a^1\frac{da}{a}[1\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z)^\alpha ]\right\},$$
$`(11)`$
where $`a=1/(1+z)`$ is the scale factor of the universe, and

$$\alpha \frac{3}{5w/(1w)}+\frac{3}{125}\frac{(1w)(13w/2)}{(16w/5)^3}[1\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z)].$$

For the over-density of a cluster collapsed and virialized at redshift $`z_c`$, we have (Wang & Steinhardt 1998)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }_c(z_c)=\zeta \left(\frac{R_{ta}}{R_{vir}}\right)^3\left(\frac{1+z_{ta}}{1+z_c}\right)^3,$$
$`(12)`$
where $`R_{ta}`$ and $`R_{vir}`$ are the radii of the cluster at the time of turn-around ($`z=z_{ta}`$) and at the time of virialization ($`z=z_c`$), respectively, and

$$\zeta =\frac{\rho _{cluster}(z_{ta})}{\rho _b(z_{ta})}\left(\frac{3\pi }{4}\right)^2\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{0.79+0.26\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.06w}|_{z_{ta}}.$$
$`(13)`$
The redshifts $`z_{ta}`$ and $`z_c`$ are related through $`t(z_c)=2t(z_{ta})`$, i.e., the time at $`z_c`$ is twice the turn-around time, and

$$\frac{R_{vir}}{R_{ta}}=\frac{1\eta _v/2}{2+\eta _t3\eta _v/2},$$
$`(14)`$
where

$$\eta _t=2\zeta ^1\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(z_{ta})}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z_{ta})},$$

and

$$\eta _v=2\zeta ^1\left(\frac{1+z_c}{1+z_{ta}}\right)^3\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(z_c)}{\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z_c)}.$$

## 3 Results of Analyses

In the following studies, we take $`f_b=0.1`$, $`f_\beta =1.4`$, and $`X=0.76`$ for the gas properties. For cosmological models, the Hubble constant $`H_0`$ is taken to be $`70\text{ kms}^1\text{Mpc}^1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m(0)=0.3`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(0)=0.7`$. For perturbations, we take $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.2`$. The observational frequency is taken to be $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$.

### 3.1  Mass limits for Flux-limited SZE Surveys

From equations (4), (6), and (7), it is clear that the corresponding mass limit for a flux-limited SZE survey is cosmology-dependent, and this dependency is one of the factors that contribute to the differences of the expected SZE survey results for different cosmological models.

In Figure 2, we show $`M_{lim}`$, in units of $`10^{15}h^1M_{}`$, vs. redshift $`z`$ for different $`w`$ cosmologies given $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$. The three models are for $`w=1`$, $`w=0.75`$, and $`w=0.3`$, respectively. For each pair, the lower one is the result without relativistic corrections, and the upper one is the one with the effects included. It is seen that the mass limit decreases as $`w`$ increases. At $`z=1`$, $`M_{lim}(w=0.3)0.7M_{lim}(w=1)`$. The relative increase of the mass limit due to relativistic corrections ranges from $`6.5\%`$ for $`w=1`$ to $`7.5\%`$ for $`w=0.3`$ at $`z=1`$.

### 3.2 SZE Cluster Number Counts

As flat models with different $`w`$ have different volume elements, linear growth factors for density perturbations, and mass limits, the redshift distribution of SZE clusters is sensitive to $`w`$, and thus can be used to probe the $`w`$ value.

In Figure 3a and Figure 3c, we show $`dN/(d\mathrm{\Omega }dz)`$ for $`S_{lim}=5\text{ mJy}`$ and $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, respectively, without relativistic corrections. In each figure, results of three models with $`w=1,0.75`$ and $`0.3`$ are plotted. For all the models, $`\sigma _8=0.85`$. Therefore the figures show the effects of different $`w`$ on the cluster redshift distribution. We see that given a flux limit, models with larger $`w`$ (smaller absolute value of $`w`$) predict more SZE clusters over almost the whole redshift range considered. In Figure 3b and Figure 3d, relativistic corrections on $`dN/(d\mathrm{\Omega }dz)`$ are shown. It is seen that they are larger at higher redshifts, and relatively smaller for higher $`w`$ at redshifts $`z1`$. For $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, the relative changes are about $`13\%`$ at $`z=0.5`$, and at $`z=2`$, they are about $`41\%`$, $`38\%`$ and $`32\%`$ for $`w=1,0.75`$ and $`0.3`$, respectively.

