text:
# A Unified Jet Model of X-Ray Flashes and Gamma-Ray Bursts

## 1 Introduction

Two-thirds of all HETE-2–localized bursts are either “X-ray-rich” or X-Ray Flashes (XRFs); of these, one-third are XRFs 111We define “X-ray-rich” GRBs and XRFs as those events for which $`\mathrm{log}[S_X(230\mathrm{kev})/S_\gamma (30400\mathrm{kev})]>0.5`$ and 0.0, respectively. (Sakamoto et al., 2003b). These events have received increasing attention in the past several years (Heise et al., 2000; Kippen et al., 2002), but their nature remains largely unknown.

XRFs have $`t_{90}`$ durations between 10 and 200 sec and their sky distribution is consistent with isotropy. In these respects, XRFs are similar to “classical” GRBs. A joint analysis of WFC/BATSE spectral data showed that the low-energy and high-energy photon indices of XRFs are $`1`$ and $`2.5`$, respectively, which are similar to those of GRBs, but that the XRFs had spectral peak energies $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ that were much lower than those of GRBs (Kippen et al., 2002). The only difference between XRFs and GRBs therefore appears to be that XRFs have lower $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}^{\mathrm{obs}}`$ values. It has therefore been suggested that XRFs might represent an extension of the GRB population to bursts with low peak energies.

Clarifying the nature of XRFs and X-ray-rich GRBs, and their connection to GRBs, could provide a breakthrough in our understanding of the prompt emission of GRBs. Analyzing 42 X-ray-rich GRBs and XRFs seen by FREGATE and/or the WXM instruments on HETE-2, Sakamoto et al. (2003b) find that the XRFs, the X-ray-rich GRBs, and GRBs form a continuum in the \[$`S_\gamma (2400\mathrm{kev}),E_{\mathrm{peak}}^{\mathrm{obs}}`$\]-plane (see Figure 1, left-hand panel). This result strongly suggests that these three kinds of events are the same phenomenon.

Furthermore, Lamb et al. (2003c) have placed 9 HETE-2 GRBs with known redshifts and 2 XRFs with known redshifts or strong redshift constraints in the ($`E_{\mathrm{iso}},E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$)-plane (see Figure 1, right-hand panel). Here $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ is the isotropic-equivalent burst energy and $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ is the energy of the peak of the burst spectrum, measured in the source frame. The HETE-2 bursts confirm the relation between $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ and $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$ found by Amati et al. (2002) for GRBs and extend it down in $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ by a factor of 300. The fact that XRF 020903, one of the softest events localized by HETE-2 to date, and XRF 030723, the most recent XRF localized by HETE-2, lie squarely on this relation (Sakamoto et al., 2003a; Lamb et al., 2003c) provides additional evidence that XRFs and GRBs are the same phenomenon. However, more redshift determinations for XRFs with 1 keV $`<E_{\mathrm{peak}}<30`$ keV energy are needed in order to confirm these results.

Figure 2 shows a simulation of the expected distribution of bursts in the ($`E_{\mathrm{iso}},E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$)-plane (left panel) and in the ($`F_N^{\mathrm{peak}},E_{\mathrm{peak}}`$)-plane (right panel), assuming that the (Amati et al., 2002) relation holds for XRFs as well as for GRBs (Lamb, Donaghy & Graziani, 2003), as is strongly suggested by the HETE-2 results. The SXC, WXM, and FREGATE instruments on HETE-2 have thresholds of $`16`$ keV and considerable effective areas in the X-ray energy range. Thus HETE-2 is ideally suited for detecting and studying XRFs. In contrast, BAT on Swift has a nominal threshold of 20 keV. This simulation suggests that the WXM and SXC instruments on HETE-2 detect many times more bursts with $`E_{\mathrm{peak}}<10`$ keV than will BAT on Swift.

## 2 XRFs as a Probe of GRB Jet Structure, GRB Rate, and Core Collapse Supernovae

Frail et al. (2001) and Panaitescu & Kumar (2001) \[see also Bloom, Frail & Kulkarni (2003)\] have shown that most GRBs have a “standard” energy; i.e, if their isotropic equivalent energy is corrected for the jet opening angle inferred from the jet break time, most GRBs have the same radiated energy, $`E_\gamma =1.3\times 10^{51}`$ ergs, to within a factor of 2-3.

Two models of GRB jets have received widespread attention:

* The “structured jet” model (see the left-hand panel of Figure 3). In this model, all GRBs produce jets with the same structure (Rossi, Lazzati, & Rees, 2002; Woosley, Zhang, & Heger, 2003; Zhang & Mészáros, 2002; Mészáros, Ramirez-Ruiz, Rees, & Zhang, 2002). The isotropic-equivalent energy and luminosity is assumed to decrease as the viewing angle $`\theta _v`$ as measured from the jet axis increases. The wide range in values of $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ is attributed to differences in the viewing angle $`\theta _v`$. In order to recover the “standard energy” result (Frail et al., 2001), $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}(\theta _v)\theta _v^2`$ is required (Zhang & Mészáros, 2002).
* The “uniform jet” model (see the right-hand panel of Figure 3). In this model GRBs produce jets with very different jet opening angles $`\theta _{\mathrm{jet}}`$. For $`\theta <\theta _{\mathrm{jet}}`$, $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}(\theta _v)`$ = constant while for $`\theta >\theta _{\mathrm{jet}}`$, $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}(\theta _v)=0`$.

As we have seen, HETE-2 has provided strong evidence that the properties of XRFs, X-ray-rich GRBs, and GRBs form a continuum, and that these bursts are therefore the same phenomenon. If this is true, it immediately implies that the $`E_\gamma `$ inferred by (Frail et al., 2001) is too large by a factor of at least 100 (Lamb, Donaghy & Graziani, 2003). The reason is that the values of $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ for XRF 020903 (Sakamoto et al., 2003a) and XRF 030723 (Lamb et al., 2003c) are $``$ 100 times smaller than the value of $`E_\gamma `$ inferred by Frail et al. – an impossibility.

HETE-2 has also provided strong evidence that, in going from XRFs to GRBs, $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ changes by a factor $`10^5`$ (see Figure 1, right-hand panel). If one tries to explain only the range in $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ corresponding to GRBs, both the uniform jet model and the structured jet model work reasonably well. However, if one tries to explain the range in $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ of a factor $`10^5`$ that is required in order to accommodate both XRFs and GRBs in a unified description, the uniform jet works reasonably well while the structured jet model does not.

The reason is the following: the observational implications of the structured jet model and the uniform jet model differ dramatically if they are required to explain XRFs and GRBs in a unified picture. In the structured jet model, most viewing angles $`\theta _v`$ are $`90^{}`$. This implies that the number of XRFs should exceed the number of GRBs by many orders of magnitude, something that HETE-2 does not observe (see Figures 1, 2, 4, and 5). On the other hand, by choosing $`N(\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{jet}})\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{jet}}^2`$, the uniform jet model predicts equal numbers of bursts per logarithmic decade in $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ (and $`S_E`$), which is exactly what HETE-2 sees (again, see Figures 1, 2, 4, and 5) (Lamb, Donaghy & Graziani, 2003).

Thus, if $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ spans a range $`10^5`$, as the HETE-2 results strongly suggest, the uniform jet model can provide a unified picture of both XRFs and GRBs, whereas the structured jet model cannot. XRFs may therefore provide a powerful probe of GRB jet structure.

A range in $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}`$ of $`10^5`$ requires a minimum range in $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{jet}}`$ of $`10^410^5`$ in the uniform jet model. Thus the unified picture of XRFs and GRBs based on the uniform jet model implies that there are $`10^410^5`$ more bursts with very small $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{jet}}`$’s for every such burst we see; i.e., the rate of GRBs may be $`100`$ times greater than has been thought.

Since the observed ratio of the rate of Type Ic SNe to the rate of GRBs in the observable universe is $`R_{\mathrm{Type}\mathrm{Ic}}/R_{\mathrm{GRB}}10^5`$ (Lamb, 1999), a unified picture of XRFs and GRBs based on the uniform jet model implies that the rate of GRBs could be comparable to the rate of Type Ic SNe (Lamb, Donaghy & Graziani, 2003). More spherically symmetric jets yield XRFs and narrow jets produce GRBs. Thus XRFs and GRBs may provide a combination of GRB/SN samples that would enable astronomers to study the relationship between the degree of jet-like behavior of the GRB and the properties of the supernova (brightness, polarization $``$ asphericity of the explosion, velocity of the explosion $``$ kinetic energy of the explosion, etc.). GRBs may therefore provide a unique laboratory for understanding Type Ic core collapse supernovae.

## 3 Conclusions

We have shown that a unified picture of XRFs and GRBs based on the uniform jet model has profound implications for the structure of GRB jets, the rate of GRBs, and the nature of Type Ic supernovae. Obtaining the evidence needed to confirm or rule out the uniform jet model and its implications will require the determination of both the spectral parameters and the redshifts of many more XRFs. The broad energy range of HETE-2 (2-400 keV) means that it is able to accurately determine the spectral parameters of the XRFs that it detects and localizes. This will be more difficult for Swift, which has a more limited spectral coverage (15-140 keV). Until very recently, only one XRF (XRF 020903; Soderberg et al. 2002) had a probable optical afterglow and redshift. This is because the X-ray (and therefore the optical) afterglows of XRFs are $`10^3`$ times fainter than those of GRBs (Lamb, Donaghy & Graziani, 2003). But this challenge can be met: the recent HETE-2–localization of XRF 030723 represents the first time that an XRF has been localized in real time (Prigozhin et al., 2003); identification of its X-ray and optical afterglows rapidly followed (Fox et al., 2003c). This suggests that Swift’s ability to rapidly follow up GRBs with the XRT and UVOT – its revolutionary feature – will greatly increase the fraction of bursts with known redshifts.

