text:
# Do We Live in a Vanilla Universe? Theoretical Perspectives on WMAP

## 1 Introduction

On February 12, 2003, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe \[WMAP\] reported results based on its first year of observations (e.g. Bennett:2003bz ; Spergel:2003cb ; Hinshaw:2003ex ; Peiris:2003ff ; Kogut:2003et ), and cosmology took a giant step towards its long promised “golden age.” Ref. Spergel:2003cb  lists the values of 22 cosmological parameters determined using the WMAP data and other recent observational information. Many of these values are quoted with several significant figures, whereas a decade ago they were either completely undetermined or had massive uncertainties.

For the theoretical cosmologist, the WMAP results are more tantalizing than revolutionary. On the one hand, WMAP confirms that there is a significant contribution from dark energy in the present epoch, puts tight constraints on the parameter space open to inflation, and provides strong support to the overall inflationary paradigm. However, this does not surprise most theoreticians, and nothing in the current WMAP dataset puts genuinely nontrivial constraints on the physics of inflation and the very early universe.

To explain further, consider vanilla inflation – an almost exactly de Sitter inflationary epoch which lasts long enough to deliver a primordial universe – whose measurable parameters all have their “default values”. After vanilla inflation, scalar perturbations are Gaussian and scale-free, and there is no discernible contribution from tensor modes or curvature in the present epoch. Consequently, all parameters which constrain the primordial universe would be measured as upper bounds, rather than definite values.

Almost all inflationary models have parameters which can be tuned to provide a vanilla limit. In some cases these tunings may appear so unnatural, and one may want to exclude the model on aesthetic grounds. For instance, the perturbation spectrum associated with a $`\varphi ^n`$ potential becomes more strongly scale dependent as $`n`$ increases, and one may argue that $`n`$ should be an even, positive number. The vanilla limit of this model is $`n0`$, so if $`n2`$ is experimentally excluded, the model becomes less attractive. However, this prejudice is far less compelling than the observation of an unambiguously blue spectrum (one with more power on short scales than on long scales): in this case all positive values of $`n`$ are excluded. The one type of inflation which is hard to tune is de Sitter inflation, where the inflaton is trapped in a local minimum of the potential and does not evolve at all. However, in this case the spectrum is precisely scale invariant, which is the vanilla result.

Vanilla inflation has an ambiguous position in theoretical cosmology. It has the most “natural” set of parameter values but offers the smallest leverage for discriminating between different realisations of inflation, and thus the least insight into the early universe. Consequently, theoreticians tend to seize on any hints that the inflationary epoch contains non-vanilla flavorings, since these significantly constrain the inflationary parameter space and, in extreme cases, challenge the overall paradigm. The first year WMAP dataset has two tantalizing features: the apparent lack of power at long wavelengths, and the suggestion that the scalar spectral index itself is a function of the perturbation’s wavelength.

## 2 The CMB and Inflation

Almost any possible inflationary epoch can be described in terms of a scalar field $`\varphi `$ moving in a potential, $`V(\varphi )`$.111I am restricting myself to single field models, but all of the statements below have an analogous (although often weaker) form for multi-field models. From the Einstein field equations and the energy momentum tensor for a minimally coupled scalar field once can deduce

$$H^2=\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2=\frac{8\pi }{3m_{\mathrm{Pl}}^2}\left[\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi )\right],$$
(1)
where $`a(t)`$ is the spacetime scale factor, and a dot denotes differentiation with respect to time. We are implicitly assuming a spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic universe where the inflaton field is the only contribution to the energy-momentum tensor. The motion of the field is given by

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }+V^{}(\varphi )=0,$$
(2)
where the dash notes differentiation with respect to $`\varphi `$.

Guth’s original paper on inflation Guth:1980zm  addressed problems associated with the dynamics of the cosmological background. Inflation can be implemented in a multitude of different ways, all of which solve the cosmological problems addressed by Guth. Consequently, inflationary model builders do not focus directly on the expansion history of the universe. In addition to the zero-order dynamics needed to set the stage for a hot big-bang universe, inflation also predicts the first order perturbations about this background solution. These perturbations determine both the clustering properties of galaxies, and the anisotropies in the microwave background.

Inflation produces primordial perturbations by magnifying quantum fluctuations until their wavelength is equal to or larger than the present size of the observable universe. The properties of these fluctuations differ markedly between different inflationary models and specific inflationary scenarios can thus be distinguished from one another and tested via their perturbation spectra. Consequently, putting tight experimental constraints on the perturbation spectrum is of prime importance, since the theoretical cosmologist can use this data to eliminate specific inflationary models. However, almost all inflationary models have a vanilla limit, so as long as vanilla inflation remains consistent with the observational data we cannot exclude entire classes of models.

Given the functional form of the potential and fairly mild assumptions about the dynamics of inflation, we express the perturbation spectra as a function of the potential and its derivatives. A general perturbation to the background $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is a symmetric tensor, $`h_{\mu \nu }`$, where the perturbed spacetime is $`g_{\mu \nu }+h_{\mu \nu }`$ Mukhanov:1990me . We decompose $`h`$ into scalar, vector and anti-symmetric tensor components, where the decomposition reflects the transformation properties of the different pieces under (small) transformations. Cosmologically, we need consider only the scalar and tensor modes, as the vector modes decay with time. The scalar modes are associated with a gravitational potential and are the source of density fluctuations in the universe. The tensor modes are effectively gravity waves (and are often referred to as such) and do not contribute to the formation of structure in the universe, but do contribute to the microwave background anisotropies, especially at large angular scales.

The perturbations are described in terms of their power spectra,

$$P_S^{1/2}k^{n_S1},P_T^{1/2}k^{n_T}$$
(3)
where $`k`$ is the comoving wavenumber of the perturbation. If $`n_S=1`$ or $`n_T=0`$ the amount of power in each mode is independent of $`k`$ and the resulting spectra are scale invariant.222 The differing definitions of $`P_S`$ and $`P_T`$ are an historical anomaly. We know that the underlying spectra must be roughly scale invariant, but the question is whether the difference between $`n_S`$ and $`n_T`$ from their “natural” values of 1 and 0 is detectable observationally.

Using the slow roll approximation, we can write $`n_S`$ and $`n_T`$ in terms of derivatives of the potential Lidsey:1995np ,

$$n_S=1+2\eta 4ϵ,n_T=2ϵ$$
(4)
where

$$ϵ=\frac{m_p^2}{16\pi }\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^2,\eta =\frac{m_p^2}{8\pi }\left[\frac{V^{}}{V}\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{V^{}}{V}\right)^2\right].$$
(5)
Finally, the amplitudes of the two spectra must obey a consistency condition,

$$\frac{P_T^{1/2}}{P_S^{1/2}}=16ϵ$$
(6)
where the numerical coefficient is, to some extent, a matter of definition. We can divide inflationary models into three general classes, summarized in Figure 1 Kinney:1998md . In the hybrid case, the $`V^{\prime \prime }/V(V^{}/V)^2`$, and the field is evolving towards a local minimum of the potential. Conversely, if we find $`n_S<1`$ and no detectable tensor contribution, $`V^{\prime \prime }<0`$ and $`V^{}0`$, and we have small field inflation. Finally, if we observe a significant tensor component, we must have $`V^{}/V0`$. From the equation of motion for $`\varphi `$, we see that $`\dot{\varphi }0`$, and the total evolution of $`\varphi `$ during inflation can be substantial – leading to the moniker large field inflation.

While a non-zero scalar spectrum is needed to provide the primordial density fluctuations that seed the formation of structure, a primordial tensor spectrum is optional. We can show that the $`P_T^{1/2}`$ is proproportional to the value of $`H`$ (and thus the square root of the energy density) during inflation and, unless $`H`$ is GUT scale or above, the tensor signal will most likely be forever undetectable. Since a detectable tensor signal is produced by a limited range of inflationary models the vanilla prediction is that the CMB contains no detectable contribution from tensors. However, if we do observe a primordial tensor spectrum, then we can immediately deduce the energy scale at which inflation occurred. Moreover, if we can measure both its amplitude and index, we are in the pleasant position of having four observable quantities (the amplitudes and indices of the tensor and scalar spectrum) which are specified in terms of three parameters. This leads to a “consistency condition” which must be satisfied (to first order in slow-roll) by all single field inflationary models.

## 3 The WMAP Results: Summary

Conceptually, the WMAP mission is very simple: over a period of several years, it makes repeated observations of the microwave sky, and is sensitive to both temperature and polarization. It observes in five frequency bands, since the main foreground contaminants scale differently with frequency from the underlying black body of the CMB.

Information can be extracted from the maps directly (for instance, the topology of isotemperature contours is a function of the underlying cosmological model Colley:2003sp ), but the maps are frequently distilled into a power spectrum by expanding them in spherical harmonics, and the WMAP power spectrum is shown in Figure 2. Different theoretical models of the early universe predict different scalar and tensor spectra, but the CMB also depends on parameters such as the cosmological constant and the Hubble constant via their influence on the evolution of the perturbations as they propagate in an expanding universe. This is crucial, since it turns the CMB into a tool for estimating a wide range of cosmological parameters which, taken together, put tight constraints on the composition and history of our universe.

