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# Experimental Realization of the Quantum Box Problem

## Abstract

The three-box problem is a *gedankenexperiment* designed to elucidate some interesting features of quantum measurement and locality. A particle is prepared in a particular superposition of three boxes, and later found in a different (but nonorthogonal) superposition. It was predicted that appropriate “weak” measurements of particle position in the interval between preparation and post-selection would find the particle in two different places, each with certainty. We verify these predictions in an optical experiment and address the issues of locality and of negative probability.

Weak measurements have been controversial ever since the concept was developed by Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman (AAV) weakmeas . In contrast to the usual, von Neumann, approach to measurement, weak measurement uses an apparatus whose pointer has a very large quantum mechanical uncertainty when compared with its typical shift. After the system-pointer interaction, the shift in the pointer position is much smaller than its initial uncertainty and almost no information is gained about the quantum system. Nevertheless, after a sufficiently large number of measurements on an ensemble of identically prepared quantum systems, the mean pointer position can be determined to any degree of precision. In such a measurement strategy, one sacrifices knowledge of the value of an observable on any given experimental run to avoid entanglement with the measurement device and the ensuing ‘collapse’ of the wavefunction. In particular, this makes it possible to contemplate the behavior of a system defined both by state preparation and by a later post-selection, without significant disturbance of the system in the intervening period.

AAV weakmeas  calculated the shift in the pointer of a measurement apparatus that weakly measured an observable $`A`$ between two strong measurements. The initial strong measurement pre-selects (or prepares) the state, $`|\psi _i,`$ of the quantum system and the final strong measurement post-selects the quantum state, $`|\psi _f`$. In between, consider a von Neumann-style interaction Hamiltonian of the form

$$_I=g\widehat{A}\widehat{P_x},$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{A}`$ is the hermitian operator corresponding to an observable $`A`$ of the quantum system, $`g`$ is a (real) coupling constant, and $`\widehat{P}_x`$ is the momentum operator conjugate to the pointer position $`\widehat{X}.`$ In the absence of postselection, the effect of having this measurement interaction on for a time $`T`$ (assumed short enough that $`A`$ is constant during the measurement) shifts the pointer position by an amount $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=K\widehat{A}gT\widehat{A},`$such that one can infer a value for $`A`$ by dividing the pointer shift by the interaction strength $`K`$. The main result of AAV’s seminal work weakmeas  is that for sufficiently weak coupling strength $`K`$ and in the presence of postselection, the inferred value of $`A`$ is given by the following expression, which they called the “weak value”:

$$A_W=\frac{\psi _f\left|\widehat{A}\right|\psi _i}{\psi _f|\psi _i}.$$
(2)
When the two strong measurements pre- and post-select the same state, $`A_W`$ reduces to the usual quantum mechanical expectation value for the operator $`\widehat{A}`$. However when the pre- and post-selected states differ, weak values can take on surprising values that are not constrained to lie within the eigenvalue spectrum of the operator or even to be real numbers. The surprising character of weak values has led to skepticism about whether they should be considered proper measurements leggett ; peres ; reply . In spite of their controversial nature, a weak measurement has been experimentally performed by Ritchie *et al.* weakexp ; in addition, they have been useful in correctly describing or predicting surprising experimental outcomes weakmeas ; opticalweak ; aetunnelweak ; hardyvaid ; wiseman ; molmer ; orozco .

The “Quantum Box Problem” was developed by Aharonov and Vaidman box ; weakelements ; it is a deceptively simple thought experiment that elucidates some of the odd behavior which may result from studying post-selected systems. In the 3-box version, a particle is prepared (pre-selected) in an equally weighted superposition of being in one of three orthogonal quantum “boxes”, A, B, and C, i.e., $`|\psi _i=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|A+\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|B+\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|C`$ and post-selected in the final state $`|\psi _f=\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|A+\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|B\frac{1}{\sqrt{3}}|C`$. The weak value for the particle being in box A can be calculated by inserting the projection operator $`|AA|`$ in Eq. 2, i.e., $`A_W=\psi _f|AA|\psi _i/\psi _f|\psi _i=+1`$. In this case, the pointer shift is the same as in the case when the particle was definitely in box A. We call this quantity the “weak probability for the particle in box A” and use the shorthand $`P_{AW},`$ where $`A`$ represents the rail. This weak probability is already strange since a strong measurement would find the particle in box A only $`\left|1/\sqrt{3}\right|^2=1/3`$ of the time. Through a similar calculation, the weak probability for the particle in box B, $`P_{BW}`$, is also found be be $`+1`$. Like normal probabilities, the sum of all weak probabilities is $`+1`$ (because the sum of all orthogonal projectors is the identity); therefore, if one performs a weak measurement of the particle in box C one finds the weak probability, $`P_{CW}=`$ $`\psi _f|CC|\psi _i/\psi _f|\psi _i=1`$. Such a result is very strange since it lies outside the range of eigenvalues for projection operators and normal probabilities – i.e., it does not lie between $`0`$ and $`1`$. Nevertheless, for a large enough ensemble of identically prepared and post-selected states, this result properly predicts the outcome of our experiment. Note that while apparently similar to the situation for quasi-probability distributions such as the Wigner function, this case is different, referring instead to a directly observable measurement outcome. There are also other situations in which it has been suggested that negative probabilities might be useful for resolving locality “paradoxes” negprobs . For a review of such extensions to probability theory, see muckenheim .

We use a linear optical interferometer to implement the quantum box problem (Fig. 1). This interferometer is similar to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer except that it has three optical paths (or rails) instead of two; we label these rails A, B, and C. A photon can be prepared in any superposition of these three rails by proper selection of the characteristics of beamsplitters BS1 and BS2. Similarly, any coherent superposition can be post-selected by controlling the characteristics of BS3, BS4, and the optical path lengths (relative phases). We use the transverse displacement of the photon as our measurement pointer. Measurements are carried out by tilting one of the glass plates (GP A, B, or C); this results in a controllable transverse shift of the beam in one of the rails. For example, a glass plate in rail A displacing the beam along $`X`$ can be thought of in terms of an effective interaction Hamiltonian of the form $`g|AA|\widehat{P}_X`$. The measurement of the mean spatial shift of an ensemble of photons can be viewed as a measurement of the probability for each photon to have been in rail A. If the transverse shift is much less than the beam size (the uncertainty in the position of the individual photons), this is a weak measurement. Shifting only one rail at a time, we measure the size of that shift while keeping the other two rails blocked. This characterizes the strength $`K_A`$ of the system-pointer interaction. We then combine all three beams with the correct relative phases for proper post-selection and again measure the shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$. The ratio of the shift in the post-selected state to that of the single rail constitutes our weak probability for that rail $`A_W=\mathrm{\Delta }x/K_A`$. A negative weak probability is realized when the shift in the post-selected state is in the *opposite direction* to the shift on the individual rail.

For the experiment, light from a 780nm, 30mW, diode laser is spatially filtered to yield a collimated TEM00 gaussian beam with a waist of 380$`\mu `$m; this amounts to a large ensemble of identically-prepared photons. To create the appropriate superposition, the transmissivity and reflectivity of each beam-splitter is adjusted by using two half-wave plates ($`\lambda /2`$) prior to polarizing beam-splitters (PBS). The third half-wave plate is present to rotate the polarization in rail C from horizontal to vertical so that all three rails have the same polarization. Glass plates with thicknesses 10mm, 6.5mm, and 10mm are situated in paths A, B, and C respectively. The plate in rail A displaces the beam in the vertical direction (out of the plane of the inteferometer) while the plates in rails B and C displace the beam in the horizontal direction (in the plane of the interferometer). In addition to these glass plates, 1-mm-thick microscope slides are located in rails A and C. These plates can also be finely tilted to set the relative phases, $`\varphi _A`$ and $`\varphi _C`$, between the light in these arms with that in rail B without significantly displacing the beam. Rails A and B are recombined coherently at beam-splitter (BS) 3. One of the outputs from BS3 is then recombined with the light from rail C at BS4. The phases are chosen such that the light in the right-going output of BS4 is our desired post-selected state. This beam is magnified by a factor of 3 on a screen behind which a CMOS camera (Logitech Quickcam) captures beam images. The second output of BS4 terminates at a photodiode that is used to set the relative phases of the three arms of the interferometer.