In Figure 4, we show the surface number density $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ vs. $`w`$. For each pair, the upper and the lower ones are for the results without and with relativistic corrections, respectively. For $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, the respective $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }=1.45`$ and $`1.30`$ at $`w=0.75`$, with the change of about $`10\%`$. For Planck, the survey area is about $`10000\text{ deg}^2`$. Then the corresponding $`1\sigma `$ uncertainty of $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ due to Poisson fluctuations is about $`0.012`$. Thus the change due to relativistic effects is about $`12\sigma `$. This indicates the significance of the effects in extracting $`w`$ value from observations. For example, with single-frequency measurements, given the observed surface number density of $`1.30`$, one would infer $`w0.9`$ if relativistic corrections are neglected, which is about $`20\%`$ off the real value of $`w=0.75`$. We elaborate this further in the next subsection.

In Figure 3 and Figure 4, $`\sigma _8=0.85`$ for all the models. That is, we assume that $`\sigma _8`$, as well as other cosmological parameters, have been well determined from other observational information. On the other hand, studies have shown that the total number of SZE clusters is sensitive to $`\sigma _8`$, thus potentially, $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ can be constrained from SZE surveys simultaneously. From the shape of the redshift distributions in Figure 3, we see that with the same total number of SZE clusters, the differences of the models are still apparent. For $`S_{lim}=5\text{ mJy}`$, the number of clusters with $`z1`$ is significantly larger for larger $`w`$. The ratio $`dN(z1,w=0.3)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to $`dN(z1,w=1)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is about $`1.8`$. For $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, the number of clusters with $`z0.5`$ shows strong dependence on $`w`$, with $`[dN(z0.5,w=0.3)/d\mathrm{\Omega }]/[dN(z0.5,w=1)/d\mathrm{\Omega }]1.8`$. These analyses suggest that it is possible to constrain both $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ using the total number of SZE clusters and the number of SZE clusters with $`z>z_m`$ with $`z_m`$ flux-limit dependent. With this methodology, we only need to know the redshift range of a cluster, but not its precise $`z`$. Thus it is relatively easy to be realized in practice. In the next subsection, we show how well we can apply this method to constrain $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$. We also discuss relativistic effects on the parameter determination.

### 3.3 Constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$

We concentrate on extracting information on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ from SZE cluster surveys by assuming that other cosmological parameters have been pre-determined. The values of those other parameters considered in this paper were listed at the beginning of Section 3.

Two pieces of information will be used to constrain $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$: the total number of SZE clusters and the number of clusters with $`zz_m`$. Here we take $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$ and $`z_m=0.5`$.

The model with $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$ and $`w=0.75`$ is adopted as the fiducial one. We choose $`w=0.75`$ (but not $`w=1`$) as our central value so that relativistic effects can be seen clearly (see Figure 6 in the following). Our analyzing procedures are as follows. Given the total surface number density $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ calculated from the fiducial model, we search for $`\sigma _8`$ for different $`w`$-models such that they have the same $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ as that of the given value. In this way, we get a relation between $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$. Similarly, there is another $`\sigma _8`$-$`w`$ relation from the number density of clusters with $`z0.5`$ \[denoted as $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$\]. The two lines from the two relations should intersect at $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$ and $`w=0.75`$. Given a survey area, we can estimate the possible constrained ranges for $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ allowing different uncertainty levels.

Figure 5 shows $`\sigma _8`$-$`w`$ relations for $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$ without (thin lines) and with (thick lines) relativistic corrections. The set of relatively flat lines are from $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and the other set of lines are from $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The solid lines are from the fiducial $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, respectively. The dashed lines are $`\pm 3\sigma `$ results for $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and the dotted lines are $`\pm 3\sigma `$ results for $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$. Here Poisson statistics is applied to estimate $`\sigma `$, and the survey area is taken to be $`10000\text{ deg}^2`$.

For the non-relativistic case, we find that the solid lines can well be fitted by

$$\sigma _8(w)=0.8284|w+0.751|^{(0.13530.0150|w+0.751|)},$$
$`(15)`$
and

$$\sigma _8(w)=0.8284|w+0.751|^{(0.18090.0056|w+0.751|)}.$$
$`(16)`$
To avoid crowding, we did not plot $`1\sigma `$ and $`2\sigma `$ lines in Figure 5. Our studies show that with $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties in both the total number of SZE clusters and the number of clusters with $`z0.5`$, $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ are constrained to be within the ranges $`(0.8209,0.8360)`$ and $`(0.81,0.69)`$, respectively. Thus for a survey such as Planck, the respective accuracies of the determined $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ can possibly reach to a level of about $`\pm 1\%`$ and $`\pm 8\%`$. The $`3\sigma `$ determinations are about $`\pm 3\%`$ for $`\sigma _8`$ and about $`\pm 25\%`$ for $`w`$ if other cosmological parameters have already been known to good precisions.