Therefore a partnership between HETE-2 and Swift, in which HETE-2 provides the spectral parameters for XRFs, and Swift slews to the HETE-2–localized XRFs and provides the redshifts, can provide the data that is needed to confirm or rule out the uniform jet model and its implications. This constitutes a compelling scientific case for continuing HETE-2 during the Swift mission.


format: text

text:
# Evolution of economic entities under heterogeneous political/environmental conditions within a Bak-Sneppen-like dynamics

## 1 Introduction

In a previous paper  we have raised the question whether one could through modern econophysics ideas and theories  touch upon questions related to changing economic world conditions, e.g. globalization or mondialisation and delocalization, and discuss the consequences of such politics. The Berlin wall destruction and opening of markets in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to so called liberal economy was said to be similar to an increase in ”physical volume or available space”. The disparity in ”economic conditions”, like the tax systems, or different workers’ skills or wages, weather, available information, … seemed to be also similar to ”external field” conditions in condensed matter.

In a first approach we have asked whether the evolution of the concentration of enterprises, their spatial distribution, their (so we say) ”fitness” under varying in time and space economic field conditions can be derived from some microscopic-like model as often found in statistical physics to describe complex phenomena. We have raised the question whether macroeconomy seems to work as a self-organized system , characterized by scaling laws, whether models and theories pertaining to such features characterized by punctuated equilibrium contain cycles or stable states .

In  we have introduced an economic world model as a lattice divided into $`\nu `$ (= 3) regions of equal size. At the origin of time all ”firms” (enterprises, agents, ..) are located only in region I. A barrier preventing companies to enter regions II and III is removed at a given $`t_1`$ time. Each company ($`i`$) is characterized by one real number $`f_i`$, belonging to the  interval. Each region is under some economic conditions, an ”external field”, represented by $`one`$ real number, $`F`$ also belonging to . The best condition, ”by symmetry”, is $`F=0.5`$. We have searched for the evolution of concentrations in regions II and III as invaded according to a simple diffusion rule. A so called business plan, based on a biased merging and spin-off creation alternative was considered for the enterprise evolution. The $`f`$ value of the new firms was considered to be obtained according to various types of memories depending on the $`f`$ of the company parents .

In such a scheme, some attempt was made to connect macroeconomy and econophysics  through questions concerning whether enterprises survive or not, get better or worse, how the diffusion front moves toward regions II and III, etc. One ingredient of the Monte-Carlo algorithm was to consider that the evolution was randomly driven, in the sense that the entity picked up by the Monte-Carlo procedure was independent of the position and $`f`$ value of the firm.

However some other dynamics can be imagined. In particular recall the Bak-Sneppen evolution model  which has considered that species being assigned a so called fitness $`f`$ have a better chance of surviving if $`f`$ is large. The population evolution is controlled through the entity with the minimal fitness at every discrete time step. This species is replaced by a new one, with a new fitness, taken from a uniform distribution on . Moreover an interaction is introduced, e.g. by (randomly) modifying the fitness of the neighbors of the chosen entity. This interaction represents a co-evolution of related species. Many variants have been studied, including an anisotropic Bak-Sneppen model , a tree growth  evolution with or without species screening , with or without long range interactions …. Applications of the Bak-Sneppen ideas occur in many fields, from biological problems, like bacteria colony evolution  to macro-economical processes .

We reformulate the simple model presented in  for the evolution of economic entities under varying economic conditions introducing a Bak-Sneppen- like dynamics. In Sect. 2, we present the new model algorithm which therefore stresses the role of the selection pressure and the Bak-Sneppen-like dynamics. In section 3, we outline a few results, like the diffusion front penetration, and the concentration of entity evolution. It is numerically observed that the model leads to a phase transition-like scenario for the fitness gap as a function of the selection pressure. A short conclusion is to be found in Sect. 4.

## 2 Model and Monte Carlo Simulation Algorithm

We consider a square symmetry lattice of linear dimensions $`L_x\times L_y`$. The $`x`$ segment is divided into 3 parts (regions I, II and III) of equal size ($`L_x`$ =150, $`L_y=201`$). The entities we consider, called thereafter firms, are located on the lattice sites. A site may be either empty or occupied by one firm.

Each firm is characterized by its location on the lattice and a number $`f[0,1]`$. All external conditions influencing the dynamics of the firms (labor conditions, fiscal system, availability of human and natural resources, etc) are summarized in a single value $`F[0,1]`$ \- the external field. Since the agreement between $`f`$ and $`F`$ will determine the firm’s survival, see below, we shall call $`f`$ the fitness of the firms.

Initially all firms are located at random positions in region I with initial density $`c(0)`$ and with random values of the $`f`$’s. Like in the Bak and Sneppen extremal dynamics model  we choose a firm with the lowest appealing fitness from the field point of view, do not remove the firm immediately from the system as was done in the Bak and Sneppen model, but check the firm’s survival chance. This depends on the difference between the fitness of the firm and the external field and the selection pressure. If the firm does not survive the check, it is removed from the system and all firms which are the nearest neighbors (von Neumann neighborhood) of the chosen firm receive new, random values for their fitness.

If not removed, the firm may change position, merges with another firm or creates spin-off(s).

After a certain time the border between the region I and region II is opened, thus permitting the motion of firms into regions II and III. At the same time the external field changes in region I, assuming a new value $`F_I`$, different from that in region II ($`F_{II}`$) and III ($`F_{III}`$). There is only one such change of the field (in contrast to cases examined in ).

To complete a Monte Carlo Step (MCS) one has to pick as many firms as there were at the beginning of that step.

The algorithm goes as follows:

1. The firm ($`i`$) which has its fitness farthest away from the field value is picked. The search is made in the whole system, and the fitness is compared to the region field value, i.e. the fitness of a firm in the region I is compared with $`F_I`$, that in the region II with $`F_{II}`$, etc.
2. The survival probability is calculated as

$$p_i=\mathrm{exp}(sel|f_iF|),$$
(1)
and checked against a random number $`r_i[0,1]`$ taken from a uniform distribution. If $`r_i>p_i`$, the firm is removed from the system and its nearest neighbors are given new, arbitrary, but within the  interval, values of fitness,
3. If the firm survived, then 7 random searches are made in the von Neumann neighborhood (4 sites) for an empty place. As soon as the search is successful, the firm moves there.
4. A random search is next made for a partner in the von Neumann neighborhood of the new position. If found at the site $`j`$ then
5. with a probability 0.01 the two firms merge, creating a new firm at the location of the first one, with a new fitness given by

$$f_i=\frac{1}{2}\left[(f_i+f_j)+sign[0.5r]|f_if_j|\right],$$
(2)
where $`r`$ is a random number in . The second firm is eliminated. If the new fitness for the (first) firm is greater than 1, the firm is eliminated too.
6. with a probability 0.99 the two firms produce a new ($`k`$) firm (spin-off) with a fitness given by the formula

$$f_k=\frac{1}{2}\left[(f_i+f_j)+sign[0.5r]|f_if_j|\right],$$
(3)
15 random searches in the Moore neighborhood (9 sites) of the first firm are made to put the spin-off firm there at the first found empty site. If the attempts are unsuccessful, the new firm is not created.

After choosing all agents, one MC time step is done. We have in such a way limited our investigations to 1500 MCS.

In each case, we have started with an initial concentration $`c`$ = 0.8 in region I, and have destroyed the wall between region I and II after 100 MCS. The external field takes values 0.3, 0.5, 0.6 in the three regions after $`t_1`$ and remains constant thereafter. The results reported in Sect. 3 refer to averages over ten runs.

## 3 Results

In the following we stress results pertaining to cases demonstrating the newness of the model with respect to our previous work .

In Fig. 1, the number of firms existing in the three regions is shown as a function of time for a $`sel`$ = 0.5. Recall that there are 10050 lattice sites in each region. It is observed that there is a rapid decrease in concentration in the first region as soon as the I-II wall is open, but the death and birth process stabilizes the concentration at nearly $`c`$ = 0.4 after a few Monte-Carlo steps, even though the concentrations in regions II and III still increase due to the largely available space.

It is unclear whether for very long time the concentrations would level off to the value of region I or to other values in regions II and III. However an interesting qualitative information is seen through the position of the diffusion front (going, recall from left to right, in this world) for various $`sel`$ values. (Fig.2). The break toward some stationary-like asymptotic concentration value in region I, as seen in Fig. 1, seems to occur at the same time as the front progresses, as seen in Fig. 2; the break seems to mark an apparently different growth law. We have not studied the diffusion coefficient, but the difference in behavior might be traced to the effects of diffusion (together with the birth and death) process in presence of (moreover here mobile) barriers, as in . The front propagation for $`sel<<0.65`$ seems to be a simple Brownian like process.

The complete spatial distribution and its evolution in time would require a movie like display; instead we give snapshots for the value of the concentration along vertical columns, for a few Monte-Carlo times and two $`sel`$ values in Fig. 3(a-b) respectively. Recall that sharp field gradients occur at $`x=50`$ and $`100`$. For the low $`sel`$ (= 0.3) the concentration in region I hardly varies with time (and column position), and remains near 0.4, as can be hinted from Fig.1 for $`sel`$ = 0.5. After sufficient Monte-Carlo steps the concentration seems to level off in region II, although it is not clear what would be the final concentration at very large MC time. For ”large” $`sel`$ value the concentration in region I is markedly decreased, and is quasi nonexistent in regions II and III.