The quantum box problem can be generalized for an arbitrary pre-selected state $`|\phi _i=a_i|A+b_i|B+c_i|C`$ and post-selected state $`|\phi _f=a_f|A+b_f|Bc_f|C.`$ If the coefficients are real numbers, we obtain the same weak values discussed earlier for rails A, B, and C if $`a_ia_f=b_ib_f=c_ic_f`$, albeit with a lower overlap between our pre- and post-selected states. These requirements can be converted into experimental parameters in the following way. Given reflection and transmission amplitudes $`r_i\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi _{ri})`$ and $`t_i\mathrm{exp}(i\varphi _{ti})`$ for BS$`i`$, the 3-path interferometer pre-selects the state $`|\phi _i=r_1|A+t_1r_2|B+t_1t_2|C`$ – the phases are compensated for by optical path lengths. For the proper phase settings, the interferometer post-selects the state $`|\phi _f=t_3r_4|A+r_3r_4|Bt_4|C.`$ To satisfy the condition $`a_ia_f=b_ib_f=c_ic_f`$, we require $`r_1t_3r_4=t_1r_2r_3r_4=t_1t_2t_4`$. This is the condition that each path contributes the same intensity in the camera output port. In our experiment, the final beamsplitters are both 50/50, and therefore our post-selected state is approximately $`|\phi _f=\frac{1}{2}|A+\frac{1}{2}|B\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|C.`$ The proper pre-selected state to obtain the desired weak values is $`|\phi _i=\sqrt{\frac{2}{5}}|A+\sqrt{\frac{2}{5}}|B+\sqrt{\frac{1}{5}}|C.`$ We note that this reduces the overlap of the initial and final states from $`1/3`$ for the original states to $`\sqrt{1/10}.`$

The data for this experiment were taken in two parts. In both parts, we began by balancing the intensities in the camera arm from the three paths and aligned the beams in the interferometers such that they overlapped to better than 1/10 of their rms widths. All of the beams in the interferometer were vertically-polarized. Pairwise, beams A&B and B&C had interference fringe visibilities of about 95%. In the first part of the experiment we performed only single weak measurements on each of the 3 rails. A single glass plate (GP) in one of the arms was tilted to displace the beam in that path. The phases in the interferometers were set using the microscope slides so that paths A and B interfere constructively and paths B and C interfere destructively in the camera output. Images of each individual beam (in the absence of interference) and the properly post-selected beam were recorded using the camera. In Fig. 2, horizontal profiles are shown, with a particular displacement of rail C, for the beams in rails A (thin solid line), B (thin dashed line), and C (thick dashed line) alone, and also for the post-selected state (thick solid line). Beams A and B have the same average position to within less than 1 pixel, or about 1/20 of the rms width. Beam C has been displaced from this centre position by $`11.1`$ pixels or $`0.69`$ rms widths. This is the coupling strength $`K_C`$. The post-selected state beam profile is displaced by $`+7.0`$ pixels or $`+0.44`$ rms widths in the *opposite* direction of rail C; in other words, the observed value $`\mathrm{\Delta }x/K_C=0.64`$. This differs from the expected value $`P_{CW}=1`$ because the displacement is already approaching the transition from the weak to the strong measurement regime.

We have summarized our results for post-selected measurements of $`P_A`$, $`P_B`$, and $`P_C`$ for a variety of coupling strengths in Fig. 3. The observed displacements $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ for measurements of $`P_A`$ and $`P_B`$ are shown as open circles and solid triangles respectively, as a function of $`K_{\{A,B\}}`$. The theoretical prediction for these two rails is a straight line with a slope of $`1`$ and a y-intercept of $`0.`$ The slope of $`1`$ indicates a shift as large as if all the photons had traversed the shifted rail, that is, $`P_{AW}=P_{BW}=1`$. Note that this slope of 1 persists even into the strong-measurement regime, $`K_{\{A,B\}}>1`$ rms width. This can be understood from the following argument. If we perform a weak measurement on rail A, then in our post-selection output the amplitudes from rails B and C interfere perfectly destructively and we are left only with the field from rail A. Therefore, whatever displacement rail A has, so will the post-selected state weakelements . Of course a similar argument can be constructed for rail B. The data for rail C has different behaviour and no such argument applies. The experimental data is shown as solid circles and the theoretical prediction as a solid line. Near zero displacement of the rail, the displacement of the post-selected state is in the opposite direction as the displacement of rail C. The weak probabilities are given by the slopes of the curves from the plot in Fig 3 near the origin. The weak probabilities are consistent with the predictions of $`+1`$, $`+1`$, and $`1`$ for $`P_{AW}`$, $`P_{BW}`$, and $`P_{CW}`$ respectively. For larger displacements in rail C, the weakness criterion is not satisfied, and the observed shifts eventually approach a strong-measurement limit of $`1/5`$ ABL .

We have shown that the weak probability to find a particle in rail $`A`$ is $`+1`$, as is the the weak probability to find the particle in rail $`B`$. This begs the question, what is the weak probability to find the particle in both arms? It is well-known that a single particle cannot trigger two different spacelike separated detectors; in fact one might think of that as the defining quality of a particle – it must be either here or there but never both. Therefore, one would never expect to find a single photon in both rails A and B via projective measurements. It has been suggested, however, that this is a limitation of strong measurements; if a particle is prepared in a suitably delocalized state, might it be possible to find that particle in two different places at the same time if the presence of the particle is probed weakly fallingtree ?

For a state involving only one particle, we can use the operator $`|AA|BB|`$ to find the joint weak probability for the particle to be in rails A and B simultaneously. However, because $`|A`$ and $`|B`$ represent orthogonal states, this operator is identically zero. Therefore the weak probability to find the particle in both rails is expected to be zero even when the single weak probabilities (i.e., $`P_{AW}`$ and $`P_{BW}`$) are both equal to 1. This seeming violation of standard rules of probability can be seen to be related to the relaxation of the non-negativity axiom of probability theory hardyvaid ; aewheeler .

In the second part of the experiment, we performed two different simultaneous measurements on the photons using two different degrees of freedom at the same time. In addition to the transverse beam displacement in rail B, we used the waveplate in rail C (see Fig. 1) just before BS4 to rotate the polarization of the light by a small amount. We prepared the same initial state as before but use a different final state, $`|\psi _{f2}=\frac{1}{2}|A+\frac{1}{2}|B+\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}|C`$. Such a final state swaps the roles of rails A and C so that $`P_{AW}=1`$ and $`P_{CW}=+1`$. The reason for doing so was purely technical. Our final beamsplitters were 50/50 for vertically-polarized light but for horizontally-polarized light they had greater than 90% transmission. We ensured that rail C, where the polarization rotation occurs, was transmitted rather than reflected, so that the observable polarization shift at the camera would not be negligibly small. We rotated the waveplate in rail C by a small amount that resulted in a $`K_C=9.6^{}`$ rotation in the polarization of the light *after* the final beamsplitter when rails $`A`$ and $`B`$ were blocked.

We measured the displacement, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$, of the post-selected state as a function of the rail-B coupling strength $`K_B`$. The results, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x/K_B`$, are the inferred probabilities of the photon to be in rail B and are shown in Fig. 4., both in the case of no final polarizer (solid circles, solid line theory) and in the case of a final polarizer oriented to block vertically-polarized light (open circles, long-dashed line theory). Recall that all of the beams in the interferometer initially had vertically-polarized light. When the polarizer was inserted to block vertically-polarized light we measured the beam displacement of only the light that had its polarization rotated, i.e., only photons which had traversed rail C. We also show the inferred probability of the photon to be in rail C – given by the polarization rotation of the final state divided by $`K_C=9.6^{}`$ (open triangles, dotted line theory). The low data point for the $`P_B`$ was most likely due to a mode-hop-induced phase fluctuation, and the slight disagreement between the theory and experimental values for $`P_C`$ is from imperfect interference. These data show, that for displacements of rail B in the weak regime (less than 0.5 rms widths), the entire distribution of the light is both displaced and polarization rotated as if the photons really experience both weak measurements. However, by blocking all of the vertically-polarized light, we clearly see that the distribution is not shifted at all. Therefore we can say that those particles that were *definitely* in rail C were not even weakly in rail B.

We have implemented the quantum box problem in a 3-rail interferometer and verified some of the important predictions about the weak measurements one can perform in this system. Specifically, we have observed weak probabilities of $`+1`$ for rails A and B and a weak probability of $`1`$ for rail C. We have also studied the transition out of the weak-measurement regime for rail C, when the interaction shifts the measurement pointer by more than about 0.5 rms widths. In addition, we performed two simultaneous measurements on two of the rails using polarization and transverse displacement as pointers. For small displacements, we found that the entire beam was shifted and polarization rotated. However, when only the polarization-rotated light was studied, its transverse displacement was zero. This shows the (one-sided) anticorrelation between a strong measurement of the particle in one rail and a weak measurement of it in another. This leaves open the question of what one would observe by making *joint weak measurements* on two different rails. In another work, we have proposed an experimentally feasible method for performing such measurements jwv , and an ongoing experiment aims to carry them out for the 3-box problem. These types of conceptually simple experiments yield insight into the sometimes shocking behavior of post-selected subensembles in quantum mechanics, and into the power and the limitations of weak measurements.

We would like to thank Morgan Mitchell, Jeff Tollaksen, and Jeeva Anandan for helpful advice and discussions. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from Photonics Research Ontario and NSERC.