Given a set of parameters, the theoretical spectrum is estimated using a tool such as CMBFAST. Armed with high quality CMB data (and data from other sources) one can find the “best fit” model by varying the parameters until the underlying spectrum is matched as accurately as possible. Spergel et al. Spergel:2003cb  describes this process. The WMAP team concludes that the age of the universe is $`13.7\pm 0.2`$Gyr, the total mass-energy of the universe is $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{tot}=1.02\pm 0.02`$ (where a value of unity corresponds to a universe with no spatial curvature), the parameterized Hubble constant $`h=0.71_{0.03}^{+0.04}`$, and baryon density (as a fraction of the total energy density) $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.0224\pm 0.0009`$. Little more than a decade ago, the value of all of these numbers was the subject of significant controversy, and yet here they are all quoted to two or three significant figures.

## 4 Polarization

Since the first detection of the CMB anisotropies, attention has focussed on the temperature variations. The polarization also varies from point to point, but this anisotropy is intrinsically smaller and more difficult to measure. WMAP is the first full-sky mission to return a non-zero polarization measurement Kogut:2003et .333The polarization itself was first detected by the DASI mission Kovac:2002fg .

In a universe where inflation occurs, the primordial perturbations may be correlated on scales far larger than the present size of the observable universe, and were definitely correlated on super-horizon scales when the microwave background photons decoupled from the rest of the universe some 300,000 years after the big bang. While other mechanisms for generating the primordial density perturbations have been explored (particularly “defect models” where objects such as cosmic strings generate perturbations as they move through the universe), these do not produce super-horizon correlations.444The ekpyrotic Khoury:2001wf  and pre big bang Gasperini:1992em  scenarios both produce super-horizon correlations, but in a universe which is initially contracting. While the proponents of these models typically define them in contrast to inflation, they resemble inflation more than they resemble defect models of structure formation. In particular, like inflation, they possess an era in which $`\ddot{a}>0`$ and modes with fixed comoving size are continually leaving the horizon. A frequent critique of inflation is that the overall paradigm makes no generic predictions, and that there is no one property that all inflationary models share. However, a universe with super-horizon perturbations at decoupling has a characteristic correlation between the temperature anisotropies and the E-mode polarization signal. WMAP was observed this correlation, and found that it closely matches the inflationary prediction.

It is worth pausing to reflect what a significant achievement this is: from my perspective the observed correlation between temperature and E-mode polarization is most important single result in the WMAP dataset. Prior to inflation, no-one had predicted super-horizon correlations, so this observation is a stunning verification of one of the key features of inflation. Moreover, if the data had not confirmed the inflationary prediction, almost all models of inflation would have been ruled out in a single stroke.555Inflation may still have occurred, but it could not have produced the observed primordial perturbations. Consequently, this is a key test of the inflationary paradigm. The only downside (and perhaps the reason why more is not being said about it) is that because all inflationary models make this prediction, it only eliminates models such as defect scenarios which have already fallen from favor in the theoretical community. However, I suspect that this observation will be regarded as one of the lasting achievements of WMAP, and that observations of the $`TE`$ cross-correlation will be followed carefully as the data improves.

## 5 Surprises: Non-Vanilla Features in WMAP?

The two obvious peculiarities in the WMAP dataset are that the spectrum has anomalously low power on small scales, and that the fit to the data improves if the scalar index is allowed to be scale-dependent (that is, $`n_s`$ is a function of $`k`$). Either of these results could provide a dramatic non-vanilla flavor to the early universe. However, in both cases their physical significance is hard to quantify and await both further data and theoretical analysis.

### 5.1 Low Quadrupole

The low quadrupole is visible in the power spectrum of Figure 2, as the first data points lie well below the best-fit spectrum. Due to cosmic variance666The $`C_l`$ values plotted in Figure 2 represent averages over the $`2l+1`$ $`m`$ values of the corresponding $`Y_{lm}`$. Roughly speaking, this average will have a sampling uncertainty of $`1/\sqrt{2l+1}`$ – but since we can observe only one sky we cannot reduce this uncertainty by gathering more data. This intrinsic uncertainty is the cosmic variance., we don’t expect an exact match between theory and experiment at small values of $`l`$, but the discrepancy is, on the face of it, unexpectedly large.

While it is clear that the observed CMB sky has less power at large wavelengths (low $`k`$) than that suggested by the “best fit” $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model, it is not clear is whether this is something we need to explain, since the result could be produced by cosmic variance alone. Spergel et al. Spergel:2003cb  generated multiple realizations of the microwave background with the parameters estimated by WMAP, and found that the probability that the low power at small $`l`$ is due to cosmic variance is $`1.5\times 10^3`$. However, other authors (Efstathiou:2003wr , for example) argue that this calculation underestimates cosmic variance, and that the discrepancy is not large enough to be a signal of new physics.

If this result is significant, the possible modifications to the standard paradigm that would suppress power at large scales take a variety of forms. For example, a comparatively conservate approach is provided by Contaldi et al. Contaldi:2003zv , who look at inflationary models which are tuned to suppress $`P_S`$ for values of $`k`$ which dominate the low $`l`$ terms in the CMB spectrum. Carefully tuned inflationary models violate the spirit of the inflationary paradigm, but they are less radical departures from the standard cosmology than (for instance) advocating a toroidal universe with a “cell size” that is smaller than the current size of the visible universe deOliveira-Costa:2003pu , or that the universe possesses detectable (and positive) spatial curvature Efstathiou:2003hk , both of which would tend to cut off the power spectrum at long wavelengths.

Simply measuring the microwave sky more accurately will not reduce the cosmic variance. However, it is possible that some of lack of power at low $`l`$ could be explained by an over-aggressive foreground subtraction, and this is amenable to testing and improvement. Conversely, if the suppression of power at low $`l`$ is a real effect, evidence for it will appear in other places. For example, Kesden et al. Kesden:2003zm  show that the shear produced by gravitational inhomogeneities, which distorts the correlation between temperature and polarization anisotropies, would be measurably different in a universe where the spectrum lacked power at small values of $`k`$, and this can be tested by future experiments.

### 5.2 Running Index

The low quadrupole seen by WMAP is suggestive of unsuspected physics that plays a role at large angular scales. However, WMAP also hints that the standard assumption of an underlying spectrum described by a constant index $`n_S`$ may be too simplistic Peiris:2003ff . In this case, the principal evidence is found in CMB data at small angular scales. This is currently dominated by observational uncertainty, rather than cosmic variance. In fact, the first-year WMAP dataset alone does cover a large enough range of $`l`$-values to provide any evidence for a running ($`k`$ dependent) $`n_S`$. The evidence for running (between the 1 and 2 $`\sigma `$ level) appears when the WMAP power spectrum is combined with that derived from galaxy surveys and Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest data, both of which provide data on the primordial spectrum at smaller scales than is possible with the CMB alone Peiris:2003ff .

If the running index is confirmed, it will put tight constraints on inflation. The slow roll expansion for the spectral index given by equation (3) can be extended to beyond the leading order result given here, and $`dn_S/d\mathrm{ln}k`$ is dependent on the third derivative of the potential. However, having $`V^{\prime \prime \prime }(\varphi )`$ large enough to produce a $`dn_S/d\mathrm{ln}k`$ observable by WMAP rules out almost all standard models of inflation. This is not, in itself, a drawback. Moreover, it would comprehensively rule out vanilla inflation, which would be very a welcome development indeed. Moreover, if the potential has a number of “features” then it may not need to be carefully tuned in order to ensure that one of these features is found within the range of $`\varphi `$ covered by the inflaton field as the cosmologically relevant perturbations are generated Adams:2001vc . Indeed, a potential of this sort was considered by the WMAP team, and there is weak support in the WMAP dataset (in combination with other survey information) for this type of feature.

The major caveat about this possible non-vanilla flavoring of the early universe is simply that the data is inconclusive. The result hinges on the merger of several datasets, which increases the complexity of any statistical analysis, and the level of significance is small enough for it to simply be the result of a statistical fluctuation. This uncertainty will soon be resolved – the next year of WMAP data will significantly improve the sensitivity of the measurements of the $`C_l`$ for larger values of $`l`$, and the SDSS \[Sloan Digital Sky Survey\] will supplant the galaxy surveys used by the WMAP team in their previous papers.

## 6 Reconstructing the Potential

One of the principal dreams of the theoretical cosmologist is to reconstruct the underlying physical mechanism of inflation. In general, this amounts to recovering the functional form of the potential. Even in a “golden age” this inverse problem remains enormously difficult. Several efforts have been made to develop a methodology for reconstructing the potential from its Taylor series, but these appear to be best by observational difficulties Lidsey:1995np . More recently, Easther and Kinney developed Monte Carlo reconstruction, a stochastic approach to the problem based on generating a large number of “trial” inflationary models and isolating those for which the observable parameters coincide with the window in parameter space permitted by the available dataEasther:2002rw . This approach builds on a thorough understanding of the “flow equations” Kinney:2002qn , a consistent expansion of the inflationary dynamics.777See also Liddle’s recent paper Liddle:2003py . If the permitted window of parameter space is sufficiently narrow the class of allowed potentials will be sufficiently well-defined that one can then proceed to estimate the functional form of the potential.

The WMAP team used a variant of Monte Carlo reconstruction Peiris:2003ff . This problem has been tackled in more detail by Kinney et al. Kinney:2003uw , who find three classes of reconstructed potential, corresponding to the three subdivisions of the “zoo plot” shown in Figure 1. This is of course expected, given that vanilla inflation remains consistent with the observational data. However, it is only with the release of WMAP data that the observational constraints on inflationary theories are tight enough for this sort of calculation to return any non-trivial limits on the possible range of potentials which could have driven inflation.