It is therefore of interest to emphasize the role of $`sel`$ at an intermediary time, as in Fig. 4, where it is seen that the behavior does not much differ from low to high $`sel`$ except for the concentration amplitude, - which seems to decrease linearly with $`sel`$ in region I.

The fitness value evolution in the three regions is not spectacular since it ”rather quickly” reaches the optimal one, as constrained by the external field. The fitness optimal value in each region is easily reached and remain stable with MCS. It is more interesting to display the behavior of the fitness in line with the Bak-Sneppen dynamics. Recall that the interest of the dynamics is, beside the entity interactions, the choice of the less fit for starting an avalanche process. Therefore we have calculated the number (N) of times the less fit entity is reached (picked), and its fitness value, during the process. The data for N as a function of $`f`$ in the case $`sel`$ = 0.5 is shown in Fig. 5 on a semi-log plot.

It is observed that the number of unfit entities is large and about the same in the three regions. Moreover a rather well defined gap occurs in the distribution of ”picked firms”, - a gap centered on the external field value. This $`f_{gap}`$ can be displayed in Fig. 6 as a function of $`sel`$. Except for the asymmetry due to the external field value, the behavior of the gap can be reconciled with what is expected for the density at liquid-gas transitions as a function of temperature. The finite size of the system is likely the cause for inducing a non zero gap at large $`sel`$. A critical $`sel`$ value near 0.66 is found whatever the external field.

## 4 Conclusions

In summary, we have adapted a birth-death-diffusion process of macroeconomic evolution with a Bak-Sneppen-like dynamics. From this set of results, we have observed that there are relatively well marked effects due to the ”selection pressure”, including a ”critical value” reminiscent of the critical temperature at second order phase transitions. The constraining economic (”external”) field implies stable concentration distributions, as far as examined. The diffusion process is not spectacular, apparently being Brownian like. We have not searched for avalanches as found in self-organized processes.

Result robustness should be further checked with respect to the parameters which are involved : number of regions, lattice size(s), lattice symmetry, initial concentration(s), field time sequence(s), and time for $`F`$ field changes, selection pressure, hopping distance for the diffusion process, number of ’spin off’s, the latter creation probability, …

Further improvements can be also suggested both from a macro and micro economy point of view, as well as from physical system studies. A company cannot be described by one scalar number $`f_i`$, but a vector model coupled to a vector field should be more realistic. Moreover the role of the business plan through the birth and death process description mapping merging and spin off processes is also to be improved. The fitness distribution and evolution law(s) might also be changed for better reflecting macroeconomy findings. Analytical work could be of interest to search for bifurcation and chaotic conditions, if any.

Acknowledgments

MA and AP thank the CGRI and KBN for partial financial support allowing mutual visits during this work process. MA and PC also thank an Action Concertée Program of the University of Li$`\stackrel{`}{e}`$ge (ARC 02/07-293).

Figure captions

Figure 1 – Average (over 10 runs) number of firms existing in the three regions as a function of time for $`sel`$ = 0.5 and field values $`F`$ =0.3, 0.5, 0.6 after $`t_1`$=100 MCS.

Figure 2 – Position of the diffusion front for various $`sel`$ values with external field values $`F`$ = 0.3, 0.5, 0.6 after $`t_1`$ = 100 MCS in the three regions respectively.

Figure 3 – The concentration in the three regions for a few MCS when the external field takes values $`F`$ =0.3, 0.5, 0.6 after $`t_1`$=100 MCS for $`sel`$ = (a) 0.3 and (b) 0.8.

Figure 4 – The concentration in the three regions at t = 1000 MCS, for external field values $`F`$ = 0.3, 0.5, 0.6 for different $`sel`$ values.

Figure 5 – Semi-log plot for the number N of (picked) ”less fit entities” (as defined in the text) in the three regions after 1500 MCS when the external field values $`F`$ = 0.3, 0.5, 0.6 respectively for $`sel`$ = 0.5.

Figure 6 – Display of $`f_{gap}`$, i.e. gap in picked $`f`$ values, as a function of $`sel`$ in the three regions when the external field values are $`F`$ = 0.3, 0.5, 0.6 respectively.


text:
# The large extent of dark matter haloes probed by the formation of tidal dwarf galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Dark matter haloes are known to surround galaxies, but whether they extend much further than visible matter is still debated. Standard cosmological models based on Cold Dark Matter theories predict that the dark halo of a galaxy should extend and maintain large circular velocities up to its virial radius, that is about 200 kpc for a galaxy of the mass of the Milky Way (Navarro et al. 1996). This result is yet difficult to check by observations. Rotation curves of spiral galaxies can shed light on dark matter (DM) only at small radii and in the disk plane. At larger distances, on may however take advantage of the special location or morphology of some peculiar systems to probe the dark matter distribution. The kinematics of polar rings can give information on the flattening of dark haloes (Iodice et al. 2003). The morphology of the long tidal tails (Springel & White 1999; Dubinski et al. 1999) and the distribution and kinematics of satellite galaxies (Zaritsky & White 1994; Erickson et al. 1999; Ibata et al. 2001) can be used to constrain the shape of dark haloes. Finally one may study the internal dynamics of Tidal Dwarf Galaxies (TDG)– gravitationally bound objects formed out of tidal material (Duc et al., 2000) – to probe their baryonic DM content and learn whether part of the latter could originally have been located in a galactic disk (Braine et al. 2001).

In this letter, we show how the very existence of large accumulations of gaseous tidal material, progenitors of massive TDGs, can put some constraints on the large-scale extent of dark matter haloes. HI gas clouds with masses higher than $`10^9`$ M are observed in the outer parts of the long tidal tails emanating from several nearby interacting systems (e.g. Hibbard & van Gorkom 1996; Duc et al. 1997, 2000; Nordgren et al. 1997; Braine et al. 2001)111See also in the HI Rogues Gallery (Hibbard et al. 2001) the collection of interacting doubles (available at http://www.nrao.edu/astrores/HIrogues/ ). These clouds are usually real entities and not the results of projection effects. Indeed, they are able to convert their neutral hydrogen into molecular gas (Braine et al. 2001), form stars and may evolve into objects that have the apparent properties of dwarf galaxies.

The formation of TDGs has been studied in numerical simulations showing the gravitational collapse of stellar clumps in tidal tails (Barnes & Hernquist 1992), or the ejection of gas clouds from the parent galaxy (Elmegreen et al. 1993). These objects have masses of 107 to 108 M and are distributed all along the tails like the TDG candidates found in numerous interacting systems (Weilbacher et al. 2000). However, the most massive TDG progenitors located near the tip of the tidal filaments have not yet been reproduced in these simulations.

We present here new numerical simulations that aim at exploring two issues: (1) how do HI clouds as massive as $`10^9`$ M form in tidal tails ? (2) are such clouds transient features that quickly fall back into their parent galaxy, or are they the progenitors of long-lived objects able to contribute significantly to the overall population of dwarf galaxies and have a cosmological importance (Hunter et al. 2000; Okazaki & Taniguchi 2000) ? We will show that the answers to these questions also shed some light on the DM haloes of galaxies.

## 2 Numerical simulations

### 2.1 Code and models

We used N-body simulations of galactic encounters and mergers in order to study the response of gas to tidal interactions. The target galaxy consists of 50,000 particles describing the stars, 100,000, the dark matter, and 100,000 sticky ones, the gas. Its stellar disk has a 15 kpc radius, and is modeled by a Toomre disk with a scale-length of 7 kpc and a vertical scale-height of 1 kpc. Its gaseous disk has a radius of 2.3 times the stellar disk radius. The gas mass is a few 109 to 1010 M and the total luminous mass is 2 1011 M. The second galaxy is gas free in our simulations, while in reality it may contain some gas. However, this does not affect our results since the tidal tails of one galaxy are not disturbed by the gas present in the other one, except in very particular situations. The dark matter is described as a standard isothermal sphere. For each galaxy, its distribution is computed to provide a flat rotation curve inside the halo truncation radius, which we chose between 3 and 10 times the stellar disk radius. We also explored a range of mass ratios, relative velocities and impact parameters for the colliding galaxies. The characteristics of our different runs are listed in Table 1.

The gravitational potential of stars and dark matter is computed via the three-dimensional FFT code presented in details in Bournaud & Combes (2003). Using dark haloes as extended as 150 kpc compels us to explore a large region, hence reducing the resolution of this 3-D code to about 5 kpc. This resolution is large enough to compute the potential of stars and dark matter in which the gas response is studied, but is too low to reproduce the gas self-gravity inside the tails. We have therefore limited our study to coplanar galactic encounters, in which gas forms thin structures included in a plane. This enables the gas gravitational potential to be computed with a two-dimensional FFT code having a much higher resolution of about 150 pc (Bournaud & Combes 2002). Once potentials are known, equations of motion are integrated by a leap-frog algorithm. The dissipative nature of the interstellar medium is described using the sticky-particles algorithm of Bournaud & Combes (2002).

### 2.2 Results

In our first model presented in Figure 1, dark matter haloes do not extend much further than visible matter (stars and gas). Galaxy interaction makes a tidal tail develop, in which more than ten regions collapse under the effects of gravity. This result is very similar to what was obtained in previous simulations (e.g., Barnes & Hernquist 1992): bound clumps of 107 to 108 M are formed all along the tails. This model fails to reproduce the most massive gas accumulations seen in real systems. Even with varying the galaxies mass ratio, orbital parameters, and the initial extent and distribution of gas, such structures are never formed.

