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# Discrete Spectrum of Inflationary Fluctuations

## I Introduction

Holographic entropy bounds derived from generalized black hole thermodynamics and statistical physics'tHooft:1999bw ; 'tHooft:1985re ; Susskind:1993if ; stephens ; thooft93 ; susskind95 ; Bigatti:1999dp ; bousso ; bousso02 ; bekenstein01 ; bekenstein02  can be interpreted to signify fundamental, universal properties of gravitating quantum systems. In this view, a deeper structure underlying gravity and quantum mechanics guarantees that any physical system is described by a fundamental Hilbert space of finite dimension, where the maximum entropy (the logarithm of this dimension) is given by the area (in Planck units) of an appropriately defined bounding surface. If so, quantum gravity requires a radical departure from the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of quantum field theory.

Yet field theory is the tool used to describe inflationary perturbationsliddlelyth — our most direct observational contact with quantum fields under conditions extreme enough for single quanta to have significant self-gravity. Maps of cosmic background anisotropy show metric perturbations imprinted with the detailed spatial structure of quantum mechanical wavefunctions of field quanta in the early universe. This paper analyzes an effect implied by holography but not apparent in the field-theory analysis: a discrete quantum spectrum that survives in classical observables, such as the amplitudes and spatial structures of relic large-scale metric perturbations. An earlier paperHogan:2002xs  estimated discreteness in the amplitude spectrum; the analysis here suggests that observable holographic discreteness may also appear in spatial structure.

Any quantum mechanical systempreskill  is a ray in a Hilbert space $``$. The Hilbert space is spanned by an orthonormal set of $`N_{}`$ basis vectors. Any observation consists of the projection of the ray onto a complete, orthonormal basis formed by the eigenstates of some self-adjoint operator (an “observable”), and the only possible results of any observation are its eigenvalues in this spectral representation. That is, any observation has only $`N_{}`$ possible outcomes, each of which leaves the system in an eigenstate of that observable. A classical state of definite energy, such as a metric perturbation from inflationary fluctuations, corresponds to one of the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. The dimension $`N_{}`$ of the Hilbert space determines the maximum possible number of classical outcomes, and also the maximum entropy $`S=\mathrm{log}N_{}`$. A bound on $`S`$ implies a finite number of eigenstates and a discrete spectrum of possible classical outcomes. The particular pattern of eigenvalues of a quantum system (for example, the spectrum of lines of atomic transitionsatominbox ) conveys rich information about its dynamical elements. Similarly, it may be possible to resolve spectral features of inflationary perturbations, revealing details of the fundamental dynamical elements of quantum gravity.

The observability of this discreteness depends on the number of eigenstates spanning the space of the vacuum fluctuations during inflation. This paper estimates this number by analyzing the behavior of a series of simplified quantum mechanical models of field modes during inflation, and by application of the covariant entropy bound to slow-roll inflation. The simple quantum systems considered here are not serious models of quantum gravity, but are chosen because they display discrete spectra due to interactions resembling gravity, they can be related directly to inflationary fields, and at the same time they provide a bridge between field behavior and some of the new physics of the powerful holographic entropy bound.

Rather than incorporating the fully developed theory of quantum fields during inflationStarobinsky:1979ty ; Hawking:1982cz ; Guth:1982ec ; Bardeen:1983qw ; Starobinsky:1982ee ; Halliwell:1985eu ; Grishchuk:1993ds ; Grishchuk:1989ss ; Grishchuk:1990bj ; Albrecht:1994kf ; Lesgourgues:1997jc ; Polarski:1996jg ; kiefer , the approach here aims to gain some insight into how the self-gravity of quantum fields leads to a finite (rather than infinite) Hilbert space, and how the quantum states translate to the spectra of final classical metric perturbations. There is no reason to expect significant changes in field-theoretic predictions for the mean power spectrum of the perturbationsMukhanov:1992me ; lythriotto , perturbative estimates of stringy and transplanckian influences on perturbation spectra brandenberger01 ; martin01 ; starobinsky01 ; niemeyer ; easther ; hui ; Maldacena:2002vr , or interpretation of thermodynamic entropy flow during inflationFrolov:2002va ; Albrecht:2002xs . The continuous formalism of field theory still presumably applies as a good approximation for computing the final classical probabilities for spectral averages such as the power spectrum. However, standard field theory does not predict discrete perturbation spectra.

The analysis below is based mostly on the quantum mechanics of comoving modes of a massless free field. A single spatial mode is equivalent to a simple one-dimensional harmonic oscillator with a frequency that decreases as the physical wavelength of the mode increases with the cosmic expansion. This system already displays the main effect leading to inflationary perturbations, converting vacuum-eigenstate fluctuations into quasi-classical amplitude eigenstates. The infinite $`N_{}`$ corresponds to an infinite number of number eigenstates at early times and a continuous, nearly Gaussian distribution of measurable amplitude values at late times— the standard prediction of inflation. Adding terms to this Hamiltonian representing the self-gravity of the field or the effect of the inflaton potential truncates the Hilbert space so that $`N_{}`$ is finite, which also implies a discreteness of final field amplitude states. A mode constructed explicitly with a discrete lattice of amplitude eigenstates shows that only a small fraction $`N_{}^{1/2}`$ of amplitude eigenvalues occur in typical vacuum fluctuations. The quantum state of the field is described as an entangled state of many spatial modes, defining a relationship between entropy and the number of modes. The covariant bound on the entropy of inflationary fluctuations translates to a bound on the number of modes contributing to the final eigenstates. If the density of modes in $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ space is not too high, the effects of discreteness may be observable in the statistics of background radiation anisotropy, galaxy clustering, and eventually, directly detected gravitational wave backgrounds.

## II  Quantum Mechanics of Field Modes

### II.1 Single Mode During Slow-Roll Inflation

Adopt the notation of ref.liddlelyth . In conformal variables, the amplitude $`u=a\delta \varphi `$ of a plane-wave mode of a massless field during slow-roll inflation obeys the same classical equation of motion as a harmonic oscillator:

$$\ddot{u}+\omega (\tau )^2u=0.$$
(1)
Here $`\delta \varphi `$ denotes the classical field pertubation amplitude, $`ae^Ht`$ denotes the cosmic scale factor, $`\dot{}`$ denotes differentiation with respect to conformal time $`\tau `$ (where $`d\tau =dt/a`$, and $`\tau =(aH)^1`$), the time-varying oscillator frequency is

$$\omega ^2=k^22(aH)^2,$$
(2)
where $`k`$ denotes comoving wavenumber (and $`k/a`$ the physical wavenumber), and $`H`$ denotes the expansion rate or Hubble parameter during inflation.

In the usual (Born-Heisenberg-Jordan) field quantization, the state of the mode is represented by an operator $`𝐮`$,

$$𝐮=w𝐚+w^{}𝐚^{},$$
(3)
where $`𝐚`$ and $`𝐚^{}`$ represent the usual particle annihilation and creation operators, and $`w`$ obeys the classical equation of motion, with an approximate solution (assuming $`H`$ constant),

$$w=(2k^3)^{1/2}(ik\tau )\tau ^1\mathrm{exp}(ik\tau ).$$
(4)
The main statistical prediction of inflation is the spectrum of the perturbations. Since the rms field amplitude is a statistical classical observable, its expectation value also obeys the classical equation of motion. The solution at late times for a field initially in the vacuum state is $`|w|^2=a^2H^2(2k^3)^1`$. The spectral density of fluctuations in the field $`\varphi `$ then turns out to be $`P_\varphi =(H/2\pi )^2`$, independent of the number of modes contributing— and therefore independent of whether the spectrum is continuous or discrete. The distribution of amplitudes in each mode is Gaussian (from the ground state wavefunction of a harmonic oscillator), also independent of the number of modes.

To illuminate the process by which the quantum field fluctuations become frozen in classically, it is useful instead to follow Dirac-Schrödinger quantization. The classical Hamiltonian for the field mode is

$$H_c=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{u}{t}\right)^2+\frac{1}{2}\frac{\omega ^2}{a^2}u^2,$$
(5)
leading to the Schrödinger equation (in units with $`\mathrm{}=1`$),

$$i\frac{\psi }{t}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{^2\psi }{u^2}+\frac{1}{2}[(k/a)^22H^2]u^2\psi $$
(6)
where $`\psi (u)`$ is the quantum-mechanical amplitude for the field mode to have the field amplitude $`u`$.

When the mode is much smaller than the apparent horizon radius $`H^1`$, this is just the familiar quantum harmonic oscillator. The eigenstates correspond to definite oscillator energy, in this case to definite numbers of quanta $`n`$. The ground or vacuum state has zero quanta, but has the Gaussian $`\psi (u)`$ associated with zero-point fluctuations.

As $`k/a`$ falls below $`H`$, the field quanta become more localized. At very late times, the Schrödinger equation becomes

$$i\frac{\psi }{t}H^2u^2\psi .$$
(7)
The wavefunction at late times is a superposition of eigenstates of $`u`$,

$$\psi (u)=\underset{j}{}a_j\delta (uu_j)\mathrm{exp}[iH^2u_j^2t].$$
(8)
Eigenstates correspond to definite values of $`u`$. A state which starts off in the vacuum eigenstate at early times ends up as a superposition of field-amplitude eigenstates at late times, with Gaussian coefficients corresponding to the previously-derived rms value. At late times we do not observe this superposition, but only one of the $`u`$ eigenvalues $`u_j`$ with probability $`|a_j|^2`$, with the standard Gaussian amplitude distribution. Even though the quantum state of the mode evolves coherently until long after inflation is over, its observable information content is frozen very early (when $`k/aH`$, a time we denote by $`t_k`$).