## 7 Conclusion

This paper has given a quick overview of theoretical cosmologists’ response to the WMAP data. WMAP confirms what we already believed we knew – that the perturbations are correlated on super-horizon scales as a result of an inflation(like) mechanism, thanks to the observed anti-correlation between the temperature anisotropies and the E-mode polarization signal. However, at present the observational evidence is not tight enough to rule out whole classes of inflationary models. Crucially, vanilla inflation – which is a limit of almost all inflationary models – remains viable. Since vanilla inflation is allowed, it follows that no classes of model can be excluded, even if certain parameter values can be ruled out within each class. I have reviewed the two hints in the WMAP data for a non-vanilla universe – the low quadrupole and the possible running scalar index – and sketched how these effects could change our understanding of the early universe, and how future data is likely to constrain them more closely. In conclusion, though, it is clear that WMAP marks a profound change in the theoretical debate, and that the “golden age” of cosmology is upon us.

## Acknowledgements

I thank my Columbia colleagues Ted Baltz, Brian Greene and Will Kinney for many useful conversations which helped me form the viewpoints expressed here, and I thank Hiranya Peiris for several useful discussions about the WMAP results and their interpretation.


format: text

text:
# First INTEGRAL observations of Cygnus X-3Based on observations with INTEGRAL, an ESA project with instruments and science data center funded by ESA and member states (especially the PI countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain), the Czech Republic, and Poland and with the participation of Russia and the US.

## 1 Introduction

The bright X-ray binary Cyg X-3 was discovered during an early rocket flight already in 1966 (Giacconi et al. 1967) but it remains still poorly understood. It is a massive system with the donor star and the compact object orbiting each other in a tight orbit. The system is embedded in a dense wind from the donor star, presumably a massive nitrogen-rich Wolf-Rayet star with huge mass loss (van Keerkwijk et al. 1992). The nature of the compact object is not known but recent mass estimates suggest it might be a black hole (e.g. Schmutz, Geballe & Schild 1996).

The system has been observed throughout a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum (e.g. McCollough et al. 1999). It is one of the brightest Galactic X-ray sources, displaying high and low states and rapid variability in X-rays. It is also the strongest radio source among X-ray binaries, and shows both huge radio outbursts and relativistic jets. The most striking feature in the lightcurve is a 4.8-hr quasi-sinusoidal modulation, present both in X-rays and infrared. The modulation is believed to reflect the orbital motion of the binary with the emission from the X-ray source being scattered by the wind from the companion.

## 2 Observations and data analysis

On 2002 Dec. 22–23, Cyg X-3 was observed by all the X/$`\gamma `$-ray instruments aboard INTEGRAL – the JEM-X (Lund et al. 2003), IBIS/ISGRI (Lebrun et al. 2003), IBIS/PICsIT (Di Cocco et al. 2003) and SPI (Vedrenne et al. 2003). The INTEGRAL observations were supported by simultaneous RXTE/PCA and HEXTE observations making possible a comparison of the results from the two X-ray telescopes. At the time of the INTEGRAL observations, Cyg X-3 was in a relatively high state with the X-ray flux varying between 130 and 330 mCrab, according to the RXTE/ASM dwell-by-dwell data. Cyg X-3 was also observed in radio by the RATAN and Ryle telescopes. The results of the radio observations will be presented elsewhere (Hjalmarsdotter et al., in preparation).

### 2.1 JEM-X

The observations were performed with the second (JEM-X2) of the two identical X-ray monitors. The data were taken from 43 pointings (science windows), 2200 s each, performed between IJD 1085.6–1087.5 (IJD=fractional number of days since 2000 Jan. 1 00.00 UT, which corresponds to MJD = IJD + 51544) during the 23rd rev. of INTEGRAL (2002 Dec. 22–23), which corresponds to 10 binary periods and the net exposure of $``$90 ks. In a half of the pointings, Cyg X-3 was in the fully coded field-of-view (FOV, within $`2.4\mathrm{°}`$ from the FOV center), while in the rest, it was in the partially coded FOV (within $`5\mathrm{°}`$ from the FOV center). In all the pointings, Cyg X-1 and SAX J2103.5+4545 (an X-ray pulsar, discovered by Hulleman, in ’t Zand & Heise 1998) were $`>10\mathrm{°}`$ from the FOV center and hence the data were not contaminated by those sources. The offsets were rather uniformly distributed as a function of the binary phase.

Source spectra were extracted individually per pointing. Then the average spectrum was obtained from the sum of the individual spectra weighted by the exposure time. The spectral response was Crab-corrected appropriately for this time period (instance 0004). The spectra were implicitly background-subtracted by a deconvolution algorithm assuming a spatially flat background. We used the energy range of 2.6–27 keV for spectral fitting.

### 2.2 IBIS/ISGRI

The ISGRI fully coded FOV is about $`9\times 9\mathrm{°}`$, while the partially coded FOV extends up to $`29\times 29\mathrm{°}`$. Standard spectral extraction is at present feasible only in the fully coded FOV, therefore we limited ourselves to the science windows where Cyg X-3 was at a distance of $`<4.5\mathrm{°}`$ from the pointing direction. The selected ISGRI data contain about 40 science windows (of an average duration of 2200 s each with exception of two with 500 s duration each) for a total duration of $``$79 ks.

Imaging analysis was performed using the current version of the Offline Scientific Analysis (OSA) software, using the procedure described in Goldwurm et al. (2003). Cyg X-3 was detected at a high signal-to-noise in the 15–40 and 40–100 keV energy bands in this as well as in previous ISGRI observations (Goldoni et al. 2003). The source position was obtained with an offset of $`<1\mathrm{}`$ with respect to the catalog position. Mosaic images in the 20–40 and 40–100 keV bands are shown in Fig. 1, showing Cyg X-1, Cyg X-3, and SAX J2103.5+4545.

Spectral extraction was performed independently for every science window in 24 channels linearly rebinned in the 13–200 keV range from a 2048-channel response matrix developed at CEA/Saclay. We took the source position as obtained from the imaging procedure and then fitted source and background fluxes in each energy band. The resulting individual spectra were added to obtain the total spectrum. A 5$`\%`$ systematic error was then added in quadrature to each channel.

Cyg X-3 was not detected by the IBIS/PICsIT (Foschini, private comm.), which becomes efficient only at energies $`250`$ keV (Di Cocco et al. 2003). Given the low flux from the source above 250 keV, a significantly longer exposure would be required for detection.

### 2.3 SPI

Out of the 95 dithering pointings taken during the rev. 23 on the Cygnus field, 10 had to be excluded from the SPI analysis as they were either affected by strong solar activity or by the radiation belts. This left 85 dithering pointings with a total exposure of 169 ks for the present analysis. As the SPI data are background-dominated, a careful background substraction is essential in order to get reliable results, especially for weak sources. A time-dependent background model has been applied to the data, based on the saturated events seen by the detector. The image reconstruction was done using the SPI Iterative Removal Of Sources program (SPIROS; Skinner & Connell 2003). To get precise flux values, the source positions of the two brightest sources in the field (Cyg X-1 and Cyg X-3) have been fixed to their catalogue values. No source confusion is expected in the SPI data as there are no other sources visible within $`3\mathrm{°}`$ around Cyg X-3. The SPI image is shown in Fig. 2.

For spectral extraction, 20 logarithmic bins in the 20–300 keV energy range have been used. The instrumental response function used here has been derived from on-the-ground calibration and then corrected based on the Crab calibration observation. A 5% systematic error has been added to the spectrum.

### 2.4 PCA/HEXTE

The RXTE data overlapping with the INTEGRAL observations are from two pointings on 2002 Dec. 22–23, of duration of 8224 s (data set 1) and 9584 s (data sets 2 and 3), respectively. For the second pointing, there was a change in the number of PCUs used, which required breaking it into two parts, with the lightcurves corrected to the five PCUs. The data sets 1, 2 and 3 then cover the binary phases of (0.86–0.06, 0.16–0.34), 0.47–0.67 and 0.82–1.0, respectively. Hence, data sets 2 and 3 are from around the maximum and minimum phases, respectively. The INTEGRAL spectra, accumulated from all phases, should have flux levels in the middle of that from these two sets.

A 1% systematic error has been added to the PCA spectra. The relative normalization of each of the data sets from the two HEXTE clusters with respect to the PCA data has been allowed free in the fits. The response matrices and background files have been obtained using the FTOOLS v. 5.2.

## 3 Lightcurves

From the JEM-X observations, lightcurves in four energy bands (3–6, 6–10, 10–15 and 15–35 keV) were created. The ISGRI lightcurve was extracted in the 20–40 keV band. The lightcurves were folded using the latest published ephemeris for Cyg X-3 (Singh et al. 2002).

The results are plotted in Fig. 3. Two middle JEM-X bands were used since calibration for the 3–6 and 15–35 keV bands has not been yet consolidated. For comparison, we also plot the folded RXTE/ASM (2–12 keV) and CGRO/BATSE (20–100 keV) lightcurves from monitoring of the source during 1996–2002 and 1991–2000 respectively. The JEM-X 6–15 keV band shows good agreement with the ASM data and the ISGRI 20–40 keV follows the shape of the BATSE curve. Modelling of the lightcurves will be presented elsewhere (Hjalmarsdotter et al., in preparation).