Figure 2 presents a second model where the dark haloes extend up to 10 times the radius of the stellar disk. The small tidal clumps obtained with the first model are still there but, in addition, objects of 109 M may form in the outer parts of tidal tails (see Fig. 3). They are actually produced in most of our runs (see Table 1), provided that (1) long tidal tails are formed (2) the extent of haloes is at least a factor of ten greater than the radius of the stellar disks.  The long-lived tidal objects remain at more than 50 kpc from the galaxy center for at least 2 Gyr after their formation.

## 3 Discussion and conclusions

### 3.1 Implications on dark haloes

Experiments probing the shape of dark matter haloes using the kinematics of satellite galaxies led to somehow conflicting results (Zaritsky & White, 1994; Erickson et al., 1999) and to the suggestion that it was perhaps not universal. The massive and extended dark matter haloes used in standard CDM cosmologies have also been challenged by the ability of colliding galaxies to form long tidal tails (Mihos et al., 1998). In the N-body simulations by Springel & White (1999), however, the more extensive haloes make stronger tails.

Our simulations indicate that the existence of very massive HI accumulations in the outer parts of tidal tails, once formed, cannot be accounted for with isothermal dark haloes that are truncated at small radii, whatever the other physical parameters used in the simulations are. On the contrary, they are reproduced in most runs when the dark haloes of both interacting galaxies are assumed to extend much further than the visible matter, at least 10 times or 150 kpc for a galaxy of the mass of the Milky Way. The critical parameter for the TDG-production ability is the halo size, not its mass. Indeed, we have run a set of simulations with haloes truncated at three times the stellar disk radius but as massive as in the second model. They all failed at producing massive tidal clouds.

### 3.2 Formation and survival of tidal dwarf galaxies

The formation of bound star-forming clumps along tails is directly related to gravitational instabilities in tidal structures (Barnes & Hernquist, 1992). They are the progenitors of super star clusters and possibly to dwarf spheroidal galaxies (Kroupa, 1998).

The more massive gas accumulations near the tip of the tidal tails – those only obtained with extended dark haloes – seem to have a different origin. Indeed, they are still observed in simulations where the gas is not self-gravitating. Thus, these structures are not initiated by self gravity but are firstly the result of a kinematical phenomenon. For parent galaxies having both an extended halo, tidal forces make a significant fraction of the gas coming from beyond a critical distance in the parent’s disk to pile up near the extremity of the tail, whereas for a truncated halo, the gas is spread all along the tail. Once enough material has accumulated, self-gravity leads to a local collapse and ignites the star formation. A more detailed investigation will be published in a forthcoming paper.

The survival time of these TDGs will be determined by its ability to resist tidal disruption, internal starbursts, or an eventual merging with the parent galaxy. In our simulations, although much of the tidal material along the tails falls back in less than 1 Gyr, the tidal dwarf galaxies that are formed at radii larger than 50 kpc are still observed after 2 Gyr. One third of them remain on orbits that are almost circular (see Fig. 2) and hence appear as satellite galaxies. Due to their low eccentricities, the final merging is postponed (Peñarrubia et al., 2002) and their life-time is increased. Therefore such tidal dwarf galaxies cannot be considered as transient objects. Old TDGs should exist (Hunter et al. 2000) and could actually represent a significant fraction of the dwarf galaxies present in nearby groups of galaxies, as suggested by Hunsberger et al. (1996) or in the distant Universe, as speculated by Okazaki & Taniguchi (2000).

We have restricted our study to coplanar encounters in order to treat the gas self-gravity with a large enough resolution. Since we found that the origin of the large tidal gas accumulations is not the self-gravity, we have run a set of numerical experiments with non-coplanar encounters in which the gas is simply modeled by mass-less particles. The piling-up of gas near the tail extremities still occurs only when dark haloes are extended enough. The constraint on the size of dark haloes derived from the simulations appears therefore to be robust. On the observational side, statistics of the number, location, masses and ages of TDGs need to be accumulated.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to Françoise Combes for her valuable comments on numerical techniques and results and to Romain Teyssier for discussions on cosmological predictions for dark haloes. We thank the anonymous referee for his careful reading of the manuscript and useful suggestions.


text:
# Progress in building an International Lattice Data Grid

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Since the announcement of the International Lattice Data Grid (ILDG) project at Lattice 2002  significant progress has been made toward its initial objectives. The aim of the ILDG is to develop grid-based technologies that enable simple and reliable exchange of data between those international lattice research groups who choose to use it. It is possible that the ILDG vision may develop into something much more comprehensive than the simple publishing or exchange of gauge configurations. This remains to be seen. The initial proposal emerged out of the QCDgrid project which is being developed by UKQCD as a means of securely storing data and making it readily accessible to its members irrespective of geographical location. The ILDG was envisaged as a means of coordinating and promoting similar initiatives by other international groups for their mutual benefit.

In the last year, there have been two (virtual) meetings of ILDG participants from Australia, Europe, Japan and the USA. In December 2002, two working groups were set up to drive forward the necessary technology: a Middleware Working Group (MWWG)  and a Metadata Working Group (MDWG) .

In the following sections, some of their achievements and the issues exposed by their work are described. Broadly-speaking, the MDWG is charged with defining (via XML schema) the metadata required for grid storage of lattice data. The MWWG is charged with defining standards for the software interfaces of the middleware used to manipulate and manage the data contributed from local or national grids and other storage systems.

The initial work of these groups was reviewed at a virtual meeting (via AccessGrid) in May 2003 and their medium and short terms goals revised. The short term goals (i.e. by LATTICE 2003) included presentation of an initial XML schema (QCDML) capable of describing gauge configurations generated by a range of algorithms and actions and demonstration of remote browsing of lattice data collections in 3 continents.

## 2 MIDDLEWARE

First we review some general grid concepts and then report on how these are being, or might be, applied in the context of ILDG. One might well ask “what is a grid and why do we want one?”. The grid is sometimes described as the next iteration in the development of the internet. The World Wide Web, invented by and for particle physicists, is for sharing information. The (computational) grid is for the automated sharing resources on demand (such as computer cycles, data storage, data, etc) in the same way as the electricity grid gathers and distributes electrical power to consumers. In this analogy, the ILDG is intended to provide the sort of inter-grid link that connects the UK and French power grids. In the past, lattice data has often be stored somewhat haphazardly in large archival systems, without any systematic way of noting what or where the data is. This can lead to the situation where the data storage pattern is ‘write-once, read-never’. There is a need to build separate, but interoperable, systems which themselves, rather than the user, take care of recording what the data are and where it resides

The assumption is that each collaboration participating in ILDG will have its own data storage system. Rather than impose some system on all the collaborations, what is required is a uniform interface for each grid to interact with another. This is sometimes called a grid-of-grids, although technically this is a slightly misleading term. However, what is important is that the owner of each resource controls access to it.

Security of data and systems is obviously of paramount importance. The identity of users is ensured by the use of X509 certificates and SSL public/private key encryption. There is a single login to the grid. Time limited proxy certificates are generated for remote operations. At a remote site, this proxy certificate is mapped to an account, which could be a specific user account, or a non-specific one. Certificates, for both machines and people, are issued by a Certificate Authority (CA). The resource owner decides which CAs are trusted and whether to accept their certificates. For instance, in the UK the national e-science CA requires authentication from your home institution and photographic ID before issuing a certificate. UK citizens are not required to carry ID, so in the UK your virtual identity is stronger than your real one! ILDG will need to establish a trust network of other CAs or could act as its own CA.

### 2.1 Filenames and namespaces

A namespace is collection of names which form a mathematical set. A name can be given to the namespace, and this is often done using a URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). A name of an object is then valid only in that namespace. An XML namespace differs slightly in that it must have a URI reference and can have internal structure in the namespace. Both types of namespaces can be amalgamated. For example, in the QCDML schema there is an element “field”, this has a meaning in the namespace of QCDML. In an application the name “field” may already have a meaning, in which case there would be a conflict. Both namespaces can be made explicit, then “app:field” and “qcdml:field” are distinguishable.

The Logical Filename (LFN) is the name of a file in a particular namespace. The namespace may encapsulate different machines in different domains. The LFN is not the physical address of the file. It is a name which uniquely identifies that file in that namespace. Often it is a URI.

In a grid, the Replica Catalogue (RC) maps the LFN to the physical address of the file. In a data grid, where there may be more than one copy of the file, the RC tracks the number and location of the file instances. Data access is via the RC and the LFN. The user doesn’t need to know anything about the file’s physical location.

### 2.2 QCDgrid - an example

As an example of a data grid, and to highlight some of the ideas above, we describe UKQCD’s data grid, QCDgrid. QCDgrid is a member of GridPP  a collaboration of all UK groups in particle physics working on the grid. The hardware infrastructure is Linux PCs (currently) running RH7.x with $`1`$ Tbytes RAID disk arrays. This is relatively cheap and the RAID adds built in redundancy. Globus is used for the low level middleware. The European Data Grid (EDG) software will be used when and where possible, but at the moment the software consists of custom written client tools and the central control thread (CT) which runs the grid. Each of UKQCD’s gauge configurations has an accompanying XML metadata file. Access to the data is via the metadata. This can be searched in a browser which queries the XML database (eXist, running in Tomcat).

The CT runs in a cycle on one node of the grid. As this is a single point of failure, the node broadcasts its configuration files so that if it goes down, another node can run the CT. The CT controls the flow of data between users and storage nodes. The CT checks how much disk space is available on each storage node, decides on which nodes data is stored and from which node data is supplied to users, as well as registering any changes with the RC. Data access is either with command line tools and the LFN or via the metadata browser. The browser GUI builds an Xpath query on the metadata, and the data can then be downloaded. All UKQCD gauge configurations are stored and accessed in this way.