In the relativistic case, the approximated analytical relations between $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ for the solid lines are

$$\sigma _8(w)=\sigma _8(0.75)|w+0.751|^{(0.12460.0115|w+0.751|)}.$$
$`(17)`$
and

$$\sigma _8(w)=\sigma _8(0.75)|w+0.751|^{(0.169690.00009|w+0.751|)}.$$
$`(18)`$
The relations are slightly flatter than those of the nonrelativistic case (eq.  and eq. ). As seen in Figure 3d, relativistic effects are stronger at higher redshifts. It is also known that models with larger $`w`$ (lower absolute $`w`$ value) predict more high redshift clusters, and thus the relativistic corrections to $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ are larger. This results the decrease of the differences between different $`w`$ models in terms of the two measurements, and therefore the flatter $`\sigma _8`$-$`w`$ relations. The $`1\sigma `$ and $`3\sigma `$ ranges for $`\sigma _8`$ are $`(0.8213,0.8356)`$ and $`(0.8056,0.8491)`$, respectively, and the respective ranges for $`w`$ are $`(0.815,0.69)`$ and $`(0.95,0.57)`$. We see that relativistic corrections do not affect the precisions of the parameter determination very much.

On the other hand, however, if relativistic effects were neglected in extracting $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ from a SZE survey, the determined central values can be significantly off the real ones. To estimate this misplacement, we take the relativistic $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ from the fiducial model with $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$ and $`w=0.75`$ as inputs, but search for $`\sigma _8`$-$`w`$ relations with nonrelativistic mass limits. In Figure 6, we plot the results as solid lines. The contours are the $`1\sigma `$ (solid), $`2\sigma `$ (dotted) and $`3\sigma `$ (dashed) lines around $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$ and $`w=0.75`$ (denoted by the star). Note that the solid contour is composed by $`\pm 1\sigma `$ lines for the total number of SZE clusters and the $`\pm 1\sigma `$ lines for the number of clusters with $`z0.5`$. The $`2\sigma `$ and $`3\sigma `$ contours are similar. First let us consider one parameter case (given the other) using the total number of SZE clusters as the constraint. Given $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$, the derived central $`w`$ from the wrong solid line is $`w0.92`$, while the $`3\sigma `$ value is $`w0.78`$. On the other hand, if $`w=0.75`$ is given, the derived $`\sigma _8`$ is $`\sigma _80.814`$, while the $`3\sigma `$ value is $`\sigma _80.824`$. We see that the misplacement is dramatically large. If both $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ are considered as unknown, the derived values from the cross-point of the two solid lines are $`\sigma _80.819`$ and $`w0.81`$. Thus the derivations from the fiducial values are about $`1.1\%`$ for $`\sigma _8`$ and $`8\%`$ for $`w`$. Although this offset is smaller than those of the one parameter cases, the derived ”central values” are outside the $`3\sigma `$ region (the region surrounded by the dashed contour). Therefore relativistic effects are very significant and cannot be ignored.

## 4 Discussion

As the most important property of SZE is its redshift-independence, SZE cluster surveys are one of the best to probe the structure formation at high redshifts. Because of the cosmological model dependence of the geometry of the universe, of the evolution of density fluctuations, and of the mass limit corresponding to a given flux limit, the redshift distribution of SZE clusters is sensitive to cosmological parameters.

We particularly discussed the effects of relativistic corrections of thermal SZE on the redshift distribution of clusters, and further on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ determinations from SZE cluster surveys. The corrections affect the cluster redshift distribution through changing the mass limit for a given flux limit. The changes depend on the observing frequency and on the flux limit. For $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$ and $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, at $`z=1`$, the relative increase of the mass limit due to relativistic effects is about $`6.5\%`$ and $`7.5\%`$ for $`w=1`$ and $`w=0.3`$, respectively. With $`\sigma _8=0.85`$ for all the models, the corresponding decrease of $`dN/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is about $`8.9\%`$ and $`13.5\%`$ for $`w=1`$ and $`w=0.3`$, respectively. For $`dN(z0.5)/d\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the percentages of the decrease are, respectively, about $`18.4\%`$ and $`21.3\%`$ for $`w=1`$ and $`w=0.3`$.