## 4 Broad-band spectral modelling

The RXTE/PCA-HEXTE, JEM-X, ISGRI and SPI data were fitted using the XSPEC package (Arnaud 1996). We analyze here three RXTE spectra and the average INTEGRAL spectrum.

We interpret the intrinsic spectra of Cyg X-3 in terms of Comptonization of soft X-ray seed photons, assumed here to be a blackbody with a temperature, $`T_\mathrm{s}`$. We use a Comptonization model by Coppi (1992, 1999), eqpair, described in detail by Gierliński et al. (1999). This model was also used to fit X-ray spectra of GRS 1915+105 and Cyg X-1 by Vilhu et al. (1999), Zdziarski et al. (2001) and by Poutanen & Coppi (1998), Gierliński et al. (1999), Zdziarski et al. (2002b), respectively. In general, the electron distribution in this model can be purely thermal or hybrid, i.e., Maxwellian at low energies and non-thermal at high energies, if an acceleration process is present. This distribution, including the electron temperature, $`T`$, is calculated self-consistently from the assumed form of the acceleration (if present) and from the luminosities corresponding to the plasma heating rate, $`L_\mathrm{h}`$, and to the seed photons irradiating the cloud, $`L_\mathrm{s}`$. The plasma optical depth, $`\tau `$, includes a contribution from e<sup>±</sup> pairs. The importance of pairs depends on the ratio of the luminosity to the characteristic size, $`r`$, which is usually expressed in dimensionless form as the compactness parameter, $`\mathrm{}L\sigma _\mathrm{T}/(rm_\mathrm{e}c^3)`$, where $`\sigma _\mathrm{T}`$ is the Thomson cross section and $`m_\mathrm{e}`$ is the electron mass. Hereafter, the indices of $`\mathrm{}`$ have the same meaning as those of $`L`$.

We find all the studied spectra compatible with the hot plasma being completely thermal, and with $`kT511`$ keV. Then, the $`e^\pm `$ pair production is negligible, and the absolute value of the compactness is only weakly important. Accordingly, we assume a constant $`\mathrm{}_\mathrm{s}=10`$ (which is typical for accreting X-ray sources, e.g., Gierliński et al. 1999).

A complex issue in Cyg X-3 is the structure of its X-ray absorber and the presence of additional spectral components in soft X-rays (e.g. Molnar & Mauche 1986; Nakamura et al. 1993). Given that our data cover energies $`3`$ keV only, we neglect any additional soft X-ray components and we use a relatively simple model of the absorber. Namely, we assume that an absorbing medium with the column density, $`N_{\mathrm{H},0}`$, fully covers the source, and another medium with the column, $`N_{\mathrm{H},1}`$, covers a fraction, $`f_1`$, of the source. A similar model is often used to model the similarly complex absorption of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 4151 (see, e.g. Zdziarski et al. 2002a). We assume the elemental abundances of Anders & Ebihara (1982). We include Compton reflection (Magdziarz & Zdziarski 1995), parametrized by an effective solid angle subtended by the reflector as seen from the hot plasma, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, and assuming an inclination of $`60\mathrm{°}`$. We also include an Fe K$`\alpha `$ fluorescent line, which we model as a Gaussian (with the physical and equivalent widths of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$ and $`W_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$, respectively, and the peak energy at $`E_{\mathrm{K}\alpha }`$). We allow the reflecting medium to be ionized, using the ionization calculations of Done et al. (1992). We define the ionizing parameter as $`\xi 4\pi F_{\mathrm{ion}}/n`$, where $`F_{\mathrm{ion}}`$ is the ionizing flux and $`n`$ is the reflector density. Given the simplified treatment of the ionized reflection of Done et al. (1992), we impose a condition of $`\xi 10^4`$. We assume the temperature of the reflecting medium of $`10^6`$ K.

Given the above approximated treatment of the absorption and ionized reflection, the full description of the part of the spectrum $`10`$ keV is likely to be more complex than that given by our model. However, it provides a statistically satisfactory description of the data, including the absorbed part of the spectrum, and allows us to calculate the broad-band intrinsic spectrum of the source.

During our fits, we have found that the data, covering only photon energies $`3`$ keV, rather poorly constrain the temperature of the seed blackbody photons. For example, we get 0.3 keV $`kT_\mathrm{s}0.5`$ keV within 90% confidence for the RXTE data set 1. For simplicity, we fix it at the respective best-fit value for each spectrum when determining the confidence regions of other parameters.

On the other hand, our data yield accurate spectral information only for energies $`100`$ keV. Thus, they poorly constrain possible electron acceleration, which can be present in the plasma in addition to the thermal heating. Nonthermal processes are, in fact, clearly observed in some other spectral states of Cyg X-3 observed by RXTE and the CGRO/OSSE (work in preparation). However, allowing for the presence of nonthermal electrons improves the fit only weakly, e.g. by $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^22`$ for the RXTE data set 1, and thus it is not required in our models statistically. The fraction of the total power supplied to the plasma in electron acceleration is constrained to $`0.5`$, and the power law index, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, of the acceleration process is not constrained at all at 90% confidence (typical obtained values are $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mathrm{acc}}2`$–4). We also note that the presence of nonthermal processes in a very similar state of GRS 1915+105 is required only by the data at $`100`$ keV (see Fig. 3a in Zdziarski et al. 2001).

The Fe K$`\alpha `$ line is found to be narrow in all the RXTE spectra, with the width much below the instrumental resolution of the PCA. The plasma parameters obtained are given in Table 1, and the spectra for the 3 data sets are shown in Fig. 4.

The INTEGRAL spectrum has been found to be rather similar in shape to the RXTE ones. However, unlike the PCA, the JEM-X data appear to require the Fe line to be broadened, with the corresponding decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2=12`$. Thus, we have decided to allow for the broadening, but, given the limited resolution of JEM-X, we kept it then frozen at the best-fit value of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{K}\alpha }0.25`$ keV. The resulting parameters are given in Table 1, and the spectrum is shown in Fig. 4. We see that the although the fit parameters are similar to those of the RXTE fits, the normalization of the JEM-X spectrum is lower than that the avarage of the PCA spectra by a factor of $`2`$, which is due to instrumental effects, see below.

## 5 Comparison between individual INTEGRAL and RXTE spectra

The INTEGRAL spectra were accumulated over the entire binary orbit, unlike the three RXTE data sets (see Fig. 3). The mean flux levels of the INTEGRAL spectra should then correspond closely to the mean of the (extreme) RXTE data sets 2 and 3. However, as we see in Fig. 4, the flux level of the JEM-X spectrum is about a half of that. Furthermore, the normalizations of the HEXTE, ISGRI and SPI differ from each other, with the ISGRI spectrum having the flux level about wice of that of the average PCA. Those differences are instrumental. To facilitate appropriate corrections to the fluxes from various instruments, we list the relative normalizations between the instruments in Table 2. The relative ratio between the HEXTE and PCA spectra is consistent with previous results. The coefficients involving the INTEGRAL data correspond to the calibration as of 2003 June.

The slopes of various spectra agree with each other well, as shown in Fig. 4. The ISGRI and SPI data fitted by a power law over the energy ranges given in Table 2 yield the photon index of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.6\pm 0.1`$ with $`\chi ^2/\nu =34/22`$, $`9/9`$, respectively. On the other hand, those data show hardenings at lower energies (not shown in Fig. 4), which appear related to residual inaccuracies of the present response matrices.

## 6 Conclusions

Cyg X-3 was clearly detected by all three X/$`\gamma `$-ray instruments on board INTEGRAL. The JEM-X 6–15 keV lightcurve folded over the orbital period shows good agreement with the RXTE/PCA 3–15 keV and RXTE/ASM 1.5–12 keV lightcurves. The ISGRI 20–40 keV folded lightcurve matches the CGRO/BATSE 20–100 keV one. A difference in the light curve profile between energies above and below $``$15 keV is indicated.

For the first time, we fit Cyg X-3 X/$`\gamma `$-ray spectra with a physical model. The main radiative processes implied by the INTEGRAL and RXTE data are thermal Comptonization and Compton reflection. The obtained intrinsic spectrum appears similar to that of GRS 1915+105 at a similar Eddington ratio.

At the time of writing, there are apparent differences in the normalizations between the RXTE/PCA, JEM-X, SPI and ISGRI spectra. Calibrations and responses at this stage are constantly being improved. Cyg X-3 will be further observed with INTEGRAL as a part of the Core as well as the Guest Observer programmes.

###### Acknowledgements.

Authors from the Observatory of the University of Helsinki acknowledge the Academy of Finland, TEKES, and the Finnish space research programme ANTARES for financial support in this research. AAZ has been supported by KBN grants 5P03D00821, 2P03C00619p1,2, PBZ-KBN-054/P03/2001, and the Foundation for Polish Science. We would like to thank M. Revnivtsev for the tools to produce the ISGRI mosaics and J. Poutanen (the referee) for valuable comments. We acknowledge quick-look results provided by the RXTE/ASM team.


text:
# Identification of Type Ia Supernovae at Redshift 1.3 and Beyond with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on HSTBased on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555

## 1 Introduction

The unexpected faintness of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) at $`z0.5`$ provides direct evidence that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating, propelled by “dark energy” (Riess et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999). Augmented samples of SNe Ia extended to $`z1`$ (Tonry et al. 2003; Suntzeff et al. 2003; Leibundgut et al. 2003; Blakeslee et al. 2003), as well as more detailed studies of SNe Ia (see Leibundgut 2001 and Riess 2000 for reviews), have strengthened the case for the existence of dark energy based on supernovae. The new cosmic concordance model contains both dark matter and dark energy (i.e., $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.7`$) and is sharply delineated by the convergence of three independent probes of the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ plane: the cosmic microwave background (CMB), SNe Ia at $`z<1`$, and large-scale structure (LSS). However, when the number of constraints nearly equals the number of parameters little power remains to test the validity of the paradigm. Efforts to use the same measurements to fit an additional parameter, such the equation of state for dark energy, are vulnerable to systematic errors without redundant measurements.