### 2.3 Grid of grids

To implement the grid-of-grids we need to aggregate the RCs of different grids. This has to be done in a secure fashion, such that the owner controls the resource, and to distinguish between public, restricted and private access. As a first step we make two RCs simultaneously readable, and this requires a common interface between the grids. Storage Resource Manager (SRM) seems ideally suited to this role. SRM is defined by the interface it presents to the outside world, but behind that interface anything is allowed. The SRM standard is still evolving. As a first step we aggregated the RCs of QCDgrid and JLab running SRM as an interface. Version 1 of the specification is employed, specifically a SOAP based XML protocol and the JLab Java browser as a GUI for web services. This can list the LFN of the QCDgrid and JLab RCs simultaneously

In the next step we would need to set up a trust network of CAs, increase the functionality of the SRM, and interact with the metadata. Both the QCDgrid software and the Globus SRM API are available under a GPL licence .

## 3 METADATA

QCD Markup Language (QCDML) is an XML schema for QCD lattice gauge theory data. In this section, we summarise only the basic features of the initial QCDML draft  for the description of gauge configurations completed recently by the MDWG. We focus here on the description of physical parameters and the algorithm and on a proposal for the binary format.

Collaborations submitting configurations to the ILDG will write a QCDML XML document for each configuration and store it on their database (and RC). Researchers then issue a search query to the database or RC and get information on availability. The database or RC delivers the LFN in the ILDG namespace which then enables researchers to retrieve the configuration using the ILDG middleware.

### 3.1 Strategy and structure

The MDWG has worked out the following strategy: 1) QCDML defines a minimal set of configuration information which researchers are usually interested in, without spoiling extensibility to other lattice data. 2) In order to provide a unique description of information, we use principally “element” instead of “attribute” or “value”, because one can define an allowed set of elements. A module for each lattice action/field is prepared together with its precise definition written in a human readable glossary document and put on the ILDG web page.

Each QCDML document consists of “management”, “implementation” (machine/code) and “markov\_step” sections. Elements for a particular configuration such as trajectory number are placed just under the “markov\_step” section. Ensemble information described in “physics”, “algorithm” and “precision” parts are put together in “markov\_chain” subsection of the “markov\_step”.

### 3.2 Physics section

The physics part has a rich structure. A lattice action is divided into gluon and quark parts, each of which is a sum of operators (e.g. Wilson-Dirac operator) which in turn consist of fields (e.g. Wilson quark and link variables) and coupling parameters (e.g. $`\kappa `$). A lattice field is in general independent of the lattice action. Boundary conditions are a property of fields. Lattice size is also independent from field and action. The structure then looks like Fig. 1 which we have tried to describe straightforwardly in QCDML.

The number of dynamical quarks is the most important information and is recorded in the quark action section, because different actions may be used for different flavours. As an example, we record a configuration for $`N_f=2+1`$ QCD as

```
<quark>
  <n_sea_quarks>3</n_sea_quarks>
  <sw_quark_action>
    <n_quarks>2</n_quarks>
      ......
  </sw_quark_action>
  <sw_quark_action>
    <n_quarks>1</n_quarks>
      ......
  </sw_quark_action>
</quark>

```

For a better understanding of the structure of the action part, we reproduce a complete pseudo-XML document below for the clover quark action. See Ref.  for details and further explanations.

```
<sw_quark_action>
  <n_quarks>2</n_quarks>
  <wilson_fermi_operator>
    <field> link_gluon </field>
    <field> wilson_quark </field>
    <coupling>
      <kappa> 0.1350 </kappa>
    </coupling>
  </wilson_fermi_operator>
  <sw_fermi_operator>
    <field> link_gluon </field>
    <field> wilson_quark </field>
    <coupling>
      <c_sw> 2.02 </c_sw>
      <determination> NP </determination>
    </coupling>
  </sw_fermi_operator>
</sw_quark_action>

```

### 3.3 Algorithm section

Since there are often many variants of a particular algorithm, the MDWG came to the conclusion that it is not practical to describe an algorithm precisely on a unique common basis. We therefore devolve responsibility for the full description of an algorithm to the supplier collaboration.

The QCDML defines only four common elements, “name”, “reference” “exact”, and “parameters”. In the “reference”, we quote a paper containing the algorithm when this is published. Otherwise, each collaboration writes a glossary document, puts it on the web page, and quotes the URL. Under the “parameters” element, each collaboration places several elements whose names depend on collaboration and algorithm. The collaboration name prefix (e.g. groupA:) is placed at the beginning of each element. This (namespace) feature allows different collaborations to continue to use their own terminology. The working group asks all contributors to list at least the most basic and important parameters.

### 3.4 Binary format and distribution

The MDWG also proposes a standard binary format of configurations as an abstract/reference format. Each contributor will prepare a C library to read their configuration (whose format can be different from the standard one) into the standard format. Then the user can convert it to their own format by writing a corresponding small C program.

Another method of format conversion proposed depends on BinX  (an XML schema to describe binary format) technology. Using a conversion tool which will be provided by the BinX project and the MDWG, one can convert contributor format to user format without referring to the standard format. For that purpose, we ask contributors to prepare a BinX description of their own binary format.

Details of the standard format are given in Ref. . An important point to note here is that we propose to store only the first 2 rows of the 3x3 unitary matrix. Users will reconstruct the third row using the unitarity condition.

For the ILDG, keeping identification of configurations is important. Information such as collaboration name and physics parameters is not defined in the standard format. Such information is recorded in a corresponding QCDML document. Therefore, we propose to encapsulate the binary configuration, QCDML document and BinX document into one file using DIME technology, and distribute it via the ILDG. The details for this will be discussed with the MWWG.

## 4 PROGRESS AND FEEDBACK

The QCDML proposal for gauge configuration metadata described above is now open for comment and feedback from the community. Please submit your opinion to the MDWG via the forum page of the conference website or write to them directly (qcdml@rccp.tsukuba.ac.jp). Following this feedback, the ILDG will adopt a modified version of this schema and recommend that participants use it to mark up configurations which they intend to share. The assumption is that normal etiquette on collaboration, cooperation and publication will be observed when making use of any ‘published’ configurations. It is expected that the MDWG will then turn its attention to expansion of the schema to cope with other lattice data objects (e.g. correlators) which collaborations may wish to share.

The demonstration of intercontinental browsing of configuration collections (initial goal for the MWWG) was partially successful – within the limitations of bandwidth available at the conference site. Collections in the UK (QCDgrid) and in the USA (JLab) were browsed during the conference (see Fig 2).

As noted above, further work remains to be done to implement suitable grid certification procedures. The requirement here is to allow, within a global grid context, easy read access to all potential users and controlled write access to specified participants who themselves may be geographically distributed. The MWWG also welcomes community input on these and other issues.

A brief discussion session which followed the ILDG presentation and demonstration indicated considerable potential interest in the community. In particular, the desire was expressed for better mechanisms for promoting technical feedback from lattice collaborations to the working groups and for ratifying ILDG proposed standards. It was also suggested that a third working group be established to develop data access policies. These issues will be considered at future ILDG workshops .


text:
# Erupting Dwarf Novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud

## 1 Introduction

The study of cataclysmic variables (CVs) in our Galaxy is plagued by the same problem that afflicts so many other areas of astrophysics: uncertainty in the distances to, and hence luminosities of the objects being studied. A second and no less severe problem is the space density and spatial distribution uncertainties caused by our parochial view of the Milky Way. While we can detect erupting Galactic classical novae several kpc from the Sun, most other CVs are located closer than about 500 pc. The reason is simple: novae often achieve $`10^5`$ $`L_{}`$, rivaling the most luminous objects in our Galaxy for weeks at a time, while dwarf novae (DN), nova-like variables and their magnetic cousins rarely exceed 10 $`L_{}`$. Astronomers have succeeded in cataloguing barely a thousand Galactic CVs in over a century of searching. Only for a handful are ironclad distances published from Hubble Space Telescope parallaxes (Harrison et al., 1999; McArthur et al., 1999, 2001). Expansion parallaxes for classical novae contribute another 20 or so reasonably secure distances and luminosities (see Warner (1995) for a summary).

It would clearly be of enormous benefit to CV science if hundreds or thousands of cataclysmic variables, all at the same distance, could be located. Accurate luminosity functions, and bias-free period distributions and eruption frequencies would become available to confront inadequately-constrained theoretical models. New sub-classes of CVs might be discovered, and systematic variations in outburst properties and binary orbital distributions would likely be uncovered.

The situation is improving for CVs in a few special places: the crowded cores of globular clusters. Recent detections of dozens of CV candidates in 47 Tuc (Grindlay et al., 2001; Knigge et al., 2002), allow, for the first time, the comparative study of many cataclysmics, all at the same distance. Unfortunately, HST and Chandra are essential for followup studies, and these telescopes are two of the rarest commodities in astrophysics. It may be decades before the newly discovered CVs are fully characterized. Worse, many of these CVs probably formed by tidal captures and/or evolved violently under the influences of passing stars. Only one globular DN is easily resolved and studied from the ground: V101 in M5 (Margon, Downes, & Gunn, 1981; Shara, Potter, & Moffat, 1990). Its rather long (5.79 hour) period (Neill et al., 2002) warns us that it may be anomalous. CVs in the cores of globular clusters have much to teach us, but they’re likely to be very different from field CVs.