Figure 1. The 3-rail Mach-Zehnder-style interferometer. The TEM00 mode of a diode laser is filtered spatially using a pinhole (PH), two lenses and an iris. Light is placed in the proper coherent superposition of each of the rails labelled A, B, and C using half-wave plates ($`\lambda `$/2) and polarizing beam-splitters (PBSs). Glass plates (GPs) in each arm are used to displace each beam transverse to its direction of propagation, and microscope slides (MS) are used to finely adjust the phases in arms A and C. The three modes are recombined at two 50/50 beamsplitters (BS3 and BS4). The beam shines on a screen and a CMOS camera behind that screen captures its image. A photodiode (PD) in the second port of BS4 is used to set the relative phases light in the different rails.

Figure 2. Sample experimental data when only rail C is displaced. We show experimental data for individual horizontal beam profiles from Rails A (thin solid line), B(thin dashed line), and C (thick dashed line) when a transverse, horizontal displacement of beam C is applied. The beam profile of the post-selected beam is also shown (thick solid line). The beam profile from rail C is displaced by $`11.1`$ pixels, or $`0.69`$ rms widths, which constitutes a measure of the coupling strength $`K_C`$. The corresponding shift $`\mathrm{\Delta }x`$ in the post-selected beam is $`+7.0`$ pixels, or $`+0.44`$ rms widths, implying a probability of $`P_C=0.64`$. (This is smaller than the expected $`P_{CW}=1`$ because in this image, the coupling strength is too large for a true weak measurement. This image is shown for clarity, while Figure 3 summarizes the data for weaker couplings as well, where the agreement with weak-measurement theory is good.)

Figure 3. Experimental data for individual rail displacements. The displacement of the post-selected state is shown as a function of the displacement of each individual rail. The data for rails A, B, and C are shown as open circles, solid triangles, and solid circles respectively. Theory (with no adjustable parameters) is shown as a dashed line for rails A and B and as a solid line for rail C. The transition for the displacement of rail C from the weak measurement regime to the strong measurement regime is clearly visible at a beam displacement of about $`\pm `$1 rms width. No such transition was observed or predicted for the other two rails.

Figure 4. The weak probabilities for the photon to be in rail B and rail C measured in the same experimental setup using two different pointers. The weak probability for the photon to be in rail C was measured using a small polarization rotation, and the probability for rail B was measured with a transverse beam displacement. Both are shown as functions of the displacement of rail B, with the polarization rotation being kept fixed. The resulting polarization rotations and displacements in the post-selected states were converted into weak probabilities by dividing by the relevant interaction strengths. The resulting weak probabilities for rails B and C are shown as solid circles and open triangles. For very weak measurements, the entire post-selected state is polarization rotated and displaced, by amounts which would imply that each photon was both in rail C and rail B with certainty. However, when a polarizer is inserted to block vertically-polarized light (such that we only detect the photons that have been polarization-rotated in rail C) we find the weak probability for the photon to have been in rail B to be zero (open circles, dashed line). Thus, those photons that were definitely in rail C were definitely not in rail B.


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# Aging process of electrical contacts in granular matter

## 1 Introduction

The structure of granular materials is characterized by arches that distribute the weight of the packing towards the edges of the vessel. This induces an anisotropic distribution of pressures at the points of contacts between grains. The electrical resistance $`R`$ of one contact has been found to depend on the applied pressure, as a power law as demonstrated by Hertz . Any variations of the structure of the heap, whatever its nature (geometrical, chemical, electrical and mechanical), changes the contact network and in particular the overall electrical resistance, indeed in a way very sensitive to external perturbations . The information contained in $`R`$ is also linked to the nature of the contacts. The surface of metallic grains may often be covered by an oxide which introduces some semiconducting properties to the contacts. This chemical layer in fact constitutes a tunneling barrier to the current flow. Therefore a granular packing may be represented by a skeleton of electrical links between grains, each link being characterized by a certain electrical resistance determined by the pressure between beads (given by Hertz relation) . The electrical resistance can thus be a tool which allows to explore arching pressure distribution without markedly changing the structure. Such a tool can be useful in probing stress in granular system as they are submitted to a shear for example. Moreover the study of the electrical properties of granular material can give information concerning large electrical complex network.

Recent studies have shown that the electrical properties of metallic granular packings are complex, e.g. the voltage $`V`$ across a sample is not univocally defined by the injected current $`i`$. Indeed, current-voltage $`iV`$ curves are non-linear, sometimes singular or even discontinuous and exhibit memory effects . A typical behavior is shown in Fig. 1. The role of the grain oxide layer has been pointed out to be responsible for the non-linear behavior of the electrical resistance with respect to the injected current . Moreover taking into account the structure of the network and the nature of the contacts, the shape of the $`iV`$ curves and its discontinuities (Fig.1) may be explained . The sharp transitions, first discovered by Calzecchi-Onesti , occur when the current reaches a certain value at which the resistance falls several orders of magnitude. This process is very similar to breakdowns in semiconducting devices . This dielectric breakdown implies high local electronic reactivity, increase in temperature and grain soldering. However, microsolderings between grains may occur before a Calzecchi-Onesti transition , just like nucleation sites are initiated by high concentration gradients at a first order phase transition. Those solderings are non equilibrium, or irreversible processes thereby being the fundamental cause for the hysteretic behavior found in $`iV`$ curves of granular packing.

We have recorded the natural evolution of the electrical resistance of a lead beads heap versus time when a stable current flows through the system. A fixed current is injected during 20 min and the voltage is sampled every 0.2 s. Different current intensities have been injected in order to compare their effect on the variations of the resistance with time. We emphasize that this situation differs drastically from a classical $`iV`$ curve measurement since in this latter case, the steps for increasing the injected current are very small and their succession very slow. The voltage has been found to decrease by about 30% depending on the value of the injected current.

The experimental set up is described in Sect.2. A discussion is found in sect.3. The conclusions are drawn in Sect.4.

## 2 Experimental set up

The experimental set up is simple but the different operations have to be performed with care because of the high sensitivity of the system to external perturbations. The lead beads have a mean diameter of $`2.35`$ mm with a polydispersity of $`2\%`$. Energy Dispersive X-ray measurements have shown that the surface is made of a nanometric layer of lead oxide. About 14,000 beads have been stacked into a $`50\times 50\times 40`$ mm3 plexiglas parallelepipedic vessel. The density of such a 3D packing is about 0.75 and is naturally near the close packing configuration. Electrical current leads are two lead rectangular plates placed on two opposite faces of the vessel and connected to a Keithley K2400 current source . The voltage $`V`$ has been recorded at a 5 Hz frequency on a computer. The whole system was placed in a climatized Faraday cage at 16 C; no vibration was expected to occur during the experiments.

## 3 Results and interpretations

One of the typical $`iV`$ behavior of the lead bead heap has been reported in Fig.1. Different features which have been discussed above are indicated in the figure, i.e. (i) hysteretic loops due to microsoldering, (ii) Calzecchi-Onesti transition and (iii) a peak indicating the sensitivity of the electrical resistance to mechanical shocks.

Figure 2 presents $`R(t)`$ results obtained for different injected currents between 10 and 65 mA. The resistance $`R`$ has been obtained by dividing the measured voltage $`V`$ by the injected current $`i`$. The different lines smoothly link the experimental data points. Symbols are placed every 50 points for trend emphasis.

The resistance decreases with time whatever the injected current is. This strongly resembles the behavior obtained in the case of the degradation of ultrathin oxide layers in presence of a electrical stress. Indeed such a behavior of the voltage can be found in ref. . Nanolayers of insulator stressed by a voltage are studied in those works. Leakage currents induce damage to the insulator that allows more and more current to pass through. In the present case, the thin oxide layer that covers the beads is responsible for such a behavior.

The initial resistance differs according to the injected current. The higher the injected current, the lower the electrical resistance. This matches with the non-linear behavior observed in the $`iV`$ curves in Fig.1 where the slope is proportional to the differential resistance. During the first 2000 seconds of observation the resistance keeps on decreasing towards some saturating value.

The evolution of the resistance for an injected current of 65 mA is particular : a Calzecchi-Onesti transition occurs after 250 s, i.e. the resistance falls by one order of magnitude from 1800 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ to 35 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. In this case, two processes are noticed : (i) a slow process which governs the decay of the resistance with time and (ii) an avalanche process which induces the Calzecchi-Onesti transition (like a Zener breakdown).