A simple prediction of the new cosmological model is the weakening of dark energy relative to dark matter in proportion to $`(1+z)^3`$, leading to an earlier epoch dominated by dark matter, with decelerating expansion. If we fail to see deceleration, the evidence for dark energy is in doubt. The tools for this test are SNe Ia at $`z>1`$, whose leverage to measure past deceleration grows with redshift. SNe Ia at $`z>1`$ also create the opportunity to amplify the effects of any astrophysical contaminants such as chemistry, age, or strange dust that might contaminate the dark energy signal from SNe Ia.

To date, the reach of discovery from the ground has been limited to $`z<1.2`$ (Aldering et al. 1998; Coil et al. 2000; Tonry et al. 1999, 2003). Pursuit of SNe Ia to higher redshifts is inhibited by the bright night sky redward of $``$8000 Å. Searches at bluer wavelengths are starved of photons by the intrinsic deficiency of SNe Ia in the UV. Even at $`1.0<z<1.2`$, detections of SNe Ia from the ground are often not reliable. Success requires unusually favorable conditions and daringly low significance thresholds for detections, but attempts can result in false discoveries, inconclusive spectra, or incomplete photometric records (e.g., SN 1999fo, SN 1999fu and SN 1999fv; Tonry et al. 2003). Spectroscopic screening of low-confidence SN Ia candidates at $`z>1`$ is always time-consuming and often impractical and unsuccessful.

From space these challenges are largely mitigated. Gilliland & Phillips (1998) reported the detection of SN 1997ff by WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Using serendipitous follow-up of the field by NICMOS, Riess et al. (2001) showed that this SN was almost certainly of type Ia at $`z1.7`$ and its apparent magnitude consistent with deceleration. However, a single, sparsely observed SN is insufficient to guard against a spurious conclusion caused by lensing (Benítez et al. 2002) or an unexpected SN type.

An unprecedented opportunity to collect a significant sample of SNe Ia at $`1<z<2`$ occurred in the eleventh year of HST owing to three factors: the installation of a wider and faster ACS (Ford et al. 2003), the refurbishment of NICMOS, and the periodic (45 day interval) multi-color imaging of two $`10^{}\times 15^{}`$ fields with ACS by the GOODS Treasury Program (Giavalisco et al. 2003). Each of the 8 repeated epochs of the GOODS imaging was expected to yield 1–2 SNe Ia at $`z>1.2`$ as well as 3-5 other SNe. The ability to discriminate the SNe Ia at $`z>1.2`$ from other transients with high confidence is essential to avoid following the wrong objects, or squandering spectroscopic time and to permit prompt HST monitoring via a pre-allocated program . The combined GOODS and SN “piggyback” program (GO 9352; Riess, PI) constitutes the first program designed to discover and follow SNe from space.

We have used observed colors and photometric redshifts to identify likely SNe Ia at $`z>1`$ via their intrinsic UV deficit. Subsequent measurements using the grism on ACS have provided the spectroscopic confirmation at redshifts unreachable from the ground including our first example and the highest redshift supernova yet measured, in this case a SN Ia at $`z=1.3`$. Here we report on a novel photometric method used to identify candidate SNe Ia at $`z>1`$ and demonstrate its spectroscopic confirmation. Elsewhere we report details of the search for transients and their rates (Strolger et al. 2003; Dahlen et al. 2003c), as well as the constraints on cosmology and the nature of distant SNe Ia (Riess et al. 2003).

## 2 Identifying SNe Ia at $`z>1`$; the UV Deficit

The modern classification scheme of SNe includes at least 7 primary subtypes (SN IIL, IIP, IIb, IIn, Ia, Ib, and Ic) identified via the presence or absence of key features in their optical spectra (see Filippenko 1997 for a review). The major dichotomy of classification, separates SNe with and without hydrogen (SNe II and I, respectively) in their spectra. Unfortunately, this historical convention fails to reflect current understanding which recognizes a different, more physical bifurcation, that of explosion mechanism. SNe Ia are believed to arise from the thermonuclear disruption of a white dwarf and all other subtypes via core collapse in a massive ($`10M_{\mathrm{}}`$) star with varying degrees of mass loss (Wheeler & Harkness 1990; Filippenko 1997).

Explosive thermonuclear burning of the degenerate SN Ia progenitor produces 0.3–1 $`M_{\mathrm{}}`$ of iron-group metals. Owing to its high velocities and great abundance, Fe II resonantly scatters much of the thermal continuum flux in the UV ($`\lambda <3300`$ Å), imprinting a characteristic “UV deficit” in the spectral energy distributions of SNe Ia. In contrast, the most common form of core-collapse SNe, those with hydrogen-rich, electron-scattering atmospheres, are strong emitters in the UV. As shown in Figure 1, the UV deficit of SNe Ia provides a useful, photometric method to discriminate between the two most frequently observed subtypes of SN, SNe Ia and SNe II. Rest-frame optical ($`\lambda >3300`$ Å) color discrimination of SNe has been shown by Poznanski et al. (2002) to be of use for this purpose, though photometric differences are more subtle at these wavelengths than in the UV.

Although SNe Ia may be routinely discovered and identified via photometric means, misidentification is possible. Core-collapse SNe with negligible hydrogen (SNe Ib and Ic) also have weak UV flux. However, such SNe are less common in the field than hydrogen-rich core-collapse SNe by a factor of $`3`$ (Cappellaro et al. 1997; Cappellaro, Evans, & Turatto 1999; W. Li and A. V. Filippenko, 2003, private communication), and most are fainter than SNe Ia by 1–3 mag, effectively reducing their discovery rate in a magnitude-limited survey (e.g., Li et al. 2001). More troublesome is a subset of SNe Ic which attain optical luminosities comparable to those of SNe Ia and would be the chief contaminant to SNe Ia identified in magnitude-limited surveys in the optical. However, past surveys of this nature demonstrate that the degree of contamination is small. Ultra-luminous SNe Ic constitute only a few percent of SNe found by the Calán-Tololo Survey (Hamuy et al. 1996; Clocchiatti et al. 2000), the Abell Cluster Search (Germany et al. 2003), the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (Filippenko et al. 2001; W. Li and A. V. Filippenko, 2003, private communication), and the Nearby SN Factory Search (P. Nugent, 2003, private communication), or in compilations of past surveys (Richardson et al. 2002). Heavily reddened core-collapse SNe could mimic the colors of a SN Ia in the UV, but the total absorption would severely reduce their detection rate at $`z>1`$. Without a significant evolution in the relative rates of SN types or their photometric properties, the expected frequency of misidentification of candidate SN Ia targeted by this diagnostic would be less 1 in 10, although the rate may rise at higher redshifts. Because cosmological measurements from SNe Ia are statistical in nature, modeling of the frequency of contamination can be used to correct a sample but the best defense against sample contamination is spectroscopic screening.

The GOODS Survey provides the means to use this photometric discriminant for SNe Ia at $`z>1`$. SNe in the GOODS survey were discovered by image subtraction in 2000 s exposures in ACS $`f850lp`$, a passband that includes the rest-frame optical ($`UBVRI`$) up to $`z1.5`$ and allows for the detection of SNe Ia up to $`z1.8`$. Simultaneous imaging in $`f775W`$ and $`f606w`$ provides a useful measurement of the UV flux at $`z>1`$. As shown in Figure 2, the expected $`f775wf850lp`$ and $`f606wf850lp`$ colors of SNe Ia and SNe II diverge at $`z>1.0`$ and $`z>0.7`$, respectively, with apparent differences reaching 1–3 mag. SNe Ia at $`z>1.3`$ are expected to be so faint in $`f606w`$, that such SNe should appear as “drop-outs.” The survey limit of $`f850lp25.8`$ mag (see Strolger et al. 2003 for more precise values) restricts the discovery of SNe at $`z>1.2`$ to $`M_B<17.5`$ mag and at $`z>1.5`$ to $`M_B<18.5`$ mag.

Within 6 to 18 hours after a repeat visit of the Chandra Deep Field South or Hubble Deep Field North, each GOODS epoch was differenced with the preceding epoch to identify SNe. Follow-up spectroscopy of most candidates with $`f850lp<24`$ mag was attempted from the ground with the Keck and Magellan telescopes during the next new moon and are reported elsewhere (Riess et al. 2003). Candidates whose host photometric redshift indicated a high likelihood of $`z>1.2`$ and whose colors indicated a good match to the UV deficit of an SN Ia at the host redshift were targeted for follow-up with HST using ACS direct imaging, NICMOS, and in some cases ACS grism spectroscopy. All likely SNe were reported in the IAU Circulars within 72 hours of discovery, 43 to date (Giavalisco et al. 2002; Riess et al. 2002, 2003; Strolger et al. 2002; Casertano et al. 2003; Ferguson et al. 2003; Dahlen et al. 2003a). A complete listing of the GOODS SNe and their classifications can be found in Strolger et al. (2003). Here we focus on the initial identification via the apparent UV deficit of 15 candidate SNe Ia in three redshift intervals: $`z<1.0`$, $`1<z<1.5`$, and $`z>1.5`$.