The outlook is potentially more promising in the Magellanic Clouds. As in the case of globular clusters, all CVs discovered in the Clouds are at nearly the same distance, so direct luminosity comparisons are meaningful. Spatial densities of field LMC and SMC stars are roughly comparable to those in the neighborhood of the Sun, rather than those typical of globular cluster cores, so tidal encounters almost never happen. CVs in the Clouds must form and evolve via ordinary binary evolution, just as in the field in our own Galaxy. It is certainly true that the metallicities of the red dwarf companions to the white dwarfs in Magellanic CVs will usually be lower than those in the Galaxy. Lower metallicity is a much less drastic effect (Stehle, Kolb & Ritter, 1997) than dynamical interactions (Hurley & Shara, 2002) in globular clusters, so direct comparisons between Galactic and Magellanic CVs should be extremely fruitful. Finally, the Clouds must be home to $`10^6`$ or more CVs (see below), an enormous sample likely to contain every subtype of CV we know, and perhaps some that we don’t yet recognize.

Before carrying out Galaxy-LMC population comparisons, we must, of course find CVs in the Clouds. Since 1897 about 35 erupting classical novae have been spotted in the LMC and SMC. Accurate (1-2 arcsecond) positions for most of these, and recovery of some in deep $`U`$, $`B`$ and $`V`$ images has recently occurred (Shara, Graham & Zurek, 2004). The current sample of quiescent Cloud novae is important to follow-up, but will grow in number only very slowly. This is because all classical novae must recur (Ford, 1978) with inter-eruption times of at least $`10^4`$ yr. Thus the many thousands of classical novae that exist in the Clouds will only slowly reveal themselves, via eruptions, over many millennia.

As dwarf novae are a substantial sub-population of CVs which reveal themselves through outbursts every few weeks to months, almost all DN in any given field should be identifiable, at least in principle, in a deep survey of order 6-12 months in length. Luminous erupting DN should achieve $`U22.0`$, $`V22.5`$ near maximum (see section 6) and thus be detectable except in the most crowded LMC fields.

Surveying the entire LMC and SMC often enough to find nearly all erupting DN is a daunting observational program that can and will eventually be undertaken. In this paper we report a much more modest but realistic feasibility study to demonstrate, for the first time, the existence of erupting DN in the LMC. We also derive a crude estimate of the total number of luminous DN in the LMC.

In section 2 we present the observational strategy and database, while the photometry calibrations are described in section 3. Completeness tests are detailed in section 4, and the six erupting DN candidates are shown in section 5. Simulations of erupting DN in the LMC are compared to these candidates in section 6. We discuss whether the candidates could be other kinds of variables, and the implications for CV numbers and space densities if the candidates are true DN in section 7. We briefly summarize our results in section 8.

## 2 Observations

To maximize our chances of detecting erupting LMC DN we requested the longest dark run with the largest telescope (the 4-m)and widest field imager (Mosaic2 8K $`\times `$ 8K) available in 1999 at CTIO. We were awarded the dark nights of 1999 December 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12. All nights were clear, with seeing mostly in the range $`1.01.8`$ arcsec. Because DN are usually remarkably blue ($`UV0.7`$ is a good rule-of-thumb; though much redder values do occur (Bailey, 1980)) we opted to image our chosen LMC field in $`U`$ and $`V`$ filters. Three to eight images were obtained each night in each filter, with total exposure times (typically) of 2.5 hours in $`U`$ and 1 hour in $`V`$. A detailed log is given in Table 1. The plate scale was 0.270 arcsec/pixel, and our total field of view was 1362 arcmin2 = 0.38 deg2.

The LMC field we chose is centered at RA (J2000) 05:33:36.7 and DEC (J2000) -70:33:44. The field of view was chosen because five erupting classical novae (the novae of 1948, 1970a, 1970b, 1981 and 1988a) have been observed in the area covered by our CCD array. . . more than any other location in or near the LMC. We were thus able to monitor these five old novae “for free” while searching for erupting dwarf novae. The results of the old nova monitoring will be reported elsewhere (Shara, Graham & Zurek, 2004). An overall view of the location of this field within the LMC is shown in Figure 1, with a magnified view of the eight CCD fields superposed. The field is at the southeastern end of the LMC bar, and crowding is significant. The large surface density of stars hampered efforts to detect faint DN, but was critical to maximize the chances of detecting at least a few bright erupting DN.

The individual Mosaic2 $`2048\times 4096`$ images were combined using the “Montage2” routine contained within the stand-alone DAOphot package. On a given night, individual frames were taken with a total vertical dither of $`10`$ pixels. These frames were run through DAOphot’s matching program “DAOmaster” to derive the subpixel frame-to-frame shifts. These shifts were passed to Montage2, which produced a sky subtracted median image of the individual frames.

## 3 Photometry Calibration

The calibrations were derived from a set of standard magnitudes taken from the central region of M67 as given in Montgomery et al. (1993). To ensure that the central region of M67 was observed on all eight chips, the cluster was observed over two nights on the “right hand” side of the array and then later on the “left hand” side. However, the “left hand” side was observed on the fifth night, and was therefore unusable due to poor seeing. Nevertheless, the zero-points between chips were consistent to within .05 magnitudes, and the zero-points derived for the “right hand” side were used for the entire data set.

Due to the variable seeing, there also exist very subtle differences in the photometry on a night-to-night basis. Thus, in addition to the global zero-point calibration uncertainty described above, there also exist night-to-night zero-point corrections on the order of .05-.1 mag. These corrections were found by first searching for the least variable (most constant) stars that returned valid photometry for all of the six nights. This was done in an iterative manner to locate stars with variability at least three times less than the average of the ensemble. Once this goal was achieved, a night-to-night average was calculated, and this was subtracted from the photometry of the returned candidates. None of these rather small uncertainties has any effect on the candidate detections and conclusions of this paper.

## 4 Completeness tests

Accurate photometry and astrometry of any source is limited not only by the source’s brightness, but also by the degree of crowding in the field. Simulations were performed to determine the efficiency of recovery of a collection of synthetic stars within a representative sub-region of the dataset as a function of brightness. These simulations use the actual point spread function for a given night and filter, yielding a measure of the effective plate limit and the overall detection sensitivity of these observations and data reductions.

First, the same small sub-region of the entire field was chosen in both the $`U`$ and $`V`$ bands and from each of the six nights. The stars in this 500 $`\times `$ 500 pixel sub-image showed crowding typical of the rest of the dataset ($``$ 4000 stars in the sub-image). Moreover, the star brightness range in the overall dataset was well matched by the range in this sub-image.

Next, in order to generate a set of synthetic stars, the “addstar” routine contained within DAOphot was used to place 100 copies of the point-spread function randomly across an image and at a set brightness. This was repeated 10 times, for a total of 1000 synthetic stars at a given brightness, night, and filter. Then “allstar” returned photometry on all the stars from these 10 runs. The fraction of the input synthetic stars that were recovered gives the level of completeness for that given brightness. A synthetic star was considered “recovered” if it was measured within $`\pm 0.5`$ magnitudes of its input value. The entire procedure was then repeated with a different brightness for the input synthetic stars. A total magnitude range of $`18.524.0`$ for both the $`U`$ and $`V`$ filters was covered in increments of 0.25 magnitudes each. The results are shown in Figures 2a and 2b.

Each of the completeness curves reflect well the seeing of each night. For example, the completeness for the third night (best seeing) is 70% at $`U=22`$, and 40% at $`V=23`$, typical of an LMC DN near eruption maximum. On the fifth night (the worst seeing night) the completeness at these same magnitudes is barely 2-3%. Fortunately every night’s imagery except that of night 5 was deep enough and complete enough for us to expect to see at least $`1020\%`$ of all erupting DN at or near peak brightness.

## 5 Candidate Dwarf Novae

For a field with such a high stellar density ($`1000`$ stars/arcmin2), the construction of a good point spread funtion (PSF) is hampered most by neighboring stars crowding the PSF stars. Much effort was expended to automate the search for variables entirely, comparing lists of PSF photometry stars on successive nights. Night-to-night seeing changes produced many candidates in the automated search that were rejected upon visual inspection. Rejection of a candidate invariably occurred because the “candidate” revealed itself to be an artifact created by overlapping PSFs of several stars, changing with the seeing from night to night.

The dwarf-nova candidates were ultimately found by blinking rapidly through the best four of the six nightly frames to look for any subtle changes in the appearance of the stellar field. Dwarf novae should rise from invisibility to easily detectable in the 48 hours between observations. To look for changes on a fairly detailed level, each chip was visually divided into 32 sub-regions, and blinked rapidly. Brightening from previously empty regions of the sky is easily seen. A star that is ramping up or down in brightness by $`0.51.0`$ mags can also be easily detected since the transition between the first and last night is very prominent. Artificial dwarf novae placed in the frames were visually detected with efficiencies similar to the completeness curves of Figure 2.

To be recognized as a candidate, a variable had to be visible in both the $`U`$ and $`V`$ medianed frames of at least one of the six nights, and to have varied by over one magnitude in both filters between any two nights. This selection method initially revealed 14 dwarf nova candidates from the entire dataset. A second criterion was then applied to weed out short-period, large amplitude variables: no candidate could vary significantly (more than about 1.0 magnitudes) from frame to frame during any one night. It is certainly true that the light output of many CVs “flickers” on timescales of seconds to hours, and that some CVs undergo short, deep eclipses. We nevertheless adopted this conservative approach to eliminate non-CV, short-period eclipsing binaries. Inspection of each night’s individual images confirmed that 7 candidates were likely eclipsing binaries, and one candidate was so crowded that we cannot say for sure that it is a real variable. The eclipsing variables may be useful for LMC distance determinations or other projects, and so we supply their finder charts, and coordinates in Figure 8 and Table 3, respectively.