With fixed other cosmological parameters, we studied the constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ from the total number of SZE clusters and from the number of clusters with $`zz_m`$, where $`z_m`$ is flux-limit dependent. For $`S_{lim}=5\text{ mJy}`$, $`z_m=1.0`$ is appropriate. For $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, $`z_m=0.5`$. The nice part of our methodology discussed here is that we do not need to know the precise redshift of a cluster, but only its range, i.e., larger or smaller than $`z_m`$. Therefore it is applicable in large surveys, such as Planck, because then one can use not-so-precise methods to estimate the redshifts of clusters, such as the photometric method or morphological redshift estimates (Diego et al. 2003). Our study showed that at $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, for a survey of $`10000\text{ deg}^2`$, $`\sigma _8`$ can be determined to a level of $`\pm 1\%`$ and $`w`$ to an accuracy of $`\pm 8\%`$ with $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties in both the total number of clusters and the number of high redshift clusters ($`z0.5`$ in our analyses). With $`3\sigma `$ uncertainties, the determined parameter ranges are $`\pm 3\%`$ and $`\pm 25\%`$ around the central values of $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$, respectively. In our uncertainty estimations in subsection 3.3, we assumed that the redshift information is available for $`100\%`$ SZE clusters. That is, when we assessed the $`\sigma `$ for the number of clusters with $`z0.5`$, we used the full number of clusters with $`z0.5`$ for a survey of $`10000\text{ deg}^2`$. If the redshifts are available for $`10\%`$ of clusters, with $`1\sigma `$ uncertainties, the determined $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ have the ranges $`(0.815,0.842)`$ and $`(0.89,0.62)`$ around the central values $`\sigma _8=0.8284`$ and $`w=0.75`$. Thus with $`10\%`$ samples having redshift information, the accuracies of $`1\sigma `$ determination for $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ are $`\pm 1.6\%`$ and $`\pm 18\%`$, respectively. Relativistic corrections do not have significant effects in this aspect.

However, we found that the central values of $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ can be significantly misplaced if relativistic corrections are not included in extracting cosmological information from observed cluster number counts. For $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$, the offset for $`\sigma _8`$ is about $`1.1\%`$, and about $`8\%`$ for $`w`$. In terms of the percentages, this misplacement is comparable to the $`1\sigma `$ deviation. But the location of the wrong central values in the $`\sigma _8w`$ plane is significantly outside the $`3\sigma `$ region around the real central $`(\sigma _8,w)`$ as seen in Figure 6. Therefore, relativistic effects are important, and should be considered carefully in analyzing survey results.

We need to emphasize that our discussions on relativistic effects concentrate on single-frequency measurements at $`353\text{ GHz}`$. In reality, Planck will conduct multi-frequency observations, and the overall relativistic effects could be weaker than the case of $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$ depending on the techniques used to detect SZE clusters. Diego, Hansen & Silk (2003) studied the impact of relativistic corrections on the reconstruction of the $`y`$ map from simulated $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T`$ of different frequency channels with Bayesian non-parametric method. They found that for clusters of $`T=10\text{ kev}`$, the relative difference in the recovered $`y`$ between relativistic and non-relativistic approaches in the component separation was about $`4\%`$ for low-redshift clusters and about $`8\%`$ for high-redshift clusters. This difference is smaller than that at $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$, which is about $`15\%`$. This is because the $`y`$ maps were constructed through the weighted average of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T/T`$ of different frequency channels, and relativistic corrections are smaller than $`10\%`$ for $`\nu <353\text{ GHz}`$. Thus the single-frequency estimation of relativistic effects presented in this paper can be an over-estimation. To quantify the impact realistically, one can, with simulated maps including characteristics of a survey, get two sets of mass limits of detectable SZE clusters at different redshifts with and without relativistic corrections for a particular cosmological model. Then analytical studies similar to those shown in this paper can be carried out based on the two sets of mass limits. We would like to mention that the flux limit for completeness, thus the mass limit, depends on the method applied to find clusters. The limit $`S_{lim}=30\text{ mJy}`$ (at $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$) adopted in our analyses is from the estimation of Diego et al. (2002) based on the Maximum Entropy Method (Hobson et al. 1998; Hobson et al. 1999). On the other hand, Bayesian non-parametric method gives the completeness limit $`S_{lim}200\text{ mJy}`$ (at $`\nu =353\text{ GHz}`$) (Diego et al. 2003), and a multifilter approach of Herranz et al. (2002) finds $`S_{lim}170\text{ mJy}`$. With such high flux limits, relativistic corrections can be large even with the multi-frequency diminishing effect taken into account.

The constraints on $`\sigma _8`$ and $`w`$ shown in the paper are derived under the assumption that all other cosmological parameters have been determined by other studies. If we allow, e.g., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m(0)`$, to vary as well, the estimation can be affected considerably (e.g., Haiman, Holder, & Mohr 2001). On the other hand, however, there are indeed different types of observations that can give good constraints on those parameters. For example, galaxy surveys, such as two degree field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) (Colless et al. 2001) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), can put constraints on the shape of the perturbation spectrum, which primarily depends on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_mh`$ (Szalay et al. 2001; Dodelson et al. 2002; Percival et al. 2001; 2002). Combined with the measurements on the Hubble constant $`H_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ can be well constrained. In any case, studies on the multiple-parameter estimation with the methodology put forward in this paper and on the impact of relativistic corrections are desired, and will be carried in the future.

We thank the referee for the helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China under grant 10243006, and by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under grant TG1999075401.