### II.2 Single mode with Pseudo-Self-Gravity

In standard inflationary field theory, the field is embedded in a spacetime that acts like an apparatus; it has not been treated quantum-mechanically, but is responsible for the change in $`\omega `$. A rudimentary way to ask about something like quantized spacetime degrees of freedom is to add an operator to the Hamiltonian that represents the interaction and quantum entanglement of the spacetime and field. We do this in two ways: first by adding an operator representing the self-gravitational energy of the field eigenstates, and then by adding an operator corresponding to the energy of the inflaton potential.

Suppose we were to add another term to the oscillator Hamiltonian, corresponding to the self-gravitatational energy of the field. The order of magnitude of this term for a mode in one of the number eigenstates would be

$$H_GGM^2/R\frac{k}{a}\frac{E_n^2}{m_{Pl}^2},$$
(9)
where $`E_n=(n+1/2)E_0`$ denotes the oscillator energy in the $`n`$th number eigenstate, and $`E_0`$ denotes the zero-point energy.

Adding a negative term to the Hamiltonian produces a qualitative change in its spectrum: the number of eigenstates spanning the Hilbert space $``$ of solutions (the dimension $`N_{}`$) changes from infinite to finite. For small $`n`$ and $`\omega <<m_{Pl}`$, the gravitational self-energy term is negligible, and there are $`\psi _n(u,t)`$ eigenstates that closely resemble the number eigenstates of the simple harmonic oscillator, with small modifications (such as small departures from Gaussianity). However, at higher $`n`$, $`H_G`$ comes to be significant. Since the gravitational energy term is negative, the harmonic-oscillator-type eigenstates are seriously altered above the point where $`H_GnE_0`$.

For a mode that is freezing out (at $`t_k`$), this happens for

$$n_G(m_{Pl}/H)^2.$$
(10)
Physically, at this value, the standard eigenstate energy corresponds to the energy of a black hole of size $`H^1`$; an oscillator in that state has enough quanta to collapse to a black hole. Although the model does not make physical sense once it is pushed to this extreme, it nevertheless shows how gravity changes the Hilbert space of the field oscillator, and gives an estimate $`N_{}n_G`$ of the maximum number of eigenstates in the Hilbert space of a quantum oscillator before quantum gravity becomes important.

### II.3 Single Mode with Inflaton Effective Potential

The previous model applies to any field that obeys quantum mechanics and couples to gravity. Now consider an effect that applies specifically to the inflaton, because of its special role in controlling the dynamics of the spacetime.

It is standard in inflation theory to define an effective potential $`V(\varphi )`$, defined as the free energy density corresponding to a background vacuum expectation value $`\varphi `$ (in the zero-momentum mode). For wavelengths $`<<H^1`$ we can discount this potential in considering spatial perturbations. However, at $`t>t_k`$ the perturbation leads to definite frozen-in quasi-classical perturbations in $`u`$ larger than the horizon. These are frozen into the metric, with parameters related through the Friedman relation $`H^2=8\pi V/3m_{Pl}^2`$. Self-consistency suggests that as the mode makes the transition to zero momentum, we should include the perturbed inflaton effective potential energy, as well as the gravitational self-energy, in the quantum-mechanical Hamiltonian.

A rough guess at this term around the time $`t=t_k`$ is

$$H_VH^3V^{}u/a,$$
(11)
where $`V^{}=V/\varphi `$, corresponding to the perturbation in free energy density integrated over a volume $`H^3`$. Note that unlike self-gravity, the sign of this term depends on whether $`V^{}u`$ is positive or negative.

As before, consider the effect of this operator on the number eigenstates of the simple harmonic oscillator. Again, for small $`n`$ there is little effect, but at large $`n`$ we find that $`H_V`$ becomes comparable to $`E_n`$. The series of discrete bound state solutions is significantly modified at $`n_V(H^3V^{})^2`$.

This suggests a limit to $`N_{}`$ for the inflaton perturbations, which in general can be more restrictive than the previous self-gravity limit. The combination of inflaton-potential parameters $`H^3V^{}`$, in slow-roll inflation, is approximately given by the inverse of the final (observed) amplitude of gravitational metric scalar perturbations. Up to factors of the order of unityHogan:2002xs , $`n_V(H^3V^{})^210^{10}`$. This gives an estimate $`N_{}`$ for modes of the inflaton on the horizon scale at any given time— approximately, the number of possible classical values the frozen-in inflaton field amplitude can adopt during an $`e`$-folding of inflation.

This agrees with an earlier argumentHogan:2002xs  from another point of view. Suppose that inflation proceeds in discrete steps, such that each state differs from the next by one bit of entropy or one effective degree of freedom. The bound on the total entropy of the inflationary causal diamond is $`S_{max}=\pi m_{Pl}^2/H^2n_G`$. In slow-roll inflation, in each $`e`$-folding of expansion, the area of the de Sitter horizon in Planck units increases by $`(H^3V^{})^2n_V`$. This consistency is reassuring since it suggests that the simple one-dimensional oscillator models are capturing some of the same essential physics as the general holographic arguments.

### II.4 Single Mode with a Lattice of Amplitude States

We have just seen how physical effects lead to a natural limit on $`N_{}`$ for field perturbations. We now examine some simple quantum-mechanical systems with discreteness built in from the start, where we can display explicitly the relationship between discrete spectra in $`u`$ and in $`E`$. This exercise is also useful for estimating how many of the system degrees of freedom participate in the vacuum fluctuations relevant for inflation.

Consider a discrete system, where $`u`$ adopts only discrete values $`u_n`$, separated by a uniform interval $`b`$, such that $`u_n=nb`$ where $`n`$ are integers. Denote the wavefunction amplitude to be at each value $`u_n`$ by $`\psi _n`$, and the rate to jump from one value to the next $`iA/\mathrm{}`$. The Schrödinger equation of such an infinite 1-D lattice with no harmonic potential (that is, only the ‘momentum’ part of the Hamiltonian) isfeynman :

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{}{t}\psi _n=E_0\psi _n(t)A\psi _{n+1}(t)A\psi _{n1}(t),$$
(12)
where $`E_0`$ denotes the zero-point energy. Eigenstates have the form

$$\psi (u_n,t)=e^{ik^{}u_n(i/\mathrm{})Et}$$
(13)
where

$$E=E_02A\mathrm{cos}k^{}b.$$
(14)
The range of accessible energies goes from $`E_02A`$ to $`E_0+2A`$. For an infinite lattice, the range of internal wavenumber $`k^{}`$ is continuous, but a finite range ($`2\pi /b`$ in $`k^{}`$, which we may take to be from $`\pi /b`$ to $`+\pi /b`$) suffices to span the full space of solutions (that is, for values of $`k^{}`$ outside of that range, the actual $`\psi _n`$ solutions are dual to those of $`k^{}`$ within it.) If the lattice is an infinite line of $`u_n`$, the Hilbert space is infinite, allowing continuous choices of $`k^{}`$ within that range.

Now suppose the lattice is finite. This is easily done by putting it in a periodic box, identifying states $`n`$ and $`n+N`$. The dimension of the Hilbert space is then $`N_{}=N`$, the number of distinguishable $`u_n`$ states. We require $`\psi _n=\psi _{n+N}`$, and therefore $`e^{ik^{}Nb}=1`$, or

$$k^{}Nb=2\pi \times \mathrm{integer},$$
(15)
so that $`k^{}`$ also adopts one of $`N`$ discrete values,

$$k_j^{}=j\frac{2\pi }{Nb},j=1,N.$$
(16)
The finite Hilbert space in this case can be projected onto $`u`$ or $`k^{}`$; in either case, any measurement will yield one of a discrete set of $`N`$ values. The energy spectrum is also discrete; the energies at small $`j`$ go like $`(2\pi /N)^2A^2j^2`$.

Based on these examples we can describe what happens if discreteness is imposed on a harmonic oscillator. Suppose the values of $`u`$ are constrained to discrete, evenly spaced values separated by $`b`$. Consider a system described by a Schrödinger equation of the form (12) with a harmonic potential term added, $`(\omega /a)^2u_n^2\psi _n`$. Suppose the dimension of the Hilbert space is $`N_{}`$. The highest energy eigenstate has an energy of about $`N_{}\omega /2`$, (corresponding to the maximum energy, imposed by the discreteness, at $`k^{}\pi /b`$), and a width in $`u`$ of about $`N_{}b`$— encompassing, necessarily, at most $`N_{}`$ discrete values of $`u_n`$. The wavefunction in the ground state of the oscillator has a width of about $`\mathrm{\Delta }uN_{}^{1/2}b`$, that is, the $`N_{}^{1/2}`$ eigenvalues of $`u_n`$ nearest zero. The number of discrete eigenvalues corresponding to the typical vacuum fluctuation, analogous to inflationary quanta, is about $`N_{}^{1/2}`$, far less than the full Hilbert dimension $`N_{}`$.

### II.5 Many Entangled Spatial Modes

The number of eigenstates relevant to observations is not $`N_{}`$ for a single plane-wave mode, but for the Hilbert space governing the quantum behavior of all the degrees of freedom of fields that freeze out as classical perturbations. Although this number is much larger than for a single mode, it is still not infinite if subject to gravitational or holographic bounds. A similar simple model with many entangled spatial modes approximates the entropy implied by holographic bounds.

Instead of a single plane-wave mode, suppose the field on the Hubble scale is described as a combination of entangled spatial modes, where the quantum behavior of each one resembles a simple harmonic oscillator (although in some examples below we will take them to be smaller dimension quantum systems such as binary qubits). Suppose that there are $`𝒩`$ such modes, and that the quantum state of the whole field configuration is a sum over eigenstates,

$$|\psi >=\underset{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}{}a_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}|\psi _1>|\psi _2>|\psi _3>\mathrm{}|\psi _𝒩>\underset{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}{}a_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}|\psi _{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}>,$$
(17)
where $`|\psi _i>`$ label the states of each mode. If $`N_i`$ denotes the number of states of each mode, $`N_{}=N_i^𝒩`$. In standard field theory, the modes are independent plane waves, and both $`N_i`$ and $`𝒩`$ are infinite.