We are thus left with six good candidate erupting DN. We define a good candidate as one that is seen in both $`U`$ and $`V`$ on at least one night; on all images in each filter of that night; and whose variability characteristics are consistent with those of at least one well-studied Galactic dwarf nova (see next section). The nightly images of the six DN candidates are shown in Figure 3, and their photometry is presented in Figure 4. The poisson error is the dominant photometric error in these plots, although readnoise and sky noise also have been incorporated into the error bars shown. We defer a discussion of these candidates and their implications until after the next section, where we simulate expected DN images and light curves.

## 6 Simulations of Known Dwarf Novae

To complement the completeness tests described in section 4, simulations of eruptions of several well known and characterized Galactic dwarf novae, artificially placed in the actual LMC data, were needed. Eruptions of SS Cyg, U Gem, SS Aur, AR And, and EM Cyg were all simulated in a relatively uncrowded but otherwise representative patch of the LMC field (An uncrowded field was chosen to highlight the photometric appearances of LMC DN, unhindered by the crowding or incompleteness addressed in Figure 2). The images from these simulations are shown in Figure 5.

The three dwarf novae SS Cyg, U Gem and SS Aur have accurately determined parallaxes (Harrison et al., 1999) and, using their well tabulated apparent magnitudes (Warner, 1995), the absolute magnitudes are easily calculated. The absolute magnitudes for AR And and EM Cygni were obtained from Warner (1995). These five objects were chosen to cover the range of absolute magnitudes seen for erupting and quiescent DN. Our simulated dwarf novae all reflect the rise, plateau, and decline times from Szkody & Mattei (1984), start at quiescence on the first night of observations and attain maximum brightness on the second observing night (48 hours later), have all been placed at the distance of the LMC and, with one exception noted below, use mean $`(UV)`$ colors from Bruch & Engel (1994). We have assumed that the LMC DN are dimmed by $`A_V`$ = 0.3 and $`A_U`$ = 0.5, in accord with Clementini et al. (2003). PSF photometry was performed on these frames; the resulting light curves and retrieved photometry are shown in Figure 6.

An additional simulated SS Cygni eruption sequence (labeled “SS Cyg sequence 2” in Figure 6) incorporated more detailed information about this object’s color evolution with time. During its eruption, SS Cygni becomes distinctly more red, reaching $`(UV)0.2`$ before attaining maximum brightness Bailey (1980). This second SS Cyg sequence utilizes these colors, and has been shifted by one day in phase. That is, the first simulated observation of this second sequence catches the dwarf nova on the rise. (“SS Cygni sequence 1” shows the artificial DN in quiescence on the first night). This second SS Cyg sequence was included because it mimics rather well the overall observed light curves of DN candidates SHZ1, SHZ4 and SHZ6, though the latter two objects are still redder than the simulated DN. We regard this difference as minor because reddening does vary strongly, and on small spatial scales, across the LMC (Gochermann & Schmidt-Kaler, 2002).

It is clear from Figure 5 that we are unlikely to have been able to detect erupting DN like U Gem, SS Aur, AR And or EM Cyg–all are too intrinsically faint to be detected, in our crowded fields. If our candidates are really DN they are much more likely to be SS Cygni, or possibly SU UMa-type CVs in superoutburst.

## 7 Interpretation

### 7.1 Have We Found Erupting LMC Dwarf Novae?

Comparison of the six candidates shown in Figure 3 with the LMC-DN simulation images shown in Figure 5 (particularly “SS Cyg Sequence 2” and “SU UMa superoutburst”) demonstrates that the brightness and variability behaviors of our candidates are broadly consistent with those expected of luminous erupting dwarf novae in the LMC. This is further supported by comparison of the measured and simulated light curves of Figures 4 and 6, respectively. However, it is by no means certain that all or even some of the six variables shown in Figure 3 are really LMC erupting dwarf novae.

What are the other possible variables that might mimic LMC DN behavior? Amongst these are: chance superpositions of background supernovae or classical novae, gamma ray bursts (GRB), microlensing events, Milky Way variables along the line of sight to the LMC, and non-CV LMC variables. The microlensing hypothesis can immediately be discarded because of the non-grey light curve behaviors, non-symmetric shapes of the light curves and (in most cases) overly long time at maximum light.

GRB afterglows typically achieve R or I $`20`$ one day after outburst. While the peak brightness of these variables is in accord with the GRB hypothesis, we can eliminate this possibility because none of the candidates declines quickly enough to be a GRB. Large area, multi-epoch surveys for faint variables (e.g. Hawkins & Veron (1987)) show that the surface density of our variables is far too high for them to be field RR Lyraes, classical novae or supernovae.

The brightness and moderately blue colors of the candidates rule out other types of Galactic variables. RR Lyraes in the Galaxy or LMC would be considerably brighter, and flare stars don’t match the observed nightly brightness profiles and/or blue colors.

A final possibility to consider is that some of our candidates might be Galactic or LMC eclipsing binaries. Galactic binaries would have to be rather low luminosity systems (say $`M1015`$) and thus much redder than observed to appear at $`m2022`$. Eclipsing LMC systems would range in luminosity from $`M0`$ (SHZ6) to $`M2.5`$ (SHZ3 and SHZ5), corresponding to A-type main sequence stars. The amplitudes of light variation in SHZ1, SHZ3, SHZ4, SHZ5 and SHZ6 are greater than 0.7 magnitude and thus preclude equal mass (and brightness) binaries, but a hot pre-white dwarf + a cooler companion star could mimic the observed light curves for SHZ1, SHZ5 and SHZ6.

As noted earlier, we see no sign of significant variability for any of the six candidates on the individual frames taken during the two to five hours of observations during each of the six nights of the run. The candidates’ light curves support their tentative identifications as DN, though some may turn out to be other kinds of variables.

To be absolutely certain of these objects’ identities will require challenging follow-up observations. Four possible confirmation techniques are the following:

1) Spectra near quiescence (to demonstrate the presence of Balmer emission lines) would be definitive proof, but the DN are then expected to be near 25th magnitude…beyond the likely capability of even an 8 meter telescope in such crowded fields.

2) Imagery every night or two for several months with a 4 meter class telescope should reveal repeated eruptions separated by weeks to months. Such a program would also distinguish erupting CVs from LMC eclipsing binaries, where the emergence of a hot, blue star from eclipse—seen only at one epoch—can be confused with a genuine DN eruption. This can be done, but will be very demanding of large telescope time.

3) Ultraviolet imagery of the fields of the six candidate dwarf novae with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) might reveal UV-bright objects, as the spectral energy distributions of most CVs rise sharply into the UV.

4) Several hours of time-resolved UV or optical photometry, again with HST, might reveal the flickering and/or orbital modulation characteristic of CVs.

### 7.2 Expected Dwarf Nova Populations in the LMC

Space density estimates of CVs near the Sun suggest $`10^5`$stars$`\mathrm{pc}^3`$ (Patterson, 1998). Space density estimates of all types of stars in the solar neighborhood yield $`10^1`$stars$`\mathrm{pc}^3`$, suggesting that about 1 CV exists in the Galaxy - and probably in the LMC - for every $`10^4`$ stars. The LMC displays a V-band luminosity of -18.1, corresponding to a mass of $`10^{10}`$ $`M_{}`$ (Cox, 1999) and a population of a few times $`10^{10}`$ stars.

If the Galaxy and LMC manufacture CVs with similar efficiencies and rates then we estimate a total LMC CV population today of a few times $`10^6`$ objects.

About half of known CVs are DN (Downes et al., 2001) which suggests a total LMC DN population of order $`10^6`$. These DN are spread across the 10 $`\times `$ 10 degree surface of the LMC. Erupting classical novae are observed to be distributed quite uniformly across the face of the LMC (van den Bergh, 1988), consistent with them belonging to an old population. A surface density of 10,000 DN per square degree across the LMC is thus expected.

### 7.3 Detections versus Expected Detections

The size of our field of view was 1362 arcmin$`^2`$ = 0.38 deg$`^2`$, which should include 0.38 $`\times `$ 10,000 = 3,800 DN. The average time between eruptions for 21 well studied Galactic DN is 29 days (Szkody & Mattei, 1984). The length of our observing run (11 nights) suggests that any DN erupting on the nine nights between nights 2 and 10, inclusive, could have been detected (if it became sufficiently luminous). Hence (9/29) $`\times `$ 3800 $``$ 1200 DN eruptions should have occurred in our field of view that were (at least in principle) detectable.

The 4 meter telescope seeing varied significantly over the six nights on which we observed, as clearly seen in the completeness curves of Figure 2. Only on the second, third and sixth nights were conditions good enough to allow straightforward detection (with 20% to 40% completeness due to crowding) of DN reaching $`U2223`$. Assuming (conservatively) that we missed half of all DN because only 3 of 6 observing nights were “good”, and that we missed 80% of all eruptions even on the three “good” nights because of crowding, we might still have expected to have detected $`0.2\times 0.5\times 1200=120`$ erupting DN.

The apparent brightness of a dwarf nova depends both on the underlying binary system inclination and orbital period. Nearly face-on disks and longer orbital periods (which have larger and brighter disks) will dominate a magnitude limited sample (Paczynski & Schwarzenberg-Czerny, 1980; Warner, 1986). High inclination systems will be up to 2 magnitudes fainter than those seen nearly face-on, and will therefore be lost in a sample that is detecting only the brightest tip of the distribution.

Longer period systems will have larger and brighter disks, and thus might be expected to dominate our sample. However, the number of short-period DN ($`P<2`$ hr ) is twice the number of long-period systems ($`P>3`$ hr), and it is these short-period systems that undergo SU UMa-like superoutbursts. SU UMa superoutbursts typically last $`3`$ weeks, and system brightnesses might match those observed for our six candidates. This will be clearer when parallaxes are available for at least a few SU UMa CVs.