In Fig.3, the voltage $`V`$ normalized to the initial voltage $`V_0=V(t=0)`$ has been represented versus time in a semi-log plot for four different currents ($`i<50`$ mA), as indicated by the legend (a normalized voltage is equivalent to a normalized resistance). The decay amplitude is larger when the current is low, e.g. for $`i=10`$ mA, the decay is about 25 $`\%`$. Chronologically, the voltage decay may be decomposed into three phases. (i) During the first minute, the slope of the R-decay is about the same whatever the current value is. (ii) The curves obtained for $`i=`$ 10 and 25 mA seem to regularly decrease. The curves obtained for $`i=`$ 35 and 50 mA stabilise around $`V/V_0=`$0.82 during 1000 s before decreasing again. (iii) The slope of the curves are found to be the same from the 1000th second to the end of the experiment. We may conclude that various processes occur.

To sum up, the decay process goes as follows : (i) a primary voltage decrease during the first minutes, (ii) a temporisation stage (due to the competition of two kinds of effects), especially seen in curves $`i=`$ 35 and 50 mA and (iii) a secondary decay phase.

In Fig.4, the data are analyzed during the first phase. A stretched exponential fit,

$$\frac{V}{V_0}=(1a)+ae^{\sqrt{t/\tau }}$$
(1)
is found where $`a`$ and $`\tau `$ are fitting parameters (see inset). The square root exponent characterizes a diffusion process as in crystal growth process . In the present case, this exponent can be interpreted as follows : The conduction of the current through the heap is thought to be done through a cluster of ‘well’ connected beads. If such privileged contacts exist, they shunt the remain of the packing. Recall that electrical stresses are concentrated along this cluster path. This means that any enhancement of other contacts allows the connected cluster to grow as in an avalanche process. This process is related to a diffusion of stresses through the sample. Pennetta et al. show that such an avalanche-like propagation exists in semiconductor integreation technology. Some percolation models have been developped. However, the resistance decrease seems to be smoother than the one found in percolation models .

The cluster growth is limited by the size of the vessel; this can explain a saturation process. This first stage is shortened as the current is increased. The caracteristic time $`\tau `$ depends on the value of the initial injected power $`P=V_0i`$ as $`\tau P^{1.18}`$ (see inset Fig. 4). The exact value of the exponent is quite influenced by the error bar on $`V_0`$ since this latter parameter is not very precise and is found to change very quickly near $`t=0`$.

The temporisation stage can be attributed to the increase of temperature in the system. Indeed, a thermocouple has measured that the inner temperature of the heap can increase by about 20 K, depending on the injected current value. This effect is particularily noticeable for high currents, since more power has to be dissipated. The power dissipated (calculated at $`t=`$2200 s) by the beads has been found to be 0.3, 1.9, 3.4 and 5.2 W for $`i=`$10, 25, 35 and 50 mA respectively. Note that the local change in temperature not only modifies the nature of contacts, but also the structure of the network because of dilatation processes that may lead to a reorganization of system structure. This may cause to a further increase in the resistance since microsolderings may be damaged.

As seen before, the first decay seems to essentially concern the enhancement of the conductance due to the growth of the conducting network. On the other hand, the long term decay seems to be related to the enhancement of the contacts themselves. The thin insulating layer deteriorate with leakage current . Microsolderings occur and the global resistance decreases. The system can be easily reset to its initial resistance by a tap on the vessel.

## 4 Conclusions

The above evidences a diffusion dynamic has been evidenced. When a current is injected through granular packing, it takes much time (more than 2000 s) for the system to stabilize its resistance. First the resistance decreases due to a network effect : the well connected cluster grows. Thus, because of the power dissipation, the temperature change induces dilatation of certain beads : the resistance may increase according to the value of the power. Finally, contacts are enhanced by the slow deterioration of the oxide layer of beads.

To summarize, the behavior of such material is thus completely different from a metallic bulk material. The perfect example is what happens in a lamp. The lamp filament has a resistance of about 50 $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for low current and at room temperature. When the current is switched on, the lamp produces light and heat. This change in temperature makes the electrical resistance increase. On the other hand, in the case of granular material, the opposite effect occurs. When the current is first set, the resistance is high. The heat, the aging and some Zener effects affect the resistance by decreasing it. Those effects contribute to the growing of the connected cluster of beads.

Practically, as soon as some material presents weak links, electrical measurements have to be carefully achieved. The injected current history and the injecting rate of the current are both seen to be very relevant parameters. Further theoretical works will be developed on the basis of those observations in order to model such complex electrical networks.

## 5 Acknowledgements

S.D. would like to thank FNRS for financial support. This work has been also supported by the contract ARC 02/07-293. We would like to thank Prof. H.W. Vanderschueren for the use of MIEL facilities. We want also to thank Dr. A. Béssinck (U. of Liège) for his valuable comments. Fruitful discussions with Prof. G. Albinet and Dr. L. Raymond are gratefully acknowledged.

Figure Captions

Figure 1 Sketch of the $`iV`$ behavior of a metallic granular material

Figure 2 Evolution of the electrical resistance of a lead beads heap with respect to time. The different curves have been obtained for several fixed injected currents as indicated by the legend. The symbols are placed every 50 points

Figure 3 Normalized voltage versus time obtained for different currents (see legend). One point out of 50 is indicated by a symbol; solid lines join the data points

Figure 4 Normalized voltage $`V/V_0`$ versus time. The symbols corresponds to different injected currents (see legend) and take place one data point over 10. (inset) Relation between the relaxation time $`\tau `$ and the injected current


text:
# High-redshift X-ray properties of the haloes of simulated disc galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Standard models of disc galaxy formation require spiral galaxies to be surrounded by large reservoirs of hot gas which should be emitting at X-ray wavelengths and from which gas should still be accreting on to the disc at present (e.g. White & Frenk 1991). The detailed properties of these haloes and their role in the formation and evolution of galactic discs remain largely unknown from an observational viewpoint, as the haloes have so far escaped direct detection. Possible exceptions are NGC891 (Bregman & Houck 1997; Strickland et al. 2003a) and the Milky Way itself (e.g. Sidher et al. 1996; Pietz et al. 1998), if neglecting cases where (i) the galactic discs show evidence of being disturbed by tidal interactions, or (ii) the X-ray emission at off-disc distances of a few kpc can be attributed to processes originating in the disc such as feedback from star formation (Dahlem et al. 2003; Strickland et al. 2003a,b). A possible explanation for this lack of halo detections may be provided by recent simulation work (Birnboim & Dekel 2003; Katz et al. 2003), which suggests that most galaxies accrete the majority of their gas at temperatures much lower than the virial temperature of their halo. This would be particularly pronounced at higher redshifts, and would imply that most of the halo radiation is emitted as Ly$`\alpha `$ emission close to the disc rather than as soft X-rays from an extended, quasi-spherical region.

In a previous paper (Toft et al. 2002, hereafter Paper I) we extracted disc galaxies from fully cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and determined their present-day halo X-ray luminosities, finding consistency with observational upper limits on halo emission from nearby spirals. It should be mentioned that we have subsequently detected an error in the X-ray calculations employed in that study. Correcting this increases the luminosity of hot haloes with gas metallicity $`Z=0.0`$ by a factor $`2`$ and that of $`Z0.3`$Z haloes by a factor $`1.25`$. This correction applies equally to all our simulated galaxies, so the overall conclusions of Paper I remain unchanged. Accounting for this error still produces results in consistency with observations, as the upper limits on observed luminosities can easily accommodate the correction. One main result of the study of Paper I was the conjecture that spiral haloes were possibly one order of magnitude brighter in soft X-rays at $`z=1`$ than today, a result which was based solely on the predicted mass accretion rates of the discs. Analytical models of halo emission overpredict emission at $`z=0`$ by at least an order of magnitude (see Benson et al. 2000 and Paper I) and thus cannot be assumed to provide a reliable description of the evolution in X-ray emission with redshift. To amend this situation, we here extend our previous work by studying the high-redshift properties of a few disc galaxies extracted from cosmological cold dark matter simulations.

We found in Paper I that the halo luminosity approximately scales as $`L_XV_c^5`$, where $`V_c`$ is the characteristic circular speed in the disc at $`R_{2.2}=2.2R_d`$ and $`R_d`$ is the disc scalelength. Although subject to considerable scatter, such a trend is consistent with expectations from simple cooling flow models and suggests that massive galaxies ($`V_c300`$ km s-1) would be optimum targets for observing halo emission. Such galaxies are rare, however, and hence do not compare well to the typical spiral seen in deep X-ray surveys. The aim of this work is therefore to study the predicted properties of, and the detection prospects for, haloes of more typical disc galaxies of size similar to the Milky Way (MW).

The simulations and X-ray computations are described in §2. Results are presented in §3 and compared to observations in §4. We discuss the possibility for detecting the haloes in §5 and summarize our findings in §6.

## 2 Simulations and X-ray calculations

The primary goal is to study the redshift evolution in halo X-ray properties of simulated disc galaxies. To this end, we have extracted two disc galaxies from fully cosmological TreeSPH simulations of galaxy formation in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, and $`H_0=65`$ km s-1 Mpc-1. These values are adopted throughout this paper. The simulations include star formation, stellar feedback processes, and a meta-galactic UV radiation field. For a description of initial conditions and simulation details, we refer to Sommer-Larsen, Götz & Portinari (Sommer-Larsen et al.2003).