We have seen that for a single oscillator with self-gravity, $`N_i`$ is limited to about $`m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$, because states above that correspond to numbers of quanta that would collapse to a black hole. A heuristic interpretation of holographic entropy bounds is that gravity entangles the multiple field modes. The system is again limited to states that involve no more than about $`m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$ total quanta in a Hubble volume. Assuming the $`𝒩`$ modes are similar in wavelength (say, spanning an octave of $`t_k`$) and phased so that their gravity adds coherently over a Hubble volume, the self-gravity operator on each eigenstate contributes to the entangled Hamiltonian a term of order

$$H_G(H/m_{Pl}^2)E_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}^2,$$
(18)
where $`E_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}H𝒩`$ for a typical state with about $`𝒩`$ modes of frequency $`H`$ excited. The self-gravity of an individual eigenstate becomes unphysically large (that is, forms a black hole on the Hubble scale) unless $`𝒩<m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$. That is, once the field is entangled with gravity, states with $`𝒩>m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$ are unphysical and should not be included in the Hilbert space. All observables, including the spatial structure of the field configurations, then have discrete spectra with a total of $`N_{}=N_i^𝒩`$ eigenstates. Self-gravity thus imposes a limit of about $`S=\mathrm{log}N_{}<\mathrm{log}(N_i)m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$. This approximately agrees with the holographic entropy bound for the inflationary event horizon, $`S<\pi m_{Pl}^2/H^2`$.

As in the case of a single mode, inflation changes the eigenstates of the multi-mode Hamiltonian. As modes pass through the horizon, the eigenstates change:

$$\underset{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}{}a_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}|\psi _{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}>\underset{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}{}a_{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}^{}|\psi _{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}^{}>.$$
(19)
Because the evolution is unitary, the number of eigenstates does not change. Each single mode changes to eigenstates of amplitude, so the spatial structures of the final eigenstates of the many-mode system is a superposition of quasi-classical plane waves. The conjecture that leads to the conclusion that spectral discreteness may be observable in spatial structures is that the final Hamiltonian eigenstates $`|\psi _{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}^{}>`$ still have the separable form

$$|\psi _{i_1,i_2,\mathrm{}i_𝒩}^{}>=|\psi _1^{}>|\psi _2^{}>|\psi _3^{}>\mathrm{}|\psi _𝒩^{}>$$
(20)
where the $`|\psi _i^{}>`$ denote states of a final discrete set of spatial modes.

## III Entropy Bounds and Classical Outcomes

Heuristic arguments aside, covariant entropy boundsbousso ; bousso02  lead to a general, quantitative upper limit on the entropy within the apparent horizon in slow-roll inflation. Define a light-sheet volume $`𝒱`$ by taking a two-dimensional spacelike surface, say a sphere $`𝒮`$ at some time $`t_0`$ (defined in the standard FRW-like inflationary coordinate system), and propagating it along inward-directed null trajectories towards the future and past The surface is chosen with a radius just slightly smaller than the horizon at radius $`H^1`$, such that the null surface defining $`𝒱`$ is everywhere converging. Then the covariant entropy boundbousso ; bousso02  on the entropy of $`𝒱`$ is:

$$S_{max}(𝒱)<A(𝒮)m_{Pl}^2/4\pi m_{Pl}^2/H^2.$$
(21)
A conceptual illustration'tHooft:1999bw  of the holographic entropy bound for black holes is to imagine the event horizon tessellated with pixels, each one of area $`4\mathrm{ln}2m_{Pl}^2=0.724\times 10^{65}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. Each one of these represents an entangled qubit; any classical outcome must yield a 0 or 1 for each pixels. The number of squares is one quarter of the area of the event horizon, and this is the entropy of the system $`S`$ in bits. The number of classical outcomes of an evaporating hole, and the number of eigenstates for the whole entangled system, including evaporation products, is $`N_{}=2^S`$.

Similarly, the covariant entropy bound imposes a limit on the number of independent inflationary perturbation modes whose information is frozen in as classical perturbationshogan04 . The modes can be thought of as a scale-invariant lattice of states in $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ space, where the mean separation $`\mathrm{\Delta }k`$ of modes in the three dimensions of $`\stackrel{}{k}`$ space is bounded by

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }k}{k}>\left[\frac{4}{3}\frac{H^2I_H}{f_Hm_P^2}\right]^{1/3}.$$
(22)
Here $`I_H`$ is the entropy per mode frozen by $`t_k`$, and $`f_H<1`$ denotes the fraction of total entropy carried by modes at $`k/a<H`$. It is possible that bound is large enough to produce observable effects, and may even be of the order of unity.

This lattice in comoving spatial-wavenumber space resembles ’tHooft’s black hole illustration. Setting $`I_H=\mathrm{log}2`$ corresponds to one qubit per mode, $`N_i=2`$ in eq. (17). Any eigenstate or classical outcome is specified by one bit per mode in $`k`$ space. A finite set of plane waves is available to assemble any possible classical outcome. Their eigenvalues form a set of possible spectral “emission lines”, with no fluctuation power at frequencies in between.

Even if the final classical wavenumber spectrum is not actually discrete, the modes comprising the quasi-classical states after inflation are not independent plane waves, but include correlations. The (discrete) mode amplitudes are strongly correlated within the line spacing so they are not independent as in standard inflation. Since the modes become entangled by gravity at time $`t_k`$, the degrees of freedom that are frozen in are not the same ones that comprise the approximate eigenstates of the Hamiltonian to begin with. The subspace and structure of the final spatial modes depends on the detailed structure and dynamics of the fundamental modes giving rise to the holographic bound. Lacking a theory of quantum gravity to tell us how this works in detail, it makes sense to ask whether these effects might have an observable influence on actual data.

## IV Phenomenology of a Discrete Perturbation Spectrum

The inflationary fluctuations in inflatons or gravitons, when they become quasi-classical, imprint their spatial structure onto the spacetime metric. The limited-information spectrum survives today in phenomena that preserve the spatial structure of the primordial perturbations. We offer very rough estimates of the degree of discreteness $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k`$ observable in cosmic background anisotropy, galaxy clustering, and primordial gravitational waves.

### IV.1 Background Anisotropy

If $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k`$ is of the order of unity, holographic discreteness or correlations might already be showing up in the current WMAP anisotropy dataBennett:2003bz ; Komatsu:2003fd ; Spergel:2003cb . It has been noticed that the data displays significant statistical anomalies in the low order multipolesdeOliveira-Costa:2003pu ; Eriksen:2003db  not in agreement with standard inflation. Suggested explanations of these effects have included customized inflation scenarios, string-inspired modifications of relativity, and nontrivial topologyCline:2003ve ; Feng:2003zu ; Bastero-Gil:2003bv ; Contaldi:2003zv ; Tsujikawa:2003gh ; Luminet:2003dx . A holographic interpretation fits qualitiatively with the current results, and makes new predictions.

The three effects that seem statistically significant— a low quadrupole amplitude (about a 1 in 20 coincidence), an unsually planar octopole (1 in 20), and alignment between the principal axes of the quadrupole and octopole (1 in 60)— are known to be natural consequences of a toroidal cosmic topology, as a result of a discrete spectrum of wavenumbers projected onto the symmetry axisdeOliveira-Costa:2003pu ; Luminet:2003dx . Nontrivial topology on this scale is ruled out by other testsCornish:2003db , but a holographically discrete spectrum can produce similar statistical anomalies; for example, a low quadrupole is not very unlikely because the sample (or cosmic) variance is larger for a discrete spectrum than for continuous Gaussian noise. The discrete holographic mode structures could also create correlations between multipole components that would be independent in the Gaussian case.

The fitted coefficients $`a_\mathrm{}m`$ of the WMAP quadrupole and octopole components ($`\mathrm{}=2`$ and $`3`$) display significant features that can be interpreted as spectral gaps and “emission lines” (see deOliveira-Costa:2003pu , table III). In the frame defined by their principal axes, 2 of the 5 quadrupole components and 4 of the 7 octopole components are nearly zero. Almost all the fluctuation power is coming from the other 3 components in each case. The contrast between the lines and gaps is large; the amplitude ratios are more than a factor of ten, so the spectral gaps contain less than one percent of the fluctuation power. Although a lower power in two components can be partially discounted for each $`\mathrm{}`$ (because two degrees of freedom were used to align the axes to minimize them), such an extreme high-contrast distribution is not typical if these components are drawn from a random Gaussian distribution. Spectral gaps of power are of course commonplace in discrete spectra.

If approximately scale-invariant holographic discreteness is creating these large scale anomalies, it should lead to similar anomalies replicated on smaller scales. There is evidence for nongaussian effects on smaller scales in the WMAP data, both from a localized wavelet analysisVielva:2003et  and from correlations in the $`a_\mathrm{}m`$ phasesColes:2003dw . These effects seem likely to be artifacts or foreground effects, but some of them might be an imprint of discreteness.

The observed anomalies suggest $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k`$ of the order of unity. What level of discreteness $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k`$ is resolvable in principle? As $`\mathrm{}`$ increases, the number of independent observables increases like $`\mathrm{}^2`$ so the number of resolvable modes increases like $`(k/\mathrm{\Delta }k)^3\mathrm{}^2`$, where roughly $`k\mathrm{}`$. On the other hand, at high $`\mathrm{}`$ the movement of matter and radiation at recombination, associated with acoustic wave propagation, smears out the phase coherence over roughly $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k\mathrm{}/200`$. Very roughly this suggests that the maximum resolution occurs at $`\mathrm{}200^{3/5}24`$ and allows resolution $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k200^{2/5}0.12`$. Even though the precision of anisotropy statistics (such the variance of $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$’s) at $`\mathrm{}20`$ are limited by “cosmic variance” or sampling error, close study of $`a_\mathrm{}m`$’s may show signature patterns of a discrete spectrum.