The fact that we detected at most six DN when (an admittedly simple) model predicts 120 suggests that many erupting systems were too faint to be detected. This is in accord with the model light curves of Figure 6, and reinforced by the simulated images of Figure 5 showing that DN like U Gem, SS Aur and EM Cyg would all have been missed in our survey, and even (relatively luminous) AR And would have been possible but challenging to detect. What fraction of DN are at least as luminous as SS Cyg or SU Uma at maximum? Unfortunately, the answer is unknown, because the distances to all but four Galactic DN are too uncertain to yield a believable luminosity distribution. (We note that the canonical literature distance to the prototypical DN, SS Cyg, was in error by a factor of two until HST parallaxes became available in 2000). If our six candidates are all bona fide erupting DN in the LMC (of either SS Cygni or SU UMa type) this suggests that 95% of all DN are less luminous than these prototypical dwarf novae. This percentage rises if fewer than six of our candidates are really DN.

## 8 Conclusions

We have carried out an 11 day-long survey for erupting dwarf novae in the Large Magellanic Cloud, during which we imaged 0.38 deg$`^2`$ in $`U`$ and $`V`$ filters on alternate nights. Artificial DN and completeness tests confirm that we imaged faint enough (to 23rd mag on the better nights) to detect SS Cygni-like eruptions. Six candidates were isolated from approximately a million stars observed with the CTIO 8K $`\times `$ 8K Mosaic2 CCD imager. If these are true LMC DN, then they are amongst the most luminous of outbursting dwarf novae in the Clouds; SS Cygni-like outbursts or possibly SU UMa-like superoutbursts. We estimate the total LMC DN population as $`10^6`$, and the LMC surface density as $`10^4`$ DN/deg2. This suggests that at least 95% of erupting LMC DN are fainter than the six candidates we present, and were thus missed. An extra magnitude in sensitivity and improvements in spatial resolution will likely lead to the discovery of thousands of DN in the Magellanic Clouds.

We are indebted to the Cerro Tololo Observatory Directors Robert Williams and Malcolm Smith for the generous allocation of observing time for this project. We also thank Tony Moffat, Darragh O’ Donohue, Brian Warner and an anonymous referee for valuable comments. While the time coverage we have of the seven variables noted in Section 5 is far too sparse for any attempt at period determination, we include their coordinates in Table 3 and finder charts (in $`U`$ and $`V`$, minimum and maximum) in Figures 7 and 8.


text:
# Heavy-Light Meson Semileptonic Decays with Staggered Light Quarks

## 1 Introduction

A major systematic error in many studies of heavy-light meson decays has been the uncertainty due to chiral extrapolations in the light valence and light dynamical quark masses. These chiral extrapolation errors can be reduced significantly by working with light quark actions that have good chiral properties and this has motivated us to initiate a program to study heavy-light physics using improved staggered (or equivalently improved naive) light quarks coupled with NRQCD heavy quarks . Our first results on $`B`$ and $`D`$ meson decay constants on the MILC dynamical configurations were presented by M.Wingate at this conference . Here we discuss initial semileptonic decay results.

Our semileptonic studies are at a much more preliminary stage compared to the decay constant calculations. We report on quenched simulations with light quark mass around $`m_{strange}`$ and the heavy quark mass around the $`b`$-quark mass. We employ the Asqtad light quark action, the $`O(1/M)`$ and $`O(a^2)`$ improved NRQCD heavy quark action and the tree-level Symanzik improved glue action. We work with 200 $`12^3\times 32`$ quenched configurations with $`a^11.0`$ GeV.

## 2  Fitting Oscillatory Three-point Correlators

Two- and three-point correlators involving naive or staggered propagators have contributions that oscillate with time and this makes it more challenging to carry out fits and extract groundstate contributions. Experience gained recently with NRQCD/staggered heavy-light two-point correlators have demonstrated the usefulness of Bayesian fitting methods . Hence, much of the effort in this exploratory study of semileptonic decays has focused on testing Bayesian fits to oscillatory three-point correlators. The basic correlator of interest is,

$`C^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{p}_\pi ,\stackrel{}{p}_B,t,T_B)=`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{z}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{}{y}}{}}\mathrm{\Phi }_\pi (0)J^\mu (\stackrel{}{z},t)\mathrm{\Phi }_B^{}(\stackrel{}{y},T_B)`$
$`\times e^{i\stackrel{}{p}_B\stackrel{}{y}}e^{i(\stackrel{}{p}_\pi \stackrel{}{p}_B)\stackrel{}{z}}`$ (1)
In the present simulations the $`B`$ meson decays at rest ($`\stackrel{}{p}_B=0`$) and calculations have been performed with $`T_B=12`$ and $`T_B=16`$. The location of the current insertion $`t`$ was varied between $`1`$ and $`T_B`$. The three-point correlator is fit to the form,

$`C^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{p}_\pi ,\stackrel{}{p}_B,t,T_B)`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{N_\pi 1}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=0}{\overset{N_B1}{}}}(1)^{k(t1)}(1)^{j(T_Bt)}`$
$`\times A_{j,k}e^{E_\pi ^{(k)}(t1)}e^{E_B^{(j)}(T_Bt)}`$ (2)
In this ansatz every second exponential comes with an oscillatory amplitude in both the pion and the $`B`$ channels, We were able to get good fits with $`N_\pi =1`$ or $`2`$ and $`N_B=3`$ to $`8`$. Furthermore we found it useful to do simultaneous fits to $`C^{(3)}`$ and to the $`B`$ meson two-point correlator. Fits were done to all data between $`t=2`$ and $`t=T_B1`$, i.e. to all but the first and the last timeslices, those timeslices on which the pion and the $`B`$ meson respectively were created. Figs. 1 & 2 give examples of fits to matrix elements of the temporal ($`V_0`$) component of the heavy-light vector current. The plots show, $`C^{(3)}(\stackrel{}{p}_\pi ,t,T_B)e^{E_\pi ^{(0)}(t1)}e^{E_B^{(0)}(T_Bt)}`$. By factoring out the groundstate contributions, the opposite parity oscillatory terms and other excited state contributions show up more clearly. Despite the presence of these excitations, the Bayesian fitting methods allow us to extract the groundstate amplitude of interest, $`A_{00}`$ in eq.(2).

The two figures are for the cases when the pion has momentum $`(0,1,1)`$ in units of $`2\pi /(aL)`$. Good $`\chi ^2/dof`$ were found with $`N_\pi =1`$ and $`N_B=6`$. The difference between the $`T_B=12`$ and $`T_B=16`$ results is typical for all matrix elements. With $`T_B=12`$, statistical errors are reduced and more accurate fits can be made. On the other hand, with $`T_B=16`$ a hint of a plateau can be observed (which will likely disappear with higher statistics and a more expanded vertical scale). Since with multi-exponential Bayesian fits the presence of a plateau is not required, one is better off with the more accurate $`T_B=12`$ data. Nevertheless, working with two different $`T_B`$ values provides a good consistency check, which we exploit in the next section.

## 3 Results for Form Factors

Given the amplitudes $`A_{00}`$ from fits to three-point correlators one can determine various form factors. In these preliminary investigations we find it most convenient to work with the form factors $`f_{}`$ and $`f_{}`$ defined as,

$`f_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A_{00}(V_0)}{\sqrt{\zeta _\pi ^{(0)}\zeta _B^{(0)}}}}\sqrt{2E_\pi }Z_{V_0}`$ (3)
$`f_{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{A_{00}(V_k)}{\sqrt{\zeta _\pi ^{(0)}\zeta _B^{(0)}}p_{\pi ,k}}}\sqrt{2E_\pi }Z_{V_k}`$ (4)
$`\zeta _\pi ^{(0)}`$ and $`\zeta _B^{(0)}`$ denote the groundstate amplitudes of the pion and $`B`$ correlators respectively. The $`Z_{V_\mu }`$ are the matching coefficients for the heavy-light currents. We use one-loop perturbative results for them.

In Fig.3 we show results for $`f_{}`$ and $`f_{}`$. Our main results are the octagons and diamonds, which correspond to $`T_B=12`$ and $`T_B=16`$ results respectively, for decays into local Goldstone pions. One sees consistency between the two $`T_B`$ results, with, as expected, smaller statistical (and fitting) errors when $`T_B=12`$.

We have also considered $`B`$ decays to one of the point-split non-Goldstone pions, namely the one-link pion. The masses of the one-link and local pions differ as $`M_\pi (onelink)/M_\pi (local)=1.13`$. The “bursts” in Fig.3 show form factors for the decay to the one-link pion. One sees that at low momentum agreement is reasonable with the local pion results. Things start to differ at higher pion momentum, however the data has started to deteriorate at those momenta and one also expects lattice artifacts to be worse there. Things should improve considerably as one goes to lattices finer than the $`a^11`$GeV lattices of the present study. One can conclude from Fig.3 that taste-breaking lattice artifact errors are smaller in form factors than in the corresponding pion masses, particularly at low pion momenta.

The above form factor results come from the lowest order (in $`1/M`$) heavy-light currents. We have also analysed matrix elements of all the dimension 4 current corrections that come in at the next order (two additional currents for $`V_0`$ and four more for $`V_k`$). We find that their contributions are small for $`B`$ mesons giving at most a $`2\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}3}`$% correction.

## 4 Summary

Exploratory quenched studies of heavy-light meson semileptonic decays with Asqtad light quarks look promising. Simulations are underway to calculate form factors on the MILC dynamical configurations.

Acknowledgements : This work was supported by the DOE, PPARC and NSF. Simulations were carried out at the Ohio Supercomputer Center.