From a simulation with an adopted universal baryon fraction of $`f_b=0.10`$, we study in detail two galaxies (hereafter denoted gal15 and gal18), each run both with a cooling function based on a primordial gas composition (\[Fe/H\]$`=\mathrm{}`$, i.e. $`Z=0.0`$) and with one based on the typical intracluster gas metallicity (\[Fe/H\]$`=0.5`$, i.e. $`Z0.3`$Z). The latter abundance can probably a priori be considered a reasonable upper limit to the metallicity of hot halo gas. The two galaxies were selected from the requirement that they should show disc circular speeds $`V_c`$ at $`z=0`$ comparable to that of the present-day MW. With values at $`z=0`$ of $`V_c=225`$ (250) km s-1 for gal15 with $`Z=0.0`$ ($`Z=0.3`$Z) and $`V_c=202`$ (213) km s-1 for gal18 with $`Z=0.0`$ ($`Z=0.3`$Z), they have MW-like masses and hence correspond to $`LL^{}`$ galaxies in the local Universe. The $`z=0`$ version of both galaxies were included in Paper I. Since the galaxies were formed in the same cosmological simulation, differences between them only reflect their different assembly histories.

For the calculations of halo X-ray properties we follow the approach of Paper I, to which we refer for more details: All SPH gas particles outside a box sized (1000 kpc)3 centred on the galaxy are cut away, as is ’cold’ gas (with $`T<3\times 10^4`$ K). Spatially smoothed temperature and density fields are constructed from the values associated with individual particles, and X-ray volume emissivities are calculated from these using the meka plasma emissivity code (Mewe, Lemen & van den Oord, Mewe et al.1986).

At any given redshift, some variation in total X-ray luminosity is seen on time-scales of a few tens of Myr, due to galaxy-galaxy interactions and merging of smaller satellites. Since we are mainly interested in the long-term evolution of $`L_X`$, on the order of 10 frames separated by time intervals $`\mathrm{\Delta }t100`$ Myr have been extracted around each redshift. This time interval is large enough that individual frames can be considered reasonably independent, given the typical time-scale involved, yet small enough for overlaps between adjacent redshift bins to be insignificant. X-ray properties of each frame have been calculated as prescribed above, and frames have then been omitted for which the total bolometric (0.012–12.4 keV) luminosity deviates by more than $`2\sigma `$ from the mean at that redshift (discarding on average less than one frame per redshift, corresponding to $`7`$ per cent of all frames). Mean values and dispersions of all quantities of interest were derived at a given redshift from the remaining frames and used in the subsequent analysis.

For the $`Z=0.0`$ galaxies we follow the halo properties back to $`z=2.9`$ (gal15) and $`z=2.3`$ (gal18), beyond which the disc itself is not well-defined. The $`Z=0.3`$Z galaxies show a more complex gas distribution at all redshifts and are followed only back to $`z2`$.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 $`L_X`$ versus redshift

Of prime interest is the evolution with redshift of the X-ray luminosity, in part because this is expected to reflect the gas accretion history of the stellar disc as will be discussed below.

Fig. 1 shows the redshift evolution of the rest-frame 0.2–2 keV and bolometric luminosities $`L_{X,bol}`$ of the hot haloes of the two galaxies. In general $`L_{X,bol}`$ is seen to increase with redshift, rising fairly steeply out to $`z1`$, beyond which the increase levels off. The increase from $`z=01`$ is a factor $`410`$, thus verifying our prediction from Paper I that disc galaxy haloes could be up to an order of magnitude brighter at $`z=1`$ than present-day haloes. As can be seen, gal15 shows a steady evolution in both X-ray bands, whereas gal18 exhibits a slightly more complex behaviour. The reason is that gal18 experiences a period of enhanced accretion, as will be demonstrated below.

It is seen that at high $`z`$ the 0.2–2 keV emission is somewhat higher for the $`Z=0.3`$Z hot haloes than for the $`Z=0.0`$ haloes, falling short of the bolometric luminosity at all $`z`$ only by a factor of $`23`$. This is because the $`Z=0.3`$Z haloes display higher emission-weighted mean temperatures ($``$ 0.20–0.25 keV, with little redshift dependence) than the $`Z=0.0`$ haloes ($``$ 0.10–0.15 keV), thus radiating a relatively larger fraction of their total emission in this band. Given the near-constancy of the hot gas temperature, the decrease in $`L_X`$ with time is predominantly due to a decline in the available amount of hot halo gas along with a decrease in the volume-weighted mean density of this gas. The mass of hot halo gas in the X-ray emitting volume declines only by a factor $`2`$ ($`Z=0.0`$) and $`4`$ ($`Z=0.3`$Z) from $`z1`$ to $`z0`$, however. An implication of this combined with Fig. 1 is that haloes radiate relatively more per unit mass of hot gas at high $`z`$ than at $`z=0`$ (typically by a factor $`2`$ at $`z=1`$ relative to $`z=0`$).

Note that for both galaxies, increasing the cooling efficiency by raising the gas metallicity to $`Z=0.3`$Z leads to a decrease in bolometric $`L_X`$ at $`z=0`$, consistent with the results from our much larger sample in Paper I. The decrease is less significant for gal18, which, as will be argued below, is probably somewhat atypical of the galaxies studied in that paper. Also note that this decrease persists back to at least $`z2`$. This may at first seem counter-intuitive, given the higher X-ray emissivity of a $`Z=0.3`$Z plasma. The reason is that already at redshifts $`z2`$ a larger fraction of hot halo gas has cooled out to form stars in the $`Z=0.3`$Z galaxies, leading at $`z2`$ to a factor $`2`$ deficit in the total amount and volume-weighted mean density of hot gas relative to the $`Z=0.0`$ case.

### 3.2 Accretion rates

The halo luminosity can be linked to the rate at which hot halo gas cools out and accretes on to the disc, as illustrated by the following considerations.

The cooling time is the gas energy density divided by the cooling rate,

$$t_{cool}\frac{\frac{3}{2}NkT}{\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is the cooling function, $`n_H`$ is the hydrogen number density, and $`N=(n_e+_in_i)`$ is the total number density of electrons and all ion species $`i`$. The mass cool–out rate d$`\dot{M}`$ of gas with mass density $`\rho `$ in a small volume element d$`V`$ becomes

$$\text{d}\dot{M}\frac{\rho \text{d}V}{t_{cool}}=\frac{2\mu m_p}{3kT}\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2\text{d}V,$$
(2)
where $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight, $`m_p`$ the proton mass, and equality corresponds to the case of absence of external heat sources and $`p\text{d}V`$ work. Since the emission-weighted mean inverse temperature is

$$1/T_{ew}=\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2\frac{1}{T}\text{d}V}{\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2\text{d}V}$$
(3)
and the bolometric luminosity is $`L_X=\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2\text{d}V`$, we find

$$\dot{M}\frac{2\mu m_p}{3k}_V\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }n_H^2}{T}\text{d}V=\frac{2\mu m_p}{3k}L_X1/T_{ew}$$
(4)
$$0.066\left(\frac{L_X}{10^{40}\text{ erg s}\text{-1}}\right)\left(\frac{1/T_{ew}}{\text{keV}\text{-1}}\right)\text{ M}\text{}\text{ yr}\text{-1}.$$

In this simplified picture, we therefore expect $`\dot{M}`$ to (roughly) scale with $`L_X1/T_{ew}`$.

As was shown in Paper I, the gas in the simulations is essentially two-phased, so $`\dot{M}`$ is here estimated at any given redshift by considering the rate at which hot gas ($`T2\times 10^6`$ K) cools out to the cold phase ($`T3\times 10^4`$ K), see (Sommer-Larsen et al.2003).

In Fig. 2 we have plotted $`\dot{M}`$ derived for the $`Z=0.0`$ galaxies along with the expectation from Eq. (4). There is a remarkably good agreement in shape, particularly for the steadily accreting galaxy gal15. Although the agreement is slightly less convincing for gal18, it is, however, clear that this galaxy undergoes a period of strongly enhanced accretion around $`z1.3`$ which affects its X-ray luminosity accordingly. In both cases the accretion rate at $`z1`$ is found to be $`5`$ times larger than at present, decreasing e.g. for gal15 from 2.5 to 0.5 M yr-1 from $`z=1`$ to $`z=0`$. Based on Fig. 2 (left), an approximate relation describing this evolution in the redshift range $`z=01`$ is

$$\text{log}\dot{M}(z)0.6z0.25,$$
(5)
with $`\dot{M}`$ in M yr-1. The observed difference in normalization between this relation and Eq. (4) is due to the simplifying assumptions underlying the latter. We speculate that the main reasons for the discrepancy are in part the neglect of $`p\text{d}V`$ work and in part a geometrical effect related to the fact that cooling proceeds in a cooling flow, so considering a fixed volume for the estimation of $`\dot{M}`$ is a clear simplification. The problem is highly complex, however, and we cannot exclude that other effects play a role too.