### IV.2 Galaxy Clustering

Large-volume galaxy surveys also provide a way of directly estimating scalar perturbation mode amplitude, spatial wavenumber and phase. Since these surveys sample a three-dimensional volume, they provide complementary information to the anisotropy maps. Also, they preserve a more accurate record of the comoving spatial location of primordial fluctuations, since the dark matter does not participate directly in the acoustic plasma oscillations before recombination.

What is the limiting resolution of galaxy surveys? The primordial phase information is lost on the scale where perturbations have become nonlinear, around $`0.01H_0^1`$ where $`H_0`$ is the current Hubble parameter. The number of resolvable modes $`(k/\mathrm{\Delta }k)^3`$ is roughly the number of such nonlinear regions in any given survey. The largest current surveys, such as the 2DF surveyPercival:2001hw  and Sloan Digital Sky Surveysdss , currently reach $`(k/\mathrm{\Delta }k)`$ of the order of a few, comparable with the low order CMB multipoles, but on a very different comoving scale. A larger and deeper survey, including the entire contiguous volume of galaxies extending to the Hubble length, could resolve down to $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k0.01`$.

### IV.3 Gravitational Wave Backgrounds

In the future, primordial gravitational waves may be detected directly with an interferometer at high frequencies. Although the contemplated instruments have poor angular resolution for stochastic backgrounds, they have very high frequency resolution that may resolve spacings between discrete lines in the primordial spectrum better than the other techniques can.

Currently planned ground experiments and space missionsHogan:2001jn ; Hughes:2001ch  do not have the sensitivity to detect the primordial graviton background except in unusual inflation models with blue spectra. However, a discrete wavenumber spectrum concentrates the same total power in a narrower set of frequency bands and make the background easier to detect.

The frequency resolution for an interferometer is roughly $`\delta \omega T^1`$ where $`T`$ is the observation time, so the fractional resolution in frequency $`\omega `$ is $`\delta \omega /\omega \omega T`$. With no angular resolution, the number of modes contributing to the total power per octave of frequency is about $`(k/\mathrm{\Delta }k)^3`$. If the spectrum is actually discrete (as opposed to simply having strong correlations on the discreteness scale), then the power in the emission lines, for a given total fluctuation power, is increased. If the line frequency is stable and coherent over an observation time (as for example would be the case if there were truly fundamental frequencies in the system, drifting on a Hubble timescale), the power enhancement factor in a single resolution element is then as large as about $`\omega T(\mathrm{\Delta }k/k)^3`$.

Using this enhancement factor with estimates of the sensitivity of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and the expected level of inflationary gravitational wavesHogan:2001jn , it appears that LISA may detect the primordial, zero-tilt inflationary background in the most favorable band (around 3 mHz) if $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k`$ is of the order of unity. A LISA follow-on mission optimized at higher frequencies reaches a level of $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k0.2`$ at about 0.06 Hz. In a very ambitious gravitational wave interferometer with the sensitivity to detect and fit out signals from all foreground astrophysical binary sources and to detect the primordial graviton background from inflation at about 1 Hz (such as a proposed “Big Bang Observer” mission), the frequency resolution could be as high as $`10^8`$ after several years of observation, resolve up to $`10^7`$ different discrete modes, and reach $`\mathrm{\Delta }k/k10^{8/3}0.002`$. The statistical properties of a discrete background are so different from the standard stochastic-background prediction that this possibility should be considered in early stages of mission design.

###### Acknowledgements.

I am very grateful to J. Bardeen, R. Bousso, D. Kaplan, A. Nelson, and M. Strassler for useful discussions. This work was supported by NSF grant AST-0098557 at the University of Washington.


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# Multiple Point-Symmetric Ejections in IC 4634

## 1. Introduction

IC 4634 is one of the most spectacular point-symmetric planetary nebulae (PNe). Its remarkable double-S-shaped morphology is reflected in its kinematics, with two oppositely directed pairs of red- and blue-shifted features straddling the nebula (Schwarz 1993). The morphology and kinematics suggest a precession or rotation of the source that produced these highly symmetric outflows.

We have used narrow-band archival HST images in the \[O iii\], H$`\alpha `$, and \[N ii\] lines to study the morphology of IC 4634 and used complementary CTIO 4m telescope long-slit echelle observations of the H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] $`\lambda `$6583 lines to carry out a detailed study of its spatio-kinematical structure.

## 2. Results

The HST image of the central region of IC 4634 (Figure 1-top-left) reveals several morphological constituents. The nebula has a sharp central elliptical shell surrounded by a misaligned elliptical envelope. Further emission found along PA$`135^{}`$ and $`315^{}`$ seems to form part of an irregularly shaped outer envelope. What makes IC 4634 so remarkable are the two pairs of low-ionization, S-shaped arcs. In addition to these complex point-symmetric features, the image of the outermost regions of IC 4634 (Figure 1-top-right) shows an arc-like string of knots located at $`40^{\prime \prime }50^{\prime \prime }`$ north of the central star.

The bottom pictures in Figure 1 reveals the bow-shock morphology of the outer North S-shaped arc (the South counterpart has similar morphology). The \[O iii\] and H$`\alpha `$ emission in these bow-shocks precede the \[N ii\] emission, indicating shock excitation. A shock velocity of 80-160 km s-1 is derived from the \[O iii\]/H$`\alpha `$ line ratio. The \[N ii\] emission from the bow-shocks shows developing instabilities. The \[N ii\]-bright string of knots arises from the edge of the bow-shocks, suggesting that they might be trailed material from the bow-shock.

The H$`\alpha `$ and \[N ii\] echellograms provide further insights on the structure of IC 4634. The inner shell can be described as an ellipsoide with its northwestern tip receding from the observer. The inner low-ionization arcs expand at an almost constant Vexp of $``$20 km s-1 in opposite direction to the inner shell. The radial velocity in the outer low-ionization arcs shows an abrupt change from the bow-shock structure to the linear string of knots, suggesting a deceleration. A counterpart of the outermost arc-like string of knots is detected to the south of IC 4634 at a radial velocity similar to its systemic velocity.

From these results, we conclude that IC 4634 has experienced a complex history of multiple collimated outflows. These outflows have been ejected along different directions and very likely during different phases of the PN formation.

## References

Schwarz, H. E. 1993, Mass Loss on the AGB and Beyond, 223


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# Determining the Properties of Galaxy 2237+0305 Using Gravitational Lensing

## 1. Introduction

Gravitational lensing has become an important tool in recent years for studying many aspects of the universe. As it probes total mass, independent of the light distribution, it opens new windows onto studies of large scale structures where dark matter has dynamical importance.

With new galaxy lenses being discovered each year, the statistical use of systems to study dark matter halo shapes and orientations is fast becoming possible. Most lensing systems lie at high redshift as this is where the lensing cross-section is optimal, however for detailed studies of the lensing galaxies themselves, lower redshift systems are better laboratories.

2237+0305 was discovered as a low redshift quadruple lens by Huchra et al. (1985). At $`z`$=0.039 it is a visibly extended early-type spiral galaxy with multiple luminous stellar components. In addition, its proximity to us places its four lensed quasar images close to the centre of the galaxy at $``$700pc (most lens images sit $``$5kpc from the deflector’s centre) making the probed region of the galaxy more compact. These features of the 2237+0305 system make it an ideal laboratory for studying the inner structure of the dark matter halo and properties of the lensing galaxy.

Most galaxy lenses are early-type and studies of these systems can also provide important constraints on the dark matter (for example Treu, this meeting). Studies with spiral lenses are less frequent due to the fewer number known (elliptical galaxies present a larger lensing cross-section probability) but can provide information about the luminous components of the galaxy (for example the system B1600+434, Maller et al. 2000).

The importance of the stellar disk to the dynamical support of the galaxy is a controversial question in modern galactic astronomy. Sackett (1997) defined a maximal disk as one which provides 75-95 per cent of the galaxy’s dynamical support. Whether a disk is maximal or sub-maximal has an impact on our understanding of disk dynamics and is therefore an important quantity to determine. Similarly, the mass-to-light ratios in the stellar components of a late-type galaxy are not well determined and their values can place constraints on star formation models. Traditional studies of spiral galaxies have used light profiles of the luminous components and spectroscopic dynamical information to determine these properties of the galaxy. In a complex system with multiple mass components, a degeneracy exists between the mass-to-light ratio of the major stellar component and the mass scaling of the dark matter halo. The additional information provided by lensing can break this degeneracy.

## 2. Galaxy Modelling

2237+0305 has been studied extensively in the twenty years since its discovery (for example Yee 1988, Foltz et al. 1992, Schmidt 1996). Many simplified models of the galaxy’s mass distribution have been published which focus on different aspects of the system. We aim to model the major mass components with physically reasonable profiles and use these models to constrain the mass-to-light ratios, disk maximality and dark matter halo inner slope.

Schmidt (1996) was the first to investigate the effect of the galaxy’s bar on the lensed image positions. He found the bar provides a significant torque to their positions and is thus a critical component to any lens model. In addition to the bar, we model an inclined stellar disk, an elliptical bulge at the same position angle, and a dark matter halo. The disk is modelled as a thin structure with an exponential surface density profile, the bulge with a de Vaucouleurs profile and the bar as a Ferrers ellipse, in line with previous works. The dark matter halo we model with both a flattened NFW profile (Navarro, Frenk & White 1996) and as a softened isothermal sphere (SIS). The parameters characteristic to these models have been taken from previous observational studies and are presented in Table 1.