## 3 High, Higher, Highest

For four SNe Ia with $`0.2<z<1`$, the apparent magnitude of $`21<f850lp<23.5`$ mag made it possible to get a spectroscopic confirmation in a few hours on a 6 m to 10 m telescope (three others were confirmed in ACS grism images). Each of these spectra provide conclusive identification as a SN Ia, as well as the indicated redshift, and are presented elsewhere (Strolger et al. 2003; Riess et al. 2003). In all cases the measured photometric redshifts and colors were consistent with the spectroscopic identification as shown in Figure 2. However, because the effective rest-frame wavelength of the $`f606w`$ bandpass remains redward of 3300 Å at $`z<1`$, the observed colors do not sample the UV deficit and were therefore insufficient to distinguish the transients as probable SNe Ia from colors alone.

For five transients, the observed colors and the photometric redshifts of the hosts were consistent with being SNe Ia at $`1<z<1.5`$ and inconsistent with being SNe II. In this redshift interval the observed colors were highly indicative of SN type, allowing us to select these as likely SNe Ia for target of opportunity (ToO) monitoring with HST in advance of spectral confirmation and without delays or gaps in the photometric record. Four of the five were spectroscopically confirmed as SNe Ia at a redshift consistent with the initial photometric estimate as shown in Figure 2 (Riess et al. 2003).

The deep imaging obtained by GOODS before the discovery of SN 2002fw indicated $`1.1<z<1.5`$ with 95% confidence for its host galaxy. The measured colors of SN 2002fw at discovery of $`f775wf850lp=0.80\pm 0.05`$ mag and $`f606wf850lp=3.0\pm 0.1`$ mag were consistent with a SN Ia at the photometric redshift (but not a SN II), precipitating a prompt HST monitoring (ToO). In Figure 3 we present the HST spectroscopy of SN 2002fw, a SN Ia at $`z=1.3`$ and the first high-redshift SN Ia harvested from the GOODS program (see §3). The spectrum was obtained in 15 ks of exposure with the ACS WFC and the grism filter, beginning 10 days after the discovery image. Similar ACS grism data was obtained for other SNe Ia in this redshift range and will be shown elsewhere (Riess et al. 2003).

Two SNe were discovered whose photometric redshifts and colors were indicative of SNe Ia at $`z>1.5`$. In both cases the $`f775wf850lp`$ color was between 2.0 and 2.5 mag, consistent with the UV deficit of SNe Ia and strongly inconsistent with the bluer colors of SNe II. The absence of either SN in the $`f606w`$ images to the detection limit of point sources (with known position) limits $`f606wf850lp>3.2`$ mag for each, consistent with SNe Ia and inconsistent with SNe II. Elsewhere we present the follow-up observations of these SNe and provide further constraints on their type and distance (Riess et al. 2003).

## 4 Discussion

The UV deficit is a useful tool to identify likely SNe Ia for rapid follow-up observations. For the GOODS survey careful consideration was given to select passbands which could use this diagnostic to discriminate SNe I from SNe II at $`z>1`$. Monte Carlo simulations of the selection of SNe Ia at $`z>1`$ indicate that the frequency of “false positives” (i.e., non-SNe Ia or SNe Ia at $`z<1`$) would be $`<`$10% for expected transients. Further, in each actual case, we can calculate the likelihood of a misidentification taking into account the photometric measurements, their uncertainties, and the quality of the fit. The expectedly high level of success in identifying SNe Ia at $`z>1`$ allowed us to select suitable candidates and commit to rapid follow-up with HST in advance of any additional confirmation. The subsequent spectroscopy confirmed statistically and on an individual basis the good likelihood of selecting SNe Ia via their UV deficit.

A few SNe were discovered at $`z>0.7`$ whose blue color could be used to reject a classification of SN Ia, and matches well with classification as a young SN II (e.g., $`f606w`$-$`f850lp`$=0.0 to 1.0 mag and $`z=0.9`$; see figure 2). However the signal-to-noise ratio required to confirm spectroscopically the photometric evidence for young candidate SNe II at these redshifts far exceeds that of SNe Ia due both to weakness of features and the candidate’s relative faintness and we did not get enough data to confirm this classification.

Due to its high redshift, the well-measured part of the spectrum of SN 2002fw extends from 2500 Å to 4200 Å (see Figure 3). For comparison we have superimposed the spectrum of the prototypical SN Ia 1981B at maximum extended to the UV by IUE (Branch et al. 1985). Overall the agreement between the two is excellent both in color and for specific features. Only minor differences are apparent, consistent with the intrinsic variation of SN Ia abundances and explosion velocities. Notable and pronounced absorption features in the spectrum of SN 2002fw include the Ca II H&K feature at rest-frame 3700 Å and the blueshifted Si II $`\lambda `$4130. In the UV region of the spectrum, a rise blueward of 3200 Å is well discerned due to blending of high-velocity Fe II absorption. Our line identifications are from Kirshner et al. (1993), and Mazzali et al. (1993). The defining feature of SNe Ia, Si II $`\lambda `$6355 (typically blueshifted to 6150 Å) cannot be discerned due to the high redshift of the SN. However, as discussed by Coil et al. (2000) for SN 2002fv ($`z=1.2`$), the absorption feature near 4000 Å due to Si II $`\lambda `$4130 is sufficient to establish SN 2002fw as a SN Ia (though not as useful at later times as Si II $`\lambda `$6355), and not a SN Ib/Ic supernova.

Light curves are a critical component of measuring distances to SNe Ia. They constrain the age of SN Ia observations, an individual calibration of each supernova’s luminosity, and the extinction of each SN Ia (via the color excess), a prerequisite for calibrating their distances. For $`z>1`$ objects, this requires observations in the near-IR with NICMOS. Elsewhere (Riess et al. 2003), we present the distances measured for the GOODS SNe Ia based on their light curves and colors, as well as the implied cosmological constraints.

We thank resident and visiting supernova searchers including Tomas Dahlen, Ray Lucas, Norman Grogin, Peter Garnavich, Ann Hornshmeier, Lexi Moustakas, Marin Richardson, Ned Taylor, Claudia Kretchmer, Rafal Idzi, Kyoungsoo Lee, Richard Hook, Vicki Laidler, Carl Biagetti, Duilia de Mello, Swara Ravindranath, and Brian Schmidt. We also thank the steady and heroic efforts by OPUS, Dorothy Fraquelli, William Januszewski, Mark Calvin, Mark Kochte, Tracy Ellis, and Bill Workman.

Financial support for this work was provided by NASA through programs GO-9352 and GO-9583 from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. Some of the results presented herein were made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

Aldering, G., et al. 1998, IAU Circ. 7046

Baron, E., et al. 2000, ApJ, 545, 444

Benítez, N., Riess, A., Nugent, P., Dickinson, M., Chornock, R., & Filippenko, A. V. 2002, ApJ, 577, L1

Blakeslee, et al. 2003, ApJ, in press (astro-ph/0302402)

Branch, D., Doggett, J. B., Nomoto, K., & Thielemann, F.-K. 1985, ApJ, 294, 619

Cappellaro, E., Evans, R., & Turatto, M. 1999, A&A, 351, 459

Cappellaro, E., Turatto, M., Tsvetkov, D. Yu., Bartunov, O. S., Pollas, C., Evans, R., & Hamuy, M. 1997, A&A, 322, 431

Casertano, S., et al. 2003, IAU Circ. 8052

Clocchiatti, A., et al. 2000, ApJ, 529, 661

Coil, A. L., et al. 2000, ApJ, 544, L111

Dahlen, T., et al. 2003a, IAU Circ. 8081

Dahlen, T., et al. 2003c, in preparation

Ferguson, H. C., et al. 2003, IAU Circ. 8069

Filippenko, A. V. 1997, ARAA, 35, 309

Filippenko, A. V., Li, W. D., Treffers, R. R., & Modjaz, M. 2001, in Small-Telescope Astronomy on Global Scales, ed. W. P. Chen, C. Lemme, & B. Paczyński (San Francisco: ASP), 121

Ford, H., et al. 2003 (ACS paper)

Germany, L. M., et al. 2003, A&Ap, in press

Giavalisco, M., et al. 2002, IAU Circ. 7981

Giavalisco, M., et al. 2003 (GOODS paper)

Gilliland, R. L., & Phillips, M. M. 1998, IAU Circ. 6810

Hamuy, M., Phillips, M. M., Maza, J., Suntzeff, N. B., Schommer, R. A., & Aviles, R. 1996, AJ, 112, 2391

Kirshner, R. P., et al. 1993, ApJ, 415, 589

Leibundgut, B. 2001, ARAA, 39, 67

Leibundgut, B., et al. 2003, in preparation

Lentz et al., 2001, ApJ, 547, 406

Li, W., Filippenko, A. V., Treffers, R. R., Riess, A. G., Hu, J., & Qiu, Y. 2001, ApJ, 546, 734

Mazzali, P. A., Lucy, L. B., Danziger, I. J., Gouiffes, C., Cappellaro, E., & Turatto, M. 1993, A&Ap, 269, 423

Pain, R., et al. 1996, ApJ, 473, 356

Perlmutter, S., et al. 1999, ApJ, 517, 565

Poznanski, D., Gal-Yam, A., Maoz, D., Filippenko, A. V., Leonard, D. C., & Matheson, T. 2002, PASP, 114, 833