Given the predicted evolution of disc accretion rates and halo bolometric X-ray luminosities, it is interesting to note that Barger et al. (2001) found that accretion on to supermassive black holes, as measured by the bolometric X-ray luminosity of active galactic nuclei (AGN), follows a very similar trend to that seen in Figs. 1 and 2. The logarithm of the black hole mass accretion rate was found to grow roughly linearly with redshift out to $`z1`$–1.5, above which the increase levels off. It seems reasonable to assume that a positive correlation should exist between the disc accretion rate and that of any central black hole (given the observed correlation between black hole mass and host galaxy bulge mass, e.g. McLure & Dunlop 2002), in which case the observations of Barger et al. (2001) could be taken to support the overall trends predicted in Figs. 1 and 2.

## 4 Comparison with observations

Although only a few relevant observational constraints on halo emission are available even in the nearby Universe, we showed in Paper I that $`L_X`$ of our simulated galaxies at $`z=0`$ agree with observed upper limits for haloes of nearby massive spirals and with estimates of the amount and luminosity of hot halo gas in the Milky Way (these conclusions all remain valid after correction for the error mentioned in §1). Some recent observational progress in this context include the results of Kuntz et al. (2003) on emission in the nearby spiral M101. These authors find that our halo prediction from Paper I for a galaxy like M101 ($`V_c170`$ km s-1) can easily be accommodated within the amount of diffuse emission obtained for this galaxy, provided the halo gas density displays a sufficiently small vertical scale height. Other recent results comprise those of Dahlem et al. (2003), Strickland et al. (2003a,b), and Wang, Chaves & Irwin (Wang et al.2003), but in these cases the X-ray emission is either affected by tidal interaction with another galaxy or can be attributed to processes in the disc, and they cannot be directly compared to our models.

Although at high redshifts there is currently no possibility of comparing the predicted levels of halo emission to direct observations, useful constraints can nevertheless be extracted from the Chandra Deep Field observations (these are superior in sensitivity to any other pointed X-ray observation). Spiral galaxies, classified morphologically from Hubble Deep Field data, have been detected in the 1 Ms Chandra Deep Field-North (CDF-N) data down to a nominal limiting 0.5–2 keV point source flux of $`3\times 10^{17}`$ erg cm-2 s-1, and using a stacking technique detection has been performed to even lower fluxes (Hornschemeier et al., 2002). The latter authors considered the integrated X-ray emission from $`LL^{}`$ Sa–Sc spirals at $`z=0.41.5`$ which did not harbour a bright AGN or display strong starburst activity. Resulting rest-frame 0.5–2 keV luminosities in several redshift ranges were derived and can be taken here as observational upper limits to our predicted halo emission. Accounting for disc emission, not included in our simulated galaxies, strengthens the CDF constraints on halo emission further. To this end, we consider the MW disc, for which Warwick (2002) lists a total 0.5–2 keV luminosity of $`5\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1, including all stellar and diffuse disc sources. This provides a measure of the contribution to be added to that of our simulated haloes at $`z=0`$, in order to obtain an estimate of the integrated X-ray luminosity of the simulated galaxies. However, the MW disc is dominated by X-ray binaries (XRBs) at a level of $`3\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1 (Warwick, 2002). This contribution to the disc emission is unlikely to remain constant with redshift, as it is expected to roughly scale with the disc star formation rate (SFR). Globally, the latter is known to rise a factor of $`10`$ between $`z`$ 0–1 (e.g. Madau, Pozzetti & Dickinson Madau et al.1998), a result which also applies to the CDF-N in particular (Cohen, 2003). Based on an assumed such coupling between disc SFR and $`L_X`$ of the XRB population, Ghosh & White (2001) present a model for the redshift evolution of $`L_X`$ from XRBs. Assuming a Madau-type SFR profile, these authors predict a factor of $`5`$ (3) increase in $`L_X`$ from XRBs at $`z=1`$ ($`z=2`$) relative to $`z=0`$. We have adopted the expected XRB contribution to the integrated disc emission from Warwick (2002) and evolved it with redshift according to the Ghosh & White (2001) model. An addition from other disc and bulge X-ray sources of $`2\times 10^{39}`$ erg s-1, assumed constant for simplicity, is included in order to match the observed total MW disc luminosity. The resulting disc luminosity of an MW-like galaxy is compared in Fig. 3 (left) to the nominal limits in different redshift bins from the CDF-N sub-samples of galaxies with spectroscopically confirmed and purely photometric redshifts, respectively. Typical uncertainties on the observed X-ray luminosities are displayed for comparison; the $`1\sigma `$ statistical errors are $``$20 per cent (A. Hornschemeier, priv. comm.), very similar at the relevant redshifts to those of our simulated galaxies. Adopting the mean $`L_X`$ in the sample of Shapley, Fabbiano & Eskridge (Shapley et al.2001) as representative of the typical spiral $`L_X`$ at $`z=0`$ (comparable to the MW value adopted here), Hornschemeier et al. (2002) note that the observed increase in $`L_X`$ from $`z=0`$ to $`z=0.6`$ is consistent with the prediction of the Ghosh & White (2001) model. When taking the CDF values as upper limits, Fig. 3 suggests that this consistency can be extended to redshifts $`z1.5`$, provided that $`L_X`$ of the other disc X-ray emitting components, such as hot diffuse gas in the disc and bulge, does not increase dramatically between $`z0.5`$ and $`1.5`$. Some increase in diffuse disc luminosity is probably expected, however, due to supernova driven feedback associated with the increase in star formation with redshift.

Cohen (2003) has recently shown that the CDF-N spirals out to $`z=1.4`$ follow an $`L_X`$–SFR relationship comparable to that seen for local galaxies, albeit with larger scatter. This result supports the approach employed by Ghosh & White (2001) in their XRB model. Motivated by this, and by Fig. 3 (left), we compare in Fig. 3 (right) the CDF constraints to our halo predictions, having added the scaled Ghosh & White (2001) model (plotted as upwards arrows) to the upper limit of the highest predicted halo luminosity at any given redshift. Uncertainties on the CDF values are here omitted for clarity. As can be seen, the $`Z=0.0`$ galaxies are easily consistent with the CDF-N constraints, whereas the metal–rich galaxies are much closer to the observed values. When adding the Ghosh & White (2001) model to the predicted halo luminosities, the agreement with the CDF-N results is fairly good, our predictions for the integrated emission then being consistent with results from the photometric CDF-N sample.

There is an indication, however, that the $`Z=0.3`$Z haloes, in particular gal18, could be slightly too X-ray luminous at the relevant redshifts. While this is certainly not a large excess, we see at least two possible explanations for this. Possibly gal18 is peculiar. It certainly displays a high $`L_X`$ at $`z=0`$ for its circular velocity and metallicity when compared to other galaxies of the study presented in Paper I, supporting this idea. Alternatively, Fig. 3 may suggest that assuming halo metallicities of $`Z=0.3`$Z at all redshifts probed here is unrealistic, overpredicting the resulting X-ray emission at the CDF-N redshifts. The fact that gal15, which at $`z=0`$ is very typical of the galaxies studied in Paper I, is also close to the CDF constraints at $`z>1`$ would seem to substantiate this possibility. While only indicative, such a result would not be surprising; as argued by e.g. Renzini (2003), the global metallicity of the Universe at $`z3`$ is likely to be $`0.1`$Z rather than $`0.3`$Z. On the other hand, for haloes at $`z=1`$, the predicted unabsorbed 0.5–2 keV flux originating inside a region $`1\times 1`$ arcsec2 on the sky (within the central $`10\times 10`$ kpc of the halo) is $`2\times 10^{19}`$ and $`6\times 10^{19}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for the $`Z=0.3`$Z haloes of gal15 and gal18, respectively. This is well below the CDF-N point source flux for normal spirals at this redshift, $`(36)\times 10^{18}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 (Hornschemeier et al., 2002). Note, however, that we have not attempted to quantify any systematic uncertainties on the predicted integrated emission (related to the choice of SFR model, the coupling between $`L_X`$ and SFR, the assumed XRB fraction of disc $`L_X`$ etc.). For example, it is not obviously appropriate to use a Madau-type SFR profile to extrapolate the SFR of individual galaxies to high redshifts. Taking again the MW as an example and neglecting variations caused by short-term starbursts, evidence suggests that the MW disc has experienced a roughly constant SFR back to at least $`z1`$ (Rocha-Pinto et al., 2000). Assuming a constant SFR, the Ghosh & White (2001) model predicts a steady decline in disc $`L_X`$ from $`z=0`$ to $`z=2`$ of $`30`$ per cent, in which case our predictions for the $`Z=0.3`$Z galaxies do not violate the CDF constraints, but, in fact, show even better agreement with these values.