The source position remains unknown and increases the number of free parameters by two. In addition to the constraints from observations, the four image positions are well determined by $`HST`$ (positions of Blanton, Turner & Wambsganss 1998 used in this study). Barnes et al. (1999) observed the neutral hydrogen 21cm emission line from the galaxy with the $`VLA`$ and this low resolution data has allowed us to obtain two independent points in the outer rotation curve.

With the known image positions and rotation curve information, there are ten constraints on the model. For the softened isothermal sphere, there are seven free parameters and for the flattened NFW there are eight. The problem is therefore over-constrained.

## 3. Inversion Method

The unknown parameters are varied to fit both the image positions and rotation curve points using a basic minimisation procedure and the $`\chi ^2`$ parameter. The disk and bulge scale lengths are also allowed to move within their 1$`\sigma `$ uncertainties in order to explore the parameter space adequately. The bending angles for each mass component are computed and their relative contributions (mass-to-light ratios) varied to fit the constraints. Solutions with unphysically large or small values for the mass-to-light ratios were discounted. Since most components contribute shear as well as convergence to the lensing configuration, degeneracies exist between some parameters.

## 4. Results

Statistically acceptable solutions were found for both dark matter halo density profiles. The degree of ellipticity required for the flattened NFW profile was very small and consistent with zero. Both solutions provided similar convergence within the image regions and therefore allowed the same combination of the luminous mass components.

For 3 (2) degrees of freedom, an acceptable $`\chi ^2`$ value at 1$`\sigma `$ confidence is 3.6 (2.4). Table 2 shows the best-fitting parameters for the models.

It is evident from the similarity of the mass-to-light ratios and the small NFW flattening that these two halo profiles would contribute comparable convergence and shear to the lensing. Figure 1 shows the rotation curve of a galaxy with the best-fitting parameters for the softened isothermal sphere halo and luminous components.

The bulge component clearly dominates the centre of the galaxy, providing the majority of the dynamical support within the image region. In the outer regions of the galaxy the dark matter component dominates, as expected from results of previous work deconvolving galactic rotation curves. The best-fitting rotation curve using the flattened NFW dark matter halo is essentially the same.

The disk is clearly sub-maximal according to the definition of Sackett (1997), however the importance of the bulge in this system should not be forgotten. This early-type spiral is not the ideal system for studying the importance of disk stellar support as the bulge clearly dominates the disk.

## 5. Discussion

Although the results presented are acceptable fits to the data, they are not likely to describe the real situation in the galaxy. Firstly, the flux ratios of the images have not been included in the minimisation procedure, even though they are additional constraints. The first reason for this is the uncertain nature of ratios measured for most lensing systems. Q2237+0305 is not a radio-loud quasar and radio measurements are difficult. Optical fluxes probe a small region in the source plane and are subject to possible microlensing leading to spurious values. Agol, Jones & Blaes (2000) measured mid-IR fluxes for this system arguing the larger extent of the emitting region would reduce the contamination of microlensing and the waveband would minimise the effects of dust reddening. We will use these measurements to compare with our best-fitting model. The second reason for omitting the flux ratios in the analysis is the contention over their applicability when dark matter substructure is taken into account (Schechter & Wambsganss, this meeting). Our dark matter is modelled as a smooth component.

Comparison of the flux ratios shows excess flux in one of the images with both profiles for the dark matter. This result is quite robust and suggests an underlying problem in the mass distribution.

In addition to this problem, the bulge mass-to-light ratios are extremely low compared with other studies of the bulge component in I-band (see for example Fukugita, Hogan & Peebles 1998) which place the figure closer to M/L=5.0$`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}`$. Clearly, increasing the bulge mass changes the convergence and the shear in the image region due to its dominance of the mass there. Without changing the remainder of the mass components, the image positions would be torqued out of place.

The location of the images defines the projected mass within that region quite accurately (Wambsganss & Paczynski 1994 measured Menc = (1.48$`\pm `$0.01) $`\times `$ 10$`{}_{}{}^{10}M_{}^{}`$h$`{}_{}{}^{1}{}_{75}{}^{}`$) and therefore the bulge mass-to-light ratio can only be increased so far before it alone provides all of the convergence. In addition, as the bulge is an elliptical component, increasing its contribution will increase the shear.

The one completely unknown component of the mass is the dark matter halo. The best-fitting disk and bar sizes are what one would expect. If the bulge is too small in our models then it would appear the dark matter distribution would need to be changed to accommodate this. The most likely outcome is a halo with little contribution within the image region but sufficiently flattened as to counteract the increased torque from the bulge. Without further information, this is purely speculation.

Additional dynamical information can help to answer these remaining questions. With only rotation data for the outer galaxy, critial regions of the rotation curve are unknown. Well measured points in the galactic centre will tightly constrain the allowed dynamics in the important image region, as shown in Figure 2.

It compares the expected observed rotation curve for this galaxy with a maximal bulge and the two different halo profiles. This solution does not fit the image positions, but shows the possible difference in the inner rotation curve. It is this splitting of curves that we hope to probe with future spectroscopy of the galaxy.

## 6. Conclusions

We have modelled the galaxy 2237+0305 with multiple mass components to investigate the mass-to-light ratios of the luminous components, the dynamical importance of the disk and bulge and the shape of the dark matter halo. We require additional dynamical information to define the dark matter contribution accurately. This system is potentially useful for constraining the mass-to-light ratio of the bulge component and the shape and inner slope of the dark matter halo.

## References

Agol, E., Jones, B. & Blaes, O. 2000, ApJ, 545, 657

Barnes, D., Webster, R., Schmidt, R. & Hughes, A. 1999, MNRAS, 309, 641

Blanton, M., Turner, E. & Wambsganss, J. 1998, MNRAS, 298, 1223

Foltz, C., Hewett, P., Webster, R. & Lewis, G. 1992, ApJ, 386, L43

Fukugita, M., Hogan, C. & Peebles, J. 1998, ApJ, 503, 518

Huchra, J., Gorenstein, M., Kent, S., Shapiro, I., Smith, G., Horine, E.& Perley, R. 1985, AJ, 90, 691

Irwin, M., Webster, R., Hewett, P., Corrigan, R. & Jedrzejewski, R. 1989, AJ, 98, 1989

Maller, A., Simard, L., Guhathakurta, P., Hjorth, J., Jaunsen, A., Flores, R. & Primack, J. 2000, ApJ, 533, 194

Navarro, J., Frenk, C. & White, S. 1996, ApJ, 462, 563

Racine, R. 1991, AJ, 102, 454

Sackett, P. 1997, ApJ, 483, 103

Schmidt, R. 1996, MSc Thesis, Univ. of Melbourne

Yee, H. K. C. 1988, AJ, 95, 1331


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# Spatial Distributions of A3558 in the Core Region of the Shapley Supercluster

## 1 Introduction

Superclusters have the highest number density of galaxy clusters in the universe. Compared to field galaxy clusters, the member clusters in a supercluster are thought to merge easily with each other, or with galaxies and groups of galaxies within the potential well of the supercluster. Thus, the dynamical state of supercluster members is a clue to interpreting the evolution of large-scale structures in the universe.

The Shapley Supercluster, SCL 124 (Einasto et al., 1997), has 25 Abell clusters of galaxies within a radius of 50 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc and is the region with the highest known number density of member clusters. In particular, the core region of the Shapley Supercluster is defined to be a region lying east to west over 15 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc (Bardelli et al., 1998) that contains five clusters of galaxies. Easternmost are A3562, SC 1329$``$313, SC 1327$``$312, A3558 is in the center position, and westernmost is A3556, as shown in Figure 1.

Since the core region was observed in the optical wavelength by Shapley (1930), many multiwavelength observations have been done. The radial velocity and distribution of the galaxies has been investigated with optical observations in detail (Bardelli et al., 1998, 2000). X-ray observations have also been done by various satellites; $`GINGA`$ (Day et al., 1991), $`Einstein`$ (Raychaudhury et al., 1991; Breen et al., 1994), $`ROSAT`$ (Ettori et al., 1997, 2000), $`ASCA`$ (Markevitch & Vikhlinin (1997) for A3558, Hanami et al. (1999) for five core members). Temperature distributions of A3558 and SC 1329$``$313 were investigated by Markevitch & Vikhlinin (1997) and Hanami et al. (1999), respectively, and they reported asymmetric distributions. The total gravitational mass of the core region is estimated to be 1015 $``$ 1016 $`h_{50}^1`$ M from galaxy radial velocity dispersion (Metcalfe et al., 1994) and X-ray observation (Raychaudhury et al., 1991; Ettori et al., 1997).

The central galaxy cluster in the core region of the Shapley Supercluster, A3558 is one of the richest clusters of galaxies. Observational results in X-ray band of A3558 estimate the gas temperature of the overall region to be 3 $``$ 4 keV (Bardelli et al., 1996) with $`ROSAT`$, and 5 $``$ 6 keV (Day et al., 1991; Markevitch & Vikhlinin, 1997; Hanami et al., 1999) with $`GINGA`$ and $`ASCA`$. There is a difference among the satellites because of the limitation of the observable energy band. The metal abundance and gravitational mass of A3558 are estimated to be $``$ 0.3 solar (Day et al., 1991; Bardelli et al., 1996; Hanami et al., 1999) and 3 $``$ 6 $`\times `$ 1014 $`h_{50}^1`$ M (Bardelli et al., 1996; Ettori et al., 1997), respectively. The temperature and abundance of the whole region are typical values for a galaxy cluster.

A3558 has a galaxy density distribution elongated in the northwest–southeast direction, and many groups and clusters of galaxies are aligned along this major axis (Bardelli et al., 1994). The X-ray surface brightness distribution also elongates in the same direction (Bardelli et al., 1996). Therefore, in this core region of the Shapley Supercluster, the infall of matter along this axis is thought to be dominant. From these characteristics and the two-dimensional distributions of gas temperature and metal abundance obtained by $`ASCA`$ observations, we discuss the dynamical structure of A3558.