Richardson, M., et al. 2002, xxxxx

Riess, A. G. 2000, PASP, 112, 1284

Riess, A. G., et al. 1998, AJ, 116, 1009

Riess, A. G., et al. 2001, ApJ, 560, 49

Riess, A. G., et al. 2002, IAU Circ. 8012

Riess, A. G., et al. 2003, in preparation

Schmidt, B. P., et al. 1998, ApJ, 507, 46

Strolger, L.-G., et al. 2002, IAU Circ. 8038

Strolger, L.-G., et al. 2003, in preparation

Suntzeff, N., et al. 2003, in preparation

Tonry, J., et al. 1999, IAU Circ. 7312

Tonry, J. L., et al. 2003, ApJ, submitted

Wheeler, J. C., & Harkness, R. P. 1990, Rep. Mod. Phys. 53, 1467

Figure Captions

Figure 1:Upper Panel: High-resolution spectra of three representative young SNe; SN Ia 1992A (Kirshner et al. 1993) and a blue SN II (SN 1998S; Lentz et al. 2001) and a redder SN II (SN 1999em; Baron et al. 2000) from 1200 Å to 7000 Å normalized in the optical. Lower Panel: low-resolution sampling of the same spectra showing the color differences in the UV. Fe II resonantly scatters much of the thermal continuum flux of SNe Ia in the UV ($`\lambda <3300`$ Å), imprinting a characteristic “UV deficit” not seen in the hydrogen-rich photospheres of common SNe II.

Figure 2: Finding and classifying SNe Ia with ACS via the UV deficit. The expected $`iz`$ (i.e., $`F775WF850lp`$) and $`vz`$ (i.e., $`F606WF850lp`$) colors of SNe Ia and SNe II near maximum brightness (calculated from the SEDs in figure 1) compared to the observed colors of candidate SNe Ia found in GOODs data. SNe Ia are readily distinguishable from SNe II by their red colors. Reddened SNe II would be too faint for this magnitude-limited sample. SNe shown at $`z<1.5`$ were independently confirmed to be SNe Ia.

Figure 3: Spectrum of SN Ia 2002fw at $`z=1.3`$ as observed in 15ks through the grism filter with ACS on HST compared to SN Ia 1981B at maximum light. Identifiable absorption features in the spectrum of SN 2002fw include the Ca II H&K absorption blend at rest-frame 3700 Å and the blueshifted Si II $`\lambda `$4130 absorption.


text:
# Spectral Line Removal in the LIGO Data Analysis System (LDAS)

## 1 Introduction

The broadband sensitivity of the nascent instruments of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)  is dictated by seismic, thermal and shot noise. There are also, however, a number of narrow-band noise sources—spectral lines. Resonances of the mirror suspension wires (*violin modes*) are one example of these. The extreme sensitivity of the LIGO instruments makes them particularly susceptible to contamination from the environment. Seismic noise, dictating the lower limit on the frequency of detectable astrophysical sources is perhaps the most dramatic example. Similarly, the 60 Hz frequency of the United States (US) electrical supply, and its harmonics, form a comb of strong spectral lines in each LIGO instrument, across the entire observation band (Figure 1). These lines are the largest single factor in the coherence between the 2 km and 4 km LIGO Hanford interferometers (Figure 2).

Spectral lines render data non-Gaussian, increase the required dynamic range of measurements, and obscure possible gravitational wave signals at their own and nearby frequencies. Some environmental noise sources can introduce spurious correlations between interferometers. A number of techniques have been proposed to *remove* such spectral lines from datasets using a variety of strategies. Many concentrate on producing a model of a line, so that it may be subtracted out. Sintes and Schutz  have implemented a technique to exploit common information between line harmonics to build such a line model. Allen, Hua and Ottewill  have used frequency-domain linear regression against channels measuring disturbances to the instrument to remove cross-talk between channels.

LIGO’s searches for astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation are predominantly performed by the LIGO Data Analysis System (LDAS) . LDAS runs on networks of computers at a number of sites, including the LIGO Observatories, and partner institutions, including The Australian National University (ANU), where the Australian Consortium for Interferometric Gravitational Astronomy (ACIGA) maintains the ACIGA Data Analysis Cluster (ADAC). LDAS encompasses data acquisition, processing and storage. Architecturally, LDAS is divided into a number of inter-communicating processes that run on server machines, which collectively support parallel search codes on Beowulf clusters. The general-purpose Data Conditioning API (datacondAPI) supports a Matlab-like scripting language to perform general non-parallel pre-processing *actions* on incoming data before it is distributed to the cluster. Spectral line removal is one of the available actions.

In LDAS, line removal is implemented in the datacondAPI, using the oelslr (Output Error Least Square Line Removal) action. It may be added, in a straightforward manner, to the existing datacondAPI script for an astrophysical search, as another pre-processing stage in the analysis ‘pipeline’. An optional line removal step has already been added to the data conditioning script for the stochastic background search.

The obvious figure of merit for line removal is the change it produces in the sensitivity of the astrophysical searches whose data it pre-processes. At this time we do not present any such results (though in the case of the stochastic background search they are forthcoming ). There is, as yet, no general test to determine the quality of a line removal algorithm, either in an absolute sense, or with respect to another line removal algorithm. The reduction of correlation, coherence or non-gaussianity, or the recovery of injected signals, have variously been employed to test a technique . We demonstrate both the reduction of coherence and (via power spectra) the reduction of non-gaussian features. (We intend to demonstrate the recovery of injected signals and employ further gaussianity testing  in a later paper.) These two effects can reasonably be expected to benefit astrophysical searches. Conversely, line removal can be used to establish that a given astrophysical search is *not* adversely affected by the presence of spectral lines (see  for a detailed discussion of this point in the context of the stochastic background search).

Our implementation is intended as the first step in adding line removal functionality to the datacondAPI. Similarly to Allen et al, it makes use of the additional information available in the form of a measurement of the disturbance to the instrument—the voltage monitor channels recorded by an observatory (Figure 3). With a known, measured disturbance, we may use system identification theory techniques  to construct a *model* of the interferometer’s response to the disturbance from actual data recorded over some epoch. At subsequent times, the model can then be used to predict the interferometer’s response from the measured disturbance; this prediction can then be subtracted away to remove those lines from the interferometer’s output.

## 2 Implementation

The Finite Impulse Response (FIR) model is the simplest special case of a *regression model*111Line removal in the datacondAPI was originally designed to use the Output-Error (OE) model, but the complexity of an OE model estimator has delayed its implementation., where the (possibly complex) input $`u`$ and output $`y`$ of a system are related by (following Ljung , where $`t`$ is a discrete sample number)

$$y(t)b_1u(t1)+b_2u(t2)+\mathrm{}+b_mu(tm),b_1\mathrm{}b_m,$$
(1)
where the model for the system is $`\theta =[b_1\mathrm{}b_m]^T`$. The model order $`m`$ controls the range of samples contributing to the model output.

If we define $`\phi (t)=[u(t1)\mathrm{}u(tm)]^T`$, then $`\widehat{y}(t|\theta )=\phi ^T(t)\theta `$ is the modelled output of the system. For given $`y`$ and $`u`$, the best model $`\widehat{\theta }_N`$ (which minimises, over $`\theta `$, the sum over $`N`$ samples of the square of the prediction error),

$$\widehat{\theta }_N=\mathrm{arg}\underset{\theta }{\mathrm{min}}\underset{t=1}{\overset{N}{}}[y(t)\phi ^T(t)\theta ]^2,$$
(2)
can be determined analytically (where $`\overline{\phi (t)}`$ denotes the complex conjugation of $`\phi (t)`$):

$$\widehat{\theta }_N=\left[\underset{t=1}{\overset{N}{}}\overline{\phi (t)}\phi ^T(t)\right]^1\underset{t=1}{\overset{N}{}}y(t)\phi (t).$$
(3)
For an FIR model with a white noise (or *error*) term, $`e(t)`$, such that

$$y(t)=b_1u(t1)+b_2u(t2)+\mathrm{}+b_mu(tm)+e(t),$$
(4)
it is important to note that $`\widehat{\theta }_N`$ is an unbiased estimate of $`\theta `$, converging as $`N^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ .

In the context of gravitational wave data analysis, we assume that the detector output $`y(t)`$ would consist of white noise $`e(t)`$, except for the presence of another channel $`u(t)`$ that linearly and additively contaminates it with $`b_1u(t1)+b_2u(t2)+\mathrm{}+b_mu(tm)`$. To remove the contamination, we estimate $`b_i`$ and subtract away the model prediction from the measured data:

$$y_\mathrm{r}(t)=y(t)\phi ^T(t)\widehat{\theta }_N,$$
(5)
where $`y_\mathrm{r}(t)`$ is the system output with the line removed.