We finally note that when adding the Ghosh & White (2001) model to the $`Z=0.0`$ haloes, the integrated emission is well below that of the CDF values and so is easily consistent with these when viewed as upper limits. Predicted and observed luminosities can in this case be reconciled if using the Ghosh & White (2001) model along with a different SFR prescription, e.g. the ’hierarchical’ model of Blain et al. (1999).

## 5 Prospects for halo detection

In order to assess the possibility of detecting the X-ray haloes of MW-sized discs with current and future X-ray instrumentation, we have computed X-ray brightness profiles perpendicular to the discs of the simulated galaxies. The discs have been oriented edge-on, and observer-frame surface brightness (energy flux per unit solid angle) and flux profiles as a function of off-disc distance have been calculated in 40 kpc wide and 5–8 kpc high slices parallel to the disc. Spectra were calculated for each SPH particle in the rest-frame band matching the observer-frame band of interest, and the resulting total surface brightness has been diminished by a factor $`(1+z)^4`$ to account for cosmological dimming. Galactic absorption has been incorporated assuming an absorbing column density at $`z=0`$ of $`N_H=3\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2, using the photoelectric absorption cross sections of Morrison & McCammon (1983). Profiles have been calculated in the 0.3–2 keV band, expected to provide the optimum signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio for Chandra and XMM-Newton, given the predicted halo temperatures, as well as telescope effective areas and background levels. Calculations were repeated for the 0.1–3 keV band, which, in this context, is likely to be relevant to the next-generation XEUS mission, being well-calibrated down to energies at least as low as 0.1 keV and at high energies providing a much higher S/N than e.g. XMM-Newton.

The 0.3–2 keV profiles are shown in Fig. 4 for the most optimistic case of $`Z=0.3`$Z edge-on galaxies. An immediate conclusion, apart from the apparent fact that resulting fluxes are exceedingly low, is that at all redshifts the majority of emission originates within the innermost 10–15 kpc, as was also found to be the case at $`z=0`$ (Paper I). At least two additional inferences from these plots are worth noting:

(1) Due to the strong luminosity evolution of the $`Z=0.3`$Z haloes (Fig. 1), the optimum redshift for observing such haloes in terms of their surface brightness is not necessarily $`z=0`$ but is not well-defined either. If $`L_X`$ depends as strongly on redshift as for gal15, the optimum redshifts could be $`z0.5`$, depending on the assembly history of the galaxy. For the $`Z=0.0`$ galaxies (not shown) there is a larger span between the flux at different redshifts, with $`z=0`$ always being the optimum redshift. The fluxes for haloes at $`z>1`$ are in all cases lower than those shown (this is also the case in the 0.1–3 keV band).

(2) To unambiguously detect the haloes in imaging observations, we estimate that a firm detection at least $`10`$ kpc above the disc is required in order to avoid confusion with disc emission. Taking gal15 as representative, it can be inferred from the bottom panel of Fig. 4 that detection of haloes of MW-like galaxies at cosmological distances is clearly beyond the capabilities of current instrumentation, despite the expected redshift evolution of $`L_X`$. Even with the sub-arcsec spatial resolution of Chandra and point source sensitivities exceeding those of the Chandra Deep Fields by a factor of a few, a direct detection of halo emission would not be possible.

With an expected spatial resolution comparable to XMM-Newton, the next-generation mission Constellation-X (e.g. White & Tananbaum 1999) will not be able to image the haloes directly either. However, normal spiral discs in the nearby Universe typically exhibit two distinct spectral features, a $`T`$ 0.2–0.3 keV thermal component from diffuse disc emission and a power-law from the point source population (e.g. Kuntz et al. 2003; Swartz et al. 2003). One may therefore rather seek to test the existence of the haloes and their predicted luminosity evolution by finding evidence for an additional low-temperature thermal component in the integrated spectra of disc galaxies. To explore this possibility, we generated artificial source spectra for a Constellation-X observation of gal15 ($`z=0.3`$), using xspec v11.0 along with the response matrix for the calorimeter detector111Available from http://constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/. The adopted response assumes a four–spacecraft configuration with a total effective area of 15,000 cm2 at $`E=1.25`$ keV. The source was modelled as a combination of a $`T=0.3`$ keV thermal mekal plasma with $`Z=`$ Z (representing disc diffuse emission), a $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=1.9`$ power-law (representing point sources), and a mekal plasma representing the hot halo, with each component normalized according to Figs. 1 and 3. We find that a 1 Ms observation will gather around 300 source counts over the full detector band (0.25-10 keV), of which only $`10`$ will originate in the halo. These numbers will be down by an order of magnitude at $`z=1`$. It thus seems impossible that Constellation-X should be able to detect the haloes within reasonable exposure times.

From the 0.1–3 keV profiles (not shown), one finds that extended energy coverage does result in larger observed flux, but the increase in emitted flux when including lower energies is nearly balanced by Galactic absorption. Depending on redshift, the increase in observed flux from 0.3–2 keV to 0.1–3 keV is at most a factor of 1.5–2 for the $`Z=0.0`$ galaxies and even less for $`Z=0.3`$Z, even for a relatively low column density $`N_H`$ as the one adopted. However, the Wide-Field Imager onboard the final configuration of XEUS, with a spatial resolution comparable to that of Chandra and an improved sensitivity particularly at low energies (an expected limiting point-source flux of $`4\times 10^{18}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 for a 100 ks observation; Bleeker & Méndez 2002), should observe $`6000`$ source counts in 1 Ms for gal15 at $`z=0.3`$, of which $`300`$ would be from the halo. While this is not sufficient to warrant the introduction of an additional thermal component in a spectral fit, the halo should be detectable as extended emission surrounding the disc in soft-band images, after removal of disc and obvious point source emission. We thus predict that XEUS should be able to single out halo emission of highly inclined disc galaxies out to $`z0.3`$, but it will require exposure times comparable to those of the CDF. At $`z1`$, about 120 halo counts out of 300 in total are expected. Although the ratio of halo to disc emission is significantly higher at this redshift, the lower flux and smaller spatial extent will make halo detection more difficult.

The use of a different prescription for the disc SFR should not impact on the halo detection prospects, but the inclination of the galaxy will. The above results all apply to edge-on galaxies, i.e. a galaxies in which the polar axis is inclined by $`i=90^{}`$ with respect to the line of sight. For a galaxy with smaller inclination, halo detection will be more difficult, the effect in general depending on the 3-D distribution of hot halo gas. One may estimate the minimum galaxy inclination at which a halo is still detectable. As a first approximation, we can simply evaluate the sky area covered by the disc and assume that this area will effectively block all halo emission. This seems a reasonable assumption, since all halo emission originating in front of the disc will be hard to distinguish from disc emission, while halo emission behind the disc will be subject to the same effect as well as suffer from severe absorption by neutral gas in the disc. Although the method only takes into account the area blocked by the disc, not the fact that the halo itself will show a similar inclination, the error implied should be negligible for large inclinations. Assuming a circular disc of radius 15 kpc and employing the $`Z=0.3`$Z halo of gal15 at different redshifts, we estimate that at an inclination of $`80^{}`$ around half of the halo emission will still be detectable, whereas at $`i=75^{}`$ this number is down to $`30`$ per cent. Adopting a tolerance level of 50 per cent, we thus require the inclination to be $`i80^{}`$, i.e. the disc should deviate less than $`10^{}`$ from an edge-on appearance for the halo to remain detectable. This implies that $`10`$ per cent of all MW-like discs at a typical distance of $`z=0.3`$ should display a detectable halo in a 1 Ms XEUS observation.

The haloes of massive ($`V_c300`$ km s-1) disc galaxies are predicted to have X-ray luminosity and surface brightness at $`z0`$ an order of magnitude larger than the haloes studied here (cf. Paper I). If the halo luminosities of such galaxies follow a similar behaviour with redshift to that shown in Fig. 1, and the galaxy shows an inclination $`i80^{}`$, these haloes should in fact be detectable to redshifts $`z1`$ and less inclined haloes to well beyond $`z0.3`$. We can estimate the total surface density of detectable haloes on the sky by assuming that 10 per cent of all haloes around discs with $`V_c220`$ km s-1 can be detected to $`z=0.3`$. Using the velocity function of spirals derived by Gonzalez et al. (2000), one arrives at a density of $`10`$ haloes deg-2 in the adopted cosmology. Given our assumptions this would be a conservative lower limit, since some haloes beyond $`z=0.3`$ would also be detectable (those with $`V_c`$ well beyond 220 km s-1), as would some at $`z<0.3`$ (where our inclination requirement, $`i80^{}`$, is severely relaxed).