This paper comprises six sections. In section 2, the details of the $`ASCA`$ observations and analysis method are described. We present the results of the $`ASCA`$ data analysis for A3558 in section 3 and for other member clusters of the Shapley core in section 4. In section 5, the resulting two-dimensional distributions of X-ray surface brightness, gas temperature, and metal abundance are discussed, and finally, in section 6 a summary of our work is provided. Throughout this paper we use the solar abundance table given by Anders & Grevesse (1989), $`H_0`$ = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1, and $`q_0`$ = 0, and the quoted errors of the spectral parameters are at the 90 % confidence level.

## 2 Observations

Eight points in the core region of the Shapley Supercluster were observed with $`ASCA`$. The longest observation among these pointings was done for A3558, which is the brightest X-ray source among the five targets in the core. In this paper we present the results of a detailed study of this target. Data from the other four X-ray sources are also analyzed with the same method. The observational log of these data is shown in Table 1. Hanami et al. (1999) and Markevitch & Vikhlinin (1997) have already reported the results of analyses for the core without the additional observation of A3558 (observation 8 in Table 1).

We analyzed $`ASCA`$ data using LHEASOFT, version 5.0.1, supplied by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. After data screening with the standard criterion, a rise-time discrimination technique was applied for data of the Gas Imaging Spectrometer (GIS) to reject particle events and a $`sisclean`$ for data of the Solid-State Imaging Spectrometer (SIS) to exclude hot pixels. We estimated backgrouds from point-sources-removed data of GIS blank-sky files111See http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/asca/mkgisbgd/mkgisbgd.html. and standard data (1994 November) of SIS blank-sky files.

## 3 Results of ASCA Data Analysis of A3558

A3558, located at the center of the Shapley Supercluster core, has been observed three times with $`ASCA`$ (observations 1, 4, and 8 in Table 1). The total exposure time of these observations is 120 ksec for each GIS detector, and the total number of photons within a radius of 12 ($``$ 1 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc) is 1.6 $`\times `$ 105 counts per detector.

Figure 2 shows an X-ray image obtained by these $`ASCA`$ GIS observations. After the background subtraction, a correction of surface brightness was done using the exposure map and GIS detector efficiency map. The central X-ray peak in Figure 2 coincides with A3558, and the east peak is a poor cluster, SC 1327$``$312. X-ray energy spectra of GISs within a radius of 12 ($``$ 1 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc) at the center of A3558 were evaluated with an absorbed thermal (Raymond-Smith) model. The flux-weighted gas temperature and abundance are estimated to be 5.59$`\pm `$0.06 keV and 0.34$`\pm `$0.02 solar, respectively. The 2–10 keV luminosity is (6.8$`\pm `$0.5) $`\times `$ 1044 $`h_{50}^2`$ ergs s-1. The redshift and galactic hydrogen column density for absorption are fixed at 0.0482 (Abell et al., 1989) and 3.89 $`\times `$ 1020 cm-2 (Dickey & Lockman, 1990), respectively. The spectral parameters obtained from $`ASCA`$ GIS and SIS data are consistent within a 90 % confidence level.

As seen in the $`ROSAT`$ image, $`ASCA`$ also shows that the X-ray surface brightness distribution of A3558 is elongated in the northwest–southeast direction, even in the higher energy band. This structure is thought to be observational evidence that a cluster merging has already happened in A3558 one or more times. In order to confirm this scenario and investigate the physical processes in detail, two-dimensional distributions of temperature and abundance were made. These maps are powerful tools for understanding the dynamical activity and evolution of the galaxy cluster.

### 3.1 Assessment of the Merging Effect in Temperature and Abundance Maps

The merging process distorts not only the distribution of the X-ray surface brightness but also the distributions of temperature and abundance. Some authors have already revealed azimuthally asymmetric temperature maps, even for clusters with symmetric surface brightness distribution, which had been thought to have been isolated for a long time (Watanabe et al., 1999). It takes typically several Gyrs to smooth the X-ray surface brightness, although it depends on the mass ratio of the clusters or the impact parameter of the merging. On the other hand, the distributions of temperature and abundance can keep information about the merging longer than that of surface brightness. Therefore, temperature and abundance maps are very important for studying a merger history. We derived the distributions of the temperature and abundance of A3558 by using some hardness ratio maps. A detailed description of the method is below.

A hardness ratio is an indicator of gas temperature. For an X-ray cluster with a temperature of 5.59 keV, the hardness ratio of the 2.5–10 keV energy band (the hard band) to the 0.7–2.5 keV energy band (the soft band) is $``$ 0.57 in the case of the $`ASCA`$ GIS. After background subtraction, a two-dimensional hardness ratio plot was made by dividing the hard-band image by the soft-band image with an angular resolution of 2 $`\times `$ 2. This map shows that the gradient of the hardness ratio coincides with the direction of the major axis of the X-ray surface brightness of A3558. The hardness ratio map is peaked at $``$ 4 northwest from the central region of A3558 and decreases in the northwest and southeast directions.

A two-dimensional temperature map is obtained from the hardness ratio map in the following way: Assuming isothermal spherical symmetry of the surface brightness, which is fitted by a single $`\beta `$-model with parameters of a core radius of 4. 2 and $`\beta `$ of 0.611 from Bardelli et al. (1996), hardness ratio maps are simulated using an $`ASCA`$ full simulation program at a given temperature from 3.5 keV to 7.5 keV with a step of 0.1 keV. From these maps, the relation between the simulated hardness ratio and the assumed temperature at each position on the detectors is derived. The hardness ratio map is converted according to this relation into a temperature map. An estimated temperature map within the radius of 12 at the center of A3558 is shown in Figure 3. The superposed contour is an X-ray image in the 0.7–10 keV band, corrected by the exposure map and the $`ASCA`$ GIS detector efficiency map as shown in Figure 2. The error shown in this figure is the largest error of the temperature at 90 % confidence within the radius of 12. This temperature map also shows the gradient along the major axis of A3558 as seen in the hardness ratio map. The peak value of the temperature map is 6.5 keV at the position of $``$ 4 northwest of the center of A3558, and the temperature decreases by $``$ 1 keV farther northwest. This map also shows a possible temperature drop in the southeast direction from the cluster center. Although these characteristics are consistent with the result shown by Markevitch & Vikhlinin (1997), our derived temperature map enables us to investigate spatial structure in detail. The derived temperature is ranging mainly over 5.0–6.5 keV. No remarkable high-temperature regions are seen within the radius of 12, such as the hot regions with temperatures of over 10 keV seen in typical merging clusters, e.g., the 0.8 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc off-center region of the Coma Cluster (Watanabe et al., 1999) and the 1.0 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc off-center region of the Ophiuchus cluster (Watanabe et al., 2001). Moreover, there are also no clear, striking low-temperature regions, such as a cool region (cold front) 2 keV lower than the other regions in the merging cluster, e.g., A3667 (Vikhlinin et al., 2001) and A2142 (Markevitch et al., 2000), which were revealed by $`Chandra`$ observations.

Because gravitational settling of heavy elements takes much longer than the age of the Universe (Sarazin, 1988), the observed abundance map can constrain the amount of mixing due to a small-scale merging or turbulence that can take place in a galaxy cluster. Moreover, even if the large-scale cluster-cluster merging has occurred, their abundance distributions have disturbed by the merging process less effectively than their temperature maps. That is, not only the chemical evolution but also the dynamical evolution can be revealed from an abundance map. To get a two-dimensional distribution of metal abundance, an intensity ratio of the iron K line and the neighboring continuum emission is estimated. First, images in two energy bands, 5.0–6.0 keV and 6.0–7.0 keV, are made from $`ASCA`$ data at the spatial resolution of 4 $`\times `$ 4. The image of the 5.0–6.0 keV energy band can be safely expected to include only continuum emission. On the other hand, the 6.0–7.0 keV image includes iron lines in addition to the continuum emission. Next, the two images of the 6.0–7.0 keV continuum emission and the 5.0–6.0 keV continuum emission are simulated using the $`ASCA`$ full simulation program. In this simulation, the temperature is assumed to be 6.75 keV, which is obtained from $`ASCA`$ GIS and SIS 4–10 keV spectra within the radius of 4. The assumed parameters of the $`\beta `$-model are the same as the ones used for estimating temperature map (Bardelli et al., 1996). From these simulated images, the two-dimensional continuum intensity ratio map, $`f`$ = $`I_{67keV}`$/$`I_{56keV}`$, is obtained. By multiplying the $`ASCA`$ observed 5.0–6.0 keV image by this ratio map $`f`$, we can guess the 6.0–7.0 keV continuum image. An iron-line intensity map is derived by subtracting this estimated continuum image from the $`ASCA`$ observed 6.0–7.0 keV image. Dividing this iron-line map by the simulated 6.0–7.0 keV continuum image gives a ratio map of iron-line intensity to continuum, corresponding to an equivalent-width map. Finally, an abundance map is obtained by normalizing the value averaged within a circle of radius 4. The obtained abundance map is shown in Figure 4. Although the above described simulation was done on the assumption of isothermal distribution, the non-isothermality mentioned in this section causes an uncertainty of the abundance of $``$ 10 %.

In Figure 4, 4 pixels within the southeast region 12 away from the center show high abundance, and this is also implied in the south region at the same distance form the center, while other regions are almost the same within the error.

### 3.2 Detailed Structure of X-ray Surface Brightness Distribution

To know the relation of the X-ray surface brightness distribution to some interesting features seen in the temperature and abundance maps, and moreover to get higher order structures of the surface brightness distribution, we investigated the deviation of the X-ray surface brightness from the smooth function described with an elliptical $`\beta `$-model. The 0.7–10 keV $`ASCA`$ image was simulated using the $`ASCA`$ full simulation program, assuming a core radius of 4. 9 and 3. 6, a $`\beta `$ of 0.61 (Bardelli et al., 1996), a temperature of 5.8 keV and an abundance of 0.32 solar. The temperature and abundance were obtained from only the $`ASCA`$ GIS spectrum within a radius of 4.