Where the contamination is localised in frequency space, as for spectral lines, we perform band selection in the time domain using pre-existing components of the datacondAPI. If $`u(t)`$ is sampled with a Nyquist frequency $`f_{\mathrm{Ny}}`$ and a line is contained in some interval $`f\pm f_{\mathrm{Ny}}/n`$ (where $`n`$ is a *downsampling ratio*; see below), then $`u`$ is first mixed down to zero frequency with multiplication by $`e^{i2\pi ft/f_{\mathrm{Ny}}}`$. The datacondAPI’s non-trivial resample algorithm  is then used to downsample to a new time series with Nyquist frequency $`f_{\mathrm{Ny}}/n`$. Note that resample does not simply return every $`n`$th element of a time series; it includes filtering stages to prevent the aliasing of high-frequency components into the result. Restricting the bandwidth to an integer fraction of the Nyquist frequency allows the time-domain resampling to be performed efficiently. The downsampling ratio $`n`$ may typically be quite large—we use 128 in the following analysis—to identify a narrow band. A side-effect of the resampling algorithm is that any sequences processed by the line remover must contain an integer number of $`n`$ samples, making it advantageous to have $`n`$ correspond to some common divisor of the desired sample counts—typically a power of 2. It is on this pre-processed version of $`u`$ that the model is fitted. The process is reversed to produce $`\widehat{y}`$ by upsampling (again including a filtering stage) and up-mixing the model prediction222This series of operations has been abstracted into a reusable C++ class  (datacondAPI::BandSelector) that has already been used in the implementation of the datacondAPI’s Kalman filter..

In the datacondAPI, line removal is performed using the oelslr action to both estimate $`\theta `$ and predict $`\widehat{y}`$. Note that, like its underlying C++ implementation , the datacondAPI command language allows *overloading* of function names, so that oelslr may perform different tasks depending on the number and type of arguments supplied to it.

$`\theta =\mathrm{𝚘𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚕𝚛}(y,u,{\displaystyle \frac{f}{f_{\mathrm{Ny}}}},n,m);`$ (6)
$`\widehat{y}=\mathrm{𝚘𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚕𝚛}(u,\theta );`$ (7)
The general purpose sub action is used to perform the final subtraction.

$$y_\mathrm{r}=\mathrm{𝚜𝚞𝚋}(y,\widehat{y});$$
(8)
Time-domain causal linear filters introduce start-up transients and time-delays. The filters are employed both in the band-selection (via resample) and the model implementation. This introduces start-up transients and time-delays into the prediction. The start-up transients invalidate the first $`nm`$ samples of the prediction. The band-selection also truncates the prediction by an implementation-defined multiple of $`n`$ samples ($`128n`$ samples for the current resample implementation). These issues can be simply addressed by providing $`u`$ for $`[t_1\delta t,t_2+\delta t)`$ where $`\widehat{y}`$ is required for $`[t_1,t_2)`$; for typical parameters, $`\delta t=O(\mathrm{seconds})`$.

A line removal LDAS ‘job’ is composed as follows. An estimation era is sliced from incoming channels (aliased u and y).

```
            ue = slice(u, 0, 1228800, 1);
            ye = slice(y, 0, 1228800, 1);

```

where

$$\mathrm{𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚎}(y,a,b,c)=z(t)=y(a+ct),t=0,1,\mathrm{},b1.$$
(9)
We have ‘sliced off’ $`b=1228800`$ samples, starting from $`a=0`$, with stride $`c=1`$. For these 2048 Hz channels, this corresponds to the first 10 minutes of data for each channel. To remove the 180 Hz line, we estimate a model theta from ye and ue, in a region of $`(\mathtt{0.17578125}\pm \mathrm{𝟷𝟸𝟾}^1)f_{\mathrm{Ny}}`$, with model order $`m=8`$.

```
            theta = oelslr(ye, ue, 0.17578125, 128, 8);

```

The next stage is to slice a prediction era from u. We wish to predict $`\widehat{y}`$ for the subsequent 10 minutes, and allowing (for simplicity) a generous $`\delta t`$ of 1 minute, we use a slice of u extending for 12 minutes from 9 minutes after the channel began taking data.

```
            up = slice(u, 1105920, 1474560, 1);

```

To produce a prediction yp requires only the model theta and the predictor up.

```
            yp = oelslr(up, theta);

```

Once the prediction has been produced, we reset it to a slice of its own middle 10 minutes (beginning 1 minute into the $`12`$ minute raw prediction), effectively discarding the start-up transients and trailing truncation.

```
            yp = slice(yp, 122880, 1228800, 1);

```

We store the measured values of y for the corresponding times in ym, in preparation for subtracting the prediction from the measurement to produce the line-removed sequence yr.

```
            ym = slice(y, 1228800, 1228800, 1);
            yr = sub(ym, yp);

```

The sequence yr can then be output to other LDAS APIs for further processing by astrophysical searches, or, as in §3, written to file for inspection.

## 3 Results

Data taken during LIGO runs is formatted as *frames* of named channels. The ‘gravitational wave channels’ of the 4 km (H1) and 2 km (H2) Hanford and 4 km (L1) Livingston observatories are, respectively, H1:LSC-AS\_Q, H2:LSC-AS\_Q and L1:LSC-AS\_Q. In this paper, we have used data from the S1 Science Run, specifically from a stretch of ‘triple-coincidence’ data from GPS times 714974400–714975660, during which time all interferometers were locked; all figures are produced using the 10 minutes of data from GPS times 714975000–714975600.

The LSC-AS\_Q channels of all three interferometers show spectral lines at multiples of 60 Hz in their power spectra (Figure 1), particularly for odd harmonics (60 Hz, 180 Hz, 300 Hz, …). These lines are strongly coherent between H1 and H2 (Figure 2), but not between H1 and L1 or H2 and L1 (not shown). The lines are attributed to interference from the 60 Hz alternating current mains supply, and the coherence is attributed to the fact that a common mains supply is shared between H1 and H2 at Hanford, WA, but not by L1 at Livingston, LA, as the electrical grid is not coherent between the sites on this short timescale .

The power spectra of the mains voltage at both Hanford and Livingston Observatories (Figure 3) exhibit prominent lines at the odd harmonics of 60 Hz, and weaker lines at the even harmonics. At each observatory, the voltage of the incoming mains supply is measured by several monitors and recorded to corresponding channels; we use H0:PEM-LVEA2\_V1 and L0:PEM-LVEA\_V1. The LSC-AS\_Q channels are typically strongly coherent with their local voltage monitors at odd harmonics, and weakly coherent at even harmonics (Figure 4). This indicates that the voltage monitor channels should be good predictors of the odd harmonics, and fair predictors of the even harmonics, given the simple linear model used by the line remover. Despite this, our results should be treated with caution. While it is clear that the electrical supply is responsible for the lines we observe at multiples of 60 Hz, if it is due to some non-linear effects then our description of the system is flawed.

Assuming that we may regress \*:LSC-AS\_Q against \*0:PEM-LVEA\*\_V1, we construct an LDAS job to separately remove lines at each of the 17 multiples of 60 Hz below the 1024 Hz Nyquist frequency of the 2048 Hz \*0:PEM-LVEA\*\_V1 channels (the \*:LSC-AS\_Q channels are downsampled from 16384 Hz to 2048 Hz before this stage of the data conditioning). The technique proceeds for each line as in §2, with the exception that for each gravitational wave channel we store a single prediction sequence consisting of the sum of the predictions for each of the lines for that channel—a single unified $`\widehat{y}`$ predicting all lines. The parameters $`m`$ and $`n`$ used for the line removal have, anecdotally, been found to produce reasonable results; they have not been optimised for this particular task.

Several features are noteworthy on the power spectra of the predictions (Figure 5). Firstly, the power of the prediction never exceeds the power of the \*:LSC-AS\_Q channel. Outside the bands selected for line removal, the power is 5–10 orders of magnitude below the \*:LSC-AS\_Q noise floor. Within the bands selected for line removal, the power (other than at the spectral line itself) is at least 2 orders of magnitude below the \*:LSC-AS\_Q noise floor. Most importantly, for the lines themselves, the power of the prediction is comparable to the power of the lines.

When the prediction is subtracted from the measured gravitational wave channel, the lines, as measured in the power spectra of Figure 1, are affected to varying degrees. Many are no longer visible above the noise floor; others have been reduced but are still present; some are unaffected. The residual coherence (Figure 4) between the line removed channels and their predictors is similar. For most lines, the coherence has been reduced; for many there is no residual coherence above the noise level of the estimate.

Similarly, the line coherence between the H1 and H2 interferometers (Figure 2) has been reduced or removed for almost all lines. (The coherence between H1 or H2 and L1, not shown, is unaffected.) This can be seen, most clearly, by considering the accumulated coherence; lines appear as steps in the accumulation. For H1 and H2, those steps have been reduced or eliminated. Furthermore, the accumulation demonstrates that there has been no significant broadband coherence added to the interferometers. The net effect has been a reduction in the total accumulated coherence between the interferometers, and a significant one, when compared to the noise floor approximated by the accumulated H1–L1 coherence.

## 4 Conclusion

The datacondAPI oelslr line removal algorithm provides a non-intrusive way for LIGO’s astrophysical searches to reduce the power and inter-instrument coherence of spectral lines attributed to interference from the mains supply. The datacondAPI implementation provides an easy route for searches to add line removal, and provides the building blocks for expansions to the datacondAPI, some of which have already been reused in a Kalman filter implementation.

Much remains to be done. The behaviour of the oelslr algorithm needs to be systematically investigated, to fully validate its implementation and to optimise its application. Concerns about the linearity and causality of the relationship between the environmental and detector channels—and hence the validity of the model—must be addressed. Search code integration and performance testing have already begun, and the results of one such investigation are forthcoming .

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the LDAS development team. This work was supported by The ANU Faculties Research Grant Scheme and an award under the Merit Allocation Scheme on the National Facility of the Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing. A Searle was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award.

## References