## 6 Summary and conclusions

From the X-ray properties of the hot gas haloes of two Milky Way–like disc galaxies extracted from a cosmological simulation, run both with primordial and intracluster chemical composition, we find that halo X-ray luminosities increase roughly an order of magnitude from $`z=0`$ to $`z=1`$, evolving more gently at higher redshifts. There is good agreement between the redshift evolution of $`L_X1/T`$ and that resulting from rough estimates of the disc accretion rate, as suggested by simple analytical considerations. The logarithm of the disc accretion rate increases approximately linearly with redshift out to at least $`z1`$, from a typical value of $`0.5`$ M yr-1 at $`z=0`$ to $`3`$ M yr-1 at $`z=1`$.

When added to a constant contribution from diffuse gas in the disc and bulge along with a model predicting the evolution of $`L_X`$ from X-ray binaries, we find that the halo $`L_X`$ of the galaxies is consistent with values derived for spirals in the CDF-N data. The luminosities of the $`Z=0.3`$Z haloes suggest, however, that a constant halo metallicity of $`0.3`$Z across the $`z`$ 0–2 redshift range studied here overpredicts the level of X-ray emission. Although this result is tentative rather than conclusive and depends on the assumed evolution in disc star formation rate, we speculate that halo metal abundances would be somewhat lower in the $`z=02`$ range than the typical metallicity of the intergalactic/intracluster medium (IGM) at $`z1`$. Possible explanations could include enriched supernova ejecta falling back on to the disc (galactic chimneys), enriched gas being expelled out of the galactic gravitational potential (possibly through supernova-driven superwinds during periods of strong star formation), or enriched gas being stripped from the haloes during galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-IGM interactions.

We have assessed the possibility for detecting haloes of MW-like galaxies and shown that observations of such haloes at cosmological distances will have to await a future generation of X-ray instrumentation. We find that XEUS in its final configuration should be able to detect halo emission out to at least $`z0.3`$ in a 1 Ms observation, and that the surface density of haloes detectable in such observations should be $`10`$ deg-2. In terms of surface brightness, the optimal redshifts for detecting haloes could in fact be $`0.5<z<1.0`$, owing to their luminosity evolution.

It is worth emphasizing that these conclusions are based on a particular numerical simulation with a certain set of input values; the aim was to assess the amount of associated X-ray emission in this specific case rather than to test the effects of varying the physical parameters entering in the simulation (some effort was devoted to this in Paper I). Given the observational difficulty in directly detecting the halo emission, the best way to test and improve on the predictions presented here in the immediate future may indeed be through additional simulations, perhaps coupled with advances in our still incomplete understanding of the formation of spiral discs. Higher numerical resolution and yet more realistic input physics with improved estimates for the important physical parameters such as baryon fraction and gas metallicity should refine the predictions presented here. In particular, simulations of disc galaxy formation in which the gas chemical evolution is self-consistently included may shed new light on the amount and physical state of hot halo gas around normal spiral discs (Sommer-Larsen, Portinari & Romeo 2003, in prep.). With the observed integrated X-ray emission from spirals acting as a basis, improved models for the redshift evolution of disc X-ray luminosity would alternatively allow tighter constraints to be imposed on halo emission.

## Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the referee for prompt and constructive comments. This work was supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council (SNF), the Danish Ground-Based Astronomical Instrument Centre (IJAF), the Carlsberg foundation, and by Danmarks Grundforskningsfond through its support for the establishment of the Theoretical Astrophysics Center.


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# Domain wall mobility in nanowires: transverse versus vortex walls

## Acknowledgments

The authors thank D. Garanin and S. Lübeck for helpful discussions. This work has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 491 and NO290).


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# Permutation groups of prime degree, a quick proof of Burnside’s theorem

## Proof of Burnside’s theorem.

Let $`G`$ be a transitive permutation group on $`p`$ elements. As $`p`$ divides the order of $`G`$, there is an element $`\tau G`$ of order $`p`$. Assume that $`G`$ acts on $`𝔽_p`$, with $`\tau (i)=i+1`$ for all $`i𝔽_p`$. Suppose that $`G`$ is not doubly transitive. So $`G`$ has at least two orbits on the pairs $`(i,j)`$ with $`ij`$. On the other hand, $`\tau `$ permutes cyclically the pairs $`(i,j)`$ with constant difference, so there is a non-empty proper subset $`U`$ of $`𝔽_p\{0\}`$ such that $`\pi (i)\pi (j)U`$ for all $`\pi G`$ and $`i,j`$ with $`ijU`$. By the proposition, $`G`$ is a subgroup of the group of permutations $`iai+b`$ with $`a𝔽_p\{0\},b𝔽_p`$. In particular, $`G`$ is solvable.

## Proof of the proposition.

By an iterated application of $`\pi `$ we see that $`ijU`$ if and only if $`\pi (i)\pi (j)U`$. In particular, replacing $`U`$ by its complement in $`𝔽_p\{0\}`$ preserves the assumption. Therefore we may and do assume $`|U|\frac{p1}{2}`$.

Fix $`i𝔽_p`$. For $`uU`$ we have $`(i+u)iU`$, hence $`\pi (i+u)\pi (i)U`$. As $`\pi `$ is a permutation, the elements $`\pi (i+u)\pi (i)`$ are different for different $`u`$. Thus $`\{\pi (i+u)\pi (i)|uU\}=U`$, hence $`\{\pi (i+u)|uU\}=\{\pi (i)+u|uU\}`$. In particular, for $`w`$ we obtain

$$\underset{uU}{}\pi (i+u)^w=\underset{uU}{}(\pi (i)+u)^w.$$

Let $`f(X)𝔽_p[X]`$ be the polynomial of degree $`np1`$ with $`f(i)=\pi (i)`$ for all $`i𝔽_p`$. Suppose $`wnp1`$. Then $`_{uU}f(X+u)^w_{uU}(f(X)+u)^w`$ is a polynomial of degree $`<p`$ which vanishes identically on $`𝔽_p`$, thus

$$\underset{uU}{}f(X+u)^w\underset{uU}{}(f(X)+u)^w=0.$$

Setting $`S(k)=_{uU}u^k`$, we obtain

$$\underset{uU}{}(f(X+u)^wf(X)^w)=\underset{k1}{}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{w}{k}\right)S(k)f(X)^{wk}.$$

Note that $`f(X)^w`$ is a polynomial of degree $`nw`$, so $`X^{nw}`$ is an $`𝔽_p`$-linear combination of the derivatives of $`f(X)^w`$. Thus we obtain

$$\underset{uU}{}((X+u)^{nw}X^{nw})=\underset{k1}{}S(k)g_{wk}(X),$$

where $`g_{\mathrm{}}(X)`$ is a polynomial of degree at most $`\mathrm{}n`$.

Let $`r1`$ be minimal with $`S(r)0`$. Then the degree of the right handside is at most $`n(wr)`$.

Suppose that $`rnw`$. Then the coefficient of $`X^{nwr}`$ on the left handside is (up to a nonzero factor) $`S(r)`$. Since $`S(r)0`$, we must have $`nwrn(wr)`$, so $`n=1`$, and we are done.

It remains to consider $`r1nw`$. Suppose we have chosen $`w`$ maximal with $`nwp1`$. Then $`p1<n(w+1)2nw2(r1)`$, so $`r>(p+1)/2`$.

This shows $`S(k)=0`$ for $`k=1,2,\mathrm{},(p1)/2`$. Therefore $`|U|(p+1)/2`$ (for instance because the van der Monde matrix of $`U`$ is not singular; or because the first $`(p1)/2`$ elementary symmetric functions of $`U`$ vanish, so a polynomial with zero set $`U`$ has degree $`(p+1)/2`$). This contradicts $`|U|(p1)/2`$.

###### Remark.

Our proof is similar to the final step in Schur’s proof in \[Sch08\]. However, the main part of his proof consists in showing that if $`1U`$, then $`U`$ is a subgroup of $`𝔽_p\{0\}`$. Thus if $`1kw<|U|`$, then $`S(k)=0`$, so $`_{uU}f(X+u)^w=|U|f(X)^w`$, which produces a contradiction similarly as above. See also \[DM96, 3.5\] for a modern version of this proof.

In \[DKM92\] the authors give an S-ring argument to show that $`U`$ is a group. From there they however proceed with geometric arguments, and use facts about lacunary polynomials to conclude that $`\pi `$ is a linear function.

Burnside’s original proof uses complex character theory, see \[Bur11\].

The certainly most elegant proof is due to Wielandt, who studies the ring of $`G`$-invariant functions from $`𝔽_p`$ to $`𝔽_p`$. See \[Wie94, pages 273–296\], \[HB82, XII, §10\]. A very concise and streamlined version of Wielandt’s proof is contained in \[LMT93, 6.7\].

IWR, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 368,
69120 Heidelberg, Germany

E-mail: Peter.Mueller@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de