By subtracting the simulated image from the observed 0.7–10 keV image, we got substructures as shown in Figure 5. This residual image is shown in units of the brightness fluctuation of the observed 0.7–10 keV image, that is, $`\sigma `$. Excess emission over the 3 $`\sigma `$ level is seen in the central region and expands to the southeast. On the other hand, there are two drops of over the 3 $`\sigma `$ level in regions $``$ 5 northwest and $``$ 10 southeast along the spheroidal major axis. These structures resemble the sharp edge shown in many merging clusters. The central excess flux within a radius of 2. 5 is estimated to be $``$ 9 % of the whole cluster. Since there is a dominant galaxy at the center of A3558, corresponding to the central excess region, it can be thought that the excess flux is associated with this galaxy. If it is so, the corresponding luminosity of this excess is estimated to be 1.4 $`\times `$ 1043 $`h_{50}^2`$ ergs s-1. The spectrum of this region is well fitted with a single-temperature thermal (Raymond-Smith) model with a temperature of 5.8$`\pm `$0.1 keV and an abundance of 0.35$`\pm `$0.04 solar at the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of 1.17. Two temperature model fitting has been done, and the obtained parameters are temperatures of 6.4$`{}_{}{}^{+0.2}{}_{0.3}{}^{}`$ keV and 2.0$`{}_{}{}^{+1.2}{}_{0.6}{}^{}`$ keV, and an abundance of 0.35$`\pm `$0.04 solar, although the reduced $`\chi ^2`$ value is not improved significantly.

According to a comparison of this residual image with the temperature map and the abundance map, no clear excess has appeared at any regions showing peculiarities in the temperature and abundance maps. On the contrary, in the hot region $``$ 4 northwest from the cluster center, the surface brightness decreases. Distributions of surface brightness and temperature in this region resemble those of the cold front in A2142 and A3667 revealed by $`Chandra`$ observation (Markevitch et al., 2000; Vikhlinin et al., 2001), which is thought to be a boundary of the remaining core of the merger component, moving through the hotter ambient intracluster medium. Their hot faint regions have cold fronts that lie close to the center of these clusters, because the core has already passed through the central region of another merged cluster.

### 3.3 Peculiar Regions within A3558

As described in sections 3.1 and 3.2, peculiar regions in the spatial distributions of temperature, abundance and residual X-ray surface brightness are detected. To study these regions in detail by spectra, we define three circular regions with a radius of 4 (corresponding to 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc ) named region 1, region 2, and region 3. These regions are shown by blue circles in Figures 3, 4, and 5. Their characteristics are a hot faint region, a bright region with a southeast tail of central surface brightness excess, and a high-abundance region, respectively. The central positions of these peculiar regions are shown in Table 2. Each spectrum integrated in these regions was fitted with an absorbed thermal (Raymond-Smith) model, in order to confirm their characteristics of temperature and abundance. Results are also shown in Table 2. The temperature of region 1 and abundance of region 3 are 6.12$`\pm `$0.18 keV and 0.58$`\pm `$0.11 solar, respectively. Thus, region 1 indicates a significantly high temperature and region 3 has a significantly high abundance compared to the spectral parameters of the whole region. According to the spectral fitting, it is noted that another high-abundance region in the south $``$ 12 from the center does not show a significantly high abundance. Therefore, we do not focus on this region.

On region 3 we performed further analysis to investigate the origin of the abundance excess. The redshift estimated from the center energy of the iron K line is 0.047$`{}_{}{}^{+0.010}{}_{0.004}{}^{}`$, which coincides with the average value obtained for the whole region of A3558, 0.051$`{}_{}{}^{+0.005}{}_{0.002}{}^{}`$, and the average redshift for member galaxies, 0.0482 (Abell et al., 1989), within the error. Therefore, the newly detected high-abundance region is likely to be within the same gravitationally bounded system as A3558. In order to know the extent of the metal-rich region, the abundances within the various integrated radii were estimated. Figure 6 shows the dependence of the abundance on the integrated radius. The region within a radius of 5 has a significantly high abundance at a 90 % confidence level. The significantly metal-rich region is thought to be within a radius of 4, that is, 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc, considering the point-spread function of the $`ASCA`$ X-ray Telescope. The spectrum of region 3 is shown in the right panel of Figure 7. Because the abundance estimation is influenced by temperature, doubts are casted on the reliability of the high abundance. However, the temperature in this region, 5.17$`{}_{0.26}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.27}`$ keV, is slightly lower than the most effective iron-emitting temperature, 6.6 keV. Therefore, even if the temperature is 6.6 keV, the abundance decreases to only 0.55 solar. Thus, the high abundance in this region is confirmed. It should be noted that both spectra in Figure 7 show high-energy tails. Although these structures are thought to be due to additional components, the spectral parameters do not suffer much from them.

It is thought to be clear that there is an additional metal-rich component at the same redshift as A3558. The excess iron abundance within a radius of 4 is 0.3$`\pm `$0.1 solar. However, because excess brightness in the whole energy band of 0.7–10 keV is not seen in Figure 5, it is thought that there is no significant additional gas cloud. Then, the mean gas density of this region is estimated to be $``$ 0.3 $`\times `$ 10-3 $`h_{50}^{0.5}`$ cm-3 on the assumption of a $`\beta `$-model gas distribution for the main cluster (core radius and $`\beta `$ referred from Bardelli et al. (1996)) with a central electron density of 2.3 $`\times `$ 10-3 $`h_{50}^{0.5}`$ cm-3. The gas mass and the excess iron mass of the sphere within a radius of 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc are estimated to be 8 $`\times `$ 1011 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M and 5 $`\times `$ 109 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M, respectively.

## 4 Five Galaxy Clusters in the Core Region of the Shapley Supercluster

All $`ASCA`$ data of A3562, SC 1329$``$313, SC 1327$``$312, and A3556 were analyzed with the same method as A3558. The whole obtained image of the core region of the supercluster is shown in Figure 1. Not all positions of the X-ray peaks of these five clusters are coincident with Figure 1 of Hanami et al. (1999) (the discrepancy of the peak position for SC 1327$``$312 is over 4) but are consistent with the positions obtained from galaxy distribution (from the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database \[NED\]) within 1. The temperature maps were not investigated by Hanami et al. (1999), except for SC 1329$``$313. Therefore, we estimated the maps for all member clusters with 4 $`\times `$ 4 pixels. Three Abell clusters in the core region have asymmetric spatial distributions of the gas temperature, as shown in the hardness ratio map of Figure 8. For A3556 and A3562, the hardness ratio at the side toward A3558 seems to be higher than that toward the opposite side. Practically, spectra of the east and west sides of A3556 within a 12. 5 radius show that the temperature of the east side, 3.8$`{}_{0.7}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+1.1}`$ keV, is higher than that of the west side, 2.6$`{}_{0.4}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.5}`$ keV. The spectrum of the southwest region of A3562 within a radius of 12. 9 shows a temperature of 5.9$`{}_{}{}^{+1.1}{}_{0.7}{}^{}`$ keV, which tends to be higher than that of the northeast region, 4.6$`{}_{0.6}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+0.8}`$ keV, although it is not significant. It is thought to be due to a cluster-cluster merging or a group infalling. On the other hand, the two poor clusters show relatively isotropic temperature distributions on the scale of $``$ 0.3 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc.

Gas temperature, abundance, and luminosity within a radius of 12 for each cluster in the Shapley core are shown in Table 3. The total gravitational and gas mass of this core region can be estimated from these results and $`\beta `$-model parameters from those published (Bardelli et al., 1996; Ettori et al., 1997, 2000). The total gas mass is obtained to be $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 1014 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M and the total gravitational mass is $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 1015 $`h_{50}^1`$ M. Therefore, the mean gravitational density within a radius of 6.5 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc is 25 times larger than the critical density $`\rho _c`$.

Both the luminosity and temperature relation and the gravitational mass and temperature relation for these five clusters are consistent with those of the nearby clusters with a redshift of less than 0.1 investigated by Akimoto et al. (2001) and Matsumoto et al. (2000) within the deviations of their data. This result suggests that these five clusters are not peculiar clusters of galaxies.

## 5 Discussion

The two-dimensional distributions of surface brightness, temperature and abundance of A3558 indicate this cluster has a high dynamical activity. This result is expected from the situation that this cluster resides at the center of a supercluster core with a high number density of member clusters. According to the distributions we investigated, this cluster is most probably suggested to at least have experienced mergings twice in the past and possibly to have had a recent group infalling.

The X-ray surface brightness distribution of A3558, showing elongation in the northwest and southeast direction, suggests that a merging of two large galaxy clusters with equal mass (major merger) has taken place along the major axis in the past, according to the results of an N-body simulation of head-on mergers (Roettiger et al., 1997). Although the spatial distribution of the temperature of A3558 is asymmetric, a hot region 3 away from the cluster center northeastward does not spread out much, and the difference of temperature at each position within A3558 is small. Therefore, we think that it has been $``$ 5 Gyr since this major merging (Roettiger et al., 1997). In the case of the Coma Cluster, there is a large temperature fluctuation, even though it shows a smooth surface brightness (Watanabe et al., 1999). This focusing cluster is a contrary case to the Coma Cluster. It is not clear whether this merger had a small impact parameter or a large one. An N-body simulation of an off-set merger for A3266 (Roettiger & Flores, 2000) also gives a distribution of surface brightness that resembles A3558. Therefore, a scenario that a merging with a large impact parameter has taken place along the major axis in the past is not able to be rejected.

The characteristics of temperature and surface brightness in region 1 are discussed. They look like a cold front due to cluster merging reported by some authors based on $`Chandra`$ observations (Markevitch et al. (2000),Vikhlinin et al. (2001) and so on). Considering the passage of time from the merging, it is difficult to think that these small-scale structures could have been formed by the above-described large-scale merger and still survive. It is plausible that after the large-scale merger occurred, the main cluster and a subcluster infalling from the northwest merged with a small impact parameter, and an area similar to a cold front was formed; however no striking high- or low-temperature regions were made. According to the simulation of offset mergings with a mass ratio of 1 : 4 by Takizawa (2000), a bow shock and a merged cold core are seen for 0.25 Gyr after the closest contraction epoch of two merging clusters. At the end of the simulated time span (0.7 Gyr), although the distribution of surface brightness is still asymmetric, the fluctuation of temperature disappears. Therefore, it is thought that only less than 0.7 Gyr has passed after this small-scale merger. It is noted that the large elongated gas profile of A3558 would not have formed within 0.7 Gyr after the merging of one small-scale merger such as this, according to comparison in the case of various mass ratios presented by Takizawa (2000) and Roettiger et al. (1997). The large ellipticity is likely to be due to the large-scale merging (major merger) mentioned above. Thus, the result that two cluster mergings happened is beyond a doubt.

On the origin of the high-abundance region (region 3), the most probable one of some possibilities is that it is a remnant of a merged subcluster core, which often shows abundance enhancement at an evolved stage. The diffusion time of iron is more than 15 Gyr. Therefore, the iron can persist for a long period in the remnant core after any dynamical event. Gas density fluctuations, on the other hand, fade away on the sound-crossing timescale, and any excess gas density is smeared out. In this way, regions with a typical size of a few hundred kiloparsecs with a significant iron excess but without a noticable density excess can form.

In this cluster, the second small-scale merging with the passage of time of less than 0.7 Gyr cannot make the remnant of a merged core because this region is far from the cluster center. On the other hand, it is thought that the first major merging can form the iron remnant. After the first major merging, only the iron core can survive, since the diffusion time of iron is longer than $``$ 5 Gyr, that is, the passage of time after the large-scale merging.

To examine our senario of a remnant of a merged cluster core with high metalicity, we constructed a sinple toy model assuming an initial size of the merged cluster of 300 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc, an abundance of 0.58 solar, and a central density of several 10-3 cm-3, which is 10 times larger than the density of the ambient intracluster medium. After 0.3 Gyr, the radius of the core spreads at the sound speed of 1150 km s-1 and reaches 650 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc. The gas density of the core comes to be the same value as that of the ambient intracluster medium, and then the brightness excess is smeared. The core size of iron ions, however, can increase to only 20 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc within 0.3 Gyr, since iron ions expand through random walk with a thermal velocity of 130 km s-1. The size of the spread can be described by the product of the mean free path and square root of the number of collisions. The averaged number of collisions is 4.4. Thus, a region with no electron density excess, that is, no surface brightness excess, but with a high metal abundance will be able to be formed. After the formation, large-scale merging and mixing may have not been induced. Nonetheless, thermal conduction, dynamic viscosity, ram-pressure stripping, and Rayleigh-Taylor and Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities make the time for an iron core to survive shorter, unless these processes are suppressed by magnetic fields.

Another suggestion is the existence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) such as a type II Seyfert galaxy. The spatial distribution cannot determine whether the residual structure is caused by a point source or not, but the line center energy of iron K$`\alpha `$, that is, the redshift is coincident within the error with the mean value of the overall region of the cluster within a radius of 12, and the time variability of this region is not detected significantly. No point source has been found in images of $`ROSAT`$, and no nonthermal component is needed to describe the $`ASCA`$ spectra. These facts do not support the idea of an AGN.

The other suggestion is the existence of a metal-rich group of galaxies. If there is a galaxy group that is binding the gas within 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc, it means that this region does not show strong interactions with A3558, and this idea is able to explain that the size of 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc is the typical size of groups of galaxies. If there is a group of galaxies, it has a gas mass of 8 $`\times `$ 1011 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M and an excess iron mass of 5 $`\times `$ 109 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M within a sphere of this radius. The gas mass was derived assuming that the sphere has a uniform density. Bcecause there is no clear electron density excess, the electron number density was set to be 0.0003 cm-3 at the center of this region. Thus, the gas mass was obtained. On the other hand, the gas mass within a column with a projected radius of 4 is 7 $`\times `$ 1012 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M. Therefore, the iron mass is 1 $`\times `$ 1010 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M for an abundance of 0.58. The excess iron mass is 41 % of the iron mass, that is, 5 $`\times `$ 109 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M. If the abundance for other regions of this sphere is 0.34, the sphere is then though to have excess iron mass. These values are reasonable for a group of galaxies. For example, the radii of the X-ray extent of 78 groups and the intragroup medium masses of 24 groups are shown in Mulchaey (1996). The iron abundance of galaxy groups varies significantly from group to group: 0 – 1 solar metallicity (Renzini, 1997); therefore, the iron mass also varies between $``$ 108 and $``$ 109 $`h_{50}^{2.5}`$ M.

In this paper, the iron K line is used, which is advantageous. There are 38 galaxies within the projected radius of 4 (320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc) according to the NED. Since not all of their redshifts are known, it is assumed that all are within this region. Because their total $`B`$-band luminosity is 2.3 $`\times `$ 1011 LB, the luminous mass is 2 $`\times `$ 1012 M on the assumption that the mass-to-luminosity ratio is 8 for an elliptical galaxy. The ratio of the iron mass to the total optical luminosity of the galaxies is obtained to be 0.02 M LB-1, which is also acceptable for galaxy groups. The ratio of galaxy groups varies 0.0001–0.02 M LB-1 (Renzini, 1997). Because not all of the 38 galaxies are members of the group, the total $`B`$-band luminosity and luminous mass are upper limits, and the ratio is a lower limit. Therefore, several other possible interpretations cannot be ruled out, such as bursts of star formation occurring because of group infalling, stars ejecting a large amount of iron into the intragroup medium and then disappearing, or dust grains with condensed iron being evaporated.

Finally, the mean density of the core region in the Shapley Supercluster is 25 times larger than the critical density. Although it is much smaller than needed to virialize, that is, 178 times critical density, it is larger than that needed to decouple from the cosmic expansion and contract, that is, 5.6 times critical density (Peebles, 1980). Therefore, the core region of the Shapley Supercluster is on the way to contraction and is collapsing to form a virialized halo. However, because the characteristics of each member cluster in the core region are consistent with other typical nearby galaxy clusters, the core region of the Shapley Supercluster is probably in the early phase of contraction. This scenario is supported by the fact that the core region is plotted at the right edge (the largest scale radius $`r_s`$ and the lowest characteristic density $`\delta _c`$) in Figure 4 of Sato et al. (2000).

## 6 Conclusions

The results of the $`ASCA`$ observations of five member clusters in the core region of the Shapley Supercluster, mainly about A3558, are shown. The X-ray surface brightness distribution of A3558 is elongated in the northwest and southeast directions and is furthermore asymmetric to the axis. The temperature map shows that the central region within a radius of 1 $`h_{50}^1`$ Mpc has a temperature gradient along the major axis. The range of temperature is 5.0–6.5 keV, and there are not extremely hot or cool regions. The obtained abundance map shows that the range of abundance is 0.3–0.5 solar and nearly isotropic. Spatial distributions of X-ray surface brightness, temperature, and abundance indicate a hot depression region $``$ 4 northwest (region 1), X-ray excess $``$ 4 southeast (region 2), and a metal-rich region within $``$ 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc, 12 southeast from the cluster center of A3558 (region 3).

The overall temperature and elongated distributions of surface brightness are thought to have arisen from a large scale merging of two large galaxy clusters that occurred $``$ 5 Gyr ago. The hot depression region (region 1) implies that a small-scale merging with the main cluster and a subcluster infalling from the northwest occurred less than 0.7 Gyr ago and after a large-scale merging. The anisotropic distributions of surface brightness and temperature indicate that mass infall along the major axis is dominant in the core region of the Shapley Supercluster. As concerns the metal-rich region (region 3), it is probably the remnant of a core region in a galaxy cluster that merged $``$ 5 Gyr ago. If it is not a remnant, it is possible that an infalling group of galaxies binding X-ray-emitting gas within 320 $`h_{50}^1`$ kpc exists in this region. Thus, two mergers and a possible infalling of a galaxy group are suggested. It is thought that this cluster has a high dynamical activity due to the particular environment in the supercluster core.

Moreover, the gas temperature, abundance, luminosity, gas mass, and gravitational mass of the other four member clusters belonging in core region of the Shapley Supercluster have been estimated. The values of these five galaxy clusters show the same correlations of $`L_\mathrm{X}kT`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{gas}}kT`$ relations as nearby galaxy clusters with a redshift of less than 0.1. Even though these five clusters of galaxies are in the highest density circumstance and some clusters show an anisotropic temperature distribution, they have no differences with field clusters of galaxies; that is, the contribution of each interaction of the member clusters to overall spectral parameters is thought to be weak. The sum of the gravitational mass of the five galaxy clusters is $``$ 2 $`\times `$ 1015 M. There are no more significant X-ray sources bounding dark matter within the core region. Therefore, the mean density of the core region of the Shapley Supercluster is about 25 times the critical density, which is smaller than 178 to start virializing but is larger than 5.5 to start contracting. The core region is just on the way to the contraction.

In order to make our discussion clear, observations with $`Chandra`$, $`XMM`$, and $`ASTROE`$ II, which will be launched in 2005, are needed.

We would like to thank all the members of the ASCA team for their operation of the satellite. We are grateful to the referee for useful suggestions and valuable comments.